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snippychicke · 4 years ago

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Dedicated to @unbiddenrhythm for getting me hooked on this seriously rare-pair. Although our Assistants have slightly different names, Rea is heavily inspired by her head cannons, so she's like, 99% hers.

This started out as a short drabble for OTP prompts, and just...evolved. the prompt was: Which one gets jealous more often.

Short answer: Rea does, partly because she often feels like she Reeve is far out of her league.

Long answer: well, this:

Fluffyish piece of ReevexAssistant below. Mentions of jealous, hints of slight sexual harassment (not between the main couple). Spoiler free!

Oddly enough, Rea tends to get jealous more often.

Reeve Tuesti was really the poster boy of Shinra directors. Granted, compared to the other three males that made up the board of directors, it wasn't that surprising. Anyone would look good compared to Palmer, Heidegger, and Hojo.

The only other Shinra Executive the gossip columnists wrote more about was Rufus, and since his assignment to Junon and virtual banishment from Midgar, he had been forced to the limelight. Leaving Reeve to endure the spotlight and rather unwanted attention.

Rea knew she shouldn't be reading the trashy magazines that were little more than fluff pieces that barely disguised Shinra propaganda. But when Reeve was on the latest cover, it was hard for her to resist. Her official reason was to study the gossip and figure out if she needed to give the poor man a heads up about the latest rumors (like when they published his favorite cafe and the 'fans' were flooding to the small cat cafe in Sector 3 to catch a glimpse) or start counter-arguments derailing the misconceptions that tended to sprout from time to time (like that he was yet another Shinra bastard son).

It was just a coincidence that the side bonus was to be able to.study her boss's appearance without the risk of being caught. (Not that the paparazzi ever got a picture of his true smile, or really captured the small little glint in his eyes he got when he was amused. But they did get a rather good side profile when he was jogging on the treadmill on the rec floor that she was rather fond of.)

However, this time the articles left her more than a little disquieted. It was a special edition covering President Shinra's birthday party from the weekend prior. It had been a through who's-who affair, with everyone dressed to impress. She skipped over the details of the designers, and briefly wrinkled her nose at the image of Hojo and Palmer and their suits. Not even the best tailors in the world could make them half-decent, though she questioned who thought to let Palmer wear a suit that was a rather gross mix of brown and green that reminded her of things that belong in a toilet.

She did have to admit lingering on the first couple images of her boss in the well-fitted black suit made his long legs and thin form even more prominent than usual. The remaining articles that weren't dedicated to praising the President were focused on the Urban Development Director…

...and questioning his relationship with Scarlett.

Nearly every picture had the two in close proximity, and in more than a couple, Scarlett was hanging from Reeve's arm, a sultry smile on her shimmery lips and a smug look in her eyes that made something akin to anger flare in Rea's chest. As if the older woman was looking straight at her and boasting at achieving what Rea could only dream about.

Looking at those pictures...Rea had to admit to the small ember of jealousy that burned in her stomach. She wanted to be able to wrap her arm around Reeve like that. To gaze up into his eyes and see that warmth and tenderness looking back at her.

And unfortunately for Rea, the rumors of Reeve and Scarlett spread like wildfire through Shinra's fertile grapevine. Sure Scarlett was a few years older than Reeve, but many people pointed out that it wasn't that much of an age gap. Then there were the counter-arguments that she had undeniable looks and 'experience', musing maybe it was something right up the soft-spoken man's alley.

The conversations down that particular path made Rea feel physically sick. Few were privy to just exactly how ruthless and abusive the lone female director was, and she had a hard time thinking anyone would find that...attractive, let alone her boss. Granted Reeve did his best not to speak too poorly about his peers, but she was sure she didn't imagine the scowl that graced his features whenever he returned from meetings with her. She had thought that Reeve disapproved of such things...but all the pictures of the two together and the gossip that followed suit made her start to question that maybe she was wrong?

It made her question if she was reading all the signs between her and her director wrong. Over the last few months, she had started hope that maybe this feeling wasn't quite as one-sided as she had first thought. But maybe he was just being kind and helpful and she was just seeing things through rose-colored glasses. Maybe she wasn't at all his type.

And if Scarlett was his type...did she really know him that well?

"Oh please," Reeve groaned, making Rea jump slightly in her chair as he entered the office and caught her flipping through the infamous magazine, "I will literally buy you a fire materia if you promise to burn that wretched thing.

"Sir?" She squeaked, not used to hearing him speak so...candidly. Never through the months of her 'research' had he commented so negatively. Usually, it was a bemused 'really?' Or a 'what are those scavengers lying about now?'

"Those pictures of me and Scarlett," he gestured tiredly. "I swear I am going to retch if I see another one. First I had to endure her pawing at me that entire night, and the nightmare only continues. 'Older and experienced, ha!' The woman is a money digging cougar."

Rea bit her lip trying to contain a smile as that sickly feeling evaporated. Everything suddenly seemed better, and the world once more made sense. Jealousy and doubt had really made her think crazy ideas. Reeve, interested in Scarlett? That was not the man she admired and respected. "...I do think they sell fire materia downstairs, actually…"

Reeve paused for a moment, his dark eyes meeting hers. His expression was serious, but she swore she could see some amusement and gratitude in them."Don't tempt me, because I don't know if I can resist."

Those words made butterflies flutter in her stomach, and she had to look away to regain her senses. The magazine was open to a page where Scarlett was pressed against his side, her cleavage prominent, and now she could see the reserved annoyance on her Director's face as he pointedly looked away from the woman. " ...usually I wouldn't condone such acts, however, this time is a little different." Rea gave a small impish smile as she looked back at him, and was delighted when he started to grin back at her.

"You, my dear, are the best," there was a pause as he glanced at the offending text. "...would you think any less of me if I asked you to use my account to buy the last of those magazines? I could reserve the SOLDIERS' VR training room for after hours. I think it's fireproof."

Rea was shocked by his words temporarily before realization sunk in. He really hated the rumors floating about him this.time, and it struck a nerve. Righteous anger flared along with determination.

"It would be my pleasure. In fact, I'll split the cost with you."

---

It was close to eight at night, and the bonfire of every magazine they could find reached into the simulated night sky. Was it petty? Possibly. Poor use of time to go to every floor and search for every copy they could find? Absolutely.

Did she regret any of it? Not a bit. She felt younger, lighter as she and Reeve snuck about after hours, taking turns keeping watch as the other sifted through the magazine in the numerous lounge areas, stuffing the offending copies into a bag.

Neither were very surprised when the reached the archives, and one of the many library bots merrily greeted them with a stack of magazines. "Scarlett is a whore," it chirped innocently, making them both break out in surprised laughter.

"You know the techs still don't know how or why those bots are 'faulty'," Reeve said as they left the archives, the thick stack split between them.

"Grandad mentioned they keep trying to fix them," she hummed. "Mr. Hart has caught newbie techs trying to hack their system so many times he thinks its a hazing rite."

"I wouldn't put it past them. Their funding for AI is geared towards military purposes, but many of them are interested in creating true Artificial Intelligence. And well, their programming was actually the basis for my own side project."

"You keep hinting at your side projects," she pouted playfully, feeling daring. "But you never talk about them much."

There was a playful light in Reeve's eyes as he winked down at her. "Maybe one of these days I'll introduce you."

---

While the techs of the VR room did give them odd looks, nothing was said as they brought in the bags of magazines and Reeve asked them to generate specific coordinates before they entered.

It always amazed Rea to watch the silver room give way to the virtual reality. The ceiling rippled into a cloudless night sky, the steel floor becoming gently rolling hills that led to a picture-perfect sandy beach. She could even taste the salty air of the ocean as the waves gently crashed near her feet.

"Where are we?" She asked as she helped pile the magazines into a decent mound.

"A beach not far from where I grew up," he answered easily, surprising her. "I spent many nights here stargazing when I was stuck on problems when I was younger. I admit, when I'm facing a challenging situation I'll use this place after hours to help brainstorm. It's still not quite the same though. Usually, you would be able to hear crickets chirping and the occasional seagull."

"Sounds beautiful." Rea pulled the new fire-materia from her pocket and held it kut to him once he was finished organizing the magazines into a suitable pile. "I believe you should have the honor, sir," she insisted when he hesitated. "All things considered."

He looked at the small green orb twinkling with an inner light, illuminating her plain but well-manicured nails. He placed his hand over hers, enveloping the materia.

"How about we do it together?" He offered. "Granted, I haven't dual-casted since I first learned how to use materia, but I think we could manage it."

Rea was thankful it was dark enough to hide the blush she felt creeping across her cheeks as she shifted to stand next to Reeve, their fingers brushing as they cradled the materia. "One...two…" Reeve counted, and on three she felt the magic flow into the materia. Dual casting was usually only used to teach another person how to use materia, because you had the odd sense of the other person's magic, and it was often too distracting to focus.

And it was very distracting, as well as oddly intimate to feel his magic mix with hers as fire erupted from the magazines. His careful arranging assured an even and thorough fire that reached up to the stars.

"I didn't think this would be this relaxing," Reeve admitted as they watched the pages begin to curl. While their arms were no longer stretched out, neither seemed willing to let go quite yet.

"Fire is rather cleansing," Rea replied softly, wondering if it was wrong of her to feel a little smug. Scarlett may have pushed Reeve into allowing her to hang off him against his will, but here she was, more or less holding hands with him...and he didn't seem at all bothered by her close proximity.

"It is… thank you," he added a moment later, looking down at her, his soft expression lit by the flames, "for indulging my moment of insanity."

"Happily sir," she tried for a light tone while her throat was blocked by her heart. Gaia, she though, he was handsome like this. Hair just a little messy, the weight and stress lifted from his shoulders and a true smile pulling at his lips. He looked so...happy. Content. And she was at least partly responsible.

Take that, Scarlett.

There was a long pause before Reeve cleared his throat. "So, um, I heard one of the techs from the science department had asked you out the other night."

"Oh, yeah." Rea wrinkled her nose at the memory of the man she had barely met trying to pressure her to go kut on a date when she had turned down all his subtle advances before.

"How did that go?"

"Mm, it didn't. He's not quite my type."

Rea was sure she imagined the relieved sigh and his shoulder relaxing. "Ah. Good. Well, I mean, I'm glad you know what your type is," he quickly added on, sounding a bit flustered, making her raise a brow. "It's good to know that. I think."

Rea laughed as she looked over at him, wondering if his cheeks were pink due to the fire. "What about you, sir? Do you know your type?"

He paused, his eyes meeting hers for a long moment. "I think I'm finally figuring it out."

"But it's not Scarlett?"

That made him laugh, the rich sound flowing over her along with the sound of the ocean waves crashing against the sand. "Oh Gaia, no. Absolutely not! The woman I like is...kind, and caring. She always puts others before herself, and can be a little bit of a hypocrite for lecturing others on their workaholic behaviors."

Rea's heart thumped in her chest and tried to keep her mind from jumping to conclusions. She forced herself to focus on where the tips of the flames met the night sky. "Sounds less like a type and more like an individual, sir."

"Yeah, maybe," he admitted quietly. A peek towards him revealed he was still looking at her with that expression from before. The same expression she had daydreamed of since this infatuation of hers begun.

Surely not. Surely she was just seeing things through rose-colored glasses again. Except his hand drifted from the materia to brush shyly against hers, almost to ask for permission.

Only to drop away as reality forced its way back in, the sky and ocean disappearing in a violent ripple. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?" A scientist barged in, using a fire extinguisher to put out their makeshift bonfire as the two jumped away from each other. "YOU JUST CAN'T BURN THINGS INSIDE THE TOWER! WHAT WERE YOU TWO THINKING?!"

#Reeve Tuesti #reeve #Director Tuesti #Final Fantasy 7 #final fantasy 7 remake #Reeve x assistant #Cait sith is briefly hinted at #So is Mayor Domino

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nautiscarader · 5 years ago

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Glitch Techs - review

Okay, so I’ve finished the Glitch Techs, and it was... profoundly okayish. Some spoilers below.

The show is an average buddy friendship team-up where two teenagers learn lessons while going on wacky adventures. Except there are also computer games everywhere that glitch ALL THE time, and into our world, no less, so the company that makes them, Hinobi, needs a whole heap of tech teams, called Glitch Techs to defeat and contain these glitches Ghostbusters-meet-Men In Black-style.

Before I continue, I should disclose some biases: I don’t consider myself a gamer. I occasionally do play games, but I most certainly am not obsessed with them, and I didn’t grow up with retro consoles like NES and Genesis actually Xboxes are considered retro now. Wow, I’m old.

I also might have a slight allergy to the fad of pixelation that has been going on for the last decade or so. I’m not against it, but... Come on, people, we have anti-aliasing. And vector graphics, which are superior anyway.

So, as you might expect this show didn’t exactly “click” with me, and the final element that made me take so long to finish it was the lingo. Oh dear lord, the cringy, cringy lingo.

See, Miko and Five don’t go to work, they “do quests” to “get EX PEE”, by defeating an “NPC” that “aggro’d” on them and then they can exchange said XP for “power ups” when they “level up”. Could they be any less subtle?

I mean, imagine a show about people working in a pet shop, and when they go out, they go “in herds”, refer it to a pizzeria as “a waterhole”, and their leader is “an alpha”, it would be a bit over the top, wouldn’t it?

Once I take those annoying parts from the equation, though, we get a rather standard show for kids. We have an episode about lying, about working in a team, about not pretending to be someone else, taking care of your pets, you know the drill. Some episodes were painfully predictable, though. In Castle Crawl, for example, that broken sword, described as “the worst weapon” was a perfect example of Chekov’s gun, but with extra Bethesda floating quest-marker pointing to it in case you missed it. It was still funny, though.

I also have to admit, though, they nailed the depiction of the e-sports obsession .

It looked as ridiculous in the show as it does in real life. Also, I thought they would address more gaming-related problems, like lootboxes or microtransactions. They kinda touched the subject of pre-ordering craze, but not that much.

The animation is pretty good, typical for western cartoons, with occasional dive into anime-inspired madness, and its style benefited the fast-paced nature of the chases and battles.

Also, even though it’s full of used tropes, the friendship between Miko and Five, as well as Miko and her incredibly extended family was very well done. Her parents sure had lots of DLCs (see? annoying!).

The quote-unquote douchebag villain was delightfully facepunchable, and I am looking forward to seeing him got punished more.

