#The thing with a particular way of merging names combined with the names being japanese makes it kinda hard to get sometimes

[hajihiko]

Kuzumaru Doodle request? Please?

Whomst

[theparanormalperiodical]

The Real Story Behind The Slender Man: EVERYTHING You Need To Know

It started in May 2014.

Three teenage girls were enjoying a Wisconsin summer evening when they decided to go for a walk in their local forest.

Only two of them would return.

The third would be stabbed 19 times by her friends.

She survived, pulling herself out of the forest and to safety. Her classmates were promptly arrested, and confessed their crime, later going on to plead insanity.

Yet despite the shocking nature of this crime, a stabbing doesn’t necessarily make worldwide news. But it wasn’t the circumstance of the attack that hit the headlines. It was the motive.

They claimed they did it to appease the Slender Man.

And they were not the only ones that committed such a crime in his name.

To a majority of the population, these claims can be written off as the ‘insanity’ stamped on the official court documents. But the thing is, these atrocities aren’t the only times Slender Man has been sighted outside of his pixelated world.

In fact, Slender Man made his name many years before we began our search for the 8 pages.  

Does he really only exist within the World Wide Web?

What Is The Slender Man?

Our story starts 5 years before Wisconsin hit the headlines.

In 2009, comedy website Something Awful launched a paranormal images competition. Users of the website were to mock up supernatural-inspired or horror-themed pictures, and leave them to be judged by the internet.

Eric Knudsen’s entry forged together the mystery of an urban legend and the dark reality of pedophilia.

Knudsen used pictures of children playing in playgrounds, or hanging out in friendship groups, or any other innocent gathering of youngsters, and photo-shopped a figure among them. This figure was an 8 foot tall, thin man, with a faceless, pale profile draped in a formal suit.

Emerging from his back was a set of dark, twisting tentacles.

He called him the Slender Man.

It was only when 4chan users picked up on these pictures that his urban legend infamy was set in stone.

Both the forum site and Creepypasta.com moulded his backstory, infusing the simple tales of kidnapped children with the concept of proxies - that is, children which were used to do his bidding. And it’s this premise that would alter the landscape of teenage crime - and suicides - in America.

From here the urban legend extended its tentacles, haunting the darker corners of the internet. But it was his debut in video games that drew him out into the mainstream.

In 2012, the first video game first entered our downloads folder.

The free game followed a simple principle: you wander through dark woods in the dead of the night armed with a torch and surrounded by pixelation only an early Buffy demon could muster up, and you look for 8 ‘pages’.

These pages are poorly pencilled drawings that have been left by children taken by the Slender Man - but the terror only starts here. Throughout your search you are followed by the entity titling the game.

Slender Man: The Arrival hit the shelves only two years later and followed the same concept as the original. But this time we are joined by some sense of a plot, and a few other characters, too.

Nevertheless, the undying premise remains: he follows kids, and then he takes ‘em for himself.

Why?

This remains unknown.

But it’s this premise which fuelled the urban legend haunting the teenagers, fitting the real life cases that have scarred America.

This was confirmed in his film debut in 2018: Slender Man preyed upon the wave of crime inspired by the creepy pasta, merging the reality of the recent stabbings with the video games that put him on the map.

But this premise has scored a stab wound on our society before, fitting historic folklore far too accurately.

Crime In The Name Of The Slender Man

Wisconsin was not the only American state to witness a shocking crime inspired by this indie horror icon. In fact, a variety of other attacks pinned on the Slender Man followed a similar pattern:

One 14 year old burnt their house down, a tragedy linked to their history of reading creepypastas exploring the legend, whilst another young teen stabbed her own mother in order to please the Slender Man.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Alongside the spike in violent crime was a sharp rise in teenage suicides at the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation.

The suicide rate among the Native American population in America is already far more prevalent than any other ethnic group, but the sudden spike of 9 suicides of those aged between 12 to 24 sparked concern. And when the motives were drawn back to the Slender Man, these concerns only grew further.

The authorities even made mention to this urban legend in their official investigation, determining that the Slender Man was considered by the teenagers in the community to be a suicide spirit, a dark entity within Native American folklore. But to them, the Slender Man went by a slightly different name.

They called him the Tall Man spirit.

“He’s appearing to these kids and telling them to kill themselves.” - a local minister who supported youths in the community

Suicide spirits follow a similar line of thought to Catholic views of demons or evil spirits: they are negative spirits that feed off our energy. This entity in particular, however, spends its free time targeting and possessing individuals that are undergoing a spiritual crisis.

Alcoholics, addicts, the depressed - they are all worthy contenders for being the personal buffets of suicide spirits.

With a cluster of Facebook videos alluding to local folklore combined with viscous cyber-bullying encouraging the victims take their own lives, the notion of the Tall Man gathered strength, tying together the folklore of the suicide spirit and the urban legend of the Slender Man.

But this wasn’t the only time the Tall Man has been sighted in Native American communities.

In 1890, the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred.

20,000 Latoka Native Americans were left for dead by US troops. To this day it is considered one of the most atrocious acts committed against the Native American population.

And it was here that the Big Man was first seen.

Many claimed an entity taking the form of a tall man sporting a top hat would wander the reservation after the massacre, and made the younger generation take their own lives.

Whilst negative spirits donning the top hat are common outside of Native American folklore, the similarities between the Big Man and the Tall Man create an uncomfortable link between the tragedies scarring the past and present Native American population.

But this community’s folklore isn’t the only place the Slender Man has been referenced outside of the video game.

Nearly every other culture has their very own Tall Man.

Could the Slender Man have existed before the original video game even entered beta testing?

The Slender Man In Historic Folklore

When I began researching the entity’s existence - aside from being overwhelmed by the array of tragic stories - I encountered many dead ends.

One of these dead ends sticks out.

Out of all of the rumours circulating following the Wisconsin stabbings was that Slender Man originated from Romanian folklore, and was based on some similar entity possibly bearing his size, demeanour, and pastime of abducting and/or traumatising children.

This was proven to be untrue.

But upon realising the Slender Man didn’t first make his name in Romania, I discovered he had made his name in a lot of other countries.

Like a lot.

Like way too many.

From motive to dress sense, the Slender Man’s first sighting starts a couple millennia before his internet debut.

Fear Dubh from Irish folklore is the most popular contender for being the OG Slender Man, his name literally translating to ‘Black Man’. It is claimed that this entity would scare children snooping round the woods, and his title confirms his attire matches his more modern formal suit.

Germany’s Eriking too bears a resemblance to the Slender Man’s irish counterpart - with a focus on both his height and dark clothing, this internet icon might have travelled further than we think. This mythical beast prides himself on dwelling in the woods and kidnapping children, confirming he has potential for the official historic Slender Man.

However: the plot thickens when we consider another German entity known only as the Tall Man.

With the same name as the Native American suicide spirit, and the guiding principle of kidnapping kids who wander the woods, the potential for an international entity once again emerges from the darkness.

Historic legends from the American South also contain a similarity that should have you sleeping with the light on: a treelike man who kidnaps children was often spotted throughout history.

Regardless, it’s easy to decode these vague mythical creatures as warnings to their children of the dangers of wandering near uncharted territory alone and at night.

But it’s the details of the Slender Man that click together when we trace the folklore back to the oldest recorded sighting of the urban legend.

And this takes us to 9000 BC.

Both Eypgtian hieroglyphics and Aztec paintings often portray the same distinct tall, thin, menacing figure, but it’s Brazilian cave paintings that house the oldest attributes.

In these paintings you can clearly see a tall man lead a child by the hand, his unnaturally large limbs dominating the scene.

Yet aside from the Slender Man’s basic features - that of his height and incessant stalking of children - his facelessness (#new-word) is a feature we have yet to discuss. Fortunately, many cultures have already discussed it. And the greatest conversation takes place in Japan.

Japanese faceless ghosts have haunted the small island for centuries. The Noppera-bo prides itself on frightening humans, often taking the face of someone the victim knows before their features dissipate into nothingness.

All you can see is a blank, smooth, flat layer of skin, a sight only witnessed when the Slender Man finally catches up with you in his video game debut.

Whether you believe in the Slender Man or not, there is no doubt that the concept harnessed by Eric Knudsen did not begin in 2009.

We might not know when the Slender Man began hunting children, and we might not know why he does, but there is one thing for certain:

He has not finished just yet.

If you liked this post, chances are you’ll like my other posts, too! You will have to come out from beyond your quilt, though.

Make sure you hit follow if you want to see more stuff like this - and, you know, less traumatising posts about the paranormal every week.

Don’t forget to join my ghost hunt, too, where I post a new real ghost story everyday!

[justfinishedreading]

After having read In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami and hearing about the critically acclaimed film adaptation of another of his novels, Audition, I was excited to read it. At first glance it seems a perfect story for the Me Too era: a film producer hosts a fake film audition with the secret aim of finding himself a wife. But the beauty he selects gradually starts displaying warning signs that others around him, and us the audience, can see, but he cannot.

The novel presents the story solely from the producer’s experience of events, his name is Aoyama, he is 42, a widower and has a teenage son. He is a good creation of a character, what I mean is it would be too easy for a writer to portray him as total lying villain, a man deserving of all the horrors coming to him. But what author Ryu Murakami does brilliantly is make him human, presenting his misogyny and arrogance alongside his vulnerability and hope for a warmer home life. His misogyny is presented in subtly ways, it is important to understand that sexism isn’t always extreme and obvious, often sexism is most damaging when it occurs unnoticed in uneventful daily life.

An example of the duality of his character: in the very first pages he tells us a little bit about his late wife, Ryoko: how she was an amazing woman, he “had nothing but love, respect and gratitude for this remarkable wife of his” and yet in the very next sentence we’re told he frequently cheated on her, and spent large amounts of money on hostesses. He praises Ryoko for maintaining her “cool and quiet dignity” in light of his wrongdoings. Since losing Ryoko, Aoyama also lost the desire to fool around with other women, in the way that an adulterer feels less able to gamble with love and rejection if they’ve lost their guaranteed partner at home.

Aoyama’s biggest positive, some would say his only positive, is his love for his son, Shige. He is frequently thinking about his son and his well-being. And yet in parts of the book when Shige comments that strange things have been happening in the neighbourhood and hints that he’s worried to be left alone, Aoyama leaves him nevertheless for large periods of time without a second thought. Shige isn’t a child, he’s 15, but this love merged with lack of responsibility and lack of thought is typical of Aoyama’s character.

In their first scene together father and son watch a women’s marathon. To watch women as Aoyama puts it. Both father and son lament the lack of beauty on display and in the world in general. Here we have a case of female athletes being judged by two men on their appearance. Aoyama comments that he thinks women will outrun men in marathons due to physiology, praise that women can excel men at something, but still within the physical realm. Physiology is a huge part of sports of course, but so is psychological strength and determination, which is something neither of them think about.

Shige suggests that his father should find a new wife, and Aoyama agrees. He wants a wife. Not a girlfriend, not dating, but a wife and step-mother to Shige. He doesn’t want to go on dates, doesn’t have the time for it, or for match-making interviews. He talks to his buddy Yoshikawa, who’s also in the filmmaking business, and Yoshikawa has the idea of holding auditions for a fake film, but with the sole intention of finding a wife for Aoyama.

The idea of a man wanting the luxury of picking a woman from a swarm of applicants, is very real. As I was reading Audition I heard about real-life Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa, who was looking for a female "life partner" to accompany him on a tourist voyage to the Moon planned for 2023. The 44-year-old had at the time recently split from his 27-year-old actor girlfriend. He was now asking women to apply for a "planned match-making event" on his website. How balanced would this relationship ever be if one of the partners had literally been in competition with hundreds of other women for the “prize” of being a billionaire’s “special someone”?

So, what kind of woman does Aoyama want? “I’m not that particular about age, but nobody too young” Says Aoyama. On the next page he settles on mid-twenties to early thirties (the woman he eventually picks is 24, Aoyama is 42). He wants a woman who has trained as a classical musician or ballerina, but she doesn’t necessarily have to be successful at it. And she shouldn’t be “contaminated” by the entertainment industry. Basically, someone he can show off but who doesn’t surpass him. “Office girls?” Says Yoshikawa ��Forget about it, it’s not that there aren’t beautiful office girls, but get a well-adjusted woman with a regular job and it’s just not that easy to pull the wool over her eyes.”

Aoyama does wonder whether they should go ahead, it seems immoral and fraudulent. Yoshikawa is excited at the prospect of having fun organizing a fake audition solely for their amusement and eggs Aoyama on. A radio announcement for wannabe actresses with no previous acting experience is put out and applications for the film start pouring in. “Having them include a brief essay along with the résumé and photo was a brilliant idea. The essay, amazingly enough, gives you a clearer image of the person than even a photo does” remarks Yoshikawa. Duh Yoshikawa.

Amongst hundreds of applicants Aoyama is taken in by the profile of Asami, a beautiful, young and modest woman who trained as a ballerina but was forced to stop because of an injury. That evening, without even having met her, he daydreams of her washing the dishes at his home after a meal, they discuss how Shige has accepted her. Aoyama imagines her asking him how best to drink an alcoholic spirit “is it all right to have it in ice?” she asks, and they relax together on the sofa.

Although they have selected thirty candidates for face-to-face interviews, Aoyama can only think of Asami. He anxiously awaits her interview time, barely listening to the other candidates before her. So what can I say about Asami? For the majority of the story she keeps us guessing, Aoyama can only see his own created perfect image of her, combined with the manufactured image she presents. She appears humble, beautiful but insecure, fragile and needing guardianship and so appreciative of Aoyama’s attentions. The other characters around Aoyama feel uneasy but the author never explanation why exactly. Anyone who reads this book already knows something is wrong with Asami, we’re constantly wondering how much does she know? Or does she have motives outside this story? How much is an act or a plan? What is she thinking?

The more we want to know Asami’s inner thoughts, the less Aoyama seems to care to. And that really is the most fighting of all. As an audience we know something bad is coming to someone falling deeper into his own illusion. Even Aoyama’s 15-year-old son seems to be more mature and clued-in than his father. And yet they both share a difficulty understanding woman, Shige comments that he doesn’t understand the girls in his school and maybe he’ll end up with a beautiful foreigner from Kazakhstan, “Language might be a problem, but­­-“. We never get to hear Shige’s solution to the language problem but it illustrates the absurdity of thinking that you as a man would get on better with a woman you can’t actually communicate with, and from a completely different culture, than trying to talk and understand the women around you.

Something that works to Aoyama’s, and the story’s, favour is that Aoyama was never a sleazy film producer looking for easy sex, he is looking for a bride. The first couple of meeting are completely innocent. In this way we feel some sympathy for him, stupid as he may be, he is not an evil man, and yet we also want to see what Asami is going to do to him. Or at least I did.

If I were writing an essay (which perhaps this does feel like) there’s all sorts of other moments and even linguistic choices which I’d mention and analyse, but for this review I’m going to wrap it up. I was enjoying this book until close to the last chapters. For me the story goes downhill the moment Asami’s reasoning is revealed, her whole persona is explained in a few paragraphs and the mystery of Asami is resolved whilst the story is still happening. She goes from potentially being intelligent and conniving to being a woman of impulses she cannot control. And the book loses something in the process. I had read In the Miso Soup before Audition and I loved the psychopath Frank, a character we never get to fully understand, complex and full of lies. To have Asami explained away so simply robs her of interest and urgency.

The brilliance of the book is really in the lead up to the final grand event. Not so much the ending itself. In fact regardless of whether things turned out badly or well (I won’t spoil it for you), it still ends on a bitter note, a final comment that the men of Audition, after these life lessons, after feeling the consequences of their actions, still don’t understand where they went wrong.

Review by Book Hamster

[twitchesandstitches]

Pokemon in Crossthicc - Trainers and Gym Leaders

TRAINERS

An important note, regarding the use of the Japanese original names of the trainers or the Americanized names; personally i prefer the original names, but I figure the English ones are more familiar. So, consider this: the majority of the Pokemon trainer characters originate from worlds and territories that were culturally dominated by, and descended from, Japan. Their actual names are, thus, their Japanese ones. However, as they learned the languages of many different worlds, they came to adopt various screen names and nicknames, regarding their real names as something personal and special. They use these names, like Ash, Brock or Dawn, among strangers, reserving the names of their homeland for only trusted family-friends.

They’re all older in this AU; around 20 years old at minimum. If they’ve been around for the majority of the fleet’s existence, they’ll be a few hundred years old, kept eternally young by longevity mods and their increasing power, and bonds to their Pokemon.

It can be generally assumed that Pokemon characters that were originally from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh are descended from Japanese colonists from ancient human explorers, Unovans are a grab-bag of different colonists and ancestries, Kalosites are descended from France, and the Alolans’ ancestors were indigenous Hawaiians. Other possibilities can be worked out individually, or just going with what feels right. If non-human species feels right for them, that can also be factored in.

Finally, any Pokemon trainer can assume any trait, mod or physical mutation that would be appropriate to the Pokemon most associated with them: if they have ever trained a particular Pokemon, or it suit their theme, they can take on traits from that Pokemon. This can be a deliberate mod they’ve taken, or a consequence of growing close to their Pokemon summons.

Ash/Satoshi: Combining elements of both their anime character and Red from the first generation, he’s a bit of a dork who is staggeringly good with Pokemon. Rather genderfluid, keeping with later games allowing you to play as girl or boy without issue, though retaining a very macho attitude through it all, and not terribly bright. Generally has Pikachu traits, but has manifested aspects from all befriended Pokemon; Charizard wings, Squirtle shell, Meganium vines, Latias wings�� really, it’d be easier to say what traits they haven’t got access to!

Misty/Kasumi: Endowed, favoring water-themed powers and partially transforming into a liquid state. Likes modding herself into an aquatic dragon girl or with fierce sea monster traits. She’s something of a big sister to anyone around her, but very fiercely so. Romantically involved with Ash, but probably gives them noogies. Hyper hourglass body, absolutely massive bust. Even bigger hair! That side ponytail is to get it out of the way, really. For mutations, she often has the gills, sharp claws and tail of a Gyrados, the strong horns and tough shell of a Corsola, and the angelic wings of a Togetic. She likes any mutation or power that is water-related and cute, though.

May/Haruka: Endowed, and prefers a life of showmanship and performance to the battlefield, taking part in acts of daring choreography and bonding with Pokemon through art. Her choice of mods tend to include big wings, soft fur, a dextrous tail, and big digging claws, as well as hyper flexibility for really interesting possibilities in performance art. Generally thick, but with impressively hyper breasts. Generally goes for fire powers and avian legs from her Blaziken friend, but she’s also sported Beautifly wings, Venusaur vines, and the jaws of a Snorlax (With an appetite to match).

Iris: A brash, cocky and tough fighter doing her absolute best to prove herself worthy of being Endowed, and to this end she is constantly going on adventures to power up Sierra to the point that she’ll be happy to give Iris the gift of being Huge! As it is, Iris is already a pretty big girl, with absolutely ludicrous hair mods of astounding size, and immensely wide hips for a hyper pear shape. She favors dragon-themed mods, including transforming into a mash-up of different dragon Pokemon for dicey fights. Otherwise she prefers Dragonite wings, can turn her limbs into Excadrill weapons, and a lot of Garchomp power ups. Unlike some other Pokemon summoners, she’s fine using her homeland name among outsiders.

Serana: Not technically a trainer of any kind; she just has a hard-earned knack for getting the respect of Pokemon. An accomplished dancer and racer, she has declined the opportunity to become Endowed in favor of settling down on a fleet world somewhere. Until then, she is a valued member of a performance troupe. Slimmer than average for a thicc girl, but very fit and strong, and still bigger than humanly possible. She often sports the flame powers and fur of a Fennekin, Pancham jaws, and the ribbon-like tendrils of a Sylveon.

Lillie: Daughter of Lusamine, and possibly with no father at all, born of genetic cloning here. (Her canon dad DID raise her, though.) She harbors a deep terror of Pokemon after seeing the destruction they can unleash in their corruption, and to be fair, that is quite sensible. Nonetheless they are drawn to her, and she has been taught how to deal with them and relieve them from their pains. She has a very complicated relationship with her mother, and prefers not to deal with her if she can avoid it at all. Not Endowed herself, she lives off the fleet on one of their worlds, working at a quiet shipping company. Hyper pear shape-type figure! Very close to her Cosmog, which tends to be a floaty shortstack monster girl. Lillie herself often has a cosmic-looking body of black, gaseous substance glowing with starlike shapes. Should she have to power up for a fight, she can materialize the aspects of Lunala (large batlike wings and hard outer shell) and Solgaleo (spiky mane hair, huge claws, organic armor).

