Updated with my latest commission for Heart, a Wayfinder based on Axel, Roxas, Xion and Saix. Heart's planning on making it their next tattoo and I like how it turned out, so yeah ^.^
Updated the OP with all twelve characters drawn for the Light Chaser RP and the Group Shot banner. ^.^
omg Loxie this is so great! I especially love the bright blue outline and bold colors, and the way you did the light effects around the keyblade. It's super stylized and unique and I think it looks amazing. ^.^
I made a joke that all three of those characters are Xigbar and then I realized What if they are? We already know that Xigbar is Luxu. But some people think he also might be Brain? And I think if he's Brain, then Brain is actually Luxu from the future, traveling back in time to change the past, meaning the 'Luxu' of that timeline doesn't know that Brain is actually himself. Some people also thought maybe Xigbar was the Master of Masters, before KH3 came out and they learned he was Luxu. But who's to say he didn't also go back in time and became the MoM, unbeknownst to both his Luxu-self and Brain-self? Which means that Xigbar is the MoM is Patrick and Xigbar is Luxu is Spongebob and Xigbar is Brain is Squidward's House This is my most groundbreaking theory since Plutonort.
lol I can't tell if your comment about being a freak applies to me, the person misgendered, or Roxam, the person who pointed it out. Personally, I've been mistaken for a guy online often in the past and probably will continue to be so in the future, and I've accidentally misgendered people in the past myself, and my current theme is of a male character (albeit one of the most feminine ones in the series) so I don't really care if you thought I was a guy or not. Still confused about which one of us is the freak though lol
in before the bot/alt account posts the convenient answer and this all disappears faster than the Master of Masters
Imagine reading all that and knowing that three out of four actually happened and the one that didn't happen is the only one that should have
Thanks for the response and the advice, Advent. I really appreciate it. :) I actually have kind of been thinking about therapy, but unfortunately the medical bills from the miscarriages, when mixed with car payments, my husband's old student loans, raised rent for our apartment, and me having that sort-of breakdown and being unemployed for six months, makes it so that therapy isn't something we can afford right now. I kind of thought about calling into a local help-line, but phones give me anxiety lol so I'm hoping it won't come to that. For now, I'm just trying to keep a balanced life, not doing too much work but not completely giving up either lol. Things are much better now than they used to be, but I agree that the way I've been handling strong emotions hasn't been healthy at all. Now that I'm aware of this, hopefully the self-awareness will keep me from making more terrible decisions either until I can actually afford to talk to someone, or just figure it out on my own. And that's also very true about having a hard time opening up to people... Even with my sisters and husband, I tend to keep my feelings to myself most of the time. I tell them some things, but it makes me feel vulnerable to talk about emotions and most of the time I don't, especially not all to the same person. The way I've usually handled 'opening up' over my life is by like, dividing my problems amongst several different friends, so that one friend knows about X and another knows Y and a third friend is aware of Z, and no one person knows the whole mess - and even then there are some things I don't tell anyone at all, no matter how close I am to them. In fact, in the OP here in this thread, I didn't even bring up several key things I've been dealing with, only covered the miscarriages, writing, and overwork thing, because it was hard enough to admit all that in a public place. Actually, I wrote the OP out around four times over the past month and just deleted it every time, and only managed to post it after cutting out the aforementioned key things. I also almost posted it in the Contributor section instead because it's a closed section and only like ten or fifteen people would have seen it and that made me feel better. I know it sounds paranoid, to divvy up my feelings between my friends so that no one sees the full picture, but I just... Whenever I tell anyone anything, there's always the voice in the back of my head telling me they're just going to tell other people about it behind my back, or they're going to use it against me in some way, or they're going to make fun of me for it. It's all happened before and it's all going to happen again, because even if you find someone you think you can trust, there's always the chance you're wrong and it'll come back to bite you, so it's just safer if you never tell any one person the whole story. That way when someone does betray you, there's a limit to what they can attack you with. ...And now that I type that all out, I realize there's probably more to me 'not opening up' than I'd at first really thought. XD I guess I've been better about that recently, too, if just posting this thread is an indicator of improvement. I still have a long way to go, but at least I'm getting somewhere. Trust has always been hard for me to muster with people; not just with emotional stuff, but with work, personal projects, volunteer work, etc. I've always been