Also, in episode 2, we got a glimpse into a potentially darker storyline featuring a LEGENDARY glitch urban legend, so that better be good.

But there is one thing that really irked me, and it’s that I don’t think the show really understood what potential video game glitches can be.

A glitch, as a concept is amazing. And the idea of something like that happening in our world is fascinating. Computer programs are ruled by logic and math, so an error there can turn the world upside down - literally, sometimes - create effects so random and unpredictable, decided by machine’s relentless dedication to doing its job, your brain cannot comprehend them.

And in the show it was all boiled down to random monsters showing up in the world. That’s Pokémon Glitch Go, they even parodied it with Flunkies.

Which is ironic, because one of the most famous glitches, MissingNo, comes from Pokémon, and if they did that, I’d be madly impressed. Imagine if someone’s pet turned into A BLOCK OF PIXELS OR A SKELETON OF KABUTOPS.

Hell, when it comes to glitches, Matrix did that better years ago. That scene with a deja vu cat? That is a glitch. And an even better job of depicting glitches was shown in an animated short “Beyond”, a part of “Animatrix”, and anthology of shorts in Matrix universe, which I cannot recommend more. It is a fantastic movie.

In this short, a woman finds an abandoned creepy house, where Matrix has glitched, and it causes temporal and spatial anomalies: lack of gravity, localised rain, time distortions, etc.

That’s what a glitch could do if it leaked into our reality!

(oh and BTW, Thor 2 stole that whole short and put it into the opening scene when Jane finds the Dark World thingy in that abandoned tower, and I’m still mad about this).

I would be okay with video game monsters escaping, if the carnage they did matched with the abstract nature of glitches: give me buildings that suddenly are made of hot-dogs instead of bricks because the tile palettes were swapped. Give me a coffee machine spawning endless coffee because the end loop command was never executed properly. Give me a person who suddenly knows what the person next to them is thinking due to memory OVERFLOW. That would be interesting!

And instead we have a bird that vomits pixels.

...which, you know, would be still weird, but not very creative. On occasions they brushed that pure abstract madness of glitch art, but nowhere near close as I expected.

Also, I have to ask: this company, Hinobi... They have portals.

And can spawn items.

And can create virtual reality.

And can erase memories, through tv no less.

...what is stopping them from overthrowing all the governments, exactly? And if you tell me that is a higher level quest, I’m gonna strangle you with my mouse cord-wait, no, I have wireless one, dammit.

Also, for an organisation who has a dedicated glitch-capturing team, their tech glitches itself A LOT. Hm. Maybe that’s what stopping them...

Watching this show gave me a major “Cyberchase” vibe, but I was fine with that, since it was an old show that taught you math, so I was willing to see past the clichés there, or the fact that they referred to “cyber space” as real space, and what do you mean it’s still going. “Wander of The Yonder” was cancelled after two season but this thing is still on air since 2002 what the FLUNKY DETECTED!

So, yeah, not a huge fan of this show, but from what I understand, there are more episodes done and some potentially in making, so maybe it will get more interesting. And the game parodies were clever enough for me to get lots of laugh, so, as I said, it was o͓̳̩k̔a̯̭̭̻̤̗͌̓̎̽ͧ͒y̻͔͓̞͙̻̩ͪ͌.̭̯̼̞̇

See, even I can do that.

#glitch techs #glitch techs spoilers

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vmohlere · 5 years ago

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More Infinite Coffee Q&A

@musings-on-bucky-barnes had some more questions from last year’s Q&A, and after AGES of procrastination on my part, here’s the first set of answers. Also on Ao3.

· When does Pepper teach Bucky to wink?

I have no idea! That’s not one of the little details that my brain bothered to supply.

Or perhaps he saw her do it (to himself or someone else) and decided to copy it.

Very possible! Barnes definitely watches Pepper closely, because he considers her a reliable source for acceptable social cues.

· Reactions of the Tower residents and other friends when Bucky recovers enough to start grinning and winking? (We know that Natasha said it makes him look epically hot!)

Pretty much the universal reaction to being grinned at by Barnes for the first time is being stunned and maybe a little turned on. Barnes doesn’t bring out the flirting that often – most often with the Olds and the folks at the Lucky Carp, because of his comfort levels – but Barton and Sam flirt with him pretty shamelessly, trying to get him to smile. Hill has been known to save up a particularly juicy smart comment so she can make it in front of him. And Tony would deny it forever, but once Barnes laughs softly at something during arm maintenance, he ramps the Tony Show up to 13 to try to make Barnes laugh again.

And also what about flirting at and with Steve? Lucky Steve would get the full force of it when they’re together.

Prior to Upgrade: Advanced Happiness Skills, Barnes only flirts with Steve when it’ll cause maximum embarrassment and/or make Steve drop something heavy onto his own foot.

· The reactions of the others to Steve and Bucky being together? We get to see the main Avengers and the Olds react, but not Pepper, Maria, Bruce, Katie, Peggy and the Carp clan.

Hill yells at them for ruining No-Touch Valentine’s Day, but come on – you know she’s delighted. Especially since their timing meant that neither Barton nor Tony won the betting pool for how long it would take. (Pepper won, because she picked the date Nat told her to).

The others might complain that the bet is then null and void because Nat had insider information ;)

Who would dare complain (to her face)?

Mr. Hayashi blinks at them for a minute, until Kazue fusses at him for being old-fashioned.

How does he then react?

Oh, he’s fine, just momentarily surprised.

Katie cries with happiness, and Steve’s a sympathy crier, so that’s a very damp conversation.

Bruce notices. Eventually. (Nah, I kid – all the Tower residents saw this coming miles and miles away.)

So that means that they are good at keeping their poker faces, as Bucky says in Advanced Happiness Skills that none of them (apart from Nat) noticed and that they appeared to be morons. (Which could mean that HE was so happy and distracted that he was actually the unobservant moron!)

Correct.

Sadly, I’m not sure that the Peggy in this world would be mentally together enough to hold onto the news. But her objective was always that Steve be safe and happy.

· Steve and Peggy’s relationship - how it was affected in the period after Bucky’s ‘death’?

I don’t have anything for this. Just thinking about it makes me so sad, though.

It is ironic that Bucky remembers more about Steve’s sex life than his own, like Steve & Peggy in the room in Lyon. Poor Bucky…

Oof, his own sex life has a lot of stuff he didn’t want to remember, so he walled off all of it.

Steve’s reactions to knowing that Bucky loved him and was jealous of Peggy

Capt. Compartmentalization took that knowledge and tucked it very far back in his mind, bringing it back only when he wanted to torture himself by feeling guilty about it.

Will Steve and Bucky discuss Steve’s feelings/guilt about how he felt he let Bucky down during WW II?

Oh, sure. They live for a very long time, and eventually, they talk all of it through.

· Other Tower residents & Olds after Bucky has been shot

Widespread frantic worry. There’s a phone tree for updates. Barton remembers to add the Hayashis to it.

Steve’s reactions to wounded Bucky’s ramblings – including the ‘you’re my favorite person’ comment

Well, you know, Buck was just as high as a kite there, couldn’t be held responsible for anything he was saying, and there definitely was no teeny tiny little part of Steve that had been in love with Bucky Barnes since he was 15 years old that was 100% thrilled.

· Does Bucky ever run into Tyler and Dale again? Or they recognize him on TV when the media realize Bucky is alive/helping the Avengers?

Oh man, I don’t know. I have thought about The Dale & Tyler Question a number of times, and I haven’t ever been able to decide what the funniest option is.

· Bucky’s next birthday – will he be recovered enough for a big birthday party of his own?

No, but I’ve just decided this minute that they rent out the Carp for the evening and have all the mission-assists for dinner. Barnes has to sit with his back to the wall near the front door, but he loves it.

· What made you decide to do Steve’s POV? It was the first look at Bucky from the outside in this series.

That section rose up and demanded to be written and fell out all in one lump. The only thing I changed while revising was to rearrange it a little. I really loved writing Steve’s voice.

· Tony’s reaction to someone apart from himself doing something risqué/scandalous (the skinny dipping)

He hates it, of course! While secretly loving it. Incapable of having a straightforward emotion, that one.

· Solo trips to the Carp by other Avengers

Oh, sure. They’re very good for that place’s bottom line. And Nat visits the Olds on her own.

· It seems that Ollie’s honey Wayne died not long before Ollie encountered Bucky for the first time. How did the Olds all meet? Did they know Wayne?

That must be so, given the way I mentioned things, but the timing wasn’t deliberate. Esther and Lidia had both lived in the building for several years, moving in when it was a much less dire place, and neither could afford to leave once it started getting bad. They were “nodding neighbors” until O’Reilly bought the place and started using it for nefarious purposes, and then they clung together for safety. Ollie moved in because it was what he could afford. They took one look at how sad he was and adopted him.

Eventually, all three of them move to California, because the NYC winters get to be too much for their joints, and Ollie’s family is so happy to have him more active in their lives, and they don’t want to be separated. Barnes is NOT a fan of the plan, though it’s what ultimately makes him stubborn about learning to make air travel okay.

That makes me sad and happy in equal measure. Tony would probably offer to do something whiz bang to the building’s heating, but a permanent move to warmer climes makes sense (and he and Pepper would make sure they got a great home). Hopefully Cat Eleanor likes her new home!

Yeah, they are all really happy in California. Ollie’s family takes them all in with open arms.

· Use of first names/surnames/nicknames and the importance of choice of which.

Like how you mentioned in a Tumblr post that you were very specific in Bucky’s use of Rogers, Steve and Stevie. And there is also how he only seems to prefer to let Steve say ‘Bucky’.

Using a first name is a sign of intimacy for Barnes. Surnames keep people at arm’s length – or, in Hill’s case, are a sign of recognizing one as an equal. His using “Steve” or “Stevie” means that it’s a moment of the programming losing power.

And yes. Only Steve can call him “Bucky.” Only the Olds can call him “Jimmy.” He thinks of himself as “Barnes.”

· How quickly did it take the Olds to realize that their mysterious new neighbor was Bucky Barnes?

A couple of weeks.

· Any more snippets of Cat Eleanor being her glorious cat self with the boys?

Oh man, I wish I had one for you, but I don’t.

They do eventually adopt their own cat, though, after the Olds move. His name is Jack, and he’s a hideous old grey thing with one eye. He and Barnes are devoted to one another. Jack tolerates Steve as a second-class roommate.

· In ‘This You Protect’, you mention that Barnes is somewhat of a prude when Steve trolls him by singing rude and yucky songs. Is that a feature of old Bucky or new Barnes or both?

Barnes

Bucky thought all those songs were hilarious.

· Recently you gave an intriguing one line summary about your original novel – please repeat that and tell us a bit about the genre, what stage it is up to, why you decided to write it.

oh jeez.

Did I say it was about a lady and her six werewolf boyfriends? I’m working on my query letter now, and I don’t know whether it’s urban fantasy—with—romance or paranormal romance, because marketing labels are a mystery unto me, but it’s full of jokes and people being dumb about their own emotions and baked goods. It’s definitely a coffeeshop AU, plus lots of boning.

It’s not high art, but I had a ton of fun writing it.

Honestly, I wrote it because I got mad at a bad fic (non-MCU) and decided I could do better. I will NOT link the fic.

· Tell us the story behind your choice of that Battle of the Planets art for your icon.

HA! I loved that cartoon when I was a kid. But mostly that picture just makes me laugh every time I look at it – it’s so cheesy. There’s something about the pose and the facial expression that I find hilarious, and I’ve used it for long enough now that it would be weird to change it.

xXx

#ICaPD #Infinite coffee #Barnes #This You Protect #owlet

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theliberaltony · 6 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Former Vice President Joe Biden joined the 2020 presidential field Thursday, immediately becoming its front-runner on the back of near universal name recognition and polls that regularly show him capturing around 30 percent of respondent’s support.

While many of Biden’s fellow Democrats openly welcomed him to the race, behind the scenes, several — including Sen. Cory Booker, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Sen. Kamala Harris and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke — began to fundraise off of the news, showcasing an awareness that the path to the nomination just became all the more difficult.

Here’s the weekly candidate roundup:

April 19-25, 2019

Michael Bennet (D) The Colorado senator tweeted last Friday that he “underwent a successful surgery” to treat his prostate cancer and “requires no further treatment.” Bennet previously said that he had been ready to announce a presidential run until he received the cancer diagnosis, but would still enter the race if he was ultimately declared cancer free. Joe Biden (D) The former vice president announced the launch of his presidential campaign Thursday after months of build up, releasing a video in which he said that “everything that makes America, America, is at stake” in the upcoming presidential election.

Biden’s first television interview will take place on ABC’s “The View” on Friday and then he will hit the road, making trips to Pittsburgh Monday, Iowa and South Carolina later next week, then Nevada, California and New Hampshire before mid-March.

He and his wife Dr. Jill Biden will also sit down with Robin Roberts, co-anchor of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” ahead of his Pittsburgh event. The interview will air on GMA Tuesday.

Biden’s campaign was immediately endorsed by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and all three members of his home state of Delaware’s congressional delegation, Sens. Tom Carper, Chris Coons and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester. Cory Booker (D) Booker became the latest Democratic presidential candidate to release his tax returns Wednesday evening, posting 10 years’ worth to his campaign website.

Though the New Jersey senator made only $152,715 in 2018 — on which he paid $29,446 in taxes and donated $24,000 to charity — he revealed himself to be relatively wealthy from years of accumulated speaking fees and royalties nearing $3 million total. The returns also showed fairly substantial charitable giving, with over $20,000 in contributions every year since 2012, including two years that topped $82,000 and $240,000, respectively.

At Wednesday’s “She the People” forum in Texas, Booker again pledged to select a female running mate should he be the Democratic presidential nominee. Pete Buttigieg (D) Buttigieg earned his first endorsement from a member of Congress this week, with Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia releasing a statement saying that he was backing the South Bend, Indiana mayor and comparing him to former President Barack Obama.

“I endorsed Barack Obama early, having been moved by both his intelligence and his political capability. I am similarly inspired by Mayor Pete,” Beyer said. “With him, I feel the promise of a new generation, and I see a way out of the darkness.” Julian Castro (D) In an interview with The New Yorker, Castro outlined his position on immigration, which has been the centerpiece of his campaign, explaining that he doesn’t believe those attempting to cross the southern border “are a national security threat” and that he found it “beautiful” “that people still see this country as a place of opportunity and safety.”