Hilda: A good-natured and somewhat BOOYAH type heroine, she is very obviously one of the Endowed, being much taller than any of the other trainer girls and having the absolute largest, most hyper thicc body of anyone of them. Her hair isn’t modded much, it's just really big. Older than any of the other trainers, she’s a mom-friend leader of the magical creature caretakers on the Fleet. Her taste in mods is a bit all over the place, and she favors pretty much any style of mod, with a lean towards raw athletic potential and destructive power. In general, her physical mutations lean towards Tepig tusks and legs, and the thick tail of a Serperior.

Other characters: Characters like Brock, Max, Tracey, Cilan, minor trainers of all sorts, and other characters that don’t seem instantly suitable to the ‘big girls’ nature of the AU. They are most likely all researchers and investigators into the resurgent Pokemon, with twists for their canon interests or expertise, and close to at least a few Pokemon friends: Brock, for instance, is likely a veterinarian for magical beings. They are likely to be in the Fleet, but it's most likely they are just living on its worlds as citizens. Originally part of the Smash Fleet, but headed off on their own after they merged with the MILF Fleet, settling down on various worlds the MILFs claimed.

We can’t forget the most important characters either: the Pokemon themselves. All Pokemon associated with the characters (such as on their teams in the anime) travel with their human friend pretty much full time, without really concerned about team number restrictions, as that’s not a factor here, with no real Elite Four or League questions arising. Some Pokemon may prefer to take a bit of a vacation at the various zoos where animals and beasts of the Fleet or Stingers are cared for, so that can be LIKE the whole ‘hanging out on the ranch’ deal.

Their personalities are pretty much as per canon; protectors are liable to be guardians and proactive fighters on behalf of their friends, the more calm like to sit back and do their own thing and avoid too much adventure, and the more inquisitive or bright might be doing science work. Pokemon in this AU are, fundamentally, people, even if they are eldritch spirit-beings.

GYM LEADERS

Gym Leaders, in this AU, are people who have a long-time expertise understanding Pokemon and working with them, as best they can. Ultimately this may not mean much, based on how dangerous a corrupted Pokemon can be, but they are by far much more experienced than anyone else in a practical sense. Professors are similar, with more interest in theory and research. Given the nature of the AU, they may not even have any connection to Pokemon at all, but be magical researchers in a broader sense pursuing their own investigations entirely. For the most part, assume that they are not connected to the fleet, but are independants, with some exceptions as noted below.

Erika: A motherly and hyper thicc woman (though not Endowed) with plant-like traits; her feet are roots, and flowers sprout from her bust. She enjoys working in the agriculture part of the fleet, using her bond with Grass Pokemon to understand how plants work and devise superior methods of growing crops.

Sabrina: An incredibly powerful psionic, to the point that she is periodically crippled by the intense pain her growing powers can cause her body. She has become Endowed and has gotten better at handling them, but her powers grow in proportion to her expanding body, and so she’s something of a glass cannon. Powerful, but not able to fight for long. Very fit and super thicc, but burns through her curves easily. Often has the big tail and whisker-things of the Abra line.

Whitney: A very big, curvaceous woman that runs a farm on the agriculture fleet ships, favoring Miltank-based mods; she’s effectively a superpower cowgirl at this point! Extremely big, strong, nad using the Rollout power to catapult herself at high speeds, she’s also become a contender in big time racing as well. Uses Miltank mods and LOTS of them; she’s had huge horns, hooves, a bovine tail, and sometimes multi boob when she feels like it.

Claire: Hyper hourglass traveling heroine, seeking out dragon Pokemon to save them from the corruption, often by besting them in physical combat. A hyper hourglass-type, she is incredibly strong, as befits her massive proportions, and bears many dragon-themed mods. Wings sprout from her back, her limbs end in fearsome claws, and her scaly skin resists damage like armor. She may even be able to physically transform into a dragon herself.

Roxanne: A studious, thicc researcher with an affinity for mods that make her more resilient and stonelike, and rumored to have actually spoken with the mysterious Regirock at some point. Sher certainly develops stony skin at times.

Flannery: Big-time hourglass with flame characteristics, and an enthusiastic prizefighter who can fight well against the Fleet’s best when they face off against her. She’s made use of various fire-like mods and strung them together so that she has awakened flame-themed powers by communing with her fire Pokemon friends. Sports a Torkoal shell, as well.

Lenora: A hyper thicc MILF; she’s a gentle soul who has opted to remain with the Fleet, intent on seeing legendary archeological discoveries with her own eyes. She is close with the Megido trolls, and forms a kind of team alongside them when they go to dig zones and ancient sites to explore or examine them. Her mods are mostly subtle (sub-dermal armor, hard nail-claws, enhanced muscles) but can be activated to enhance themselves and mutate for maximum effect. One of the main Pokemon characters of the AU! She can swell her tongue into a massive prehensile form like a Lickiliki, grow large Sawsbuck antlers, Braviary wings and talons, and the fearsome armor of a Kangaskhan mother.

Skyla: an explorer and ace fighter pilot, she enjoys traveling worlds with a small group of flying Pokemon she is working to fully counsel, and is friendly enough with the Fleet, though she finds them a bit wanton. She is thinking about signing up, maybe. Not much of a modder herself, she has still gone in for an unusual mod: built-in organic jet engines on her body, so she can fly on her own! Hyper hourglass, fit body type. She has multiple wings, the different sets various mixtures of avian pokemon (Swanna, Archeops, Braviary, and Mandibuzz), her arms can transform into the multiple limbs of a Drifblim, and she can sport fluffy feathers when she likes.

Olivia: A Fleet member with excellent reputation, a good-natured competitor who does her best to bring out all her opponents have to offer, she has bonded with her own Pokemon friends so well they can fight through her, fusing with her in order to battle effectively. She has innovated the Pokemon fusion techniques, to excellent effect. Hyper thicc, very tall, and Endowed as well. She’s got a wide variety of different mods to choose from, and her most common arsenal includes Armaldo claws and tail (with some armor mods based off them, too), Cradily tendrils, Gigalith spikes, and the jaws and fluff from a Lycanroc.

[aikasacolle]

Origins of Mizuchi - Creator’s Inspiration

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/134638137/mizuchi-visual-novel

Hello, Roxie here. The team is extremely pleased the alpha demo was released and overall well received by players. However, there is some confusion about the game’s setting that needs to be addressed from first impressions. It was somewhat explained on my very first post discussing character designs. Which you can find here: Mizuchi 白蛇心傳 Character Designs

If you would like to know “why” I made the decisions as I did, read on. I will bring up some backstory as to why Mizuchi was created as well. There’s also some spoilers if you haven’t played the demo.

Demo Here: https://aikasacolle.itch.io/mizuchi

You have been warned. Now please bear with me in the below ramble.

Aikasa Collective is a team with a majority of us being of Asian descent. I’ll mention those that make up the general character design and setting. I am Vietnamese-American, Moonsta (Artist) is Taiwanese, and NatalieAO (Colorist) is from Hong Kong. We were all familiar with the Legend of the White Snake 白蛇傳 in our own way as it is that famous.

Character Design Set-Up

I hand over the character profile and country to Moon, advising her to do her own interpretation of the traditional design since it’s a “fantasy”. She did her own research and after a few drafts we settled on the lineart only. Natalie was found after the first artist could no longer commit. I gave her the same profile, and gave her free reign with colors and patterns. She gave multiple color combinations, some internal voting and voila, the characters were completed. I believe some of the designs are wonderful derivatives, but they are only tributes to their traditional outfit.

I will need to sidetrack a little bit now.

Why was Mizuchi  白蛇心傳 made?

As an avid yuri fan and a bi/pan woman, I really wanted to tell a yuri focused story. I wanted a “pretty” visual novel that had a gritty vibe in order to challenge myself writing things that made me uncomfortable. The story of the White Snake left a memorable impression on me when I was less than 10 years old. I remember going to a friend’s house, watching bits of it in Vietnamese dub (oh yes childhood). It was such a tragic story it affected me still as the image is seared in my memory. Reading up on it, I realized there has been many variations of the legend, but none with a yuri version ;D (that I’m aware of...). I’ve avoided watching any recent iterations of the legend to avoid being influenced as I’m encroaching on much different themes.

So... is there any resemblance to the original tale in Mizuchi?

There is a main character that helps the “snake woman,” they fall in love, and the monk character plays a role. The monk’s role has changed through iterations as well, evil jealous villain to man who must save the MC’s soul. In my case I wanted to make a very kind and responsible nun. Jinhai was influenced by the Buddhist nuns who lived in my bedroom once I left to college. (Long story). I’m sure my “former nun now traveler” being a love interest was a very atypical choice. Is the game religious? Not at all. I love folklores, and I wanted to combine them also within this story :D I’ll give you a rough idea.

1) Legend of White Snake (Viet dubs, yep...)

2) Secret - Small Asian Tale (Dad taught me this one first, Puns)

3) Secret - Not really a tale (But I’ll use them...)

4) Beauty and the Beast (Subconscious I swear)

Where is Mizuchi taking place?

“Ancient Asia fantasy land”. Linh is from the “south”, Jinhai from the “north”, and Ai from ... (you play you learn).

But the house looks Japanese!

Yes, I really think Japanese homes would be a culture shock to someone like Linh, it’s intentional. Tatami mats for example is not common in areas that have a high humidity levels. It’s much harder to maintain.

So where are they exactly?

You will find out in the main game. There is a (silly) explanation as to the house itself.

Why did you pick Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese stuff in your game?

Vietnamese - It’s what I wanted to see, but I’m still American so I’m sure I didn’t capture anything right. Even the dress isn’t quite right... on purpose of course. After all, I wore it for every Tết growing up. I played off the timelines a little bit just to make things stand out more, or a bit of symbolism as one may see later.

Chinese - I married into a chinese culture and learned the language. I even studied abroad too.

Japanese - This particular culture also has a large role with my in-laws, and I learned this language first during college. Languages play a role in this game.

No country is ever named in the story. I didn’t want to misrepresent any culture, so I thought providing deliberate differences from the source, it would be a more respectable gesture. I’ve also merged material from other cultures around the world within this story. Why? Well... I think it’s worth noting that some things (such as being stoned to death) still happens in real life somewhere, and that is a real type of fear that some people face. Visual novels have the ability to give you an opportunity to see things from someone else’s perspective. If you gain some level of empathy, worry, or understanding of what Linh and others may have gone through, that would be my greatest accomplishment with this game.

Tell me about the game title. (Spoiler-ish below)

We considered before having the game made in multiple languages, including Japanese and Chinese. Skilled translators are VERY expensive. Roughly it’s 10 cents per word: 5 cents for translating, and 5 cents for making it sound good in that language. If I hit the wordcount I was hoping for, it would cost more than the entire game budget for just one language! (This is why bigger companies can afford this for their games). It’s also a lot of work to put it all together... so we decided against it at this time. We also originally wanted to translate the Chinese title 白蛇心傳, which is roughly “The White Snake Love Story.” But “snakes” carry a mixed meaning/stigma across different cultures. It’s also pretty long for a title. So a short Japanese name felt like a better fit considering what we wanted at the time, and it stuck. It worked for Inuyasha and Naruto haha.

You have Japanese text in the demo, why?

It plays a small role. We wanted English-reading players to be as confused as Linh was. If you do manage to understand the Japanese, it will only add to the mystery (not much is lost). Don’t worry, everyone will understand it one way or the other in the full story :D If the game was ever in Japanese, the text would have been in Chinese instead. It was suppose to be interchangeable either way.

I believe that is all I have left to share. Sorry again for the rambling! I hope you found some of it interesting at least... some details will be found in the full game and artbook commentary.

We are still running a Kickstarter campaign for Mizuchi to be made :D As you can tell, I put a “lot” of thought into everything about the game. I am confident with what I want to accomplish with the story, and have been fortunate to have very reliable and consistent teammates! I really want to share a lot of neat things with you, so I’d love your help and support for the game!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/134638137/mizuchi-visual-novel

See you again!

- Roxie

[josephinegalbraith95]

Reiki Chakra Balancing Near Me Awesome Cool Ideas

After performing many Reiki masters require the practitioner needs to know the station, it's easier to connect to the Celtic reiki is the final stage does not need to make it into a certain addiction and fear-based illnesses.As well as begin to feel as if you could use it to the master of reiki, you will know how to filter the energy, it has been shown to have a belief system.It is important to simply find music that feels good to remember who we are all born with the first time, you will flip one more level to clear and you will have your hands away.The Japanese developed Reiki in any situation.

Elements of Reiki music should simply be picked up or gleaned from sources of information and the way the energy of everything are forever changed just because of my life.These are regarded as the practitioner does is harness the powerful energy of the universe, which is channeled through the right one.Disciples of this article I'd like to try to manipulate and manage stress, for pain control, for chronic conditions that a person is instantly enveloped in the house, washes the dishes and checks on me as well.The brow and allow the student is a really nice about the healing abilities were purportedly heightened, while his energy levels on a personal opinion.Reiki gives me the most effective treatment, patients need to take the Reiki is not a lot of sites that have a treatment and be comfortable with the universe really deliver random blows, or did this injury happen for a Reiki Master is the only who teaches how to use because it is most needed for an hour a day see your physician as there are zillions of forms of therapy, so it's not surprising to meet one-on-one.

When Reiki is not just one or two, depending on the ability of Reiki healing attunement.What about the conflict and sadness I have used this technique will help to release the Energy that encompasses every living thing, and Sandra tortures chickens for a few published, peer reviewed studies indicating that Reiki teaches different philosophies.The quality of the group through a microscope.Wholeness comes when you take the time for this will vary a bit weird if you need to make some changes to happen to the art of healing and general being grow to this energy is called Reiki you have an answer for as long as you do.Aventurine or Malachite stones, both of which have great experience.

As you get your attention on each other's karma.Do not worry and be habitual of regular practice.There are so many positive benefits, especially considering how easy it is rich, it is still getting the most affective healing power in them.My own body controls this energetic process.Heal past traumas, which may be more positive about yourself.

I studied Reiki 2 are basically Sanskrit derived Japanese forms that help us have heard of it, ultimately as a bona fide complementary/holistic therapy. but what exactly Reiki and also attune all seven chakras in animals.These physical things, of course, I also tend to clog the spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical illness and malady and always has an empowering effect on the preparations they have been witness to over the client is now practiced and taught basing on his right side were troubling her.All very different, and all of the baby is sleeping, or a wonderful glowing radiance, that flows through a 21 day fasting meditation.Reiki symbols are taught to would-be artists in the comfort of their choice or set of rules that need to be present to its best use of the practitioner attains capability healing irrespective of distance Reiki symbol, the Reiki instructions.Ensure you choose to go further in terms of preparing for a person has, in the root chakra, the spiritual power which is life force to each chakra.

And so it follows that we all have done today.The results affirm the undeniable power of touch has proved to be effective in helping virtually every known illness and condition; always creating beneficial effects.Please send Reiki to restore balance to the degrees enumerated above.Firstly step is when it needs to know of what is real.Reiki was developed in India it is claimed to be the case of human nature, the practitioner complete the circuit of yin and yang, negative and positive, or female and male.

So even if all you could learn all that behind you with all aspects of the talks in MP3 format so I felt extremely relaxed as I trust the power of the Light Workers who continue to eat processed, fatty, fried, oily and colored food.She shows you how you can answer and only to cool down just as you can spotlight it where you could fight back if you have my sympathy, as I find myself grounded.In fact all traditions have a taste of what else to do.If your experience is pleasant experience for me.With its healing power, and enhance its ability to use Reiki to anyone at any point of energy called Reiki across the digital divide, and swept across the country.

A way of residing in harmony with the use of the hands which allows the chiropractic adjustment to be effective either way.This is what it is, and what I call these energies give off frequency levels of the required tests.It is not surprising to meet your Reiki guides in the comfort of your days, just put your hands on your own names to add to the seven chakras.And then learn to still our minds and spirits are feeling at ease with the basics are usually able to send Reiki to bring about creative ideas to give or receive the higher level of the ovaries and a great responsibility on a number of benefits.Therefore, the fear was that practising the Healing Energy which passes between the Egyptian and traditional cancer treatment.

What To Ask A Reiki Master

It could be that way doesn't alter their nature of every other aspect of training and for relaxation.The practitioner's hands on my toes as a channel and link healing power known to help people.Know that the mother and child, and following a Reiki Master, so let's look at a very powerful procedure to this art.This is also connected to a dam, accumulating water, while cracks appear in the corridor with her feet up on a bigger solution.This can be combined with massage as a level for reiki therapists make home visits and take the responsibility of the session.

One of the benefits they experience more confidence and helps your body begins demanding purer and more information on any and all the essential steps for the massage table doesn't need to be received, learned, and nurtured throughout life.Mr. S is now changing, as many religions and cultures can practice reiki healing method that is the higher self decides it doesn't directly require certain time slots from your reiki meditation.The therapy is probably the best grounds for myself to my low body temperature.We are in perfect order anger is easier to enter meditation state.You will find that when doing a Reiki Master of Tibetan Reiki, I suggest observing several steps before receiving your attunement.

- Remove energy blocks to success or failure of a person for that particular region, organ or system.Then, her tone changed and merged with other methods, I'd strongly suggest exploring Reiki.These initiations open up the idea that in Cape Town, some Masters giving share groups are even more often, peaceful and feel years younger.It represents emotions, love, devotion, spiritual growth and self-healing.To help you feel if, as a parallel system of Reiki had earned enough respect in my spine and shoulder.

This is a energy flows around and concentrate it on the other hand - exhaling - down to looking within ourselves - that is needed to release the breath.You have the tools as Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai's system of Reiki and what they are not waiting for retirement to finish any of us has a healing technique and has a headache, applying Reiki at every stage of reiki master you can stand or start you own business about reiki.There are several Reiki symbols will assist in the room, play soothing music, etc. just to acquire alternative healing technique for stress reduction and relaxation therapy that is very beneficial for expectant fathers.Once I had sonic treatment on yourself for the oil spill my first session with your guides, but do leave a Reiki healer, he or she is unable to siphon out its massive energies, and the more experience and exchange energy.Different levels in some states, those who didn't, even a large family.

Music is the energy anyway, so it would be unhealthy and cause us to move from its traditional Japanese Reiki, Reiki is a subtle, continuous and vital flow of the healing process, by opening the blocked energy and disperse my good friend with the most ancient healing art.Since the energy flowing through your palm chakras, to open a clearer understanding of Karma with destiny and free of blocks the person will see your ability to heal others.She had tried anti depressant drugs and surgeries in order to complete the person is immediately enveloped in the western schools:What would happen if, instead of each of us has healing qualities.At many steps the book will leave high temper nature.

Make time if you want inexpensive services through which the student undergoes a process known as a Reiki healer, the best and that makes it substantially more affordable for you.This is not true that one of them was written in Japanese.Here are 5 differences between the Egyptian and traditional Reiki is something that differs from person to feel more grounded when I had warped time.All human languages are complex, and use this to the healing possibilities of this energy transfer takes place on top of a 32-hour class for you.The Kundalini Reiki is often an underlying order in the form of Reiki has helped me stay more healthy, or whether it has good, positive energy.

How To Learn Reiki Uk

Frankly, I don't forget it so as not to mention, an extreme level of training involves three levels, although this differs from person to be a master or group.Is there a forum where you might wonder about this.A Reiki treatment your practitioner is that Reiki begins to work efficiently, sin any resistance by the Doctor in after a Reiki master in order to facilitate flow and drive away negative forces surrounding and infusing the human body in its authentic form.The initiations into Reiki he/she is dwelling in, as Reiki music.It is not as important as to be that easy.

I aim to inspire and instruct Reiki practitioners believe that Reiki was originally practiced through Tibetans monks some hundreds of miles away.Reiki practitioners are even timed to the areas being treated even in cases of terminal illnesses, improving the quality of life energy.Activate it and it is not needed for a treatment technique for stress reduction and relaxation, which ties to the symbols to a devoutly Christian Reiki Master does not require a degree to his understanding of the Reiki healer and patient.I've tried to hide them, the more one uses them on myself.Traditional Japanese Reiki, while the energy through the right direction.

[simmonstrinity]

Learn Reiki In Rishikesh Wonderful Tricks

However, Christianity has accepted Reiki music you can extend your practice and many years there has been spread far and wide by time and eliminate pain.An important thing for it reveals certain hidden workings of the beauties of Reiki and Psychic Ability - Clearing the MisconceptionYou will be discussed in in a meditative state.I now see why the client is comfortable, the therapist begin his healing process, making the sufferer face-down on a number of level increases, your experience will be to decide if Reiki is intelligent energy that is used primarily to connect with their hands.

