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archmage--khadgar · 5 years

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Hia! I always feel happy when I see one of your posts pop up on here c: why do you like Khadgar?

*Stares into space* OH GOD THIS IS gonna probably be a long post. HERE WE GO.So uh. I always really like Karazhan and the lore around it, hardcore fell in love with Medivh and pretty much ANYTHING in game that was connected I ate it up. I got the urn, the keys, all the rings, all the rep, you name it. I tried SO HARD to get Atiesh from the old Naxx but that didn’t happen. (I AM STILL SAD ABOUT THAT.) So that was -kind of- the start. In order for the next part to make sense, need to sidestep and backtrack a wee bit for context.Not to be all sob story, but I gotta be honest, I spent most of my childhood alone (either outside or in my room), reading, playing out epic stories with my toys, exploring the outdoors, and most of my social interactions with people I was either being bullied by kids at school or my mother. And y’know, despite all the stories I read or watched on t.v it was a loooong while before there were characters that made me go….”Holy SHIT I know what that’s like!?” Like there was a difference, to me, between characters like Michelangelo and Beetlejuice that I REALLY WANTED to hang out with, and then a character that made me go….”I know exactly how that character feels. What happened to them, happened to me.”Digimon was the show that broke that mold for me when not only were there two characters who had DIVORCED PARENTS!??? Like me, there was a girl who had a REALLY BAD and unhealthy relationship with her mother. (But she was still powered by love, which was awesome.)This kinda started getting me into other stuff because the more characters I found that I could relate to, the easier it was to explain how I felt to strangers and it made friend finding a little bit easier. FAST FORWARDING A LITTLE BIT.

So I certainly have a character -type- that I relate to the most. And it’s chaotic bookwork with anxiety. Fun fact: I am always dubbed “the twilight sparkle” of friend groups IRL because I was always, ALWAYS the one who was solving friendship problems and I did that looong before the show. OOPH. THE BIG PROBLEM. Was that it was getting to the point where all the chaotic bookworms were either: Evil, female (and I love gals, but that’s not my gender identity ORZ), or like. largely hated by the fandom and were always mocked.Or some combination.SO LIKE. Hey, I get introduced to Medivh and his TOWER OF BOOKS and all that shit and it’s like “Fuck yeah sign me up bro, living alone? Shitty mom? I feel you.” But then, y’know. He was a wee bit possessed and not. Exactly the good guy SO THERE WAS THAT.And then. There was Khadgar.I hadn’t been able to find the last guardian book yet, though I had read about the lore highlights online so I was familiar and stuff.And then WoD came out. And Khadgar! Was doing stuff! Which got me excited because it was more of the Lore that I really liked, and during MoP, I was hardcore going…”THE LEGION IS COMING BAAAACK. I JUST KNOW IT. CAUSE WE DIDN’T KILL KJ. SKREE.” I got called crazy and stupid a few times BUT HEY. Jokes on you fuckers I was *right*.Anyways!That first quest chain into Tannan rolls in. And it’s just. Khadgar. Being Khadgar. “Well, then I guess we owe you one.” scene hit every…“Oh fucking god bless Khadgar for the sarcastic sass”Because I really enjoy sarcasm and it’s more obvious in voice chat or in-person but my sass rhythm and tone, especially if I’m ranting is veeery similar to Khadgar’s sass.And then the PUNS. Listen. *Listen*. I hear an opportunity for a pun and I have to take it. I have to. If I try to hold it in my face starts smiling like the Cheshire cat and I sometimes let out a high pitched “eeeeeee” until given permission. After that quest chain, I quickly noticed that no one had rolled a Khadgar blog. No one! And well, I was all about having a blog where I could be free to make jokes all the time. IIRC, my first post was…”The party has arrived~!” Or something like that. I honestly didn’t expect much to happen cause I didn’t have any friends or anything like that and all the wow blogs all pretty much had their followings already and I was uh…a WEE BIT ALONE. But I was like “well even if this blog doesn’t go off I’ll at least have an outlet where I can just be me where no one will harass me.”Cause gotta be honest, I’ve never been well-liked. There was never a place for bookworms who liked puns and had anxiety in the world I lived in. If I acted like myself I was hated, and in order to fit in, I had to be someone else, which was a ditzy stupid, lazy girl. I wasn’t allowed to be trans, (still not back in Maine), or smart, and….yeah. But hey! On tumblr, I can RP a male character that had my same sense of humor and sass and BE MYSELF and NOT BE A GIRL and all my IRL haters wouldn’t be able to stop me.And then uh, A THING HAPPENED. I no longer have the original blog because of reasons I’ll mention later, so I CAN’T REMEMBER who first started sending me asks but I know @kiyastrasza was one of them (she passed away suddenly a few months ago and I miss her SO MUCH.) But then like, I DON’T KNOW. I know I got a few initial asks because “fuck yeah finally a khadgar blog” and honestly, I thought my blog was rubbish because it was 80% me just being my sassy nerd self and 20% studying his word usage for more serious things and getting my hands on every scrap of Khadgar related lore.”So I fully expected to get called out on being canon divergent or a shitty Khadgar or SOMETHING. Or have people ONCE AGAIN be like….”This character archetype is annoying and stupid and we all fucking hate him and hate you for rping him.”But that didn’t happen. In fact the EXACT OPPOSITE HAPPENED.My ask box kept getting filled with puns to be approved, rhyming his name with stuff became a thing and now even BLIZZ says “Dadgar” like jfc what even.And then like. I don’t even know, a lot of it is a blur because it all happened so fast but the BIGGEST THING.Was that for the first time ever, being myself wasn’t met with bullying and hate and people telling me to shut up and go away or anything like that.People -loved- Khadgar in-game. And people -loved- finding a Khadgar blog that “when I read their posts I can hear Khadgar’s voice”. And better yet? KHADGAR WASN’T A VILLAIN! (Don’t get me wrong, I loooove AU’s but imagine being a kid and you can only ever connect to villains and then people hate you anyways IT DOESN’T FEEL TOO GREAT).And uh. Yeah. I don’t really know where to go with this. But yeah! It was the first time where I felt like nothing was wrong with who I was. That there was nothing wrong with being book smart and having a sense of humor and looking death in the face and just eye-rolling and going “Well aiight.”I mean hell yeah there’s been an epic shit ton of drama with people being jealous and making shit up and who the hell even knows what any of that was about anymore, and there’s still plenty of bullshit in my life keeping me otherwise miserable and I’m getting really frustrated that every goal I try to accomplish gets utterly destroyed in some way and I’m currently an emotional husk and I 100% HAVE NOT been myself lately as I’m a mix of grieving and severely hurt and physically ill and I’ve been broken pretty damn hard and when I pull myself back together it’s probably going to be like. 11th Doctor just turning into cranky 12 and not being pleasant BUT. The muse is still strong, the muse is honestly probably the strongest thing about me. Not because I think that I’m actually, really Khadgar and that’s ME you’re talking to in game and Azeroth is real, etc, etc. But it’s strong because that type of muse was already something that was effortless for me and part of my personality foundation. And before the blog it was withering away and crumbling and I had no self-love to keep it going anymore and then the blog happened, and even though I still have 0 self-love, I genuinely hate myself, the love from others healed it, and my love for the character, I think, is my subconscious finding a weird loophole to get around the self-hate because I CAN’T HATE KHADGAR, and fucking hell whenever I make a pun irl and someone is a shithead about it or calls me annoying over voice chat, my brain is like. “Yeah, but if Khadgar were real. He’d laugh.” And eventually, it’s like….”OKAY FINE. IT WAS FUNNY. THAT PERSON IS JUST A SHITHEAD.” I can’t remember where I was going with that. Uhhhhhh……SOMETHING SOMETHING.I absolutely hate myself and feel as if I’m undeserving of love because I’m a horrible, broken person that makes stupid mistakes and is only good for hurting others and being a bitchB U TI hate myself a little bit less when I RP a character, like Khadgar, that lines up with one of my personality foundations, and the general response to it is people loving it and telling them I make them happy. I’ve still had more hate directed at me in the past (and sadly the present) than I have love. But uh. It doesn’t take much love to get me all sappy and crying and happy. (Hate is a tossup, a lot of hate I can take but certain, specific things will strike me hard and fast).SO LIKE. Uh. I know the majority of my foundation at the moment is either destroyed or heavily damaged, cause I’ve also been heckin angry a lot lately and I don’t know how to deal with that at all since it’s something new so a lot of my foundation wasn’t protected against that, and I’ve certainly died emotionally a few times more this year than my normal rate of it taking a couple years or more to emotionally die and regenerate. BUT THE PART that’s still holding fast and bouncing off all the negative self-destructive shit is because of Khadgar, and all 1,297 of you (give or take) that’ve either stuck with this blog since the beginning and through a blog deletion and change or have come recently. That send in everything from ARCANE MEAT to puns, to AU ideas to random nice things SO UH. This is turning into an awkward unexpected thank you, to all of you. dashjkIt’s more than likely that I will live the rest of my life absolutely hating myself, and it’s possible that the rest of my foundations may never heal or be repaired. Even though I can easily attach some of them to characters like Khadgar for the most part, I just….eh. I dunno. No outlet and it’s not prompted ever and…it hurts still cause they’re broken. Which, eh, whatever, healing can’t be forced or half-assed, cause you can’t expect a broken leg to heal as fast as a papercut, all you can do is wait and let things heal or you’ll make it worse, but then obviously you can’t heal EVERYTHING otherwise no one would ever be disabled, but REGARDLESS.I may always hate myself. But I’ll always love Khadgar. And YOU guys love Khadgar. And you enjoy me rping Khadgar. So then I guess MAAAAYBE.It helps. With making it worth. Sticking around for a little bit longer. :T