Speaking with BuzzFeed News Tuesday, Castro pushed back against the idea that Congressional impeachment proceedings would backfire on Democrats, saying that it was possible for the party to “walk and chew gum at the same time” �� holding Trump accountable while pitching their strengths ahead of the 2020 election.

Castro was the center of a humorous moment at Wednesday’s “She the People” forum in Texas, when he revealed that the event’s program featured a photo of his twin brother Rep. Joaquin Castro and joked that his brother “would say that’s a good thing because he’s better looking than I am.”

John Delaney (D) After President Donald Trump met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Tuesday and reports emerged that the president raised concerns about a dip in the number of his followers, Delaney called on Twitter users to unfollow Trump’s account, arguing that he “cares more about his Twitter followers than the American people.”

In a tweet, the former Maryland congressman said that Trump’s “continued dishonesty and weaponization of social media has been divisive” and that the reduction to his follower count would “hit him where it actually hurts him… his ego.” Tulsi Gabbard (D) The Hawaii congresswoman shared her belief that “it’s time for the country to focus on the issues that matter most to Americans” in lieu of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia after the Mueller report revealed “no collusion.”

“The conclusion that came from that Mueller report was that no collusion took place,” Gabbard said on Fox News Sunday. “Now is the time for us to come together as a country to put the issues and the interests and the concerns that the American people have at the forefront, to take action to bring about real solutions for them.” Kirsten Gillibrand (D) In an appearance on “The View” Wednesday, Gillibrand was supportive of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats’ efforts to subpoena key figures named in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, despite Trump’s insistence that they should not have to testify before Congress.

“The Mueller report was very damning,” Gillibrand said, adding, “If President Trump takes on Nancy Pelosi over whether he’s going to respond to her subpoenas, I will put my money on Nancy Pelosi every time.”

During the same appearance on “The View,” a day ahead of Biden’s official campaign announcement, she said he’s “going to have to directly answer to voters” on allegations of inappropriate touching. Kamala Harris (D) Harris received some criticism that she was too cautious during a CNN town hall on Monday, during which she repeatedly called for “conversations” and “debate” about a number of issues, including felon voting rights, the voting age, slavery reparations and student debt forgiveness.

The California senator did signal her support for impeachment during the event, arguing that the Mueller report presented evidence that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice, but said she was a “realist” about the whether the efforts would ultimately be successful, given Senate Republicans’ support for the president. John Hickenlooper (D) The former Colorado governor joined in calls for Mueller to testify before Congress in an interview with WBUR-FM, and, on evidence that Trump and his administration misled the public about contact with Russia, said that Americans should “expect more from our commander-in-chief.” Larry Hogan (R) Hogan, the governor of Maryland, continues to say that he is considering a Republican primary challenge of Trump, explaining at a New Hampshire Institute of Politics “Politics and Eggs” event Tuesday morning that people continue to approach him about the possibility.

“People have asked me to give this serious consideration and I think I owe it to those people to do just that. That’s what I’m doing,” he said.

Hogan was further critical of the Republican National Committee, which he said had “the right to support the sitting president” but shouldn’t “change the rules and… insist 100% loyalty.” Jay Inslee (D) The Washington governor penned an open letter on Earth Day to his fellow 2020 candidates urging them to support his proposal for the Democratic National Committee to dedicate one out of 12 planned primary debates to solely focus on climate change. Amy Klobuchar (D) In the CNN Town Hall hosted earlier this week, the Minnesota Senator said that Trump should be held accountable following the Mueller report, but she stopped short of calling for impeachment.

Klobuchar also hosted a meet-and-greet event in Lexington, South Carolina to talk with local residents about her positive economic agenda to move the country forward. Wayne Messam (D) Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam’s presidential campaign was undergoing allegations that his campaign staff isn’t getting paid.

According to a report published by the Miami New Times, an anonymous former campaign staffer said that a campaign team member sent an email to staff with the subject line “Notification of hold on paychecks,” which blamed the failure to disburse checks on Messam’s wife, Angela.

Messam, whose lawyers are reviewing the allegations, told ABC News that “an unnamed staffer making a claim like that can’t be validated.” Seth Moulton (D) The Massachusetts congressman officially announced his candidacy for president this week on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“And I am running because I am a patriot, because I believe in this country and because I have never wanted to sit on the sidelines when it comes to serving it,” Moulton said. Beto O’Rourke (D) Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, while speaking to the press at the “She the People” forum in Texas, joined some of his fellow 2020 presidential candidates by stating that he is willing to “rethink” the voting rights of non-violent prisoners.

O’Rourke will also be returning to Nevada for his second trip since announcing his candidacy for president to participate in various grassroots events across the state. Tim Ryan (D) Ryan, who as a sitting member of the House would be in a position to vote on impeachment, said this week that he doesn’t believe his chamber should begin proceedings against Trump, telling CNN that the House Judiciary Committee should continue to investigate.

“Let the Judiciary Committee look at this. There’s a process in place here. I trust [committee chair Rep.]Jerry Nadler, he’s one of the smartest guys in the United States Congress, I think that’s the natural next step and let’s see where that leads,” Ryan said. Bernie Sanders (D) During a CNN town hall Monday, Sanders shared his opinion that incarcerated felons should be allowed to vote, a stance that was met with immediate backlash from Republican Party officials.

“I think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy — yes, even for terrible people — because once you start chipping away … you’re running down a slippery slope,” Sanders said. “I do believe that even if they are in jail paying their price to society, that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy.” Eric Swalwell (D) Like Booker, Swalwell promised to select a woman to be his running mate, should he capture the Democratic nomination.

“I’ve pledged that I would ask a woman to serve as vice president,” he said in an appearance on MSNBC. “I would put forward a diverse candidate, and I would put forward policies that would make sure that inherent bias that exists, or discrimination that exists in communities, would be eliminated.” Elizabeth Warren (D) Warren was among the first presidential candidates to call for proceedings last Friday in the aftermath of the Mueller report’s release, tweeting that “to ignore a President’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would suggest that both the current and future Presidents would be free to abuse their power in similar ways.”

The Massachusetts senator released a proposal this week to wipe out student loan debt for millions of people and make public colleges free. Warren said that the plan would cost the federal government $640 billion, but be paid for by a tax increase on families with $50 million or more of wealth. Bill Weld (R) Weld outlined his campaign strategy in an interview with The New York Times, pointing out that independent voters can vote in the Republican primary in 20 states, including the early-voting state of New Hampshire and his home state of Massachusetts.

“If people speak to issues that are of interest to millennials and Gen Xers and suburban female voters, I think the size and character of the electorate who are going to be voting in the Republican primaries is going to be quite different than you get right now,” the former Massachusetts governor said.

Weld additionally revealed that he’ll campaign in California, Oregon and Washington in addition to heavy travel in New England and the mid-Atlantic states. Andrew Yang (D) A Yang rally in Los Angeles on Monday attracted over 2,000 people, his campaign claimed, and it’s the latest sign of widespread interest in a campaign once off most political observers’ radars.

At an event in Las Vegas Wednesday, Yang compared himself to Trump, explaining that like the real estate mogul in 2016, he plans to speak about issues and ideas that other Democrats are ignoring, highlighting automation as a threat to American jobs.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Adam Kelsey and Elizabeth Thomas

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near-springfield-mo-2-blog · 6 years ago

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Near Springfield MO

Springfield MO

Springfield, a city in Missouri, has been recognized as a “model community” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR). The city created an Environmental Quality Group (EQ) which is responsible for all environmental manners in cooperation with the Department of Environmental Services that protect, preserve and improve the natural resources of the city. To further enhance and protect the environment, the city’s Sustainability Office is offering outreach and educational programs for everyone that tackles topics such as air quality, vermicomposting and composting. A recycling program is also offered for homes and businesses.

youtube

Dog Gone Junk

Springfield, Missouri-based hauling services provider Dog Gone Junk is one of the leading companies in the junk hauling industry of the state of Missouri nowadays. The business success is driven by the hardwork and commitment of its founders Dominic and James Stevens. The team makes every service as transparent as possible to ensure customers that no additional and hidden fees are charged. More and more residents of Springfield are switching to Dog Gone Junk because of its very affordable service pricing, top-rated junk hauling services and responsive and professional team. If you have anything that needs hauling, call (417) 619-5230.

GRAB A BITE AT BRICKTOWN BREWERY

Not long after Bricktown Brewery (2040 E. Independence St., Springfield, 417-887-0100) opened in Springfield, I popped in for a visit with my husband and kids on a Sunday. We were there in time for an early dinner, but the place was already packed—bustling with noisy conversation and various sports that were broadcast on many, many screens. We sat down at a high-top, hungry and ready for some stick-to-your-ribs goodness. After our server brought us the avocado fries appetizer, giant plate of Nachosaurus nachos and cast iron skillet filled with steaming hot Green Chile & Chicken Mac and Cheese, we tucked in. Both the adults and the kids in our crew enjoyed the interesting takes on comfort food. The nachos were truly ridiculous—piled so high they toppled as soon as we dug in. But nachos are made to be messy and indulgent, and we loved every topping-heavy bite. My favorite was the mac and cheese, which had enough of a spicy kick to make things interesting, but not enough to send me to my water glass after every nibble. And although we all adored the fried avocado (so creamy!), their dipping sauces left a little something to be desired. All in all, our meal was delicious, indulgent and full of at least a few surprises. (Bonus fun fact: A couple of Bricktown’s own beers are brewed for the Springfield store at nearby Piney River Brewing Company, for a real Springfield infusion.) Read more here

Bricktown Brewery is the new favorite destination of individuals who want to have a taste of the mouth-watering Springfield food. The place is bustling with noisy chatters from families, colleagues, and friends who are enjoying a meal. Bricktown is serving avocado fries, cast iron skillet, and spicy mac and cheese. Nachosaurus nachos are also available which are specially made to be indulgent and messy. Bricktown Brewery is ideal for both kids and adults with its interesting choices of comfort food. A couple of beers served in the restaurant are brewed for a store nearby Piney River Brewing Company for infusion.

Rutledge-Wilson Farm Community Park in Springfield MO

Rutledge-Wilson Farm Community Park is a 207-acre farm which was created by the Springfield-Greene County Park Board. The community park features state-of-the-art amenities and fully-functional facilities including a farm-themed playground, an animal barn, and a fishing pond. Visitors can stop by or visit the community park’s visitor center and gift shops for gifts or souvenirs from the park. The grounds of the community park is consist of pasture land, plots for an urban community garden and a one-mile paved trail for biking, hiking, and walking activities. Rutledge-Wilson Farm Community Park is located at 3825 West Farm Road in Springfield, Missouri.

Link to map

Driving Direction

17 min (7.7 miles)

via E Sunshine St

Fastest route, lighter traffic than usual

Dog Gone Junk, Springfield, MO 65804, USA

Take S Oak Grove Ave to E State Hwy D/E Sunshine St

3 min (0.9 mi)

Follow E Sunshine St to W Bennett St/W Farm Rd 146 in Campbell No. 2 Township

14 min (6.3 mi)

Follow W Farm Rd 146 to Stonehinge Dr W in Campbell No. 2B Township

1 min (0.5 mi)

Dog Gone Junk

"2742 E Meadowmere St,

Springfield MO 65804"

#Near Springfield MO #Springfield MO

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friendlyneighborhood-writer · 2 years ago

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4, 7, 11, 12, 14, 20, 25, 26, 34, 36, 43, 44 for the ask game :3

Holy crap, Timi, you went for it! Thanks for the ask <3

4: Have you ever been published, or do you want to be published?

I had an opportunity to be featured in a short story anthology, but I decided not to because the publishing company didn't sit right with me. It doesn't exist anymore either, so I'm guessing that was the right call?

I do want to be published some day!

7: Standalone or series?

I want to stay standalone, but almost every standalone I write ends up getting a sequel because the characters refuse to let me go lol

When it comes to reading, however, I do prefer standalones.

11: Books and/or authors who influenced you the most

JULES VERNE

You wouldn’t guess it if you looked at what I write nowadays, but way back in the day when I first got serious about writing, I was writing sci-fi and adventure stories. So Verne is kind of what got me (back) into writing.

I think Cassandra Clare and her The Mortal Instruments series was what first got me writing urban fantasy, which is still one of my favourite genres to write today, so there’s that.

I think that’s about it, though

12: Describe your perfect writing space

Somewhere desolate but with an amazing view. I’m thinking like, a little house on the beach, all you gotta do is take the stairs down and you’re by the water. But it’s far away from people so no one will interrupt you.

But really, as long as I’ve got somewhere comfortable to sit, I can write anywhere lol

14: How do you deal with self-doubts?

By reminding myself that someone looked at 50 Shades and decided that was good enough to be published, so my writing can’t be all that bad.

20: How many WIPs and story ideas do you have?

Oh boy. Uh. Okay, let’s see.

I have… 4 WIPs and like, a dozen ideas?

25: Favourite part of writing

Remembering that this is a world and these are characters that I created out of thin air. It really does make you feel like a god lmao

26: Favourite writing program

I just use Word lol

34: What was the hardest scene you ever had to write?

Right, okay, so you might have seen me mention a story called Bad Moon Rising. It was a queer supernatural thriller that I wrote about four years ago? Anyway, I ended up turning what was supposed tone a short story into a full-length novel, which I finished two years ago.

There’s this scene near the end of the first part where the MC’s boyfriend has a breakdown in the shower after he kills someone that was absolutely heartbreaking to write. It’s a really sad thing because throughout the entire story, you get to know Noah as this really sweet, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly kinda guy, and then it turns out he’s the killer (though he’s being mind-controlled and doesn’t realise it for the longest time). It was fun to write but also really hard.

36: Last sentence you wrote

Okay, here's the last line I wrote for a story that I plan to majorly rewrite. It's called How Not To Be A Necromancer, and I can't wait to give it another shot because the characters have been in my head for, like, a decade!

If life made sense, then Ebony would be alive, after all, or I would be dead alongside her.

43: What do you do if/when characters don't follow the outline?

I let the story be for a bit. Sometimes I get an entirely new idea that fits the characters better.

44: How much research do you do?

