Tangential
Luminal
(Author's note: Because I like answering questions in a one-to-one way - blame my ADHD - I'm going to be answering the prompt separately, with my own details added. I'm also going to be going into very, very long detail. )
Welcome! I'm sure you have probably already read the other very important message, and you're ready to sign your life away so that you can waste an ungodly amount of time fantasizing about magical balls... or something? Right?
Considering I literally just finished my summer college semester (no, seriously, this is the first day of four months of 100% Total Grade-A Freedom I have to do whatever I want), I would say the answer is yes. Also, this place looks amazing. I figured it was showcased on the XenForo forums for a reason.
If so, this is the place to meet everybody. And I get it that some people are shy, or they simply don't know what to say. So please allow me with my decades of experience, to offer you some suggestions... and maybe a snack too?
*nom nom nom*
You don't need to mention your name, although you can if you want. I would start your introduction post with something witty. Show off that creativity of yours! After all, there's lots of other places on the Net where you can say "Hi. I'm a noob.". In fact, there was one site where I literally started off by falling down some imaginary flight of stairs. I'm alright, really! I just suffered from a minor concussion and was offered a cozy blanky for the rest of the evening. Oh, and I had a juice box too! (Because blankies and juice boxes make all the pain disappear.) Remember that in the heat of battle!
In spite of the fact that there are better ways to introduce myself... let me start with my choice of username.
Well, I picked Tangential for a funny reason: I'm an aspiring psychological science major, and I just could not for the life of me come up with a username here to save my life. So I told myself: You know what? I'm going to go eat something, and then I'll have a eureka moment.
Half a bag of chips and a couple drinks later, I realized that Tangential fits all of the boxes:
[x] It sounds vague and mysterious
[x] It's an actual word
[x] It reads like something a human would actually come up with
[x] Coming up with it required less than zero effort
[x] It actually relates to my life (and isn't just a random keysmash like my other choice of usernames)
So if you, dear reader, are struggling to come up with a username, just stop struggling, and it'll pop into your head eventually.
Without exaggeration, I struggle to remember how many other usernames I've used online - probably 100 or more over the course of the 22 years that I've been on our Little Blue Planet. DM me if you want a decidedly incomplete list; part of the problem is I have to compile it myself.
Because this is an anime-centric forum, one specifically involving magical girls, it might be a good idea to mention the anime you're already familiar with. And what's your favorite anime? Who do you have a crush on? And most importantly, are there any characters that drive you so nuts that you really want to skin them alive? Give us all the juicy bits! (Not really, that's just gross, and what the hell am I supposed to do with a punch bowl full of saliva anyway?!)
So this puts me in a bit of an odd situation, because ironically despite being a member of my college's anime club, there really aren't too many animes I've watched or been familiar with. Let's see: there's the A Certain Magical Index/A Certain Scientific Railgun series I've watched, Nanoha itself (only the OG series, thanks to having nothing to do during Covid, and I only watched like 1 episode so it barely counts, Sailor Moon (again, Covid discovery, plus watching only like 1 or 2 episodes), RWBY (which is not an anime but which I've watched a lot of), and a jumble of animes I'm not familiar with but heard about through the grapevine: CCS, Madoka, Fullmetal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, Konosuba, and so on and so forth. And I briefly tried to watch Sword Art Online, but gave up pretty quickly. Which one is my favorite? Probably A Certain Magical Index, since I've watched it the most. (Quick counterargument-preemption: I have not watched My Hero Academia.) Who do I have a crush on? That's a hard question to answer. And is there anyone I really, really hate? Well, ADHD makes it pretty hard to hate anyone. So, nah.
As far as the juicy bits go, I just happen to be a guy who "knows a thing or two" about anime, including magical girl anime. And that isn't actually a lie, if "know a thing" means know ONE thing. Yes, I know more about Nanoha than I know about Madoka. And I use "more" incredibly relatively here, because I know practically nothing about either. So, I'm jumping right into the deep end.
