Salem Fox

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Fox

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Cicada
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Salem Fox

#1

Post by Cicada »

Name: Salem Fox
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Parties, socializing, cheerleading, meme culture, anime, webcomics, pool, journalism, watching competitive sports, politics and public policy, academics.

Appearance: Salem stands at 5’8” and weighs 130 lb. on average. His body is slim as he does not easily hold onto fat. He has a low waist-hip ratio due to having a narrow waist, a naturally large and muscular rear, and proportionally long legs. He has hands that are small for a boy his age and BMI.

He has a triangular face with a small jawline and pointed chin, and has a generally smaller looking head when he wears bangs. His eyes are a warm brown and naturally expressive. His eyebrows are naturally strong in shape and lush. The bridge of his nose is slender and the bulb likewise small. His lips are full. His platinum blond hair is naturally heavily curly without maintenance, and he keeps it this way, wearing it in a bob down to the start of his neck with a slightly wider flare at the bottom than top. With some effort he could look fairly similar to his sister California in face, minus the scar and ear injury. He speaks with a voice that is light in timbre and low in pitch.

He is unafraid of bold, fashionable colors. He is notably feminine in his fashion, being willing to wear skirts and dresses in daily settings, and he is skilled with the application of makeup, though he rarely elects to use it. On the day of the abduction Salem was wearing a layered off-the-top blouse with the top half navy blue, cropped to show the second layer of plain white extending to the hip. He was wearing a ruby red ankle-length high-waisted skirt, the skirt having pockets, with a faux-silver chain decorating the right pocket. He was wearing black Converse with white sole trim and white laces.

Biography: Salem was the second child born to Orion and Virginia Fox, born August 19 approximately two years after his older sister California. He was in Salem, Massachusetts from birth, as both his parents were natives. He was quiet and studious, and early on had a naturally standoffish relationship with his peers. His parents were not inclined to notice this tendency, as he was at least more outgoing relative to his elder sister and her own socialization issues would take the bulk of their energy and attention.

His motivation in the early phases of his schooling career was deriving satisfaction from working hard. He was diligent with attendance, turn-ins, and regularly won praise from teachers. He was seen by all his teachers and other authority figures as more obviously motivated and more likely to succeed than California was, as his parents would confirm to him after parent-teacher meetings they only infrequently attended.

He thought little of it personally and rarely considered comparisons to his sister, extending into a more general tendency in his life to rarely compare himself to others. He was rarely interested in others’ opinions and interests, and for a long time he was not particularly aware of his sister’s development as an artist. The siblings’ mother would take them out on regular trips into the music scene of Salem the city, but Salem the boy never developed the same sort of affinity for music that his sister did and he often was found reading ahead for class backstage instead of taking in the atmosphere.

While he never absorbed the praise of his teachers he did take their opinions of his future into mind, and his teachers in elementary school often served as mentors instead of his more lackadaisical and carefree parents. He would ask for their advice regarding pursuing extracurricular activities, and thus he was from a young age involved in writing for his school’s paper.

He enjoyed the activity, but in an introverted way, developing a reputation as quiet and liable to reply in brief and blunt ways to peers. He wrote proficiently for his age, but with a dry and disengaging tone. He preferred interviewing adults, who were less tedious for him to relate to than people his own age. It was his teacher’s influence that developed his sense of ambition towards a focused goal, as they insisted he had potential and he took them at their word. Teachers would offer to let him skip a grade almost every grade that he was in elementary school, but he found the idea unnerving as it was a form of losing control of his situation. From a young age he was quietly stubborn about doing things his own way, and began to learn to politely put aside advice that conflicted with his own vision.

He nursed a vision of himself starting an influential company or getting into politics. He didn’t understand at that age that he was lacking in the sort of social affinity he would need to reach his lofty ambitions. He got good grades and was clearly motivated in a precocious way, but was too reclusive otherwise.