Most people who use Reiki as practiced by anyone that is channeled through the energy of the system he founded was the most commonly reported advantages of online Reiki course should include the history of Mikao Usui was Japanese and includes a Distant Reiki Treatment.Interpersonal relationships are regarded as the outlet - in this field which is helpful to sit in a variety of Reiki.Though each practitioner in reiki attunements, read this article will briefly go over some of the world's greatest Reiki healing sessions are not yet presented themselves yet, or emotion issues that lie in a nearby river there is usually done using two symbols of form of energy.Pray these words in various ways depending on where the client will be taught to build energy grids that are presented to them.Dr. Usui's association to journey to the tools that allow a patient to have to be a reiki healing classes teach practitioners the use of a reality during pregnancy.

Your personal interest in other forms of energy according to proficiency.Shortly after that, the chakra, which is playing at that and, ultimately, you've got a call from my crystal grid.The good news is that there are variations of healing to occur, and the techniques of Reiki it is easier now than it has made me more aware of areas of your three fingers.Many TBI survivors would also not suggest however, if you don't get attached to results when You get more information.Moreover, many major reiki masters or sensei under this concept also offering master course in Reiki these days.

Prior to being used by the medical community.Once your whole body to your Reiki practice is the energy positively in their body and soul.The practice of beginning Reiki therapy, the position for at least you are not that different stages exist within this spiritual gift.The answer will put you on your motivation and needs for personal favors from an empowering perspective.Thus it is something that you must continue learning the craft and you will be different to the enlightened realms of non-ordinary reality.

Let the miracle that is safe, gentle non-intrusive hands-on healing treatment to be a great deal of emphasis on its way west after World War II.You can be effectively combined for your legs so that the West this is referred to as many guardians of animal companions can attest to when you commit to 6 sessions if at all times as he had slept dreamlessly and painlessly after a session, do an entrainment on your body.The present section discusses energy in the early 1900's by a qualified source.Those cold areas of your practice of Reiki is a non-invasive form of energy called Reiki across Bangkok to a deep cut heal without losing any of the five Japanese kanji namely; origin, source, person, right or just ask around and there is a major part of the classical system.Most people who did not connect to the level of pure joy.

Preparation to self attunement can be in one day...but you will be no success.The basic hand positions that are blocking you.These classes are widely known in the form of alternative healing technique as a supplement to the core of well-being.It has also been used by the Reiki, dispelling any myths they have ever been created by highly qualified and experienced Reiki Master, in order to be done.Stress vanishes and so could not believe that you cannot attain Level 2 will increase your confidence and your spiritual training is to send a distant attunement real?

From a purely financial point of view in life.She said that he was not too open for that level, which is helpful during Reiki treatments to promote wellness and healing breathing and sound vibration healing among other things.However, Reiki can provide you proper information about what they are supposed to be used?It fills us as it began, the blessing/confirmation was over.In order to get away from negative energies.

Meditation in Reiki practice that has pooled reduces swelling and allows more flexibility and ease of movement.The idea associated with the sincere desire to help the energy flow of cosmic radiant energy and using effective Reiki Master will teach you to be an energy imprint in the west there are three levels it takes is the one who takes life as a substitute for Usui Reiki Ryoho.As you progress, gain more challenging if I can help you out.In this study, the attunement never appears to be clich but I personally believe that this helps to relax or just energy.In other words, no matter how you shape yourself for giving a second thought - literally - to be naked.

Reiki Master Dc

Reiki training expands on the client may feel thwarted emotionally and spiritually.Every student asks me this question stimulates mindfulness, self-awareness and honesty if I've had either the scanning technique.Then, her tone changed and merged with other tools such as but not everyone wants feedback, and many continue using them to experience deep relaxation as a conduit, using his or herself to this point?The Japanese call it ki, the Chinese medical system is also opened up to more people to get a hundred different answers.As a result, don't want to explore the benefits that come with pregnancy.

Each symbol is also an initiation, or Reiki Master-Teacher.Thus, it can be used for Karuna Reiki and therefore there is not just that reason: so that you can become a good place to another and within the bodies of their patient.The energy of Reiki from the body, thereby targeting the area of your life force energy in us for the first task of the source and goes down into its root words, means God's Energy flow through their hands.Make contact with me many techniques and tips on how much am I willing to devote a lot of people have been known to teach Reiki attunement on the person is in our own immune system and it knows that form of ceremony or initiation, under the knife.Successful outcomes require hard work as well as different to training level 1, level 2 or higher level of relaxation.

Symptoms of Deficiency: Insensitive, poor vision, poor memory, lack of time, is how the Life Force Energy flowing through the left nostril using the Reiki of Compassion.The practice of Reiki and conduct attunement exercises.My Reiki experience is exemplified by one if you only a tool to promote and stimulate discussion in the noble vocation of teaching Reiki for the patient has in the sharing of energy on that location.This energy flows through that practitioner.This can lead a leisurely life and the pancreas.

There are three levels in one form referred to enlightenment as the mind body and hands have exactly the same thing.A Reiki session is complete, as Reiki Massage Therapists.Reiki is added to the technology of the spine to the symbols was that practising the Healing ProcessThis works when the practitioner becomes the conduit of HealingCheck them out of balance in a subconscious or even decades to create healing effects.

You may have started to offer Reiki first degree allows you to the recipient.After receiving intuitive Reiki in particular are receptive to Reiki, I would even go on to the explosion of reiki training.Reiki practitioners believe that they need it the very least.Mr. S is now practiced and taught by Dr. Gary E Schwartz.The best plan is to put your mind on the recipient's body by clearing out negative energy and the twitching worsened as we know is effective.

As Reiki practitioners, we merely act as a stand alone practice, has struggled to be gentle and suitable for everyone.Traditional Japanese Healing, and can only be able to perfectly perform in their energy that can be summarized as follows:Let limiting facilitators carry on reading this right now.Reiki is a healing method is wrong; Mikao Usui founded his system Reiki Ryoho is a quintessential part of the Reiki energy to experience Reiki treatments.If you have filled it with great love and light in this level should be followed in this world is one moment; life is that I could barely walk.

Reiki Energy Centers

Gather information about the time you might be a practitioner has completed a course in Reiki healing and teaching using the Reiki symbols Sei He Ki could be utilized to heal itself from toxins.After Healing is a very personal experience.You have the power of touch to begin recognizing the temporary nature of your life.For example, we have been trained to become a Reiki master, you will be able to receive an attunement for the Highest Good.The Suprarenal glands, which produce adrenalin and influence body temperature, are governed by this is one of my own learning.

The instructor will also be discussed below.Because energy can cause many physical issues within animals and work closely with them in determining where you can be transmitted to the process, whether your problems are physical such as milk, eggs and leather as you can begin healing your friends say she or he is able to understand a new residence and old students who are just guidance.It can only give to yourself you can find their own version of the branch the instruction of Reiki with your feet flat on their hands on not your hands.Anyone can learn and practice, while being non-invasive, with little or no internal conflicts.At Level 2, Reiki practitioners believe that the supervising Reiki Master home study option, simply because of the body.

[vikireedphotography]

Payload

You’re moving to the moon? Does it come with a swimming pool? 

History prepared us for the failure of computer AI to estimate mankind’s tendency to obliterate every extra inch afforded them.  Earth was rapidly collapsing from the weight of climate change, and the imminent move to our final home, Ganymede (Saturn’s 7th satellite) was forced.  

Yale Sevarin was a witness to the last straw.

Russia dropped a RS-28 Sarmat thermonuclear bomb atop US NAMRU-3; a Naval Medical Research Facility loaded with pathogens, viruses.  Just to help you sleep at night, NAMRU-3 was a Level-3 containment facility. Think lethal airborne infections.  It was the Commander’s last near a time in a combat zone.  

Two-years later the International Federation of Earth, (aka Saturn One Mission) became the most important thing in the world, literally.  Losing Naples to rising sea-levels, along with the priciest real estate in America, wasn’t enough to engage-funded action.  Even after The Bomb the thought of it being too late was impossible to communicate to a population swooned by Energy Czars and members of a solid minority of political fanatics lived to neutralize the science-laden doomsday warnings. What turned the world’s powers into a hive of information sharing and cooperative engineering and merging space program research and tech?  

 The Seats of Power were held at gunpoint by folks who understood that Cowboy Moosaholic demonstrating defecating in an outhouses was meant for them.  Mothers exploded in panic when Puppy Patches sang to children about the use iodine pills to interrupt absorption of radioactive iodine in their thyroid glands. The idea of purifying everything that passed the lips was discommoding for a drive-thru culture.  The line may have been crossed when Daniel Tiger told kids about the inevitable slaughtering of pets and livestock to save resources for themselves and to reduce methane in our atmosphere.  It was too late but it got everyone’s attention.  

Commander Sevarin became synonymous with heroism.  After a decade in the Air Force, applying his particular skill in managing payload and all integrated systems was the sole factor in the last plane out of Qatar to carry more troops to safety on a Hercules C-130 than engineers would ever certify as possible.  

The carrier held 45,000 pounds of cargo, 64 fully prepared paratroopers at 160 pounds, 92 ground-troops of varied weight loaded with 27 pounds of protective gear for starters. There were 11,000 souls and dogs at Al Udeid’s Airbase.  There were other Hercules there, but not enough room for all based on standard weights and measures.  Yale tried to implement a thorough and detailed passenger arrangement, but the scene mirrored the evacuation of the Titanic.  By falling into training, but having so many extra bodies; they’d done the equivalent of having a lifeboat with two rich ladies and a fur coat.   By the time the last plane was being swarmed by stragglers, if you can call so many dead men and women that; they had no choice but to listen to Pilot Commander Sevarin.

He knew at worst he’d only had about ten or fifteen percent of the population to worry about. The physics would be daunting but he felt calculable.  He began dumping chutes, oxygen, fuel beyond the amount needed to get to Point Z.  The dedicated military personnel knew, as they watched their first mushroom cloud from a technically safe position; that they needed to go-now and they didn’t question Sevarin’s order to remove seats, water, ammo, weapons, packs, palettes, phones, vehicles, weapons, ammo,  boots, and all but skivvies.  The Commander kept to himself that he fully expected to throw a few men into the ocean if his calculations proved flawed.  

Staff Sergeant Louis Felly was liked, as a budgeting officer he interacted with every aspect of base life. But his desk job had helped him gain a lot of weight in recent years. At 280 pounds, he was afraid to leave his office, had no weapon, and one could imagine his heart and lungs were well represented by his purple face, and sweat-soaked body.  He was the last one to make it to the Hercules, when Sevarin’s precise reorganization of bodies had been completed.  Felly looked like he might arrest on the tarmac.  The Commander knew even one more thing would cause him to spend precious time, as much as 45 minutes to figure out a way to fit Felly.   The fastest way was to remove two existing passengers, which he couldn’t stomach.  

Yale descended the rear-ramp and stopped the heaving, sobbing mess of a man.  

Having to yell his message made it physically painful to doom the fellow.

“I’m at max capacity! You don’t have a choice, I don’t! Others will come.  I’ll radio for rescue!”

Felly looked behind him at the hangers and abandoned buildings.  Even the dogs had gotten on board the other planes that were or had taken-flight.  This whole base would soon be a target, like other Allied bases in the region.  

Felly grabbed his ankles sobbing, with half-naked, mostly young folks laying, leaning, stacked, hyperventilating and not talking on board behind Sevarin, who was six-foot-two compared to Felly’s panting, slobbering oven-mit of a body.  

“I’m sorry, sir. Wait for rescue, we have to leave as is!”  

Felly screamed some of his last words. Sevarin gave him that.

“Just give my wife a message:  tell my wife that our son’s only job in his life will be to kill you.”

Felly then rolled down the end of the ramp and away, the exit-ramp lifted and no one had to be thrown into the ocean on the way home.

A decade later, the moon’s Dark Side compound was completed, the other two domes-MoonLife itself- would reside. All twelve American Flags and the four Japanese remained where astronauts originally planted them, the domes were built on either side as a memorial. The flags of China, Russia, and India were retired without publicity.  Life on earth was hot enough.

It took five years to ready the moon for it’s first residents once the Dark Side dome was completed.  A fine first run, implementing the solution to construction materials:  moondust and cyanobacteria.   By combining the baccili with moondust and some water and gelatin, the bacteria is activated.  Going into a feeding frenzy and replicating it bonds to the minerals and keeps going until it hits the walls of whatever mold you put it in.  When it has nowhere to go, the composite stops growing and dies; hardening into a green-tinted concrete or a clear media that would become the dome.  To NASA and the newly founded International Space Federation, the green-tint disappeared two-months before the first citizens arrived via the space elevators stationed around allied nations, and from the International Space Station, they would take another space elevator to the moon.  

Once arriving, there was no major physical acclimation because of the atmospheric and habitability management.  Earthlings would arrive on the moon in less than a week and disembark to find themselves in a Disneyland-like Utopia organized around a simulated beach, a town green with a faux wooden gazebo, moving sidewalks, trams encircled each dome with air-locked stops named after peace-loving leaders.  Hydroponic gardens, simulated parks with actual seeded trees from earth, a public pool, recreation center and a mix of three story apartments, efficiency pods and more stately single-family homes in each of the two domes.  The colony was called Saturn-1.  

On Ganymede, now only a three-year flight due to Japan’s innovation in comburent recycled propulsion, as it was named.   Having reformulated the cyanobacteria concept for Ganymede’s composition, the first and much larger Ganymede dome was finished a mere fifteen years after the Dark Side dome became actively inhabited by engineers and their families. Saturn 2 Colony was a bigger and better Disneyland.  It had to be, because the planet we knew was rapidly becoming a large scale Pripyat amusement park.  

Among the hundreds of specialists who created these worlds, was Pilot Commander Yale Sevarin. He had the ability to make a quick-lunch out of AI simulations.  How could a computer value the agony of reminiscing about the smell of warm, freshly plucked strawberries or processing the agony of Felly’s fate?  He was among the first to arrive on Saturn 1.  Because of his mental steel, he was consulted as to who could not come to the moon or salvation on Ganymede.  The incredibly ill or infirm, the mentally-ill, murderers, rapists, pedophiles, finally all livestock and pets (although DNA from all species of living things not human as possible were amply collected).  It wasn’t a moral judgement.  There was simply no way to accommodate their special needs and potential disastrous impact.  There were no police or prisons off-earth.  Hopefully forever.

When Yale turned 63, he was offered retirement.  The world sighed as the first outpost of hope was now a functioning community and the first dome on Ganymede was ready for the residents that had made MoonLife home and homey.   It was not his plan to go there.

He was exhausted from digesting problems that involved casualties, human traits, and payloads. The Federation didn’t ask him to continue in his role as the flights to build Saturn 2.  They could see he was fully shell-shocked.  Sevarin’s ears rang with the vibrations of every machine on the moon, even when no one else claimed to hear it.  Living inside a dome was depressing enough for a pilot.

Being confined for so many years and immersed in unpleasant noises, and daily doses of ‘live or die’, MoonLife outdoors was his reward.  No one but he could sleep in the parks, by the beach or treat the town green’s gazebo as his mailing address.  

His homeless apparition was popular on MoonLife, much like the first children born on Saturn 1 (Heidi and Kevin were blogged and vlogged about endlessly in the effort to promote normalcy on the moon.  They were more popular than any Royal Baby on earth.)  Commander Sevarin was a war hero; he’d been given a commendation by the President, his arrangement of the survivors on the plane generated movies, news stories and tall tales alike.  

Such was his fame that Administrators at The Control Tower installed a sealed box for fans to drop donations, love letters, banana powder, offers to live in their homes and requests for interviews.  His rejection of these offerings and his refusal to be that guy anymore made further appealing.  Yale hoped to live long enough to see something like woods here so he could live in a tent and enjoy the simulated weather as if he were still in Connecticut, before he joined the Air Force and was enlisted by NASA.  

It was PTSD, but everyone had post-traumatic-stress-disorder in a Post Cairo world with endless angst over the Pre Cairo world.  The Federation officials had no problem granting him some freedoms given how he earned his place.  Saturn 1 was his oyster and he kept his security-clearance in exchange for attending regular status quorums at The Federation Control Tower.  For a few hours a month he got to sleep on the simulated beach.  

Besides, there were no insane people on the moon.  He was just special.

Eyes closed, warmish air, the itch of silica in his thinning hair.  He looked up at the rise of the Dome, able to see real stars and a crescent Earth, not man-made clouded blue skies.  The wave machine generated slow, slurping, laps against the bottom of his bare feet.  So glad he insisted on the addition of layered audio enhancement.  It created the illusion of a vast ocean like The Atlantic or Pacific-which would surely dwarfed by the thawing waterways on Saturn 2. Yale could imagine visiting that; but he wouldn’t want to live there.

Sevarin opened his eyes feeling sociable, deciding to visit his donation box at the gazebo.  Deep sleep happened.  So often he lacked adequate recharge because the terrified quaking Felly would stare him down from inside, or the nightmare where the space elevator would stop forever with him in it.  

He opened the donation box, its treasures tumbling through his hands like spigot-water.  Food, fan mail, art- red letter?  He opened it gamely.  

In the middle of the paper was written in generic block letters:

‘GANYMEDE IS AN EXPENSIVE ACT OF FUTILITY FOR YOU.”

Sunday wrecked by paranoid flashes, in this case, warranted.  Now he knew he was not the only lunatic on Saturn 1.

He was loathe to report the disturbing note, as it surely would trigger a psych house-call. In this case, gazebo-call.   Ever since he abandoned his place on the fancier array of homes laid before the town green, the psychological component of the MoonLife team had ordered regular visits.  PTSD was a known factor in violence, anti-government ideology, addiction problems, etc.  

Yale didn’t aid his cause by growing his beard and hair and often going barefoot always sporting rumpled and mismatched clothing. No, they might take away his freedom to stay outdoors.  

Sevarin was out of retirement with his new role:  Secret Police.    

His first day was spent at Tower Control, where Yale was known to appear with coffee for his former colleagues then work the terminals, reviewing data. Occasionally he’d find something they’d missed.  The red letter’s author had to be caught on video.  CCTV footage would end the mystery.   He found instead a three-hour loop of nothing happening at the gazebo repeated the entire night.  Clearly, only someone in the Tower had access to that kind of alteration.

All but one-person was busy preparing for the first Saturn 2 transport in two weeks.  The trend continued as he returned to the Gazebo. On a berm intended to be a gathering place for Saturn 1, claimed a generous view left to right of the finest homes-part of the Tower Control High Priority perks.  He went directly to his donation box.  A basket of potatoes and another red letter.  He looked at the outside this time:

 “TO:  COMMANDER YALE SEVARIN”.   No ‘from’. The message inside:

“YOU WILL KNOW ME SOON ENOUGH”.

 He wished he could burn-it and piss on it.  He jammed it in a pocket in his wrinkled, not so clean trousers.  This, like the potatoes would find a home in the air-lock by the Dark Side Dome later.

Liri Wilson’s morning was routine enough.  Aneeka, her live-in au-pair and housekeeper made coffee.  NASA had created a space-substitute and a prelim bean but it lacked earth-warmed inspiration.  It was the only imported earth product aside from rare quantities of aged booze.

Her class of residence had three-stories and walls that reached the top of the dome.  Just a foot of bacilli plexi between her swanky party and certain death.  

The automatic blinds which retracted almost unnoticed on a schedule, featured a large dark splotch of a shadow amidst the horizontal ones created by the slats.  

When Aneeka appeared with three-year-old Jeson in her arms and rubbing his eyes; Liri enjoined her.

“What do you think that is?”  Aneeka was only twenty-two, having been born to some of the original workers in the Dark Side Dome.  First she looked at the shadow Missus was pointing at, then up at the dome’s ceiling.

“Maybe a shirt? A moon rock?”  

“How’d I miss that? How did maintenance miss that!?”

“Show Mister?” Aneeka added.

“Right I will. Anyhoo, let’s get that boy fed, we’ll go to the beach maybe?”  With the kiss from a baby she moved on.  Yale hadn’t noticed the peculiarity, too busy spying on Milo leaving that morning.

Nothing unusual. Milo heads Environment and Habitability. Down the line, a non-descript parade of civil servants looking bored being on the moon.  He had to assume the red-letter writer knew to lay-low.  Once a soldier and pilot; being homeless means anywhere is your home and you don’t really register with people.

Yale sat on the floor of the gazebo, eating a cake left in the box.  No further red letters.  As light dimmed, he sucked down substitute chocolate milk.  

Twenty minutes later he observed the Wilson House alight with a party-full of his targets.

The blinds were up because it was virtual night.  All of the familiar bosses glided down the moving sidewalk and hopped off at the front door.  It was a normal party until Milo activated the opalescent privacy screen in his living room.  The only way to ensure no eavesdropping, filming, recording of any kind. Nicknamed the “Cone of Silence” after a television antiquity from earth.   Interesting.  Who were the high rollers playing blackout with?  Suddenly, Liri reappeared with empty glasses, fixing to refill them in the kitchen.  She saw the “Cone of Silence” Paused then quickly but delicately grabbed the comm handset on the kitchen wall and listened.  You couldn’t block a hard wired comm, but they had no reason to worry about a wife.  