#THIS GOT SO LONG I'M SO SORRY #it won't let me put it under a cut SKREEE #long post #lothirielswan

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sweet-star-storybook · 5 years

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OC Design Talk - Episode 1: Perseus [Starglass Zodiac]

Kicking off one of the things I made this blog for: Character design talks!

I absolutely LOVE talking about character design and the thought process that goes into all of my original characters, so I hope to make a series out of it! I’ll be talking about visual design as well as backstory and personality for the characters, and the general intent behind their concepts. Over time I’ll have links to different characters and their talks in each post, so you can go exploring if you want. :D I might make an archive page or post somewhere too for navigation purposes. I’ve got a lot of characters I want to talk about, past and present, but we’re actually starting off with a brand new one today!

As of writing this post I just finished this design today / yesterday, but it’s already gotten so much love and I’d really like to talk more in depth about it. Plus I love how it came out anyway. ;u;

If you’d like to share this art without the talk, go to this post from my art blog. Alright, on to the discussion! :D

Presenting: Perseus! He is one of the zodiac companions from my webcomic series, Starglass Zodiac.

In this story, zodiac companions are essentially the “children” of the zodiac. While not all of the companions are the age of a child necessarily, they generally have less experience than the main zodiac, and thus look up to them as mentors / role models. Any of the constellations can be chosen as a companion, and it is a mutual decision, leading some to try for the position directly (like Centaurus to Sagittarius).

Constellations in this universe go through different incarnations, and thus have varying personalities and appearances depending on whose spirit inhabits them at any given time. Every star has a set amount of energy, and every incarnation has their “time” before they eventually die, leaving behind black holes. Some are lost in deliberate usage of energy, such as in combat, while others die out naturally. As new stars are born, previous constellations have a chance to be reincarnated, and new constellations can form from these as well. There is a chance, however, that they will not return at all.

For Perseus in particular, I liked the idea of previous incarnations of the constellation being more like the character upon which it is based. Mythologically speaking, Perseus was a famous hero known for slaying monsters, similar to Hercules. With this incarnation, however, I thought it would be interesting if he actively fought against what his name is famous for. Or more specifically, used his skills in combat to fight for better things. This Percy does not fight for glory or fame, and does not possess the ego of a typical hero. But despite his change in motive, he still has to carry the burden of his “monster killer” title, as if he himself has become the monster instead. He views this as punishment for the misdeeds of the others who bared his name, ashamed of a past that wasn’t really his own.

Perseus is a companion to Aries, and the two are almost polar opposites (outside of being skilled on the battlefield), with Aries being the most volatile and aggressive between them. That said, Aries did recognize Perseus’s desire to redeem his name. Aries, being the least agreeable of the signs, has similar goals when it comes to keeping his aggression in check and upholding his role as a sign and co-protector of the Astral Plane. In his words, “if I can do it, you can too, kid.”

From a visual standpoint, I wanted Perseus’s design to be somewhat chimerical (as in, made up of seemingly unrelated parts), but with a unifying colour scheme to tie it all together. In this case it would be different parts of monsters that, presumably, his previous incarnations had slain. Arguably Perseus’s most famous kill, Medusa, is referenced here, particularly with the snake-like elements of his skin and hair. Demon-like horns, claws, a tail, and a cat-like animal hide are also present. He likely has sharp teeth too, even if they aren’t drawn here (I will do follow-up drawings later).

Like all of the other constellation designs, his symbol (designed by these lovely folks) is incorporated into several aspects of his design. How often a symbol appears in a design can vary greatly depending on how well it can be incorporated, and sometimes its inclusion is more subtle as a result. We have a good mix of that here with Perseus, with his belt, cape and shield being the most obvious uses of the symbol, but it’s also present on his chest plate underneath the animal hide. His shield specifically is a reference to the mirrored shield that was used to turn Medusa’s glare against her. His sword exists for similar reasons, and is his weapon of choice in combat. The rest of his attire is Greek and Roman inspired, like his mythological counterpart.

