#and i tried to make it as inclusive as possible since more than 10 organs exist lol

[eretzyisrael]

Aaron Sibarium

It was October 10, three days after Hamas had murdered 1,200 Israelis and abducted hundreds more, and Jewish students at Middlebury College were trying to organize a vigil for the victims. They reached out to Middlebury’s dean of students, Derek Doucet, with a draft poster promoting the event, which they invited administrators at the elite liberal arts school to attend.

"Stand in Solidarity With the Jewish People," the poster read. "This will be an opportunity to honor the innocent lives lost in the tragic events that have struck Israel in the past days."

It didn’t go over well.

In an email to students reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, Doucet, who has oversight of student activities, pushed to rename the vigil and strip it of references to Judaism so as to make it "as inclusive as possible."

"Some suggestions that might help are stating that this gathering is to honor ‘all the innocent lives lost,’" Doucet wrote, and including a reference to the "tragedies that have struck Israel and Gaza." He added that calls for solidarity with Jews could trigger "unhelpful reactions."

"I recognize and deeply respect that there has to be a place for purely Jewish grief and sorrow," Doucet said, "and yet I wonder if … such a public gathering in such a charged moment might be more inclusive with edits such as these."

The need to include all groups—in a vigil mourning the losses of one—was selective and short-lived. Less than a month later, Doucet’s office approved a "Vigil for Palestine," hosted by the Muslim Students Association, that began with an Islamic prayer and featured remarks from the school’s vice president of equity and inclusion, Khuram Hussain, who did not attend the Jewish vigil.

"Standing in solidarity," the Muslim student group wrote in an Instagram post promoting the event. "Together, we honor Palestine."

The divergent reaction to the two events is one of the most shocking examples of discrimination outlined in a federal civil rights complaint against Middlebury, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Filed last month by the StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, a pro-Israel nonprofit that has sued other elite schools over anti-Semitism, the complaint alleges that Middlebury created a hostile environment for its Jewish students by ignoring and at times impeding their efforts to combat campus anti-Semitism.

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Middlebury funds and recognizes six Christian clubs on campus, for example, along with both the Muslim Students Association and Students for Justice in Palestine. But it has refused to recognize Chabad, an orthodox campus organization with chapters across the country, on the grounds that Jewish students already have access to Hillel, the only space at Middlebury with a Kosher kitchen.

"The funding request for food replicates programming already funded and offered by Hillel for Shabbat dinners," Middlebury’s student activities office wrote in a February email rejecting Chabad’s bid for recognition. It was at least the second time since 2018 that the school has denied an application from Chabad.

"Middlebury believes it has legitimate grounds to deny a Jewish club’s recognition simply on the grounds that one Jewish group is more than enough for the campus," the complaint reads. "It appears that Chabad’s rejection was at least in part based on a disturbing reluctance by Middlebury to provide kosher food options to its Jewish students."

The school also resisted calls for a police presence at the Jewish vigil in October, citing concerns that the officers could upset students, and asked the organizers of the event not to display Israeli flags, according to meetings described in the complaint.

The Palestinian vigil appears to have faced fewer hurdles. Not only did Middlebury station a police car outside the event, according to a report in the school’s student newspaper, it offered up Middlebury Chapel, one of the largest event spaces on campus, to the Muslim group after interest in the vigil surged. The chapel was not made available for the Jewish vigil, which was held outside, even though it drew a larger crowd than the pro-Palestinian event.

[thatsmytrunks]

Fred Wood’s Game of the Year 2022 List

Here’s an organized list of my games of the year, 2022. The rules are simple: I must have completed the meat of the game for the first time in 2022. Release date doesn't matter to me. Nothing matters. Time is made up. We’re posting this on Tumblr in 2023. Nothing could possibly matter anymore.

Chaos;Head NOAH

I adore the Steins;Gate series and have picked up and supported every english release of every Science;Adventure visual novel that has released since. Chaos;Head NOAH is the first game that has completely disappointed me, and I’m not totally sure who’s fault that is. From what I understand the localization team on this release did some work to try and make the game more palatable to unfamiliar audiences, trying to make the main character less of a piece of shit than in the original release. Well, they failed. He sucks bad, and I’m not sure I can endure revisiting it again to find the other endings/routes, no matter how much better they make the story.

AI The Somnium Files: Nirvana Initiative

AI The Somnium Files: Nirvana Initiative is a sequel to AI The Somnium files, and is not as good. It tries to do some really wild things with its narrative and mostly succeeds, but they tried to make the game stand alone for folks who didn’t pick up the original, and I think that fear made it much less impactful. The inclusion of an Easy Mode for folks who want to binge the story and not deal as much with the clever puzzles made it much more pleasant for this dummy to enjoy.

13 Sentinels Aegis Rim (Nintendo Switch)

In 2019 13 Sentinels dropped on PS4 and I tried to play it and kept thinking “I wish I could play this on a handheld”, so I never finished it. This year I did, and while I was not as in love with it as all the folks in 2019 who extolled its virtues, I will say this is a very wild game that tells a wild story using a wild structure that seems incomprehensible until it clicks. And I think it clicks really, really well.

AI The Somnium Files

This game was the first new big drop from the creator of The Nonary Games series. I first played it a little on Switch when it first came out thanks to a review code, but the graphics were so bad and the beginning was so slow that I put it down and never picked it back up. When the sequel, Nirvana Initiatve came out, and friends started speaking so highly about it, I gave the original another try, this time on XBox Series X via GamePass. Instead of being a garbled mess, it was a gorgeous video game that held a great series of mysteries with a cast of characters I learned to love. The only mark against the game is it’s a bit hard. The puzzles in the game are based on dream logic, and dream logic is pretty subjective, so I kept failing and getting frustrated. The sequel mitigates this with lots of difficulty options and making it easier to retry. For this one I mitigated the difficulty by using a walkthrough when I got stuck. The game’s a real 9/10, though, highly recommended.

Undertale: No Mercy

Undertale came out in 2015, and here in 2022/2023 I’m working for Toby Fox on Deltarune, so take everything I have to say with a healthy amount of bias.

I played Undertale in 2015 the week it came out for a few minutes and thought it was cool and didn’t pick it back up until Thanksgiving. By that point the game had absolutely changed the internet forever and it was getting real hard not to get spoiled, so I played the game like I think most uninformed players do. I loaded up the game, thought it was neat, killed the really nice goat lady, learned that I did not have to kill goat mom, restarted the game, got a “pacifist ending”, then got a “true pacifist ending”. I had always heard about the other major route, but never really thought it would be my bag.

This year, after having talked to a lot of people and being pretty bad at the Undertale and Deltarune danmaku bullet patterns, I wanted to go and see the rest of what one of my favorite games of all time had to offer. I did it on a couple of Live Streams where I struggeled a lot, but ultimately won the battle against a true hero. I pushed on to give the friendly skeleton fight a few honest tries, before giving up and resorting to cheat engine.

Just like everyone else has said over the last seven years, it’s amazing how Toby was able to tell another very powerful and very memorable story by reusing places, characters, and battles. It’s wild how the most famous track in the game takes place in a battle that most players will never experience on their own. It reminds me of how the best part of Drakengard is hidden away after having to do a bunch of really horrible and actively unfun things, but that wild alternate route resulted in NieR.

I will probably never beat the friendly skeleton battle at the end of the game legitimately. I don’t have the kind of reflexes and memory to learn every single one of the attacks and pull them off, but having gotten there on my own and trying it a few times, I sure as hell understand and appreciate it.

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe

Many years ago I played a game that told the story of a man named Stanley. While The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is not quite a sequel (though it also very much is), it was wonderful to revisit one of my favorite indie games of all time with a fresh coat of paint on modern consoles. The new stuff was wonderfully meta and hilarious, and there was enough of it to justify the double dip. The extra nice thing was playing it with my wife this time, so I got to see bits of the game through fresh eyes.

Sonic Frontiers

Who would have thought that Breath of the Wild meets Death Stranding would make for a surprisingly competent open world Sonic the Hedgehog video game. I really liked running around each of the “open zones”, pulling off tricks and goin’ fast. The combat was repetitive, and the bosses weren’t terribly fun, but the moment to moment controlling the blue attitude man felt really great. Also the game has simultaneously some of the best music in the series (the early cyber zones) and the absolute worst (every single boss battle, don’t @ me).

Sonic Origins

I was so excited in 2021 when they announced that the Christian Whitehead ports of Sonic 1 2 and CD were coming to modern platforms, as well as some sort of re-release of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. What we got was a very buggy mess of these games that had some really glaring issues that made it impossible to recommend, especially at its $40-$45 price tag.

Now with a little bit of time and a few sales, the game can be found for around $20 with its most glaring bugs patched out. Now we have a modern version of the mainline Sonic the Hedgehog games I grew up with, they have widescreen, and they have the ability to retry special stages. They also have fully and wonderfully animated sequences between each game connecting them to one another, and a full 4K upscale of each of the Sonic CD animations with tremendous care and attention.

This year I beat Sonic 1,2,CD, and 3K 100% with all chaos emeralds (something I’d never done in CD), and it was an absolute delight. And playing on the Switch OLED in handheld mode is an absolute delight. If you’re playing on PC, there’s wonderful mods that replace all the music in the game with uncompressed versions of all the original music, there’s fixes for small issues with the dropdash, and there’s a nice and quick fix to remove the weird bilinear filter on the games. It’s easy to recommend for me, now.

This would probably have been higher up my list if not for the miserable state it released in and the $40 price tag.

Vampire Survivors

Vampire Survivors is a game that deserves to be game of the year on someone’s list, but isn’t quite on mine. I love incremental power fantasy roguelikes like Risk of Rain, and at first blush, this seemed to be the idle game version of that. Functionally you can move freely around a big open space, your character will attack every couple of seconds, and a horde of enemies comes at you. The first few minutes of the first few games are pretty boring, but as time goes on you kill enemies, gain xp, and start to build up your character with buffs and new weapons, making you an incredibly powerful killing machine by the end of your run, which at the start is capped at 30 minutes. I spent 30 hours with this game in the first two weeks of playing it, and it was a wildly powerful tool for making time disappear. I’d boot it up, unlock a bunch of new characters and perks, and then say “yeah, one more game”. As I sit here writing this on a 13 hour flight on Tokyo, I’m excited to say I’m going to use its magical time erasing capability to make this trip all the faster.

Also the game’s less than five bucks which is insane for how much fun I’ve had with it.

Judgment

Judgment is an open world beat ‘em up RPG in the vein of Yakuza by the creators of Yakuza taking place in the town of Kamurocho from the Yakuza series. You play as a private detective who is disgraced for getting a murderer acquitted who was then quickly re-arrested for the crime of super murdering his girlfriend. The story of Judgment isn’t about that case, but you can sure as hell bet you’re going to be relitigating that case while you solve a rash of cases involving a serial killer referred to as the mole (for some reason I never fully understood). I picked up Judgment when it came out on PS4, again when it came out on Stadia while I was on vacation away from home, and then again on XBox Series X when I decided I wanted to see the graphics much better. Each time I’d start the game, get to the arcade, play some Virtua Fighter and the claw machines, and then forget to pick it back up.

This year they finally released Judgment and Lost Judgment (the sequel I have yet to finish) on PC via Steam. It was a perfect release for me to enjoy on my very nice computer and TV, then pop over to the Steam Deck and play the side missions that Studio Ryu Ga Gotoku is so known for.

Judgment is somewhere firmly planted in my top 3 Yakuza games, and I mean that with the absolute highest possible praise. It’s a great game and a wonderful introduction to this studio’s work. Y’all should play it.

Destiny 2: The Witch Queen

The Witch Queen is the latest expansion in Destiny 2, and is likely the best one we’ve gotten. There are all sorts of incremental improvements to the game’s economy and the loot pool, but the biggest and most exciting change was the addition of a “Legendary” difficulty for the game’s campaign, which made it a challenge for once, like the Halo series Bungie was known for. It felt like a real accomplishment finishing this game’s story, and the legitimate twist at the end of the game is spectacular. 

It’s more Destiny and I like Destiny and they did this Destiny really well so it goes on the list.

Inscryption

I played Inscryption in January of 2022 so I really don’t remember it very well – which is exciting as hell because I’d love to replay it. It starts as a pretty simple and very fun card game with some creepy stuff that expands into a different kind of card game with other kinds of creepy stuff, and eventually tells a really cool and wild story. Telling you much about that story would spoil it, so I’ll shut up here and just say that Inscryption is spectacular.

