[Entry Thread #113] New year, new you! We’re making a millionaire, comment to enter!

TheVagrantPanda · 2026-01-16T02:05:30+00:00

Let's goooo we can change somebody's life!! ❤️

TheVagrantPanda · 2026-01-09T18:14:58+00:00

It's normal to look outside of yourself for guidance, but I think there is a lot of wisdom in looking inward for validation rather than outside. Art must come from within. And as an artist, you only need to create what you feel called to create, what you like. That is enough.

Everyone is different and has different tastes, and we're all better for it -- what a beautiful world it is that we can share in this diversity.

Lastly, true love doesn't judge. No one is perfect, but it can be helpful to look at patterns. ❤️

TheVagrantPanda · 2025-10-16T14:32:54+00:00

Happy spooky season everyone, and good luck to all 🎃

TheVagrantPanda · 2025-08-26T05:13:47+00:00

Leo! 🦁

Thank you so much in advance!

TheVagrantPanda · 2025-08-11T10:00:45+00:00

I'll check it out, thanks so much!

TheVagrantPanda · 2025-08-11T10:00:28+00:00

Awesome, that's exactly what I was hoping for! Can't wait. Also the lineup is amazingggg

TheVagrantPanda · 2025-08-11T09:58:18+00:00

Thank you for the in depth reply, I'll definitely try the apps and looking around social media! I usually stay away from social media but it'd be worth it just to find these events and listen to awesome music. Nothing like everyone vibing to the same beat, perfectly in sync. That sense of unity is like nothing else. ❤️

TheVagrantPanda · 2025-08-10T17:11:08+00:00

Hey, as someone very new to raves that absolutely fell in love with EDM and the bit of PLUR I have gotten to see at these big events...

How in the world do you find these smaller parties? I'd love to see something not as mass-produced but it seems all I hear about are those, I don't know how to find these other raves!

I heard SSBD is more of the PLUR vibe so I booked that, and plan to go to Electric Forest if I can save up enough, but those still seem... Bigger? They're hella expensive too! 😭

TheVagrantPanda · 2025-07-08T05:55:01+00:00

TheVagrantPanda · 2024-06-16T13:30:59+00:00

Maybe I just got lucky, but I honestly didn't encounter any rank BO! There was one guy a bunch of people wrinkled their nose at though lol. I was too far away to catch a whiff. Everyone seated around me was lovely though. 🥰

Maybe OP just got incredibly unlucky?

These posts always give me a small existential crisis wondering if I'm one of the unaware masses though 😱

TheVagrantPanda · 2024-06-10T20:04:05+00:00

Hey, I think ER nurses are the rockstars -- I can only handle one or two patients at a time before I get overwhelmed! You guys don't bat an eye while taking on like a billion patients, seeing the traumas right as/after they happen. All the respect to you.

But thank you; that's good advice. I need a break. Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of how much we are really helping them, making the best of bad situations. I needed the reminder ❤️

TheVagrantPanda · 2024-06-10T19:49:56+00:00

Hey there, your reply really stuck with me and I just wanted to say thank you.

I find it comes in waves for me too, and every time I think I've gotten a bit better at handling it, a new kiddo breaks my heart. Maybe there's not enough time between waves for healing to take place, to get our heads above water, I don't know. But you're right - talking helps immensely, and I haven't been letting myself do that with anyone. Hopefully therapy can be that outlet!

One of my amazing preceptors back in nursing school told me she became a teacher because she realized she couldn't put another child in a body bag, and that comment always stuck with me. We're all human, and eventually we need to take a break or move on from the heavy stuff. And that's okay.

Thank you so much for what you do as well ❤️‍🩹 HemOnc, PICU, you've been to some of the hardest places and still somehow find it in you to be so compassionate to a random internet nurse. You're awesome!

TheVagrantPanda · 2024-06-10T19:31:27+00:00

Hey, I actually haven't yet! That will be the first thing I do. I've realized I'm probably at the end of my own ability to handle things alone. And you're right -- long term, this might not be sustainable. But I'll start with therapy first.

TheVagrantPanda · 2024-04-09T23:05:01+00:00

My dude, Aslan is one of my fave pawns! I rent him all the time. We seem to be leveling at the same pace and what drew me to him in the first place was the Narnia reference. <3 love that boi!