It always starts out as “oh yeah I’ll just look this up real quick” and two hours later I have seven new tabs open with things to look up lmao

So yes, I do quite a bit of research

#asks #writing asks

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lumionblog-blog · 6 years ago

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Drone-to-3D workflow for architectural visualizations

Architects and designers often need to know how a design will be incorporated into its real-life location, while clients and “non-architects” turn to photorealistic visuals (images, videos and more) for a deeper, more visceral understanding of the project and the architect’s intentions.

Story by Pjotr van Schothorst, Lumion ([email protected]).

Nesselande Project with context made from this drone-to-3D workflow.

While working in Lumion, features such as OpenStreetMap (OSM) and satellite ground planes can provide some context for your design. They are suitable options for quickly building urban or rural environments relevant to your project’s location, but they’re also limited.

For instance, OSM only provides rough building shapes, rendered white, and the satellite maps are flat, often outdated, and the resolution is too low for client visualization.

NYC skyline with context provided by OpenStreetMap, rendered in Lumion 8.3.

This all got me thinking — there has to be a better way to improve fast context-building without having to sacrifice photorealism. I investigated several options, starting with Google Maps and Google Earth SDKs, but these services do not allow their data to be used outside the scope of Google Maps and Google Earth, such as for architectural visualization.

One solution is to create a 3D model of the environment using a series of photographs taken by a drone. This technique is sometimes used at construction sites to monitor progress, but it is not yet widely used for architecture design and visualization.

To test its viability, we used a drone-to-3D workflow for several real-life design projects. From our experiences, we derived a workflow simple enough to be used by architects (and not only 3D specialists). Using a modern drone and the software RealityCapture, it is now possible to capture an area of 300x300m and create a textured 3D model of sufficient quality for presenting a realistic background for your Lumion visualization.

Oh, and you can do all of this in one day.

Workflow Summary

This summary is a condensed version. Click here for the full drone-to-3D workflow story (PDF).

Step 1: Buy a Drone.

Drones are getting cheaper, smaller and increasingly powerful by the minute. For this workflow, I used the DJI Mavic Air. It costs $800, weighs less than half a kilo and it can fly for 20 minutes on one battery. The DJI Mavic Air can also cover a distance of 10km and make 4K video and 4000x3000 images with good resolution. This is adequate for our purpose of creating 3D environments as a backdrop for architecture design or visualization.

10-inch tablet and tablet holder next to the DJI Mavic Air.

Also, I’d recommend that you buy some extra drone batteries and, if needed, a 10-inch Android tablet.

Step 2: Capture Drone Images.

Using a special app on your tablet for controlling a drone, e.g., Drone Harmony, the second step is to capture images around the area of interest.

The Drone Harmony app lets you draw the area of interest on a map, and then it calculates the flight path of the drone, capturing images automatically with a 60% overlap from the previous shot. This overlap is needed for automatic 3D model construction.

Example flight path in Drone Harmony.

Do five runs of the same flight path above the desired area, but make sure you assign a different camera angle for each flight. For instance, you can fly the first run with the camera pointed down and the other four runs with the camera tilted at 45 degrees. Each run takes 7 to 15 minutes, so the entire flying will take about 1 to 1.5 hours overall.

Step 3: Enter images into RealityCapture (RC).

While there are many different software programs for compiling drone images into a 3D model, I found RealityCapture as the best option. RealityCapture automatically aligns all of the images and then it creates a 3D model, adds textures and inspects the model’s quality. This literally takes a few minutes of manual work, and a few hours at most of background processing by the RealityCapture software.

Constructed 3D model after RC aligned and processed the images from your drone flights.

Step 4: Cut out the lesser detailed areas and unwanted objects.

If the quality of the model is OK, the next step is to cut out the lesser detailed areas and unwanted objects, and then simplify the 3D model to a smaller model. Depending on the model’s size and complexity, this can be anything between 30K and 1M triangles.

Cut out a specific area where you will insert your CAD building or spaces.

Texture the model again and export it in an FBX format. Cutting and simplifying the model takes between 20 minutes and one hour.

Step 5: Import the model into Lumion.

After importing the 3D drone model into Lumion, you can dress it up with trees, cars, people, furniture, etc. You can also import your design from SketchUp or your CAD/BIM program (Revit, 3ds Max, AutoCAD, Rhino, etc) on a separate layer. Make renders and animations.

Westpoint Apeldoorn Project, rendered in Lumion 8.5 after going through the drone-to-3D workflow.

This typically takes anywhere between 15 minutes and several hours.

If you want the full story, with detailed information and tons of great images and videos, check out the full Drone-to-3D workflow (PDF).

Testing the Workflow on Real-Life Projects

I used this workflow for several projects. One is a test project of a beach and dune area featuring an existing Lumion example house. The following two are commercial design projects from local architects. These are briefly described in the next sections.

Beach and Dune Area

Test project. Existing Lumion beach bungalow added to a 500x500m captured beach area near The Hague, The Netherlands.

Animation of the Dune and Beach Project

Nesselande Project

Private house design on a small island in a new residential area near Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Architect: Studio Aaan.

From the architect: “The house is located on a private island in a new urban development close to the city of Rotterdam. The house is oriented towards the new park located on the next island southwards. In order to be able to enjoy the views, the living areas are projected above the surrounding dike levels and the sleeping areas are located below. The lower floor is half sunk into the island and is organized around two patios. As a structuring design principle, the roof consists of expressive wooden beams in a dense pattern. The beams create a canopy on the south facade as well as a characteristic interior ceiling.”

Studio Aaan’s private home design (center right) in a 3D model of the real-life neighborhood of Nesselande, The Netherlands.

Nesselande project detail

Nesselande project interior

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Nesselande project animation

Feedback from the architect, Hilbrand Wanders, of Studio Aaan: “For any architecture project, but especially a private, freestanding housing project, the interaction of the building with its surroundings is crucial. We want to study the project as an architectural object on its location, but also want to consider how the surroundings are experienced from the interiors. Only once a house is finished and the owners move in, one can precisely see how certain trees are creating shadows in the house, what objects in the surroundings are blocking views from a certain position, or how window openings are positioned relative to window openings of the surrounding buildings. These aspects are highly influential on the living qualities and are difficult and too time-consuming to model by hand completely early in the design process. It is very interesting for a designer to consider the correct 3D environment from the first moment on, to test the first design-ideas within a correct 3D surroundings, but also to communicate these to a client in a very clear and tempting format. In the case of this project, the fact that the views on the site were blocked by surrounding dikes, were the reason to place the living rooms on the first floor. All other design steps (bedrooms around patios in souterrain, the stepped garden wrapped around the house) were consequential to this notion.”

Westpoint Apeldoorn Project

Refurbishment of an existing office building into 98 apartments, each with a balcony, in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands.

Architect: Paul Spaltman

Paul Spaltman’s design of a refurbished office building in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands.

Another aerial render showing city context created from the Drone-to-3D workflow.

Front of the Westpoint Apeldoorn Project

Animation of the Westpoint Apeldoorn project:

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Feedback from the architect, Paul Spaltman:

“Even though the 3D scan isn’t completely perfect, I can say that it offered an enormous additional quality and offered many new options. The fact that my design was embedded so clearly in the environment is an added value, not only during the design, but also during presentations and discussions with the customers, governments, and local citizens or whoever is involved. My client called that he is really positive about my design, and he will now discuss it with the city council (landscape, urban design, review etc.). The plan to replace the existing building is a sensitive topic with the people living in the area, so everybody is super critical. The 3D scan of the environment will play an important role in this approval process.”

Cost Overview

The following table sums up the software and hardware components I used. Other components may be needed, with additional costs, as well.

Creating your own 3D environments with drones

My experiences have shown that creating 3D environment models from drone images is very straightforward and feasible for any architecture design visualization.

The investment in time and money is relatively low, and any architect can do it without extensive training and/or the need for a 3rd-party service provider. The resulting models have value both in the design process (Lumion LiveSync) and for communicating with clients and other interest parties, like the city council and local citizens (Lumion rendered images and animations).

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rndyounghowze · 4 years ago

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Estrogenius Dancers Leap Over Our Expectations

These dancers conquer multiple arenas whether stage, film, or the streets. @frigidnewyork

By Ricky and Dana Young-Howze

Estrogenius Festival

Review 130

When I was a freshman in college the most I had ever thought about dance was maybe the Rockettes or high school dance team. I knew dance steps but I didn’t know all that the art of dance actually entailed. Five years later after being immersed in a theatre and dance program I got about twenty years of knowledge poured into my brain. I left with two things of absolute certainty: I did not have the wherewithal to be a dancer and I definitely had a mad respect for dancers and their artistry. I feel like dance is the more ancient and purer art form than theatre. That’s why when I saw the awesome work of dancers in the Estrogenius Festival Hosted by Frigid NYC I knew I was in dance heaven!

Estrogenius has featured many dancers during the first half of their week long festival. Since many of the event have featured the same dancers showing short pieces in different venues we thought it would be better to write one review about all of them. I could seriously write volumes about every artist in here but this way we give you a more comprehensive look.

Nature Duet with Katherine De La Cruz and Valentina Bache

In a fresh scene of nature these two dancers glide through space keeping very natural silhouettes almost paying homage to the rocks and trees around them while still wearing black to signal that they are still in an urban space no matter what this oasis suggests. The two dancers show some very intriguing artistry where they move beyond choreography and move into emotion and expression. A great sign of a good artist.

I loved the compositions and stage pictures that they explored in the space. Site specific and strange spaces are some of my favorite artistic endeavors. While I felt that the camera was not one hundred percent on the audience’s side perhaps that was a choice of the artists to create a feeling amongst us. Whatever happened I would have liked to see more opportunities explored in the space between the two dancers, what happens if they meet? What happens when they are very apart? Is there any pull between them at all?

Rebecca Fitton: Reclaim

This heavily edited short film follows Fitton as she performs in many different places. In this film she talks about what follows us? What personal baggage, history, and tradition do we drag along after us? The juxtapositions seem to show rituals from Fitton’s personal life as an Asian American. In it we see a depth of design and motion and everything done is way too full of meaning that I haven’t even been able to unpack yet.

This is exactly why I hardly ever use the words “like” or “understand” or “get” as a reviewer. You can like something but never know why it spoke to you. You can hate something but still be deeply touched by it. There were so many heavy themes all through out this work that I don’t even know if I’m equipped to know it all yet. Even if I didn’t “get” this work right away I did feel like that was part of the challenge of the piece. Fitton issues a challenge to all that watch to reflect on their own personal baggage and to examine what they have trailing behind them. Maybe your baggage is keeping you from accessing the piece correctly. Maybe your baggage is what makes you beautiful. The answer is up to you.

Alli Berowski, Valentina Bache, and Portia Wells LIve in the Square

These three dancing in a near empty square was well worth the time. In front of this stoic columned building (it’s probably famous but I’m not a New York native so I wouldn’t know) they each performed a piece that they had prepared. All three were appropriately masked and socially distanced and I could only imagine making art right now right in the middle of a city where a majority of the performing artists that live there are unemployed.

I feel like the best dance has both weight and a “present-ness” to it. When a dancer is playing the pauses and taking each step as if it’s in the moment, as if choreography doesn’t even exist. You find that your start holding your breath or better yet breathing with the artist. Each move has this internal logic where one thing follows into the other. Each of the dancers embodied that spirit and I thank them for letting me share their breath with them.

One of my favorite dance terms is “ballon” which is that illusion that when a dancer is leaping that they almost float in mid air. I like to think that term also applies to the way that for a skilled dancer that gravity seems to bend around them and the laws of our world don’t apply to them anymore. Dance may have been used in religious ritual for centuries because of this very concept. I appreciated the artistry and the magic that each one of these artists displayed over the course of this festival. They’ve definitely gone on my must watch list. Please try to see them before it’s too late.

To learn more about this show go here.

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We graciously accept all donations to our Venmo (@rndyounghowze)

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#theatre #nj #theatrelives #nj travels #theatre review #frigid nyc #nyc #estrogenius #dance

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juniperpublishersjcmah · 5 years ago

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Lovely by the Water- Reflections on the Pleasures and Benefits of Doing Qigong in Natural Surroundings

Qigong and Nature are intertwined. The image of water is omnipresent in Taoist philosophy as Taoist sages believe we are always immersed in Tao that our lives are spent in this moving river of life. Images of trees usually willows situated near water their branches moving in the gentle breeze permeate the ancient texts which guide Qigong practice. While there has been considerable research recently on Green and Blue Spaces on exercise in general however, there has been very little modern research on the health or any other benefits of practicing Qigong outside in natural surroundings. This article offers a commentary on the experience and perceived benefits of practicing Qigong in natural surroundings. It presents 20 years of teaching Qigong classes in Natural surroundings through the eyes of my students and of Qigong colleagues around the world and places these in the context of academic research. It concludes that the ancient Taoist and Buddhist master’s perceptions written many years ago are correct. The quality of the experience health benefits, and the energy accrued from Qigong is enhanced by practice in nature.

Keywords: Qigong; Health; Wellbeing; Nature; Water; Forests; Green space; Blue space;

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Introduction

Context and limits

I retired from full-time University teaching 3 years ago. One day I sat down and realized I have been offering Qigong classes for over 25 years and outside in natural surroundings for more than 20 years. As I started to reflect on this. I decided to write an article about this topic. My intent was to gather personal anecdotes about my own experience and the experiences of my students and Qigong colleagues around the world about their perceived benefits of practicing Qigong in natural surroundings (by/over water amongst trees in fields on hills/mountains etc.) and to put these in context against a backdrop of academic research drawn from international studies on health benefits of Qigong and of being in Nature. I sent a brief note to my current and former students and to a few other colleagues around the world. I asked each of them:

“are you able and willing to contribute some personal anecdotes-a few lines (or more if you wish) about your own previous experiences practicing Qigong in natural surroundings. This could be about what you felt or saw and/or about any perceived benefits you experienced”. Their comments are recorded verbatim indented and in italics in the text. However, what follows is not a research paper per se but rather focusses on personal reflections on my own journey through both Qigong and research and the experience of others who engage in Qigong practice within nature Foot note.

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The Road to Qigong for Healthy Adults

I have practiced Japanese and Chinese Martial Arts for over 50 years. In 1993 I met my current teacher Master George Ling Hu [1]. In 1994, Master Hu encouraged me to offer Qigong and Tai Chi classes for adults. I began very slowly but offered both Tai Chi and Qigong. I quickly realised that while Tai Chi was more recognisable and thus more popular it was also more difficult for participants especially those who attended classes only sporadically. Participants who attended only 3 of 10 classes and those who did not practice forms outside of class time were not only frustrated but also frustrating to participants who attended regularly and practiced dutifully outside of our class meetings. Qigong on the other hand was easier for students to pick up and attend classes as their schedule allowed. Also, I was drawn more and more to its benefits for health. In part this is because it is easier to begin and practice as there is less to memorise but also because in my opinion the benefits to participants were more tangible.