Neon White

Soundtrack of the Year winner Neon White is a first person platforming shooter where you have cards that are guns but also special abilities. I adored the world of Neon White and most of its characters, though it’s hard to go wrong with a protagonist voiced by Steve Blum doing his best Spike Spiegel recap. Most of the story fails to land, but the gameplay, soundtrack, and replayability made it a hell of a game. I hope they make a silly expansion for it, because I just want more.

Dicey Dungeons

Dicey Dungeons has been on my game of the year list before, but this is its final resting place. This year they ported Dicey Dungeons as well as all its many bonus chapters to iOS and Android, and there’s no better place to play it. Dicey Dungeons is a card-based deck builder where you have skills that requrie different numerical requirements that you meet using dice. It’s got many characters to play as, many tweaked versions of the game, and an incredible soundtrack by Chipzel. It’s a must buy.

Elden Ring

Oh, Elden Ring. The only reasons you're not my Game of the Year is because I'm not good enough to meet your challenges. I was playing the game my way -- offline, single player, with an ultrawide hack and a 120fps patch, without looking up any guides and without watching videos about how to build out my character effectively. This means that before I could get into the dope castle area, I had to defeat the Draconic Sentinel, and no matter how many times I got ‘em down to a sliver of health, they’d ruin me.

The sense of exploration in Elden Ring is unparalleled. I went down an elevator that just kept going and going, then came out to an underground cavern that was so big that it had a sky. I went through a portal in a chest that dumped me into a battle with a dude straight out of Shadow of the Colossus overlooking a massive castle town. I went to hell, I think. Every time I went to some new place, I was blown away. Each place felt unique and compelling, and I just wanted to explore every nook and cranny.

I think I’m going to go back to Elden Ring, but I need time. Hopefully when I do there will be some sort of official PC patch that completely gets rid of the baffling stuttering issues I was having on a 3090. Hopefully they’ve embraced an unlocked framerate and don’t require me to go use tools that would get me banned from playing the multiplayer experience to get the most out of my time with it. And hopefully I’ll have a controller that can withstand the few times I quit the game in furious anger. I really do want to see all that Elden Ring has to offer, because I know that it’s a lot.

Fortnite

Fortnite went from a joke of a game that was never coming out to a game that ripped off a popular new video game to one of the biggest gaming sensations in the world. In 2021 when matchmaking for Halo Infinite broke, the folks I was playing that with pivoted to Fortnite. While Halo Infinite's back and better than ever -- we're still playing Fortnite. Gunplay has gotten better, the sandbox has grown immensely, and they introduced a No Build mode which removes the pesky ability to build fortifications -- something I'm bad at and refuse to get good at. I've had so much unironic fun playing Fortnite with friends, won many, many games (and lost many many more), and I've spent money on cosmetics. There's something incredible about John Cena riding in on a boar with a cape on his back, dropping a dude with a shotgun, and then doing Gangnam Style in front of him while he bleeds out.

Also, as of writing, they just added a bunch of incredible visual tech from Unreal Engine 5.1 which has made the game become a baffling technological showcase.

EarthBound

Have you heard of this one? Way back in 1995 my friend Thomas and I went to the local Blockbuster and rented a game with a huge box for the SNES. It was a weird and wild RPG about a kid who got chosen by a bee to go and save the world from some sort of weird existential threat. I did not understand it back then, but I thought it was fascinating. I didn't have a SNES nor the money to rent the game again, so I didn't play it again.

In 2012 at the Portland Retro Game Expo I was across from a booth selling a complete in box copy of the game in poor condition for $250. Someone wrote the name Shawn Rogers (probably a person named Shawn Rogers) on the front of the box, destroying its value. I spent the money on it, excited to finally have enough money to own this fascinating game I'd tried emulating a couple times since, and called myself a real EarthBound fan. Later that year I brought an SNES with the game to my friend Levi's house and played it for 3 hours. It was rad, and I decided that I should finish Mother before I finally gave EarthBound its due, and so I did in a weekend long live stream. I burned out while playing EarthBound when I got to Fourside for the first time, and decided to call it quits.

In 2021 I picked up a dirt cheap XBox Series S right before a trip to my inlaws in Arkansas, and got RetroArch running on it. I had initially intended to play Halo Infinite (my 2021 game of the year), but the input latency on the TV made it impossible to play the game -- so I tried a fresh playthrough of EarthBound using the "New Controls" hack. I ended up having a lot of free time during that trip, so I divided it up between Destiny 2 via Stadia on my phone and revisiting this aging RPG.

EarthBound is magnificent and deserves all the praise it gets. It has heart, it's earnest, it's weird, it's quirky, and it's not afraid. The story of the young chosen one Ness is simple and unoriginal, but the characters, places, and troubles you get into are unforgettable. The last two hours of that game (The Place and The Final Boss) are filled with some of the most memorable imagery and soundscape in a video game. I don't want to spoil anything for those who really don't know about it, because it's really special.

I'm so glad the game's finally out on Switch as part of Nintendo Switch Online, because the barrier to entry is now just subscribing to a $20 a year plan on a console that most gamers have. There's other ways of playing it that don't cost $250 for a boxed copy (or the $2800 they go for now, sheesh), so I'd really recommend it. It's the second best game I played this year.

Tunic

Tunic's the best game of 2022, and one of the best games I've played in a long time. It's one of those kind of games where if you try to explain what makes it good, you ruin it for someone who hasn't played it. So let me dance around that.

Tunic is a game that looks like a Zelda game, has combat like a Dark Souls game, and has another layer to it. Over the course of the game you learn that if you do one thing it unlocks a whole new ability, or you learn to read a symbol that opens a whole bunch of new opportunities, and culminates in the biggest "I can't believe they did this, that they'd expect someone to figure that out, and I can't believe I figured that out" moment I've ever had with a piece of interactive media. Really just a triumph all around.

The game is hard as nails, sometimes downright unfair, but the game's completely guilt-less accessibility options (infinite stamina, invincibility) make the hardest fights possible and trivial, while letting you get back to the big brain moments. Also it's on XBox Game Pass, which lowers the barrier to entry to an outrageous extent.

Tunic's my game of the year because of how it made my brain feel, and nothing comes close.

Games I didn't finish that deserve to be played:

LIVE A LIVE

When LIVE A LIVE got announced, we had a team meeting where everyone talked about how good and important LIVE A LIVE is, and two people suggested I started on the prehistoric storyline. That was probably a mistake for me, as it was really slow and not very fun, but also had the mega hit Megalomania for the end boss of that chapter. I started up the ninja’s storyline and was much more into it, but I think I might wait for the inevitable PC port. The loading times on switch were attrocious, and that HD2D style would look much better in HD.

Cursed to Golf

The folks at Chuhai Games are new friends to me, and Cursed to Golf is a fantastic golf-based rougelike that they’ve made. It’s incredibly fun and the story is goofy and wonderful and I need to find more time to play it.

Lost Judgment

Lemme be honest, the story in Lost Judgment so far is a snooze fest. All this stuff in the highschool is starting to burn me out, but I’ve been told that it gets much better. So I’m gonna stick with it. Not every game can be as good as Judgment was, anyways.

Picross 3D

Every year or two I delete my Picross 3D save file and start from scratch. I love me some nonograms, and taking them to an extra dimension is a delight. It’s criminal that we’ve only gotten two of these games, and none of them on the Switch. There are some perfectly acceptable clones out there on Steam and Mobile, but none of them match the charm of the Picross 3D series from Nintendo.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Did Bobo really create the Wayward Sisters? If so, why weren't Jack and especially Cas included in that episode? That's my biggest issue with that pilot honestly, I mean, the fact that the show abandoned Claire and Cas' bond after season 10 and gave that storyline to Salmondean. Her bond with Cas is more interesting because of their connection to the Novaks. I also think that Claire and Jack would've made a more engaging dynamic and spin off together, I think they're strong characters & actors

Hi there!

Bobo isn’t the “creator” of Wayward so much as it can even have one, as it was a very organic idea, which even involved a healthy amount of fandom input. The original campaign in season 10 was for Wayward Daughters, and the idea picked up so much steam the altered title for, I guess, a mix of copyright and thematic relevance was the Sisters one. I’d say 10x08 was the real genesis of it as something that could be really solid. Once Kim and Briana were put together the chemistry and star power they could have had together was really meteoric as far as our small SPN world was concerned. Phil Sgriccia directed 9x13 and wrote 10x08 and was more of the parent of Wayward than any specific writer in that sense. Jody and Claire were pretty much common property of the show by that point. Claire was really introduced again in relation to plotlines and questions about Cas and less to do with them really going out of their way to re-launch her. I think they’d have been much cornier about it from the start and while YA protagonist diary writing her way through the end of Wayward Sisters was cute, it’s the sort of cutesy that really has to be earned. If she STARTED that way, like maybe me and 3 friends would be stanning her and everyone else would be revolted :P

(I am a YA fantasy novel author, but I do think everyone should make room in their hearts for this level of cheese)

In any case, Bobo just threw his hat into an already crowded ring with Alex, but obviously loving the characters and having his own personal wayward child to contribute did help elevate him to the prospective showrunner seat, but also all the other writers who’d written these characters except Dabb had left at that point. If Bobo was going to shepherd them through to their new show, he’d be the legacy writer, even though he was a new baby writer in the season Donna was introduced... Attrition aside, he did genuinely write them very well, loved their stories and was great with writing Jody when he could get her, so he would also have been a good choice even if all the others were left still... 

But anyway. Season 10′s subplot for Cas was about Claire and learning some stuff about himself along the way, but she was used very much for his personal development and for Dean as well, being a mini Dean herself in a season where he had lost a lot of his sense of self. It’s a total accident of scheduling but Angel Heart (10x20) being the last episode before 10x22 is a nice touch in that regard. And while Cas tried really hard with Claire and awoke his inner Dad side so that he’d be more prepared for fatherhood next time, it was pretty insurmountable between them to have anything more than a bittersweet relationship where the best he could do was make up with her and see her somewhere safe. The fact of him looking like her actual dead father is horrendous the more you think about it and while she managed to see him for who he was instead of a horrible monster, that’s more than enough trauma to inflict on an already traumatised girl for the sake of helping Cas’s manpain and tidying up the sticky question of Jimmy and Cas’s right to the vessel. 

Angel Heart very specifically ends with TFW mailing Claire to Jody because they know she’s already good with Alex in a genuine way and can handle these sort of issues and has done it before. And also because she can be a guardian who will not constantly remind Claire that her father is dead but something is walking around wearing a perfect reconstruction of his face. Carver era did a few things here and there with bodily autonomy and the problem of angel and demon vessels, but it was also really hit and miss. They’d get random waves of feeling guilty about it but then by necessity go back to stabbing angels in their still-living vessels an episode later. Claire was a way to address at the very least that whatever Cas was being put through was only a punishment on Cas and not on Jimmy as well, which is probably why we got such sappy Heaven scenes. We NEEDED to be shown he was in Heaven and largely okay with what was going on so that the show could justify using Cas at all as a character without breaking the code of ethics they tried to make their own characters adhere to. Aside from that it also gave Cas a side plot for when he wasn’t needed in the main plot, and any emotional connection to anything that wasn’t Sam and Dean.

Anyway 10x20 caused this huge fandom high which was followed by one of the lowest lows of the fandom immediately after, and both centred on female characters (in fact, now we know, 2 lesbians even! Though I’d wonder if, The Gay Agenda aside, Bobo spite-wrote that specifically because of the roots of Wayward) and I think that galvanised the whole movement of fans and hopefully some self-reflection in the show. They DID start making an effort in season 11, which shows some of the early signs of better inclusion but also backtracking or edging nervously away from the more intense Carver era stuff. Not just because Dean didn’t have the Mark any more but in general it was like someone had opened a window and let in some fresh air... Even before Carver bailed somewhere around the midseason to go do a different show and Dabb started to step up. 

All this to say that the Wayward stuff was always about the female characters and making up for the past sins of the show. It’s even a riff on the “wayward son” line which obviously centres around male protagonists and their journey. Claire stumbled into being a part of it in the lucky way of being in the right place and time, but the journey had already started even in the season 10 momentum with earlier work and it was that which suddenly made the prospect that Jody had two young women living with her now seem like a starter for the next generation of the show as it was a mirrored format to season 1 in a way, if you took Alex and Claire as the new Sam and Dean. It was exciting but people flipped out after Angel Heart because stuff had been bubbling since season 9 and earlier in season 10, so this was just pouring more candy into an already visibly full bowl of potential tasty gems. It made a possibility seem real that hadn’t before because we already had Kim bitterly complaining that the CW refused to hear the case for a Jody spin off because she was too old. The next best thing was a Jody spin off where she was the Gandalf to some CW age appropriate characters.