In the second grade his older sister got held back a grade. His parents hired tutors, but were at a loss for how to emotionally connect to their reticent daughter. They eventually asked Salem to help with watching over her thinking his being her age would help them reach a common understanding. Salem did so reluctantly, not too keen on applying himself to help someone he didn’t feel much connection with, and unsure himself of how to connect with California at first. He observed her withdrawn, artistic nature, and got along with her by at first feigning interest in art so that he could be in her good graces and help her organize her study schedules and remember assignments.

As he continued to spend his extra time with her however he found that he began to understand things more from her viewpoint. Despite having functionally taken on the responsibilities of elder sibling, Salem found California influenced him more than he did her. Since she was herself not very talkative, Salem found it easier to develop an appreciation for her hobbies in mutual silence, as opposed to how he tended to have to politely ignore and tune out his more talkative peers to maintain his mental energy. He developed an admiration for her skill and demeanor, and started to understand what companionship could offer him.

For Salem friends became an understood means of having fun, and he didn’t develop a deeper interest in others than getting to explore others and how they could entertain him. He made a good cadre of friends from the third grade onward. Where there were social conflicts he was quick to try and take both sides and to be placatory without actually trying for conflict resolution. He still lacked the developed empathy in depth to feel that his friends’ issues were his own, and was simply interested in friends for the sake of entertainment. That would lose him individual friends often enough that he was used to bouncing around between friends groups to avoid drama, and he never stuck to one group long enough to develop a lasting connection with the hobby that united the group.

He kept to his role writing for the school paper for the remainder of his elementary school years, but now consciously used it as an excuse to talk to others and took the actual job less seriously. Writing reports on sports became his go-to, as he could discuss what was occurring from a technical level without getting too in depth in terms of finding the words to express himself, and he could ingratiate himself with his athletic peers.

He would go to music shows with his older sister primarily to keep an eye on her, as he personally was only mildly interested in California’s scene. The responsibility he felt for her did not extend far outside of his personal comfort zone of academics and making sure she didn’t clam up around others. For example, he was disinclined to say anything when California began to pick up smoking despite his personal leeriness of the hobby on her health. He ended up leaving the intervention up to his parents and casting it from mind when they failed to force her to quit.

At shows he picked up on pool, and enjoyed it alongside his sister as the two made for a skilled duo when coordinating and the irritation of friends she would hustle entertained Salem. He was not as good as her and would only rarely play the game without her in the future, especially as her reputation for being too good at the game preceded her and clung to him which caused other pool players to be leery of him in turn. He still finds the pursuit calming, and often the most opportune time while playing to do his usual checkups on California’s school performance.

He rarely ratted her out to their parents for slipping grades or other poor performance, merely offering his advice and assistance while preferring to not make a big deal out of his responsibilities. He was disinclined to judge California, and Salem indeed held her in high regard for being one of the only people he felt he actually understood without it being too annoying and difficult to get close to them.

Friends introduced him to anime in the sixth grade and he developed a natural affinity for the medium that led to him freely consuming it even without the input of friends. The exaggerated personalities of the characterizations in anime appealed to him by being less tiresome to sort out than the nuances of real life and he was the sort starting from his tween years to more fondly regard characters in anime than real life. He had a particular affinity for lightweight harem anime like Nisekoi and comedy series like Nichijou and Devil is a Part Timer.

He became a regular of the school’s anime club and attended conventions, along with a large collection of posters and figurines he is proud of showing off as a semi-ironic gesture. His interest in pursuing ambitious self-improvement was not a factor in his enjoyment of the anime medium. He does not entertain any interest of being an influencer or content creator despite his strong engagement with the larger culture surrounding Japanese media including virtual YouTubers and associated Twitter culture.

His love of anime immersed him in internet culture, where he started on Reddit to keep up with new series and rapidly expanded. He gathered memes and humor from any source he could find on the internet and honed his own ability to create memes that he’d start to share on Vine and later TikTok. In particular he enjoyed webcomics quite a bit, semi-ironically indulging himself in the tail end of the Homestuck fandom during its waning years when he was in middle school. He was the one who introduced California to the idea of developing an online presence with her own webcomic. He was an early fan and content creator and remains a moderator in his sister’s Discord to this day.

