#and because once again a map is not a linear thing those numbers aren’t helpful

[goldensunset]

amazes me that people can remember information about routes in pokémon games. like ‘i loooove route 217 ❤️’ ‘route 209 has such a banger theme!!!’ ‘have you made it to route 225?’ ‘you can find this rare pokémon on route 210!’ bestie those are numbers. those are just numbers to me how do you remember which area is which. i think i have a general idea of most of them but i still have to look them up every time i need to refer to them in conversation

[pyroandtheprincess]

Hey y’all. I hope everyone’s well. Yes, I’d give my left foot for NaLu, but I’m multi ship garbage. You may or may not be aware that I post and reblog a lot of #kacchako on my page. I find them utterly adorable and I’ve been sitting on a few ideas with them for a while. I decided to finally put some of my thoughts into writing. This is the first part to one of the many mini stories I think of as I’m trying to sleep at night, and it just so happens to be pretty ~angsty~. What can I say, the quarantine has me in my feelings. I’m sorry, but I needed to release some of the tension. As with most of my writing, I didn’t feel like editing so please be kind. I hope you enjoy, but if you don’t that’s okay too. All the best and happy reading! 🥰

“Rookie Mistakes” (part 1/2)

They are fucked, royally fucked. As much as they both have trouble admitting it, they are in deep shit.

How could he have let this happen? How could either of them have let this happen? How could a routine stake out of a suspected hideout (a warehouse of course because villains aren’t creative or original) turn into something so out of his control? He is the fucking number two hero and his badass wife is number fucking eight. They own their own hero agency. They literally train rookies. Only rookies would make these kinds of mistakes. Fucking extras. How could they walk right into a trap? Are villains getting smarter? No. The hero’s who assigned them to this god forsaken mission just underestimated the powers of the new recruits in the this damn villain organization they are investigating. This fucker they are facing is totally not who they were expecting. A quirk that creates large puffs of air from blinking seems harmless until the “puffs” are actually razor sharp blades that are deadly accurate and fast as fuck. Well, atleast the fucking idiots were able to recognize his quirk comes from his fucking eyes! Fucking way to go! He should have done his own damn research. He and Ochako were completely blindsided and now they are scrambling to dodge him.

Once again, they are fucked.

They need to come up with a game plan and fast. Katsuki needs to find a way to pull Ochako away for a second so they can figure this shit out. As he just barely weaves out of the way from yet another blade of air flying past his face, he makes a split decision. Thinking on his feet, he sets off a chain reaction of smoke bombs in a move he calls “smoke screen” and tugs his wife behind a crate. The villain quickly moves to place his dumb looking, bulky sunglasses over his eyes and disappears into the black cloud.

They both take a moment to collect themselves before Ochako speaks up.

“This is bad, Katsuki. We need a plan or we are seriously fucked.” Ochako whispers as she peaks her head out from behind the crate to scope out the area still covered in a plume of smoke.

“No shit, Cheeks.” He whispers back. She glares at him briefly, letting his out burst slide knowing he is just frustrated with their performance thus far. “Any and all bright ideas are welcome.”

She sighs, “Ideas are still formulating. But, did you notice that his attacks don’t happen every time he blinks? Either he is controlling when they happen, or they are random.”

“Great.” Katsuki huffs, joining her in peaking over the crate. “We can’t fucking form a plan until we know if he is actually in control or not. If he isn’t we could take advantage and charge at him. But, if he is we need to strategize so we will be able to dodge and strike him down.”

She is quiet for a second before she responds, “You know, having been your partner since before we starting dating, coupled with the experience of being your wife these past 5 years, it still amazes me that you can actually control your impatience and plan out your attacks. Who could have guessed this from you after UA?”

“Oi. Not the time to be pushing my buttons.”

“You aren’t denying it,” He could hear her smug grin, and it almost made him crack a smile. Almost. “But, with what you said in mind, I think we can actually take advantage of either outcome. I noticed his attacks are linear, he can only target one of us at a time head on. I think our best option is to split up. I’ll take the left and you should take the right side of the floor. That way if he targets one of us, the other can take him down from behind-where he can’t actively project his quirk- before he can turn around.”

Katsuki couldn’t hold back his proud smirk, “Good eyes,” he pauses for a second, “We’ve been married for 6 years in 2 weeks.”

She looks at him briefly to playfully roll her eyes, “Technically, it’s still 5.” She shifts so she can lean her back against the crate and pulls him down to her eye level, all playfulness in her demeanor has shifted to steady focus. He loves when she gets serious.

“I also think he needs those ridiculous glasses to protect his eyes from anything entering them. Since they block his eyes, they must somehow be rigged to stop his quirk. That means if I’m right he can’t use it right now and we should definitely get going before the smoke’s all cleared.”

Her quick plan was definitely their best bet. Guess his gamble paid off in more ways than one. His grin widens at the exciting thought of the tides turning in his favor. He’s ready to kick ass.

“Let’s move.”

With that they nod to each other once and stealthily start moving toward the cloud of now semi disappearing smoke.

Katsuki slowly makes his way through the right side of the plume. Although it’s dissipating, it’s still too thick to see through. He’s grateful that his eyes are no longer sensitive to the burn of smoke after years of training. He sometimes thinks his tear ducts have been burned away after so many high heat explosions, only to remember his tears on his wedding day and when both his kids were born. Man, love has made him soft.

Suddenly he hears the distinct sound of cheap plastic (he blames his parents) falling and skipping across the concrete floor. That could mean only one thing, stupid looking sunglasses. Dumbass must have tripped! He reacts in the speed of a lightning strike, lifting his gauntlet and setting off an ear shattering explosion in the direction of the sound. The force of which blows the remaining screen away.

Lowering his arm, a triumphant smile on his face, pro hero Ground Zero fully expects his villain to be out cold in front of him, ready to be cuffed and sent to prison so he and Ochako could wrap up and get home. He couldn’t be more wrong.

Instead, in front of him stands a concrete pillar with a sizable chunk missing from it. Dust from the debris floats around taunting him. His blood boils.

His smile falls and he quickly turns around to face his opponent already looking at him with a sinister smile and a very dark look in his eye. Dumb sunglasses no longer on his person, thrown as an annoying clever decoy.

He had been fooled into clearing the rest of the smoke with another explosion. And now he is an open target.

“Fuck.” Is all Katsuki can mutter because in the blink of an eye, literally, blades shoot towards him.

“NO! KATSUKI!”

For the first time in Katsuki’s life, time moves in slow motion. He hears only the echos of his wife shrieking his name and his adrenaline pumping blood through his ears. With each beat of his pounding heart, Ochako’s frantic scream fades away until he is left with nothing but himself, this mother fucking villain, and the blades of air rushing toward him. It was as if they were transported somewhere else far away.

Katsuki was a very smart and observant man. These traits helped him become a great, no, a fucking great hero. He knew many things with certainty, two of which he could recognize now. The first blaringly obvious thing he knew was the two razor sharp blades of air barreling towards him were, without a doubt, moving at speed even his lighting fast reflexes wouldn’t be able to react to. There was no way in hell he could dodge them. With that being said, the second thing he knew was that if these blades hit him, which they most certainly would, he was going to die.

As the attack reaches the halfway point between him and his attacker, number 2 hero Ground Zero, Katsuki Bakugo, feels a wave of emotions crash into him that he can’t place. They are emotions so foreign, he wouldn’t be able to find their origin even if they were circled on a map for him. With them come a heavy dose of realization.

It’s over. All his hopes, all his plans for the future will never come to fruition. Being number one hero? Kiss that goodbye. Since he got his quirk he has been working to be at the very top. For years he has put his everything into being a hero. Blood, sweat, even fucking tears have been shead to get him to where he is. But as devastating as that is, it’s nothing is compared to when he thinks of his family.

He will never see his daughters smiling face again. He’ll never hold his son in his arms again. He will never get to tell or show Ochako how much he fucking loves her. Man, he really has gone soft, but his fucking pride or ego or whatever the hell can fuck off. All the people he loves are flashing before his eyes and sending a massive wave of sadness, regret, dread, fear, and, most damning of all, hopelessness, washing over him.

He is terrified and he is going to die.

Suddenly, he is doing the most cowardly thing he has ever done. His eyes are betraying him and beginning to close, not wanting to see his end coming. Not wanting it to be over with such a bright and happy future ahead of him. If he has to accept it, he doesn’t want to watch it leave. He just hopes that Ochako can forgive him and his young children will remember him.

But, just as his eyes are about to shut. They widen in surprise as he feels himself being slowly pushed out of the time warp and physically forced aside.

It’s her, it has to be.

Ochako’s shoulder slams into his side with the force of a freight train. Just as he begins falling he notices a piece of debris, with the help of zero gravity, hurtling towards the villain. It successfully smashes him in the middle of his face definitely breaking his nose and, based on the loud crack, potentially fractures his skull. He drops like a rock before Katsuki hits the ground.

Katsuki’s eyes flick over in time to see the blade hit Ochako. Blood splatters, floating around her as if she’d used her quirk on it. The force of the blow is enough to send her flying a few feet backwards and flip her body over mid air. The horrible sound that resonates after her impact with the floor signals real time again.

On the ground, his hip and shoulder throbbing, Katsuki’s heart is about to burst out of his chest with how fast it’s beating. He’s in shock and can hardly breathe, but he isn’t concerned about himself.

“Cheeks?!” He shoots upright, ignoring the feeling of bruises forming, and turns his head slightly to see his wife laying on her side with her back to him. There is blood along the ground, trailing to the pillar he had hit were a another sizable divot has made its place slashed into it. A small pool is already starting to form beneath her.

“No...no.” He says feebly.