(the CW is and always has been garbage)

Anyway in season 13 Jack was introduced as a Claire 2.0 but as a male character with staying power for that reason, but he was filling the space she left for Cas. He couldn’t be a father to her and neither really wanted that set up anyway. But thematically it had created the possibility of Dadstiel and the space he had in his heart for that. Since the show was in its waning years they would be looking for endgame and handing Cas an easy win with a son he could unconditionally love who would love him back unconditionally absolutely filled that gap. It was a non SamnDean thing that Cas could have for himself outside of whatever happened with them. Not sure the memo came back that he was supposed to have mORE than that but oh well it’s not real if you don’t watch it :))) But yeah Jack was always going to be linked to Cas’s endgame, he wasn’t a free-floating character such as Jody who could go where she wanted and do as she pleased. He was main story relevant from start to finish and tied inexorably to another main character’s fate. Because the show wouldn’t do that with its female characters they could be bundled into spin offs but in practical terms Jack was both never what the Wayward as envisioned by fans or writers was about, nor would he have been free to go. 

Since it would have been about centering the stories of people overlooked by the main story, Claire a case in point that she had her life ruined in season 4 and it was a footnote until season ten, and then metaphorically more the concept of having queer and non-white characters in the mix of main characters, it would have represented a future of the story where the main show was unable to tread. Probably because of the CW. Also inherent biases in the writers. Bad cocktail. Jack is both too white and too male to fit the brief to ever leave SPN, and not only that but he is so as a precise mirror to the main white male characters, being passably any one of their sons if you squint, and meant to be instantly instinctively read as such... he was one of the safest bets of representing the show as the network wanted to imagine its target demographic.

So I really don’t think that Jack has any place being in a spin off of the show unless you want more of the same. They tried to give us something different and the CW didn’t like it because it wasn’t more of the same. Ironically a Jack spin off, with or without Claire, would have more chance of being greenlit and more chance of success. But the spin off they put their heart behind was Wayward Sisters as it was. And I think it was absolutely correct that never mind leaving Jack out of it after his work was done in the lead up episode to help set the table, but honestly they could have cut all the middle scenes of Sam and Dean wandering in the woods and gained precious seconds with the girls and still had a functioning story with those guys. It was like some cowardly missive was sent that the show couldn’t actually go more than 10 minutes without showing a flesh and blood Winchester or the whole thing would spontaneously sizzle out of syndication and the money tree would wither on the spot. And in the mean time, we could have been having Banter with the girls. Or Claire and Kaia holding hands some more. The good stuff :P 

[nostalgicgeminiii]

astrology & upcoming changes in hollywood 🎬

While reading about the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike of ‘07/08, I took time to check out the astrology of that time and was pleasantly surprised how the transits supported and illustrated the strike. 

The following post will take a look at the transits that influenced the strike and the Golden Globes’ recent decision to cancel its 2022 awards ceremony in a protest against the HFPA who Netlfix, Amazon have also taken a stance against due to their lack of diversity in their voting members.

                                       Let’s get straight into this shit.

A little background info first : WGA announced a strike on Nov 2 ‘07 and the strike began on Nov 5th, the following Monday in attempt to gain increased funding for their writers which were significantly smaller compared to the profits that larger studios and producers in the country made. The strike was one of the longest for the guild and reportedly, the industry lost $500 million dollars to due productions stopping and forcing networks to show reruns.

The transits of that day (using Nov 5th when the strike actually started) that were most important were 

Saturn in Virgo at 6 degrees - as we know Virgo rules over workers and it’s ruling planet is mercury (writing). The double influence of Virgo with Saturn (limitations + larger organizations) showed there was some restructuring that needed to take place.

On the first day of the strike, Jupiter was transiting Sag at 20 degrees (20 = Scorpio deg = jealously / the writers were upset at the lack of funding they received compared to the other parts of the industry ) and moving towards Pluto which was also in Sag at 27 degrees (27 = Gemini = writing). They would make a conjunction in the sign sometime in mid December of that year. Jupiter and Pluto together ->  brought on a wave of upheaval which left plenty of productions put to a halt, productions that were viewed world wide (sag) and networks had no choice but to show re-runs of shows affected. Obvi, Jupiter expands everything it touches (good or bad) and unfortunately during the period the strike took place, not a lot of common folk realized the extent and depth of the issue.

Additionally, the north node was @ 3 degrees in Pisces (3 = Gemini + writing and Pisces = Neptune = film industry) was in opposition to Saturn. They felt a need for order in the workplace with Saturn touching the south node transit in Virgo.

And the cherry on top of the sundae, is the moon - venus conjunction in virgo that happened that first morning. 

In the beginning, Saturn was in the opposite sign of both Jupiter and Pluto’s transiting signs and by the time the strike ended, Jupiter and Pluto both went into Capricorn (Saturn's ruling sign) making a trine aka an easy aspect to Saturn in Virgo. The negotiations between the WGA and other party finally were agreed upon and the strike was able to end with rules and legislation (cap) that supported the writers (virgo). Remember Virgo traditionally rules the 6th house of work and its trine to the 10th house of career, public institutions trad. ruled by Capricorn.

As a writer myself, this is a big issue we can face. We watch actors like RDJ and the Rock earn $50 million for one movie and directors cashing in similar profits while the writers who create these stories have a greater chance of getting snubbed. They also are not really the face of the industry as that role is given to the prominent actors and filmmakers. Writers and other professionals in the industry are often forgotten and not visibly recognized. 

TL:DR /// All that Virgo energy came in and said nah we want some order in this shit 

                                                Now, the recent shit.

Early 2021, saw The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) came under repeated backlash and fire for the lack of diversity in their members and for an email sent by a now - former member of the HFPA that called the BLM movement a “racist hate movement”, to other members. In addition to other actions that were made by this former member ( I rlly wanna call him an ass***), they tried to take action by promising a reform that would bring in inclusive policies and more members of colour specifically black voting members. However, groups like NBC, Netflix, Amazon, WarnerMedia and others made arguments that the proposed changes were not enough to tackle the inclusion challenges in the industry AND it would not be completed soon enough to reflect in the 2022 GG broadcast. The HFPA ultimately decided to cancel the 2022 Golden Globes Ceremony and made this statement:

"change of this magnitude takes time and work, and we feel strongly that the HFPA needs time to do it right"

The HFPA made this history making decision on May 10 ‘21

This acc happened a day before the new moon in Taurus went exact. (note: the moon was in Taurus on this day as well) New moons represent new beginnings and Taurus is associated with - slow & steady. As a result of the arguments and concerns that were brought forward, the change that the HFPA thought was appropriate was actually going to take longer than they believed. Look back at the above quote [ needs time to do it right ] That’s very much Taurus new moon energy right there.

Saturn was transiting Aquarius at 13 degrees. 13 - Aries (first) aqua (groups of ppl specifically marginalized communities) This was the first taste of karmic actions that organizations such as the HFPA have to fix and correct to include equality and inclusion of less represented individuals in an industry that has incredibly dense roots in whiteness and patriarchy. This was the first time that an awards show was cancelled to address this issue.

Jupiter was transiting the final degree of Aquarius (29 deg = Leo) and with Jupiter representing opportunities, this was symbolic of black people (aqua = different/ marginalized groups) getting the chance to be equally represented in the entertainment (leo) industry. 

Coincidentally, on both the dates of the HFPA announcement and the WGA strike, mars was in its detriment sign - Cancer - This transit could bring about strikes and fighting with groups of a close belonging. Take a look at the writers on strike. They were a close knit group of ppl (aka family) within their industry or community who helped defend each other and defend against limitations (Capricorn/Saturn) that threatened their livelihood and security (cancer).

I have an additional interpretation of the mars in cancer transit however (idc if ppl get mad) SOOO imo and from what I’ve read, white ppl are ruled by the moon/cancer and the book of rulership suggests that black ppl are ruled by Capricorn/Saturn. Now when mars was in cancer in 2007, Pluto was in sag which is inconjunct from the sign mars was in (cancer). Sag = other cultures, international -------- The conflict affected not only the country that the strike took place in but many parts of the world that consumed American media. Note: this was also media that majorly represented white Americans (ruled by cancer). Now fast forward to 2021: Pluto has been in Capricorn since ‘08 - a time which marked a visible rise of black achievement in the US (Obama becoming president, black voices being given bigger platforms and so much more) and heavy discussions and protests revolving around the growing violence and systemic oppression against African Americans (BLM, Trayvon Martin) Capricorn is opposite to Cancer so with the recent mars in cancer transit that was opposing pluto in cap we saw actions that needed to be taken to bring about change and mars in cancer moves slow to make those changes and really only makes changes and takes action based on comfort and now  with pluto in its opposite sign being like “cmon bitch move yo ass” changes are finally slowly coming together. Pluto defo destroys and rebuilds but leaves what needs to be kept.

My take on what could happen as Pluto leaves Capricorn and enters Aquarius, we could see the film industry being left and cared for by the general masses. Pluto in Leo brought the control of the industry to a select few and the nepotism in the industry that exists today was fortified. We could really start to see everyday ppl, really different ppl outside of the “norm” brought to prominence. Neptune’ future transit into Aries will help strength this change. (aries = first). I’ll make another post in the future talking about what I think Pluto and Neptune’s transit into aqua and aries will possibly bring 🚗

[hoe-imaginess]

replies!

tried to put older ones at the top. 

ALSO: I got a lot of requests in the last few weeks and just wanted to post a general reply in reminder that my ASK BOX IS CLOSED! Not accepting any requests right now, sorry! I delete any that come in

i BEEN A YEEHAW BINCH SINCE DAY ONE GORLLL. we stan 4am whataburger in this house 

I do!! I used to have gold but it got kinda expensive in comparison to what I was charging for ko-fi’s. If you don’t have that extra $6 a month it’s not worth it boo ):

Ahhh congrats! Sorry I’m so late!! I think it’s always worth it to stick with the original blog since you’ve accumulated followers there, and you never know if they’re going to miss out on the transition to your new one. It takes some time to restructure a blog but it’s definitely worth it to keep the original

the amount of HIM’s in One Piece is unbelievable I whore for everyone

I’m doing ok!!!! I go a little crazy indoors but I’m keeping myself busy <3 my immune system is shit so I’m on utter lock down, but better safe than sorry

@thychi​ 

I keep up sporadically with the manga!! I stopped watching it when I caught up a few months ago, think I ended on Whole Cake? I know what’s happening currently but I haven’t read too into depth in the Wano arc. I usually just... pop into the spoilers tags... to see Law... bc I love him... 

@ithecrystaldragonheart​

Mito and Hashi are a powerful duo. Mito has a lot of brains cells she has to share with Hashi but that’s ok!!!! I do think Tobirama and Mito would get along too!

Basically tbh he sees one thing out of place and he must destroy

i’D HEARD IT WAS A REALLY BAD CHAPTER. this is a late response but MANGA READERS THAT ONE WEEK... we were all a mess (and no I haven’t watched but I’ve been recommended to do so quite a lot so I’ll hop on it soon!) 

Hmm!!!! I actually find a *shorter* first chapter is a good way to hook the reader without making them claw through too much writing to get a sense of what’s going on. Like, if I see a first chapter is reallllly long I sometimes have to do it to em, and scroll a bit to the middle to see what’s going on, and to double check that it’s a fic I want to take the time to read

1300 words isn’t too much though!!! Omg I’ve written much longer first chapters lmao. If you feel weird about it you can maybe find a good place to split that 1300 into two chapters?? But definitely make sure it’s split in a good place. It’s always good to leave the reader wanting more. If you can end on a short cliff hanger or a tense moment, that’s 10/10

That being said it would probably be wise to make the rest of the chapters of a similair average length. I’ve read fics that have shorter or longer chapters and it’s not bad (unless I’m grieving because it’s too short AND I REQUIRE MOREEE) but it might help you with actually planning your plot

I DON’T!!! But I want his ninja dick so bad. Maybe i’ll whip something up for him soon. For the culture 

When you sent this a while ago it actually inspired me to pick it up again!! I’m fixing it so it comes up with more accurate (?) results since I think the first one was so messed up. Everyone kept getting Madara sksksks. It’s still in the works but I wanna post it again! They’re super fun to make

AHHHH THANKSSSSS!!!

It’s so hard trying to keep a character that you love IC because... i want him to not be as much of an asshole as he is in canon... so unfortunately I gotta let him be an asshole sometimes. On the other hand, fortunately he’s such a minor guy I get some room to explore w him and I really hope it pays off, so thank you!!!