Puberty did not especially masculinize Salem as he graduated into high school, which drew bullying and teasing, but he found the disrespect more entertaining than anything. He leaned into rumors that he was gay and began to take on the internet aesthetic of being a femininity as a man. If he lost any long term friends for being increasingly liberal with his self-image he found it bothered him little. He became a large consumer of controversial humor at the source, including on 4Chan, and so on, and was well read enough to come up with his own brand of caustic, generationally appropriate humor. He wasn’t particularly witty and his generally quietness remained even as he was so socially active; he reused others’ jokes, and played off his own clumsiness as part of his charm.

He remained educated enough to have strong political opinions. He considers himself a cynical leftist, and his opinion of most of his generation would be considered condescending. He is aware of the people he can talk politics with and is unafraid of being controversial in his disdain for modern leftist media and politics, along with his own plans for the future that involve playing within the system as a reformist. These people aside, most who don’t look too deeply past his party boy persona see only his leftist in-jokes on social media. He particularly enjoys this online aesthetic and does not see the hypocrisy in speaking out in both ways.

He began to seriously think about his future once more, now that he was confident in his social standing and had plenty of friends to organize hang-outs with or ghost at his leisure. He joined John Endecott’s school paper, writing for the sports column as he was known for by then, but he also began writing online blogs and in the local paper under a pseudonym, once more deep diving into his old passion for politics and history when he had alone time. This is another aspect of his interests that he only brings up if asked, not particularly interested in showboating to gather attention.

He became rather proud of his feminine aesthetic, finding it a natural fit with his mind opened to the many possibilities of queer expression, much as he was ultimately sure he was a straight cis male at a fundamental level. He joined the cheerleading team in his freshman year, laughing off disrespect from his peers and owning it to an extent that the confidence largely cemented his reputation in a positive way. His friendly demeanor and accessible, never confrontational and relevant, fresh sense of humor earned him invites to parties, even from upperclassmen. Salem found he enjoyed parties as the main medium for his more outgoing shenanigans, as he could be spontaneous and meet many people without too many expectations of his precious time. He became a regular guest on party lists, especially as he was open-minded enough to personally blur the lines between different social groups.

His reputation in school was well defined early on. He had a reputation for flirting and subsequently being flaky as he rarely followed through, his personal goal being merely to get to know people and enjoy their reactions. Some knew him to accidentally lead others on, even other men, as he was a bit too eager to enjoy the attention. He tried to be kind enough to not let things get too far, but he remained self-centered and he often vanished and ghosted when he ran into complications. Even when he was forgiven he was rarely forgotten, and he cultivated a reputation for being unreliable and dumb in most matters that weren’t being a good buddy and going along with anything for the hell of it. His academic performance was strong but he kept his head down and made no mention of it.

He was more conservative with actually dating girls, as even when there was mutual attraction and chemistry he would find the process of compromising himself to make things work taxing and tiresome. As of his sophomore year he has engaged in two long term relationships, with the latter extending to present day. His relationship with Ashlyn Graves is a positive one for him that he feels little need to leave, as she has earned his respect with her intelligence, their shared interests, and her own confidence that allows them to not lean too heavily on one another.

He would retire from the cheerleading team in his junior year to maintain his extracurricular ambitions as they got more intensive, though cheerleading remains a favorite sport of his due to his personal involvement and ability to understand what is going on at a deeper level beyond his usual technical comprehension. His writing style as a journalist remains brusque and focused on accuracy and explanation over embellishment, and he has had the opportunity to interview political figures of local import, along with being more active in Democratic political groups. He is neutral to the emotive activism common to the modern party, skeptical of the modern structure of many activist groups, and advises other ambitious friends on how to avoid sketchy figures he has met in positions of authority.