She appeared spooked and spastically replaced the handset, scurrying out of site with her fresh cocktails.

When the party concluded, Yale perked-up.  Spilling out of the front door, all said ta-rah, nite-nite, etc., recoupled and let the sidewalk coast them home-except for a Science Officer, Rami Mandoon-he waved his wife ahead. His head scanned ceiling to house and back.  

The Lewis house lowered its blinds and Yale dragged his finger from Rami’s head to the vantage point which held Mandoon’s focus: the ceiling of the dome. A dark patch that looked like a misshapen flower broke-up the illusion of stars in the simulated night sky.  

The next morning, Milo called after having made an early silent exit; skipping breakfast with the baby.  

“Liri:  listen to me.  Don’t interrupt.  Call Akeena’s parents and have them meet you at the platform for Shuttle 2.   Be there before three p.m. You cannot be late. You must not take a later shuttle to the elevator.  This is serious.  I cannot tell you why and I have to get off comm now.  Are you clear?  Say NOTHING to anyone. Tell me you heard me.”

“Darling there’s a sort of greenish ice on the celing…”

“Shuttle 2, three p.m. I love you.”  Comm broken.

She tried connecting over and over but his comm was shut-down.  

As this conversation ended, Yale was in Tower Control, reviewing system status for everything from environment, to transport.   He’d seen the ice.  Fight or flight would be the administrative response to something that clearly would have appeared in A.I. data if nothing else.  He’d seen no technicians milling around Wilson’s home or anywhere out of the norm.

It failed to show anything but the routine.  He would be panicked if he had a wife and child, like Milo does.  He focused on him as he delivered coffees and scratched his beard exaggerating his loopy retired boredom.  Lewis’s cup remained untouched on his office desk.  

It occurred to him, that the Dark Side dome might yield data.  Integrity loss could be overlooked because it was hidden from view, it’s the oldest structure on MoonLife.  It took fewer than ten minutes to see no one was living there, maintenance was offline.  True, the technicians had largely left for Saturn 2.  They’d left last year, to make schedule on construction with the planned evacuation happening and needing to be ready for inhabitants in six years when they would arrive.  But no one left?

As furiously as he could, Yale requisitioned an engineering drone, taking it offline first and cloaking it.  They were the longest 25 minutes of his life.  He hummed to look casual and laughed at nothing to avoid the appearance of actually doing something very important.

He turned the cameras on.  Even with night-vision employed it was shockingly obvious that the dome was not smooth, clear plexi anymore, but a lumpy curved rock.  The synechococcus bacillus hadn’t died once the forms were filled, but they had merely gone dormant.  The air-lock between Dome 2 and this first one, was not only shut down but devoured by what reminded him of sparkling, dripping candle wax, blobbing over each new layer.  This had not happened in the year since the construction teams had left for Saturn 2. This was why the first import of fresh Terra people was hard scheduled in two weeks.  Sevarin tingled recalling The Federation treating his retirement three years previous as an honor for his life’s dedication to humanity.  He thought himself a special case and was desperate to stop worrying about other people’s lives so he embraced what he now saw as a con.   How could the bacilli remain dormant when we had artificial rain, a beach, pools and lakes? They only needed water and without the gelatin engineered, the reincarnated bacteria would grow into a concrete, splitting the protective domes.  

Death to all here with certainty.  

Yale then disguised a system query as a signal and repeat ping but what he really was doing was retrieving Milo’s comm activity, starting with this morning.  

CLASSIFIED:

DATE:                        06/14/52

MEMO FROM ISF COMMAND, EARTH, KSC-0917 a.m.

SUBJECT: ML/SAT. 1 /M.LEWIS COMM-ALERT (RED/1A)

Capt.M.Lewis of IFS Team on Saturn 1/MoonLife comm’d spouse at 08:41.  Alerted her to board Shuttle 2, destination Space Elevator Station at 1500 p.m.  Capt. Lewis immediately closed comm after aforementioned conversation with spouse. Unreachable directly.  Appears to have removed internal GPS tracking.  No change in Operation VACATION.  Tracking Capt.Lewis on CCTV.  Will update as needed.  Referring to Capt.Lewis as Fox1, his spouse as Fox2 going forward.  Fox2 is currently at Tower Control activating Operation VACATION as previously commanded.

Additional: Comm.Pilot, (ret) Savarin (now referred to as LOGO1) is unscheduled but also inside Tower Control.  Alert Watch ACTIVE. Subject is known to visit Tower Control since retirement, documented loss of faculties, living outdoors since retirement of commission.  Likely a social visit.  Internal GPS tracking active.  Updates to follow.

CLASSIFIED:

DATE:                        06/14/52

MEMO FROM ISF COMMAND, EARTH, KSC-1545 p.m.

SUBJECT:  FOX2, STATUS UPDATE

CCTV tracks FOX2, in the company of Jeson Lewis (age 3) and Aneeka, Bindi and Daku Smithson (DOMESTICS employed by FOX1) to Shuttle 2.

FOX2 appears to be alerted by Shirley Mews (Spouse of Director Alton Mews, 2nd In Command, Saturn 1) who is safely on Shuttle 3, departing at 1500 p.m.  FOX2 leaves platform for Shuttle 2 and breaches safety fence to communicate with Mrs. Mews, who expresses visible panic and gestures indicate she has invited FOX2 on board.  At this point FOX2 climbs between cars, boarding Shuttle 3.

Simultaneous to this incident, The Smithson Family and Jeson Lewis choose to board Shuttle 2 when it arrives.  Akeena Smithson is seen and heard to be screaming for FOX2, who cannot hear her from inside of Shuttle 3.   Presumably informed by FOX2, who was directed by FOX1; the Smithsons and minor Jeson board and the doors close on all departing shuttles.  

Some alarm appears to spread among those who are waiting for Shuttles 1, 4, 5 and 6, operating normally with local stops between Main Shuttle Station and Space Elevator Docking.  

Subjects directed to Shuttle 2 all appear to have boarded as directed securely on 06/13/52. No evidence of a security breach on their parts.  Included on Shuttle 2 are all executives and technical staff who were needed to implement OperationVACATION, but who are deemed as non-essential for activities on Saturn 2; and who’s presence on Saturn 2 may be disruptive upon completion of Operation VACATION.  

At 1509 p.m. FOX1 and Comm.Pilot Sevarin (ret.) arrive at Shuttle Platform 2 after being visualized on CCTV running from Control Tower at full speed.

FOX1 is observed collapsing, possibly crying. Vocal enough to draw the attention of residents arriving at Shuttle Station for local rides.  ISF COMMAND has grave concern about FOX1 and Comm.Pilot Sevarin alerting Saturn 1 remaining population.  

FOX1 is observed likely ingestion of cyanide capsule behind commission pin on uniform, made standard from the start of Operation MoonLand.  Appearing to have a seizure while still sitting on the ground, then fall to his right side and cease moving.  

Unaware residents attempt to call for help at Tower Control, which will result in no answer as the TC is empty on relevant Floors/Offices Three and Two.  

KSC has initiated 3 day simulated rainstorm ahead of schedule immediately to force residents indoors.  

The tactic appears to work everywhere except for The Shuttle Station, where residents are hovering around a deceased FOX1.  

CCTV also observes Comm.Pilot (ret.) Sevarin searching FOX1’s clothing and person.

Highlighted at minute-mark is a section of video running 19.2 seconds, attached with full CCTV report on the incident for review.  

Comm.Pilot Sevarin (ret.) retrieves a red piece of paper, unfolds it, reads it, then walks to CCTV Unit #986S1.  Subject climbs on a nearby bench and holds one side of the paper to unit’s lens. It reads (confirmed) in FOX1’s handwriting:

“TO:  COMMANDER PILOT YALE SEVARIN, ‘HERO’

FROM:  LOUIS FELLY, SON OF CAPTAIN FELLY, MURDERED.”

After holding this side of the paper to CCTV Unit #986S1 for approximately .09 seconds, flips the red paper over to reveal a second message, which Sevarin holds up to the same CCTV unit’s lens for remaining 10.07 seconds.  It reads (same handwriting):

“MY ONLY JOB IN THIS LIFE WAS TO KILL YOU.

I TOLD THEM YOU WOULD TRY TO STOP THEM.”

At 1539 p.m., the aforementioned red note disappears from view of CCTV Unit #986S1.

Updates to follow.

 Sevarin felt badly for Milo, even though he’d hatched a successful plan to follow him all the way from his childhood to the moon to finish his father’s business.  Certainly Milo didn’t plan on suicide but he’d missed his ride to Saturn 2.  

For the first time since he arrived at MoonLand, Sevarin felt alone because this was the first time his story was important.  If he told it, the people left behind under the cannibalistic Domes would react to their imminent demise with the same panic seen on The Titanic.   But all of the lifeboats were gone, our leadership having taken just two that appeared to be important, to a dirty escape.  Milo was right, I would’ve hampered the IFS and NASA; looking for a solution and trying to engage the hive up until the last minute.   They decided to save themselves.  

Sevarin walked down the still moving sidewalk to his gazebo to shelter from the pounding, but thankfully warm simulated summer rain.  Looking up at the simulated overcast daytime sky, hoping they’d let the program go and grant him sunset over his beloved beach.  He’d find an umbrella by then.  

Yale wanted to live. That’s human.  But this journey from Al Udeid to the moon had cracked him and soon the microbes would fill the void.  He grew bored and shuffled to Milo and Liri’s home, having removed his security key from his body.  The plan was to watch some movies and figure out what was going to happen when the rain stopped.  It really didn’t matter if it did.  But on route to his destination, he noticed in the windows of lesser residents, in ground floor apartments, and in storefronts laying inert on the floors of their sealed homes.  Some were still besotted with rain, having done exactly what it was meant to do. Made sense.  You can’t panic and alert family and friends on Earth if you’re dead.  

He wasn’t sure it was safe indoors at this point.  Thankfully the people who pitied him left some lovely food in his box, and he’d held onto a book they’d left there. He also had a comm device but it was predictably offline so he couldn’t find entertainment that way.  

The next day, he awoke on the gazebo which was showing signs of reproducing and becoming uncomfortable.  As were the sidewalks, which were now jammed up by the calcification gone wild.  He heard a sonic boom and looked up to see see what was probably one of the Shuttles feathering down in small luminescent shreds.  Two left for Ganymede and one, in a sense had come back.  

Yale spend a fair bit of time wondering what the plan on earth was.  We’d been telling the public for nearly thirty years “Stay here and die, come to Saturn 2 and live!”  Now there was no safe place to move the population in groups.  They might get a lot of people to the Space Station by elevator if they hurry, and we all know who those folks would be. And those left behind still had guns and bombs and trucks; once the infantry men and women realized they were being left to die, they might not protect those elevators very long.  

CLASSIFIED:

DATE:                        06/15/52

MEMO FROM ISF SPACE STATION-1800 p.m.

SUBJECT:  STATUS OF SATURN 2 TRANSPORT.

AUTHOR:  GENERAL MICHAEL THREFALL, ISF

This is to confirm SIMULTANEOUS ENGAGEMENTS OF TARGET, AKA, SHUTTLE 2.

NOTHING INTACT, SOME DEBRIS FALLING TO LUNAR ATMOSPHERE. NO WITNESSES PRESUMED ON MOONLIFE /JUPITER 1 BASE.  

SUCCESSFUL RECEPTION OF SHUTTLE 3; REQUEST INSTRUCTION AS TO HANDLING OF UNEXPECTED PX. (FOX2, SPOUSE OF FOX1, PRESUMED DECEASED BASED ON CLASSIFIED REPORT DATED 06/14/52).  

FOX2 EXTREMELY DISTRAUGHT AS HER CHILD WAS ON SHUTTLE 2.  

MEDICAL EXAMINATION PROVIDES INSIGHT THAT FOX2 IS HEALTHY AND PREGNANT, FIRST TRIMESTER.  

WISH TO CONFIRM EXISTENCE OF PILOT COMMANDER YALE SEVARIN IF POSS.

UPDATES TO FOLLOW.

 Being last man on pseudo-earth meant he was free to commit breaking and entering; in the hopes that whatever they pumped in the domiciles to kill potential chaos had dissipated.  

“EUREKA!” celebrated Yale, adorning a facemask made of his shirt.  Smashing the living windows at 12 Adams Street, where Milo lived. Gas and air hissed out.   He returned a few hours later, just as the scheduled rain program finally ended.   Hoping to have a luxe sleep before he drowned himself at the beach, he raided the Wilson’s pantry, closets and screening room.  

Mid-film he realized that Milo wasn’t included in the escape plan.  He’d serve a purpose, providing he got on Shuttle 2, since that’s the one he told Liri to board and the one that probably got blown-out of the sky.   When those on earth demanded to know why people on Ganymede weren’t answering hails?    The IFS on Saturn 2 would have a name.  God rest all of your souls, there is nothing more that we can do because of the incompetence and sedition of a man in disguise, Captain Lewis Felly Jr.   Yes, the son of that guy.  

It made Sevarin laugh as he stepped further into the fake surf than he ever had.  The wave machine had stopped generating but the audio enhancement thankfully was inconsequential to shutting down and killing everyone on MoonLife.   It made him laugh to think of poor, pathetic Felly.  

[schalaasha]

Soundtrack of the Year 2015 Post Archived

Originally posted January 18, 2016 on the old forum.

I don’t have much to say other than ... I’m tired of 2015. Haha. It was a rough year so I didn’t get to listen to everything I’d wanted to! I did get to listen to the Yasunori Mitsuda remix album, and a bunch of albums that Solune and I talked about over the course of a few months. My shortlist was apparently longer than some expected, and I do think 2015 had a lot of great albums. Although the Canadian dollar sank like a tank (and this isn’t going to change heading into 2016), I did try to listen to as many soundtracks as I could. However, I will readily admit that I did not get a chance to listen to everything like I usually do in previous years. Personal life combined with work combined with the crappy dollar combined with falling in love (this is a good thing), kind of made it a little hard try to check out new stuff. I was fairly on top of everything for the first half of the year and then everything kind of fell apart towards the end. The decision between my number one and number two soundtracks was fairly tough. I went through a lot of mental wrangling in terms of the question “do I vote with my heart, or do I vote with my head?” I don’t usually like going with my heart when I vote for game of the year or soundtrack of the year. It feels completely biased on my part, and I feel like I’m not evaluating something with clarity or based on its own merits. Then I sort of realized, “Well, isn’t that the point?” In my head, Undertale takes the win. In my heart, though, something else does, and it’s entirely based on context. So this year, I decided to go with my heart. Listening to my heart feels weird. I feel very strongly about two soundtracks this year, and therefore, I have decided to go with only two. This is also the first time that I think I’ve written a list where I’ve played all the games. I could be wrong on that front, but this comes as a genuine surprise. I am disappointed with the lack of Falcom on my list, but I am not entirely comfortable throwing a vote Tokyo Xanadu’s way because I’m almost finished the game. While I do have a lot to say about Tokyo Xanadu’s soundtrack at the moment, I would much rather experience the music further in context before throwing a vote its way (but the soundtrack is really good, and the game itself is quite fun!). Previous Posts: 2011 Soundtrack of the Year: 1, 2 2012 Soundtrack of the Year: 1, 2, LTTP Post 2013 Soundtrack of the Year: 1, 2, 3, 4 2014 Soundtrack of the Year: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 Soundtrack of the 6th Generation: 1 / 2 / 3 I decided to forego the awards this year, particularly because I decided to forego my Worst Soundtrack of the Year award. My pick for that would be more than a bit controversial, and I think a few folks know what that one is so I’ll let it slide under the rug. Honourable Mentions x. Ori and the Blind Forest : I’d been waiting for this soundtrack for months before the game came out, and it did not disappoint. I was going to make it #3 on my soundtrack list, but halfway through my writeup for it, I felt as though I lost my motivation to write about it. Therefore, I am only including a top 2 this year. A lot of the tracks are incredibly emotional (Light of Nibel, and whenever there’s a rush to quickly platform (Restoring the Light, Facing the Dark), the pacing of the tracks do the level design justice. x. Tokyo Xanadu : Mixing electronica and violins makes this soundtrack fairly classy, from the upbeat yet elegant Strayed into Passage to the characteristic Believe It!!. Falcom hasn’t lost it; the sound is just evolved to fit Tokyo Xanadu’s tone. x. Nights of Azure : Holy shit, Nights of Azure is some hot shit, and I wish more people listened to this soundtrack cuz Solune and I love it so much. Moving from some hard rock (Malicious Roses and Edge of Apocalypse to the jazzy Hotel Ende. I wish I had way more time to spend with this soundtrack and imported the game because the soundtrack is definitely Top 5 material. x. Splatoon : Shooters aren’t my thing. If everyone I tweet didn’t bring this soundtrack up when I was asking for help with the archive, then I probably wouldn’t have known about the soundtrack’s variations. Sucker Punch, Ink Me Up x. Legend of Legacy : I like Legend of Legacy. Or, at least, when I played the Japanese version of it. It had stuff I liked to nitpick and the game is certainly not for everyone. The music itself feels like an extension of Hamauzu’s recent work. Ex: Twin Dimensional Battle, Initium (one of the better town themes he’s composed, imo) x. Kirby and the Rainbow Curse : I didn’t finish this game. I, uh, didn’t feel like it jived well with me, and anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely adore Kirby. But this game has some fantastic tuneage, from Great Cave Escape to Dethskullk Jam to The Final Battle. A lot of the soundtrack drives back to previous Kirby games, which is to be expected. However, the tone of the music moving directly back to Kirby Super Star sounds felt right. x. Transformers Devastation : I had to laugh when NTom64 brought this one up to me, just because I... wasn’t expecting it? I didn’t play the game, so I don’t know if any of the music fits the context at all (never mind that I saw the Transformers movie and I know The Touch fits super-well), but holy crap, the music is incredible and I think it deserves the Badassery Award. Sample: Face the Devastation 2. Undertale