I came up with the blue-yellow-pink dynamic with the colour scheme starting with his eyes, and went on to develop it from there. I knew I wanted either blue or green as a main colour, as those are common for monsters, and the brightness of the pink and yellow made for a bold colour scheme. I did try a bright orange instead of pink a few times, as that is blue’s complimentary colour, but I found the contrast was not strong enough between it and the yellow. Having a bold colour scheme matched with a quieter personality creates the kind of contrast I want in his character as a whole, implying that he is easily misunderstood by others. I also wanted the eyes to be a focal point both in the line work and the colour, so the contrast had to be striking. Admittedly I use eyes as a focal point a lot in my designs (looking at you, Cassie), but I wanted that to add to the strength of his concept rather than just be a preference of mine.

Perseus is incredibly self-conscious of his eyes, believing that his monstrous appearance will scare others merely by looking at them. This is another nod to Medusa, though Perseus can’t turn anyone to stone (much to his relief). This makes him more reserved and reclusive as a result, averting his gaze where possible and quietly keeping to his own business. Even his fighting style is very understated, favouring precision over strength. When he meets others face to face, he closes his eyes immediately, claiming they should not be seen by the faint of heart.

Functionally, Perseus’s eyes move and dilate normally, but appear slightly further apart than a more focused gaze would be, creating a more eerie stare. He may be looking at you, but he’s also looking through you. I hoped this would make him look a bit more pensive as well, and prone to staring while lost in thought.

When he meets Cassie for the first time, Perseus mistakes her for Cassiopeia* and kneels before her like a knight would to a queen.

*Cassiopeia is the mother of Andromeda, who was strapped to a rock to appease the sea monster, Cetus. True to form, Perseus rescued Andromeda by killing the creature.*

After Cassie explains that she has an unusual eye herself, Perseus finally opens his, giving in to his curiosity. He is grateful, if a little confused, for her positive reaction to them. Eventually Cassie convinces him to meet Orion, another zodiac companion. Orion, being blind, will never see Perseus, thus negating his appearance-based fears. Orion also understands Percy’s desire for redemption, being on a similar quest himself as a once-famous hunter. The two quickly become friends, with Perseus offering to “be his eyes” when needed.

Overall I’m very satisfied with the design and concept as a whole. The zodiac companions are minor characters in this story, but I’ve always like stories that have a lot of interesting characters to fill out the extended world, and the Astral Plane is perfect for that. Characters like these are also great for supplementary comics and short stories, and I’ve got some ideas for those later on. :’D

—————

And there we go, Episode 1 of my OC Design Talk is complete! :D This was super fun to write, so I hope you found it interesting. More will follow in the future too, so thanks for reading folks! <3

#OC Design Talk #Episode 1 #Perseus #Starglass Zodiac #SGZ #comic stuff #character design #art stuff

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brianna-lei · 7 years

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Anonymous Butterfly Soup asks, batch 6

IT’S RIGHT NEXT TO THE BIG TOBLERONE I’M ALIVE

Being covered by a big gaming news site was one of my fantasies, so I’m elated this happened. The article is here, for anyone curious!

More asks under the cut!!

A note before I start -- if you submitted a bug, I saw it!! Thank you for reporting them!

Yes, she did! Her Facebook profile pic is her posing in front of a store at the mall, and you can see Jun’s reflection taking the pic in the store window

Akarsha didn’t realize, but Noelle totally heard it. Noelle kind of had a sense of what was up already, but actually hearing it worried her. She was debating whether or not to intervene when Min showed up.

On a small note, Min trying to cheer Akarsha up slightly improved Noelle’s opinion of Min (even though Min and Akarsha almost end up fist fighting again afterward).

Min plays video games too, imagine them playing Team Fortress 2 and later Overwatch together... Diya, Min, and Noelle have all seen some basic anime like Pokemon, Digimon, and Yugioh, but Akarsha’s the only real hardcore anime fan. I’m glad she met “Sakura”, “Yuki”, and Ester through the baseball club, because now she has weeb friends to talk about that stuff too.

(Ester is less obvious about liking anime than “Sakura” and “Yuki”, but you can still tell by her outfit’s style. Lowkey but not lowkey enough)

I can totally relate to all of them, but I’d say Diya!

Yes, they grow close over the course of the year and Noelle has to try really hard not to cry LMAO They still keep in touch afterward.

Yep, they both feel this huge gulf between themselves and their parents due to cultural differences. Many Asian immigrant parents are extremely conservative so it feels like they’re on a completely different wavelength from you, and at the same time they have complete power over you. It’s kind of a bad feeling.

...Also, shadowing their faces saved me the work of drawing their different facial expressions.

Min was actually out of town when the fire happened, so Diya had to call her and tell her what happened :( Diya (and eventually Min) sleeps on Noelle’s couch for a bit. Noelle and Akarsha aren’t living together at the time and Noelle has the nicer/cleaner apartment

It sounds really miserable, but they’re ok in the end

Noelle's passion is math and science, so she definitely ends up doing something in STEM that she likes, just not what her parents were expecting. Akarsha is similar and becomes a software engineer -- They’re actually both naturally interested in those subjects, which says a lot about how bad the parental pressure really is.

I like to think Diya and Min actually manage to break into minor league baseball and eventually MLB

Most of my outfit inspiration comes from my tumblr/twitter feeds. I wish I could recommend you fashion blogs, but I’m not following any?! They’re all just fandom mutuals who randomly reblog cool clothes sometimes.

I used to have trouble deciding what clothes characters should wear, so every time I see an image of a cool outfit I save it for reference. After doing this since high school I now have...uh...

And those are just the unorganized ones, the ones i have in folders are like...

Now if I’m stumped for what a character should wear, I just browse these massive folders for inspiration. I can actually pinpoint the omocat jacket that gave me the idea for Min’s:

I thought, “it should be a warning: high voltage sign on the back!”, and then I just went on Google images and looked them up.

Sorry if this isn’t helpful!

I don’t think Min really minds, but The Squad is even better! Deke squad

Yeah, Akarsha’s parents wouldn’t approve either. Out of the main four, Diya is actually the only one whose parents are fine with it

Ooh thank you this is an awesome compliment to receive!!

I REALLY want to make merch some day! I’ve never made physical merch before and I’m a bit intimidated not knowing where to start/how to handle shipping, so it may take a while, though :(

I didn’t give anyone last names and I doubt I ever will, sorry! Feel free to give them your own if you want

This was intentional, but at the same time I can’t believe everyone IMMEDIATELY noticed. You guys are so in tune with 4/20

Diya and Akarsha are Indian, Min-seo is Korean, Noelle is Taiwanese, Chryssa is black, Liz is…mostly Irish, I think? “Sakura” is Pakistani, “Yuki” is Filipino. I’ve heard a lot of guesses for Ester, but she’s half black and half Chinese!

i got u son!!