In the past 25 years I have offered regular weekly Qigong classes for adults in many diverse locations including among other spaces: a small pharmacy a large university gym a portable ‘Nissan Hut’ various Yoga studios and even a realtor’s office in various communities throughout Ontario Canada. In addition to my regular weekly classes I have run weekend classes and Train the Trainer workshops and programs based on these weekly classes at various locations worldwide including Australia, China, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa & the UK

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Qigong in Natural Surroundings: Research as Context

While the term “Qigong” is a modern construct many of the methods that are used today are derived from age-old Chinese traditions-most notably Taoist & Buddhist longevity (so called immortality) techniques, meditations and martial arts training exercises [2]. The monasteries of Wudang (Taoist) and Shaolin (Buddhist) feature prominently in the history and practice of what has come to be known as Qigong. Wudang Temple was situated high in the Wudang mountains and Shaolin Temple high in Song Mountains. Each in their own way exemplified and in modern times inform the idea of practicing Qigong outside in Nature. In researching this article, I was initially struck by the paucity of research connecting natural surroundings and Qigong. True there are references in several ancient texts to the value of practicing amongst trees or on mountain or by lakes and there are some modern articles primarily in health blogs that follow the same line. However, I found almost no research qualitative or quantitative specifically linking the health or any other benefits of practicing Qigong outside in natural surroundings. However, the therapeutic value to Human Health and Quality of Life of “Green Spaces” (i.e. woods and natural meadows, wetlands as well as urban parks and sports fields) and “Blue Spaces” (i.e. waterfront parks, harbors, ports, marinas, rivers, open air streams, canals, lakes, ponds and fountains) and especially their inclusion within urban environments is well documented [3-7]. Research in this area is extensive and ranges from studying the effects of simply spending 5 minutes in an urban park to the practice of Shinrin-yoku (bathing in the forest atmosphere or taking in the forest through our senses) – usually referred to simply as Forest Bathing. Dr Qing Li suggests Forest Bathing can reduce your stress levels and blood pressure strengthen your immune and cardiovascular systems boost your energy, mood, creativity, and concentration even help you lose weight and live longer [3]. Other findings from research on exercising in Green and Blue spaces which are often interlinked include the following:

I. Participants who exercised outdoors expressed more restorative feelings compared to ones who exercised indoors … (they) said they felt like the activity allowed for them to escape they were fascinated by their surroundings they felt like their interest during the activity was sustained [4]. II. Compared with exercising indoors exercising in natural environments was associated with greater feelings of revitalization and positive engagement, decreases in tension, confusion, anger, and depression, and increased energy [5]. III. A positive association between greater exposure to outdoor blue spaces (with) benefits to mental health and well-being [6].

The overwhelming finding from research on exercising in Green and/or Blue Spaces is that each have significant health benefits for human beings. The term Green Exercise has been coined in the research to describe any activity in the presence of nature irrespective of whether this is deemed a Green Space or a Blue Space. The evidence shows that pursuing Green Exercise leads to positive short and long-term health outcomes. Getting outside and moving for as little as five minutes at a time improves general good health. Every green environment improves both self-esteem and mood; the presence of water generated greater effects. Interestingly, low-intensity to moderate-intensity physical activity shows greater improvements in self-esteem than high-intensity outdoor exercise [7].

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Research on The Effects of Nature on Health and Well-Being

Qigong in nature is the ultimate gift: The tangible nurture which nature brings me plus the renewed energy I feel being bare foot on the earth-is like an enhanced power boost to my body, mind and spirit-all in one go. Qigong and Nature are intertwined. As mentioned elsewhere [8] images of water are omnipresent in Taoist philosophy, as Taoist sages believe we are always immersed in Tao that our lives are spent in this moving river of life. Images of trees, usually willows, situated near water, their branches moving in the gentle breeze permeate the ancient texts and artwork which guide Qigong practice [9] while Lao Tzu and other Taoist Sages make many references to trees, water and nature in general [10]. The exercise Stand Like A Tree, the basic exercise for Yi Chuan-Zhan Zuang, (the so-called Iron Shirt training exercises for building strong bones and muscle) is based on the Chinese theory-sky above, earth below, and man standing like a tree rooted between the two. Considerable research has been conducted on the benefits of Qigong and remarkable results have been suggested not only for persons with medical conditions (such as High Blood Pressure, Cancer and even Spinal Cord injuries) but also in helping to prevent illness and increase longevity [11]. My own research over the last 20 years has suggested that 30 minutes of seated Qigong helps normalize blood pressure, lower pulse rate and reduce stress. This research also showed that participants reported having more energy, less illness (shorter duration and less severe) and generally felt healthier [1,8]. However, the ancient Qigong masters prescribed how and when to practice. How the time of day, and the direction one faces while practicing influence the effects of Qigong on the body and mind. Similarly, the position of the sun and whether one should have its rays in front or behind you. Emphasis was placed on the four primary times to practice: Sunrise, Midday, Sunset, Midnight, because of the quality of energy at these times. In addition, the Ancient texts warned against practicing in cold wet windy conditions especially with wind behind you as this leached chi from the body.

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Let’s Take this Thing Outside

In 1993 I was still practicing the Japanese (Judo, Ju Jitusu, AiKi Do) and Chinese martial arts forms (Tai Chi, Ba Gua, Kung Fu) I had learned over the previous 25 years from my former teachers such as Sensei O’Tani and Professor Chee Soo. Slowly I was starting to introduce the Chinese forms I was learning from Master Hu into my routine and was practicing for 60- 90mins each time sometimes 2-3 times a day. I found practicing indoors somewhat restricting and so started to move my practice into my back yard and practiced there until the snows made it impossible. My old cat Tikka a Zen master of the first order would accompany me and ‘help’ me in my practice. However, my backyard was not a particularly tranquil space and did not at the time have great Feng Shui. Although later I did put in a fishpond which changed the ambience and distracted Tikka and the other cats. At that time was living in Windsor Ontario Canada and my house bordered a large city park - Jackson Park. One day I decided to move my daily practice to the park. So sometime around 4am I would walk for 5 minutes find a space amongst the trees as far away from houses and the road as I could. I would practice until just after sunrise and then return home and get ready for work. Once in a while this regime was disrupted such as the time the Police stopped and asked me what I was doing-I was practicing Sword forms at the time and they were a little concerned that I was wielding a dangerous weapon in a public park-albeit at 4:30 in the morning!

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Classes on the Water

I first began to offer Qigong classes on the water in 1998 when my then assistant John Taylor was living on the Lake St Clair and offered me the use of his deck to teach. I offered 5 linked classes on his deck which was almost at lake level alongside the water. By any measure this pilot project was very successful. Soon after this I moved to live in a house that had a deck that extended out over Lake Erie. For 12 years I offered classes on the deck 1-2 times a week throughout the summer come rain or shine. In 2015 I moved again and for the past 4 years I have been offering classes once a week on a bluff which looks over Lake Erie and from which point you can see all the way to Ohio. Each of these locations offers a different aspect and feeling but the quality of energy experienced practicing by a lake is special particularly when conducted at a time that we can watch the sun go down.

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Breathe and Smile Qigong

Over the years I have come to call the classes I teach Breathe and Smile Qigong. This came about when I realized that Master Hu was always smiling and sharing jokes and witticisms to help his students relax. I came to realise that this was not an accident but a conscious teaching tool because when you simply breathe and smile you relax making it easier for Chi the essence of Qigong to flow. The Breath and Smile Qigong class I teach has changed only a little over the years. It was designed to run for a total of 1hr with 50-55mins of this being exercise. I have run the class at various times throughout the day such as at lunchtime (12- 1), immediately after work (4:45-5:45). However, for the last 16 years my class has run predominately in the early evening (6:30-7:30). Irrespective of the time offered the most significant classes have always been those I have offered in natural surroundings. Over the last 20+ years the class size has varied from 6-24 people. On average 8-10 people regularly attend class each week. By and large the participants are relatively healthy and come to the classes to remain that way. Most are women aged 45-80 but occasionally my university students’ former students participants’ children and the occasional man (usually a participant’s partner or spouse) also attended. Participants have been very loyal often attending for more than 3 years and usually only stop coming to class due to health problems (their own or family members) or relocation.

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Shape of the Classes

While specific exercises change from time to time the program follows a simple and similar pattern. I use exercises described in Stand Breathe Smile [12] and for many years the sequence of exercises in my classes was: a. Sinews Changing Exercises b. Preparing the Body for Action c. Opening and Closing Breaths d. Ba Duan Jin e. Sinews Changing Exercises – Repeat f. Opening and Closing Breaths – Repeat g. Cool Down

However, as I and the participants in my classes have been growing older some of these exercises have become more difficult to perform without frustration. So more recently I have started to include exercises which are more suited to people as they age. About 2 years ago I started to include more Yi Quan (Standing Mediation or Standing Pole) exercises being careful to limit the length participants hold each posture. Slowly working up from holding each pose 3 long breaths to 2mins. More recently still I have introduced some simple exercises from Wu Qin Xi (Five Animal Frolics). In part I introduced these because the exercises work on specific areas of benefit to aging humans e.g. Crane Stretches to the Heavens (improves breathing) Crane Stands on one Leg (helps improve balance) and Crouching Tiger Grabs Prey (strengthens muscles and bones). I also introduced them because I am working on a health promotion book for younger children linking the Five Animal Frolics health and environmental awareness especially to animals and their habitats

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Commentary

Connections to Nature in General

Many participants made general comments about being surrounded by nature: Practicing in a natural setting near trees and water provides tangible feedback that encourages the natural relationship we as humans have with our environment thus creating a deep sense of peace and well-being.

Specific exercises help connect to nature

Other participants made references to how specific exercises amplified the feelings of being in nature: A. The exercises themselves have an outdoor feel as the fresh air fills my lungs when I stretch my arms wide doing Cleansing Breath. I see the sky above when I raise my arms up to perform the exercises (Separate Heaven and Earth. Salute the Sun or Place the Moon Back in the Sky). My fingers sense the water in the lake when my hands cup and move like Lilies Floating on the Water. B. Being outdoors, Lotus Flower Opening & Lotus Flower Closing are the two exercises where I am able to completely let go relax my mind and be one with it all. The feeling is fleeting but it is there and draws me back for more.

Health and well being

Interestingly few participants wrote about specific health benefits from practice outdoors. Most were on the general nature of feelings of wellbeing and tranquility. a. Qigong exercises in a peaceful tranquil outdoor setting nourish both body and soul. b. I found it easier to connect with my senses so, I felt connected to my body. The sense of somatic connection happened more quickly and felt more profound than when I was indoors. c. (playing) calming music helps calm the mind and body to allow focus on breathing. once this happens, you hear nature’s music. Waves, rustling leaves, birds, bugs and you feel the breeze and tiny ants crawling on your toes. Healing and loving one’s self are made possible. d. However, several did comment specifically on health benefits e.g: Through the movements, I found my physical self, relaxing and healing. Stress, tension and muscle aches gently dissolved. I found that my digestive properties were strengthened, and joints became more supple. With increased flexibility and more energy. I could move on to the next event in my life with greater ease and a clarity of mind a focus that wasn’t there prior to the session.

Meditative/calming effects

Many commented about the meditative and calming nature of being outside i. Performing Qi Gong in natural surroundings gave me a sense of tranquility and peace-each simple repeated movement was much like a repeated mantra in meditation: the focus and repetition allowed my mind to relax allowed my thoughts to let the noise go and a sense of ease and peace ensued. ii. (Outdoor practice) is quieter easier to concentrate and lose yourself in the act good for the mind as well as the body. iii. With Nature’s presence all around. I begin to relax in body, mind & spirit and connect with the feeling energy from the heart. iv. The outside environment has a transformative effect on Qigong exercises making the movements less mechanical and more invigorating; exercises flow more freely and naturally as I feel the gentle breezes off the lake smell the roses in the garden and see the sun peeking through the cloud’s overhead. v. Outdoor practice left me feeling rejuvenated because not only did it allow time to connect with myself but also time to reconnect with natural elements that resonate deep within.

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Teachers Comment on Effect on Their own Students

a) Several other teachers talked about the effects of Qigong on their students: whenever we were forced to move our class indoors due to inclement I found my participants were much more talkative; it took them longer to get settled and harder to remain focused throughout. It’s interesting because there was actually less going on around us while we were practicing indoors. b) Others talked of how difficult it is sometimes for a student to allow nature in: Sometimes (it takes a) long time to get rid of old habits and ways of thinking and being able to see change in one’s own life differently and reconnect with nature where we are a part of! c) At which time guidance can come in the forms of guiding the senses: Feel the wind how he embraces you! Listen to the songs of the birds and leaves of the trees how they sing the song of life for you! Feel the touch of the sunlight which shines through the trees to warm your skin! See the play of colors of the flowers and the butterflies dancing in the wind!

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Biting Insects and Qigong Armour

Practicing outside has its problems from time to time. As one older participant observed: I sometimes found the heat, mosquitos and the time of day challenging. Mosquitos and biting flies are a reality of a South-Western Ontario summer. However, as another participant commented they are not usually a problem while practicing Qigong: I seem to attract mosquitoes and often the bites become very inflamed to the point of leaving me with a bruise. In addition, I avoid the use of insect repellent so I wasn’t sure if practicing Qigong in the evening on a lakeshore would be possible for me to do comfortably. To my great surprise while practicing Qigong. I was not bothered at all by mosquitoes! the way mosquitoes stayed away from me. was so surprising. I remember you described it as “Qigong armour”. This idea of Qigong Armour is very interesting to me. It is commented on obliquely in some of the ancient texts and I have found that when practicing Qigong these biting insects are unable to pierce my skin. I can feel them trying but to no avail. I am not sure if this is a side effect of studying so called Iron Shirt techniques or practicing Qigong in general for so many years

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Changing the Weather: Yi Leads Qi-Qi Moves Clouds?