the "if you want something done right, you do it yourself" kind of person. lol whether it's something as little as always checking the dishes I get from the cupboard to make sure it's truly clean before eating off it just in case someone other than me washed it, or something big like planning my own wedding because I wanted to make sure it was exactly the way I wanted it to be, I've never been able to trust other people even with small tasks. I guess it makes sense that I would also find it hard to trust them with emotions and crap lol. I'll have to try to work on that... Again, though, thanks for the response and advice. I think it's all really sound and I'll try to live by it as much as I can afford to at the moment. Oh yeah, and while I'm updating the thread, I've been asked if I would feel more comfortable being called something other than 'Maru,' because of what I said about identity and stuff, so I'll go ahead and address that here. I'm still totally fine with being called Maru, and I also wouldn't mind being called Mar, Marce, or Marcy - some of my nicknames irl. But if anyone does still call me Marushi, don't feel bad or anything because the more time passes, and the more distance I get from where my head was when I first actually changed it, the better I feel about it. So yeah, if you accidentally call me Marushi, don't feel like you've upset me or anything. I'd prefer just plain Maru, but I was Marushi for nine years and I totally understand how hard it is to try and unlearn and relearn new name for somebody. :) Thank you guys for the support you've all already given me. I guess, my trust wasn't ill-placed this time after all. <3 You guys are the best!
Idk, I kinda just want to talk about how I've been feeling and when I tried to broach the subject with a friend the other day, they cut me off and told me they don't see how I could feel bad when my life is as good as it apparently is, so I'm just kind of feeling worse now and want to talk. Soooo you all get the info dump, sorry lol I've been feeling moderately depressed for just over two years now, starting literally on New Years Day 2017 when I got really sick and miscarried my first pregnancy. It was very early in the pregnancy, so my physical health wasn't too bad, and the doctors said it was a lot more common to lose the first pregnancy than people think and not to worry about the future, and to try again in a few months. Since it was so early and since I was physically fine and was told it wasn't going to be a big impact on my life, I tried to convince everyone, myself included, that I was okay mentally as well, but truthfully I was a mess. I isolated myself from nearly everyone I knew and only talked to a handful of people for the next several months, but as time passed I eventually managed to move on and started being more active in the lives of my friends again. About a month or two past that, I decided to apply for KHV staff, firstly because I love KHV and wanted to see it thrive, and secondly because I felt like I might feel better if I were involved in some kind of creative work and didn't spend as much time sitting around doing nothing. Plus, several key staffers had just resigned, and activity was growing at that point in time, so it seemed they could use an extra hand. I applied, and had the interview. After the interview but before I was officially promotedto staff, I found out I was pregnant again. I was really happy about it. Even though I'd always had trouble trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life professionally, I've always known that I wanted to be a mother as well, so I was really glad. But I was also really nervous because of what had happened the last time. I resolved to do everything right, I was super careful about what I ate, I made sure to leave ANY sort of moderately heavy lifting to other people at work, we had several doctor's appointments to make sure everything was going smoothly. I started my work as a KHV mod in the middle of this, and also resolved not to dive too deep too quickly (which is something I've always had the tendency to do) because I wanted to avoid as much stress as possible for the baby. I didn't tell anyone I was pregnant though, aside from one or two people I KNEW I could trust, because I didn't want to tell people I was pregnant again just to take it back a month later like I had the first time. That was my situation when the big blow up and fights and drama happened, and although I consistently tried to distance myself from all of it and remain a third party, it just wasn't in the cards and I ended up getting more and more involved until it felt like I was the center of the problem. The others took as much off my plate as they could but at the end of the day there are just some things you can't push off onto other people and I just had to accept that and get through the situation as conflict-free as I could manage, because I was still trying to avoid as much stress as possible for the baby. It honestly went about as well as it could have, I think, and the pregnancy seemed to be going well. A few weeks after the drama died down, it had reached the point where I felt I could safely tell people, so I went through the same announcements process I had gone through before, and it was officially known then that I was pregnant. But then unexpectedly, right around October iirc, I had another miscarriage and this one was much worse because it was farther along