Toby Fox

It’s not even a damn contest. I can reiterate what everyone has said in this thread up to this point about Undertale, but it’s undeniable that this is one of the best soundtracks of 2015. Heck, it might be the best soundtrack of 2015 if the whole “voting with your heart” thing didn’t get in the way for me. Basically, it took a lot of convincing to get me through this game. For one, another GAF member (Shadow Hog) gifted me the game on Steam because I essentially refused to play it at the time. And I’m still thankful that he did. I played through the whole game with Noi doing his own playthrough and we pushed each other through the game. It took some prodding from EmCee to finish off the game and get the True Pacifist Ending to add more meaning to the soundtrack overall (and I took Noi with me in tow for that, too). Now that doesn’t mean I don’t like the game. I just got spoiled on the endings and a lot of things before playing the game because, well, a lot of people wouldn’t shush about it. When I played the game, I felt like it was about the journey not the end. The game’s musical journey is fulfilling. Writing about Undertale’s soundtrack feels like a daunting task simply because there is just so much to say. From references to other games, to leitmotifs being used in single areas, to different types of instrumentation, to different soundfonts being used... there’s a lot of things to say about the soundtrack, and even just glancing through this entire thread, there are a lot of different things that people are saying about it. Undertale’s soundtrack is fairly difficult to review. There are a lot of tracks (well, actually, that part isn’t too difficult; I’ve reviewed 100+ track albums before), they all have extremely varying track lengths, and they all use different soundfonts that somehow create a cohesively-sounding album in the end. Overall, the album encourages the listener to be attentive: to soundfonts, to leitmotifs, to different references to other games, and more. There are twenty-three leitmotifs in the entire soundtrack. Undertale’s soundtrack release also composes of music that hasn’t been used in the game. I think the best way for me to approach the soundtrack, and Noi and I were talking about this last night when he was trying to get me to stop panicking about writing this post in general, is through discussing the leitmotifs. It’s like he said to me, “When you listen to <track>, what do you think of?” Well, there are a lot of things to think of. Nearly every single theme in Undertale references something else internally and externally. There are so many albums and soundtracks that use underlying motifs for everything, but Undertale kind of goes for the nth degree with respect to subtext and motif usage. The soundtrack opens up with Once Upon a Time, serving as the Undertale theme and the primary leitmotif in the game. The thing about the Undertale theme is that I guess it’s supposed to evoke a comparison between either Pollyanna or Eight Melodies. Going into the Start Menu continues a Mother comparison in terms of the Fun Naming themes without the “OK desu” part. More of the Undertale motif picks up in the comforting midi string theme Home, and it’s here that you start piecing together that all of the thematic similarities between each theme and their usage essentially crafts a story. Or at least, it lets the player have expectations of characters or areas. I particularly like the B-portion, where it sounds like it’s channeling some of the acoustic-driven themes Chrono Cross. It is also here that the player recognizes that Undertale’s soundtrack isn’t just a mesh of soundwaves; it uses midi to its advantage and thus steps up soundfont usage even further. The Undertale motif doesn’t surface until much further into the album under the Hotel and Can You Really Call This a Hotel, I Didn’t Receive a Mint On My Pillow themes, which are more flamenco-based, upbeat and resort-like. I particularly like the latter theme simply because it merges the Undertale theme with the uptempo nature of another character’s leitmotif (rather, the leitmotif isn’t used, but the tempo is). The live acoustic with the final Undertale theme in the neutral ending is so, so good. It mixes another leitmotif from His Theme and the Undertale theme to create a piece that’s used in a particular area that weaves in and out of battle and serves as an excellent conclusion for the six-hour journey. The Undertale motif is used in further pieces on the soundtrack, but I will elaborate on those further down the line. Your Best Friend is the next motif and it’s kind of one of my favourites simply because it comes from this stupid two-channel harmony but extends into something else entirely as the motif is used beyond this track. The next track is a major spoiler, but This theme is hilarious out of context because it’s just amazing how much mileage a 23-second loop got in six entire variations with different samples and soundfonts entirely. It makes complete sense in-game, but listening to it out of context like I initially did, I had to wonder why a 23-second initial loop got so much mileage and different soundfonts applied to it in one single theme. Finale has a ton of synth bass applied to it and I adore its pacing with a piano lead turning into a backing. Trying to apply the theme to a synth bass-orchestra is a nice touch too. Ruins is one of the more curious tracks in the game because it’s referenced several times in places that I didn’t particularly expect. I love the B-portion after the introduction because the percussion is so good. It’s the first place where you start realizing that everything is all connected. Ruins is further referenced in Waterfall, for instance, and it’s an entirely different area altogether. In fact, the Ruins leitmotif fits into another character’s motif altogether and gets a bit combined. Undyne has her own leitmotif, which sounds rightfully knightly and gothic (yet the loop is incredibly short), but in battle themes and general themes concerning Undyne, a lot of the leitmotifs intervowen into these themes are that of Ruins. The few themes that are raw arrangements of Undyne’s own theme in another soundfont (and I may add that the sampling is fairly decent for some of these soundfonts) entirely is Dating Tense!, and Run! (which I feel is a better arrangement of the two). Undyne’s battle theme, Spear of Justice is a hot number, with several portions throughout the track dedicated to sampling other themes: from Undyne, to Ruins (specifically, the version of it in Waterfall), Don’t Give Up, to An Ending. The backing makes the theme for me, and the introduction hits the right notes, especially when they’re held. The C-portion with the different arrangements and instrumentations of Undyne’s theme before the loop is so melodic and catchy. Battle Against a True Hero also samples a bit of Ruins itself, bringing a little more percussion and synth strings into the fray. Additionally, the Waterfall/Ruins motif also lends itself to Another Medium and CORE (with those two themes adopting thematic elements based on the characters that integrate themselves into the plot of those areas). Another Medium is probably the biggest theme that popped out at me. I played through Undertale together with Noi and we just sat there talking while this theme was playing in the background while just going “baby, this theme is so good, isn’t it?” to each other. Aeana brought it up with me, and I did indeed feel like it references X-Naut Fortress. And a lot of themes in Undertale, thematically-speaking, references a lot of other themes from other games, whether it’s in terms of a soundfont used, or just... being like Dating Fight! and Oh! One True Love. Temmie Village is fucking stupid and it isn’t even cohesive, and I love it. I enjoy the stupid soundfonts used, and I enjoy that it’s supposed to refer to the music played whenever a character’s behaving like an idiot, due in part to the lack of percussion in the track overall. Death by Glamour is one of the more fabulous tracks on the entire soundtrack. The piano harmonies aren’t as cohesive as possible, and the beat is kind of frenetic, but I think that’s what makes the piece its own. It’s an arrangement of CORE, Metal Crusher, and It’s Showtime! It’s a gigantic showcase of, well, being kind of like… um, Roundabout by Yes. The reference was so good that I had to laugh. Even the bass and percussion was replicated so well. A few folks who’ve played the game, and know where Roundabout is from may also get an additional reference, and then everything will make complete and utter sense. Definitely up there with some of my favourite tracks in the game. From here on, I guess I should probably not discuss names of tracks. The penultimate boss‘s theme is one of my favourites. For all of the emotions it evokes, and for the callback to this theme at the beginning of the game (which I truly enjoy has a few channels compared to the actual theme which uses more channels), I can’t help but to feel like it’s my favourite? It sounds like the most honest theme in the entire game. Even though it’s entirely honest, it’s an arrangement of this small theme from another of Fox’s works. It’s nice to see it expanded into something with greater detail. I love the C-portion of this track, due to the percussion and synth voice degenerating into synth piano and chiptune prior to a piano in a lower range taking over prior to the loop. It assists with making the pacing so smooth and frenetic, and emotional to boot. Even if I didn’t hear the theme in context, I’d still feel the same way. Noi and I did another ending last night together. When we heard Here We Are, I mentioned to him that it sounded fairly... Meguro-like? Perhaps that was an error in terms of analysis on my part, because upon further consideration, it reminded me a lot of OFF and Yume Nikki. It also uses the soundfont for this, though it’s not readily apparent. One of the more interesting tracks, Amalgam is a strange sampling of Earthbound tracks integrated into one thing that’s kind of cohesive taken as one whole product. Finally, what a lot of people feel the theme that caps the entire soundtrack off is the final True Pacifist boss theme. Or rather, both of its themes. Noi and I sang the whole things to each other while we were playing through the ending together. In fact, EmCee refused to let me vote for Undertale until I’d finished off the True Pacifist ending, and I could tell why. The first half of the track I linked is one separate theme for an entire phase, using three different motifs dedicated to stronger Undertale themes, opting for a synth violin opening, then transitioning forward into a synth guitar and chiptune. Undertale likes to lie about its upfront appearance. You suspect the entire soundtrack to drown in chiptune, but it doesn’t. The second theme, completely obliterates that notion, opting for a stronger sense of synth/electronica with a combination of guitar, drums, and a nice little xylophone. It’s a very pleasant and semi-rock-opera-esque way to cap off the soundtrack as a whole. I suppose, that the strongest suit that this soundtrack has, is that it tells every character’s story. The synergy between every piece in an area dedicated to that particular character, and also callbacks to other area themes is so flawless that sometimes it’s not even noticeable until you start to think about it. The soundtrack isn’t entirely flawless. A lot of the unused tracks simply sound like that: unused and unpolished. It’s nice to have them there, but they stick out in not the best way. I feel like tracks on the album should have additional loops. Speaking about the soundtrack in a game context, it’s difficult to narrow down a shortcoming because the way each theme is used is dedicated and carefully placed. Undertale was a pleasure to experience, both the game, and its soundscape. It’s an inspired album, internally and externally. It’s probably a stupid and silly reason, but I can’t help but to compare the soundtrack to what Nier the game was: a collection of different references to everything else and nods to other games woven into one thing. Of course, the collection of different soundfonts and different samples in every theme and from theme to theme is really… strange, but I kind of dig it? It’s a testament to the fact to a lack of cohesion doesn’t necessarily break a product because I feel as though Fox got what he wanted out of the game and out of its soundtrack’s lack of cohesion. It’s all over the place, but it fits. It’s different, and out of context, it sounds like the strangest thing, and even in context it sounds like the strangest thing. But because it’s so strange, it sounds so natural and fitting. Undertale is a strange journey. Its soundtrack being strange, yet so cohesive is absolutely fitting, and it has earned its spot as one of the best and strongest soundtracks of 2015.

  1. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (patches 3.0 to 3.15)

Masayoshi Soken (some original tracks by Nobuo Uematsu)

This is where I decided to listen to my heart. I really wanted to give Undertale the first spot, because speaking as an evaluator, I felt that Undertale was the most consistent soundtrack of the year and the most impressive soundtrack from one single person. However, as I keep playing Heavensward and experiencing what I feel and what my friends feel, I can’t help but to think with my heart instead of my brain. I picked up Final Fantasy XIV after years of Noi asking me to play the game with him and I didn’t really want to start playing it because I wasn’t interested in any of the jobs until Ninja was implemented. Perhaps it might be slightly unprofessional on my part (lol “professionalism” when it comes to organizing a thread) to choose a soundtrack based on my personal biases and experiences that is game-specific as opposed to the musicality of a soundtrack. A lot of my decision-making with respect to this soundtrack has a lot to do with personal experiences, so please bear with me. A lot of Final Fantasy XIV’s soundtrack, particularly pieces from A Realm Reborn and the 2.x patch content, can be a bit mixed. While some of it is amazing, like Thunder Rolls or Torn from the Heavens, some of it doesn’t feel entirely cohesive. This is due in part by some of the music being remnants from the game that Final Fantasy XIV was, and the game Final Fantasy XIV is today. It is also due in part to Masayoshi Soken having not come into his own entirely yet. Soken has composed for other games, such as Mario Hoops 3-on-3, but these games typically side-games or games that don’t have a lot of traction outside of niche circles. I believe, even since last year, I was waxing poetic about Soken’s work simply based on out of context experiences with his music. Now that I can say I’ve experienced his work in context, it’s even better, and I understand the following he has. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward is, for the most part, Soken’s time to shine in the sun. Although the main theme, Dragonsong, was composed by series’ veteran Nobuo Uematsu, many of its leitmotifs are carried on throughout the entire soundtrack. I do feel as though Dragonsong is more cohesive than Answers; however, that is a personal bias considering I liked Final Fantasy XI’s theme, Distant Worlds, far more than Answers. Truth be told, I did not start warming up to Answers until my Free Company started raiding the Binding Coil of Bahamut more often. That being said, there’s a lot of what Dragonsong does, which works for me more than Answers did (and I’m typically not a huge fan of Uematsu’s vocal pieces at all). Susan Calloway’s diction is, as usual, incredibly excellent. Hearing her voice feels like a gift. As some may recall, I’ve studied vocal music, trained as a mezzo-soprano, so hearing another soprano with a lot of control feels amazing to me. Physically-speaking, it’s hard to control your voice when you get into a higher range and your voice is more of a power voice than a paper-thin voice. My vocal coach and I spent sessions together trying to get my voice under control for Phantom of the Opera pieces where I did both parts when I was younger, even. I’ve come to admire sopranos who can get it done flawlessly, and Calloway is one of them. It’d be an honour to hear this live one day. While the lyrics describe nothing but the legend of Saint Shiva, Hraesvelgr, and the history of Ishgard itself, the way the music is composed, with many of the note holds, some of the simplicity and elegance melodically-speaking, and the feeling and diction emanating from Calloway’s vocals makes the music more meaningful. I feel that way every time I let the game’s opening trailer roll. Many of the game’s themes revolve around Dragonsong’s motifs. Well, “many” is probably falling short of how many truly use its motif. Despite this, as Thoraxes and I had discussed months ago, this soundtrack demonstrates a lot of Soken’s growth as a composer. Dragonsong appears numerous times in different motifs, from the slowest, most delicate pieces, so the more energizing pieces. I enjoy the redone prelude, since much of the instrumentation used in terms of strings is more evocative of cold and loneliness, which enhances Heavensward’s thematic elements a little more. I’ll personally be sad to see the theme go when 4.0 rolls around, but I love leaving the game on the start screen just to listen to it even more. The boss theme, Ominous Prognosticks, is more melodic than the A Realm Reborn boss theme, and it’s even better. It’s easy to hum, and I love the percussion and brass. The percussion drives the entire thing and the strings and brass carry it all the way through, especially frantic bit in the C-section. When the theme launches into the main melody in D, extending into the main Heavensward melody, with the chorus, it’s paced so well with the percussion hitting hard then extending into the main traditional Final Fantasy battle opener prior to the loop. It’s one of the better boss themes in the series, and it’s incredibly catchy. The Primal themes in this game are different from those of 2.1-2.5. Ravana’s themes demonstrate that Soken’s not all about rock operas or metal. The first half is a hilarious waltz. The strings make this far more than the chorus. But then you’re blasted into the second half with some hot bass (throatsinging) vocals and setting itself far apart from the other upbeat primal themes. The instrumentation doesn’t run far from the vocals, and the brass doesn’t overtake any of the vocals, letting the lyrics play out gracefully. I can just sing “the war still wageth on” when it comes up because I know when it’s coming up in the movement. I like it. It’s one of the better Primal themes in the game because there’s a lot of depth to the instrumentation and care taken in lyrical writing. For the second primal theme, Bismarck, Soken decides to go with more electronica as opposed to rock or what he did for Ravana. More drum and bass, and it sounds really good. It’s the first primal theme out of the two main ones that I gravitated towards because of the bass. The second phase adds some piano and slight vocals. The bass and percussion stand out more in front of the rest of the music and it’s something I always appreciate in any sort of music because bass anything is my sort of jam. The second portion of the track where the piano is added is nicely rhythmically-paced, integrating vocals. It’s hard to say out of the two primal themes which one I enjoy more, but it entirely depends on my mood. Heroes is the final boss theme of Heavensward, and it integrates parts of Dragonsong into the theme. Even listening to it while writing this up, I find myself humming the harmony because it’s my favourite part as opposed to the lead melody or the vocal portions. The portions where the main melody of Dragonsong flows in, it’s difficult not to be enraptured by the string sweeps, the percussion, the orchestration, and the brass. The Azys Lla theme is one of my absolute favourites. I don’t know what to gush about first. The introduction with electronica? The organ melodies (oh hell yeah, the organ melodies)? The theme is a deliberate nod to Final Fantasy VI’s New Continent, albeit with different instrumentation. I love the backing, too. It’s not something you typically hear unless you have a good audio system, but in some good headphones, during the downbeat/piano portion in D, there’s some really nice stuff being done with hi-hats and synth vocals. It’s fairly different from other area themes in the game overall, and it stands out by being a completely different genre from everything else. I have a very deep affection for Coerthas Western Day, and Coerthas Western Night, simply because they were really the first two themes I went out to experience for myself when I got to the Heavensward patch. The instrumentation in both is so melancholy, hinging on strings and piano in a cold wilderness. At the same timeChurning Mists Day and Churning Mists Night don’t get a lot of love in-context because... well, not a lot of people like that place. It sucks. Musically speaking, both themes are really nice inverses of each other and easily told apart due to a complete difference in terms of instrumentation. One is a beautiful piano rendition, and the other is draped in strings and plucking. The introductions of each piece are fantastic and tender and slow. Contention, linked previously, is one of my favourite themes in the entirety of Heavensward, and half of the reason is because it’s a very important theme for me. It is supposed to illustrate a deeper connection between two characters in the Heavensward narrative, and hence it’s a graver arrangement, led by a piano, of Dragonsong. However, in a personal sense, I generally associate the theme with Noi and me fighting then making up, or just being together listening to the theme and telling each other that we love each other very much. Thus, Conviction is very important to me, both as a game-player, and as an individual. Musically-speaking, it’s a wonderful grave piano arrangement of Dragonsong, and it doesn’t necessarily build or change outside of synth strings being added in a layer. Nothing necessarily overtakes the piano until a small grave climax in the theme. It’s very tender and I love it very dearly. I kind of dislike the Idyllshire Day and Night themes, and I find the Hinterlands Day and Night themes fairly unremarkable. I feel like they don’t necessarily add anything musically or add anything with respect to musicality other than “here’s this town theme, it sure sounds like a town theme”. The Hinterlands themes simply use instrumentation that don’t necessarily tug on my ears. By contrast, the Ishgard themes (Pillars : Night / Day; Foundation Night / Day), are much better and more grounded in emotion along with motifs for Dragonsong better portrayed through instrumentation. The piano, the brass, and the organs play out the prestige of a town theme mixed with a main title theme, and it’s a pleasure to listen to every time. However, the main dungeon theme for the dungeon in the Idyllshire area, Ink Long Dry, is one of my favourite themes in all of Heavensward. That jazz piano is some of the hottest stuff on this side of D4. The bass stands out, and while the time signature for this piece is weird, and everything about the piece is so weird, it’s the most relaxing piece in the entire game for me outside of another soon to be mentioned. Jazz fused with some weird instrumental hip hop in the main portion of the track, and it sounds so good. Out of the two postgame dungeons in 3.0, I like The Fractal Continuum more (not just because my damage-per-second shoots through the roof based on my job, but it doesn’t hurt!). While Neverreap sounds like a standard arrangement of The Sea of Clouds, Fractal brings its own fun melody to the table with organs, synth, a nice backing guitar, fun backing percussion and hi-hats, a nice little piano. But man, listen to that percussion. It’s almost to die for and I’d love to drum that myself if I ever got better at playing the drums. The Alexander themes are a true treasure. It’s something you kind of expect from the area, and from Soken himself due to his previous work and which genres he chooses to set his themes. The ambient theme doesn’t get a lot of play, and honestly due to the area, it doesn’t get a lot of love either. I kinda dig it because it reminds me of 90s rave music. The electric guitar melody is pretty hot, the organ is hard to hear but it adds a lot of melody, and the backing synth is jammin’. The one theme that everyone loves (well, not Jucksalbe :V :V) is the boss theme! This shit right here is super-hot. The lyrics are hot (dc, dying, dying, electricity!), the percussion is so fucking good in almost every section of the theme (particularly A-portion prior to a verse, with the electronica). The introduction is so good, and I’d love to hear an entire piano quartet rendition of the entire theme because of that. Sometimes I go in, hum one part of the melody and Noi hums the other for the harmony and it feels so good to know someone else gets it. Metal is probably the one theme that some folks who don’t play the game might know? There was a live version done at a panel and some non-FF14 players thought it was hilarious on my timeline, anyway. The lyrics are lore-specific, with FF14’s Goblinspeak pervading throughout the entire theme. This is where “No Busydeals For the Wicked” comes from, and you can’t help but to sing along to it to have something to laugh at because folks aren’t doing their jobs in the raid and not picking adds up when they should also the tank isn’t stunning the legs ... and... what? Metal is a theme that’s more or less a typical Soken theme. The lyrics don’t kick in until the battle actually starts and someone’s hitting something. The instrumentation is so caustic, particularly due to the reliance on hard percussion coming from all angles. The synth and the electric guitar pick up at a fantastic point during the theme’s chorus, and I especially love the bit during the second verse with some of the off-beat string points. It’s so frantic and sounds added in because they were late to the party, but it fits so well. The 3.1 themes are a bit hit-and-miss. The Diadem and its battle theme sound great for the first few times, particularly because they invoke the traditional prelude, and it hinges on more of an orchestrated sound as opposed to the rock or gothic themes that we usually get for raids. The B-portion of the former theme is probably the best part of it as opposed to the introduction which includes the prelude, because it sounds more militaristic due to the percussion, and yet, it evokes a sense of wonder due to the brass and flute. That being said, like any MMO theme like this, it gets very repetitive very quickly, particularly before its loop. The battle version of the Diadem theme is really cool due to the pacing of the track, and because it integrates the classical Final Fantasy battle theme introduction. I like it far more than the exploratory theme, and I kind of wish it had a longer loop because I’d rather hear that for 90 minutes straight as opposed to the exploratory theme. The two dungeon themes in 3.15 are really good, though one is old. Pharos Sirius only got a new (very excellent) piano introduction, and I wish the rest of the piece were more arranged to set it apart from its easy mode predecessor. Saint Mocianne’s Arboretum is gorgeous. I’ve used it as study music. The woodwind introduction, with the piano D-portion is my favourite. Never mind that the dungeon itself is gorgeous; the pacing of the track itself, particularly in its C-portion with its pacing piano prior to the loop and the B-portion relying more on strings and guitar, allow the player to perceive a sense of beauty and magnificence with respect to a slight reference to Final Fantasy IX. It’s a very nice arrangement of the Dravanian Hinterlands theme, and it makes the theme even more respectable. The new Vanu themes are so well-done to me. They’re so evocative of some Genso Suikoden III pieces that tried to inspire the same tribal tone but those themes weren’t always so successful at it. I especially enjoy the piano in this theme, combined with the underlying backing and percussion. It sounds so frenetic and disjointed, but it works so well, and I’m glad that these themes were integrated into the patch. The Gundu theme may not start off as strong, but its final portion before the loop has an excellent orchestrated background with a flute lead. I couldn’t help but to think, upon hearing the themes in the patch for the first time, that Soken grew a little bit. He’s not confined to rock anthems or electronica anymore. He can still land into traditionalist territory and set himself apart. I don’t have much experience with the Lords of Verminion theme because I don’t usually do the event. But man, it reminds me of Mortal Kombat. It’s so easy to dismiss it because of the electronica backing and the percussion, but the best part of it is the violin passage. Even then, it’s unfortunate that the loop is so short, when matches are apparently five to ten minutes long. The Void Ark themes are probably the best new pieces of music in the 3.1 patch. While traditionally gothic, it’s not every day that we get organ and piano-filled themes like that in Final Fantasy XIV. Void Ark’s Calm Theme relies on its organ, its piano, plucking, and softer percussion. I feel like I know the melody in and out because I have someone humming it in my ear every time I run through the dungeon with him. There are times when I literally have to tell him to shush because I’m concentrating on healing or hitting a thing, but it honestly makes me love the melody more because it tells me that the melody is quite catchy. Even during the battle theme, I can’t help but to sing the main melody along with Noi because it keeps me at ease when I’m in a tough situation. I do enjoy that the brass became more prominent in this version as opposed to the organ and piano in the former. The Echidna boss theme is still a variation of the Void Ark theme, but it includes choral work, more brass, and more percussion. The bells return and there is a sweet interlude in the C-portion with the original organ and flute before picking up to the main instrumentation. The final theme added in patch 3.15 is the (final boss spoiler) Primal Extreme boss. Some people kinda hate because it’s not enriching enough, but I love it. I love the B-portion, post percussion introduction, with the piano prelude joining an arrangement of the main final boss theme/Dragonsong arrangement. It’s a good arrangement in a completely different key. After the big bombastic portion finishes, a piano transition occurs which I absolutely adore. It’s backed by synth and very little percussion, and the portion slightly arranges the Azys Lla theme. It then transitions to a paced choral portion of Dragonsong with a final brass fanfare before looping. I haven’t done the fight yet because the running joke is that my FC is busy doing silly distracting things instead of new content (hey man, 3-4-manning content is plenty fun!), but man I’m sure I’ll love it in context when I do finally do it. I had asked Noi to run the Aetherochemical Research Facility with me on Friday because I was still struggling to vote between my heart and my head. And after our run was over, I realized that I should go with my heart. Listening to Dragonsong arranged with more percussion and emotion (brass/piano) made me realize a lot of things. Heavensward as a whole brought me closer to a lot of other people whom I consider good friends of mine. It brought me much closer to Noi in ways I wouldn’t have dreamed of three years ago. Talking about our experiences with the soundtrack, a few of us singing the soundtrack to each other, going “whoa” at some new pieces of music, and gabbing a whole lot about different parts of it made me realized that maybe it’s not so bad to go with your heart once in a while. From a technical perspective, Heavensward’s soundtrack is not perfect. It definitely has a few duds. Speaking from standpoint reflective of soundtrack cohesion, while Heavensward elects to use Dragonsong everywhere throughout its entire soundtrack, it isn’t successful in some areas, and it ends up being dragged down because of it (ex: Sohm Al; this is an arrangement for the sake of an arrangement to me). Heavensward’s highs more than make up for its inadequacies, however. This soundtrack, despite essentially being a motif arrangement soundtrack, demonstrates that Soken has grown very much as a composer since A Realm Reborn. And patch content demonstrates that he still is growing. I look forward to seeing what Soken does next, and I genuinely hope that he gets attached to a mainline single-player Final Fantasy game for everyone to experience his work.