Also, considering the type of forum this is, you might want to mention something about your writing style. You know, things that you're looking for in a creative writing area. Specifically, don't forget to tell us what perspective you prefer to write in. For example, some people like writing in the Third Person, so they can see everybody's actions, but others, like myself, prefer the deep intimacy with showing our characters through the First Person's eyes. We can only hear our character's thoughts (and other's blabbering, but.... I digress.
I prefer third-person writing to first-person writing. Actually, I prefer any perspective of writing, just as long as it isn't AI. Because it's no small thing to say that getting my writing muscles back after having used AI since 2023* is a difficult task. I used to write fanfiction, but stopped during the Covid pandemic (of course, since this predates AI, I would say that my writing was better back then). And while it is an opinion, I like non-omniscient third person narration.
*I did and still do write, but not each day, and of course muscles atrophy if you don't use them.
Listing hobbies is a great way to break the ice too. After all, I'm more than just my creative writing. I enjoy cooking too. That's only one of a looooooooooooooooooong list of hobbies that I dabble in. We are wonderfully multi-faceted creatures overflowing with delightful interests! (No, really, we just need some dirt on you so we have something to stalk you with.)
Part of the problem with having ADHD, or I should say at least in my case, is that it's hard _to_ define my hobbies. I guess that comes with the territory. But let me take a stab at it.
Okay, there's a lot. I used to like astronomy until Covid, then switched to liking programming, then bounced between liking AI stuff (experimenting with it) and nothing in particular. I had a brief fling with web dev in 2022, but that petered out As far as programming languages, I'm not gonna call myself an expert in them, but I know PHP, Python, Java (from high school computer science class), JavaScript, C#, and so on and so forth.
The other big thing I started doing was modding games (Unity games, since I don't know C++). Did you know that if your brain comes up with absolutely nothing to think of, you just play the game instead of mod it? And it's pretty nice being 22 with a partial idea of what the old Internet looked like (forums instead of Discord), though it still rankles me that the Something Awful forums is older than I am.
Worldbuilding is another big one. I had between 20 to 30 accounts on NationStates, and thanks to ADHD hyperfocus, I created an extensive history for a South Pacific island country which was a British colony until 1975. That took me literal months to create, but the details are so long if I wrote it in a forum post XenForo itself would crash. But if anyone wants to hear my worldbuilding tales, DM me.
What else are my hobbies? Well... making schedules which I very rarely stick to, falling prey to impostor syndrome, creative drabbles here and there**, coming up with fun little things I enjoy and one-shots, and not being sure how to define myself. Oh, and another big one: I say this with all humor intended, but sometimes I'll do something creative that I dislike and get rid of. Then I'll come back to it, realize it's not so bad, fix it up. Then I'll come back to it again, realize it's terrible, and start over. Repeat forever...
This is a role play forum. What games do you know about, which ones have you played? Did you enjoy them? Are there any game systems that you'd like to try out? Listing this information will help us cater to you, and we may all find something new and exciting to try. (So much so, that we might end up blowing up the the Planet... or something.)
Absolutely nothing, and I would like to try out everything.
These are just some of the many millions of things that you can barrage us with. So let's hear what you have to say. (Really, we want all your dirty little secrets!) Start your Introduction today!
Several indeterminate timespans after typing everything up, looking at it over again and making sure I didn't say anything stupid
OK, we're good to go.
I just realized my gravatar showed up. Gotta fix that later.
[click]
**Don't ask me what happened when Nanoha's Barrier Jacket _accidentally_ knocked some poor enlistee down four flights of stairs while she was walking onboard the Arthra. Or, you could, because what happens is I wrote a couple hundred words, realized the premise of her getting court-martialed made no sense, and got rid of it. That, by the way, tends to be a running theme in what I do. I write stuff, I think what I write is garbage, and I get rid of it. Am I proud of that? No, not really. But am I upset by that? Well, no, not really. So it all balances out.