He scrambles across the floor to her, turning her over to see the gash in her side and a split in her forehead from her impact with the floor. The sight hits Katsuki with another horrible hard to process feeling.

“Oh god, please no.” He rasps as he scoops her up and places her into his lap slightly upright so her head rests into the crook of his neck.

One of his hands cradles her head to and the other moves to apply pressure on the wound to her side. Blood sleeps through his gloved fingers. He can feel her breathing faintly against his neck, but that does nothing to ease his rising anxiety. He leans into her, maneuvering his head just above hers so that he can use his finger to press against his ear piece.

“SOMEONE SEND A MEDIC, URAVITY IS DOWN!” He bellows, “I REPEAT, GET YOUR ASSES OVER HERE NOW!”

He let’s go of the button and instantly gets feedback that help is on the way. A small amount of relief washes over him, but his breath is stolen by the sound he hears next.

“Kat-suki?” A weak, garbly voice asks. The voice of an angel.

“Ochako!” A relieved smile creeps on to his face as he cups her cheek, “Oh thank fucking god! Hey look at me, keep talking to me,” he moves her face so she can look at him with glassy brown eyes.

“You... You okay?” She slurs, “Where’s the vill-?” She moves to sit up, but Katsuki stops her, applying more pressure to her side which causes her to wince.

His smile falters, “Hey, don’t move tiger. Don’t worry about him, you already took him out remember? Just keep your eyes open and keep talking to me.”

“I...did?” Her eye brows crease in confusion. She’s not fully with it right now, he can tell by the look in her eye. Her rosy cheeks are starting to lose their color. His fear is settling in.

Memory loss? Not good. She’s losing to much blood and she definitely has a concussion. If Katsuki wasn’t concerned before, he is about to freak out now. He is reminded once again of his tear ducts existence, but he needs to stay calm and strong for her. He has never been the best rescue hero but he certainly is not the stupid kid he used to be. He can feel her sinking deeper into his embrace, and her eyes are getting droopier by the second, where the hell is this back up?

“‘Chaks what are our kid’s names?” He knows he needs to keep her awake and talking.

“This... hurts.” she says grabbing weakly on to his arm applying pressure to her side. She’s not listening, his eyes are watering now.

“Ochako,” he pleads placing his forehead against hers and squeezing his eyes shut to stop the tears rolling down his cheeks, “Please, talk with me. What are y-our babies names? Tell me.”

“Katsuki...”

“No that’s my n-“ his voice cracks and she stops him with gentle carcass to his face. Her hands are trembling.

She whispers something he can’t quite make out and then her hand falls limply to the floor just as the steel doors fly open.

Katsuki doesn’t sleep that night.

————————- end of part 1 of 2

[nerdolopedia-blog]

Worldbuilding Magazine: Mapping Aurora - An RPG Case Study

THIS ARTICLE PRESENTED BY

Volume 2 / Issue 5 : Cartography & Navigation- Visit their site to read the full issue

Mapping Aurora: An RPG Case Study

by Cathy, the Overprepared GM

When I built my world, I started smallish, fleshing out a single culture and lavishing attention on the national map. I took the time to get the scale right, establishing a travel time of ten days as a constraint first. With that number decided, I mixed in my desired historical influences, extrapolated the physical geography, determined the population distribution, and finally set the political boundaries.

I also created smaller maps for specific adventures. The city map for the capital helped the players hunt down a missing nobleman in the campaign kick off session. The hill fort map allowed the players to investigate the mystery at the heart of the first major adventure. The blueprints for the ominous keep organized the dungeon crawl in the heart of the fens. After I had fleshed out all the low-level cartography, I moved outward, firming up the neighboring nations so that they could explore more advanced stories involving international travel, exploration, and politics.

It was easy to figure out what maps to create and what to put on each of them, because traditional maps are such a well-explored space in terms of information design. If my players are traveling or discussing things on the national level, I can just open any atlas and see that the big national maps have national and district boundaries, settlements, natural features, roads, and other points of interest. If my players are adventuring in a settlement, I can look at city maps to see that they have elements like important buildings, streets, districts, and waterways. If they need to see how a building of any size is laid out, I know that it needs to be organized by floor and depict rooms, walls, hallways, doors, and major furniture.

Regardless of scale, maps always serve a few broad functions:

Navigation. They show points of interest as well as navigational routes so that players can plan where they’re going and how they’ll get there. Depending on the scale, the routes and points of interest may be anything from wormholes and planets to hallways and rooms.

Reference. They act as a reference for important locations that the player needs to remember. By displaying it visually, a good map can indicate relationships, improve memory, and give details about what each element is. For example, cities, mountains, rivers, forests, monuments, etc. all have established conventions for how to show them.

Atmosphere. A good map also evokes a clear sense of place. For example, a player will have a sense for terrain when they see that their path takes them through a mountain ridge. They may have to hike through a tumbled set of foothills, scale an inaccessible and ice-capped top of the world, or traverse an unexplored jungle menaced with active volcanoes. Perhaps the players only have to tread a well-traveled trade road with inns and villages along the way. The map helps the group feel immersed in the world and roleplay better. They can look at it and make their own choices about which path to take and what preparation they need to make before setting off. Players can anticipate the types of challenges they’ll encounter and the amount of time it will take. Maps also help me stay consistent with how I present the world to the players.

As long as I only needed to chart a world with geography similar to ours, the cartography remained straightforward.  It wasn’t trivial, mind you, but the challenge was in doing it well, not in figuring out how cartography works from first principles. However, my campaign planning for later levels had them traveling beyond their home plane. I needed maps for higher level adventures that filled these same roles in navigation, reference, and atmosphere that blueprints and national atlases had in lower levels.

This expansion into the multiverse challenged my cartographic skills. I wanted the planes to truly feel different from each other, with locations in each world that simply couldn’t exist in the others. But that meant I was creating some really bizarre planes.  I needed to start from those fundamental principles of design and figure out how to apply them to new circumstances.

Fluidity

The first issue I wrestled with was the fundamental nature of Aurora, a plane dominated by the goddess of spring, youth, the arts, and inspiration. Since birds were sacred to her, I decided to make it a plane of air with flying denizens. I imagined floating islands with localized gravity whose buildings and streets encircled giant boulders.  The roots and branches of epiphyte trees gnarled together to form giant, floating cloud forests. Migratory flocks of alien creatures shaped like blimps and squids and jellyfish traveled long circuits between the cloud forests. In between areas of no or light gravity were sinks of higher gravity, pulling in accumulations of detritus over time. Technological cultures harnessed kinetic energy by using things comparable to waterwheels or windmills. Native species all fly, float, or cling with ease, and even human visitors could float clumsily from place to place. And winding through it all were the jet streams, unceasing wind that would push everything in regular paths. Travel from place to place within Aurora would involve both moving within a jetstream and hopping from one stream to another.

For my players to travel through the fluid space of Aurora, they would need a useful map. I ran into an immediate problem while planning: I wasn’t sure how to draw locations that changed relative to each other. National boundaries didn’t make as much sense in a place where everything moves. How could I depict the political organization of people without political boundaries? I started by trying to find real-world analogs of maps that dealt with air currents and then started thinking about other fluids, hoping to get new ideas.

I found one common approach that I called the colored, vector-lines approach, such as this picture of the Jet stream or this one of ocean currents. It shows location, direction, temperature, and strength of the currents by using colors and arrows. The visual worked and it’s an established approach (so I’d have lots of examples to learn from), but I think I prefer this image created by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which uses what I termed the flat-ribbon style. This approach shows location, direction, and temperature, and the simplification makes the overall flow much easier to grasp.

As much as I love JPL’s approach, it still was not quite what I needed. As with all graphics of currents, this one focuses on showing the currents with respect to the landforms around them. This indication is crucial on Earth because that’s how we establish context for location. And location is why we use maps. However, I was trying to depict a world that has no landforms, so I needed to remember that JPL design and keep looking for ideas.

My search lead me to gas giants projections, like this flattened one of Jupiter, which is comparable to a mercator projection of Earth.  Unlike with Earth however, it shows that the structure of Jupiter is composed of bands of currents. Jupiter’s winds aren’t influenced by landforms, so their structure is formed by the spherical shape of the planet, the force of gravity, and the Coriolis effect. That made sense to me as a way to envision Aurora. I could see it as a world with disjunct air currents that have rough, turbulence between them. Technologically savvy cultures could set up windmills along the borders, utilizing the constant relative wind as a source of unending energy. I could show each band as a self-contained linear graphic. Political boundaries would take place naturally within bands, but some empires might colonize into nearby bands the way Earth empires have had colonies in different continents.

Seeing the Eye of Jupiter also gave me the idea to put similar giant storms in Aurora. They would form an almost impassable obstacle in a band. The truly colossal ones might push the turbulent boundary outward, compressing everything nearby so that the currents would flow fast and narrow for many layers of neighboring regions.

The bands would travel at different velocities, so if I wanted to set specific speeds for each one, I could figure out the interval between the alignment of each pair. As a GM though, I probably wouldn’t do it. If they needed to go from a place on one band to a place in another band, I would just decide on the spot how long it takes for those locations to line up again, based on where I want the story to go.

With those decisions made, I had an approach for drawing a map (disjunct, flat bands of different lengths that connected east-west) and the list of elements for which I needed iconography:

Turbulence regions

Storms

Cloud forests

Boulders (including those with settlements)

Free-floating settlements

Gravity-induced collection spots (and a way to indicate strength.)

Then it occurred to me that, in a plane of air, points of interest could float at different altitudes. In fact, entire bands could overlap, flowing at different heights and winding among each other like individual noodles in a bowl of spaghetti. And that’s the next complicating factor.