than the last one. I spent most of the day in the hospital and then the next two days laid up in bed, but idk, I think I like, blocked most of the emotional side of things to the point where I could barely feel it. I convinced myself that I was just 'better prepared for it' that time or that it was 'just easier the second time it happened' and so I kept telling people that I was fine and that it wasn't as big a deal that time. I don't blame the stress from the fights for the miscarriage, I really don't, but it certaintly didn't help anything to have to deal with that AND the miscarriage at the same time. I briefly fell back into sitting around and doing nothing, but when I sat still I started realizing it hurt and I didn't want it to hurt so I stopped sitting still. I dove headfirst into the whole "trying too hard too fast" thing to try and distract myself, and started pouring everything I had into KHV. When I wasn't at work or asleep, I was doing SOMETHING related to KHV. I was brainstorming dozens of projects and starting work on the best ones, I was planning ahead for the next five years, I was creating schedules and launch dates and working towards site clean-up and improved moderating, I was updating and rewriting procedures, I was trying to teach myself how to create graphics and new forum skins, I was researching social media practices and brand building, just, anything I could get my hands on, I tried to do, because I didn't want to sit still and let myself think about anything else. And honestly I was having a blast doing it all, and I don't regret any of the work I did, but I just did too much of it and the stress was starting to really get to me. But I was in deep denial at that point and refused to admit to myself that I was stressed out, just like I refused to admit I was depressed, and also I felt like everyone expected me to be the happy, dependable friendly one and I couldn't be depressed or stressed because I was Marushi and Marushi was happy and dependable and friendly. I kept taking on more and more projects, and I WANTED to and nobody forced me to, and I kept saying yes to everything every time someone asked me for help, whether it was a fellow staff member who wanted a hand with one of their own tasks or a member with a problem or just a friend who wanted advice on something, I couldn't say no or say that I was too busy, I had to take it on, even when I knew they would understand if I just told them I couldn't. I was starting to be miserable every second I wasn't online because it felt like if I logged off, the site wouldn't be here when I got back. I knew that wasn't the case and I did trust other people when they told me to take a break and they would handle things, but I couldn't separate myself from the site anymore. It was like my whole identity was wrapped up in KHV and if I wasn't Marushi I wasn't anybody at all. I grew to hate my job because I was always miserable because I couldn't stop worrying about what might be happening on KHV while I was gone. I was barely eating or sleeping because I had to look away from the screen to do that. I wasn't talking to my family because I had to look away from the screen so I could pretend to listen to what they were saying while I inwardly freaked out about the deadlines for all the projects I was doing for KHV and how much time was slipping away as they talked. I began to look for a different job than the one I had because that job was honestly getting worse by its own merit, and I couldn't handle all the stress I was under AND work a crappy dead-end job at the same time. I had a really bad day one day and quit my job even though I still didn't have a new one lined up, and then I spent the next six days feverishly glued to my laptop screen trying to launch my special pet project, the frankly HUGELY overambitious massive TWEWY anniversary event I had rushed into with as much gusto and as little foresight as I always do. For those six days, I slept around two hours each day, ate once a day except I think I skipped once or twice, drank endless caffeine, and broke into tears several times because of all the things that were going wrong. I didn't even know I wanted to quit until the day I actually did, and it all just sort of blew up the second I realized "I don't want to do this anymore." I almost just denied it and was so close to convincing myself I hadn't really felt that way and that I should just ignore it and get back to work, but fortunately I had already messaged "I want to quit xD" to someone who had already been worrying about my mental health before that, and she made me actually address what I was feeling and the more I told her, the more she realized what I literally couldn't see at that time; that I was working myself to death, and she helped me quit. So. I quit my job, and then six days later, I quit KHV work. I was at full stop for the first time since the second miscarriage, and although the first couple of days was spent just recovering from what I'd done to myself over the ten months I'd worked here, I was starting to keenly feel all the emotions I'd worked so hard to deny. But at that point, it had been eight or nine months since the actual event had occured, and I was so raw from the emotions of quitting something I had let take over me so wholly, that I couldn't piece together WHY I felt so awful, I just did. And I hate not knowing why something happened, I like knowing exactly what trigger led to