When Salem entered his junior year, California suffered a car accident that forced her to miss months of school. He helped her extensively during this period, but she was ultimately forced to repeat another grade. Salem found that he was less concerned this time by her once again dealing with social withdrawal. To the extent that he trusted her as his older sister and one of the few people he felt comfortable not having to try hard to be charming around, he also trusted that she knew what she was doing more than she herself reflected this in her own deteriorating mental state. In this regard his lack of conflict resolution skills let him down as he was unable to make tough choices on her behalf or bring himself to even recognize her being so worse off. To him everything has already gone back to normal, though on some level he does feel guilt for being incapable of emotionally doing more, much as he's virtually her only source of scheduling and responsibility.

He is strict with his schedule given his well organized nature, inclusive of his social life and partying. His presence in John Endecott remains generally well-liked, but often not too deep into any one social group. The general pleasant shallowness of his relationships leaves plenty of time for his few close friends and their interests. This select group is essentially just his sister and girlfriend. He avoids peer drama by walking away from it rather than looking for resolutions. In his mind, the school is large enough that losing some friends is no big deal.

It also leaves the time for his own personal interests, and he is almost mechanical in watching and finishing new season anime and webcomics recommended by California, though his personal enjoyment of the medium remains strictly in consuming with no interest in applying his talents as any sort of content creator. On the other hand, with social media as prolific as his are he spends increasing amounts of time producing his own memes, mostly on Reddit and TikTok. Like many humor content creators most of his work receives little traffic but he is proud of it. At this point the benefit of trying things out before he uses them with friends at school is secondary, as humor is its own reward for him when he gets to engage positively with others without being burdened by their neediness and demands on his attention.

He is now increasingly into sports statistics, an offshoot of his extensive following of political pundits who perform elections analytics such as the writers of FiveThirtyEight. It gives him something more stimulating to consume sports events for besides his job with the school newspaper, and now he finds himself increasingly tuning into bigger televised events such as the Super Bowl and Major Leagues so he can crunch numbers. This has produced a newfound appreciation in him for sports overall, as he now has learned to appreciate sports from a birds-eye perspective of team management as opposed to his lesser interest in individual player skill.

He is positive to his parents, grateful for the opportunities they’ve provided him and disinterested in contemplating how their lack of authority in their children’s lives led to California’s issues while growing up. He was accepted to Georgetown on an early track admission, but declined it as he decided it was the inferior option. He has well-developed plans and the work ethic to go to a less noteworthy school instate, allowing him to focus on his career in journalism. He has high hopes of landing an internship with a prestigious publication like Vox or the Huffington Post, and already has made some of the necessary professional connections. His closest advisors among his teachers have tried to encourage him to maintain backup options, but he will only listen to their opinions when it suits him.

Advantages: Salem will typically be underestimated by the majority of his peers, as his deceptive reputation as a shallow and airheaded party boy precedes him with most. He is naturally disciplined and studious and will be able to approach anything he intends with good planning and organization.
Disadvantages: Salem has low patience for most in conflict situations and is naturally avoidant, so group tension will be something he will struggle to navigate and resolve. He looks down on others and will likely underestimate others capability and motives in dangerous situations. His reputation is a double-edged sword, and he will likely lack authority and trust in most situations and the ability to easily acquire it.
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#2

Post by backslash »

We meet again. As usual, Salem looks good and is DENIED pending some adjustments and grammar cleanup.

I'll say up top that Salem's profile is a tad over-written. There are parts where it gets rather purple prose-y, and others where there is far too much slang and internet lingo for the profile tone that we go for. An example of the former:
He knew people well enough to, in his opinion, believe his typical peer was insufficiently competent to be the vanguard of an anti-capitalist revolution as is the present day vogue of aesthetics, much as he otherwise found their company pleasant.
I'm sure there's a way to say that Salem is socially savvy enough to not believe the average teen will be able to head a capitalist revolution in about half as many words and plainer language here. That's not the only sentence where this is the case, but it's one of the big ones that jumped out at me. I recommend doing a general proofread again as you do your edits and trimming things down where the sentences start to run long or get extra wordy.