Overlapping Altitudes

The more I considered the problem of depth and altitude, the more I realized I was going to have to deal with it in a number of situations. Normally maps are projections.  They take the surface area of a three-dimensional object and spread it flat so you see the entire surface at once, even if you stretch or squish parts of the surface or make cuts to spread it out. Imagine the surface of Earth being a skin, and we just take it off the world and lay it flat, taking the surface of the sphere and spreading it onto a flat planar area. In a typical map projection, we ignore anything above or below that skin.

However, with Aurora I was looking at a situation where I really needed all three dimensions. On any given latitude and longitude, there might be a handful of different points of interest at different altitudes. In a typical world, they’d be above the "skin", and I would ignore them. For Aurora, there was no skin.  There were just the immense overlapping air currents piled on top of each other and winding like a nest of serpents. If I flattened it like a typical projection, points of interest would overlap, turning the map into a confusing mess.

So I tried to think of other situations where people dealt with three-dimensional objects in a two-dimensional way and ended up finding a lot of different approaches. Some of the more useful image types were blueprints, engineering drawings, subway lines, cutaway views, and exploded view images. Jet stream diagrams helped me understand the height issue as well, because what’s going on in the upper atmosphere isn’t always the same as what’s on the ground.

I got lost down the rabbit hole looking at various images, but eventually I extracted some overarching principles. As far as I could see, people take a few useful approaches when trying to depict three dimensions onto a flat drawing.

First, if there isn’t too much overlapping, draw it like a two-dimensional map, but use color, shadow, or iconography to indicate depth (for example, the Jet Stream example or this graphic of the Norwegian Current). I think this approach works best if depth is the most important thing depicted, and the rest of the information can be simplified. Otherwise, the depth/altitude information becomes hard to notice. If Aurora didn’t have many types of natural geography or had only one or two great currents winding their way through a static airscape, that might work, but I envisioned something a lot more dynamic. So, reluctantly, I let this idea go.

Second, depict it as a 3-D cutaway drawing, such as this drawing of a nuclear reactor or this one of skin. I think if the map were narrow enough that each longitudinal point only had space to fit a couple points of interest, then this would work. Drawing it well would take some serious skills and time on task, which I wasn’t sure I could devote, so I put the idea in my pocket and moved on.

Third, divide altitude into discrete layers and deal with them separately. That’s what blueprints do, such as this one of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, where each story is self-contained. If I divided the currents into layers of different altitudes, I could do a similar treatment for Aurora. The drawback is that sometimes it’s a little tough to see how the layers overlap, a problem I could ameliorate by drawing or printing out the different layers in transparency film. Then, I could look at each layer independently or stack them on top of each other as needed to see how one would line up with another if the player wanted to travel between layers.

The Multiverse

I had a plan for drawing my planes, but then I ran into another problem: how to depict the overall multiverse itself. When my players travel from one plane to the next, they would need to be able to plan their routes. They would need the interplanar equivalent of a roadmap. For a single world, I have a very good idea of how travel works because I do it all the time. I understand what information is useful to have on a map for someone going from place to place. I wasn't sure exactly what would be best for interplanar travel, however. So again, I started with a bit of research, Googling terms like “multiverse map” and “map of the planes” and looking at images those searches brought up.

Most multiverse graphics focused on acting as a cosmological reference—using design to show what planes exist and, if possible, how they’re related to each other. They seemed to be less like geographic maps and more like Venn or network diagrams. This approach seemed useful as a reference and to establish atmosphere, but it seemed fairly useless for navigation. Of course, I couldn’t resist creating a cosmological reference graphic anyway, though I wasn’t sure it would really help my players if they wanted to really understand how to travel around the planes.

Then I started combing through my information design books and websites to see if some other, non-map design might have been applicable. I looked through a cornucopia of graphs, charts, tables, layouts, and designs too specialized to have gotten an official name, but in doing so, I realized I needed to figure out the details of how interplanar travel worked before I tried to conceptualize an information design for it.

Interplanar Travel

After some deep thought, I decided to split interplanar travel into three categories.

Poofing: I call the first category of interplanar travel the poof method, because they go “poof”, just like that. Feel free to refer to this by a more dignified name. Using the poof method, the characters can instantly travel from an arbitrary location in one plane to a location of their choosing in a different plane. I mean, they may experience some time passing, but for all intents and purposes, they just magically teleport. Examples of the poof method include using the Ruby Slippers from The Wizard of Oz, the Tardis from Doctor Who, or the Gate spell in D&D. If interplanar travel depends on poofing from place to place, then the players only need to have maps of the individual planes and some sort of cosmological reference. They don’t need any sort of map analog to traverse the multiverse.

Portals: Using portals, there are specific places in each world that are connected to specific places in other worlds. They may be called conjunctions, coterminous planes, wormholes, doorways, gates, or some other term. For cartographic purposes, they’re all the same. These portals are part of the plane’s geography. If the portal is open or active, then travel through it is very much like teleporting with the poof method. The key difference is that players need a visual depiction of how the portals connect to each other to help them navigate. In particular, they need to be able to tell where the portals are in their plane of origin and where they connect to in their destination plane. I think flight maps, similar to what airlines have, serve as the best analog in designing a useful atlas for navigation with portals. They show all their flights as curved lines overlaying a world map. The difference is that in a multiverse with portal travel, we’d need lines to connect points on disjunct world maps.

Subspace: In this scenario, characters travel by going into portals, but travel through the portal is not instantaneous. Instead, they enter a different place (I’m calling it subspace) that must itself be navigated in order to arrive at their destination. Subspace can have very different physical rules than the other planes, but all planes are connected to it somehow. Examples might be the Spire from Planescape or the Ena from Andrea Host’s Touchstone series or the Never Never from Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. Mechanically, this is a special case of portals where the connections all go in and out of a single world. However designing a navigational aid for subspace is a different design problem than doing so for a set of portals. Since everything goes through one area, and that area is not itself a destination, then it’s more useful to use a subway map as an analogy. Players will need a good reference of possible portal stations that connect the other planes to the subspace and enough geographic info of the subspace to navigate from portal to portal.  They won’t need a full atlas of the subspace, but have to understand enough to choose routes. Now, subway maps are problematic because they heavily simplify the design. This makes it easier to read,but the increased legibility comes at a cost of geographic realism. Since subway riders only need to know which stops to use, distance and direction can be distorted far more than in regular maps. It’s a design approach that many people will be familiar with, but requires judicious handling.

After some contemplation, I decided to use the subspace approach to interplanar travel. Players enter a separate subspace, Aeon, and have to navigate around that before exiting to a new plane. It can also act as a way to take shortcuts if they’re clever, connecting two places that are distant from each other by a shorter path in Aeon.

Bringing that back to Aurora, that meant that in addition to adding portal locations to the map of Pandora (the original world my characters started in) and Aurora (the plane of air), I would have to create a separate map showing Aeon.  It would initially focus on the portals and land between them. I could add lines connecting portals within Aeon to those on other planes. Eventually, if the stations and lines filled enough of the space, it might make sense to make a full Aeon atlas, but it’s more likely that we’d finish the campaign before we got that far.

The Takeaway

You may or may not want to use Aurora. However, if you decide to chart your own multiverse, here are some common lessons to keep in mind.

Cartography and Information Design are fascinating fields developed by smart folks. If you’re creating something new, it’s useful to look around and see what other people have created to deal with similar constraints. Take the time to nail down what you’re trying to show before you try to design for it.

The Purpose of Maps in RPGs can be boiled down to:

Navigation: helping players understand how to get from place to place.

Reference: because looking up all the places and how they relate to each other is easier with a picture than a list.

Atmosphere: to associate qualities or characteristics to places.

Airscape Icons can mostly be the same as iconography from more traditional atlases. Floating cities are still cities, after all, though some features require new icons:

Turbulence regions

Storms

Epiphyte forests

Areas of heavy or differing gravity

Relative wind speed or cycle length (the time it takes a current to make a full cycle through its path)

Vacuum or pressure difference

Fluid planes are ones where the points of interest move in relation to each other. One approach might be to envision them either as jet streams or currents moving among stable points. Another might be to visualize them acting like gas giants with the entire airscape banded by currents moving at different velocities and separated by a turbulent transition. In either case, it’s useful to draw one map that shows all the bands and how they relate to each other physically. Then, draw each band separately as its own graphic (the same way we label cities on a world map) and create separate city maps. Fluid planes may be dominated by air, gas, or water.

Planes with altitude are those where different natural geographies may exist at each two-dimensional point. If there is little overlap, it may be possible to draw this as a more traditional, two-dimensional map and just indicate depth or altitude by color, line, or iconography. If there is a lot of overlap, then this traditional 2-D style is not practical. Instead, the most workable design organizes the world into layers at different depths. For a water world, those layers may include a surface layer, photic zone, and aphotic zone. An arboreal world may include layers like the canopy, understory, surface, and root zones, while an underground world’s layers may simply serve as depth indicators.

Cosmological charts are a useful reference to know what planes exist and how they relate to each other thematically, but they generally do little to help players navigate.

Portal maps show how different planes connect to each other through portals. They are similar to flight maps in the real world. If interplanar travel always goes through a special space that is not a destination of itself, then it may be practical to create something like a simplified subway map to help players navigate between worlds.

Worldbuilding Magazine is a bi-monthly publication which covers a variety of worldbuilding topics. You can visit their website and read full issues here. Make sure to join their Discord or follow them on twitter for the latest news or to talk with the team that creates it. Nerdolopedia is a proud partner of Worldbuilding Magazine.