The Weather is another matter. The reality is the weather is often fickle and beyond the control of the Qigong teacher. Summer in my area is sub-tropical-very hot, humid and we get LOTS of thunderstorms that often come out of nowhere. There have been days when the weather was so inclement that class had to be cancelled. However, in over 20 years of practicing Qigong by the water and amongst trees these days were very few and far between. On the occasions when the weather changed while we were practicing Qigong on my deck over Lake Erie. I tried a technique I had read somewhere in an ancient text where masters gathered the energy of the group and used it to affect the wind and rain. What surprised me was it works! Using the concept of Yi leads Chi I shaped the energy of the group to divert the rain and thunderstorms. It was almost unbelievable-it was thundering and raining ALL around us and yet it was as if we were in a bubble with no lightning or rain! If this had happened once I would have said it was a coincidence but I managed to do this on numerous occasions. Everyone who was present on these occasions spoke of the energy they felt and the experience itself as being beyond belief!

Interactions with wildlife and domestic animals

During my practice I have experienced interactions with domestic animals and wildlife. I have been watched closely by coyotes’ foxes and deer during my practice. Eagles have swooped low over my head to take a closer look at me and I have even been dive bombed by a squadron of purple martins while practicing my sword forms. So persistent was this attack that I had to use the flat side of my sword to repel their attack! Dogs and Cats are naturally drawn to Qigong. My own cats used to join me every morning on my deck over the water. One time in Portugal I was practicing outside among the trees and my host’s cat Tigger sat on a wall. a. As she commented: I will never forget my cat Tigger mesmerised with your slow movements, sitting on the wall watching you for a whole hour and following your slow movements with her head in time and as if hypnotised. b. Another couple commented: We both have extremely fond memories of your cats hanging out and practicing with us! I have often spent large parts of my practice with a cat rubbing itself between my legs or laying down in the exact spot where I have to place my foot.

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Discussion

Being outside whether under the warmth of the sun the heat of the humidity the cool breezes from the offshore wind the sights and sounds of the lake the lovely colours of the sunset and the rising moon with its emerging stars. The essence of being outside in natural surroundings enhances all the senses to contribute to a better quality and more mindful practice! By and large the writings of the ancient sages were poetic written at a time before the internet and google and prior to the ascension of modern science with its emphasis on evidence based best practice. Nevertheless, my own experience and that of many others is that natural surroundings affect Qigong practice. Not only this but each location has its own Feng Shui effect that exerts an influence on the quality of energy felt and thus the overall experience itself.

As one participant put it: In addition to the benefits of improved flexibility and strengthened immune system in a studio type setting there is infinitely more benefit to the practice of qigong in a natural setting. I found that I began to unwind as I began sensing the tranquility of being on the lake. The sunsets were beautiful the fantastic view of the water as we focused upon the horizon all added to managing tension and anxiety. A truly spiritual experience transmuting all the hustle and bustle into sheer peacefulness and bliss.

I have found there is a difference between practising over water, alongside water and simply viewing water. Exactly what this is hard to describe for like attempts to describe Tao the feeling is visceral fleeting-embodied rather than quantifiable or describable. The presence of trees near the water also exerts an effect. The quality the taste of the air in each natural surrounding is different. Practice with warm summer wind is very invigorating. Breathing in as the wind blows creates an amazing feeling of the body filling with energy

One person commented

Performing Qi Gong next to the water was very beneficial for me as water has always held great spiritual meaning for me. I feel a sense of deeper meaning to the universe when surrounded by bodies of water. The trees flowers birds and other aspects of nature also helped create this space of spiritual healing. When performing the Qi Gong i gained a sense of balance in energymy physical being and spiritual being became one. This in many ways summed up my own experiences. For me from the very beginning the feeling of practicing in natural surroundings amongst the trees hearing the bird’s dawn chorus and the quality of the energy experienced felt tangibly different from practising indoors even in the most balanced space with great energy and light. The later classes by the water had different views and birds but the feelings and the energy experienced were very similar. My own experience and those of my students and other teachers around the world tends to reaffirm the ancient Taoist and Buddhist masters perceptions written many years ago that the quality of the experience the energy and the overall health benefits accrued from Qigong is enhanced by practice in nature

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newstfionline · 8 years ago

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As Trump bars Syrian refugees, life in their camps is getting harder

By Louisa Loveluck and Suzan Haidamous, Washington Post, January 28, 2017

GHAZZEH, Lebanon--Clutching Syrian drums and instruments made of spruce and walnut wood, 12 Syrian children filed nervously into a packed room in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley this week. None had been musicians before they fled Syria’s war, but after months of practice they were ready for their show.

The crowd of refugees stayed quiet as an Aleppo love song filled the air. But when it slipped from its verse to the chorus, suddenly a whole audience was singing.

“That’s it,” cried a woman from the front row, closing her eyes and smiling as she swayed. “I’m in Syria.”

None of the refugees had expected to stay away this long. As the tendrils of war crept through their homeland in 2011, the families crossing earliest into Lebanon thought they would return in weeks. Months at most. Instead the fighting swallowed everything, smashing homes, dividing communities, and turning those months from seasons into years.

As President Trump suspended the resettlement of Syrian refugees, many of the more than 1 million displaced to Lebanon have found their resources stretched to a breaking point.

“Life here is harder than we could ever have imagined,” said Om Ahmed, a widow from Aleppo, grabbing her son in a bear hug as he charged out of the performance room. “If you saw our tent, you wouldn’t believe we’d left Syria to give our boys a better life.”

According to a recent United Nations assessment, conditions for Lebanon’s refugees have deteriorated for a sixth year in a row. Ninety percent of households are taking out loans to afford basic necessities, leaving the average family to survive on less than two meals a day.

“When people first fled, they may have had some resources and were able to meet their needs,” said Niamh Murnaghan, Lebanon country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council. “As the crisis wore on, their money was used up.”

In the Bekaa Valley, a sweeping expanse near Syria’s western border, informal camps have become warrens of tents stacked on muddy ground. Many are kept neat as a pin, but no amount of care can save wooden boards from rotting or water from seeping through mattresses, blankets or anything else that touches the floor.

“Our children are starting to believe we were born like this, and this is how life is meant to be,” said Mounira Mohamed, 32, standing outside her tent in a small settlement near the town of Saadnayel. “They ask us about Syria as if it’s a place on the television.”

With a weak economy, a pre-war population of just 4.5 million, and a history of accepting displaced Palestinians who later became a permanent fixture, Lebanon is ill-equipped and reluctant to offer long-term sanctuary to a new wave of refugees.

But as neighbor to one of the deadliest wars of the 21st century, it has found itself without a choice.

In an executive order signed Friday, Trump suspended the admission of not only Syrian refugees but all Syrians until further notice. In Europe, public attitudes are turning against similar programs, as populist leaders ride a global wave of anti-establishment sentiment with calls to limit immigration taking center stage.

“If someone can tell me honestly that there will be security in my homeland, I would go back tomorrow,” Mohamed said. “I would go back faster than that.”

She left Aleppo the day a barrel bomb smashed through the family home, killing her sister outright and leaving three orphans in her care. Now 8 years old, the youngest boy recalls Syria only in the memory of his mother’s body in the rubble.

With limited opportunities to work, families can be heavily dependent on monthly cash payments from the U.N. refugee agency.

For Mohamed Ahmed, a 27-year-old former real estate agent from Syria’s western city of Homs, this has meant a downward spiral into debt.

“Every day I work to pay it off, but the children still need to eat. So we buy more vegetables on credit, take another loan for medical bills. And then there’s another thing to pay off,” he said, standing by the rack of cellphone chargers and bootleg Bruce Willis DVDs he now sells as one of two jobs.

Like many small businesses in the area, his shop allows the refugees to communicate daily with loved ones back home.

“These calls keep Syria alive for us,” said Mohamed, the mother from Aleppo, admitting that sometimes she did not know whether it was better to know or hide from what was happening to her relatives. “We worry about them and they worry about us. No one has mental peace here,” she said.

But everyday life also features memories of better times. In Saadnayel, a group of women stuffed pale-green zucchini with rice, bickering gently over whose recipe for the Syrian dish--known as mahshi--was the best. “This technique came from my mother,” one woman said with a shrug. “How can you argue with that?”

Relief groups are also bringing traditional music to camps and urban refugee communities, hoping that those they teach can someday earn a living through their new craft.

“Until early 2015, most of the people we worked with seemed to think this was temporary, that the regime would fall one day, and then they’d go back. But that didn’t happen,” said Basma el-Husseiny, director of the charity responsible for the children’s concert, Action for Hope.

“When they learn an instrument, they learn to stop feeling like victims. They’re not waiting for help, they are contributing,” she said.

As the performers darted around the organization’s kitchen after their show, many were still humming the tune to their final song.

“Did we sing this in Syria?” one girl asked a woman nearby. “Yes, love,” came the reply. “Yes we did.”

#Lebanon #Syrian refugees #refugee ban

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blackkudos · 8 years ago

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Marcus Samuelsson

Marcus 'Joar' Samuelsson (born Kassahun 'Joar' Tsegie; 25 January 1971) is an Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef and restaurateur.

Early life and education

Kassahun Tsegie was born in 1971 in Ethiopia. His father, Tsegie, is a priest. His mother died in a tuberculosis epidemic when he was three years old. As detailed in Sammuelson's appearance on Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, he and his elder sister, Fantaye, were separated from their family during the turmoil of the Ethiopian Civil War, which began in 1974. Subsequently, the siblings were adopted by Ann Marie and Lennart Samuelsson, a homemaker and a geologist, respectively, who lived in Gothenburg, Sweden. The siblings' names were changed to Marcus and Linda Samuelsson. They also have an adopted sister, Anna Samuelsson. His biological father, Tsegie, the father of eight others (the chef's half-siblings) still resides in the Ethiopian village where Samuelsson was born.

After becoming interested in cooking through his maternal grandmother in Sweden, Samuelsson studied at the Culinary Institute in Göteborg (Gothenburg) where he was raised. He apprenticed in Switzerland and Austria, then came to the United States in 1991 as an apprentice at Restaurant Aquavit.

Career

At 24, Samuelsson became executive chef of Aquavit, and soon after that became the youngest ever to receive a three-star restaurant review from The New York Times. In 2003 he was named "Best Chef: New York City" by the James Beard Foundation. The same year he started a second New York restaurant, Riingo, serving Japanese-influenced American food.

In addition to his recognition as a world-class chef, Samuelsson is an award-winning cookbook author with titles in both English and Swedish. His 2006 African-inspired cookbook The Soul of a New Cuisine received the prize "Best International Cookbook" by the James Beard Foundation. Other titles written by Samuelsson are Aquavit and the New Scandinavian Cuisine, En Smakresa ("A Journey of Tastes"), and Street Food.

Samuelsson is a Visiting Professor of International Culinary Science at the Umeå University School of Restaurant and Culinary Arts in Sweden. He had a television show, Inner Chef, which aired in 2005 on Discovery Home Channel and yet another program in 2008, Urban Cuisine on BET J (now Centric). His cooking combines international influences with traditional cuisines from Sweden to Japan and Africa.

On 24 November 2009, Samuelsson served as guest chef for the first state dinner of the Barack Obama presidency. The dinner, in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was served on the South Lawn and largely vegetarian. Samuelsson reportedly sought to combine sustainable and regional foods which reflect the best in American cuisine yet evoke the flavors of India. Harvesting fresh vegetables and herbs from the White House Garden, Samuelsson included red lentil soup, roasted potato dumplings, and green curry prawns on his menu. The tradition of guest chefs joining the White House chef for special events began during the Clinton administration.

Samuelsson is an advisor to The Institute of Culinary Education in New York City.

His restaurant, Red Rooster, opened in December 2010 in Harlem. In March 2011, Red Rooster hosted a fundraising dinner for the Democratic National Committee. President Obama attended the dinner. The $30,800-per-plate event raised $1.5 million.

In the fall of 2012, Samuelsson, together with Clarion Hotels, launched a restaurant concept called Kitchen & Table. The concept's first restaurant opened at Clarion Hotel Arlanda Airport and during 2013 and 2014 it will take place at all Clarion Hotels in Sweden and Norway.

Media appearances

Samuelsson has been featured on television including on CNN, MSNBC's The Dylan Ratigan Show, as a judge on Top Chef, Iron Chef USA, Iron Chef America, Chopped, and frequent guest appearances on Today. He previously hosted his own television shows, The Inner Chef and Urban Cuisine. He also was a judge in the show "My Momma Throws Down."

In early 2010, he competed alongside 21 world-renowned chefs on Bravo's television series Top Chef Masters. Samuelsson won the competition, earning $115,000 for UNICEF's grassroots effort The Tap Project. In 2011, he was a contestant on the fourth season of The Next Iron Chef, competing against nine other chefs for the opportunity to be designated an "Iron Chef" and appear regularly on Iron Chef America. Samuelsson was eliminated in the fifth episode, finishing in sixth place.

After appearing consistently as a culinary judge on the Food Network show Chopped, Samuelsson competed in and won Chopped All Stars 2012: Judges Remix. He was awarded the grand prize of $50,000 for his charity, the Careers Through Culinary Arts Program.

On 28 June 2012, Samuelsson was the subject of an extensive interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR.

In 2014, he made his debut as a judge on the second season of the American television series The Taste.

In 2015, he appeared in an episode of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown with Ethiopia being the focus of that episode's visit.

Samuelsson appeared on the Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! radio show episode which first aired 8 October 2016.

Books

Samuelsson has released cookbooks New American Table, The Soul of a New Cuisine, and Marcus Off Duty.

In 2012, Samuelsson released Yes, Chef, a memoir about how he became a chef. The book gained favorable reviews. As a result, in 2013, he won the James Beard Foundation award for Writing and Literature related to food.

After the success of Yes, Chef, in 2015, Samuelsson published Make it Messy: My Perfectly Imperfect Life, aimed at young adults.

Personal life

Samuelsson is married to the model Gate (Maya) Haile. Their wedding was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They reside in Harlem, New York, New York, near the site of his restaurant, Red Rooster.

Wikipedia

#Marcus Samuelsson

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akirezurc-blog · 7 years ago

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The Valenzuela City Museum which can be found inside the Valenzuela City Hall was astounding. People are visiting to look back again at the city's unforgettable history. The museum features the Valenzuela's nostalgic past from the culture of pre - colonial period up to the accomplishments of the "Vibrant City" today. This museum shows all the happenings in the old City of Valenzuela and how it survived from its tragic past.