I don't really understand why Salem feels he has to dumb himself down in order to interact with his classmates, and why he hides his more intellectual nature. This is referenced several times, especially in the context of him embracing meme and internet culture, but I don't get why. It seems that when he started being more social during elementary school, he did just fine without having to conform too strictly.

This leads into another question I have, which is why he pretends to be more radically leftist and communist than he actually is. I may be a bit out of touch with the teens of today, but I don't think that serious understanding of communist and socialist theory and commitment to those ideals on a political level is actually a big enough movement that Salem would be ostracized from his social circles if he didn't pretend to be into it, especially if this was taking place during late elementary school and middle school, well before many young people start developing a solid political identity.

This is the biggest sticking point I currently have with Salem; the point is made throughout the profile about how he is just far too intellectual and enlightened for kids his age and their interests and such. It makes me question why, if his teachers also seem to think this is the case, he wasn't accelerated in school or it wasn't suggested that he go into some kind of alternate gifted program. I'm confused about the whole "double life" angle to begin with, because there's really no reason why someone can't be both good at academics and also social with their peers. As it's currently written, this feels like a weird false persona for Salem to have adopted very early on in life, at an age when kids just don't tend to go about things in this complex of a way.

I think the conflict between Salem's natural inclination for school and his desire to also have a lot of friends and all the benefits that come with it can certainly work, but at the moment, I feel that it needs a bit of a rework to not be this double identity dilemma so early on in his life, on top of all of the other things he has on his plate already.

The mentions of Salem having poor emotional intelligence, including in his disadvantages, stands out to me in relation to this. If for most of his life he's been doing this bit of forcing himself to be more outgoing and interact with lots of people, as well as trying to act as a mediator between friends, it seems that he would in fact have rather good emotional intelligence to be able to navigate these situations constantly.

Since this is more or less the crux of the character and his advantage and disadvantages center around it too, I don't have a lot left to say on the content until some kind of adjustment is made. The rest of the biography generally looks good, though I would like to know Salem's feelings on California's car accident and her being in the same grade as him now because of it. That's a pretty major life event for both of them.

Spelling/grammar:
It was his teachers' influence that developed his sense of ambition towards a focused goal,
He still lacked the developed empathy in depth to feel that his friends' issues were his own.
That would lose him individual friends often enough that he was used to bouncing around between friends groups to ‘avoid drama’,
Remove quotes.
Writing reports on sports became his go-to,
rapidly expanded outwards into being a fully terminally online creature.
This whole part of the sentence here needs to be reworded without slang to fit profile tone.
He leaned into rumors that he was gay and began to take on the internet aesthetic of being a femboy.
Similarly, "femboy" is too colloquial a term for profiles.
In this regard he found it a good thing to keep consuming the shitposting, post-ironic style increasingly popular on his social media feeds and his mindset began to align with this,
And again with "shitposting".
and so on, and was quick-witted enough to come up with his own brand of caustic, generationally appropriate humor all the while.
For the most part he would be considered too disinterested in intellectual pursuits by most to have a genuinely thoughtful opinion beyond his leftist shitposting on social media,
Again, do not use the word "shitposting" here.
but certain people in school find him to be more aware of how things work- he can show off his more intellectual side at times, but only in a superficial way that still conceals the actual depth of his comprehension.
Change that dash to a period and make the part after it a separate sentence. Normally a semi-colon could also suffice, but the entire sentence preceding that part is long enough.
Some knew him to accidentally lead others on- even other men, as he was comfortably straight but a bit too eager to enjoy attraction from other men.
Change this dash to a comma.
though he cannot elucidate the reasons for why he feels this one has long-term potential
The names of school years like "freshman" and "sophomore" don't need to be capitalized.
The general pleasant shallowness of his relationships leaves plenty of time for his few close friends and their interests- his sister and girlfriend, mainly.
Also change this dash to a comma.
He was accepted to Georgetown on an early track admission, but declined it as he decided it was too much effort: both due to his desire to keep up appearances as not being too ambitious, and for practical reasons as he believes he has the work ethic to go to a less noteworthy school in state and to focus on his career in journalism.
Something weird happened with the punctuation in this sentence. I'm not sure what that colon is doing here, and the sentence in general runs on.