Cover Image by Tristen Fekete

[dailyaudiobible]

8/17/2017 DAB Transcript

Nehemiah 12:27-13:31; 1 Corinthians 11:1-16; Psalms 35:1-16; Proverbs 21:17-18

Today is the 17th day of August. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it is wonderful to be here with you for another day and another step forward together. And in this step, today's step, we will conclude the book of Nehemiah. So, from the Holman Christian Standard Bible this week. Nehemiah chapter 12 verse 27 to 13 verse 31.

Commentary:

Alright. So, we concluded the book of Nehemiah just a few minutes ago. And Nehemiah is not a super long book but it gives us a really, really good depiction and look at leadership, especially in its first part. We saw that Nehemiah brought great reforms and restoration to the traditions of Israel among exiles who did not grow up with the temple in Jerusalem but came back and rebuilt it and were re-inaugurating the customs and rituals of Judaism. And, so, Nehemiah and Ezra were both very instrumental in this on the ground with the exiles rebuilding. But Nehemiah had to return to the king. And then he was able to come back at a later time, only to find out that it was starting to crumble again. Things that should not be going on were going on and it was sort of the beginning of the slide backward again. And it was horrifying to him. And there's plenty that we can look at in our own lives in the ways that we begin to slide in certain directions that aren’t going to be healthy or helpful or we can see this going on in communities or in other’s lives or in societies. And, so, Nehemiah has done and does all that he can do and then he turns to God as we all should. And for Nehemiah, his prayer is, remember what I've done of done my best, remember me with favor. Because he knows, although he is very influential, he only has so much influence. And although he would like to see certain things happen there's only so much you can do. And, so, his ultimate concern is that he's done all that he can and that he himself, in his own heart, has stayed true to his convictions. And sometimes that's how it works in leadership, since Nehemiah is so much about that. Sometimes that's all there is. People are going to do what people are going to do. And once you've done everything that you can and have committed to your own integrity, then you can only go to God and say, continue to make me better, continue to make me stronger and truer, continue to grow my understanding in what it is you're calling me to do, remember me. And, so, it's fitting way to end the book of Nehemiah.

And then we get to Paul's letter to the Corinthians and we run headlong into a fog. We’ve got to talk about authority. We’ve got to talk about Angels. We’ve got to talk about head coverings. We’ve got to talk about men and women in roles. And since I happen to have the microphone I have to do one of three things - not talk about it, talk about it as if I know what I'm talking about, or tell you the truth. I don't. And I don't know why that's so hard this day and age - for a leader to say I don't know. But I think it comes from a tradition of needing to have all the answers in a nice linear fashion, so that everything makes complete logical sense, so that an airtight dogma can be wrapped around a subject that is universally true. And that's mixed with the subtle pressure for leader to have all the answers, to somehow have transcended all mystery. I just don't think that's possible. And this passage, in First Corinthians, if nothing else, brings that front and center. Because the interpretations for this particular passage have been wrestled with for centuries coming to a wide array of conclusions that are all over the map. And usually how that works is that a scholar will look at previous scholarship and a pastor will look at scholarship trying to find the path. And, so, you may have heard brilliant sermons or teachings or read amazing things on this that make perfect sense. And that's awesome. But I know that in the course of my faith journey, I’ve spent hours and hours on this - consulting old and new scholarship. So, rather than me trying give you a teaching us something that I'm not hundred percent sure about, I think I’ll just be honest and kind of show you how this works and share some conclusions that I think are safe and true. So, one of the biggest issues, you know, should a woman cover her head in church? And it looks like Paul is answering a question that he hasn't been asked. So, allot of this letter Paul's answering questions. But in this case, he’s just saying, I'm glad you are following the tradition I gave you about this. And he begins to unpack why give the tradition in the first place. So, Paul begins, I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of the woman and God is the head of Christ. So, from a scholarship perspective, just that one verse, the one thing you’ve got to know is, what are we talking about when we’re talking about the head? What does that mean? Are we talking about authority or are we talking about a person's head? And the way that this gets complicated is taking the paragraph as a whole. So, the way that it goes is, I want you to know that Christ is the head of everyman, the man is the head of the woman, God is the head of Christ. And then he immediately says every man who prays or prophesies with something on his head dishonors his head, but every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head. So, it’s like, we’re talking about authority, maybe or are we talking about the real head? Because it's all in the same paragraph, all in the same breath. What are we talking about? And it gets even more complicated when cultural nuance language, where there may be a play on words, doesn't translate into another language well. And, so, if there is a scholarly consensus, it would be that the first part of that is using the term head as a reference to authority and the second part is a person's head. And, so we could say that Paul is revealing that there is an order to things that is then outwardly expressed physically. And I think that’s a safe enough reading of it. But even in that, embedded into that, is a tradition that almost nobody practices. I mean, I’ve been to hundreds of churches in many, many countries and if a woman has her head covered in church it's more a matter of style. It's like the outfit that she's wearing as opposed to a spiritual discipline or expression. And I’ve been in lots of churches where men are wearing hats and covering their heads. So, why are we so willing to blatantly disregard this? And it gets even more complicated because in different traditions around the world covering your head to show reverence for God is part of the tradition. So, in the Jewish tradition, a man does cover his head. That's what the yamaka is about. So, if you're in Israel and you want to go pray at the Western Wall. Number one, men and women will be segregated from each other, they don’t pray together. And if you're a man…I mean…like I’ve never been on the women’s side…because I’ve never been a woman…but I've been to the men's side of it many times. So, if you’re going to approach the wall to pray and you’ve got a baseball hat on, you’re good. But if you have nothing on your head then they’ve got these little throw away yamaka’s that you can throw on your head because you need to cover your head to go approach God that way. Whereas Paul’s saying, you shouldn’t have a hat on at all. And the Jews are just following their traditional interpretation of the Torah. So, with Paul, we can at least clearly say that he's making gender distinctions and saying that within those distinctions are different components that make up a whole. So, let’ just read through this and I will stop at the places where there have been differences of opinion and interpretation and you can pray into it yourself. I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man. So again, what is the head? We just talked about that. Of every man. What are we talking about? Males or mankind? And the man is the head of the woman. Okay. Pause. Is Paul instituting a patriarchal new way of looking at things or is Paul simply stating what is obvious in the culture in which he lives? And God is the head of Christ. So, we have this head thing again. Does that mean that God was actually Jesus physical head or was God in Jesus physical mind or brain or is it that God has the authority over Christ in some way, even though they are one in the same? What I think is safe to say is that Paul is revealing that there is an order to things. And in referring to the order, Paul then talks about covering or not covering your head. Every man who prays or prophesies with something on his head dishonors his head. So, is he dishonoring his head? Like, you know, where his eyes and nose and mouth and ears and hair are or is he dishonoring the authority to which he has submitted himself? But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since that is one and the same as having her head shaved. Before we get to that, the way that this passage kind of moves around, some scholars have wondered if this whole portion of the letter isn't a part of, maybe of that earlier letter that Paul talked about, or some other letter and these have been kind of consolidated. I don't particularly think that because there's no evidence for it and most scholars don't but some do. But anyway, a woman should cover head because if she doesn't she’s dishonoring her head. So, maybe her head with her face or that which she has submitted to, which would be God, which could also be an indicator of the fact that she's in the covenant of marriage and you see that allot of these can be both. And, well Paul says if she doesn't, she should have her head shaved, which, I mean, that's definitely a sign of shame. In Paul's day and age and place in the world and culture, a woman who had had her head shaved would be someone who had committed a sin like adultery. And, so, her head would be shaved and then she would, kind of, walk around with that shame. But it would grow back and she would be restored, which is not unlike what happened in David's time. Remember, when David sent some emissaries to another country and they dishonored them by shaving their beards? And, so, David to go to Jericho and let it all grow back and then come back to Jerusalem. So, in that culture the beard was sort of the sign of masculinity and cultural standing and even religious devotion. For that to get shaved off would be quite a dishonor. Or it could be a sign of a vow. Many people would shave their head as they took a vow to God and let it grow back. Or Sampson could never cut his hair. And, so, as we move forward we begin to get a clue that Paul is talking about authority when he is talking about head even though he's talking about covering a physical head. So, he's kind of talking about an order of things as he unpacks this. A man, in fact, should not cover his head because he is God's image and glory but woman is man's glory for man did not come from woman but woman came from man and man was not created for woman but woman for man. This is why a woman should have a symbol of authority on her head. And, so, well, allot of people would say this is kind of demeaning, maybe, to a female then? While others would say no, this is actually kind of affirming and elevating because man is God's image and glory but woman is what gives man glory and God glory. And, so, a woman being created for man by God simply revealed man's inadequacy without her. But anyway, Paul is saying, it's a symbol of authority. This is why a woman should cover her head. But then he says something cryptic – ‘because of the Angels’. This is why a woman should have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. So, what is that about? And those interpretations are all over the map because it's even cryptic in the original language. And there are esoteric interpretations as well as practical. So, like, on the esoteric side of things, I've seen interpretations that this is referring to the sons of God and the daughters of Eve in the Old Testament and that a woman's uncovered head is so intoxicating that even spiritual beings are seduced. And that this whole thing was about protection and protecting the beauty of femininity. Other interpretations of these angels will come from places like the book of Revelation, where there is an angel for a church and this angel would report back to God the goings on. Others would say that Angels means messengers and this is a messenger. So, it could be people visiting from other churches and Paul wanted uniformity in certain traditions. But then Paul turns the conversation again. In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man and man is not independent of woman for just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman, and all things come from God. So, on the one hand, part of this, people have seen this very patriarchal and then he says that and it's not. And in other letters, he says, in the Lord that there is no male or female, like we’re all the same. But then we get to the end of what Paul is saying in this passage. Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair it's a disgrace to him but if a woman has long hair it’s her glory for her hair is given to her as a covering. But if any anyone wants to argue about this, we don't have any other customs in the church. So, what Paul is saying here is, it’s kind of obvious, which is clearly referencing his time and place, because now all of those things are quite as obvious in this time and place. Women cover their heads or they don't. Men have long hair or they don't. I had long hair for a lot of my life and I might still if it were falling out but it never felt like it was dishonoring…it was just never a dishonor or honor thing. That’s not the culture I grew up in. So, you can see why I can come before you as a brother and just say I'm not sure, because linguistic scholars or theological scholars or cultural scholars have all wrestled with this and have come to different conclusions. And as hard as I am after God in my life, as deeply as I am aiming my heart toward knowing God, the further that I go, the more I realize that I have barely begun to scratch the surface. And the Bible continues to show me that I don't know all I think I know. And that posture has actually opened me wide, to simply sit with the fact that I don't know all that I think that I know. And there will always be more and it's going to take billions of years in eternity, with God, in collaboration and in love with God to know what I want to know. And I think, even then, there’ll be more.