Girl, eye—someties

did Itachi Uchiha send me this

(i love u too)

RIGHT!!! i would have never guessed. Like, if Kishi could see us... he’d be fucking floored....

Queen!!! I do!!! I don’t have much up rn but I got 234232 Word docs with WIP fics that I hope to post at some point, ty ilysm 

https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoSkelly

@any59​ ty ty!

Ahhhh!!! thank you!!! It was my biggest project to date <3 

(HxH spoilers below vvvvv)

I don’t really think Feitan is... so far removed from his emotions (Like Meruem) that he would really need to change that drastically for someone if he really liked them—that being said, he’s not going to change, either. If by change we mean he’s suddenly as enamored and endearing with them as Meruem is with Komugi... then I don’t think that’s going to happen regardless. We kinda see Feitan being a good and decently considerate comrade to the Troupe, so that would obviously extend to this girl/boy, maybe with a sliver of extra fondness if we’re talking romantically. But otherwise, Feitan seems like a “you get what you get” type of guy, that would inherently be *tender* with someone he liked, but not so tender that he’d have to have a whole philosophical/personality change

Ok now I’m confusing myself aksjdhfkjs. Basically:

Meruem had to like, undergo some existential shit to get where he was Komugi. I think Feitan already has the capacity to care for someone, even if his way of caring isn’t exactly rainbows and butterflies. So it’s not like he has to change. He just has to find the right person that doesn’t 1) get on his nerves and 2) get on his nerves enough that he’s gonna kill them

Feitan is a simple man. You piss him off. You die. You don’t? Ok. He’ll be nice

I did!!!

Thank you for accepting me I’m glad to be here

akjdhfakjshfsj i know this was a serious comment but when i first read it I wanted to laugh asdhfkasjhf the “ap lit” inclusion sent me. What was so horrible about ap lit that this girl thought she was dying? Ap lit will really get you

(But I know!! I’d forgotten I’d taken it that morning! I have one of those cute pill organizers and I thought I’d taken it out but did not...)

Forgive me!!! I felt dumba fterwards hence why I deleted the post. Do not worry! This is the dose I was prescribed. I figured I would get some really manic reactions when trying a new dosage so now I know that’s not gonna work lol 

ajkshdfkjshfjksa izuna wants tobirama’s death to be as quick and natural as possible

thank  you!!!! I didn’t think you guys would like them so much <3

@blackstrawberrynightmare​

It’s been so long since I watched Psycho Pass or even looked into anything about it so pls take my thoughts with a grain of salt but:

I’m gonna say probably not? He’s one of those typical antags that have such strong ideals that... I don’t think even if the corrupt system was taken down he’d be entirely absolved of his ideals, or at the least, of the journey he’s taken in pursuit of those ideals. I don’t think a guy like him could ultimately settle down once the dust clears, and especially not with a lover or a family or anything like that. If he did want to lead a normal life it would probably be in seclusion

Thank you!!!!!!

skjhasjkdfhajkhsd they would never. Only room for one tongue on that body and they’ll fight for their tongue rights

Ahhh yeah my master post is so bad I swear I’m gonna fix it one day—I don’t think I have one of Madara!

I do not ):

@cacauatecacauate​ thanks for the kind words!! I’m not accepting requests right now though! I am planning on posting more to that story though, just not right now!

(I think this was in response to when I missed your ko-fi about the bakers) thank you! and thanks for supporting!

[lee50567161-blog]

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[televisedbirdwatching]

Getting a Handle on Portland Skateparks with GIS

BACKGROUND:

For the past few months, I’ve been taking courses in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at Portland Community College. GIS work involves a lot of computer screen time, so I was thankful to have easy access to the Holly Farm skatepark on my way home. Class ended at 9pm, so if I hurried to the park I would have a half hour to skate before the sun fully set behind the hills. These short skate sessions were an important part of my day: after work and class I was thankful for some physical activity and unstructured time.

Holly Farm Skatepark in SW Portland. Photo Skaters for Portland Skateparks. 

I believe skateparks are a crucial recreational resource. Of course, I’m not an impartial judge. For me, close access to the Holly Farm park was something to look forward to after class. But for many others, it’s worth considering that skateparks represent something far more important.

In urban planning language, the term “third places” is used to describe the places in our lives that are not work nor home. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term in a 1989 book called “The Great Good Place.” He wrote that the neighborhood grocery store, the corner bar, and the coffee shop are the places where ‘weak’ social connections are made, introducing people to community members who would otherwise be strangers (A brief note that ‘weak’ refers to ‘casual’ more than ‘insignificant’). He called third places the “heart of a community’s social vitality,” and foundational to grassroots democracy. Without them, people live isolated lives and take on narrow perspectives.

Much of the dialog on third places focuses on places that are appropriate to the lives of adults. There’s no reason to suspect third places might be any less important to youth. In fact, youth are traditionally excluded from the most common third places (too young to enjoy caffeine, not old enough for bars) leaving them fewer total available third places. In addition, youth contending with urban sprawl may have difficulty accessing third places, even if they exist. Even in 1989, Oldenburg saw that third places were on the decline; in recent years, virtual spaces have filled these voids. This puts youth in a particularly vulnerable position: there were less third places to begin with, there are less now than before, and accessing the few that are left can be challenging.

I’m concerned about youth-appropriate third places in general, and I admit skateparks are only one such place. However, I believe that skateparks offer particular and unique benefits for youth. Skateboarding offers an experience in unstructured play, different from organized sports. Skaters are free to find their own lines in a skatepark, linking features and tricks in a way not enforced (but informed) by the design of the park itself. Skateboarding also teaches youth how to fall and get back up, and fosters obsessive persistence in the pursuit of self-structured goals: many tricks require hundreds of tries for one “make.” Skateboarding is an individual sport at its core, but skateparks are environments where supportive communities can be actualized. Friends give advice and assistance, and skaters learn how to learn from their peers. Not only is there personal satisfaction to be gained from landing a trick, there is also the enthusiasm and encouragement coming from your peers at the park.

A photo from Skate Like A Girl’s yearly competition, Wheels of Fortune. Photo Thrasher Magazine.

Skateboarding can also create support in communities that might face steeper slopes. Skate Like a Girl is a national nonprofit that pushes for a more inclusive skate community and shares the joy of skating with (primarily) womxn-identifying youth. From their website:  "Women and girls who learn how to skateboard learn more than just how to balance; girls who skateboard learn to push their own personal boundaries, test their capabilities and in the process, teach and encourage others. It is our firm belief that these attributes reap rewards outside of the skatepark and our immediate community. Girls and women who believe in themselves are more likely to raise their hand in the classroom, advocate for themselves in the workplace and attract the company of those who respect them.”

Skateparks are a particular type of third place for youth where they can make ‘weak ties’ that become friendships, participate in free, unstructured play, and develop skills and personal attributes that will serve them throughout the course of their lives. In addition, skateboarding has a comparatively low financial barrier to entry than other sports and activities.

Since skateparks are so important, it might be surprising to know that Portland has only eight officially-recognized, public skateparks: one for every 81,000 Portlanders. What might be more surprising is that the city of Portland was (most likely) the first in the world to have a comprehensive Skatepark System Plan. Local nonprofit Skaters for Portland Skateparks began the process in 2001, and legislation was passed in 2005. The plan called for 19 total skateparks of varying size from “neighborhood spots” to a central “destination” skatepark. In the 14 years since, only eight of the 19 have been built.

Skaters for Portland Skateparks’ System Map. Built skateparks in green, planned skateparks in red.

In my GIS class, we were asked to pose a research question, and answer that question with spatial analyses. I wanted to look at the current distribution of skateparks in Portland, and develop a characterization of who does and does not have access to this critical recreational resource. Here are a set of maps that help tell that story.

MAPS:

Borrowing a term from the food justice world, I wanted to create a map of “Skatepark Deserts” in Portland. The first step was creating the dataset- I mapped point features for each skatepark, and included some additional information (if built or planned, if built, what year). Next, I added information from the census bureau showing census tracts in the Portland area. This map was created to show each tract’s distance from a public skatepark. Dark shades of blue are tracts that contain or are within 1 mile of skateparks. Green scrubland represents a 2-mile, semi-accessible radius. Orange areas are “Skatepark Deserts,” more than 2 miles from a recognized skatepark.

Skatepark Deserts in Portland, OR. Map created by me.

If you’re interested in the GIS methodology, here you go. If not, you can skip to the next section. The first category, the darkest blue areas, were created by selecting all tracts that contained one of the skatepark points. The other analyses were performed using the centroids of each tract. For example, the light blue areas are census tracts whose centroid is within a 1 mile buffer of the skatepark point. The green areas, a 2 mile buffer. The desert scrublands are polygons that have at least some area within the 2 mile buffer. The desert sands are polygons that are completely outside the 2 mile buffer.

The first map showed the geographic distribution of skateparks in Portland, but it doesn’t tell a very complete story. I wanted to look at some of the demographic data and develop a fuller picture of who has access to skateparks. I created two maps using the same census tract blocks, but this time displayed them on the basis of poverty rate and median family income. The first map shows the percentage of families living at or below the poverty line: darker colors represent more families experiencing poverty. Census tracts containing skateparks are highlighted. For the most part, skateparks are sited in locations where they serve areas with high poverty rates. The smallest tract poverty rate is Glenhaven park at 11%, but neighbors two tracts with higher poverty rates. Ed Benedict, Luuwit, and Gateway are sited in areas with high poverty rates, between 28 and 30%.

Poverty Rate of skatepark-containing census tracts in Portland. Map created by me.

I also created a map showing median family income in each of these tracts. Darker colors represent greater amounts of income. The average of the median family income of all tracts containing skateparks is roughly $62,000. Southwest Portland is an interesting anomaly: the Holly Farm and Gabriel parks are in areas with close to six-figure median incomes, yet also have 14 and 19% poverty rates.

Median family income of skatepark-containing census tracts in Portland. Map created by me.

More GIS methodology: if you’re interested in the categories I used to classify this data, let me know and I can go into more depth!

So far, Portland has done a good job of siting skateparks in locations where they serve low and middle income communities. However, the Skatepark Desert effect is unresolved. Many areas in far-east Portland and in the downtown area have high poverty rates yet don’t have easy access to a skatepark.

Transit connectivity is an important consideration given the plain fact that school-aged youth are not able to drive. Some families experiencing poverty may be entirely transit dependent. Others may have personal vehicles but not the time to drive children across town. Transit connectivity gives youth the freedom to travel on their own and access third spaces like skateparks freely. I created a transit connectivity score by counting the number of bus lines that intersect a 1-mile radius circle around each skatepark. Assuming one mile is a reasonable distance to travel on a skateboard, the score represents how many buses someone could possibly board. This is another area where Portland does well- there are no values less than 10, and Gateway Park boasts access to 26 bus lines, not including the MAX Light Rail system.

Transit Connectivity of skateparks in Portland. Map created by me.

Finally, although transit connectivity is important, walkability offers an even higher level of access for youth. For this map, I used the same 1-mile buffers but counted the number of schools that lie within each circle. I’ll give Portland a passing score on this metric. Although some skateparks have low scores (Pier Park: 2), there are often other schools just outside the 1-mile radius.

Skateparks and Schools in Portland. Map created by me.

Here again, the skateparks that exist in Portland score well in terms of transit connectivity and proximity to schools, ensuring that youth have easy access to these resources. However, consider the number of schools that are not within the 1-mile circles: the majority of school aged youth are still in a skatepark desert.

Considering these maps together, it’s fair to say that Portland has done a good job, when constructing skateparks, to ensure that they serve low and middle income youth, are transit connected, and close to schools. However, there’s more work to be done. As I mentioned earlier, the city’s 2005 plan called for the construction of 19 skateparks. Skatepark construction hit the ground rolling with five parks in three years: Pier Park (2005), Glenhaven and Holly Farm (2007), Gabriel and Ed Benedict Parks (2008). Skaters for Portland Skateparks write “With the economic downturn in full swing, Portland Parks & Recreation offers that funding is no longer available for additional public skatepark projects within the Skatepark System Plan. Investment and momentum slows for the build up of the remaining 14 prospective skateparks.” The next skatepark wouldn’t be built until 2015 (Alberta), followed closely by Luuwit (2017) and Gateway (2018).

Gateway is Portland’s newest skatepark. Photo Skaters for Portland Skateparks.

Hopefully, we can capitalize on this second swing of skatepark momentum to fill in some of the gaps in the Skatepark Deserts map. One of the most promising proposals for an additional Skatepark is the Steel Bridge skatepark. This skatepark would serve a critical population in the downtown area, developing an urban brownfield currently created by the traffic ramp exit for the west side of the Steel Bridge. Here are some artistic renderings of what the skatepark might look like.

