I disown this
Pending an actual post….
More Personality tests!
(Look, if there's another way to procrastinate then TELL ME)
What kind of person are you?
TYPE B: Artistic Type
You love caring others and it is the reason why you are a big sister/brother in people's eyes. People will find it interesting and comfortable talking to you, and this enables you to gain trust from them. This usually gives good impression to those opposite sex who are sentimental and younger than you. From : http://www.personalityquiz.net/test/intrinsic.htm
Which Doctor Who are you?
this quiz was made by Auntie Krizu(:>)
Which famous poet are you? (pictures and many outcomes)
You are Homer! An epic poet circa 800 B.C., Homer is the expression of the ancient Greek ideal. His characters embark upon long and wordy quests and engage in battles of heroic length. Monsters are slain and cities are razed. Fun and glory all around!
Take this quiz!
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what type of killer are you? cool pics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you are a mysterious killer. nobody knows why you kill or who you kill. your trademark is anonimity…
Take this quiz!
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Another test which I can't seem to include - Which Simpsons character are you - had me down as Marge Simpson.
Words words wuhhhrds
What I am about to write about falls squarely into the category of Geekery. Bet you're still reading.
I love to write, as you may hear me say, all the time. To this end, I have produced a number of stories, short long and serialised, of vastly varying quality. Again, this you may have heard or read. You may not however be aware that the number of these stories far exceeds 100. In fact, it probably exceeds 200.
However the majority of these stories were written in a particular "genre" which most of you will never have heard of. Yet its a genre that almost guarrantees you a readership. Ladies and gentlemen I give you "fanfiction".
Otherwise known as fanfic, hypertext fiction, or any permutation thereof refers to fan-authored stories set in a popularised setting. For example, if I wrote a story in the Friends or Star Trek Universe, with the characters and settings that we see in the TV series, this would be a fanfiction. The original aspects I would introduce would be the storyline, the writing itself, possibly some new characters, possibly not.
I remember clearly the day I got into fanfiction. I was searching on the Internet to try and find out highly geeky information about a certain video game which will go nameless. I then stumbled upon Uiru's Pokemon Galaxy Gym.
I was, er, 14.
Anyway, the site was jam packed with useful strategies and information for the aforementioned unmentioned game. But right at the top in big letters was a link called '**UPFF**'. I hadn't a clue what that stood for. It waited until I'd read the rest of the site in its entirety.
Eventually I clicked this. It was like opening a door on Narnia.
Or perhaps more accurately, like a Star Trek fan opening the door on a cupboard full of Star Trek DVDs before he'd even conceived there could be such a thing as a Star Trek DVD never mind had occassion to wish he owned one.
I loved writing, but the problem was always what to write. Now I had entire Universes at my disposal to write whatever.
Thus the first fic I read was Uiru's Fire Strike series. It was an action adventure, starring teenagers set in a war situation.
I therefore begun writing my first fanfic. An action adventure. Starring teenagers. Set in a war. I know.
Uiru's site had simultaneously opened my eyes to fan-authored fiction and to strategical battling in the previously disclosed undisclosed game. The combination was impressive. I stopped meeting people for a week.
I then wrote over a hundred stories based on the following 'fandoms': A certain video game, Spider-man, Star Trek, The Beautiful South. Beyond that I don't remember many others. These included comedies, action adventure, abstract, drama, ghost…anything but romance.
I entered them into competitions, posted them on mailing lists, eventually got some sporadic editors and beta readers.
What motivates a fanfiction writer? Without a doubt it is the desire for 'feedback'. ie a response from someone who has read the story giving a critical appraisal of the work. These are usually only 2-6 lines long, and slightly vague. This vagueness motivates the fanfiction writer to garner more and more feedback, writing more and more stories, planning his week around the 'saturday mailing list rush' until one day you find him and he's talking to bins.
Why do they seek such feedback? I think it is fundamentally a cry for attention, and there's definitely a hint of competition in it, as with anything that seeks to better oneself.
At best, it is so the writer can improve their writing.
And this is where fanfiction excels. It is like stabilisers on a bike, only with a story. Ride long enough on the bike and one day the stabilisers come off and you can go. Likewise with fanfiction, make enough use of premade settings and characters until one day you just write purely using your own settings, your own characters. Your writing style has evolved along the way. Handy.
So what do you need to start writing fanfiction? First off, you need an idea. Any idea. And thats you good to go, you already have characters and setting.
The first thing you should write should be your disclaimer. Something like this:
Disclaimer: The author does not own Star Trek, which is the property of Paramount Pictures. However, the author does own all original aspects of this piece, including but not limited to storyline, original characters…(list as applicable).