Welcome Upon entering the museum, we noticed that there's no one to guide us. We just noticed a few men watching our actions, making sure we were not doing anything bad. At the last part of the museum, there's a desk for tourism and assistance desk. Well, I think it's not fair if it's just the tourists who are being guided through.

Technology The signage are all right. The replicas and collections are well-lit. Also, there must be a supposed playing audio visual presentation at the last section, showing the city's programs and projects, but unfortunately it was not playing that time. In addition, the place is well-ventilated. The air conditioner was set at 18°C so it was uncomfortably cold for me.

Collection The collection of the museum reflects the events that shaped the culture of Valenzuela. There are the sample of tektites and obsidian used by the first inhabitants as tools and decorations, the traditional stone mill used in making the delicacy of Valenzuela, the Putong Polo, and the collection of products solely made in the city. We were satisfied by the replicas we perceived.

Display The displays are ostentatious, attracting people’s attention. The collections like the tektites and obsidian are rare, keeping the visitors curious about it and making us read more. Also, the replicas are accessible to anybody, from children to senior citizens.

Accessibility The museum is friendly to everyone. To senior citizens as well as children. There are comfortable and cushioned couch near the last section of the museum for the visitors, especially senior citizens, whenever they get tired or they feel like sitting. There's a circle fountain-like bench with radiant paints perfect for the sight of children. And lastly, every description has a counterpart English translations which is a big help for tourists.

Hierarchy The flow of the information is following a timeline, from the pre-colonial period up to now, the vibrant city. Every section and exhibit has title and some pictures has a source cited at the bottom part. The hierarchy of the content is organized and the story every period is explained concisely, making it easier for us, the visitors to understand the history of Valenzuela.

Maintenance The replicas are well maintained. The collections are clean as it was supposed to be. Truly, the cleanliness of the museum reflects the culture of the city of Valenzuela which is considered as one of the urbanized city in the Philippines.

Security There is no CCTV camera and the men watching us are not that vigilant. We can do anything that is restricted and we can speak loudly. They are not securing the safety of the replicas and collections. They are roving sometimes but anyone can just easily do whatever they want to do.

Design The theme of the museum is just simply red and white in color. The fonts are not complicated and its size is large enough to be seen by visitors, especially senior citizens. There is no other adornments, making the museum simple but attractive.

Value The Valenzuela Museum offers people knowledge about the rich and colorful history of Valenzuela. You will gain so much and yet you don't have to pay. Everything is free of charge.

Overall, the Valenzuela City Museum may be small and made a little inconvenience for us but it's overflowing with knowledge waiting for visitors to indulge themselves in the city's treasures. We recommend everyone to visit and devote time in Valenzuela City Museum. There are so many things to be learned inside like the history of Valenzuela and many more. The museum definitely worth your time!

Important Events in Polo during the Spanish Era

Dr. Pio Valenzuela, Capt. Delfin Velilla, and Gen. Tiburcio De Leon The three heroes who joined the Katipunan to fight for their beloved country. They're given birth in the City of Valenzuela and their greatest contribution for the independence of our country are really hard to forget.

KKK Flag It is a replica of Katipunan flag which is found in Polo, Bulacan. It is used by the Katipuneros to show that they are ready to fight for the independence of their beloved country and for the peace of their nation.

Stone Arc In 1910, the Americans built a stone arc at the boundary of Malabon and Polo to serve as a demarcation line between the province of Bulacan and the province of Rizal.

Flaked Tektites Tektites and Obsidian was excavated by H. Ortley Beyer in Pugad Baboy(which is now known as Barangay Gen. T. De Leon) which can be considered as an evidence of ancient settlements in the City of Valenzuela during the Stone Age( Pre-Neolithic Period).

Secret Meeting of the Supreme Council of KKK in Polo

A meeting of the Supreme Council of KKK was held in Polo on February 1,1896 and was presided over by Dr. Pio Valenzuela and Emilio Jacinto who both have an important position in Katipunan. They established the first branch of KKK outside the Manila which they called as "Huaran".

Replica of Record Books

The Americans chronicled all written and communications in Record Books such as these. There are separate books for letters sent and letters received.

Many of the residents of Polo secretly joined the guerilla forces against the japanese, including the then incumbent municipal president, Feliciano Ponciano.

Executive Orders that established the Municipality of Valenzuela

World War II Heroes

This is the list of brave troop of armies who fought for the independence of this country who lives in Polo.

Putong Polo

It was first recognized as a Valenzuela delicacy during the American Period. It was traditionally made using the stone mill. Also, it received Manuel Quezon Presidential Award and it is now being served in popular hotels and restaurants in the country.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The Best Online Serial Fiction

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If there was a golden age of serial fiction, it might have been the era when Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Mark Twain were publishing their stories-in-installments in print periodicals, with their readers desperately waiting for the next part of the tale. But if that’s true, right now might just be the platinum age of serial fiction. The digital medium is perfect for publishing stories as episodes, and modern readers who are used to receiving stories in an episodic format, thanks to television, may appreciate the medium in a more nuanced way than their historical predecessors.

Modern serials make use of both styles of writing. Some rely on a single author who publishes their novel bit by bit, keeping readers hooked. Others are developed in a television-style writer’s room. Some feature added features like music or illustrations, making use of transmedia opportunities made possible in the digital world. These stories span genres, including near futuristic sci fi (The Vela or Machina), urban fantasy (Ilona Andrews’s “Innkeeper Chronicles”), heart-pounding stories that will keep you guessing (C. D. Miller’s Dark Heights, Ray N. Kuili’s Eden Can Wait, or Casey Lucas’s Into the Mire), your favorite comics or television characters in prose (Black Panther: Sins of the King and Doctor Who), and illustrated (Twice) or audio only (Hope and Red) fantasies. Whatever you enjoy reading, there’s a serial for you to enjoy.

Find out more about where you can read online serial fiction here.

Ongoing Serial Fiction

While the science fiction and fantasy genres have the lead as far as the number of individual serials available for purchase, the serial format has always included realistic fiction and intrigue, as well as expanding into erotic novels. Take a peek at what’s new and what’s ongoing!

Hope and Red

Jon Skovoron’s Hope and Red was originally published in 2016, but the author is back with a serialized version—delivered straight to your podcasting app, narrated by the author. As the story that launched Skovoron’s “Empire of Storms” series, the novel introduces warrior Hope and thief Red, who must team up to take down a corrupt empire. This fast-paced fantasy has all the right cliff-hangers to keep you waiting for the next episode.

The Vela

One of my favorite recent space operas is The Vela, a Serial Box original written by powerhouse team Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, and SL Huang. The story centers on soldier-for-hire Asala Sikou, who’s more worried about taking care of number one than she is about the imminent death of her star system. But when she takes a job to find a missing rescue ship, The Vela, she and her teammate, Niko, the child of the inner planet’s president, find themselves embroiled in endgames that will decide the fate of the universe. The season one conclusion had me sobbing at the end. (Check out my review of The Vela here.) Season two, The Vela: Salvation, is posting episodes right now, and I will be hanging onto my seat for each week’s new episode.

Doctor Who

This summer, Serial Box partnered with The Big Finish to release their full-cast audio dramas of Doctor Who to the serial audience. Two collections of stories, The Tenth Doctor Adventures and The Tenth Doctor Chronicles, feature the adventures of the Tenth Doctor and his companion Donna Noble, voiced by David Tennant and Catherine Tate in one and narrated by Jacob Dudman in the other. Four other offerings focus on earlier Doctors, crossovers with multiple Doctors, and the enigmatic Lady Christina. Fans of the television series are sure to find something to enjoy in these companion tales to the program, and listeners who have never watched the show (as rare as those may be!) have the opportunity to dip their toes into a very complex and well-loved world.

Marvel’s Jessica Jones: Playing with Fire

In Marvel’s Jessica Jones: Playing with Fire, Jessica transitions from comics and small screen to a prose serial—written by Lauren Beukes, Vita Ayala, Sam Beckbessinger, Zoe Quinn, and Elsa Sjunneson. She’s focusing on developing some healthier coping mechanisms (not drinking so much) and trying to take some cases less likely to kill her. But when a simple, cut-and-dry case has more lurking beneath the surface, Jessica can’t let it go, even when the stakes get dangerous. This is sure to be a hit with fans of the Netflix series, and it’s great to see a frequently underused Marvel superhero get more air time.

The 18th Century Man

While the conceit for The 18th Century Man, a serial on Medium by Dan Morrison, seems simple enough—a young man, conceived during a power outage, negates electricity—the first chapters indulge in a hefty dose of social and political commentary that let readers know they’re in for something that aims deeper. James grows up on his grandmother’s farm in Woodstock, Vermont, as the focus of speculation. Everyone wants to know how he became the way he is—including James himself. Reading on Medium requires either using a limited number of stories for free or becoming a subscriber; to help his readers, Morrison posts chapters into the same story, with email alerts that let them know when the next one is added. Readers just picking up this serial can easily binge the first seventeen chapters—and then keep a watch on Morrison’s email list or Facebook group for the next installment.

The Innkeeper Chronicles (and others) by Ilona Andrews

Husband-and-wife team Ilona and Gordon Andrews have been releasing a series of free novellas on their website as a reward to loyal readers. They’re fantastic at providing new content, some in the serial specific world of The Innkeeper Chronicles, which has now produced several novellas. Each weekly installment is a partial chapter, typically readable inside of fifteen minutes, and enough of a bite sized chunk to whet your appetite for whatever comes next.

They’re currently posting a new novel, Blood Heir, set in the world of Kate Daniels, featuring an adult Julie—Kate’s adopted daughter—in an Atlanta eight years after the original series concluded. For readers who weren’t ready to let the series go with Magic Triumphs, this brilliant relaunch is just the reward we needed for surviving a pandemic.

“The Innkeeper Chronicles,” the more frequent ongoing serial series, revolve around Dina, an Innkeeper, host for interstellar travelers that include familiar mythological figures like werewolves and vampires, as well as more outlandish aliens. Her inn feeds magic into her, so she can change reality on her inn’s grounds to better accommodate–and defend against–her guests. In Clean Sweep, the first novella, a supernatural danger threatens Dina’s non-magical neighbors. Dina isn’t supposed to get involved, but she’s not the type to let what she’s supposed to do stop her from doing what’s right. While most of the stories center on Dina, one focuses on Maud, Dina’s sister, navigating the intergalactic politics of space faring vampire civilization while keeping her half-vampire daughter, Helen, safe. Meanwhile on Earth, a holiday celebration at the inn is complicated when a cosmically powerful being needs a safe place to meet her amoral human uncle. The series is a fantastic hybrid of space action, swordplay, and romance, and shows that the series has plenty of room to grow.

Team Andrews creates a very cool world mixing fantasy and science fiction tropes and populates it with a fully realized cast, including not only Dina and her sister, but also the local (hunky) werewolf, a temperamental Quillonian chef, and Dina’s struggling inn’s only regular guest, a vampire noble claiming asylum on earth due to her previous ruthless acts. Can’t wait for the next installment? Andrews is updating the main blog with chapters of a new project in the world of Kate Daniels, which should tide you over!

Into the Mire

In this dark fantasy in a post-war world, a badass mercenary captain leads her crew on a hunt for the missing heir of a baron—who happens to be her old commanding officer. Unfortunately, the marsh into which they must travel is populated by carnivorous trees—and human enemies who may be even more dangerous.

Riss Chou, the head merc, is appealingly snarky; her second-in-command is a posh bisexual sorcerer who, on first read, reminded me of one of my favorite characters from Kill the Queen; and another team member is a blood sorcerer hiding his talent (because it’s illegal). While the first few chapters hint at the much larger world, the narrative never overwhelms, keeping the main quest story line at the forefront, and building the world in the background.

Launched April, 2018, the serial has completed its first full novel and is deep into book two. In 2020, the serial was nominated for New Zealand’s top literary prize in SFF: the Sir Julius Vogel Award. Author Casey Lucas updates the serial weekly on Wednesdays, New Zealand Time.

Twice

Matthew Rhymer is not what he seems—even those who know him best don’t really know his story. When his estranged friends receive a letter intended to be delivered to him, they become privy to an unbelievable story, which has to do with the Lady, her rule, and the hungers of a mysterious enemy. The newly launched illustrated serial “Twice” parcels out the mystery a tiny bit at a time, each episode giving a little more for readers to piece together. Each episode features a gorgeous painting from author/illustrator Mark J. Ferrari. While Ferrari has a tip jar on the site, subscriptions to the ongoing serial are free, and each episode can be read on the website, or delivered directly to your email. Season one concluded earlier this summer, but season two promises to bring readers even deeper into Rhymer’s world.

Dark Heights

If the audio experience is important to you and you’re looking for something for a mature audience, you might be interested in checking out music-enhanced serial Dark Heights by C. D. Miller, with music composed and performed by C. D.’s brother, Chris Miller. The music and prose are developed in tandem, so that they are intentionally intertwined. This indie serial is available at its original website but Part One was picked up by Serial Box, and is available through their app.

The story is of a town, Park Heights, where supernatural forces in a war of shadows converge. Caught in the chaos are town native Tess Bellamy and drifter Gabriel Majeaux. The series features an HBO-level of graphic content (so it’s not for young readers) and bends genres and genre expectations. If you’re a fan of psychological horror, this unique music and prose blend might be right up your alley. Just… be careful of those shadows.

Lady Victoria Howard

One of the reasons some readers may prefer a serial subscription to a paperback is that they can read bite-sized fiction discreetly on their phones. That’s one of the goals of the Lady Victoria Howard web app, an erotic serial written for women, by women. Billed as the world’s first serialized erotic novel, the web app has subscriptions available for the first three seasons (39 episodes), which are delivered weekly depending on when you start your subscription. The story follows Lady Victoria Howard, sister to a modern duke, whose past heartbreak has led her to a sexual awakening, that allows her to explore her sensuality—and live her life to the fullest.