So, I bring this up today not to be disconcerting in any way. Although I don't mind being disruptive. But this passage does give us an opportunity to come face-to-face with our dogmas and the ways in which we think everything, every problem, has to have a logical answer when life rarely works like that. When we’re able to hold in our hands the mystery and acknowledge that we don't know all that we think that we do, we are no longer relying on our own strength. And if there's one thing the metanarrative of the Bible teaches us is that we are hopelessly powerless without God. But another thing that is undeniable in the scriptures is that God is passionately desiring to be involved in our lives. Those things are fundamental and foundational and it becomes more important to say, I don't know the answer but I do know God. And it is within that tension that we grow and ironically that is woven into the fabric of the culture in which the Bible, from which, the Bible came. Israel means one who wrestles with God. And, so, from that tradition is a different way of absorbing the Scriptures. It's less about what you're going to figure out and create a dogma around and more about what is happening to you, what you are wrestling with. And we've seen that so many times already this year in the Bible, where it becomes this mirror into our souls and begins to speak about things much deeper inside of us. It becomes less about reading words on a page and realizing those words are reading our mail. They are reading us. A mirror has been put up in front of us and we have to look squarely into our own hearts and it unlocks places in us that that we didn't know. And allot of times, if I'm wrestling through or trying to understand something, I'll go to Jesus first, I'll go to the Gospels. But even Jesus practiced this. There’s this beautiful story, where a scholar, someone who had been trained came to Jesus and asked him about the great commandments in relation to eternal life. And Jesus says, you're an expert, how do you read it? Which is so fascinating t me. We talk about it in the book, Sneezing Jesus. Because I think it's so compelling that God would invite a man to talk about how he has wrestled with and understands the scriptures. That’s remarkably fascinating to me. And even Paul, in this passage, says, judge for yourselves, wrestle with this yourselves. At the end of the day, and Paul says this, at the end of the day this is just what we do. This is the custom. We don't have any other custom. So, when I read a passage like the one we read today, I have to say, there is an understanding or was an understanding in the Corinthian culture that didn't need to be explained that everyone knew. And we've lost that. And here’s kind of how that works. If I were to say to any of you, hey, you going to watch the game on Sunday? I don't have to explain what I'm talking about. We know, generally speaking. Like, if you're if you're a sports fan and you, like, watch sports all year round. I could say, you going to watch the game on Saturday, you going to watch the game on Sunday or whatever. Depending on what season it is, you know exactly what game and what sport we’re likely talking about depending on where we are. If I'm in Tennessee I might be watching a specific game that is a professional team of our city. And for you it might be different in a different city but we kind of know what we’re talking about. But if we try to ask this question a couple hundred years ago, it would mean something completely different if we understood it at all. And if we take Paul's writings in their totality, we know his heart. We know that all he wanted was for people to know Jesus and to grow strong in their faith. We know that he went through allot for that cause. We know that he was an outsider and cast away from his own people in his own culture who wanted to do away with him because of it. We know that this guy gave his life for the cause of Christ. And when he wrote this letter to the Corinthians, he wasn’t trying to put people in any kind of bondage. He had given his life to set people free from bondage. I don't know why covering our heads or uncovering our heads was so important at that particular time but I do know that those traditions follow through. Why does a woman walk down the aisle with the veil and her head covered to give herself to her husband before God and to enter into a covenant with God and her husband? I’ve been to lots of weddings. I've performed lots of weddings. I have yet to find a bride that isn’t thrilled with the tradition. That she gets to walk down the aisle and she's covered and her heads covered and she looks like a radiant daughter of God. And I have seen that image level the husband to be. I have watched husbands lift the veil in tears. And, so, our traditions, when they mean something, they mean something true. So, whatever was going on here is for good.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and its ability to bring us to the end of ourselves and to bring us into Your presence because we know You are good and kind and merciful and loyal been beyond what we know how to articulate. And You love us and we love You back. And we sit with mystery knowing that it unfolds day by day by day by day and will continue to do this forever. And in Your kindness we get to live inside that adventure. So, come, Holy Spirit, implant the words in our lives and may it yield good fruit for your kingdom. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayers and Praise Reports:

Good morning from the UK, Nottingham. It’s August the 14th. Hello and blessings from the UK. I want to pray for us all. Lord, I thank You for community. I thank you that you brought us together under Your name, the name above all names, Jesus. And I bless each and every one of us that we can really find our purpose and goal in life and serve you with all our heart and mind. Even in our wondering, we’ll just gravitate back to You today. In Jesus’ name. Bless this community, I pray. Community, I’d like for you to pray for a lady in my life, that has come into my life…for friends really…in needing on our journey of faith to discovering Jesus. Her names Patsy or Samantha. She's had a difficult time in relationships with her health. But the Lord has drawn her to my church. And she keeps wanting to come on Sundays and she's very, very interested and loves children, particularly, my daughter. I’m a divorced dad and see my daughter weekends. And…you know…the Lords will be done. I’ve been divorced for nearly three years now, separated for eight. And…you know…I trust the Lord, that he has the right partner for me but who knows with this lady…dear friend. Pray for her that she’ll find…her eyes will be open to faith and discover more of Him and who He is and that distractions will disappear and the enemy will keep his hands off her by sending wrong people towards her. And I pray that she’ll have wisdom in all that she does. Thank you. family. God bless. Bye-bye.

My name is Rachel. I’m phoning from Scotland. I’ve just listened to the Daily Audio Bible podcast for the day the 14th of August and I wanted to pray for Mary C. from Georgia. And I wondered if she hears this if Mary, if you will contact me? My email is jemassage01@gmail.com. Father God, we pray for Your servant Mary. You know that she banged her head Father, and You know that she’s been suffering ever since. And her and her mother are going to be moving shortly and you know she’s not going to be able to go to school and we just pray that You will touch her today Lord, that You will heal her. That You will restore her to full health. Lord, we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen. God bless everybody. Take care. Jesus loves you. Bye.

Good morning. I’m a new listener. I love this app. I love what you’re doing. A friend of mind gave me your information and I started listening just a few days ago. God bless you for being there. I do have a prayer request. Number one is my son, Brice, who is Spirit filled, lost his job a couple months ago and he only has enough money for another month. He is Christian and Spirit filled but he’s getting very anxious and nervous. And my daughter in law is having a very hard time. Her name is Kelly. Brice and Kelly. I know God has a job for him and I know He has a job that when He opens the doors that no man can close. I just ask for your prayers for them, for their peace and that they would go in the right direction, the place that God wants them and that they would draw closer to God and they both need to know the Father’s love. And in this I’m praying and I want you to agree with me, that they know the Father’s love and that they have a testimony of what God did and what He’s doing and what He’s already done. And I thank you for praying. I also developed a rash on my abdomen and I don’t know what it is but I just want prayer for complete healing. And, again, God bless you for being there and I intend to keep listening daily. Thank you. In Jesus’ name…

Good morning DAB family. Deborah, Providence RI. Brain and family and all the other’s thanks for all that you do. I listened to the podcast on the 14th of August and this is for Valeri whose father is in hospice and mother who recently passed. Valeri, my prayers are with you honey. I pray and agree with you for your prayer for your dad’s peaceful and happy transition. I know it’s tough but just hold on knowing that they are both going to be in a better place. I pray peace in your heart. Also, for the young lady, the 16-year-old that got hurt and is asking for prayers for her healing, her home, a better home when they move, and for her sisters return to Christ. I stand in full agreement with You. God Bless Byron. Thank you for the story about the track with your son. Very uplifting. Tony, Blind Tony, I just pray for your healing brother and glorify God for you for the gift that you share with us regularly. I know there are calls about you not calling yourself Blind Tony. I tend to agree buddy. Honey, you are who you are, free of healing. I pray you’ll continue to hold onto your healing. It will come. No matter what you call yourself. You’re a child of God and you will be healed. In Jesus’ name. Thank you everyone. God bless. Bye.

[no-the-other-thaddeus]

Hollow Knight: Thoughts So Far

Hello. My name is Thaddeus. I have a habit of rambling about games on occasion, and at the request of some friends, I’ll be organizing some of that rambling into something that vaguely resembles a review/first impressions article about a game I’ve played. You can read this one below the cut.

So, now that’s out of the way, let’s talk turkey: Hollow Knight. I’m sure more than a few of you have seen it in your recommendations feed, or just on the front page of the Steam store since the Summer Sale began. For those of you that haven’ t bothered to glance at the game’s page, a quick summary:

Hollow Knight is a Metroid-vania game drawn in a traditional 2D style. Not quite Skullgirls levels of animation, but still quite good for the game’s scale, and the art itself is quite good. Other points of note are it’s soundtrack, boasting several atmospheric, ambient tracks that lend a certain haunting quality to many of the games’ environs, it’s self proclaimed ‘tight controls’, and similarly stated non-linearity. 