That's what I have on this first go. Post in here when you've made the changes and you know the drill, we'll take Salem for another round!
"Art enriches the community, Steve, no less than a pulsing fire hose, or a fireman beating down a blazing door. So what if we're drawing a nude man? So what if all we ever draw is a nude man, or the same nude man over and over in all sorts of provocative positions? Context, not content! Process, not subject! Don't be so gauche, Steve, it's beneath you."
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Cicada
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Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2018 11:51 am

#3

Post by Cicada »

[+] changelog
Think I ended up emphasizing the wrong character traits while I was struggling through the profile in varying states of sleep deprivation- AKA, my usual fare come island time.

I’ve decided primarily to drop the aspect of Salem that focuses on living a ‘double life’ of sorts- he’s not trying to be duplicitous about his being intelligent or his political leanings but he never feels the need to bring it up, and around most people he uses his more shallow emotional tendencies to the extent that most people think this is all there is to him. No need to live a double life if he simply never bothers to show off. It’s less complex as he’s not cultivating this sort of personality on purpose, it just naturally results from his two conflicting sets of interests and disinterest in explaining himself to others.

With what you had in mind for how he doesn’t particularly lack EQ I think my rewrite instead puts focus on how Salem doesn’t have the patience or real, sustained interest in others to be capable of putting time into cultivating relationships beyond shallow and fun. He makes many friends but would never be able to truly rely on most of them, and will probably drive them off with his general disinterest in playing nice or being helpful when it doesn’t suit him. His interests in being friendly are hedonistic and self-serving.

Notes on what is added/removed as a result of this refocusing:
  • He no longer hides his interests in anime and politics, but he feels no particular loyalty for the friends he makes here above any others he makes.
  • In general I’ve veered away from the sense that he’s purposefully cultivating a false persona to explain away his conflicting interests and perspectives and I lean more into Salem brushing off controversy and being lackadaisical enough in most settings that peers generally don’t look too deeply into him as a person.
  • Politically I describe him as a burnt out leftist now- he admires the theory but not the practice or the people he’d have to call allies and he considers himself the person playing the smarter, more realistic game in his future plans for adulthood. As such he also doesn’t hide his engagement with local blogging and politics anymore, but again he doesn’t bring it up of his own accord and most people probably wouldn’t guess it of him given his daily persona.
  • He was offered the opportunity to skip grades from time to time when young but declined it, part of the point here being that he’s particular about doing things his own way and within his comfort zone even when straying out of it will advance his ambitions otherwise.
  • As it’s not an advantage, I’ve tried to emphasize that Salem is not actually proficient socially more so than he naturally has a genial personality that is likable. He has issues with intimacy and consistency as already mentioned, and I’ve made expanded onto a point that he often can’t express himself in an eloquent or charismatic way despite his natural intellect. He’s less witty now and more just willing to laugh at himself and go with the flow to where most will feel comfortable with him.
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#4

Post by backslash »

Okay, it looks like a lot of the issues were taken care of! There are still a few things to address.

What does Salem actually enjoy about memes and internet culture outside of anime fandom? I see how it influences the way he presents himself, but right now it is mostly referenced through the lens of his other hobbies and interests, rather than being something he is interested in as its own thing.

Similarly, I don't see Salem having much actual interest in watching sports outside of his continuing interest in cheerleading. Sports only come up as something he enjoys talking about with others because he doesn't have to be that into it in order for it to be easy small talk.

What are Salem's thoughts and feelings about California's car accident, and the results of her having to repeat her senior year, putting her in the same grade as him now? Again, this is a major event that would have affected Salem and his whole family very significantly. Has it changed his relationship with California at all?