Welcome! I'm sure you have probably already read the other very important message, and you're ready to sign your life away so that you can waste an ungodly amount of time fantasizing about magical balls... or something? Right?
Considering I literally just finished my summer college semester (no, seriously, this is the first day of four months of 100% Total Grade-A Freedom I have to do whatever I want), I would say the answer is yes. Also, this place looks amazing. I figured it was showcased on the XenForo forums for a reason.
If so, this is the place to meet everybody. And I get it that some people are shy, or they simply don't know what to say. So please allow me with my decades of experience, to offer you some suggestions... and maybe a snack too?
*nom nom nom*
You don't need to mention your name, although you can if you want. I would start your introduction post with something witty. Show off that creativity of yours! After all, there's lots of other places on the Net where you can say "Hi. I'm a noob.". In fact, there was one site where I literally started off by falling down some imaginary flight of stairs. I'm alright, really! I just suffered from a minor concussion and was offered a cozy blanky for the rest of the evening. Oh, and I had a juice box too! (Because blankies and juice boxes make all the pain disappear.) Remember that in the heat of battle!
In spite of the fact that there are better ways to introduce myself... let me start with my choice of username.
Well, I picked Tangential for a funny reason: I'm an aspiring psychological science major, and I just could not for the life of me come up with a username here to save my life. So I told myself: You know what? I'm going to go eat something, and then I'll have a eureka moment.
Half a bag of chips and a couple drinks later, I realized that Tangential fits all of the boxes:
[x] It sounds vague and mysterious
[x] It's an actual word
[x] It reads like something a human would actually come up with
[x] Coming up with it required less than zero effort
[x] It actually relates to my life (and isn't just a random keysmash like my other choice of usernames)
So if you, dear reader, are struggling to come up with a username, just stop struggling, and it'll pop into your head eventually.
Without exaggeration, I struggle to remember how many other usernames I've used online - probably 100 or more over the course of the 22 years that I've been on our Little Blue Planet. DM me if you want a decidedly incomplete list; part of the problem is I have to compile it myself.
Because this is an anime-centric forum, one specifically involving magical girls, it might be a good idea to mention the anime you're already familiar with. And what's your favorite anime? Who do you have a crush on? And most importantly, are there any characters that drive you so nuts that you really want to skin them alive? Give us all the juicy bits! (Not really, that's just gross, and what the hell am I supposed to do with a punch bowl full of saliva anyway?!)
So this puts me in a bit of an odd situation, because ironically despite being a member of my college's anime club, there really aren't too many animes I've watched or been familiar with. Let's see: there's the A Certain Magical Index/A Certain Scientific Railgun series I've watched, Nanoha itself (only the OG series, thanks to having nothing to do during Covid, and I only watched like 1 episode so it barely counts, Sailor Moon (again, Covid discovery, plus watching only like 1 or 2 episodes), RWBY (which is not an anime but which I've watched a lot of), and a jumble of animes I'm not familiar with but heard about through the grapevine: CCS, Madoka, Fullmetal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, Konosuba, and so on and so forth. And I briefly tried to watch Sword Art Online, but gave up pretty quickly. Which one is my favorite? Probably A Certain Magical Index, since I've watched it the most. (Quick counterargument-preemption: I have not watched My Hero Academia.) Who do I have a crush on? That's a hard question to answer. And is there anyone I really, really hate? Well, ADHD makes it pretty hard to hate anyone. So, nah.
As far as the juicy bits go, I just happen to be a guy who "knows a thing or two" about anime, including magical girl anime. And that isn't actually a lie, if "know a thing" means know ONE thing. Yes, I know more about Nanoha than I know about Madoka. And I use "more" incredibly relatively here, because I know practically nothing about either. So, I'm jumping right into the deep end.