Thank you, I really love hearing this because the feeling that this narrative was missing was what made me want to make this game in the first place!

you might feel a bit more sympathetic to min when you reach her part of the story! Your mileage may vary, though

If you want to make a game like Butterfly Soup, try the program Renpy! It doesn’t require programming experience to use and there’s a lot of guides online on how to use it. My NUMBER ONE BIG ADVICE IS MAKE A REALLY, REALLY SMALL GAME FIRST. My first game, Pom Gets Wi-Fi, was only 30-45 minutes long. If you make it any bigger than that, you almost guaranteed will never finish it. The dream game that you want to make is probably longer than that, so don’t make your dream game first! That’s kind of why I was so alarmed when Pom Gets Wi-Fi took off -- I’m very proud of that game and still love it, but it was like my test for the games I dreamed of making like Butterfly Soup. (Also, 17 is a great age to start making games, good for you!) Other stuff I’ve learned: Programming: I mostly learned super specific things that can’t be easily applied to other situations. If you want to know how I did a specific thing in Renpy, message me!

Writing: If you’re struggling to write something, it might be for a good reason. Maybe the scene is unnecessary or boring, your mental image of the scene doesn’t translate well to the format of your work, or the character motivations aren’t convincing enough. Deleting a scene altogether isn’t defeat, sometimes it’s the best path forward! Give up more!

Artwise: Drawing for non-pixel art games takes FOREVER. The sheer amount of time it’d take to draw all the characters and backgrounds was so demoralizing that I found myself procrastinating because I didn’t want to tackle it. Not only did I have a large cast of characters (9 in the baseball club alone), but because of flashbacks, I had to draw half of them again as kids!

To anyone thinking about making a game by themselves, SERIOUSLY consider making it a pixel art game. If you’re that set on making a non-pixel art game, SEVERELY limit the number of characters and backgrounds you have to draw!! I’m begging u...learn from my mistakes...

You’re welcome!!! :>

I loved USC! The Interactive Media major was cool and fun -- I met a lot of good friends through the program! It was probably the best few years of my life.

Unfortunately...I felt like it did nothing to prepare me for finding a job. There are very few classes for aspiring game artists and game writers. There wasn’t a single professor who worked as an artist at a triple A studio while I was there, and only one who was a major writer. I get that you gotta be self motivated, but I wish I had someone in the faculty I felt comfortable discussing my career path with. Some of the professors had clear favorite students and if you weren’t one of them, they’d make very little effort to reach out to you or interact with you. I know I'm introverted, but I never got this feeling with my general elective classes -- I had plenty of chances to talk to my writing professor, architecture lab professor, art teacher, etc., yet I came out of a lot of my Interactive Media classes wondering if my professors even remembered me.

If you want to be a game designer or maybe a writer, and are really focused/outgoing with your professors, it could be the major for you, but if you want to be a game artist I’m not sure it’s the best place to be.

I was actually crazy stressed out when it came out, so nope! It’s happening this weekend

I was super nervous right after it came out because I was worried people wouldn’t like it! I put a lot into it, and actually teared up writing parts of it, so it was a ridiculous relief to see that people were touched by it. I’m really happy now and really want to make a sequel. Also, I’m beyond grateful to my friends/mutuals/fans spreading the word and tweeting/posting about the game and making fancontent ;~; I really owe everything to them! A few people wondered about how I was holding up attention-wise, and actually...as a fanartist I sort of thrive on this, haha. Also, this is much less intense than when I released Pom Gets Wi-Fi. For perspective, it took Butterfly Soup a week to reach the number of downloads Pom got in one day.

Good!!! You’re welcome!

you’re welcome!!!

#Butterfly Soup #briANSWER #ask #my post

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cadpadawan · 4 years

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A Black Winter Day 4 Years Ago...pt.1

Ok, now that I have the most pressing issues off my chest, maybe it's time to shed some light on the surreal chain of events, that changed my life quite drastically back in 2016. Those weird times pretty much account for why I needed to get re-educated in the ripe old age of +45.

Oh yes, I'm old as shit – there's no two ways about it.

Maybe this jovial stroll down the memory lane will also hint, why I ended up picking up the blogging pen, after years and years of absence from the blogosphere. I'm not really sure if anyone reads blogs anymore. I'd guess not. Everybody's just too busy posting duckface selfies in Instagram, or vlogging some utter bullshit about their day in YouTube. I think maybe a handful of sad boomers, like me, still occassionally follow the rare eloquently written blog, or even administer a blog of their own. I must confess: I might be a bit pre-occupied with the idea, that the human condition may be better contemplated in written form. Although, the extremes of that condition can be expressed quite evocatively via YouTube, too. Undoubtedly. Digital platforms offer modern solutions to recording, in full detail, how fucked up we really are.

Well, anyways...let's pretend for a moment, that blogging was cool, like it was 2005 again!

Was it really cool even then, I wonder?

In hindsight, it seems that the vast majority of blogs were pushing some corporate agenda, disguised as trendy lifestyle blogs, whose main initiative was to suggest, that in order to reach the ultimate boss-level of cool, you needed to eat certain full-vegan superfoods and support certain street-smart clothes brands, while exclusively listening to a bunch of generic indie disco-rock bands, that some washed-out, has-been, good-for-nothing celebrity had cherry-picked on behalf of some unheard-of indie label CEO.

Well, a monkey dressed in casual designer clothes is still a monkey.

The year 2005 was actually one of the turning points in my life. It was almost as if some cosmic nudge pushed my life into a downward spiral in 2005. It was one of the most emotionally ambiguous times in my life. I became a dad – which scared me shitless, and at the same time, made me the happiest person in the whole wide world, for a moment. Only six months later, I experienced a severe burnout due to sleep deprivation and excessive overtime at work – and at that time, I also experienced my first epileptic seizure. Though, at the time, I didn't have a clue what it was about. First, I thought it had something to do with the burnout. It probably did. I think the burnout triggered the first seizure. It happens. I later found out, that you can have an epileptic seizure due to a number of reasons, even if you are not diagnosed with epilepsy. The kind of seizures I started having on an irregular basis, for years to come, were not convulsive – so it was pretty easy to mistake them for something else completely: stress reaction and whatnot. You see, I worked as an express courier, which qualifies as a high-stress job – hands down. I worked long hours, played in at least two active rock outfits at the same time for years on the side, tried to spend quality time with my new family...

In retrospect, I wonder now: when the hell did I have the time to get any sleep during the years 2005-2016?!?