every situation, so I was desperately searching for a reason why my life had fallen apart and I blamed someone who didn't deserve quite as much blame as they got, and I hated them quite a bit more than they'd earned, and I acted on my feelings regarding the matter much more than I should have. I didn't realize until a couple of months ago how wrong I was to place all the blame on another individual, no matter how much or how little of it was warranted. I dug my own grave, nobody else dug it for me. But, that's what happened. After the initial shock of the full stop wore off, I found myself completely lost. I didn't know what I was supposed to do with my life, what I wanted, how to GET what I wanted, or even really who I was anymore. On a whim, I changed my username on KHV and Discord for the first time since joining in 2009, without fully realizing why other than it "felt better." I still felt wrong when I wasn't working on the computer, so even though I was taking the time to sleep and eat and go out and take breaks, I also spent a lot of time to lay the groundwork for my own personal brand, as I want to be a professional writer one day and my head was full of social media brand building research. I was low-key looking for normal work, since my paycheck hit a full stop too, but I focused nearly all my efforts on a freelance writing website where I could be matched with potential clients and write for money. It all seemed to be going well at first, and I basically had just traded one unhealthy distraction for a slightly less unhealthy one, but then I hit four successive blows in a row. After spending a full month ghost-writing a novella for a first-time writer who meant well but was very frustrating to work with, his deal fell through, which means so did my pay. He still sends me messages sometimes on his own initiative to check in and let me know where he is as far as trying to earn the money to pay me (which is why I know he at least never intended to cheat me even if that's ultimately what happened) but yeah, my first big 'paid' gig didn't earn me a cent. I pushed through though, and kept trying, and I was approached with a huge opportunity to get permanent work at a packaging firm. I had a glowing recommendation and a phone interview that went very well and ended with a 'you've got the job' speech, only to later have them contact me and tell me they didn't have work for me after all but they would put me on their contact list - which led to nothing. I got two more promised jobs like that, neither of them as big as the first two, but still steady, ongoing work, only to have the client cancel the job before any work could begin. By now, it had been a few months since I quit my job, and the small tasks I WAS getting weren't paying for anything at all, not to mention the medical bills from the two miscarriages. I was starting to get really stressed out again, this time from not having ENOUGH work, and I was also really discouraged from all the roadblocks I was hitting as far as writing goes. I still tried to land new clients sometimes, but more often than not I didn't even try because I would look at a job listing that I might have been able to get, would remember my earlier failures, and not even apply for it. I started instead applying for any minimum wage dead-end job in town, and also working on art commissions and selling most of my video games just to be able to keep food on the table while I looked for work. For awhile I was only eating once a day again mainly because I would have run out of food otherwise, but I honestly wasn't feeling all that hungry anyway because I just felt discouraged and depressed. It was at that point that I finally started to piece together what had actually happened, starting because all the job applications I was filling out required me to list why I left my previous job and I found I had no answer. Little by little I worked through it all in my head, coming to the conclusion I laid out in this tl;dr post. Once I finally realized all this stuff, I felt like a weight had been lifted. I finally managed to land a new job, and it's actually MUCH better than my last one and pays substantially more, and now that I'm working and exercising more, I'm starting to eat better now as well. It also is a major help that my sister moved in with us and is helping to pay for rent and groceries and stuff, and also she's been helping me feel better just by being around and goofing off with me and making sure I actually eat and leave the house when I'm NOT working, so yeah. I'm doing much, much better than I was even just a month ago, let alone several months or a year or two. But better doesn't mean I'm all good yet. I still feel depressed if I'm not doing something or at least if I'm not watching something on YouTube or something. And sometimes even then I just feel kind of dead and heavy and listless. When I can distract myself, I'm mostly happy but it goes away when I sit still. I don't really know what I want to do now, either. I mean, I know where I want to be in five years and I know how to get there, but in the everyday moments when I should work towards that goal, I just... Don't. Because if I try to become a professional writer and I fail, it'll hurt worse than if I just didn't try, and I don't want to live like that so I keep saying I'll try as hard as I can, but then I don't anyway. XD On top of that, I also still feel strangely void of an identity. I didn't