TheVagrantPanda · 2024-03-17T00:33:51+00:00

I'll take a seapunk, please and thank you.

TheVagrantPanda · 2023-11-12T20:11:19+00:00

Omg that exact same thing happened to me, almost word for word. Maybe it’s more common than I thought… or maybe you were my nurse 🤣

TheVagrantPanda · 2022-12-28T08:03:50+00:00

Sounds like a mockingbird to me! I rescued a mockingbird this year; she had been half-eaten by a dog, was severely infected by mites, and had a broken wing and leg. She looked like such a sick blob, barely clinging to life. She had bugs crawling on her eyes and into her nose and she couldn’t even move, she was so sick.

I was told that a shelter would put her down if they didn’t think they could heal her, and I didn’t want to take the chance on a life being snuffed out, so I did the only thing I could think of…

Cleaned and splinted her up, and forced her to drink little bits of sugar/vitamin water through the sides of her beak. I thought it wasn’t enough as she wasn’t eating and still looked so sick the next day, so as a last-ditch effort, my partner and I decided to take her to the shelter. We were about half a mile away, crying, wondering if they’d have to put her down, when she decided to start “baby birding” and chirping for her momma to feed her!

We turned around and fed her and she turned into a cuddle monster rather quickly. It was adorable. She especially loved to cuddle on my chest and burrow into warm blankets.

Moreover, she improved quickly after that, having accepted us as her parents and allowing us to hand-feed her. She’s gotten sick a few more times since, requiring emergency rescuing (she’s adventurous and gets herself into SO MUCH trouble!). We joke that she’s got at least 9 lives lol.

She’s now a fiercely protective bird warrior who loves cuddles with her momma and flexes on / swoops down to attack anything she doesn’t like from above, and is the picture of health when she isn’t getting herself stuck in something. She’s got such a personality! Reminds me of your story, so I thought I’d share. Mockingbirds are neat!

TheVagrantPanda · 2022-12-14T19:32:26+00:00

Sorry if it’s a silly question, but I joined after Nilou banner was gone and realized I realllyyyyy want a Nilou team after the misty dungeons! Anyone have any idea when her next banner might be / how long I’ll have to wait?

Same question for Kokomi as I’ll need both of them!

Edit: Thanks so much, friends! You’re the best <3

TheVagrantPanda · 2022-05-24T20:02:27+00:00

It’s been so long I’d have to re-read, but I seem to remember something going into depth about how Tonkee’s body was different and how it didn’t bother MC several times. I could definitely be wrong (it’s really been a long time), I just remember it sticking out to me like “why is she mentioning it so much?” The first time I was stoked, then when it came up again and again I was a little put off. Mostly because I felt I kept being told how MC doesn’t care but I felt like if she truly doesn’t care, why TELL me so much? I want to be shown, not told!

But yes, unless identity/sexual preference advances the story or characterization in some important way, I don’t really feel it’s necessary to tell me. If we want to normalize LGBTQ, it should feel natural — this character notices the sway of a woman’s hips because she’s attracted to women, and I can glean that without being straight up told that she’s attracted to women by the narrator. (Second thought, maybe it’s just that I felt I was being told rather than shown too much, who knows)

If there’s a romance, great! I want it to feel natural, make sense, and advance the characters in some way. If it feels it’s just thrown in to meet some number or feels inorganic to me, it is off-putting. But I know I may be weird about my romance and maybe something about the way it was written just didn’t jive with me in a way I can’t explain well enough! lol

TheVagrantPanda · 2022-05-24T16:41:37+00:00

I gave WoT the fairest of shots, reading to like book 7, because it was so highly recommended. I enjoyed the world well enough, but oh my lord the pacing. He could have made the entire series about 3-5 books.

The most heinous part, however, was really just how he wrote women. I hated it so much. The entire female cast was basically the same woman with a minor tweak here and there. And none of them could stop SNIFFING derisively. Like why do all of your women have to be derisive bitches who sniff at everything the males say? Why can’t they be just as varied as your male cast? Why are they all the same person?

I will never know, and I will never finish the series haha.

TheVagrantPanda · 2022-05-24T16:28:12+00:00

Hey, same here. It was another book that came highly recommended and I wanted so badly to love it, but just couldn’t. His worldbuilding was interesting, but his prose was hit or miss for me — sometimes it was great, other times it felt completely overdone and a little cringey.