Photos Skaters for Portland Skateparks/Bryce Kanights, Renderings via DAO architecture.

I’m also inspired by the skate community in Boulder, Colorado, where their “Green Block Project” is proving that not every skate spot has to be a large-scale, “destination” park. At Valmont Park in Boulder, there was a large, unused pavilion. Skaters built a partnership with the city and with the University of Colorado Environmental Design program to design a DIY-style skatepark in this space. To quote from this article: "The initial idea of the green block project was to use 'dross-scapes' and otherwise unused land to develop pocket parks and allow the community to be involved in the process," said Raul Pinto with Satellite Boardshop in Boulder. "From students at CU environmental design program to young kids taking part in the construction being supervised by older skate community members, it really was a community effort."

Photos Boulder Daily Camera.

The skatepark features parking blocks, picnic tables, ledges, and other street-style features that allow skaters to practice street-style skills without criminal trespass. All of the features were donated by community members and the park was built and maintained by volunteers, meaning the effective cost to the city was only the cost of granting permission. The Parks Planning manager for the city of Boulder was quoted as saying “This is a perfect example of listening and supporting the community to build a great space for all ages and abilities to participate in a sport that is very popular in our community and especially with teens.”

The Steel Bridge skatepark would serve a critical area of Portland, improving the geographic distribution of skateparks in Portland as well as serving low-income populations. In addition to Steel Bridge, we should also push for the construction of smaller, neighborhood-scale skate spots. For example, even if the Steel Bridge park is completed, there would still remain a sizable skatepark desert for communities living along the I-5 Corridor in North Portland. Perhaps two smaller, Green-Block style spots could be constructed in this area to improve access.

Lately I’ve been spending more time at Ed Benedict park, closer to the Southeast PCC campus. I’ve never seen the park not busy, and I know that for myself and the others who are there, it’s helping meet a need in our lives. Portland Parks and Rec’s 2020 vision goals state: “Portland’s parks, public places, natural areas and recreational opportunities give life and beauty to our city. These essential assets connect people to place, self and others. Portland’s residents will treasure and care for this legacy, building on the past to provide for future generations.” Skateparks are mentioned only once in the 2020 goals: “Develop plans that are flexible and responsive to changing demographics and emerging trends (e. g., skateboards, BMX bikes and dogs).”

Creating these maps was critical to getting a handle on the state of skateparks in Portland. It’s clear we’ve done some things well in the past, and should continue to insist on access for low-income communities, transit connectivity, and school proximity. However, it’s time to take skateparks seriously as the critical recreational resource they are, and resolve some of our skatepark deserts.

[mimeparadox]

Why ‘Ice‘ and ‘Façade’ are Top 10 “Alias” Episodes

Because @sydneythorne was curious about their inclusion in my list.

Let’s start with “Ice”, since it’s probably the most disputable entry in my indisputable* list. While everything I’ve seen indicates that it’s quite a divisive episode, and part of the reasons why I like it are the same reasons why I like “Façade”, making its inclusion somewhat redundant, I stand by it.

Alias stand-alones tend to get a bad rap: season 4 is easily the most consistent and consistently rewatchable season of the show, in my book, but the early part is often considered one of the series’ “bad” parts.  While it’s certainly not the series’ most daring era, I do feel its merits are often ignored.  It’s Alias without its crutches, unable to rely on “we can work on it later” as an excuse to avoid things like proper characterization and knowing how to end a story.  

(Like, I love me some Irina, but even in season 2, she is made to use only a fraction of her potential. Have her played by a weaker actress, and her story would collapse like a bad soufflé. The same goes with Sark: even as a series regular for two seasons, there’s very little there there—he’s a capable underling, and there’s hints of a deeper relationship with Irina. But that’s it—hints. Actually attempt to give him something of weight—see the entirety of “A Man of His Word” where they tried so hard to pretend they’d created a character whose epiphany we cared about—and it simply doesn’t work.)

So let’s talk about Kiera McClaine. who in the space of a single episode gets to be funny, sad, tough, vulnerable, sexy (that accent), sympathetic, and ultimately tragic.    Her story is a simple one—no  real twists and turns here—but it is complex, dealing with the issues of morality Alias should have been dealing with all along but rarely did, and which, as a bonus, intersect with Vaughn’s in a way that makes his side of the whole Lauren thing seem, for a hot minute, compelling.  She’s the sort of character Alias rarely deals with, and it makes this story stand out all the more. What’s more, she works largely because she’s a one-shot character: give the writers more space to deal with her, and it’s entirely possible she wouldn’t have worked nearly as well.

Then there’s the Nadia B-plot, which is simple—almost simplistic—and yet is full of lovely interactions of the sort we rarely get in the series.  Characters in Alias, unlike those in Nikita, rarely just sit down and share their feelings, so the opportunity to see all of these characters discussing Irina is incredibly nice to see, even if it they don’t lead to solid answers.  Here, though, that lack of answers isn’t a stall; it’s the point.  Irina is a complicated character, and this is one of the best examples of what that means. 

----

Season 3 of Alias is generally a mess, but it’s a mess with a fairly noticeable nadir, which can be found in the first few episodes after “Full Disclosure”, where the writers are stuck figuring out just what the heck they’re going to do with the rest of the season.  “Façade” is the last episode of this period, and it comes at you like a bullet, not only being unlike anything the season—or the series—had done before, but by being super-good.

First of all, the conceit of having Sydney and company create a super-elaborate production to get the information they want is a brilliant, and long overdue, expansion of the series’ formula. There’s a case to be made that Alias never really figured out keep its trademark action scenes fresh and compelling, once the initial novelty was over and the budgets started getting cut, so seeing them actually work some new dimensions into them is fantastic.  Yes to jobs involving aliases more complex than a wig, a dress, and an accent.  Gimme more of those, all the time.

But what really makes this one mission work is that it feels feels substantial, in a way few don’t.  There’s specificity here that Alias, for reasons that are never quite clear, usually avoids: Sydney isn’t trying to fool nameless incidental characters, but Michael Ryan, who has specific motivations, quirks, and things to watch out for. It makes all the difference, giving the mission some real stakes and tension, and consequently, Ryan ends up being the best one-shot baddie since McKennas Cole back in the show’s first season.  

While “Façade” is largely a stand-alone, it is, weirdly, one of the few episodes of the season that manages to use its various elements in a way that is satisfying.  Here, we not only get the first (and sadly only) real use of Julia Thorne since “Full Disclosure,” we also get the return of Leonid Lyzenker; a plot that actually requires Sark to be head of the Covenant’s North American cell; and a plot involving the bombs from “Blowback”. Finally, it is the one episode in the season that best manages to give a sense of the Covenant as an organization.   

Still, this isn’t just an episode that’s good compared to season 3—it’s a great episode period. It’s both fun and funny, it uses almost all of the main cast (barring poor Dixon, a barely-there Sloane and an absent Lauren) to good use. It gives us a moment of great tension and a genuinely surprising resolution.   And, much like “Ice”, it gives us a great central guest character.  It’s everything I want from Alias.

[zachwritesstuff]

Digimon Adventure Tri: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

I’ve been a fan of Digimon ever since I was 11, back in 2001. Though I’ve had a rocky relationship with it, I’ve always admitted myself as a fan of those weird little monsters and their wacky adventures.

It’s why I was so excited by the announcement of Digimon Adventure Tri. One of my favorite seasons was, of course, the first, and I was excited to see what they could do with these characters in a more modern setting, with them a bit older and tastes and themes in anime having changed since the heyday of the monster partner genre. Heck, I was even excited by the rumors (that ended up being true) that the season 2 characters would have very little involvement in the plot. I had long stated that Season 2 was my least favorite season, so that felt like the icing on the cake for a great show.

Having recently finished the last movie, and hearing the news of more on the way, I have to say that my view on this revitalization experiment is not as shiny and bright. While I will say it was an interesting thing to watch, especially after such a long time, it was hard to say if it was good or not. So I’m going to go over some positive and negative aspects I found over the several years it took for this entire series to come out.

By the way, as this will be talking about this series as a whole, there will be spoilers

The Good

1.  It was good to see them again

Let’s get that out of the way real quick. Despite overall problems I had with this series, I will admit that the fanboy in me did really like seeing new material with these characters I loved as a kid. Hell, I even kind of enjoyed their appearances in Digimon Xros Wars, even if that was the most pure pandering of all time.

I also liked their updated look, even though it was a bit controversial that they moved away from the classic big head/hands/feet look from the old shows. It helped deliver the message that they were maturing and would be presenting a different kind of story from the original. But with the original voice actors of the Digimon returning to join a brand new cast, it at also said that it wasn’t going to stray too far from the original. Different but not too different. It could work… Right?

But while we’re talking about the characters, let’s talk about…

2. Character Growth

With the maturing characters, they couldn’t really be the same precocious children anymore. It would seem weird to have this people in their teens acting like 10-12 year olds still. So they had to grow up in some way, and to the credit of the writer’s, much of it felt very sensible.

I think the strongest among them is probably Tai. It makes the most sense, as he is the main character. Whereas he was formerly headstrong and first to enter action before, by Tri, he had become more level headed and questioned his motivation a lot more. This made the series a bit more interesting, as it helped give depth to his decisions and not make it as cliche and repetitive that Digimon tended to be sometimes.

Along with Tai, characters like Izzy, Joe, Mimi and Sora also expanded emotionally, though theirs is a little less obvious. Izzy and Joe are shown to be studying and working in their fields a lot more heavily, while Sora is opening up more and Mimi is becoming more of a headstrong leading type. Unfortunately, since Digimon has always had problems with letting specific characters shines, their character advancement didn’t get much notice, and they weren’t given much room to stretch. Because of this, we only got bits and pieces of who they had become after a few years of development.

The ones that came off the worst of the original crew were probably Matt, TK and Kari. Not to say that they didn’t also advance a bit, but they probably had the least of all. Matt still was cool, and was just now older and cooler. TK seemed like he was supposed to be an auxiliary leader of the group, but with Tai and Matt taking most of the leadership positions, he was left with nothing much to do. And Kari, well… I think she said maybe 20 words in the first couple of movies, and mostly stood around and smiled. For a long time, it seemed like she would get no development, but she did finally get some storylines after what felt like forever. Which leads me to my next point…

3. Kari’s Importance

Kari has always been my favorite character of the Digimon series. She came during my favorite arc of the original season, and her character felt a bit different from the other known female characters, who were the archetype Girly Girl and Tomboy. She had weaknesses in her often recurring sickness (always unnamed), but it was soon revealed that she had a deeper connection to the plot, and possibly even revealing a much more perplexing story behind the Digital World and what it might hide.

Then… Nothing happened after season 1. They hinted at her connection to the Digital World during Season 2, including the introduction of the Dark Ocean involving her, but through the rest of the series, she just ends up being fodder for Davis’ crush and generally just being Another Character.

That’s why I was glad to see them actually touch on it. They didn’t go too deeply, but they showed that not only did she have a much stronger tie with the Digital World and Digimon, but she also might be able to go beyond, to communicate with Digmon in limbo and help those that might need help. I really do hope that they continue to dive into it and bring her whole deal to a head in future material. And speaking of future…

The Bad

1. Season 2’s Epilogue

This is honestly a little hard for me to think about, and it won’t be the only time in this article I talk about it. So let’s get it out of the way: I, like pretty much every fan in the Digimon fandom, hate the final Epilogue scene to season 2. It made no sense, it gave random jobs to people that didn’t fit their personality, and basically threw an active grenade into the whole shipping side of the show, making that a basically banned subject if you talk to any fan of the series. So when, at first, it seemed like it was going to retcon all of the epilogue, I was over the moon.

But just like epilogue itself, they give hints to it at the very, very end of the last movie. They talk about Matt’s desire for space, TK is now writing journals of his adventures and Tai’s change in career focus. Despite everything fans have said about it, they are going to stick to their guns, and justify the dumb as hell ending they made.

And you know what? I can respect that. They introduced that bit of canon, and for better or worse, they’re going to stick to it. They’re going to try as hard as they can to try and make sense of what was set forth for these kids future, even if it does seem like an impossible task. A really impossible task, to be perfectly honest…

Okay but seriously, they really wanted to try to justify this? It’s basically like badly written fanfiction. Everyone in the world has a Digimon, Matt is an astronaut, Davis has a ramen stand, Mimi has a cooking show, it feels like a madlib. Even the little hints they put in at the end of Digimon Tri felt like more like a mandate than an actual attempt to be inclusive to the original canon.