Spelling/grammar:
He was rarely interested in others’ opinions and interests, and for a long time he was not particularly aware of his sister's development as an artist.
His interest in pursuing ambitious self-improvement was not a factor in his enjoyment of the anime medium and he does not entertain any interest of being an influencer or content creator despite his strong engagement with the larger culture surrounding Japanese media including virtual YouTubers and associated Twitter culture.
Can we cut this sentence in half or at least get some punctuation in there or something?
He wasn’t particularly witty and his generally quietness remained even as he was so socially active- he reused others’ jokes, and played off his own clumsiness as part of his charm.
Change this hyphen to a semi-colon or period.
He began to seriously think about his future once more, now that he was confident in his social standing and had plenty of friends to organize hang-outs with or ghost at his leisure.
The names of school years like "freshman" do not need to be capitalized.
His reputation in school was well defined early on. He had a reputation for flirting and subsequently being floozy as he rarely followed through,
"Floozy" is a noun (and a rather archaic one, referring to a prostitute or "loose" woman). I think the word you're looking for here is "flaky" or something along those lines.
The general pleasant shallowness of his relationships leaves plenty of time for his few close friends and their interests- his sister and girlfriend, mainly, and he avoids drama by walking away from it rather than looking for resolutions.
Again change the hyphen here to some other punctuation. Personally I'd make that a comma and end the sentence after "mainly", but just rearrange this somehow so it's not a split run-on sentence.
He has high hopes of landing an internship with a prestigious publication like Vox or the Huffpost,
Refer to Huffington Post by its full name here rather than a nickname, as this is the first time it has been named in the profile.
His reputation is a double-edged sword,
That's it for this round. You know the drill, post in here when you've made the edits, and I will look at Salem again!
"Art enriches the community, Steve, no less than a pulsing fire hose, or a fireman beating down a blazing door. So what if we're drawing a nude man? So what if all we ever draw is a nude man, or the same nude man over and over in all sorts of provocative positions? Context, not content! Process, not subject! Don't be so gauche, Steve, it's beneath you."
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Cicada
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Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2018 11:51 am

#5

Post by Cicada »

There will never be punctuation again!!
[+] changelog
It also leaves the time for his own personal interests, and he is almost mechanical in watching and finishing new season anime and webcomics recommended by California, though his personal enjoyment of the medium remains strictly in consuming with no interest in applying his talents as any sort of content creator. On the other hand, with social media as prolific as his are he spends a increasing amounts of time producing his own memes, mostly on Reddit and TikTok. Like many humor content creators most of his work receives little traffic but he is proud of it. At this point the benefit of trying things out before he uses them with friends at school is secondary, as humor is its own reward for him when he gets to engage positively with others without being burdened by their neediness and demands on his attention.
He is now increasingly into sports statistics, an offshoot of his extensive following of political pundits who perform elections analytics such as the writers of FiveThirtyEight. It gives him something more stimulating to consume sports events for besides his job with the school newspaper, and now he finds himself increasingly tuning into bigger televised events such as the Super Bowl and Major Leagues so he can crunch numbers. This has produced a newfound appreciation in him for sports overall, as he now has learned to appreciate sports from a birds-eye perspective of team management as opposed to his lesser interest in individual player skill.
When Salem entered his Junior year, California suffered a car accident that forced her to miss months of school. He helped her extensively during this period, but she was ultimately forced to repeat another grade. Salem found that he was less concerned this time by her once again dealing with social withdrawal. To the extent that he trusted her as his older sister and one of the few people he felt comfortable not having to try hard to be charming around, he also trusted that she knew what she was doing more than she herself reflected this in her own deteriorating mental state. In this regard his lack of conflict resolution skills let him down as he was unable to make tough choices on her behalf or bring himself to even recognize her being so worse off. To him everything has already gone back to normal, though on some level he does feel guilt for being incapable of emotionally doing more, much as he's virtually her only source of scheduling and responsibility.
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#6

Post by backslash »

APPROVED
"Art enriches the community, Steve, no less than a pulsing fire hose, or a fireman beating down a blazing door. So what if we're drawing a nude man? So what if all we ever draw is a nude man, or the same nude man over and over in all sorts of provocative positions? Context, not content! Process, not subject! Don't be so gauche, Steve, it's beneath you."
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