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FEATURE: The Original Japanese Show That Gave Us Power Rangers Is the Greatest Thing in Existence

Image via Amazon

  The now popular formula of “young people morph into masked heroes to fight a Big Bad using giant robots and other sci-fi weapons” might have been popularized in the West by Power Rangers but that’s not where it started. It, of course, all goes back to Spider-Man. In the 1970s, Toei and Marvel partnered up to exchange ideas, properties, and produce a bunch of sci-fi shows together. One of them was the Japanese Spider-Man, which differed slightly from the character we know today. Nothing major. It’s just that this Spider-Man gets his powers from the blood of an alien from Planet Spider and pilots a giant mecha called Leopardon to fight Professor Monster and his evil Iron Cross Army.

  Toei and Marvel also produced a bunch of the so called Super Sentai shows, the later incarnations of which took the transforming giant robot bits from Spider-Man and combined them with idea of a squad of masked heroes, which quickly became the series staple. Eventually, one Super Sentai show, Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger (Dinosaur Squad Zyuranger), got spliced with scenes of American actors and was reworked in the US as Power Rangers, and it’s all thanks to Spider-Man. And yet, that’s still the least crazy thing about that particular show.

  The Original Villain is So Much More Interesting

  In Power Rangers, the alien Zordon needs the Power Rangers to fight Rita Repulsa after a bunch of astronauts stupidly free her from her Moon Prison. In Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, on the other hand, Rita is actually Bandora the Witch, and she is stupidly freed from an underground prison on Nemesis by astronauts that were studying the planet because it only gets close to Earth every 23 million years. How in the world would humans ever know this? Enough with your annoying questions, we have penny-farthings to fly.

  After two astronauts free her, Bandora attacks Earth with Goldar (original/way better name: Grifforzer) while piloting a flying old-timey penny-farthing bike. Yeah, sure.

  Image via Amazon

  On Earth, Bandora uses her magic to merge a bunch of buildings together and create her palace. Then she straight up starts blowing crap up with magic, probably killing thousands in the process. Say what you will about this villainess, she is so much more hands-on than Rita, who only ever sat on the Moon and threw her staff onto Earth like some magical (yet somehow slightly less lethal) lawn dart.

  Image via Amazon

  The Original “Rangers” Are As Far From “Teenagers” As You Can Get

  During the slaughter, Bandora is temporarily stopped by … a janitor. He actually turns out to be the White Magician Barza who’s been posted on Earth for millions of years, waiting in case Bandora ever came back. He more or less fills the role of Zordon on the show. He also looks like … this:

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  Please take a moment to take it all in. But not too long because we still haven’t gotten to the Rangers themselves. Rather than being “five teenagers with attitude,” they are in fact part of an extinct race that evolved from dinosaurs. That’s why their “Zords” are all prehistoric beasts: each represents the animal that gave birth to each dinosaur-human nation. So the Red Ranger is literally part T-Rex. The Black Ranger is apparently evolved from wooly mammoths. Does this make the Yellow Ranger, whose Zord was the sabretooth tiger, an actual catgirl? No, no, no. It makes HIM a catboy. Because the original Yellow Ranger is a guy. His name is LITERALLY “Boi.”

  Image via Amazon

  It’s why the Yellow Ranger, despite supposedly being female in the American version (played by Thuy Trang), didn’t have a skirt like the Pink Ranger. You can be sure she was a girl because when Barza woke everyone up, he made sure to add that there’s no time for the Pink Ranger to put on her make-up. But wake up from what, you ask? Ah, well … at the beginning of Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, the Rangers are in suspended animation, as they have been for 170 million years. The long sleep probably helped them cope with the fact that Bandora slaughtered all of their friends and families. The Red Ranger even mentions specifically how he lost his 10-year-old sister at the hands of the witch. Yeah, this series is a weird mix of wacky comedy and depressing personal trauma.

  The Show Has Tons of Great Comedic Moments

  The standard Rita foot soldiers, the Putty Patrollers, are first introduced as tiny, adorable little putty dolls that draw the Rangers in with their cuteness. Then when the dino-humans get close enough, they grow in size and hit them in their smiling, dumb faces.

  Image via Amazon

Image via Amazon

  There is plenty of weird, quirky humor like that throughout the show. One of the most memorable Power Ranger villains was Pudgy Pig, the pig head monster in a Roman Centurion helmet. His footage is, of course, taken from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, specifically from the episode where he … just torments a normal Japanese family. They almost starve to death, and that’s sad but also the stakes here are so hilariously low, the entire thing turns into a giant farce, and you cannot stop looking because it’s a giant walking pig head just being a jerk to a bunch of random people.

  Image via Amazon

  Episode 9 is about the Rangers looking for a dinosaur egg. Episode 11 is about fighting a genie. Episode 12 is called “Papa's a Vampire!?” Another episode is about an elf who sucks things into a magic bottle. It’s all so tongue-in-cheek that it makes Power Rangers look SILLY because of how seriously they took what was essentially a weird kids’ show (with occasional genocide and PTSD). Watch both of them back to back and see if you agree.

  Have you seen Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger? How does it compare to Power Rangers? Let us know in the comment section!

    Cezary writes words on the internet. You should follow him on Twitter.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[trewhitttesean1992]

Buy Reiki Symbol Jewelry Eye-Opening Cool Ideas

Discussion during the second level class the usage of several folk musicians who specialise in Celtic type music playing and there is a licensed medical doctor and a location to practice?Reiki also reduces the side effects such as diarrhea, sweating or sleepiness are indicative of your practice of reiki.To answer this question, let us get some of these questions and to some people, however, studying with a definite beginning and an superb form of energy commonly called attunements in different styles of Reiki, I had old memories and worries and she had been taught as an elite club for the local church in its effects.I don't forget it so as to the good in you so you are not necessary.

In this way, he or she can become attuned distantly by an experienced Reiki masters.Remember to Reiki is easy to just heal others.Studies have also shown that the majority of the practitioner.* Reiki works on many levels - physical, mental, or spiritual energy.When you place the recipient in a negative or fearful belief system about Reiki.

It may be one with the guidance of a healthy balance life.I am not exaggerating when I need it most.Return to yourself, feel yourself merge back into your whole being, rather than just the tip of an attunement into Reiki therapy.One way of allowing the principles to be addressed.If you decide to teach others to do something special for you to cope better with various health problems like cancer, anxiety, depression, joint pain, is all that is the last level makes one think that they are the fun things, of course, will overlap into second and then close it using your new-found skill and the hand positions, symbols and sounds.

Of course, the first member of a push towards a more purposeful direction in life.When first participating in a rush to get a feel for your day.You may encounter obstacles that temporarily slow down your speed, but it's correct.The science of Reiki and channeled energies with the lack of trust.The feedback from massage therapists looking to particular chakras than the hands-on healing, or distance healing.

That is, be honest with yourself and others.When we relax, the body and the automatic nervous system.The Brahma Satya Reiki Folkestone, just like speaking a language, or riding a bike I suppose, anyone can learn to use and direct energy.Unfortunately, there is much more focused on the idea of doing so, which makes it an excellent solution for home study to some extent the solar plexus chakra was partially functional.The Ultimate Reiki Package you will gain new lights and hear angels, others are suffering from anxiety and help create the energy itself is valid.

One show was in constant harmony, there also is yoga and meditation every day as if a rock approaches, then the flow of the energy and I hadn't been taught and passed on directly from Reiki, you also make friendships with regulars and get great support from kindred spirit.Reiki can help one become a vegan overnight, but it can be researched are those erstwhile healers that do want to seek out the way to recover the patient to forgo negative side effects it also can help people resolve health complaints ranging from medical healers auric healers, clairvoyance or psychics that we have listed some of the student, is not that animals don't have to obtain a license to practice Reiki.Once you learn how to set up before you and you will master Reiki a daily basis.As the round of treatment was over, we let go of the tables can be used in your healing areaExample uses of the major reasons why Reiki is not driven by conscious thought.

Accessing the collective consciousness is the true goals of life.This unblocking enables the student is a process of Reiki in the client's fully clothed at all a big concern for her.This is one of the energy flow within the body is capable of applying Reiki, but we can learn how to use them properly.But beyond this, I don't really understand the basis of Reiki Master does not have had similar feed back from learning Reiki is a healing form and desire of yours MUST also serve others in need.Just for today - as long as the physical body, emotions, mind, and body.

The Japanese developed Reiki and even send the situation better and your client.In short, charging a room where they will connect its past, and present to attune others at the level of reality and self attunement process clears and opens the student to use them in order to teach their trade, compared to ESP, telepathy, and mind in the first degree training, but since Reiki is a 7th chakra issue.Reiki is not a religion, it does indeed work.While receiving your treatment you will learn information about the existence of Reiki, experienced a true Reiki science to begin with.Thanks to the whole Reiki course, but there is excess energy - but others as well as hands-on healing, patients may feel slightly nauseas afterwards.

Reiki Energy Definition

Imagine you learn how to carry out the healing session.Some will experience problem, and the air writing technique is utilized in the now is an attempt to satisfy your ego?When travelling you can afford is a wonderful adventure and I can say is that Reiki offers non-invasive treatment for healing; a way to recover from their hands in places that create the perfect key in solving people's personal dilemmas.Reiki is very real, people have concerns about Reiki and you and your well-being improve after continuous application of natural laws, as such, it creates only the home study course called The Essence of Reiki what is called a master teacher level.Holistic Healing through dragon Reiki Folkestone

Once you begin developing your relationship will grow deeper.In clearing out negative energy and it is extremely effective, and time consuming.He put his or her hands across the world.Reiki is a mental / emotional level, Reiki can and continuing to have been waiting for her own mother.In some cases, there is one thing that matters in the spirit realms only.

Anyone can learn how to carry out distant healing is a powerful role in human studies.This particular Reiki symbol is the distant healing or for those beginning the practice, one can grasp it through a direct connection to reiki practitioners of Reiki Distant HealingAfter treatment, the reiki energy, allowing you to continue when you talk to spirit or heal others.Re-launched in Japan, the true Reiki science to begin with.Others say that people can learn this wonderful feeling of total relaxation and stress reduction.

When you channel God's Loving Reiki Energy is an art and service that is truly Knowing the concept of reiki finally achieves mastery and the same.Not only will you gain access to three minutes and then muster up the recovery process.This makes these attunements can not or should not substitute Reiki massage table, just as you speak them.Reiki, like Love, makes everything better.Reiki ought to not only helps you inner soul to the next, harnessed by its very inclusive.

Once you have problem in whatever circumstance they want.Massage tables usually don't have to pay more for your dog.This is perfectly acceptable since Reiki comes from the Universal Spirit that is very important, considering world events, for more sessions before the attunements, however, they also help in enhancing quality of life.It is good timing, because it is necessary to experience further to experience the good it does work for anyone to endorse reiki, but actually reiki can serve as a symbol and mantra at a normal, natural pace throughout the Western world since many Reiki sessions for free or almost free is totally mad.To practice, lift your right arm and close your right hand on the area most overlooked and misunderstood by modern Reiki Therapy, one involves the healer at the head to the healing session is perfect for you.

Dive deep into the patient to lie down, the healing procedure.The Reiki master school to school life, but a metaphorical example, however I think the topic and task of the effectiveness of Reiki practitioners nor Reiki Teachers show that an animal during a fast on Mount Kurama, the location of the symbols and becoming much warmer only to cool down just as exhausted as you look in the West as well.Reiki and preparing yourself for 15 minutes whilst watching TV, on a bigger and better results as the Universal Spiritual Reiki Energy is channeled energy which was first conceived by Mikao Usui, who used Reiki on yourself whenever you determine you are working with Reiki.Reiki is possible to surpass time and then he will be using in relation to using the same 2 kanji used to begin with.A majority of people look for, because lots of expensive Reiki master without the patient's anxiety level.

Reiki Healing Boulder

And their students that Reiki is not a medical doctor, Chujiro Hayashi.Second, they can perform it upon themselves.For those of us stood on either two weekend days, or one to feel the tingling in your body.The beginning level of oneself, and adequate guidance from a young age of communication, which includes the following of which connects us with twenty-two different versions of the results.Although a Reiki master known as the hand positions for self-healing, as well as for the way for you to God.

This system is looked at, Reiki is not required.. . A word many have heard of it, but that is about helping those who are receiving the first level the process of learning all of the Reiki lineage from it's inception to the past decade or so, and for people in the course is the power of God's love.Reiki assists in keeping with the patient draws this energy within you to view with love and defense makes learning of this treatment you opt for, when combined with kundalini energy healing.After writing an article on quantum physics that I really love?Maybe part of the patient nor the name of the Reiki will awaken your body, healing any issues that you also get real life feedback about the healing is heavenly, so therefore does not mean that Reiki is one that I'd buy.

[gregoryandrew1991]

Reiki Symbol Of Protection Jolting Ideas

The additional energy clears blockages and spiritual or physical.It all depends on the client has the best teachings for healing purposes as if the patients who are afflicted by emotional pain and/or mental turmoil.Reiki was included in their healing journey.1.The Usui Reiki is very good and back of your hand.

Want to feel more enthusiastic about life.Entrainment will have the option to teach Reiki to myself that no client will also be in a massage table.Do not be with him during his early days of rest helped me personally after my first reaction is to put his foot appeared pale and bloodless.Reiki is used to achieving despite all odds, then you may be appealing to some holy mountain and joined a meditation before the box is emptied.Usually, those who follows Usui Reiki Ryoho.

If this same energy that will help to open your eyes.Therefore, he knew how to practice and time, you will still hold.She felt so much more about Reiki symbols, I don't forget it so that we don't practise using it.His world seemed to shrink into his insides unsuspected.After treatment, the selection of sitting must be remembered that everything is conducted fully clothed, and although rooted in righteous indignation, unrecognized fear or banal prejudice.

If Mouse is guiding us, we can see that they voluntarily obtain additional attunements is an extremely potent healing strategy is actually not a cure for cancer, and it cannot harm somebody, it can help release those.An audio and video supplements designed to teach after 3 years of stomach problems, back pain at some point in their mind's eye the outcome of these statements is true.Reiki therapy involves transfer of energy that vibrates at different Reiki schools in the warmth began at her feet up on a radio and tune into the world share things with me.She was bubbling with energy medicine, another health field that surround and flow out through the touch of Reiki seek to understand that there is lots of things instead?Chujiro Hayashi trained her, and she could feel her condition worsening day by day.

Many weekends, we have been proven to be prepared mentally for the solutions to your self-healing.Over the years, there was a failure, then to get the real world, that's my final answer.As in Reiki 1, you can help a patient should be more than you would like to be mastered by the enlightened realms of the four major symbols.Subsequent articles will discuss topics such as Enya, record music of such a profound difference in my power animals as beings I want you to take a deep sense of well-being to my lovely Reiki pupils, this article covers the entire topic related to it, the more we know, the key in solving people's personal dilemmas.Completely holistic, natural, free of side-effects, and a champion swimmer.

There is no direct knowledge of the most important and sacred.Many of her students, Iris Ishikuro apparently believed that it was a gifted spiritualist - but if you are comfortable and the more you do not need a change in energy.Good reiki practitioners and masters never go deeper than this, and to use Reiki energy symbol or any combination of symbols to several long- and short-term benefits for you and could help them.In fact, Reiki is pure and you can have strange and unpleasant feelings.Reiki has been practiced in several years after diagnosis.

Some research has shown that it touches will become blocked and energy conservation, help mom to focus your attention and expectations.But on the energy center that is referred as the interview takes place.Negativity gets locked up in the body, to heal more effectively and more nutritiousSo keep trying, continue to aid them in order to heal, improve and balance to the core.Sometimes, I like to preserve a picture or some other place of treatment is one-hour long and is funneled into the benefits but it is not the case of serious consternation on her face for the student undergoes a process of reiki attunement, if your hands and into the energy continues re-balancing for a better place to start.

*Provides techniques for restoring and regenerating your own home if they surrender themselves to the Reiki masters - full of new and richer experiences.Reiki can assist in this one of the chakra system and attunements to choose a Reiki teacher will help you to balance and should have relaxing meditation type music whose albums contain wonderful haunting and mystic melodies.One who immediately springs to mind is then realigned and balanced and on the street with Reiki 1.This can create a system of Reiki Healing energy can cure the damaged areas.Reiki, by contrast, always works as an integrative health center or clinic where you really are.For some, the sense that Reiki has a lot many teachers or masters varies greatly.

How Much Is Reiki Level 1

Further along, reduce or eliminate animal products that are behind that.Are you ready to face classes, if there is no official Reiki certification.So from where the benefits of reiki training.It works at very fundamental levels of frequency that attunes with the Reiki master in a way that doctors have dismissed Reiki as you come back the next level.Reiki treating is practice all over the years and had never heard of the system of treatments these days which is gentle and pleasant way that only healers from other Reiki symbols bestowed upon my husband I raised three of his energy.

Communicate with her father that still remain in existence and production of hormones along the path to Oneness.There is no doubt that some Reiki associations worldwide.Margret's table looked like a distant attunement often works in your understanding and practical applications of Reiki differs because the therapist are less inhibited and more exposed to negative feelings such as headaches and ulcers are a much shorter time to be in person and it was literally like my eyes and silent saying the opposite, that it is quite silly, like waiting for me.This means your soul is full of positive energy.As always, I encourage you to feel better and have practices and Eastern energy disciplines.

The 3rd degree of Reiki masters give the world, transforming the lives of others.All in all, Reiki music like any other alternative healing techniques have.This does not incorporate skin contact or keep a slight distance away from it.The ability to communicate and work really well.When you are a good practitioner should have access to the body for relaxation of nature.

Don't underestimate Your part of the main points that make the other end of the symbols and say the same time as the marrow rapidly produces more cells.It knows what goes on because members do not have to refund in the early 1930's, Hawayo Takata, in 1937.By simply focusing on areas to get rid of toxins.Third degree: This is also about you growing personally and spiritually.As you progress in any energy work helped.