And if we are going to talk about the consistency, than you have to really wonder about the things they now have to retcon INTO the epilogue. Namely, Mei, and this whole Digimon shadow government organization. Where do they factor into this idealistic future? Sorry, I’m ranting a bit, but it felt like a big misstep that they could have easily written out with little argument, and yet they felt the need to include it. Hell, they didn’t even physically show the characters of Season 2, and yet they still feel the need to bring back the worst part of that season? It’s just dumb, though to be completely fair, that might just be my own disdain coloring my thoughts.

To be fair, it can work, and I would even be okay with them going in the middle almost, keeping some of the general ideas from the epilogue, but coloring them in a more realistic fashion. I think the big problem myself and many people had with it was how it was presented. It was basically bullet points that were presented without any context. If they do decide to delve deeper, I’m hoping that at the very least, they try to connect it to their characters and modernize it a little bit (I.E. making Mimi more of a media mogul than just a Cooking Show host, make Davis more of an entrepreneur than just a guy with a Ramen Cart). I don’t like it, but if it must be there, at least make it sensible, right?

2. Season 2 characters

So as you can probably infer from above, I don’t hold the second season of Digimon Adventure in the highest regard. The characters are no exception. But Jesus Christ, not even I would have treated them as piss poor as Digimon Tri did. Not only did they not even appear as actual characters, they didn’t even bother to update their appearances! I went and looked back at the scene, and as noted in the appearance section of their wiki entries, their silhouettes are basically just wearing clothes they wore in the past (It’s even noted that Davis is wearing his square goggles from the pilot of Digimon 02). They are then barely mentioned until the last two movies, where they are simply props to fuel how evil and twisted the villain is. Never once are they seen as more than shadowy figures, and the fact that they even lived at the end is a couple of lines in the last five minutes.

Now while I don’t love these guys, I do think that this series of movies was their chance to do SOMETHING with them. Either delve into their characters deeper and separate them from the carbon copies of S1 characters, like they were, or turn into the skid and really have fun with people’s perception of them,much like how Dragon Ball Kai and Super did with Yamcha. They could have really done some cool things with this group, but instead, they basically act like they don’t exist until they’re needed as objects to further the plot

Hell, from here, they could even introduce an interesting plot, on how they were literally gone for weeks, maybe months, yet none of the main 8 characters seemed to care that they were near death somewhere in the Digital World. That could make for an interesting dynamic between them, and even play into a meta competition between Season 1 and Season 2. But, deep down, I know that all of those ideas are just fever dreams, and most likely, any further material will continue to leave them in the background.

3. Some Adult Situations May Apply

When I was told that the Director of these films also directed School Days and one of the Persona 3 films, it was one of the least surprising thing I had ever heard. For a series who’s whole deal is being a “kids with monster friends” show, it does not feel like it was made for that demographic at all!

I can understand wanting to gear it towards an older audience. It makes perfect sense, actually. The people who grew up with the original Digimon Adventure were now adults, so wanting to make something for their sensibilities seems like the most obvious decision. No problem at all!

But it really is only good on paper. Looking at the history of kid focused shows being transitioned to older focused shows paints a rather different, and more ugly, picture. You get the likes of Ren & Stimpy’s Adult Party Cartoon, or more recently, the absolutely atrocious showing of DC’s Titans, based on the popular Teen Titans series (note: as of this writing, only the first preview has come out, so there is still time to save it, even if it looks unlikely). True, there have been some good shows made from kids properties, like Space Ghost Coast 2 Coast and Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law, but it comes with the caveat of those shows having nothing to do with what they were originally based on.

On the subject of Digimon, it seemed like they were less interested in making a Digimon movie and more interested in making a Persona movie, even down to the final monster being a giant nude angel beast who’s butt is prominently featured on most of it’s shots. Add in the scenes of Tai heavily injured and covered in blood, and multiple characters either dying or going mad with grief, and you basically have the David Lynch student film that is Digimon Tri.

I think the biggest question is… Why? There was absolutely no need to get this grimdark with it. The people who grew up with Digimon enjoyed it for it’s values in friendship and teamwork, in the world building of this fascinating patchwork world, and in these characters growing up and learning. And especially in an age where streaming services allow for modern audiences to go back and watch the original whenever they want, it seems weirdly outdated to think that they would need to make it more “cool and mature” for the original fans.

I could go on and on about this, but really, I’m just hoping they learn that changing the tone of the story is not necessary. We love the characters, and we want to see them grow and prosper, not suffer needlessly.

The Ugly

1. The Grown Ups

Boy oh boy, was I not a fan of these two. Two government agents at the Incorporate Administrative Industry (I had to look it up because it’s barely mentioned by name), Maki and Daigo are the two exposition machines of this series of films. They try very, very hard to make these two likeable, but it just comes out completely flat and uninspired. Worse, their misguided development takes away screen time from more deserving characters, like Joe, Izzy, TK and Kari.

Their motivations seemed to just be “We’re the government and we gotta stop Digimon”, and they hint at a deeper motive for them. But the hints are extremely vague, to the point where it seems like they didn’t actually know what they were going to do with them in the first few movies. It wasn’t even until the second to last where we learned that, surprise, they’re two of the original Digidestined! And they’re trying to find their old Digimon! Or Something! I’m actually not sure at all…

Then you get to the last movie, and they’re just… removed. Maki is seen wandering off into the Dark Ocean, and Daigo makes a Heroic Sacrifice to save Tai and everyone else. It feels like it should be very deep and moving, but I found myself not caring much because there was never anything to really draw me into either of them. There were fun moments here and there, but never anything an audience could connect or relate to beyond “These two knew each other growing up and dated a little bit.” Though you can’t blame that all on just the general story....

2. The Movie Format, Animation, and the Big Bad(s?)

Pretty much every review of Digimon Adventure Tri has touched on this, so I won’t get too deep into it. Needless to say, releasing this story as 6 movies hurt it immensely. It caused the story, the character development, the tones, to all feel disjointed and hard to follow, especially with the long wait times between each of them. They were released over 4 damn years, and even as a diehard fan, I found myself struggling to even remember what happened in past installments.

Of course, part of their plan with having the big gaps was to continually renew interest, causing people to want to go back and rewatch the past movies, or purchase them when they came out on dvd/blu-ray. And this would have worked, if it weren’t for the fact that these movies aren’t, well… Really well made.

The animation wasn’t awful, let’s get that out of the way. But it was very inconsistent, and you can tell where corners were cut to save money. It’s no more obvious than in the opening, where half of it had fantastic animation, while the other half looked like a fan film made in Flash.

All the disjointedness and inconsistent flow didn’t help the antagonists of the films either. It became extremely hard to tell who was good and who was bad at times. Was it Meicoomon, who had this deadly virus in her that was going to destroy both worlds? Was it Homeostasis, who wants to reset the Digital World, effectively wiping everything out? Was it Dark Gennai and the who King Drasil group, who want to just cause chaos? I’m pretty sure ends up really being them, but it’s not really mentioned until after everything’s taken care of. And if King Drasil is really the Big Bad person he’s supposed to be, than why was he defeated off school, during a time skip? It’s hard to really figure out who the baddie is when most of the final movie is taken up by Ms. Big Butt Angel Demon.

Which brings me to my final, and biggest, problem with Digimon Adventure Tri.

3. Mei and Meicoomon

These two are a waste of space, and the perfect definition of a Whipping Boy type character. She is not introduced to be particularly strong or special. Her entire purpose seems to be to fulfill two things: To suffer in place of the main characters, and to be a love interest to Tai since Sora marries Matt in the future. She is shown to be meek and unassuming, not talking much and acting shy around other people. At first, things aren’t so bad. Her interactions with Mimi helping her come out of her shell starts to establish a good character arc for her, and it seems like she is organically going to become a part of the group. But then Meicoomon ruins the fun.

Meicoomon is her cat Digimon, based off the Maine Coon. 70% of Meicoomon’s dialogue is her yelling “Mei!” I would tell your more about Meicoomon’s character, but that is it. She exists, then she becomes evil and has to be defeated, while Mei cries for four movies over the fact that Meicoomon is evil. That’s basically the long and short of it. By the end of the second movie, Mei is catatonic, and Meicoomon is a glitch monster who is destroying everything. The end.

What makes it even worse is the fact that, even by Digimon’s standards, her story isn’t that original! It’s basically just a reworked version of Wallace/Willis and Kokomon from the Digimon Hurricane Touchdown movie (third section of Digimon: The Movie in America), of a kid who’s Digimon friend becomes corrupted, and they are forced to destroy them to stop them. The only difference being that Wallace had two Digimon, and his story was over in 1 movie, while Mei’s dragged on for six of them.

All in all, I think that there is still potential for some good Digimon productions, both for Adventure and other continuities. The films seemed to do alright in the limited box office run in Japan, and they were popular enough to warrant another movie being made (which was announced in the middle of writing this). I’m hoping that does better, but I also hope that it’s the final send off for these characters. Two seasons and a handful of movies is enough for them, let’s give another cast a shot!

Also I still hold out hope for a Digimon Tamers continuation. One can dream~

[flakandforay]

HYYH: the Notes Theory

overall: i think it’s time to finally piece together all these HYYH: the Notes that were released as part of the new Love Yourself series

let’s start~

theory: so when we all thought that hey, this new series, there won't be anything linked to the 화양연화 series, boy, were we all wrong. so bighit decided to drop this hint in August on their official twitter, and then everyone was shocked because when we heard an upcoming comeback of a new series, we all thought that ‘hey maybe they would give it a rest but nope, its been 2 years and we are still on this HYYH series that leaves us many questions unanswered while creating more questions with no answers’.

but hey moving on, the hint finally showed us some new things to think about as bits and pieces fall into place - helping to connect scenes together while providing new ones to look at

so the first hint only shows us some parts of Seokjin’s life, specifically showing the year and a brief excerpt of what happened then.

Seokjin 13 June YEAR 22

We were all alone after returning from the sea.

We didn’t contact each other as if we planned it. We could only assume our existence by the graffiti left on the street, the brightly lit gas station and the sounds of the piano in the old building. That was when everything comes back to life. Taehyung’s eyes were ablaze, the way they looked at me as if they heard something unbelievable, Namjoon’s hand that tried to stop Taehyung, I couldn’t take it and threw a punch at taehyung.

We couldn’t find Taehyung after he dashed out, not even at the beach or guesthouse after I returned. broken glass cups, bloodstains that began to cling, smashed cookies that reminded me the incidents that happened a few hours before. A picture had fallen. We were laughing and smiling together in the picture with the sea as the background.

Today, I just passed by the gas station. There will be a day when we will meet again - the day when we were all laughing just like in that picture. There will be a day when I would be able to gather courage and confront myself. Whoever, now is not the time. Today, just like that day, The wind was blowing strongly. And in the next moment, just like a warning, my handphone rang. The picture that was hanging on my room mirror shook. hoseok’s name then appeared on my screen.

‘hyung, jungkook got into a car accident that night’

so here, several events have been cleared up. and actually, most of them could be released to the Wings Short films ( from Begin all the way to Awake ) and even inclusive of the Love Yourself: Highlight Reel and even in I Need U, the Prologue and Blood, Sweat, Tears JP. version.

clearly, some scenes were more evident inside the Blood, Sweat, Tears JP. version, with how Seokjin threw a punch to Taehyung and one could clearly tell that this might be the guesthouse that Seokjin was talking about here.

and in this translations, Seokjin mentions several familiar places - the gas station, sea, graffiti, sounds of a piano - clear symbolism that has been frequently used in bangtan’s themes. 

gas station - Namjoon in I Need U, the Prologue, BST JP. Version sea - bangtan in I Need U, Run, the Prologue, Love Yourself posters grafitti - Taehyung in Stigma, BST JP. Verison, Namjoon in Highlight Reel  piano - Yoongi and Jungkook in Highlight Reel, First Love 

even in these notes, it has been revealed that Jungkook has indeed gotten in a car accident, looks familiar? ( I Need U ) and that later on in the Highlight Reel, it has been revealed that Jungkook was at a hospital.

not to mention how in the Highlight Reel, Yoongi fell off the bed because he was shocked at what he read on his phone. 

interesting how Hoseok was the one reporting how Jungkook got into an accident when Hoseok himself seems to be in trouble with his overdosage of pills etc. 

and now, when the Love Yourself Her albums were released, it has been revealed that there were 4 versions of the HYYH: the Notes - L, O, V, and E that contained excepts of the members that were different than what bighit has posted. also, within these 4 versions, some of them having repeated excerpts but all members had 3 different excerpts in these 4 versions of the notes. 

what was interesting is that they all had at least 2 excepts of each member in each version and they all had the Years stated as well, some members being the same and some having different ones, depending.

but overall, one could see that the HYYH: the Notes gave input on each of the member’s lives while showing connections and the prominent pairings as seen inside. 