It’s plain to see that it’s somewhat inspired by the games of FROM Software, but I wouldn’t say it takes solely (No pun intended) from Dark Souls. The game’s somewhat bleak, misty hub reminds me more of something from Bloodborne than any of the Souls games. Although do keep in mind that this is coming from someone who’s never actually played any of the aforementioned titles, so your mileage may vary. 

The more obvious aspect it borrows from the Souls games specifically is it’s style of story-telling. You are told basically nothing, but you are presented with various cryptic snippets of information as you go. The more you talk to NPCs and explore, the more tidbits you’ll find. The game has done this fairly well thus far; the NPCs you can find to speak with are generally interesting and well-written enough that the more curious among you will likely be intrigued enough to speak to most of them multiple times. 

Now that I’ve painted a general picture, let’s start getting into specifics, shall we?

You begin Hollow Knight with 5 ‘Masks.’ The games equivalent to hearts. Along with this, you have one ‘Soul Orb.’ The Soul Orb is a bit more unique: as you defeat enemies, you collect ‘soul energy’ from them, filling up the orb. With enough soul energy, you can hold down a button to heal off damage. You can only heal 3 health at your maximum capacity starting out however, and you’re left vulnerable while you do it. It also takes a fair few seconds, making it a less than viable option in particularly tense fights with more agile opponents. 

Speaking of, the game’s enemy design definitely leans more toward the Metroid side of Metroid-vania. One or two of the game’s earlier enemies are functionally identical to ones found in Super Metroid, and this is where the first problem arises: in Metroid, your primary attack is a ranged projectile weapon with unlimited ammo, therefore, with a bit of care, it’s not too difficult to take out enemies that fly. In Hollow Knight, your primary attack is a short-range melee strike, but there are still several flying enemies right out of the gate.This means that, from the get-go, you have enemies that can be tricky to reach with your only means of attack. While most of the earliest enemies aren’t terribly fast, their numbers can make them a bit tricky to simply avoid at times as well

This isn’t helped by the fact that every enemy in the game does contact damage, which also inflicts considerable knockback. This is particularly annoying in more vertically oriented rooms, where one unfortunate brush can send you tumbling several platforms back down.

Now, let’s talk about the map system. One of the things the trailers for Hollow Knight bring to attention is how customizable it is. With all the little pins and such to mark things out...but that’s not quite the truth. You don’t place these pins yourself, they’re a one-time buy to automatically mark every instance of the given landmark they’re for pointing out. They all have to be bought using the game’s in-game currency ‘Geo’, which is dropped by enemies and found in rock deposits. 

That would be nothing more than a nitpick, if not for a few factors: Having to buy the maps themselves as well isn’t so unreasonable, but said maps are incomplete when you receive them, and to fill the rest in, you have to buy a ‘Quill.’ Granted, you only have to buy it the once and then you’re set for the game, but it still seems a bit asinine to lock behind money. Then there’s that fact that your own position on the map being visible, also has to be bought, and is the most expensive unlock of all, and not just in money.

The ‘compass’ as it’s called, counts as a ‘charm.’ A little badge you can equip to a limited number of slots on your character for certain benefits. Sort of like the badges in older Paper Mario games. You start with 3 slots. The compass takes up one. I’m sure you can get more later, but it still makes me scratch my head that something as basic as knowing where you are on the map would be put into that system. 

Now, as I said, pretty much all these features only require one purchase, which doesn’t seem so bad, and it isn’t really terrible either; after all, you can decide what you want to prioritize being able to see on the map. However, getting enough money to buy everything you want can be a bit of a problem thanks to the game’s death system.

When you die, you leave behind a shadowy echo of yourself, which is functionally similar to the money bags you drop in Shovel Knight. Unlike in Shovel Knight, however, this isn’t losing some of your money, but all of it. No exceptions, at least thus far. As you might expect, to retrieve your money, you have to reach your shadow...and then kill it, because it’s an enemy. A relatively harmless one, but an enemy nonetheless. One that’s easy to run into for contact damage if you’re angry about dying again. Oh, and before I forget, your soul orb loses a third of it’s capacity until you re-collect your soul.

If you die on the way to collecting it, you lose all of the money you had been carrying permanently. Now, again, that wouldn’t be much of a problem, frustrating, yes, but not a hugely bad design decision or anything. But, you remember those rock deposits that also drop money I mentioned? They don’t respawn. You can permanently lose money you can’t re-collect. Those deposits also generally drop more than the enemies do, and some of the items you’re going to need to explore certain areas of the game are kind of pricey. 

It all adds up to a general sense of dread and frustration as you’re traversing any given area of the game, especially when re-treading old ground just trying to get to the next new place. It’s hurt my enjoyment of the game thus far. Maybe some of you with more experience in the genre, or sharper reflexes, won’t find it so stymieing, but it’s a problem I definitely would be remiss to ignore. 

All of the above certainly irks me, but I’ve dealt with worse over the years. I was still enjoying the game enough, especially with the thought that I would be getting more abilities to better fight enemies and traverse the world going forward. 

And then I got to the second major boss of the game, Hornet.

I was a few hours into the game at this point, 2-3 maybe, 4 tops. Before we get into Hornet, allow me to describe the last big boss: The False Knight. The False Knight, is a good fight. He’s got discernible patterns, and moves slowly enough for you to avoid without too much trouble with a bit of care, even with only your base moveset. I still died a couple times, but thanks to having well telegraphed attacks with distinct audio cues meant that I figured him out in relatively few attempts. His animations were charming (especially the way he died), and I overall left the feeling accomplished. 

Now, let’s talk about Hornet, and believe me, there’s a lot to talk about. As I said, the first boss was fairly slow. Hornet by contrast, is quick and almost constantly moving. It’s not impossible to hit her or anything, but how high and in what direction you need to jump to avoid her attacks changes depending on where she starts the attack from, and because she’s almost always moving around, that means it’s hard to reliably dodge her attacks without bashing your head against the fight a lot. 

On top of that, though I’d yet to mention it here, your invincibility frames are a little on the short side, which becomes a problem here; Hornet’s attacks come out fast, and often in quick succession. Quick enough at least that you can often get hit 2-3 times in as many seconds. Because of this, if you happen to bump into her and her attacks on accident just a few times, an attempt can be over in less than half a minute, maybe less. 

And then you have to walk back to her boss room. You see, much like Metroid, the only checkpoints in the game are fixed points on the maps. Although rather than entire rooms, in Hollow Knight, they’re benches that you can rest on. There are usually only one or two, maybe three if there’s an interior area, benches in a given area of the game’s world. This means that, often, walking back to a boss after dying to them is a tedious affair. 

Hornet’s location is actually closer to a bench than most other boss fights have been thus far, but getting back to her still wastes a good half-minute each time. Plus, of course, you have to kill your shadow before you fight her too, and that takes a bit of time as well. It breaks up the flow immensely, and makes the prospect of giving the fight another try after losing that much more un-appealing thanks to the extra effort you have to put forth to reach her again. 

All of this could be fixed by simply having bosses be an exception to the bench system’s rule: just put a checkpoint right inside the room. It’s not like it’ll make your soul any easier to recover than it already is in these situations. That change alone would be enough that I probably would’ve soldiered through and beat hear already. But it’s not there, and so the little irritations I’ve had with the game’s various systems all converge on this one fight, and I find myself reluctant to keep playing.

I’ll admit, there have been times when I’ve had better runs of the fight that there’s been a certain thrill to it; maybe I get off 4 or 5 hits on her and manage to avoid all the attacks she throws out in that time or something like that. But then all that dies away as I screw up dodging her once, then take contact damage the next moment, and then before you know it, I’m dead again, and I remember why I dislike this fight so much. 

It’s a shame, because I do like the game’s atmosphere, I do like the art style. I want to see the rest of it, but this fight is just such a slog, not to mention how jarring a step up in difficulty it is compared to what’s come before it. All in all, I don’t know if I could recommend Hollow Knight to someone new to the Metroid-vania genre of games as I am. Perhaps someone more seasoned in these types of games wouldn’t blink at these things, and hey, if so, you’ll probably like the game. More power to you I guess, but I’m a little unsure on it myself. 

Hollow Knight is currently $9.89 on the Steam Store.

[azuregold]

(struggling to figure out how to ask all of them... also obv no spoilers ;u;) okay for character specific questions: 13 I don't think I've questioned any character's actions so ┐( シ)┌ 14 I guess Zoro?? maybe Travis 21 tell me about the human experiences of Luffy! 22 Zoro 30 eh just ramble about the Straw Hats living human lives? 42, 43, 49 & 50 all of the crew when they were in Earthverse !

These were fun! Well, most of them. For questions 21, 30, 42, 43, 49, and 50…they aren't things I've thought too much about before. I'm not in the right frame of mind to try at the moment and I didn't want to let the ask sit there unanswered until I did manage to think of something, so I'm just going to go ahead and skip them for now, sorry! ^^;

1: what inspires you?

Having a good idea I can be excited about? IDK. X'D

2: one of your favorite comments/reviews on this chapter/verse?

I love all my comments. ;u; I love the comments that go into detail about what they thought, the comments that are just a mess of flailing, the comments that tell me they stayed up all night reading, the comments that are just a line or two to say they liked it, and everything in between. Even if I could decide on one to use as an example, I wouldn't want to make anyone feel like I didn't appreciate their comment because it didn't look like that one.

3: what motivates you?

Being excited about an idea, getting to write a part I've been looking forward to, getting a nice comment on a fic, having the house to myself.

4: what time of the day/night do you like to write?

Either afternoon or at night once my mom's gone to bed.