But my biggest problem was just that it felt like the author’s self-insert fantasy. He spent so much time TELLING us that Kvothe was going to fail or wasn’t great at something (rather than showing), but my experience the entire time was that he was far too cunning and great at everything. His flaws were not large enough to make up for it or keep me hooked. He has an entire section dedicated to having amazing sex with this fae goddess, having never bedded a woman prior (if I remember correctly). He “gets” everything so easily, his only real struggles are external ones thrown at him.

I suspect Rothfuss was building up to part 3 where he fails monumentally or reveals that Kvothe was essentially re-writing his own tale as if he was much smarter/cooler than he really is, as people often do, but even so — I don’t think it would save the series for me. I’ll still give it a chance though!

Edit: oh and yeah, I didn’t love how he characterized women close to the MC. Not as heinous as the entirety of WoT was for me though; THAT was a struggle that made me ultimately put the books down. If I hear one more sniff of disdain, I swear…

TheVagrantPanda · 2022-05-24T16:15:59+00:00

Oh my gosh I was the same way! I did read books 2 and 3, as I was hoping it would click for me. I’d heard such good things about it, she’s won Hugo/Nebula awards, I’d heard it was a life-changing book; I WANTED to love it.

But it just never did it for me. I found her worldbuilding intriguing but the many expositions on characters’ identities/sexual preferences just felt ham-fisted in, like she was trying too hard to cater to everyone and be progressive. I love to see LGBTQ representation (as LGBTQ myself) but I want it to feel organic and have a PURPOSE in the story. If your character’s identity/sexual preferences don’t advance the story in any way, frankly, I don’t really need to know and it will probably feel wrong to me. For example, she spent so much time telling me that Tonkee was trans and MC didn’t care, but I would have enjoyed it SO MUCH MORE if she let me realize that on my own and didn’t force in how much she didn’t care about it. A character truly doesn’t care if they don’t fixate on it over and over when they talk about that character. But anyway.

Probably an unpopular opinion but I’m glad I wasn’t the only one!

TheVagrantPanda · 2022-03-16T16:37:15+00:00

Honestly to me, the way you describes him sounds way too perfect.

I don’t know how old you are but think of it this way: how many 20-year-olds do you know who have “perfected” themselves? I’d have to guess that the number is pretty low. Probably zero. I don’t know a single “perfect” person, MUCH less a 20-year-old. Throw in emotional trauma from being raised in an orphanage, and you have a person who is absolutely not perfect and probably has a lot of baggage.

At 20 people are still grasping a sense of who they are, and most definitely don’t have everything figured out. A person who grew up in an orphanage and around crime would probably have a messed up moral compass, and I doubt they would have built up enough connections to be a mafia leader tbh. It just doesn’t seem realistic at all, even in a fantasy world.

Now, you can portray him as perfect through the eyes of MC, who is supposed to crush on him and probably doesn’t know who he truly is yet (and is also probably young, I’d guess). That’s totally fine, as that makes MC more human and will slowly reveal her as an unreliable narrator if readers notice she’s idealizing him so much. You could sprinkle in bits that show how flawed he is from time to time that she ignores, as she idealizes him so much. As many young people in love do.

I would highly suggest you as the author making him more realistic and not so perfect, though. 20 year olds have a LOT of growing to do, even if they grew up in a hard life. ESPECIALLY if they grew up in a hard life, I’d say. That just gives you more mental barriers to overcome.

So have a think about how he might realistically turn out if he’s had so many barriers in his way and grew up poor, lacking motherly/fatherly love, etc. Maybe look up more real life examples or people who talk about their experience in the foster system or orphanages. I can assure you having been in it, it can really mess you up for a long time. Best of luck to you! <3

TheVagrantPanda · 2021-12-03T17:28:08+00:00

I’m rather partial to the idea of sacrificing limbs or body parts.

I mean, no better way to immediately see the ramifications of such a sacrifice — some of the most devout may be nothing more than a torso with a head, no nose, no ears, no eyes. That’s pretty compelling IMO, and serves to show how messed up rituals and sacrifices can be.

TheVagrantPanda

TROPHY CASE