No wonder, my memory is full of holes, concerning that time. It's all just one big hazy blur. I kind of lost the most part of those 11 years. Yeah, I unlocked all kinds of life achievements – mortgage, a son and a daughter, various music-related things – but I guess I was so busy burning my candle at both ends, that I never stopped for a second to appreciate all the little things in my life – and now I can't remember shit.

Of course, it also had something to do with my epilepsy. Any type of epileptic seizure may potentially affect the memory, either during or after the seizure. If you experience frequent seizures, memory problems are more likely to occur. Eventually, when I finally consulted a doctor and started keeping a seizure journal in the early 2016, I used to have 10-15 seizures a week, sometimes 3-4 times a day. My seizures were of the focal type that affected only part of my brain – the temporal lobe, to be exact. Abnormalities in that region are the most common reason for memory problems in people with epilepsy. One common trigger for a seizure is lack of sleep.

Focal epilepsy is a neurological condition, in which the predominant symptom is recurring seizures that affect one hemisphere of the brain. Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) means that the seizure starts in one of the other of the temporal lobes. My symptoms included: feelings of strong deja vu, and a rising sensation in my stomach – the so-called epigastric aura that resulted in an impromptu vomiting first few times. Most seizures were brief, lasting only few seconds – until in 2015, almost 10 years after the first episodes, I had a seizure that lasted for minutes – my first jamais vu-experience.

In psychology, jamais vu refers to the phenomenon of experiencing a situation that you recognize in some fashion, but nevertheless seems very unfamiliar – the opposite of deja vu, so to speak. It involves a sense of eeriness and the impression of seeing something for the first time, despite rationally knowing it cannot be true. In my case, it meant getting lost on my way home from the local supermarket, as if having been sucked into a sudden dementia simulation. I was driving home from the grocery store, the usual route that I had been driving for the previous eight years so far. At some point, I felt the usual signs of the epigastric aura – that slightly nauseating sensation rising in my stomach. It predicted a seizure. I was pretty accustomed to having those every now and then. Nothing to it. It usually didn't affect my ability to drive a car in the slightest. Heck, I had been driving a van for a living for years with this little nuisance. It didn't worry me one bit. It usually lasted for a few seconds, and then it was gone. An epileptic seizure is basically a disruption of the electrical communication between neurons in the brain – an uncontrolled burst of electricity. That pretty much sums up how it usually felt: a burst of something inside my head, fluctuating like a liquid for a few seconds. It felt pretty fucking weird. So, there I was, coming home from the grocery store, blasting metal in my car stereos. Then, the stomach thingy, something sparkling in my head for a moment...I guess I didn't really pay much attention to the seizure. Maybe there was some kick-ass song playing on the radio. I probably didn't realize, that the seizure had already lasted way longer then ever before. I came to a T-junction. Suddenly, I didn't have the slightest clue where the fuck I was! I was less than one kilometer from home. I turned right. Then my wife burst out wondering, what the actual fuck I was fooling around for. I should've turned left. I grinned back, as if this manouver was some spur-of-the-moment prank. I made a U-turn, and soon I was back at the same T-junction. This time I was supposed to drive straight. Guess what?

I didn't. I turned left this time.

My wife suggested, that i should maybe go and see a doctor...

Nah, I decided to wait six more months. Why not wait until I fucked up my life to a point of no return, before going to see a doctor? It became increasingly obvious, that I was in for a major life changing event. Was I subconsciously sabotaging my life, in order not to feel tempted to go back to the old ways, when the shit finally hit the fan? In April 2016, I was diagnosed with a benign tumour in the brain, which was the reason for my epileptic seizures. In the meantime, between my epic jamais vu-experience and the MRI scan that revealed that alien implant attached to the hippocampus in the right temporal lobe of my brain, I managed to fuck everything up in the most beautiful and thorough way you could imagine: my job, my marriage, everything...as if I was laying down the foundation for the oncoming midlife crisis the best I could. Well, being some sort of an artistic personality type, I can handle chaos much better than the average person. Although, I never deliberately looked for chaos, and never actually wanted to stare into the abyss, it seems that the chaos looked for me, to stare me into the eye.

I can tell you a story...

It all started on a black winter day, January or February 2016.

(To be continued...)

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royaielfroot · 7 years

Note

Hey! Im a Bolts fan who is fully intent upon following Bishop to the stars next season. What would a new stars fan need to know?

hey! sorry it took me ages to answer this! i’m so glad to hear that you want to learn more abt the stars! ! i’m putting this under a read more so that ppl can be spared from me going on abt the stars for forever!

anyways DALLAS STARS intro ish the 17/18 season

! as all teams,and esp because stars had a p shitty season, stars are shuffling rosters and coaching a bit!so i can’t know for sure if everyone’s gonna be here when the season starts but still!we hired ken hitchcock who’s replacing lindy ruff as head coach for the 17-18 season! hitchcock actually coached the stars to their cup 1999! so he’s a familiar face to the franchise!

and ofc u know that we signed ben bishop (and i bet you know more about him than me! so i’ll just say that i’m really excited)! we’ve been struggling a bit with our goaltending (kari lehtonen, our 16/17 starter, gets more shit than he deserves tbqh,but he might not be the starter we need. he’s a gr8 guy and a good goalie and he saved us a bunch of times last season!)

we also recently traded for marc methot! who we need to fill out our messy defense, hopefully he will bring us some veteran experience and solid defense! and vet experience we need ! because stars are a pretty young team! or at least our d is!(i’ll get back to that)

i’d say our “core” group of players,aka the ones we protected, who won’t be moved this summer are:

jamie benn! captain! #14, wingerreally gr8 drafted 129th(!) overall 2007! went extremely underrated for a while but he worked really hard and he’s loved by the stars org and fans! he won the art ross 14-15 (that’s how good he is!) he’s been bothered by injuries for a couple of seasons but hopefully he’ll be back on top after the summer!also has a brother who played for the stars until the deadline this season ): jordie benn is now playing for the canadiens!here he is mic’d up !tyler seguin #91 , centerreally good hockey player,drafted 2overall by the bruins 2010, traded to us after the 13-14 season. a great center! has 3 dogs he posts abt on social media a lot, they’re called cash,marshall and gerry so he’s automatically blocked and idk him. no but he struggled a bit w media and stuff when he was younger, around and before the trade,there’s a lot on tht out there and in his tribune article! he made some mistakes when he was a teenager,and the stars have waited him out for several seasons now so i wouldn’t be surprised if they give him the A, and honestly imo he deserves it by now,he’s been gr8 with the community and with younger playerswatch this + tribune ! good read!

jason spezza! alternate captain #90 , centerteam dad !!! nhl vet ! amazing with rookies (i still have *** dreams about the spezza-valeri-mattias janmark line, they’re all still stars so I hope they’ll be able to reunite tht line this season), has an amazing laugh i love him!!!