5: do you write scenes in a linear fashion or do you write future scenes/dialogues sometimes?

I'll write snippets of future scenes if I think of something I don't want to lose, but otherwise I write pretty much linearly (aside from going back to rewrite previous scenes/chapters).

6: hardest/easiest character to write for?

I don't know if any of them are easy, exactly. It also depends on the scene and what they're going to be doing. Sometimes I know exactly how they'll behave, and sometimes I just can't picture how a character would react to a particular event or line of dialogue.

But generally Zoro isn't too bad. (Also Travis, because he's my character, though that still doesn't mean I know how he'll respond to things all the time, unfortunately.) Hardest is probably Flirty!Sanji and Franky. I've never tried writing from Franky's point of view, but he's hard enough from someone else's that I'm not eager to try. Chopper and Robin aren't too bad from someone else's POV, but I think I might have trouble writing from theirs. And Luffy can be difficult occasionally, depending on the situation. (Also Sven is hard, even though he’s my character.)

7: hardest/easiest verse to write for?

Well, I only have one at the moment, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Though once I actually start writing some of my other ideas, I have a feeling Mistyverse will still be the easiest, just because I've been working in it for so long.

8: (if you have either or both) how do you manage time with writing, work, school etc.?

Very badly. ^^;; I'm terrible at time management.

9: what tv shows, books, or movies inspire for this verse, if any?

Story-wise, I can't think of anything specific (there may have been and I've just forgotten, but). Character-wise, Archer from Fate/Stay Night and Furuya Rei/Amuro Tōru/Bourbon from Detective Conan were a big influence when I was developing Travis.

10: any writing advice?

I don't feel confident enough to give advice to other people, haha.

11: (if you use) what do you like about archiveofourown?

The tag system. It can be very helpful in finding a certain subject or giving me a better idea of what the fic is about. Also the "mark for later" option. And the ability to have a series. It makes it much easier not to miss things when there are multiple fics in a story. And I like that the author isn't sent a notice when someone subscribes/can’t see the names of people who have subscribed. I feel much less awkward about subscribing to fics that are years old or about a very guilty pleasure. :P

12: anything you would do to make archiveofourown different/change it?

I…kind of have a list…

– Add a way to sort subscriptions by fandom! Sometimes I want to reread fic for a particular series and if I don't remember the title(s), going through multiple pages of fics and opening them one by one is such a pain.

– Give us a way to mark main vs. minor characters and relationships in fics. It's really annoying searching for fics about a certain character or pairing and getting dozens of fics that focus on someone/thing else entirely, with whatever you were looking for getting maybe a couple of scenes in the background. I've seen authors try to tag things to indicate this themselves, but most (including me ^^; ) don't do it, and in any case, I'd like an actual option I can mark in a search.

– It'd be cool to be able to put spoiler warnings on tags. Click to view, highlight, something.

– Filter IDs are very helpful, but it would be so much easier if we could just click a button to exclude things like explicit fics, “multi” fics (I’m so tired of being overrun with smutty “multi” fics when I search for “gen” without a filter), NOTPs, fandoms I don’t like…and so on.

– Being able to choose whether or not crossovers are included in the search results. I like a good crossover, but sometimes I just want fics for the one series.

– Don’t have author replies count under total number of comments. Also a PM system would be nice.

(If any of this is possible and it’s just that I don’t know about it, someone please tell me. X’D)

14: what is the arc for this character (redemption, etc.)?

I find it hard to put things like this into words (and I don't want to give spoilers), so…I'm going to pass on this as well. ^^;

15: ask me any spoilers you’re curious about for a verse, and i’ll post the answer in the tags

I'm glad you didn't ask for any because usually I love giving spoilers but we're far enough into the story now that most things I could say are Big Spoilers for the climax/ending that I really don't want to give away ahead of time. So thanks for not tempting me. XD

16: do you ever hand write? why or why not?

Once in a long while, if I think of a line I don't want to forget after I've turned my computer off, I'll jot it down on a notepad so I'll remember it the next day. Otherwise, no. My handwriting is slow as molasses and makes my hand tired. ^^;

17: do you listen to music while you write?

Almost always. 8D Just instrumentals, though.

18: any fanmixes you’ve made for this fic/verse?

Not really, no. I have a playlist I use when I'm writing scenes with Travis, and I'm working on one for fight scenes in general, but that's the closest I've got.

19: any edits or art you’ve made for this fic/verse/any edits readers have made? if not, what visuals would you use for one?

All the art I've posted for Mistyverse is here (If I get any fanart in the future, that's where it will be, too). I have quite a bit of art I haven't posted, mostly of Travis or unfinished attempts to draw specific scenes (I have an attempted map of the island in OtMS that I'm too embarrassed to look at again X'D).

20: what songs were you listening to during this scene/chapter?Mostly I just shuffle my giant instrumental playlist. Or if I'm in the mood for something new, I go looking on YouTube or similar places for writing playlists. As far as music for specific scenes/chapters, I think I pretty much covered that in question 13 here.

22: favorite line/quote/inner monologue from this character?

Zoro… At the moment, probably:

Zoro's heart had nearly stopped when he'd seen those hands. Or it would have, if he'd still had one.

Damn it, when did I start stealing Brook's lines?

23: feelings on epistolary fic?

It can be interesting. c: I like it best when letters/diary entries/whatever are mixed with more traditional narrative, but they can make for a fun story.

24: do you outline?

Yep! Not super-detailed outlines, usually, but I prefer having some sense of where things are going.

25: if you outline, do you edit it frequently?

Not that often, no. I don't think I've even looked at the outline for FMaA in a while, actually, because things got very vague toward the end, outside of a few specifics, and I have most of the necessary info in my head at this point.

26: anything you’re planning to write in your fic that you’re worried readers might like?

I think this is supposed to be "that you're worried readers might not like". Because otherwise…why would someone liking my stuff make me worried? Barring creepy stalkers and the like. Assuming it's "not"…

Ohhh yeah. I might hide under the covers for about a week when I post those parts… X’D

27: when you read fic, how often do you comment?

Not…very often. ;;OTL I know how much comments mean to writers, especially now that I've had firsthand experience, but I still find it a difficult thing to do. And lately, when I do comment, more often than not I do it anonymously, even if all I have to say is praise. It's just more comfortable for me that way. If I leave a signed in comment, it usually means I really liked the fic.

28: any scene/line you wrote that you didn’t expect to write/that surprised you once it was written?

Uhh…first thing that comes to mind is when they were at the museum and got roped into playing themselves. I had planned for their disguises to be seen through and for it to be assumed that they were cosplaying, but the rest of it just sort of happened. Including Maya; I knew she was going to be in the story, but I didn’t know she was going to be on that island or working at the museum until she showed up in the fruit room. X’D I don’t even remember how I was originally going to introduce her, except that it was going to be a lot closer to the end.

29: do you eat or drink anything while you write?

Not while I'm writing, but I like to have a drink and sometimes a snack before I start. Most often chai. It helps me get in the mood.

32: what are your stats for this story/verse?

Is…this supposed to mean, like…number of kudos/comments/hits. etc? If it means something else, someone tell me and I'll adjust my answer. :P

Just doing the two main fics (and on FFN the shorts are part of OtMS anyway, so):

On the Misty Shore

AO3 – Kudos: 75, Comments: 11, Bookmarks: 10, Hits: 1350

FFN – Reviews: 86, Favorites: 165, Followers: 63, Communities: 1, Views: 21,005

From Mist and Ashes

AO3 – Kudos: 117, Comments: 37, Bookmarks: 17, Hits: 1739

FFN – Reviews: 94, Favorites: 101, Followers: 129, Views: 11.433

33: favorite one-shot you’ve written?

Ah…hmm. I haven't actually written any one-shots as in "self-contained, stand-alone story" yet (I have plans!). Out of the one-shot extras that I wrote for Mistyverse…maybe Proof? It was the most self-indulgent of the three and the most fun to write.

34: a scene/paragraph you wrote that you’re proud of

I'm pretty happy with most of the stuff in chapters 18 and 19…and the scene in 16 where Zoro reveals himself…and Zoro and Travis’s fight in the museum in 15…and probably more that I’m not thinking of, but I’m not going to reread the whole thing again right now. :P

35: any foreshadowing/symbolism you wrote that you hope readers didn’t miss?

Yes, but at the same time I hope most people don't put the pieces together until things get revealed later.

36: any scenes you wrote that parallel the canon verse?

I guess maybe the stuff with Zoro and Chidori in 17? Kind of?

37: do you use quotes in the beginning notes/intro to your chapters? if so, what are some of your favorites/what are their significance?

Nope, I don't.

38: do you title your chapters? what’s your favorite chapter title? what’s its significance/why did you choose it?

Yes, I love titling chapters. Even when I can't think of anything good. Favorite chapter title is definitely Law and Order. Because it has a double meaning/pun (the structure and rules of Whitestone + Law showing up at the end).

39: any alternate fic titles you were considering for this verse?

I had a couple others I was playing with, at least for FMaA, but who knows what they were? Not me. XD

40: chapter you’re most proud of in this verse?

At the moment, I'd say it's a tossup between 15, 16, 18, and 19.

41: chapter that was the most fun to write in this verse?

Hmm. 12 was the easiest, and it's always fun when I'm not struggling with a chapter. The whole arc on Crinia (chapters 13 – 15) was pretty fun, even when it got difficult. 18 – 19, too. And I felt like chapter 20 was crap while I was writing it, but it was silly fun, and it doesn't seem as terrible when I reread it now.

44: have you shared your outline with anyone? if so, what did they think of it?

The outline itself, no. Parts of it are pretty different from what I actually ended up writing; it might be fun to share some of it sometime. c:

45: anyone you share excerpts with?