Seokjin by himself, Namjoon and Taehyung, Hoseok and Jimin and Yoongi and Jungkook which could already be seen in the Love Yourself posters, the unit ones especially and later hinted again in the highlight reel films. 

so time to look at them in depth starting with Seokjin and then the pairings - Yoongi and Jungkook, Hoseok and Jimin, Namjoon and Taehyung

note: i won't be repeating the same excepts of the members. 

Seokjin

L version 15 August YEAR 22    

 After coming out of the busy intersection, I came to an abrupt stop as I was about to pick up speed. The car behind me blared its horn and someone spat out curses yet it went unheard in the noise of the city. I took a right turn to an alley corner to see a florist shop. The shop didn’t seem to be opened yet. It wasn’t that I suddenly saw the store but rather it was if I discovered it afterwards.   

Inside the florist shop, there was construction still being done and the owner was organizing his documents. At that time, I had no real expectations. I had already travelled to several places, but not one florist knew of the flower’s existence. I could see a flower that had similar colours. However, I wasn’t looking for a flower with similar colours. The flowers had to be real. The owner looked at me for quite a bit when he heard the name of the flower and said that the florist shop isn’t officially open but he could deliver it to me. “Why do you need this flower?”   

I thought about it again as I turned the handle and got back on the road. I have a reason for needing that flower. There is only one reason. I want to make the person I give it to happy. I want to make the person smile. I want to be seen as a good person. I want to be a good person.

interesting how the note start off with this, a clear resemblance to the whole Smeraldo flower blog, highlight reel and love yourself poster and i love how it is centred on Seokjin in the end. it seems as though Seokjin holds some regrets as he wants to be a good person and make the person he gives the flower to happy, but who exactly is he giving the Smeraldo to? could it be Taehyung?

L version 2 March YEAR 19    

I followed my father into the principal’s office where it smelt damp. it has been 10 days since I came back from America. Based on the different school system, I heard that I will be entering one year later. “Please take care of my son.” My father placed his hand on my shoulders to keep me from moving. “The school is a dangerous place. There is a need for regulations.” The principal looked straight at me. As he talked, the wrinkled flesh around his cheeks and mouth sagged, and the interior of his lips was dark red. “Don’t you think so, Seokjin?” I was startled at the abrupt question and my father put in more strength in his hand on my shoulder. The grip was strong enough to make the veins pop out on his neck. “I believe you will do well.” The principal looked at me with such tenacity while my father’s hand on my shoulder gradually increased in strength. My shoulder felt it would break from how tightly my father’s grip was on me. My body was trembling and I broke into cold sweat. “You must always talk to me. I think you will be a great student, Seokjin.” The principal looked at me with an unsmiling face. “Yes.” I could barely squeeze out an answer, I wanted to disappear at that moment. I could hear my father and principal’s laughter. I couldn’t lift my head. I just stared at my father’s brown shoes and the black shoes of the principal. I didn’t know where the shining light was coming from. I was scared of that light.

then the 2nd part of the excerpt of Seokjin’s life is seen here. it’s clear that the whole phase of the boys being youthful is them when they were in high school, clearly with Seokjin being transferred to one after being in America for awhile. also, given the fact with the difference of school systems, it seemed as though Seokjin could have actually met the boys considering the fact that he had to enter one year later, hence possibly being in the same grade as Yoongi despite the age difference etc or even Hoseok and Namjoon depending. 

and it’s interesting how Seokjin’s father mentioned that the school is a dangerous place, but never gave an explanation as to why, also how the principal is ensuring that Seokjin would talk to him no matter what etc. it seemed as though Seokjin has had a tough time with a strict father and an uncaring principal that only pays lip service to appeal to his father. i feel that Seokjin has this fear instilled in him from his father considering that his father’s grip on him tightened throughout the meeting with the principal - clearly dictating Seokjin’s life in-depth and family background which isn't off to a good start. 

E Version 11 April YEAR 22

I came to the sea alone. The blue, broad sea was one that could be opened whenever in the viewfinder as it always had. It was all the same, the light that sparkled from the water, the wind from the pine forest. The only difference was that I was here alone. As soon as I pressed the shutter, the scenery in front of my eyes flickered, that moment, on that day, 2 years and 10 months before seemed to appear and disappear. That day when we were all sitting in front of the sea. Though we were tired and times were rough, we were together.  

I turned the car and stepped on the accelerator. I entered the tunnel and passed by a rest stop. When I reached vicinity of the school that we all attended, I opened the car window. It was a night in spring. The air was warm and the cherry blossoms fluttered in the trees that lined the walls of the school. I left and passed several intersections, made several left and right turns. In the distance, I could see the lights of the gas station where Namjoon works.

this is where Seokjin then visits Namjoon at the gas station which could be seen in the BST JP. version after he reflects about the rest of them when we went to the sea. 

question is why were things rough and tough back then? what triggered it? was it the mere fact that Taehyung killed his father that set a downward spiral effect on everyone? was it school as implied by the principal that it was a dangerous place? 

Yoongi

L Version 8 June YEAR 22 

I took off my t-shirt again. I looked in the mirror and it was not like me at all. The cotton shirt that was not my type had the word ‘Dream’ on it. No matter how you look at it, the red colour, the word, dream, the shirt didn’t fit me at all. Out of frustration, I pulled a cigarette and looked for my lighter. Since it wasn’t in the back pocket of my jeans, I looked inside my bag. (They) took it away. (They) took it from my hands without any constraint. (They) threw back to me were candy bars and this t-shirt.  

I messed up my hair and stood up when I heard the sound of a message. My heart began to beat faster as at the moment, my hand phone screen lit up brightly with a name that was 3 syllabuses. I broke my cigarette to check the message. In the next moment, I was laughing at the mirror. Wearing the tight t-shirt that had ‘Dream’ written on it, the red colour, I must have looked like an idiot.

it’s interesting that Yoongi is being seen with his cigarette habit and it seems as though he must have been seen as a juvenile delinquent as his pack of cigarettes have been taken away to only replace it with candy and some positive-looking t-shirt with the word ‘dream’ on it. he must have thought that his life was a laughing stock right there and then. 

not to mention that throughout this series, Yoongi is commonly seen with a lighter, a cigarette or a fire, let alone with the piano etc and his reckless behaviour - one similar to Taehyung but of course of a different level. 

L version 25 June YEAR 20

I opened the door of the bottom drawer with a pop and firstly, took out the bag that was placed inside. I turned the bag inside out and a dusty piano key fell out. I threw the half-burned piano key in the trashcan and laid down on bed. The fire in my heart wouldn’t cool down and so my breathing was ragged, and at some point, soot was smeared over my fingers.

After the funeral, I went back alone to the house that was set ablaze on fire. I entered my mother’s room to see the piano that was burned so badly, the shape was unrecognizable. I hesitantly sat down. I sat there for some time until the sunlight that entered through the window died down. Several keys rolled around in the last of the light. What kind of sound could be heard if I played the keys? I thought about my mother playing these keys a lot. I put one of them in my pocket and left the room.

From that moment on, 4 years has passed. The house has been quiet. Just like it was meant to be quiet. It was past 10 and so my father would have been asleep, afterwards everything held its breath. That was the rule of the house. It was hard for me to endure the silence. it also wasn’t easy to keep up with the stipulated times, regulations and forms. No matter how you looked at it, it was hard to be patient. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stand living in this house. After receiving pocket money from my father, eating with him, I got scolded by him. Rather than not talking to my father and go astray, I lacked the courage to abandon him and the house, to make freedom into reality and not just in words. 

I suddenly rose up from bed. I pulled out the piano key from the desk with a tissue paper. I opened the window and the night air rushed in. The wind that came in slapped me with the strength of whatever happened today. I threw the piano key in the air. Today I haven’t gone to school for 3 or 4 days. I heard the news of getting expelled. Now, I don’t know if I want to be kicked out of the house. I listened hard but I couldn’t hear the keys hitting the ground. No matter how much I have been thinking about it, I couldn’t imagine the sound the piano key would have made. No matter how much time has passed, the piano key would never make a sound again. I will never play the piano again.

here now, it shows Yoongi’s family background, clearly an abusive one as his father was an alcoholic, probably gotten worse with the death of his mother. it was known that his mother was the one who taught Yoongi the piano and it seemed as though with all the events happening in his life, Yoongi refuses to play the piano anymore for it only brought him back memories that he wished to forget. 

also, the news of Yoongi getting expelled could later be seen in Jungkook’s notes, hence the notion of them being in high school etc. 

O Version 7 April YEAR 22

I came to a stop after hearing the sound of a piano. The only sound that could be heard at the empty construction site was someone popping an oil drum. I knew the sound of the song that I had just played, but why did I think of that? My drunken footsteps stumbled. I closed my eyes and walked even more carelessly. As the heat of the fire grew stronger, the piano sound, the night air, the drunkenness fading away.

I opened my eyes at the sound of horn as a car grazed dangerously past me. In the confusion of the blazing headlight, the wind of the car’s passing and my drunkenness, I stumbled helplessly. I could hear the curses of the driver. As I came to a stop to curse back, I could no longer hear the sound of the piano. In spite of the sound of the blazing fire, the wind and the silence left after the car, the piano sound was gone. It stopped. Why did it stop? Who was playing the piano?

The sparks from the fire picked up its pace towards the oil barrel with one sound together. I could only look at the scene blankly. My face became flushed. Bang, it was at that moment when I heard a fist slamming on the piano keys. Instinctively, I looked behind. For a moment, my blood rushed that my breathing became uneven. The nightmares that I had when I was young. That was where I heard the sound.   

The next moment, I was running. It wasn’t of my own will that I ran towards the music shop and instinctively looked behind. This was something like I had done numerous times. It was a feeling that I had forgotten something important.   

The music store had a broken window. In front of the piano, someone was sitting there. It had been a few years yet I still recognized the person. The person was crying, fists being clenched. I didn’t want to be concerned with anyone’s life. I didn’t want to comfort anyone who was lonely. I didn’t want to mean anything to someone. I couldn’t protect the person and I had no confidence. Until the end, I had no confidence. I didn’t want to give pain. I didn’t want to receive pain.   

I slowly moved. I wanted to go back but before I know it, I started approaching the person. Just then a wrong note was heard. Jungkook lifted his head and looked at me. “Hyung”. This had been our first meeting since quitting high school.

the first few paragraphs would have depicted the scenes from Yoongi’s short film, First Love clearly. 

but the last paragraph it shows how Yoongi didnt get expelled as what the rumours mentioned but instead he quit on his own accord and that he haven't met Jungkook ( or even probably the rest ) since he had quit high school.

so this would mean that all the times that bangtan were together was when they were all in high school then, considering afterwards, they didnt meet anymore and hence Seokjin wished that they did etc, even Namjoon too ( which would be seen in his notes. )

Jungkook

L Version 16 July YEAR 22

I stood at the window and sang a bit to the song playing in my earphones. It has already been a week. Now I don’t need to see the lyrics to sing along. I took out one side of my earphones so that I could practice listening to my own voice. (someone) said that they liked it because it was beautiful but it only made me scratch my head in embarrassment. The July sunshine entered the big window. The green leaves of the trees flew and shone in the wind and everytime it fell on my face, it felt different. I closed my eyes. I sang while looking at the yellow, blue and green colours behind my eyes. Whether it was the lyrics or the sunshine, something tickled and stung my heart.

this part sounds exactly like Jungkook in the Highlight Reel as he takes in the earpiece and watches someone perform.

i feel as though this was when he might have forgotten Yoongi at this point; most likely Jungkook was suffering from the repercussions of the accident, as if he'd remember Yoongi, his notes would have directed to him straight away instead of saying ‘something tickled and stung my heart’. 

then again, it might be possible that Jungkook might have suffered from some memory loss given his accident consequences but i won't consider it as to the extent of amnesia. 

hence this could explain why he couldn't remember Yoongi as clearly but only the faint memories he has with him - including the piano. 

L Version  11 April YEAR 22

In the end, it turned out just like I wanted. I deliberately ran into the thugs on the street and got beaten up till I was satisfied. I laughed while I was getting beaten up, and they called me a crazy maniac. I leaned against the shutter door and looked at the sky. It was already night. There was nothing in the pitch-black sky. I could only see a clump of grass in the distance. It was on the side of the wind. It was just like me. I felt like I was going to cry so I forced myself to laugh instead.