realize that until I was helping a member with something recently and they called me 'Law' short for Lauriam, and it made me feel incredibly happy and when I asked myself why, I realized it was because, to that member, I wasn't Marushi, I was Lauriam. That was also the moment I pieced together why I had changed my name in the first place. I actually think I might hate Marushi, and speaking honestly I feel almost insane to be putting this much stock in an online username, but I'm done denying how I feel so I might as well admit it. I feel like 'Marushi' became a persona, an ideal me that I wanted to be and TRIED to be, and everything about 'her' is no longer anything I can find within myself. I'm trying to deal with whatever that says about me carefully and with much thought so that it doesn't turn into a real problem, and, cute as it was to be called Law, I'm trying not to let myself grow to view Lauriam as anything other than a username to prevent this whole identity thing from becoming a cycle. I guess, I'm just trying to figure out who I am now because I've changed so much over the past two years I doubt I could ever go back to the way I used to be - lol if I even wanted to in the first place. XD I think I like who I'm turning into, though, so that's something. Not everything I do, I like, in fact there are some things I've already done that I feel very guilty about, but balanced out I like enough of me to be better off than I was, if that makes sense. I still feel lost right now but I think I'm gonna be okay in time. So I guess, I can see why someone who doesn't know about all that crap would be confused when I say I've been feeling depressed lately. I don't think it was right for them to invalidate my feelings the way they did, but they're as human as I am so I can forgive it. It helps that I know they care about me a lot and they might not understand me, but heck I barely understand me lol, so caring is enough. Sorry to dump all this on you guys. I've just been keeping this all to myself for so long and kinda just felt like I needed to say it all somewhere, soooo you guys get the rant. XD Not exactly looking for validation or advice, though of course any is welcome and appreciated. Just having a place to vent is enough. Thanks for being here for me, KHV. I love you guys.
Hear ye, hear ye! This event has been cancelled due to a lack of participants. I'm terribly sorry to those of you who wished to play. I hope you all have a good February and a good Valentine's day anyway! <3
tbh you already posted my favorite from the first movie lol, but my second favorite cringy song/dance that I love is Stick to the Status Quo. XD Also though while we're on the subject of HSM, on my second day at my new job, they put me in this adjacent office to do some sort of safety training on the computer, and while I was in there I heard my new coworkers talking and one of the guys brought up "We're All in This Together" and so the girl who was picking the music that day went to her phone and played that song and everyone started singing along as they worked. XD I couldn't join in because I was taking safety tests and stuff but that's when I knew I would like that job XD
Ahhh, love… It’s that time of the year again. Romance is in the air; you see hearts wherever you go, music is playing, and the scent of a dozen red roses mixes with the smell of chocolates and fine perfume. Those with special-someones are planning their sweet surprises and others are taking this opportunity as a chance to ask out their secret crushes. It’s a time of hope, joy, and sweet, shy love. Also, fierce and deadly competition. As such, you are cordially invited to join our Valentine’s Day Dance, an Elimination Competition to discover who would make the best couple on KHV. Now, before you ask out your dates, I’ll just throw a wrench right into your plans straight off here: All participants will be assigned a random partner. I know this might not seem like fun for all you people with significant others on the site, but this really is the best way to make the competition fair and fun for everybody, and hey, give it a shot! You might find new friends, and if you end up competing against your significant other, well, a little healthy competition might just bring a fun new spark to your relationship. ;D The competition will take place over three rounds, with a percentage of couples eliminated each round. The rounds will all consist of various challenges, testing your strength as a ‘couple.’ The first two challenges will be simple. Challenge one will be to coordinate with your partner and create a cutesy, matching couples profile theme, while challenge two will be a short questionnaire that will test how well you’ve gotten to know your partner. Those who survive to round three will be in for a real treat, as the third challenge is going to be a collaboration project with your partner, and will be your choice between a work of art, or a short story featuring you and your partner at the Valentine’s Day Dance, or a love song duet you sing together, or basically any sort of artistic collab project. There will also be an After Party thread in the spamzone, for spectators and eliminated couples to comment on the action and talk about their favorite challenges. This thread will also serve as the base of the final popular vote. Once the third round is complete and the two survivors determined, a poll will go up in the After Party thread, and