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Post Tagged with: "Blaugust"

Blaugust Promptapalooza: Share Characters That Tell Us Something About You

Welcome to a very different Blaugust! We’ve got prompts all month and today it’s my turn. This year we’re doing a mega prompt train organised by Belghast. Bel gave me the following prompt: Tell us about some of your favorite protagonist/s and explain why.

It’s a good prompt, but I’m going to change it slightly. I want to talk about characters in which you can recognize yourself or parts of yourself. The reason why I changed it is I play a lot of RPGs and like to create my own characters. So I wouldn’t even know how to answer the original prompt that well. Even when I look outside of games. The ones that are memorable to me are the ones I identify with, or at least to some degree.

Book Characters

Lizzie from Brace Yourself by S E Smart and Giovanna from The Ice Cream Parlor by Isabella May.

Both these characters are dear to me. Lizzie’s challenges are so very familiar, all the chronic pain, chronic illness, and being disregarded by the people whose help she needed the most. It was my first time hearing about the PIP journey, an application process most disabled people in the UK have to go through to get more financial support. I almost didn’t believe it was real if it weren’t for my own experiences with doctors and assessments. I felt so much for her. But even despite all those challenges, Lizzie still had her sense of humor, got out of bed every morning, took care of her son as a single mom, and found love.

Giovanna or Gigi is another story altogether. She’s a victim of a family feud in the making for years. She thought she would inherit the ice cream store her father had run all those years, the store where she worked in her spare hours, the one where she learned all the secrets about making delicious ice. But it’s her sister who gets the store. She goes on a trip to Italy, the country where she was born, to discover all the delicious flavors and create new ones. It’s Gigi’s attitude to life and everything that I admire. In my own struggles, I recognize the fierceness that Gigi shows as well. She’s still kind and caring, but she’ll drop you the second you betray her. No wasted time on people who don’t deserve it. Gigi chases her dreams and overcomes every obstacles thrown in her way.

Movie character

I’m sure people will sigh as I say this: Mulan and Pocahontas, Disney princesses. And specifically the animated Disney representations. Let’s not talk about the history surrounding these women, or what happens to them. Let’s talk about who they are in the Disney movies and what they meant to me.

I’m tanned, thanks to my Indonesian dad, and always looked different than most of my peers. I grew up in a white-dominant environment, so when movies came out with coloured girls, specifically bad ass girls who could save a country/their tribe. Seeing them have such agency and not be dumbed down a secundary role was an eye opener. I started dreaming about sword fighting like Mulan (which I did learn later), and Pocahontas taught me to be open minded to other cultures. Even if someone is different, that doesn’t mean they’re bad. As long as you listen, you’ll find you have more in common than you think.

Game characters

This is a hard one. In most RPGs my choices make the character and the story consists of events that happen and how you respond to it. But I can’t talk about memorable game characters without mentioning Alistair.

Alistair is definitely the man that I set my standards too. Not because of his looks, but because how vulnerable he was. He wasn’t just a stubborn hardass who wanted to follow the rules. He also had moment where he was a big baby. And he respected the player. Even if he didn’t agree, he wouldn’t burn you down. I honestly wish more men were like him.

Another character is Princess Elise from My World, My Way. The spoiled princess has everything she wants, except for the boy of her dreams. He turns out to be an adventurer and she tries out the adventurer lifestyle. The gameplay is amazing, but I really like how the spoiled princess dares to go outside of her comfort zone to find the thing she wants the most.

This is a lesson we all need to learn at some point. Most things we want the most are outside of our comfort zone and we have to be brave enough to take that step outside. No matter how spoiled you are. You have to make do with what you have. Find your strengths and they will help you conquer the obstacles. In Princess Elise’s case, crying a lot convinced enemies to drop more gold.

So here’s my prompt for you today: Tell me about your most memorable characters, and which ones do you identify with most?

If you’re taking up this prompt, drop a link in the comments and I’ll add it to the list below!

Next up in the Promptapalooza is Paeroka of Nerdy Bookahs. Check there tomorrow for the next writing prompt!

Blaugust Reflection

Today is the last day of Blaugust. A few days before August began, I had an itch. An itch that needed to be scratched. I wanted to write about games again. Other things that interested me besides books, reviews and writing. I knew I had another blog (this one) and it was the perfect place for the creative outlet that I needed.

My new laptop also arrived around that time. I could develop a new work routine and had to get used to a new keyboard. My laptop is a normal 15,4″ Acer and I used to work on a 10,1″ convertible tablet. The big screen is definitely motivating me to write more. It’s easier to see everything (I’m getting old) and my eyes don’t tire as fast.

The first week I wrote five blogs in one day. I was excited. The discord was filled with activity and ideas started pouring in. Making drafts was the easiest thing to do to keep track of all my post ideas. I could just pick one of my drafts, write it and schedule it for whenever I didn’t have a post ready. This blog used to have memes on specific days, but I stepped away from that for Blaugust. And besides blogging here, I still had the weekly blog on Narratess.

Overall I’ve written a lot, 36 blog posts and I’ve done writing and editing for my fiction as well. I’ve grown my Twitter following, and followers for both blogs. Going forward I’ll still stick my one post on Narratess and I hope to at least post once a week here as well. I want to use the rest of my writing energy to fix my short stories and work on my first draft. I’ll keep reading everyone’s blog which should become more manageable when there aren’t 80 new posts every day.

Thank you everyone for all the beautiful posts, interactions, and help that I’ve received. I hope that I can keep contributing to our amazing blogging community.

Participating in Blaugust

Years ago I took part in the Newbie Blogger Initiative where I made many blogging friends. This year I’m taking part in an event that sprang from the community event so long ago. Belghast, our gracious host for the coming month, combined Blaugust (an event to motivate bloggers to post every day) and the NBI in one: Blaugust Reborn. Mentors advise (newbie) bloggers about keeping your own blog, coming up with ideas and staying motivated. It’s a great way to expand your readership, meet other bloggers in a wide variety of topics and work on your blogging skills. I loved the community then and many are still present today. I can’t wait to read and get to know the new bloggers.

I signed up as a participant, since I’d feel wrong to be a mentor even though I’ve been blogging for years. Princess in a Castle hasn’t been active for the past years since I’ve been working on other projects, but that’s going to change. On my other site (Narratess) a post goes up every Friday, but blogging every day is something I haven’t done for a while. I want to blog more and getting back into that rhythm of writing a lot of posts is a great way to get started.

The topics for next month will be mostly focused on the 101 goals since I haven’t updated those since the beginning of the year and I have made progress. There are more inspiring TED Talks that I want to share and played more games. I’ll definitely write about those. I might talk about the interesting things I watched on Netflix. My brainstorm is nearly done, but some topics might be exchanged for topics the Blaugust community will tackle.

I hope to see you next month!

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Guild Wars 2 Fiction

Miira Lightbringer:
Fried Moa Steak
Quiet Before the Storm

Young Miira:
Tail Tugging Part 1
A Promise Made Part 2
Night Falls Part 3
Grawling Preparations Part 4
Badazar Incarnated Part 5
Graduation Part 6 - Final

Savyrius Belain:
We Meet Again...

Naella Ysangwan:
Dogs and Ogres

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