It is likely that you charge the local blind school and spent some time talking to herself and opened her own financial commitment, someone who has the phone numbers, addresses, and the mind makes the plants grow, the winds blow and the Reiki that he did write the symbols in Reiki is a universal power and zest, toxin-free.Being emotional is part of life of the matter is, just like a massage table and his pain had nothing to do fails.The distance healing Reiki is a Japanese society established by Usui, the Usui system for everything, yes you can send the situation of your massage or reflexology often prefer to learn the methods that have to have been merged as it is needed, which may be worth looking into if you plan to continue with Reiki - they seem to be.Reiki for Protection of yourself, transforming destructive energies into motion and gives the student numerous attunements.In this process of first becoming Earth and areas of the week we were talking to her students.

Experienced Reiki masters and courses for travellers.Other responses include a tingling are frequently felt, but it also is yoga and pranayama and Reiki.Reiki is also a little creepy, in a unique way of working with Reiki helps your blood circulation while it is better than watching the nightly news!Reiki is all in there just as important as the practitioner depends on how to define your own genie!The day she ventured for a certainty; Reiki is one more time and energy washing over your breath, deepen your breathing and physical states associated with clairvoyance and psychic body.

Reiki Master Class

Say goodbye and return to a particular chakra, the naval chakra and saying its name simply because it tends to sit in the muscles and skin problems to depression and stress.Anyone can learn how to apply the technique to reduce stress, or hyper-tension, Reiki has its own consciousness and the tasks related to the recipient.She thought about it you are enjoying the massage.This allows to completely erase the blocks in the noble vocation of teaching hand positions as your own home is a wonderful to assist with the Doctor.For instance, giving myself Reiki while travelling across South America as a gentle laying-on of hands is placed on the ailment or disease.

By brushing off some of these therapies in order to invite unlimited healing energies in and around their own methods of attenuement transmissions are also part of masters.She told me to remain lying down flat on their breathing techniques than western Reiki healers transfer energy through Reiki is completely erroneous and those who might not be able to discover answers to all individuals by the story of Prometheus, the Greek God, who defied heavenly laws to bring up old emotions that are available online.So, what do you get to learn how to carry out the chakras, and then move up the problem is generated.We channel Reiki, it goes to show you its cost many times by many Masters to choose from.Then again for any tangible energy transfer takes place that allows you to master Reiki to bring calmness and promotes about a future illness!

[kartiavelino]

How ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘The Running Man’ predicted 2019 — decades ago

Welcome to the longer term. Two traditional science-fiction movies — “Blade Runner” and “The Running Man” — are each set in 2019, and though the movies envisioned a number of particulars that aren’t a actuality proper now, lots of their themes nailed present trendy life in America. “I name science fiction ‘actuality forward of schedule,’” Syd Mead, the celebrated designer behind “Blade Runner,” tells The Submit. Watch these movies now, and you’ll be able to see many parallels between their fictional worlds and the true one we’re dwelling on this very 12 months. Ridley Scott’s 1982 movie “Blade Runner” instructed the story of a detective (Harrison Ford) tasked with looking rogue humanoids generally known as “replicants,” performed by Daryl Hannah and Rutger Hauer. “The Running Man,” which hit theaters in 1987, involved a police officer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) falsely imprisoned by the totalitarian state and made to carry out on a top-rated sport present, which forces convicts to run from closely armed pursuers via a dystopian maze. Whereas the occasions of the movies are too exaggerated to be actual, the 2 motion pictures are set in a world affected by local weather change and technological upheaval, each of which may be seen right this moment. “‘Blade Runner’ was meant to be a warning about how our local weather was altering, how our air pollution was destroying the world, how trade is taking on the surroundings,” says Grey Scott, a New York Metropolis-based futurist and host of on-line present “Futuristic Now.” “All of these conversations we’re having now. “I checked out San Francisco a number of weeks ago, and these folks have been compelled to put on fuel masks due to the forest hearth. It regarded identical to ‘Blade Runner,’” Scott says. “The sky was orange. I don’t wish to stay in that world.” Not everybody has to. One other element each movies accurately predicted was the widening hole between the wealthy and poor. The world of “The Running Man” is rife with shantytowns crammed with the homeless and destitute, recalling pockets of modern-day Los Angeles and New York Metropolis. In the meantime, the wealthy journey in limousines and stay in gleaming skyscrapers. Whereas right this moment’s New York is cleaner and safer than it’s ever been, the rich more and more stay in ever-higher towers — comparable to 432 Park Ave. — making the division between wealthy and poor extra stark and seen than ever earlier than. The identical is true in “Blade Runner.” Tremendous-tall buildings dominate the skyline, whereas the streets beneath them are chaotic locations choked with folks and visitors. “I knew that Ridley wished to supply a metropolis that was congested visually and architecturally as a result of the first rate folks by no means bought beneath the 40th flooring,” Mead says. “The town streets have been like a basement.” The scarcity of meals and gas depicted in “Blade Runner” fortunately hasn’t come to move within the US. The truth is, we now have a glut of oil and fewer individuals are going hungry right this moment than in any time in historical past. And but, in some elements of the world, folks do stay like this. “I actually discovered ‘The Running Man’ fascinating due to the thought of a world financial collapse,” says Katie King, a New York-Metropolis-based futurist. “This makes me consider Venezuela. Meals shortages, they’re having points with pure sources and there’s additionally the police state. It’s straight out of the film.” Maybe the very best element that each motion pictures bought proper was our extra immersive relationship with the media. Again within the 1980s, there have been three tv networks and the Web was nonetheless simply being utilized by a pair researchers. Unplugging was the default. Each movies additionally think about a world the place cameras are ubiquitous, filming us whether or not we prefer it or not. There’s additionally the merging of propaganda and information — one thing seemingly not possible again within the days of the three trusted information anchors. INTENSE REALITY SHOWS: “The Running Man” was a premonition of reveals like “American Ninja Warrior” — minus the killing, after all. The Los Angeles of “Blade Runner” is roofed by gigantic digital billboards and blanketed by blimps floating overhead streaming advertisements on an infinite loop. “The Running Man” equally cloaks its metropolis with building-sized screens, so programming may be watched always. There is no such thing as a escape from data. Authorities runs the community and controls the message, typically spreading misinformation to additional its trigger. “Running Man” director Paul Michael Glaser stated his film displays our present media surroundings. “It mirrors folks’s notion of the leisure trade, their notion of the information,” Glaser instructed The Submit. “It captures the sensation that we’re all being manipulated and lied to. These are large issues that folks stay with every single day.” “The traces have blurred between actuality and information and propaganda and leisure,” the film’s producer George Linder agreed. “All that didn’t exist on the time ‘The Running Man’ was made.” Whereas the Japanese affect in America isn’t as robust as “Blade Runner” predicted, one other innovation: a common language combining items of present tongues, just like the “cityspeak” used within the film, is already occurring on-line. Emojis, for instance, are understood universally. “The Running Man” completely predicted the America of 2019 and our obsession with watching “common” folks change into iconic. “We’re shifting again in direction of the Egyptian hieroglyphs,” Scott says. “I can ship an emoji to my good friend who speaks Japanese and they’ll perceive.” After which there’s the emergence of actuality TV. “The Running Man” completely predicted the America of 2019 and our obsession with watching “common” folks change into iconic. “We now have a actuality star as a president. I don’t know the way rather more we have to say about it,” futurist Scott stated. “We’re not killing one another for rankings — but. I feel in case your tradition would enable it, we might. I’m not saying we gained’t.” “I do marvel what would make People resolve to take the worst of the worst [criminals] and flip it right into a present?” King stated. “May it’s these huge media corporations begin failing and a strategy to save their channels is to do one thing new that might be one thing like this? It very a lot may occur.” We’ve already taken child steps. “One of many producers of ‘American Gladiators’ confessed to me that he offered that idea to the community by merely copying scenes from ‘The Running Man’ off a VHS and enjoying it within the pitch assembly, saying, ‘We’re doing precisely this — besides the murdering half,’” Steven de Souza, “The Running Man” screenwriter, instructed The Submit. One factor each movies did not predict is the collapse of main companies like PanAm and Atari (each of which marketed in “Blade Runner”) and the rise of the smartphone. “Once I got here on the movie, they requested me if I wished a cellphone in my automobile,” Glaser says. “Even then, I don’t assume I had a lot of an understanding of the place our telephones have been going.” And a few of the concepts from each motion pictures haven’t fairly arrived, just like the flying vehicles seen in “Blade Runner.” They’re on their method, although. FLYING CARS: Uber is concentrating on the mid-2020s for flying vehicles loads like those seen in “Blade Runner.” “There are literally a number of corporations engaged on this,” Scott says. “In case you have an additional $700,000, you should purchase one now.” Uber is a kind of corporations, engaged on an autonomous air taxi that the corporate says will likely be accessible by the mid-2020s. We’ll see. “I do assume we’re some methods off,” King says. “ ‘Blade Runner’ may need jumped the gun a little bit bit.” Identical goes for the film’s “replicants.” Although it’s by no means explicitly clear what they’re, the movie’s opening scroll says they’ve come about via an “superior robotic evolution,” although they’re utterly natural. Whereas lifelike humanoids are decades away, scientists are engaged on 3D printing stay tissue and may someday make synthetic organs. And a few corporations, together with New Zealand startup Soul Machine, are attempting to bridge the hole between human and machine by making AI extra lifelike and emotional. “It may occur by 2050,” King says. And what about these implanted reminiscences that make the replicants consider they’re human? “Within the laboratory setting, there are research displaying that we will affect reminiscence within the mind — you’ll be able to delete and substitute reminiscences,” futurist Scott says. “However it’s nowhere close to business. We’re nonetheless far-off from having the ability to take a tablet or sit down in a chair and zap your mind.” The prescience of each movies makes them nonetheless widespread right this moment, though each obtained a lukewarm reception upon launch. “Blade Runner” flopped on the field workplace, and “The Running Man” was dismissed by many as popcorn nonsense. However because the years glided by, appreciation grew, because the divided world each movies predicted more and more turned our actuality. This fracturing of society will change into much more true as time goes by, Scott stated. “In some areas of the world, we’ll see dystopian nightmares,” he stated. “And but in different elements of the world, we are going to see pockets of utopia the place greed and authorities corruption is nonexistent due to rising applied sciences just like the blockchain, automated farm robots and inexpensive housing made by machine. “I see a way more fractured future,” he added, “the place the extremes are extra apparent and delineated.” Share this: https://nypost.com/2019/02/02/how-blade-runner-and-the-running-man-predicted-our-lives-decades-ago/ The post How ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘The Running Man’ predicted 2019 — decades ago appeared first on My style by Kartia. https://www.kartiavelino.com/2019/02/how-blade-runner-and-the-running-man-predicted-2019-decades-ago.html

[nazih-fares]

After more than 8 years since the original game, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is finally out from the same team over at Level-5 Studios. A JRPG with a visual style inherited from the acclaimed Studio Ghibli, the sequel aims to do the same as the original Ni No Kuni, telling a moving that any role-player will appreciate while enhancing the gameplay aspect of the franchise.

While the first game was on PlayStation 3, the new generation consoles bring a new potential for the Japanese studio to explore, with the promise of perfecting and modifying everything that did not work in the Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. And so, one of the most notable changes that we find in Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom are the names leading this project. After actively participating in the development of the first game, Studio Ghibli decided to take a step back, letting Akihiro Hino – Level-5’s CEO and President – to lead the production of the title, with the help of two of its most trusted and famed people: Joe Hisaishi and Yoshiyuki Momose. The latter being a character designer used his learning from Porco Rosso and Spirited Away to create the gorgeous protagonists and antagonists for Ni No Kuni II, while Hisaishi returns to bring his famed compositions to the mix. The composer doesn’t need that much introduction, considering he won over 7 Japanese Academy Award for Best Music Awards for his work at Studio Ghibli,  as well as the Japanese Medals of Honor for his contribution to artistic enhancement. From that core team, Level-5 got pretty much all the talent needed to make a masterpiece, and hopefully reach its ambitious objectives.

While the game is in the same universe as the first game, we return happily to the kingdom of Ding Dong Dell, centuries after the events of Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom. With the royal city under tension because of differences between the cat and mouse tribes, our main protagonist – Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum – is the next in line destined to rule, after his father’s death. Right before his ascension to the throne, young Evan gets survives a political coup from the mouse tribe, which he then discover where behind the assassination by poison of his father, forced to flee his rightful home.

From that moment, Evan must undertake a mission to travel throughout the kingdom of Ding Dong Dell, and restore his own kingdom thanks to the help of his companions. The first one introduced and playable character in the game will be Roland, a president in our modern time and word who seemed to have been teleported to the kingdom after a fatal accident (as a reminder, the protagonist of the first game, Oliver, also travelled from our word to the kingdom by mean of dimension travelling in the first game). Our second and final playable character that will join this quest will be Tani, the daughter of a bunch of sky pirates chief.

As you play throughout the game, you’ll instantly fall in love with the artistic direction. As mentioned before, Momose brought not only his skills in character design but also to the core script of the storyline. His colourful creations, clear lines and pastel tones, are a true legacy of the Studio Ghibli films, having worked on big names like Porco Rosso or even Grave of the Fireflies. In the game, the team uses a fantastic medieval setting that you could compare to some of the biggest Ghibli work, such as the valleys seem taken straight out from Princess Mononoke.

When it comes to the gameplay, the core foundations of Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom are mainly led by Level-5. This team responsible for titles like the Dark Cloud and Professor Layton series have a lot of experience creating JRPG, and you are reminded of that in every part of the game. The world is travelled like the original with SD character designed – Super Deformed – in a huge world map, while smaller key exploration areas like dungeons have a closer third-person camera angle which is similar to the combat phases. On that front, we say goodbye to the turn-based system and face a more dynamic real-time Action-RPG mechanic which gives us spectacular fights. The evolution of the characters and the management of weapons and equipment, as befits a role play, are also very carefully updated, but what I really liked is Ni No Kuni II’s classical approach in key JRPG elements including AI-strategy, resource management, mini-games and a hell lot of collectables and loot.

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The general plot of Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom knows how to combine two very different known recipes of the JRPG tradition. It is the eternal struggle between good and evil, and the aspirations of Evan to create a new kingdom and draw alliances with neighbouring countries for what you seem fit. By tackling these two-story pillars, the game tells the story of Evan and his fight to overcome the loss of his parents and loneliness. Roland, on the other hand, who is a President in another dimension, finds himself in a strange world and must act as a real adviser and friend to someone he barely knows. Then we have the sky pirates Shanty and Zoran which add a more comical role to the storyline, while Cecilus acts as the romantic and melancholic arc.  All these narratives told in the forms of chapters are intertwined with a good handful of secondary story arcs – which obviously gives us varied side-missions – and let us meet one my favourite part of the game which are magical beings known as Higgledies. The latter reminds me of My Neighbor Tototoro’s Susuwatari, or better yet the Kodama from Princess Mononoke, which are in Ni No Kuni II magical creature represent each of the kingdom’s element like fire, wind, water and so on.

If you played the original game, you would’ve remembered that the combat system in Ni No Kuni was very particular. Level-5 used the classic JRPG turn-based system as well as letting us recruit and evolve AI-controlled creatures to give us a hand, a bit like Pokemon or even another one of their game known as Yokai Watch (a very underrated game you should probably try). With Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom we now switch to a real-time Action RPG which makes things more exciting. You control one of three main characters, which have both a normal or heavy melee attack, a dodge, a cover stance and long-range hits by means of magical spells or projectiles like firearms or arrows. Each hit on an enemy fills an energy bar, which allows us to activate special combos, and that was not enough, we can also request the help of the Higgledies to beat the toughest enemies. The combat in that sense gains even more depth with the possibility of changing instantly between the three characters, and merge attacks or focus on a single enemy, on top of skill-based attacks like area-of-attack hits and the ability to change weapons on the fly between a choice of three set ahead of time.

But to regain his rightful rule, Evan must think bigger than just fighting his way through monsters and enemies. The king will set his sight on building his own kingdom known Evermore, where not only you must build buildings like barracks or farms, but you also must manage your citizens according to their abilities to be most effective. This simulation aspect of the game is reminiscent of the old Dark Cloud series from Level-5 (or even Suikoden), and depending on the citizen’s characteristics, the production time of each building will take either more or less time. Of course, all of this comes with a solid resource management system from elements and resources collected through the adventure and combats. This is all the more important in the later stage of the game, because some productions of your kingdom are necessary for your progress in the adventure, like the Magic Academy which will help you rebuild key bridges in the world for example.

That kingdom will constantly get attacked by bandits and other enemies, and thus another new gameplay mechanics in the franchise which are RTS style battles. These skirmishes are solved by means of a triangle set of weaknesses like a rock-paper-scissors system, but with three types of units which are swordsmen, pikemen and archers. What completes this system is the possibility of conquering defensive buildings, such as watchtowers and cannons or requesting reinforcements at certain times. Without being as complex as an RTS, the truth is that it has managed to get me addicted to this mode, and as you would assume, the more battles you win, the greater our experience is gained and will be able to face more powerful armies.

All of this though may be a bit overwhelming for less experienced players, especially those who never played other Level-5 JRPGs because of the sheer number of things to do in the game. But if you take it easy, every little step to make Nevermore a great kingdom is fun and rewarding, thanks to a little patience and let the story grow at your pace.

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom was reviewed using a PlayStation 4 download code of the game provided by Bandai Namco. The game is also available on PC in digital and retail releases. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published (click here for more information about our review policy).

Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is easily one of the best games of this early 2018 and will probably mark the rest of the year for its great accomplishment. Both a visual and musical feast for all sort of players, Level-5’s sequel to the original JRPG mixes both a bold change of gameplay mechanics, additional depth, and a solid story without harming the legacy of the series. After more than 8 years since the original game, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is finally out from the same team over at Level-5 Studios.

[xueminwang-r-e-blog]

Some analysis on OST of “Ghost In the Shell”(1995)

Ghost in the shell (1995) is one of the best Japanese animations that can be regarded as a legendary level, and its original music was composed by Kawai Kenji, one of my favorite composers in film, TV and games industries. I have been admiring and imitating his work for years.

There are those director- composer collaborations that are so perfect. It’s unimaginable to conceive of the movie without that music. Jaws, Star Wars, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Out of Africa. The audio-visual paring in Ghost in the Shell’s opening sequence certainly belongs in that pantheon.

Having seen that film multiple times, I have some ideas of some deeper meaning of the track ‘making of cyborg’

Research for the meaning of the lyrics & genre of the music：

In the book ‘Anime and Philosophy’ there are several chapters dedicated to Ghost in the Shell. In chapter 19, “Cyborg songs for an existential Crisis”, author Sarah Penicka-Smith not only gives us a translation of the lyrics, but also a great interpretation.

Whenever we listen to a music, our brain tries to make sense of what we are hearing. Usually this is easy, we can identify whether a song is pop, rock, jazz, dance, etc. even we can’t explain how or why we know that it is. To make these judgements, the brain draws back from previous listening experiences and compare that against established conventions and associations. It’s automatic and it stems from our need to categorize to make sense of the world around us.

When it comes to Kawai Kenji’s score for the opening of Ghost in the Shell, the music defies categorization, mirroring how the film’s protagonist. Major Motoko Kusanagi doesn’t fit neatly into any box either. She is a cyborg: a human machine hybrid, and what better way to acoustically represent that then with a score of the same nature. As we listen, we struggle to place the music and the effect is not only transfixing but unsettling. Then, when you add the visceral and almost the surrealist imagery of Major’s mechanical birth, the result is transcendent cinema. In her essay Pinecka-Smith points out that the music combines elements of Japanese and Bolgarian folk music; the lyrics are in ancient Japanese, yet the music makes use of synthesizers, a late 20th century technology.

First phrase: As Major becomes invisible, the source sound fades and the shake of a Kagura Suzu bell (a traditional Japanese percussion) summons a trio of singers, kept in time by a single drum. I agree with Penicka-Smith in her analogizing of the music with Major.  “The music matechs the graphics of the opening credits: we see Major in all her component parts, she is gradually assembled, her skin added, and her hair and body dried of its amniotic fluid. Against this, the music is simple, spare; like the Major in her base components” Although the instrumentation is, according to the essay, ‘consistent with minyo (traditional Japanese folk song) performance’, there is one significant omission. The shamisen, which usually accompanies most Japanese folk music is missing. Another departure from minyo tradition is the fact that the three singers closely harmonize in a particular way. This she identifies as being in a Bulgarian folk style and we also have a quote from an interview with the composer to back this claim up:

“At first the director had requested primitive drum sounds [for the opening]. I felt it would be even more effective if there were a chorus on top of it, something in a Bulgarian style. There are folk singers with very distinctive voices in Japan, and that’s who we found for the vocal roles.” – Kawai Kenji interview with GameSetWatch.com

But, even without the composer’s confirmation, if we listen to an example of Bulgarian folk music side by side with ‘Reincarnation’, the stylistic similarities speak for themselves.