Also, considering the type of forum this is, you might want to mention something about your writing style. You know, things that you're looking for in a creative writing area. Specifically, don't forget to tell us what perspective you prefer to write in. For example, some people like writing in the Third Person, so they can see everybody's actions, but others, like myself, prefer the deep intimacy with showing our characters through the First Person's eyes. We can only hear our character's thoughts (and other's blabbering, but.... I digress.
I prefer third-person writing to first-person writing. Actually, I prefer any perspective of writing, just as long as it isn't AI. Because it's no small thing to say that getting my writing muscles back after having used AI since 2023* is a difficult task. I used to write fanfiction, but stopped during the Covid pandemic (of course, since this predates AI, I would say that my writing was better back then). And while it is an opinion, I like non-omniscient third person narration.
*I did and still do write, but not each day, and of course muscles atrophy if you don't use them.
Listing hobbies is a great way to break the ice too. After all, I'm more than just my creative writing. I enjoy cooking too. That's only one of a looooooooooooooooooong list of hobbies that I dabble in. We are wonderfully multi-faceted creatures overflowing with delightful interests! (No, really, we just need some dirt on you so we have something to stalk you with.)
Part of the problem with having ADHD, or I should say at least in my case, is that it's hard _to_ define my hobbies. I guess that comes with the territory. But let me take a stab at it.
Okay, there's a lot. I used to like astronomy until Covid, then switched to liking programming, then bounced between liking AI stuff (experimenting with it) and nothing in particular. I had a brief fling with web dev in 2022, but that petered out As far as programming languages, I'm not gonna call myself an expert in them, but I know PHP, Python, Java (from high school computer science class), JavaScript, C#, and so on and so forth.
The other big thing I started doing was modding games (Unity games, since I don't know C++). Did you know that if your brain comes up with absolutely nothing to think of, you just play the game instead of mod it? And it's pretty nice being 22 with a partial idea of what the old Internet looked like (forums instead of Discord), though it still rankles me that the Something Awful forums is older than I am.
Worldbuilding is another big one. I had between 20 to 30 accounts on NationStates, and thanks to ADHD hyperfocus, I created an extensive history for a South Pacific island country which was a British colony until 1975. That took me literal months to create, but the details are so long if I wrote it in a forum post XenForo itself would crash. But if anyone wants to hear my worldbuilding tales, DM me.
What else are my hobbies? Well... making schedules which I very rarely stick to, falling prey to impostor syndrome, creative drabbles here and there**, coming up with fun little things I enjoy and one-shots, and not being sure how to define myself. Oh, and another big one: I say this with all humor intended, but sometimes I'll do something creative that I dislike and get rid of. Then I'll come back to it, realize it's not so bad, fix it up. Then I'll come back to it again, realize it's terrible, and start over. Repeat forever...
This is a role play forum. What games do you know about, which ones have you played? Did you enjoy them? Are there any game systems that you'd like to try out? Listing this information will help us cater to you, and we may all find something new and exciting to try. (So much so, that we might end up blowing up the the Planet... or something.)
Absolutely nothing, and I would like to try out everything.
These are just some of the many millions of things that you can barrage us with. So let's hear what you have to say. (Really, we want all your dirty little secrets!) Start your Introduction today!
Several indeterminate timespans after typing everything up, looking at it over again and making sure I didn't say anything stupid
OK, we're good to go.
I just realized my gravatar showed up. Gotta fix that later.
[click]
**Don't ask me what happened when Nanoha's Barrier Jacket _accidentally_ knocked some poor enlistee down four flights of stairs while she was walking onboard the Arthra. Or, you could, because what happens is I wrote a couple hundred words, realized the premise of her getting court-martialed made no sense, and got rid of it. That, by the way, tends to be a running theme in what I do. I write stuff, I think what I write is garbage, and I get rid of it. Am I proud of that? No, not really. But am I upset by that? Well, no, not really. So it all balances out.