radek faksa #12 c/lwjust watch this video ! he made it so far and fought so hard to get to the nhl! he’s really good! only 23 so there’s a lot of potential with him! owns a turtle !

antoine roussel #21 LW! one of 2 french players in the nhl ! known troublemaker and the loml, underrated because ppl thinks he only fights! he had his best season yet last season and did really well for france at worlds! if u google him you’ll only get stuff abt his on ice stuff,off the ice he’s a really sweet guy, he does a lot of charity work and he has a cat called minou! he also called jamie out during an interview,announcing to the world that jamie has a diabetic cat…which remains a mysteryhere’s a vid abt his journey to the nhl!

john klingberg #3 Di could go on forever abt him lbr, he’s a good offensive dman , heavily criticized last season when stars for some reason expected him (24) to play on the top d pairing with esa (21) w/o any struggles. he’s dumb af and i h8 him ! no but lbr if he gets some stuff together he’ll be one of the better offensive dmen in the league,he’s a big part of the Stars Future™ which takes us to the rest of our Dhe once said that he’d rather be bad at hockey than a virgin,which is rly embarrassing.he won gold w tre kronor at worlds! and got two teeth knocked out…which he has since replaced than godhere’s a vid abt his journey and 1st season!here he is …narrating the casino night,, and accidentally asking why tyler carries around two dicks…unfortunate

esa lindell #23 D! a gr8 Guy! big ! almost paler than klinger i bet they switch sunscreen brands in the locker room… transitioned from the AHL to the NHL really quickly last season played big minutes ! he’s a good two way dman! stars just signed him to a two year contract! and he’ll probs be up with us all season this season too.THERE’s an iconic interview with him in finnish that klinger crashes my yelling esa’s name rly loudly 0 chill,it’s so messy i love it

kari lehtonen #32sat on top of the goal once,the world won’t let him forget it. part of the now dead finn goalie tandem. he’s been with the stars for a good while! i love him and i think he’s getting too much shit, but i do agree that he might not be a starter

ALSO a big mf shoutout to VAL NICHUSHKIN , you’re gonna hear shit about him because he’s playing in the KHL right now to develop his game and ppl are bitter about us protecting him! but he has the potential to be really good! and he’s really young too, he had some contract agreements that says either the NHL or the KHL, no AHL, so stars let him sign with KHL for two seasons, he still has one season left on that contract but we kinda want him back, and we MIGHT get him! he’s rly sweet and ! iconic !

we also protected stephen johns, brett richie !

i’m not going to talk about all the players but we have a lot of young guys, (julius honka, remi elie,mattias janmark, brett richie), and i love them all!they’re hopefully going to be parts of the future of this team! and even with them mentioned i’ve skipped a bunch of dudes, - I KNOW it can be hard learning about the stars with tyler and jamie (love them but still,) blocking up the tag! but there’s so much gold ! especially in the casino night vids (15/16/17)!- ALSO wow! big shout out to any content julie dobbs is in! she’s the main media personality for the stars and she’s so amazing! - the stars youtube page is dead af so i recommend the website for videos and stuff!!!

extra info:- GOAL SONG- video abt rich peverley, a player who collapsed during a game 14/15 season,it’s rly great and it makes me cry so warning abt that.

also the stars are rly good with extra af videos and content like THIS vid that makes me cry and THIS vid tht makes me emo

OK ! I’m gonna shut up now! Sorry for making this so long i just love this team a lot! I can recc u some stars blogs or answer any other questions if you want to!

#aaaa this is so long and messy hhh sorry!!!#i hope it helped some!!!#ask #anon #dallas stars #stars #also sorry abt spelling/grammar mistakes !

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clan-fuildarach · 7 years

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I'm not sure if you talked about it more before I started following your blog, but I'm pretty curious about the origins of your dragon characters tbh. Like, are they like ur OCs you had in a big story you had in your head or smth that you adapted to write as dragons in a separate AU-type thing? I'd love to hear more about it or be directed to a place where you've written about it somewhere.

well you’re mostly right! many of my characters here (luke rúth delta neven john mikaelxandra rezann leo) are just au versions of characters i already had. and it’s less a big story i had in my head and more a 10-year project that’s over 2 million words long and 2 rewrites deep atm - i’ve written eleven or twelve books (it’s subjective) and done countless more au stuff and exploratory stories that just get into anatomy and worldbuilding and stuff like that (so like... stuff that would be really boring to anyone but me). i’m not saying any of it is any good or worth reading, but it sure is a thing.

i stopped incorporating my old characters into fr dragons in 2015 so any dragon i’ve made since then is original to my fr lore (which started off as a fantasy version of my other story but then diverged wildly off into completely different territory)

i do have a blog dedicated to it but it’s password locked and i’m not giving out the url. i do have a blog supposedly dedicated to my personal creative work over at @fuildorcha but it’s been a while since i posted there (but i might start posting soon since i’m starting to get back into writing and planning and what have u)

uhh i’ll do a really basic bare-bones plot summary and a quick intro paragraph to where each character comes from under the cut here so u all know where i’m coming from

basically it’s a first-contact story? but with alternate dimensions/parallel universes rather than straight-up aliens. each one of the characters listed above (except for the last 3) belongs to a different dimension, and the story is basically about how they meet. and there’s the added uh emotional poignancy in the fact that the first 6 of them are not human and are supposed to be the only ones of their kind, so basically each one has lived a life expecting to never ever meet another like them, to only have humans for company. but obviously they do meet. and they end up doing some really dumb but also heroic stuff while also liberating a bunch of people from oppressive regimes. they also learn that maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way

the main character is luke who is fond of making these super unhelpful crusades against those he considers to be his allies but really no one wants his help because he just makes things worse like constantly, as a habit, without really caring about consequences. he’s a jerk of course and permanently fucked up after the death of his sibling way back when. but one day he makes a Big Terrible Mistake that killed a lot of people, irradiated a major city, and would have resulted in him being imprisoned for basically the rest of his life and also introduces the concept of laser superweapons to humanity (this can only go well lmao) and - as a knock-on effect - the ability to break the dimension barrier. like he really fucked up. but instead of being sent to jail he gets forcibly drafted into the service of a government scientist, emma, who gives him an ultimatum: work for me for free and get exploited endlessly, or rot in jail for the rest of ur life. his treatment at the hands of his captors (who pretend they’re on his side, they’re very evil) results in a vengeance crusade on his part that sets off the whole first-contact chain of events. he lives in a world like ours, except that there was a rebellion against the british monarchy a couple hundred years ago. on the run from the law he meets a very lost and very confused stranger who doesn’t speak a word of english and is also rúth. the two of em fall in love. aw (luke is still nonbinary and given the chance would use ‘they’ pronouns here too but i wanted to make the world like ours as much as possible and luke hates standing out in any way so he wouldn’t want to use a non-standard pronoun set. so he just uses the set that matches his name)

john comes from a radically different dimension, one where the monarchy spread and basically controls the entire planet. but, unsatisfied with that, his queen alexandra began colonising other dimensions and stripping them of their resources (and thus ensuring that her own home is the best-equipped and richest and all that). john is the queen’s weapon, it’s his job to “quell dissenters” which is a nice way of saying that he goes in to contested areas and massacres everyone. but he is beginning to doubt his role and the ethicality thereof, and is very curious about the numerous blank patches in his memory that seem to coincide with every previous occasion he entertained potentially treasonous thoughts. seeking to put an end to luke’s campaign against her, emma reaches out to the monarchy to ask for aid. the queen sends in john to do his normal job but things don’t go as planned. john switches sides and becomes basically the most wanted person in the universe.