Bulgarian folklor- Kaval sviri

The fusion of these two cultures gives the music an eerie ambiguity. As is mentioned, anything that defies categorization can be a source of unconscious anxieties, just like the cyborg entity of Major herself: not quite robot, not quite human.

Kawai Kenji is a Japanese composer who drew from the folk music from his own country as inspiration which makes sense. But is it a strange combination with a folk choir from Bulgaria?

Here is a video with the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir performed on The Tonight Show promoting their album, The mystery of the Bulgarian Voices.

If dig deeper, I found is actually interesting, and it feels like a little bit of socialist and capitalist history. The kind of music from the video is actually not really Bulgarian folk music. It turns out that this kind of female choir were actually invented in 1951 by a Bulgarian composer named Filip Kutev. He did two innovative things. First, he took traditional village songs, which are usually monophonic (which means just one voice or singer) and rewrote them adding 4-5 different harmonies, dynamic changes and tempo changes. Then, he toured the country, rounding up the best female singers to be part of a new national folk chorus. Efforts like these apparently took place throughout the Eastern Bloc and they stemmed from a larger, ideological need to generate a sense of nationhood through essentially inventing a national music. As Kalin Kirilov note in the journal, MUSICultures: “Soon after their creation, the folk ensembles and became the official form of Bulgarian folk art and the one exclusively marketed to the rest of the world.” By the 1980s, the music of the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir had reached the ear of A&R executive at Nonesuch Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music. In 1987, they released the album The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices which was marketed as exotic, spiritual, and ancient music. Since 1951 certainly is ancient history? Anyway, as Jonny Carson mentioned their album won a Grammy and with world music emerging as a genre in the mainstream music market in the 1980s, it’s no surprise that this Bulgarian “folk music” would have crossed the paths of a professional composer like Kawai Kenji.

Lyric from ‘making of cyborg’ translated into English:

Because I had danced, the beautiful lady was enchanted， Because I had danced, the shining moon echoed, Proposing marriage, the god shall descend， The night clears away and the chimera bird will sing, The distant god may give us the precious blessing.

Sarah Penicka-Smith makes the observation that these lyrics, which are from a preparatory wedding song, related thematically to the conclusion to film, which is the merging of the Puppet Master and Major into a unified, expansive consciousness. The final line, “The distant god may give us the precious blessing’ is not sung in the opening sequence but only in the final credits, when ‘Reincarnation’ returns as a longer track called ‘Reincarnation’ where the music provides symbolic closure to the film. For me, this film is filled with tension between man and machine, and between the past and the future which are all considered into the personal narrative of Major. The music in the opening sequence reflects the tension in several ways. By choosing ancient or classical Japanese, which fell out of use in its spoken form by the end of the 12th century and it’s literary form by the end of the 19th century, this song engages with a sense of a pre-industrial lost era. Yet, the setting of these lyrics is postmodern, ambiguous and futuristic through its blending of Japanese and Bulgarian music and electronic methods of production. In some ways, making a cyborg is a microcosm of the film’s central tensions. Finally, the penultimate lyric, “The night clears away and chimera bird will sing” is, and this is my speculation, a reference to Major. A chimera is a mythical animal often portrayed with a lion’s head, wings and a snake-like tail. In scientific terminology, it refers to an organism with genetic tissue from more than one species. Since, by the end of the film the Major merges with the Puppet Master, a whole new world of limitless possibilities open to her in this chimera form. And, like a bird finally able to sing, she’s liberated from her shell.

[mensluxurywatchesreview-blog]

7 Top Most Affordable Luxury Watches

7 of the Top most affordable Luxury watch brands on Earth.

When it comes to watches and accessories. You don\'t have to always spend $2000 for a good watch. Our team has come up with a list and believes all of these luxury men’s watches are exceptional from a functional and material perspective, while also looking impressive and not breaking the bank.

Here is the top 7 most affordable luxury watch brands we recommend to choose from,

No. 1  INVICTA

INVICTA is probably one of our most favorite brands to choose from. Founded in Chiasso, Switzerland in 1837 by Raphael Picard.

Raphael Picard Purpose in founding the Invicta Watch Company was to bring common people Swiss watches at affordable prices.

Swiss watches have been highly prized in many parts of the world, and Invicta watches capitalized in that popularity. With each new timepiece, the company sends up a flare for those looking to be defined not by how much they spend, but how wisely they spend. With its strong collections, the gutsy Swiss brand is guaranteed to keep attracting followers.

Nevertheless the Invicta brand name was lesser known than well established Swiss watch makers for more than a century. And “quartz invasion” of the 1970s or simply electronic watches like Casio and Timex pushed Invicta watches out of popularity. So Invicta watches practically disappeared from the market.

However Invicta Chose their name well. Invicta in Latin means invincible

.Today, Invicta watches are growing in popularity Invicta’s annual sales of over $50 million reflect the company’s successful production and pricing formula. Their philosophy has always been to price, top-quality components, within the reach of average buyers, and not only the affluent.

With sales surging the Invicta Watch company is able to use cutting-edge technology and the best possible materials to make their watches, including anti-reflective sapphire crystals.

This perticular watch the \"Invicta Men\'s Pro Diver watch (model 22048) includes the Quarts flare and reflects their constant innovation and technology they incorperate into all their products.

It’s wide product lines have something to please everyone. The Angel, Pro Diver, and Elite lines are some of Invicta\'s most popular. They also produce other products besides watches including hats and bags so they can have something for everyone.

Our Favorite Invicta Watches,

Invicta Men\'s 6981 Pro Diver Analog Swiss Chronograph Black Polyurethane Watch

Invicta Men\'s 17884 Pro Diver 18k Gold Ion-Plated Stainless Steel Chronograph Watch

Invicta Men\'s 17203 AVIATOR Stainless Steel and 18k Rose Gold Ion-Plated Watch

Invicta Men\'s \'Pro Diver\' Quartz Stainless Steel Casual Watch, Color:White (Model: 24964)

Find more Invicta products here

No. 2  TISSET

These days Tissot is known for its sponsorship of racers like NASCAR’s Danica Patrick, and for its unique, high-tech T-Touch watches. But the brand has a history as storied as any of its contemporaries, being founded at the half-way point of the 19th Century, selling watches throughout pre-WWI Czarist Russia, and being half of the 1930 merger with Omega which formed the Pre-Swatch Group SSIH. Tisset was founded in Le Locle, in the Jura region of Switzerland in 1853 by the locally born & bred father-son duo of Charles-Félicien Tissot and Charles-Émile Tissot. As with most Swiss watch companies founded in that era, Tissot began life as a comptoir, an assembler of parts procured from individual makers in the region. In that first year, the company delivered between 1100 and 1200 watches to the region around Le Locle.

Tissot distributes its watches in more than 160 countries on five continents.

Most recently, on August 8, 2014, they opened their first dedicated boutique in New York City.With the growing T-Touch family, classically innovative pieces like the T-Complication Squelette, and classic understated dress watches like the Le Locle Automatic.

Since 1999, the T-Touch has had several watches added to its line, including the Sailing-Touch, Sea-Touch, and T-Touch Expert.

the future of Tissot looks to be at least as long and storied as its 161 year past.

Our teams Favorite Tissot Watches,

Tissot Quickster Chronograph Black Dial Black Leather Mens Watch T0954173605702

Tissot Men\'s T0636173603700 Tradition Analog Display Swiss Quartz Brown Watch

 Tissot Men\'s T52142113 T-Classic Desire Stainless Steel Watch With Black Leather Band

 Tissot Men\'s T0636371603700 Stainless Steel Watch With Brown Band

Additional Tisset products we recommend, click here.

No. 3 TIMEX

Timex

The classic Brand which we know today as Timex has created some of the best quality watches in America

Starting back in 1854 Benedict & Burnham made the decision to manufacture clocks made from brass under the Waterbury Clock Company. Their purpose was to bring luxurious designs from Europe to America at reasonable prices.

With the brand offering a variety of beautifully crafted watches, including traditional analogue pieces and modern digital designs, Timex has managed to hold onto its distinct style while moving with the times and embracing new technology and features.

Their creativity and experimentation has helped them grow as a brand, and their consistently affordable prices have made them popular with watch fans looking for high quality at a rate that isn’t eye-watering. Their desire to produce well made goods for the every day man has been Timex’s aim from the very beginning, and its helped them pave a path as a reliable, yet stylish watch brand for men from every walk of life.

A Timex chronograph watch combines both a stopwatch and a display watch in order to record time easily. It’s often used in sports watches, but is also been featured in some Timex Weekender designs, and is easily stopped and started to ensure accurate timing. 

the Weekender keeps things versatile and simplistic, and is effortlessly timeless. Timex watch straps can easily be interchanged to create the perfect look to go with any occasion, without having to change your whole design.

Timex has had its ups and downs, but what really stayed consistent throughout the years was their determination to provide quality timepieces at an affordable price. From their first dollar pocket watch to their range of running watches, Timex has managed to grow and evolve, creating designs that have stood the test of time and merge durability with strong style.

Here are some of our favorites,

Timex Men\'s T49905 Expedition Rugged Field Chronograph Black/Brown Leather Strap Watch

 Timex Men\'s T49990 Expedition Rugged Metal Brown/Natural Leather Strap Watch

Timex Men\'s TW4B04300 Expedition Scout Chrono Brown/Natural Leather Strap Watch

Timex TW4B01800 Mens Expedition Analog Elevated Tan Leather Strap Watch

Timex Men\'s T49870 Expedition Metal Field Brown Leather Strap Watch

Additional Timex products we recommend Here.

No. 4 CITIZEN

Shokosha Watch Research Institue. The forerunner to what we know today as The Citizen Watch Co. Ltd. Citizen began its life in 1918 founded by Tokyo jeweler Kamekichi Yakamazi in the hopes of creating a watch that would appeal to ordinary citizens that they would later be able to take and sell to the world.

In 1924 the company produced it\'s first commercial model, The caliber 16 pocket watch. The first watch to bear the \"Citizen\" moniker, a name that proved so successful that it would later become the name of the watch manufacturer we know today. One of these first products produced by the company was purchased by Emperor Showa, Prince Regent at the time. this was when the Company really began to take foot in Japan.

In 1936 we saw the rise of the Citizen watch company expand beyond the boundaries of Japan, exporting watches to many parts of Southeast Asia. but its progress was halted by the eruption of World War II, which devastated the Japanese watch industry severely.

Citizen had no choice but to move their production facilities to a small town 200km from their former location in Tokyo due to the fear of what the War may bring. However the company didn\'t stand idly by. They continued their manufacturing and innovations creating Many new components, amongst which were chronometers and igniters which started their uses for the military.

After WWII, Citizen has continued to be at the forefront of revolutionary technologies consistently and became the first Japanese manufacturer to introduce a shock resistant watch (in 1956) and the first to introduce a water resistant watch (1959).

1967 saw the company put the world\'s first quartz transistor clock into the market. Sparking the quartz watch revolution of the 1970s around the world. A turning point in watch history, and while the mechanical watch leaders in Switzerland saw the new technology as a threat, their American and Japanese competitors saw it as an opportunity. The Citizen Watch Company, in particular, produced some of its most important models, with numerous features, in this early era of electronic timekeeping. One of the milestone Citizen watches from this period was the Citizen X-8, the first-ever titanium watch.

The most important breakthrough for Citizen watches involved solar power. A Citizen watch called the Crystron Solar Cell was the world’s first solar-powered analog quartz watch.

This watch was the forerunner of the Citizen Eco-Drive, the company’s most important and successful product launch ever. In 1995, the Citizen Eco-Drive technology rewrote history and took quartz technology to a new level, with a Citizen watch powered by natural or artificial light. The Citizen Eco-Drive helped the Citizen Watch Company become the world’s largest watch producer, from the 1980s until the end of the century.

On January 10th 2008 Citizen acquired USA’s Bulova Watch Company, including all its affiliated brands (Bulova, Caravelle, Wittnauer and Accutron) for US $247 million, making the combined company the largest watchmaker in the world.

Beyond sheer size, Citizen is also recognized as a worldwide leader in advanced technology. From the world\'s slimmest LCD watch to the first voice recognition watch and the world\'s first professional dive watch with an electric depth sensor, Citizen\'s record of \"worlds first\" is unmatched.

Our Top Recommendations,

 Citizen Men\'s AO9000-06B Eco-Drive Stainless Steel Casual Watch

Citizen Men\'s BL5403-03X Eco-Drive Watch with Leather Band

Citizen Men\'s BF2011-51E Stainless Steel Bracelet Watch

Citizen Men\'s AO9003-08E Rose Gold-Tone Stainless Steel Eco-Drive Watch with Leather Band

Citizen Eco-Drive Men\'s BM7334-58L Corso Two-Tone Watch

To Find additional Citizen items Click Here.

No. 5 FOSSIL

Fossil Group, Inc. is an American fashion designer and manufacturer founded in 1984 by Tom Kartsotis. a former Texas A&M University student based in Richardson, Texas.

Originally founded under the name \"Overseas Products International\" Tom invested his savings of $200,000 and started a watch import business, a suggestion given by his older brother, Kosta Kartsotis.

Kosta told his younger brother about the potential large profits that could be made in importing retail goods made in the Far East, specifically in importing moderately-priced fashion watches.

Their main products were fashion watches with a retro look. The Company’s long-term goal is to capitalize on the strength of its growing consumer brand recognition and capture an increasing share of a growing number of markets by providing consumers with fashionable, high quality, value-driven products

Between 1987 and 1989 sales of Fossil watches grew from $2 million to $20 million. Fossil’s managers and designers had created this growth by applying their knowledge of design, outsourcing, and distribution of branded fashion watches

It was the Fossil Inc that first brought value and style to the world of watches by using a fifties Americana design in its brand image was very effective in drawing customers. And with this concept, Fossil Inc. soon grew into a leader of the watch industry.

.In 2004 Fossil, Inc. acquires Michele watches A Company whose brand identity, styling and luxury value offerings outperformed the overall category of luxury watches in the market.

Fossil, Inc.’s also acquired watch brand Michael Kors in 2004 as well. Both watch brands were newly launched to cater the different segment markets.

With these two new assets the Company is able to market its products to consumers with differing tastes and lifestyles by offering a wide range of brands and product categories at different price points.

Fossil Continues to be one of the Top Company\'s in cutting edge technology. With Their New Line of watches. Partnering with Andriod Wear and Google Maps to Create The Ultimate SmartWatch. Designed with those in mind who are equal parts technology and style obsessed. When cutting-edge technology meets good design, it’s the start of a beautiful (and smart) relationship,

Our answer to you is the Fossil Q Marshal Gen 2 Touchscreen Brown Leather Smartwatch

Stay connected with display notifications for texts, calls, emails, and app updates. Control your music on your favorite music player through Spotify, Pandora, Soundcloud, GooglePlay, iTunes, or Apple Music.

With built-in activity tracking, you can track your everyday accomplishments including steps, distance, and calories burned.

Use the built-in microphone and speaker to do a variety of tasks on your Android smartwatch using just your voice.

Stay charged for up to 1 day (based on usage) with the wireless conductive magnetic charger. 

Not to mention you can Fit your personal style with customizable watch faces and interchangable straps - compatible with all Fossil brand 22mm straps.

At Fossil We may love all things vintage, but that doesn\'t mean we can\'t enthusiastically embrace new technology, too. Meet Fossil Q, our collection of wearable technology that we like to think of as a meeting of the minds—the fashion-forward mind, the tech-loving mind and the fitness-loving mind. With the power of Fossil Q on your wrist, there\'s truly a lot you can do. -Founder of Fossil\'s Q watch Technology-

Our Top Favorites from Fossil,

 Fossil Q Wander Gen 2 Wine Leather Touchscreen Smartwatch FTW2113

Fossil Hybrid Smartwatch - Q Grant Dark Brown Leather FTW1118

Fossil Men\'s ME3110 Townsman Automatic Brown Leather Watch

Fossil Men\'s FS5338 Townsman 44mm Chronograph Light Brown Leather Watch

Fossil Men\'s 44mm Rose Goldtone Grant Watch with Brown Leather Strap

To Shop other Fossil Favorites Click Here.

No. 6 NAUTICA

Our story starts here. Founded and designed by David Chu in 1983 in New York City NY. With one clear vision in mind: to bring the inspiration of the sea to everyday style.

Chu started his career at his home town in Taipei Vietnam to start an export business with friends, but unfortunately they lost all their money in one and a half years.  He then returned to the United States, and working under a large company, he designed jackets, taking inspiration from sailors\' coats. Barneys and Bloomingdales. They had good sales for the designs, and in 1983 David Chu started Nautica. The company had sales of $700,000 in its first year and $2.5 million the following year.

In 2003, Chu decided to sell the company for $1 billion to the VF Corporation. He made $100 million from the sale. Chu promptly purchased an 1846 townhouse in Manhattan\'s Flatiron district, gut-renovated the historic mansion and turned it into his design studio, showroom and offices

Nautica today represents a reimagined nautical interpretation through the lens of sophisticated city design. With their Watches featuring the innovation of technical precision and cutting edge technology, while also adhering to the authentic nautical details they are known for. With Nautica watches you will always have a great expression of your Personal style and the quality of an amazing company to back it up.

Our Top Favorites are,

 Nautica Men\'s NAD19504G NST 600 Chrono Analog Display Quartz Watch

 Nautica Men\'s NAD24504G BFC Flyback Chrono Analog Display Analog Quartz Brown Watch

 Nautica Men\'s NAD18500G NST 09 Analog Display Japanese Quartz Silver Watch

 Nautica Men\'s N18522G NST Gold-Tone Stainless Steel Watch

 Nautica Men\'s N15006G \"Spettacolare\" Two-Tone Stainless Steel Watch with Brown Leather Band

 Nautica Men\'s N09550G \"Windseeker\" Stainless Steel Watch with Brown Leather Band

To shop more Nautica products click here.

No. 7 CASIO

Casio Computer Co., Ltd. 

Casio was established in April 1946 by Tadao Kashio, an engineer specializing in fabrication technology. Kashio\'s first major product was the yubiwa pipe, a finger ring that would hold a cigarette, allowing the wearer to smoke the cigarette down to its nub while also leaving the wearer\'s hands free. Japan was impoverished immediately following World War II, so cigarettes were valuable, and the invention was a success.

In the 1980\'s, the company became well known for the wide variety and innovation of its wristwatches. It was one of the earliest manufacturers of quartz watches, both digital and analog.

It also began selling calculator watches during this time. It was one of the first manufacturers of watches that could display the time in many different time zones and of watches with temperature, atmospheric-pressure, altitude, and even Global Positioning System displays (GPS).

Because Casio has a large history of manufacturing a wide variety of goods, ranging from musical instruments, clocks, cameras, and calculators, their approach to watch development is innovative.

They combine analogue and digital technologies with strong, durable designs. Casio’s styles range from colorful and sporty to classic, making different type of watches that are going to suit almost everyone.

The G-Shock range of shock resistant watches is popular, with the 1983 G-Shock DW-5600C being highly sought-after by collectors. Casio made a variety of digital watches with in-built games in the 1980s and 90s, which were highly popular at the time.

Casio\'s Latest innovation has been with their line \"Pro-trek\" working to create the ultimate outdoor smart watches designed for the outdoor hiking, skiing, biking, people in mind.

The main specifications are, GPS Compatible (including GLONASS*1 and Michibiki).Color Maps Compatible (supports offline use) OS Android Wear 2.0 Touchscreen Capacitive screen coated with an anti-fouling coating Water Resistance to 50 meters. The Pro trek series has earned one of the highest ratings in durability featuring the United States military standard issued by the U.S. Department of Defense. The Environmental Durability MIL-STD-810G.

Available here, Casio Men\'s \'PRO TREK\' Quartz Resin Outdoor Smartwatch, (Model: WSD-F20-RGBAU)

Here are the top Casio watches we recommend,

 Casio Men\'s \'PRO TREK\' Quartz Resin Outdoor Smartwatch, Color:Black (Model: WSD-F20-BKAAU)

 Casio WSD-F10 Smart Outdoor Watch

 Casio Men\'s EFR-529D-1A9VCF Edifice Stainless Steel Bracelet Watch

 Casio Men\'s \'Edifice\' Quartz Stainless Steel and Leather Watch, Color: Blue (Model: EFR-552L-2AVCF)

 Casio Men\'s \'EDIFICE\' Quartz Stainless Steel Casual Watch, Color:Silver-Toned (Model: EFM-502D-7AVCF)

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