Amazon Original Stories

Amazon Original Stories produces one-sitting fiction reads, such as their premiere releases Joyce Carol Oates’s novel The Sign of the Beast and nonfiction book Crown Heights by Colin Warner and Carl King. Their most recent collection, “Hush,” is a series of contemporary thrillers from authors like Oyinkan Braithwaite and Jeffrey Deaver. Other recent releases include the “Disorder” series of short stories, designed to keep you awake at night, and the “Inventions” series, which explores the true stories from the age of innovation. The imprint has also published “The Real Thing Collection,” six nonfiction essays about relationships including pieces by Fresh off the Boat author Eddie Huang and Pretty Little World coauthors Elizabeth LaBan and Melissa DePino; and the recent “Inheritance” collection, with stories from Alice Hoffman, Julie Orringer, Alexander Chee, and others. Other authors who have written for the imprint include Jennifer McMahon, Lisa Unger, Edgar Cantero, Emily Raboteau, Adam Haslett, Brandi Reeds, Dean Koontz, Nick McDonell, Susan Straight, Jeffrey Deaver, and Janice Y. K. Lee.

The stories are available for free to Prime and Kindle Unlimited subscribers; other readers can purchase the books for $1.99.

Ninth Step Station

In Ninth Step Station, a future Tokyo is torn, divided between the invading Chinese and the supposedly peacekeeping Americans. Disaster after disaster have kept Japan from recovering, and their police are short handed and short supplied.

When Metropolitan Police Detective Miyako Koreda is paired with US Peacekeeper Emma Higashi as her new partner, neither of them is pleased with the arrangement. But despite their hesitations, they solve a series of crimes that feature espionage, rebellion, and humanity at its worst, many of which revolve around the war.

Created by Malka Older, Ninth Step Station feels at once like great near-future sci-fi and a modern police drama in which both of the main detectives are, refreshingly, women. The second season, with writing team Older, Fran Wilde, Jacqueline Koyanagi, and Curtis C. Chen, just wrapped—but the cliffhanger indicates the solid possibility of a third season in the works.

Coming Soon

The Haunting of Beatrix Greene

What happens when a medium and a scientist are at odds in Victorian England—and a vengeful spirit enters the mix? That’s the premise of this forthcoming serial: scientist James Walker hires spiritual medium Beatrix Greene to host a seance. She’s worried he intends to prove that she’s a fraud, and she’s determined not to let that happen. Neither of them expect to have to banish a ghost—or to be so attracted to each other. The first episode is live (and free) at Serial Box, and the second releases just in time for Halloween chills and thrills.

The Co-Founder

One of two Serial Box titles in development for television, The Co-founder is a contemporary drama set to launch later in 2020. When two women, Val and Jules, create what could become the next big thing in gaming, they face a hurdle: they’re women. In order to fit in with the Silicon Valley tech-bro culture, they hire barista and failed actor Toby to act as their third co-founder. It’s a plan that might just work—until Toby tries to steal their gaming platform out from under them. The season, written by Alexis Wilkinson, is available for preorder.

Marvel’s Black Panther: Sins of the Father

It’s difficult waiting for news about the MCU’s Black Panther 2, but fear not: there’s a serial to tide you over! With a sneak peek released in August 2020, the full serial won’t release until January 2021, but I’m already ready to keep hitting refresh until it launches. Led by Ira Madison III, the writing team (Geoff Thorne, Mohale Mashigo, Steven Barnes, and Tananarive Due) take readers to a Wakanda plagued by undead. T’Challa, striving to be both a good king and an Avenger, must turn to his long-lost father to find out how to stop the supernatural onslaught—and face the demons of Wakanda’s past. With Emmy-nominated William Jackson Harper announced as the narrator, this one is going to be a fantastic read—or listen—when it releases.

Serials You Can Binge

These serials, which are not currently updating, are worth checking out, especially as some of them may later get a second season.

Marvel’s Black Widow: Bad Blood

We might not yet have a fully official release date for the Black Widow movie, but fans who can’t get enough of the Russian assassin/Avenger can get a fix with this recently released serial, which just wrapped its first season in July. As the second collaboration between Marvel and Serial Box, Black Widow follows Natasha Romanov as she tries to track down whoever stole her blood—because they also stole the blood of Bucky Barnes. There’s no good reason for someone to take the blood of two secret operatives, especially when there’s a possibility that the someone responsible is trying to develop their own brand of super soldier serum. A Barnes/Romanov team-up is something we’ll never really get to see in the MCU, but pairing these two is sure to hit all the right spy movie tropes. Serial Box veterans Lindsay Smith (lead writer for The Witch Who Came in from the Cold) and Margaret Dunlap (Bookburners) are joined on the writing team by feminist writer Mikki Kendall, urban fantastist L.L. McKinney, and thriller writer Taylor Stevens.

Knox

This recently completed serial is set in 1930s Manhattan, where a serial killer is on the loose, and Knox is the PI on the job. Both she and the murderer, John Craddock, served in World War I; the experience left Knox with the unenviable ability to see the paranormal. And the case with Craddock is anything but what it seems. Elements of Lovecraftian horror infuse this story of a badass Afro-Latina detective, and New York noir combines with queer romance to give the story a while different flavor from anything else in this genre. Let K Arsenault Rivera, Brooke Bolander, Gabino Iglesias, and Sunny Moraine take you on a trip of horrors beyond space and time—and try to hold onto your sanity while you’re reading.

Machina

The world is a mess, and the future lies off-planet if humanity is to survive at all. Machina is set after a climate apocalypse ravages Earth. In the first episode, readers meet a group of dreamers—best friends Trey, Stephanie, and Smits—who intend to save humanity from their crumbling planet, ravaged by earthquakes and worse, by creating AI that will terraform Mars. Skip forward a few years, and those Trey and Stephanie are feuding, running rival tech companies both striving toward the same goal. Although Trey’s company focuses on a more traditional style of programming—where the AI is guided at every step by humans at the helm—Trey is innovating with the help of AI anthropologist Noor Venable, whose understanding of AI may change the way everyone thinks. Stephanie’s group, determined to give their AI more independence, is led in part by ace-programmer Cameron—who finds themself as charmed by Noor as Trey’s AI. The competition is being covered by intrepid “kid-reporter” Hiro Watanabe, who steals every scene he’s in. With the writing team of Malka Older, Fran Wilde, Curtis Chen, and Martha Wells, all of whom have followings beyond their serials, this is one tech corporate drama that readers will be happy to binge—and hope for a second season.

Thor: Metal Gods

One of my favorite bits in the MCU is when Thor and Loki team up in some old-school “Road Movie” style comedy. This prose serial, the audio version of which is narrated by Daniel Gillies of The Vampire Diaries, doubles down on the fun of the Loki-Thor duo. Here, the at-odds brothers voyage through the galaxy to track down a dangerous artifact. But the cast doesn’t stop with familiar faces: new characters include a Korean tiger-goddess, Frost giant mercenaries, and a charismatic, gender-fluid space pirate.This is the first prose serial collaboration between Serial Box and one of the big comic publishers, featuring the writing team of Aaron Stewart-Ahn, Jay Edidin, Brian Keene, and Yoon Ha Lee. If you love it (or prefer a different hero), keep an eye out for Serial Box’s other Marvel titles!

Orphan Black: The Next Chapter

If you were among the fans who lamented the end of the Canadian SF show Orphan Black, celebrate the return of the Clone Club—eight years after the conclusion of the show! (Den of Geek chatted with Tatiana Maslany about continuing the series as the audio book narrator.) The first Serial Box season has concluded, but fans can keep hoping for more time with the Clone Club.

Other Half of the Grave

This may not be the vampire romance POV swap that everyone’s been talking about, but The Other Half of the Grave has some of the same appeal! Fans of Jeanine Frost’s “Night Huntress” series encouraged her to write scenes from the male lead of her first “Night Huntress” novel, One Foot in the Grave, for behind the scenes goodies. It’s not an entire book—readers would do best to read the original novel first—but the bite sized installments are a huge reader perk.

Foreshadow

After a hugely successful IndieGogo campaign, editors in chief Emily X.R. Pan and Nova Ren Suma have launched what they term a YA Serial anthology. Contributors include Dhonielle Clayton (in Issue 0), Malinda Lo (in Issue 1), Justine Larbalesteir (issue 10), and more. A print edition of some of the stories is due out in fall, 2020, but the original 12 issues remain available online.

Born to the Blade

High fantasy meets political intrigue in Born to the Blade, a serial that combines elements from Game of Thrones, Avatar the Last Airbender, and The West Wing. Duelist-diplomats fight for the fate of not only the neutral Twaa-Fei islands, but the world. Rumor has it there’s no second season yet in the plans, but if you’re like me and can’t handle the cliff-hanger from season one, spread the word!

Gods and Lies

Billed as American Gods meets The Maltese Falcon, Gods & Lies follows investigator Justix Iris Tharro, a human agent of the goddess of Justice. In order to solve the bizarre murder in the Temple of Wind, she has to team up with Andy, a disgraced demigod, trying to win back the favor of his divine parent.

First Street

First Street delves into contemporary events by focusing on four young clerks working in the Supreme Court. Recommended for fans of The West Wing and Shondaland series, who are sure to get drawn into the intrigue.

The Understudy

A dance school is the unlikely setting for this social thriller, where a group of moms must team together to protect their daughters from a series of brutal attacks—all of which began when new dancer, Imogen, started attending the same dance academy.

Alternis

In a not-too-distant future, the world’s governments have agreed to allow their standings in an MMORPG to determine their share of the world’s resources. A game designer has a choice: join Team USA or have her life’s project taken away. (We chatted with the writing team for Alternis in an exclusive cover reveal and with Summer Glau, who narrated the audio book.)

The Triangle

A covert group travels to the Bermuda Triangle to investigate disappearances, only to be stranded on an uncharted island… where they discover they aren’t alone. Secrets are slowly revealed in Michael Crichton style suspense, with a healthy dose of television’s Lost.

False Idols

FBI crime thriller False Idols pits Layla el-Deeb against a terrorist network operating via Ciaro’s art scene. Her entry into the world of Cairo’s financial elite is complicated by her impoverished childhood in Cairo’s slums, and going undercover in her home city comes with greater challenges than she expected.

Tensorate

JY Yang’s Tensorate novellas tell a technology-vs.-tradition tale of two twin siblings, Mokoya and Akeha, drawn to opposite sides of a rebellion. A prequel reveals the history of the Protector’s rise, and a continuation of the original duology, The Descent of Monsters, features a female inspector trying to solve a mystery that involves a cover up, an escaped experiment, and strange dreams she can’t define.

The Witch Who Came in From the Cold

This Cold War with witches spy saga had two seasons—and ended on a cliffhanger. If you like a good KGB vs. CIA story, definitely let Serial Box know you’d love to see a third season!

Silverwood: The Door

Continuing on from stories originally introduced in the Black Box TV series Silverwood by Tony E. Valenzuela, this serial offers a Lovecraftian creature driving people to madness, and nods to splatterpunk and slashers. (Check out our interview with the writers.)

Bullet Catcher

Imma Moreno’s dead-end life changes directions when she decides to apprentice herself to a bullet catcher—mythical warriors whose heroics are told in hushed voices, but who were supposed to have been slaughtered by the gunslingers long ago. Tales of Jedi and the series Avatar: The Last Airbender inspired this weird western by Joaquin Lowe.

The Fisher of Bones

Sarah Gailey’s The Fisher of Bones is a fantasy novelette in twelve parts released by Fireside Fiction, with an audio version produced by Serial Box. It’s a beautiful and desolate fantasy story filled with trials of faith, and the short chapters make it a quick read–but the chapters will linger in a reader’s thoughts much longer.

Dead Air

College senior Macy Walker is obsessed with death, and in her on-air show, “Dead Air,” she airs out the old case of horsewoman Peg Graham’s murder. But though she starts reporting her own findings—and realizing that plenty of people would like Graham’s case to stay buried.

ReMade

Twenty three teenagers, all of whom died in the same minute, become the last hope for humanity when they awaken in a brand new world. Here, there are robots that hunt humans, a dangerous jungle, and the ruins of an ancient civilization.

Geek Actually

This contemporary fiction piece focuses on a circle of female friends whose careers revolve around their geeky passions. The focus on powerful and healthy female friendships is a delight, and the diversity of the cast is wonderful.

Bookburners

Bookburners, the flagship series for Serial Box (and one of my personal favorites on this list), is the story of a team of Vatican-employed agents trapping demons in books—until they realize that magic is too big to be contained. The story finished its fifth and final season, and the collected episodes are too good to miss.

Tremontaine

This completed serial is a prequel to Ellen Kushner’s Riverside fantasy series, and the the swashbuckling and political intrigue kept readers hooked through the serial’s ultimate conclusion. Series creator Ellen Kushner has posted a guide to the Riverside novels and the order in which they occur chronologically for readers wanting to delve more deeply into that world.

1776

The Associated Press series 1776: The World Turned Upside Down was originally published for the bicentennial of the United States in a hardcover, large format book for news organizations. The serial features dramatized audio narration with voice work by Clint McElroy as Alexander Hamilton, Bob Garfield as Thomas Paine, Chris Jackson as Washington, Nicholas Christopher as John Adams, and Robin Miles as the narrator. (We talked with CEO Molly Barton about the project.)

A Most Dangerous Woman

Brenda Clough takes up the mantle of Wilkie Collins in creating a sequel to what many critics consider the first and finest example of the modern mystery genre, The Woman in White.

Exquisite Corpse and Embodied

You’ve heard of the game: several authors create a story together, writing a chapter at a time and then handing it off to the next, so that none of the authors really know where it’s going to end up until the last moment. Serial Box took the concept and turned it into a serial format, with two event serials: Exquisite Corpse and Embodied.

Royally Yours

Looking for something a little lighthearted for your bite-sized reads? In honor of the real royal wedding in May, Serial Box released a short, mini-series of love stories, not about the bride and groom, but about couples involved in the day’s events.

Whitehall

In the mood for courtly drama, full of machinations, intrigue, and fantastic clothing? Settle in for the turmoil of the romance of Queen Catherine of Braganza, her husband, King Charles II of England, and his mistress, Barbara. This is captivating historical fiction, vividly set in the 17th century.

Belgravia

Fans of Downtown Abbey will gravitate to this story, written by Julian Fellowes, of the Trenchant family. Belgravia integrates real historical details into the text through hyperlinking; the setting is viscerally described, and the characters presented with an open eye to their flaws as equally as their virtues.

Conclusion

The best part about serials is that they’re happening live — and if enough people are reading them, they make great Internet water-cooler conversation. So if you’re catching up on the latest episode of The Vela, or the most recent installment of whatever Team Andrews is writing, and need to gush — or just want to make sure I know about the hot new serial you’re reading — come on over and find me on Facebook.

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