all spectators and eliminated couples may vote for which of the two couples they liked best, the winner of this vote named the KHV Power Couple of the year! It’s not just gonna be fame and glory, though, because as prizes, we have three pins you can potentially win! This pin will be awarded to everyone who signs up and participates in the competition. This pin will be awarded to all four members who survive the third and final challenge with their partners. This pin will be awarded to both halves of the KHV Power Couple, the winners of the Popular Vote! Just a couple quick rules: No fighting, especially not with your partner. If you are assigned a partner that you just can’t work with, please calmly send me a private message explaining the problem within 24 hours of the assignment, so that I can try and find volunteers for a trade. If no trade can be arranged, just try to work together as best you can, and who knows? You might just end up friends by the end of it. All entries for the challenges must comply with KHV’s content rules, which means keep everything under PG-13. Really give it your all! If you sign up, your partner is relying on you, so don’t come at this half-heartedly. This is your chance to shine in the Elimination-Round-Spotlight, give us all a show we can enjoy! If you miss your deadline, you won’t get an extension, so don’t ask for one. You’ve got one shot at each round, and if you miss out, that’s it. Them’s the breaks. WHAT WE CHANGED Last year was our first ever run of this contest, so it was highly experimental. So, as with any new project, we ran into a few problems last year. Worry not, however! I've made quite a few changes to the format this year that should help straighten things out and make this even more fair and fun than it was last year! 1. ALL commentary this year will be confined to the Spam-Zone "Afterparty" thread, even from participating couples. The Playground "in-game" thread will be reserved instead for Challenge One. Last year, we had a problem with how best to show off everyone's Cutesy Couples themes, as some couples used GIFs in their signatures, which can't be displayed well in screenshots, and we ended up having to send voters to everyone's individual pages to look at all the themes, which wasn't ideal. We also had couples with hidden details in their usertitles or profile statuses that were easily missed by voters. So THIS year, at the start of the game, I'll provide a numbered list of the contestants, and each contestant will make one post in the Playground game thread in the order I provide, all partners together. Once their themes are in place, they can edit their reserved posts and list all the things they did in their profile themes (i.e., edited usernames or titles, rotating signatures, profile messages, etc.) so that the users can easily scroll through the thread and see the themes without having to visit a dozen different pages. 2. Depending on how many users sign up for this competition, we might be able to sort into Leagues, one for Contributors/Premium Members, and one for Normal Members. This is due to an issue raised last year; that it might not be fair to judge a Premium Couple's theme as better than a Normie Couple's theme, as Premiums and Contributors have the ability to change their usernames and usertitles, while Normal members can only edit their signatures and profile pictures. If we have enough contestants to split into two leagues, this should no longer be a problem. 3. This year, we're going to have contestants fill out a short Entry Form rather than just post that they're in. The Entry Form will only consist of three questions: Usergroups: Preferred Artistic Medium: Would you be willing to be sorted into a Love Triangle should the need arise? The first question, which Usergroups you're a part of, could determine your league if we have enough members to split. The second question will come into play for the Third Challenge, where you and your partner will have to collaborate on an artistic project. Although there's no guarantee you'll be partnered with someone who wants to do the exact same kind of project you do, having this question on the form might help match singer with singer, writer with writer, artist with artist, so that the projects will be fun and easy to do for all. The third question is set up to provide for the possibility of an odd number of contestants. If the contestants can be easily separated into groups of two, it won't matter, but if we have an odd number of contestants, three lucky members will end up in a Love Triangle, and will have to coordinate between three people instead of two. XD Now that we've covered all the changes we've made this year, let's go ahead and get to signing up! If you want to sign up for this contest, please post in this thread that you're in, along with your filled out Entry Forms. Sign ups are gonna close on February First, when partners will be assigned and the first challenge starts. Now then, who’s in? We need at least ten sign-ups in order for this event to work, but the more people we have, the more fun it’ll be! Game roster: 1. Shiki 2. LadyAzura 3. Aelin 4. CrownMoksha 5. Day~Dream 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Every single time anyone does anything remotely KH related and I can't afford to participate in it I die a little more inside. XD The rooms look amazing and I'm jealous of the people who will get to experience them lol
Sign me up!