Finally you need an audience. This is easily found.
Just search on google for something like " fanfiction". Or go to http://www.fanfiction.net or a wholly better site which myself and Daragor created http://www.fanfics.org (which also allows fanart, and tournaments). Mailing lists are also extremely useful and you can find these on http://www.yahoogroups.com
In such places you can find wide audiences for whatever series you wish to write for. Communities even. My tip is to put lots of reviews in other peoples stories so they read yours and always to ask for feedback at the end of your story.
I don't write fanfiction anymore however I am totally convinced of its usefulness in encouraging young writers especially to write and be read.
fanfics.org was created with the intention of encouraging school children to write their first ever stories of their own free will, and to discuss them with others. Most importantly, to have fun along the way.
Relics.
Hundreds of years ago people were obsessed with relics.
Particularly those associated with religion. The bone of a saint, a cup, a handkerchief that Paul had touched, or so they thought.
For some reason they were fascinated with these religious relics. Maybe the names of people from the Bible gave it an authenticity or a power in people’s minds. They wanted the history and the culture, the religion in the background, way back in the background, but still close enough for the hope of divine intervention and the warmth of family tradition.
14th Century meet the 21st. Because we’re just the same. You could be reading this and your religion is a relic. You don’t have a bone or a cup or a handkerchief or a bit of the sail St Peter once used. That’s not your relic. Your relic is Christmas and it is Easter. Its church twice a year. Its Jesus, the baby and the dead man.
The Saints didn’t die in their hundreds for the cosy tradition, they didn’t die for the baby and they didn’t die for the dead man. Neither would you.
The Church isn’t alive today because it feeds itself on its own tradition.
That’s not closeness to God.
The Saints died, those that were martyred, because they had the whole of the story, not just the birth and the death:
God, whose very words thundered Creation into being, became just like you and me. He went to work like you and me he experienced life like you and me.
But it wasn’t so He could learn something or better identify with us. It would be arrogant to suppose God came to learn something from us.
All of it was so he could get to one point and give this one thing:
The message. Or, ‘the gospel’.
Read it and understand it because if you do you’ll understand why it had to be God who gave it. Believe it and you’ll see how it turns the whole world on its head.
He lived out thirty years and overcame temptation at every step, never sinning. He healed, liberated, restored and he made dead men walk. He taught with power and authority that men couldn’t match, or answer, said that we should look at that teaching and apply it. He was surrounded by religious politicians, rulers, corrupt men and dangerous men but didn’t give an inch. One of them asked him what the point of it was and he said this:
“Noone can enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he is born again.”
It was so important he said it twice in the space of a minute.
“Noone can enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he is born again.”
We’ve reduced his message to the bits we quite like and can put in Christmas cards. But He came for the message that He gave us. He felt it was so important not to hide that message that He went through the brutality of the cross. But we hide it, behind our modern day relics. The baby and the dead man whose tomb is strangely empty. I challenge you to read the whole of the gospel and see what the living man says to you. Again, this is part of the message He gave:
“Noone can enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he is born again.”
And He went all the way to the cross to make it possible for us to be *born again, free from sin* because he’d taken the punishment for that.
His actions matched his words, but for us we say we have a tradition and we don’t disagree with the idea of Christianity within certain constraints but where are our actions? Or wheres our spirituality to go with it? We wouldn’t go on a cross – who could? But would we even meet Him there, and be born again, like He’s asking us.
Being born again isn’t another relic or another ceremony or tradition. Its not baptism or confirmation its not church membership or whatever (read the whole of John chapter 3 if you think otherwise, when he speaks to those who had these things). Its saying to Jesus ‘I get that I’m trying to live life without you, but now I want you to take over that life. Thank you that I can be born again without the punishment for sin and please would you do that with me now.’. Or use whatever words, because God isn’t impressed by words just sentiment and heart.
Easter is about Jesus, just like Christmas was. Stop knowing about Him and start knowing Him. Get to that place where your relic becomes real, and challenging. Where the baby grows up to be a man whose teaching isn’t cosy, but is radical. The man who dies, and lives again. Its not about impersonal relic. Its about the God who becomes your Father.
Throw away the relics, if they’re not helping you. But whatever you do make it your life’s number one priority, not just two days a year but the whole of the year, to find out why Jesus died for you and what it is to live a Christian life. It’s ok to have questions. Everyone has them, doesn’t make you different. Want to be different? Come with me on an outrageous journey looking for answers. They exist, but when you find them they will change you more than any relic ever could.
Actually have the guts to make a decision. Tell a friend, tell me, that you want to know Him.