*pokes you​* And I've posted a few here before, too. They're usually pretty short, though. Just a line or two.

46: story with the most kudos (AO3)?

From Mist and Ashes.

47: story with the most comments?

From Mist and Ashes again. :P

48: a happy future moment you’ve written/have planned for this ship? (will post under read more for spoilers)

*ignores the "ship" part* Hmm…I have no idea if I'll ever actually write it, but in my list of ideas for FMaA bonus scenes I have one where Zoro cooks for everyone (just because he can't eat anymore doesn't mean he can't cook—he lived on that island by himself for a long time before he died, after all). Also (for the benefit of anyone else reading this), sircerenade and I have discussed Brook and Zoro bonding over stuff before (being "grandpa figures", sharing skull/ghost jokes, etc.). Some of it may be more bittersweet than happy, but it’s a cute bittersweet, so.

[yesnolimitsworld]

Hot, Healthy, Happy. Losing Weight While Sleeping is Now Possible

Did you know the scale of life-threatening health risks has shifted worldwide from starvation to obesity?

Yes, the sad fact is more people collectively across the world are now suffering from being fat than from not having enough food to eat. One estimate puts the number of obese at 1 billion compared to 800 million people who are underfed.

Not surprisingly the Western “first world” countries are the worst offenders, the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and so on are leading the list.

If you aren’t careful in these places and you eat the same diet and are just as inactive as your neighbor your body may just give in one day as a result of your unhealthy lifestyle. Either way, your quality of life will be really low.

There are two main reasons why the world is fat and why we are experiencing this obesity epidemic. Although it’s not hard to guess what they are they are well worth exploring.

#1. From People Consuming an Excessive Amount of Bad Food

The first big reason why so many people are fat is their terrible diets. Too many calories often coming from horrid food choices, empty calories from sugar-filled soft drinks, poorly thought out and timed carbohydrates, fried foods.

The list is endless, but I’m sure you get the point. A lot of people put no thought into their diet at all and are basically poisoning themselves in something akin to the film “Super-Size Me”.

Haven’t seen the movie?

Well, you should.

#2 From People Being Almost Totally Inactive.

Exercise can make up some of the ground lost from a poor diet. Real exercise, not five minutes of walking up a flight of stairs or a few sets of sit-ups once a week.

The fact that a great many people don’t exercise at all and instead lead quite sedentary lives is a huge factor why and others like them are getting fatter and fatter every year.

OK, so that’s the bad news. It’s best to get it over with so we can see how important it is to buck these trends.

Our very lives could hang in the balance. Looking good and feeling healthy certainly does.

Now For the Good News!

If you don’t want to be one of the fat and sick you can choose not to be.

Getting fit requires some discipline and some hard work, but YOU CAN TRANSFORM YOUR BODY into something that looks and feels great.

You’ve got the information in front of you. I’ve seen this method work again and again, for the young and old for both men and women.

All it Requires is Heart and Focus.

Are You Ready to Step Away From the PacK?

CHECK THIS OUT!

Before we even get started, there are a few important things that need to be stated.

Losing weight is a mind game. If you change your mind, you’ll change your body. It’s inevitable.

When we say “change your mind”, it doesn’t mean changing your mind from eating cookies to gobbling cake. What we’re talking about here is the mindset behind all weight loss.

It doesn’t matter what your age or sex is… the principles are the same.

First, You Need to Stop Hating your Body.

Way too many women have negative images of themselves.

They feel that they’re fat and ugly while all the other women are better.

You may have coveted the ‘thigh gap’ but can’t even find clothes your size at The Gap.

“Why can’t I look like her?”… “It sucks being me!”… “I have horrible fatty genes!”

These are just some of the ways women beat themselves up.

Here’s the truth…You need to love yourself for what you are… flab, rolls, cellulite, and all.

You need to start this weight loss journey from a place of self-love.

If you don’t change this mindset, even when you lose weight, you will still have negative self-image issues.

You will never be good enough for you.

Accept yourself… and from there you can improve. This is a journey and not an overnight miracle.

LOOK IN THE MIRROR

That’s Your Competition. Not Anyone Else.

You also need to understand that you CAN lose weight. By assuming that you have ‘fat genes’ or that it’s more difficult for you to lose weight, you make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There will be times when you slip up. This is inevitable and par for the course. When pursuing any worthy goal, the journey is never linear.

It’s often fraught with little setbacks, slip-ups, mistakes, etc.

What you need to understand is that every setback is a set up for a comeback.

During those times when you slip up on your diet, don’t throw in the towel and give up just because you made one mistake in your diet.

If you eat a slice of cake after work, don’t blame yourself and go crazy for the rest of the day by eating whatever else comes your way. Acknowledge your mistake and strive not to make any more.

If you are on track for the next few days, this one small slip up will be negligible.

If you throw your diet out of the window and give up, you can rest assured that the weight will pile back on.

You are not your mistake. Acknowledge, correct it, and avoid future mistakes and KEEP MOVING FORWARD.

That is the only way to succeed.

You’re definitely in control of your body and can change for the better if you know what to… and this book will tell you what to do.

All that you need to do is follow it to the letter and you will reach your desired weight. In the process, you will gain energy, become stronger, feel happier, and have a sense of accomplishment that just can’t be described.

Does that excite you? It should!

A lifetime of great looks and vibrant dynamic health is waiting.

Make no mistake you can do it.

Before we get into the “how” and “why” of your Slimming Down process, there are two things we need to cover that can really help you accomplish even your wildest fitness dreams.

Both are x-factors that are often skipped over in fitness programs and by many fitness instructors.

Don’t make that mistake because they are absolutely 100% game-changers that can help motivate you even in the worst of times.

The first is a realistic goal setting. The second is advice on choosing the right training partner.

PAY CLOSE ATTENTION

CHECK THIS OUT NOW

SMART Fitness Goal Setting

The foundation of your coming fitness success is the clear goals you set for yourself before you even start a program.

Humans are on the whole goal orientated for better or worse. Trying to get slim and fit without setting winning goals is akin to trying to drive across the country without a map.

It’s a waste of time and energy. Even worse, you are very unlikely to ever end up at your destination.

HOW DO YOU SET SMART GOALS?

Here’s a simple formula that can definitely help. 

Just keep the word SMART in mind. Which translates into…

* S is for Specific.

Yes, you’d like to slim down in the next 6 weeks. However the goal of “slimming down” is not the best goal to help you stay motivated. It’s way too broad.

Pick a goal that’s way more specific like losing 12 pounds (or more or less). This gives you a clear target and will greatly increase your chances of success!

* M is for Measurable.

You want your goals to be as measurable as possible. Instead of wanting to “run more”, set a goal similar to “I want to add 5 minutes more to my cardio at each workout session until I’m running 45 minutes four days a week”.

This lets you measure your results as well as your progress.

* A is for Action.

Your goals should inspire action. The more you take action the much more likely you are to both stay committed and ultimately succeed.

* R is for Realistic.

Don’t set unrealistic goals, ever.

These only serve to discourage. Realistic goals, especially once you start achieving them will inspire consciously and maybe even more importantly subconsciously!

* T is for Timed.

Timed goals are best. Like your 6 Week Slimming Down proccess!

These create a sense of urgency and importance that will keep you moving quickly forward.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT FITNESS TRAINING PARTNER

If at all possible find a reliable and motivated training partner for YOUR 6 Week Slimming Down Plan.

This will make things more fun, interesting and give you another set of eyes to monitor and track your fitness and weight loss success.

It’s also a lot harder for most of us to bail out on our commitments when we have another person involved.

A good workout partner can keep you going when the going gets tough.

Even the world’s top athletes, bodybuilders and fitness competitors always credit their training partners as being an essential part of their ultimate success.

You and I are no different, so do your best to find a companion for your slim down journey. It’s much more than worth it.

NOW YOU’RE READY TO BEGIN!

I’d like to leave you with a quick question between friends.

If Not Now, When?

If you are tired of being out of shape, not being comfortable looking in the mirror, feeling sluggish and slow, having weight related health issues.

Not being able to fit into clothes.

Not doing as well as you would like in your love life.

If not now, when?

I’ll let you in on another secret. The worst parts of our minds are best at making excuses, putting things off and procrastination.

I’m speaking from experience.

The only way to tame this beast of mediocrity, is to answer the question of “if not now, when” with clean, clear, committed action.

Yes, Now Is the Time To Change Your Life.

Just a few more thoughts on the subject.

# Putting off Pursuing Goals is the Quick Path to Killing Them.

When you postpone taking positive action towards pursuing your goals, fitness or not, you are setting the stage for your goal to atrophy and die.

It’s an undeniable part of human nature.

A better method?

Even taking small steps towards what you are wishing for keeps them fresh and your desire focused. Try it and see the difference.

# Accept Responsibility for Where You Are.

If you want to really transform your life, now, break the chains of casting blame. Once you accept responsibility for where you are it becomes quite obvious you and you alone have the power to enact true lasting change in your life.

Don’t blame TV commercials for your former fast food addiction or an unkind word from an ex for damaging your selfconfidence.

These people and institutions never had any real power over you on the inside.

You determine your own destiny. And that’s a beautiful thing, trust me.

#Be Willing To Make Dramatic Change.

Just getting and reading so far into this post shows just how far you are willing to go to make a change. It’s a great start.

If you can keep that positive outlook it will only serve to push you to greater and greater things.

In a few years I can only imagine the transformation your body, mind and spirit could undergo.

Making improvements and growing requires a willingness to change doesn’t it?

Of course it does!

Follow this guide with a positive attitude and expectations and you can shatter what many would say is impossible yourself.

That is If You Start Today.

CHECK THIS OUT NOW

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