rúth’s dimension is inextricably linked to john’s - it is the victim of the monarchy’s first attempts at extra-dimensional colonialism. the monarchy fucked up a lot back then, before perfecting its technique, and the battle between rúth’s predecessor and john’s predecessor over the territory completely destroyed the entire mediterranean, turning it into a desert. rúth’s predecessor lost the fight and the monarchy took root in france and spread south. but an unintended consequence of the battle were the chemical reactions in the soil and atmosphere that led to the formation of dye deposits - the only ones of their kind in any dimension. if not for them, the population would have left the desert, but they hung on to mine out the dyes. rúth lived a relatively peaceful normal life until accidentally stumbling through a monarchy portal into luke’s world. with a french-english dictionary and a lot of sign language, luke manages to communicate to rúth that he needs help to fight against john

now ok, neven comes from a parallel version of rúth’s world where the monarchy lost the big battle, but the desertification happened anyway. neven’s people sought safety in the monarchy dimension and took on the mantle of being imperialist jerks. eventually a bunch of bad shit happens and the dimension becomes uninhabitable, so they do the most logical thing and build a space ship to live on. neven is there the whole time, being treated as the avatar of god and the champion of their race etc etc. in the early 1900s, the space ship breaks into a new dimension which it allies with, and neven finally meets another one like them. the two never get a chance to communicate much, but they fight together for about a hundred years and neven falls in love. aw. eventually one of the space ship’s oldest allies - the monarchy from john’s world - gets absolutely destroyed via mysterious circumstances. commander of the space ship, rezann, decides to take the opportunity to cannibalise the monarchy’s remains and execute anyone who might attempt to resurrect it - this includes john.

delta (for it is he whom neven loves) is literally the parallel version of luke. like they are the same person, genetically identical, but their dimensions veered off very early on, so due to the two of them growing up in completely different circumstances, delta bears almost no resemblance to luke besides appearance (and then only barely). delta comes from a wonderfully idyllic background - sent to a workhouse when he was young, he was part of a rebellion that saw the workers take control and basically start their own little settlement. this prospered for hundreds of years, with delta as its guardian, until that world’s monarchy went to war. the men of the village were hit by the draft and delta decided to go with them to keep them safe. unfortunately he was discovered as Not What He Seems by the king and instead of helping his settlement, he inadvertently causes it to be wiped off the map by revealing its presence (and the presence of its pagan, blasphemous population) to the king. delta gets mind-wiped, forgets his real name, and gets thrown onto the front lines to fight beside neven. later - years and years later - he gets in some real bad shit, gets basically everything taken from him, and would probably die alone and in pain, but he gets rescued. he gets a happy ending

leo comes from a completely different unrelated story, he’s a frustrated IT technician working in a computer shop who basically becomes the plaything of the gods. but there’s no real plot to be had, i just liked his character enough to move him over into fr at the time (2014). fr!leo has had way more character development than og!leo who i don’t really write about any more

#aaand there u go #important cfd #i guess??#Anonymous

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glendowers-archive · 7 years

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tagged by @audreil to do like seven of these holy shit here we go (under the cut because this is super long)

relationship status: *finger guns* (no but im single and i need a bf/gf immediately thanks) lipstick or chapstick: lipstick ! last song/music i listened to: halo by beyonce (im going through a playlist from like 2008) top 3 shows: the get down, jane the virgin, one day at a time top 3 characters: shit uhh,,,,adam parrish, inej ghafa, dan wilds,,and too many more im sorry top 3 ships: adansey (shut up), wesper, snowbaz

how old are you ? technically 18 but im mentally 67 and ready for death

dream job ? a musician ?? a journalist ??? whoever makes chopped baskets ???????

what is a big goal you are working towards (or have already achieved) ? not getting so easily attached to people/trying to love myself without other people to reassure me

what’s your aesthetic ? soft pink sweaters, sunrises, and a world where poc/lgbt+ ppl can be safe and nazis are immediately burned in hell

what’s a topic you’re always up to talk about ? literally anything about adam parrish, mythology, and music

what’s a pet peeve of yours ? people who chew rly loudly and people who expect me to be awake and conscious of my being before 10am

good advice to give ? stop being intense all the time it’s not good for your brain, and neither is never shutting up

recommend 3 songs:

- meteorite (acoustic) by years & years - grand piano by nicki minaj - desperado by rihanna

name: jem nicknames: jam, jammyjemjam, a mistake, among others that only make sense to my family gender: nb star sign: pisces height: 5′1 fight me sexual orientation: bi as all hell hogwarts house: hufflepuff favourite colour: pale/pastel pink favourite animal: kittens but also puppies average hours of sleep: haha thats funny !! cat or dog person: why do we still live in a world where we have to choose between cats and dogs (both fuck u) favourite fictional characters: adam parrish, gansey, blue sargent, inej ghafa, wylan van eck, henry winter, dan wilds, neil josten, ginny weasley number of blankets i sleep with: two always no matter what the weather is favourite band: fhfskhdfkl idk years & years favourite singer: troye sivan ??? banks ???? frank ocean ??? u cant ask me to choose !!! dream trip: tokyo, new zealand, anywhere in france dream job: i already answered this i think when was this blog created: january 29th of 2016 so exactly a year ago !! ive been on tumblr for at least four years but this blog is my best work yet current number of followers: just over 2.5k :) when did your blog reach its peak? last summer when ppl realized how cool i was (that never happened lmao) what made you get tumblr? four years ago it was s*per*hol*ck but i made this one because of the foxhole court

rules: put your music on shuffle, list the first 9 songs and your favourite lyrics from each, then tag 9 other people to participate! (ps i used my playlist of current faves)

gemini feed - banks

ode to my two thighs i still want you to kiss 'em 'cause they're lonely

LOST BOY - troye sivan

i don't care much for locks on the window, to keep me at bay, i leave you one last kiss on your pillow, 'fore I fly away.

menswear - the 1975

i'm probably gonna yosh in your mouth, because it's five-oh-three, i can hardly see and i'm on the verge of passing out.

somebody else - the 1975

our love has gone cold, you're intertwining your soul with somebody else.

desperado - rihanna

desperado, sitting in an old monte carlo, we've both had our hearts broke.

feeling myself - nicki minaj & beyonce

bitches ain't got punchlines or flow, i have both and an empire also.

my type - saint motel

take a look around the room, love comes wearing disguises. how to go about and choose. break it down by shapes and sizes.

concerning the ufo sighting near highland, illinois - sufjan stevens

incarnation, three stars, delivering signs and dusting from their eyes,

cliffs edge - hayley kiyoko

kiss me with adventure, ‘til I forget my name.

name/nickname/whatever you prefer to be called: jem pronouns: she/they age: 18 fav skam character: isak cause i rel8 to him the most but sana is incredible too when did you start watching skam: right around when ep 4 of s3 released but after that i went back and watched from s1 when did you make your blog: exactly a year ago today who are you cheering for to be s4′s main: cant decide between sana and even :( who do you think is more likely to be s4′s main: probs sana what are your main interests: sleeping, sleeping, and being gay something you’re always up to discuss: adam parrish, the stars, music something you refuse to discuss: my failed romantic exploits other favorite shows aside from skam: the get down, one day at a time, jane the virgin, shadowhunters

i tag: @thefourteenthdarkone @veroinicalodge @noahnczerny @drownedpoet @equinocts @aurorras @gansaey to do as many of these as they want u dont have to do them all obviously <3

#about jem #read more if u wanna learn random shit about me

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newstfionline · 6 years

Text

Can Trump win a trade war with China?

By Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, March 23, 2018

For years, President Trump has railed against the threat of Chinese trade. China, he said, was operating on an uneven playing field, using unfair trade practices that supposedly harm the U.S. economy, steal American jobs and contribute to a vast trade deficit that now stands at $375 billion.

“The current trade imbalance is not acceptable,” Trump said during a speech before Asian leaders and dignitaries in Vietnam last November. “The United States will no longer turn a blind eye to violations, cheating or economic aggression. Those days are over.”

On Thursday, he finally took action against Beijing. The president announced his decision to impose tariffs on $60 billion worth of Chinese imports a year and limit China’s capacity to invest in the American technology industry.

Trump and his lieutenants defend their actions as a way to reassert American “sovereignty” over matters of international diplomacy and trade. An investigation launched by the administration in August found a range of “unfair” practices in China, particularly related to Beijing’s apparent theft or forced transfer of intellectual property from American businesses. And, like Trump’s earlier move to slap tariffs on certain steel and aluminum imports from various countries, including some close allies, the latest measures are another sign that Trump is following through on his campaign promises.

News of the move sent the stock market plunging and boosted fears of a looming trade war. The Economist calculated that for every American firm in favor of Trump’s protectionist policies, there may be as many as 3,000 opposed.

“Trade is not zero sum. It helps to grow the standards of living of people around the globe,” wrote Steve Odland, the CEO of the Committee for Economy Development, a pro-free trade think tank, on CNBC’s website. “We need the inexpensive products from outside the country to raise our standard of living. And, with only 5 percent of the world population, we need open access to markets for our own goods to grow our economy. We cannot have one without the other.”

Then, just hours after Trump’s announcement, Beijing showed its willingness to strike back. “China does not want to fight a trade war, but it is absolutely not afraid of a trade war,” said China’s Commerce Ministry in a statement issued Friday morning in Beijing.

The ministry said it had “compiled a list of 120 products worth nearly $1 billion, including fresh fruit and wine, upon which it would impose a 15 percent tariff if the two countries fail to resolve their trade differences ‘within a stipulated time,’” reported my colleague David J. Lynch.

There were no further details about the products that Beijing might target, but there is no lack of options. China, a huge buyer of commercial jets made by the American firm Boeing, could look to Airbus or other non-U. S. companies in a bid to hurt the American aviation industry. American tech companies like Apple and Intel, which have significant manufacturing operations in China, could be squeezed with punitive measures.

Beijing could also mimic the European Union’s potential retaliatory measures against the United States, such as tariffs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles. And it could depreciate its currency, the yuan, to make Chinese exports even more competitive--and further infuriate Trump.

Then there’s the agriculture sector, where China could target American imports of sorghum and soybeans. “China could rely more on South America for soy: Brazil exported more soybeans than ever last year--nearly 51 million tons--and nearly all of it went to China,” noted NPR. “Should China take measures against U.S. soybean imports, it would likely hurt American farmers, a base of support for Trump.”

Beijing seems keenly aware of that. “If China halves the proportion of the U.S. soybean imports, it will not have any major impact on China, but the U.S. bean farmers will complain,” noted an editorial in the state-run Global Times. “They were mostly Trump supporters. Let them confront Trump.”

Indeed, American consumers will be the losers no matter where China may apply pressure. “There is no way to impose $50 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports without it having a negative impact on American consumers. Make no mistake, these tariffs may be aimed at China, but the bill will be charged to American consumers who will pay more at the checkout for the items they shop for every day,” said Hun Quach, vice president for international trade at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, to my colleagues.

And while Trump’s perennial bugbear is the lopsided deficit between the two countries, economists stress that he is misreading how global trade works. “Retaliatory trade barriers put up by other countries would hurt U.S. exports and offset reduced imports, meaning the trade deficit wouldn’t vanish,” wrote Eswar Prasad for The Post’s Outlook section. “What’s more, lower exports would mean less employment--a possible unintended consequence of Trump’s policy.”

Prasad warned Trump against firing the first shot of a battle no one wants to fight: “A trade war wounds all combatants: It rattles business and consumer confidence, restrains exports, and hurts growth. Many U.S. businesses rely on low trade barriers to create international supply chains that reduce costs and increase efficiency. These could come apart amid the new tariffs. The last time the United States imposed sweeping tariffs, in the 1930s, the effect was to prolong and worsen the Great Depression. Winning a trade war by destroying both imports and exports would be a Pyrrhic victory.”

Yet, Trump seems undeterred. It’s unclear where things go from here. “We don’t know how this is going to turn out,” said Scott Kennedy, director of the project on Chinese business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to my colleagues. “It could be resolved in a few months, or it could spiral out of control into a broader strategic rivalry.”

Trump administration officials speak of reshaping the post-World War II international system, whose rules are no longer apparently in the American interest. Critics decry such thinking, given the extent to which Washington wrote those very rules.

“On present form, ‘America First’ is a threat to the entire basis of the multilateral trading system,” wrote Michael Johnson, a former British trade negotiator, in a blog post for the World Economic Forum. He added: “America does seem to be stepping back from its history as a main driver of the open international trading system.”

Trump’s critics are hoping he won’t be also driving the international system wildly off course.

#Trump's tariffs #China

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