I closed my eyes and saw my stepfather clear his throat. My stepbrother kicked me and laughed. My stepbrother’s relatives looked elsewhere or began to talk useless things. It was as if I wasn’t there, like my existence didn’t matter. In front of them, my mother was at a loss. I tried to stand up but instead dust rose and I coughed. It hurt as if I had been stabbed at my solar plexus. I went up to the roof of the construction site. The night city stretched out in a terrible colour. I climbed up on the railing with both of my arms stretched out. I had one leg out and I almost lost my balance. I thought I could die with just one step. If I died, it will all end. No one would be sad without me.

this could clearly explain Jungkook’s predicament in I Need U.

he gets beaten up to a pulp, relishing in the feeling since there’s not much difference to when he’s at home with an abusive stepfather and an equally-abusive stepbrother and a mother who couldn't do anything to protect Jungkook from them. 

O Version 25 June YEAR 20

I stroked the piano keys and smeared the dust. I put some strength in the finger, but the sound was different than of Hyung’s playing. It has been 10 days since Hyung stopped coming to school. I heard the rumours of him getting expelled. Namjoon Hyung, Hoseok Hyung didn’t say anything, I was afraid to ask. Two weeks before, Hyung and I were the only ones in the hideaway classroom when the teacher opened the door. It was a day for the parents to visit. I didn’t want to be there, so I went into the hideaway one. Hyung didn’t bother to look at me and kept on playing the piano, I took 2 desks and lied down and closed my eyes. Hyung and the piano seemed different but yet they seemed like one. While listening to Hyung’s playing, I wanted to cry.

The tears threatened to fall then the sound of the door slammed open and the piano playing stopped. I was hit in the face, stumbled backwards and eventually fell. As I crouched to withstand the violence, the voice stopped. When I lifted my head, I saw Hyung standing in front of me and pushing the teacher’s shoulder. Over Hyung’s shoulder, I saw the teacher’s shocking expression.

I pushed the piano key. It was supposed to mimic Hyung’s playing. Was Hyung really expelled? Will he come back? Hyung said it was okay if he was beaten up a few times. What if I wasn’t there, would Hyung not stand up to the teacher? What if I wasn’t there, would I still hear Hyung playing the piano?

what’s interesting is that now it is revealed that the boys had met several times in the hideaway classroom but interesting to note that Yoongi and Jungkook were there on the day when parents would visit. 

of course, given their family backgrounds, it seemed unlikely that their parents would - Yoongi having an alcoholic father and Jungkook with a mother who was scared and an abusive stepfather.

so here it seems to show Jungkook’s regrets, thinking that he caused Yoongi to eventually quit high school, he blames himself for Yoongi not playing the piano anymore when actually Yoongi stopped playing for many reasons. 

and here, it shows that Jungkook was concerned with Yoongi possibly getting expelled from school etc and it also reveals Namjoon and Hoseok in this picture. it even explains how Yoongi has already stopped himself from going to school yet no one knows the reason for his absence, perhaps Namjoon and Hoseok might have an idea but Jungkook clearly doesn't. why did Yoongi stop coming to school? is it because of the funeral as mentioned in his notes? 

Hoseok

L Version 31 May YEAR 22

I reflexively turned my gaze away from the breathtaking wind. After dancing for a long time, often, I am out of breath but it is not that context. I thought I was similar to my mother. No, it wasn’t a thought or a perception, it couldn’t be described or explained. I couldn’t look at the face of my friend that I had known for 10 years already. We learned dance together, failed together, been frustrated and gained strength together. We slumped to the floor that was covered in sweat, we threw towels at each other and cracked jokes. It felt like a bothering sensation that I hadn’t felt in a while, and I hurriedly stood up. As soon as I reached the corner, I leaned back against the wall and stood there. I made an effort to calm my breathing. I could hear, “Where are you going, Hoseok-ah?” The voice. Nevertheless, I thought it could have been a voice. The voice calling, “Hoseok-ah”. A voice that I couldn’t recall now. It was a voice that brought me back to when I was nine years old.

here it reveals a bit of Hoseok and Jimin’s close relationship, being stuck together for some time as they shared memories for 10 years. 

it also showed as though Hoseok seemed to experience some form of anxiety or possibly an anxiety attack as he tries to calm his breathing after being triggered by something and it shows as though his memory came back to him - clearly a scene from the Highlight Reel, the first one to be exact. 

in which it shows his own mother abandoning him at the amusement park, but no one knows why his own mother did it. 

L Version 15 September YEAR 20

Jimin’s mother walked across back and forth in the emergency room. After checking the name of the headboard of the bed and the IV drip was in place, she placed a blade of grass on Jimin’s shoulder. I hesitantly approached her, feeling that I should tell her why Jimin was in the emergency room, due to a seizure at the bus stop. Jimin’s mother must have discovered my presence and gave a long gaze. Regardless, I didn’t know why I was hesitant. I heard Jimin’s mother thanking me and she turned back to him.

Jimin’s mother looked at my face again, the doctor and nurse began to move the bed and at that time, I followed. Jimin’s mother once again thanked me and pushed my shoulder. It wasn’t exactly a push but more of a gentle touch as she pulled her hand away. Yet suddenly, I could feel an invisible line being drawn between her and myself. The line was clear and solid. It was cold and sturdy. It was a line I could never climb over. It has been 10 years since I had been in an orphanage. I knew that much with my body, sight and air. In that moment, I took a step back and collapsed on the floor. She looked at me absentmindedly. She was a beautiful and small person yet her shadow was large and chilly. The shadow fell over me and collapsed on the emergency room floor. I couldn’t see that Jimin’s bed had been moved outside. I didn’t see Jimin come back to school anymore.

now in Hoseok’s HYYH notes, it is revealed that Jimin is now in the hospital emergency room. it seems as though Jimin has a condition that Hoseok is painfully aware about but somehow the frequency of Jimin’s condition occurring seems to go unnoticed by Jimin’s mother. 

it seemed weird as though Hoseok became emotionally attached to Jimin’s own mother, possibly because Hoseok didnt have his mother since she abandoned him at the age of 9, but whats interesting is that in these notes, Hoseok pays more attention to how Jimin’s mother reacts than to Jimin.

but note that in the end, Jimin stopped going to school as well, same as Yoongi but for different reasons. 

O Version 25 February YEAR 21

I danced without taking my eyes off my reflection in the mirror. The me in the mirror had his feet off the ground, lifted up and was free from the standards and looks of the world. My body moved in sync with the music, there was nothing important, nothing that made my heart beat in my chest.

The first time that I danced was when I was 12. It must have been a talent show incident. My friends were pulled onto stage. I could still remember that day when I heard the applause and cheers of joy, I have never felt so confident. Then again, that was when I moved my body to the music and had fun doing it. I would only learn much later that the joy was not a joy that came from the applause but from within me.

The me outside the mirror is weighed down by many things. The feet that have leave the ground for a seconds, when I hate, I laugh and when I cry, I smile. There was no need for me to take my medicine since I could collapse anywhere. And so, when I dance, I try not to take my eyes off the mirror. The moment I can be my truest self. The moment where I could throw away everything and I could fly, the moment where I believe I could be happy. I protect these moments.

now this explains Hoseok’s love for dancing, when he dances, he’s in his truest form of happiness. it seemed as though dancing became an outlet for him to relive stress but it also explained that his condition is already in a bad state since he could collapse anywhere even if he took medicine, which could have explained his collapse on the bridge in the I Need U video, that maybe he didnt collapse and die due to overdosage of his pills or medicine, but because he couldn't help but to collapse since it is due to his condition.

then this would mean that Hoseok is still alive after all. 

Jimin

L Version 3 July YEAR 22

In the end, I sprawled onto the floor. I turned off the music and my surroundings went quiet, all I could hear was the beating of my heart. I pulled out my hand phone and played the choreography dance video that I had learned in the morning. Hyung’s movements were so smooth and accurate in the video.  

That was the result of his countless hours and sweat of practicing, and now since I wasn’t anywhere near as him, I was jealous. However, understanding and hoping are different and so I sighed often. Again I stood up. I imitated the turn as he had done it but I kept twisting my steps. I kept on making mistakes at the parts where we have to match the flow. We decide to match again tomorrow but until then I wanted to be seen as serious. Rather that a playful phrase, I wanted to be complimented as ‘better than expected’, I wanted to be recognized as someone who was equal and serious, one that could match with Hyung.

Jimin’s notes again places emphasis on his pairing with Hoseok, especially when it comes to them dancing. it shows how Jimin is filled with envy as Hoseok’s dancing skills are undoubtedly better than Jimin, which could explain the highlight reel in which Jimin practices non-stop even as he gets injured by the nail. 

L Version 30 August YEAR 19

When Hoseok hyung was on the phone, I entertained myself by kicking the dirt on the floor. I could see hyung’s face as he giggled saying ‘Park Jimin has grown a lot’. Walking back from school to home would take 2 hours. If by bus, it would be 30 minutes and if we took the big road, it would only be 20 minutes. Yet, hyung insisted on taking a route through winding alleys, climbing over low hills and over pedestrian overpasses. Last year, I transferred schools after getting discharged from the hospital. School was far away from home and I didn’t know anyone. I thought it was alright. I had already transferred schools a few time and I didn’t know when I would be hospitalized again so I didn’t think it was anything special.

That’s when I met Hoseok hyung, it was a little while after the new semester had started. Hyung would make it a point to walk with me for those 2 hours together. I realized then that our houses aren’t in the same direction a long while afterwards. I couldn’t ask hyung why. i could only wished that with our shadows side by side for 2 hours and the sunshine above us would stretch the day a little longer.

Hyung was still on the phone, I kicked his shadow and ran away. Hyung ended his call and began to chase me. The hot sunshine melted our ice creams and the sound of cicadas stung my ears. Suddenly, I felt afraid. How many days are there left?

these notes explain Jimin’s backstory with Hoseok. how Jimin meets Hoseok at school, Hoseok taking his time to actually walk Jimin back home etc, even though it was long

one could see how unconventional Hoseok was as he walked with Jimin back home - choosing unfamiliar methods rather than the usual public transportation. nevertheless, Jimin expresses his comfort in Hoseok as he enjoys his company as they walk back. 

but at the last paragraph, why is Jimin counting down the days? is it the days till he gets back to the hospital or before he moves again?

i wouldn't be surprised if he does move considering he has transferred schools several times with his condition and eventually in Hoseok’s HYYH: the notes, he did mention that the time that Jimin was hospitalised, it was the last time he saw Jimin. could Jimin’s condition be so intense that he has to move places all the time? or could it be because his own mother thought that was for the best for him?

O Version 28 September YEAR 20

I stopped counting the days since I was hospitalized. Counting is something you would do when you want to get out or there is hope of getting out. The trees and leaves were far outside the window and based on the clothes of people, I think that not much time has passed. At most, a month tops. Sometimes I see myself wearing the uniform though it was nothing special.  Maybe it was because of the medicine, everything looked boring and dull.  But today was a special day. The kind of day you write in a diary. However, I didn’t have one and I didn’t want the problems that come with writing in one. Today was the first time I lied. I looked at the doctor’s eyes and pretended to be gloomy. “I don’t remember anything.”

here it tells that Jimin is now in the hospital for quite some time as he doesn't bother much about how long he has been inside. not to mention that this day was significant as he fakes his ‘amnesia’ or memory loss to the doctors. question is, why did he lie to the doctors? 

anyone would know how serious this lie could be because it could lead to false diagnosis by the doctors who would have to relay this to his family and/or friends and lead to detrimental consequences. could he possibly be guilt-tripping Hoseok then as revenge? but whatever for? why must Jimin lie? and what condition does he have to actually place him in the hospital for some time? 

Namjoon

L Version 30 June YEAR 22

I looked a bit strange as I pushed the open button of the door as if my own hands had a will of their own. There are these kind of moments. Moments that I felt have repeated for numerous times, though it was the first. The elevator door close before they opened again for people to push their way in. Among them, I looked for the person who tied her hair with a yellow rubber band. I didn’t press the button knowing that the person would be there, but I thought the person would certainly be there. I moved back, one step at a time. When my back hit the cold elevator wall, I looked up and saw the yellow rubber band.

A person’s back tells a lot of stories. I had known a few of them. There were some that I could guess yet there were some that were left alone after everything is over. I thought that you know someone when you can read everything just from his back. Then, wouldn’t there be someone who would know me just from reading my back? As I lifted my head, our gazes met in the mirror. In a flash, she avoided my eyes. This kind of thing happens often. When I lifted my head again, I only saw my face. I couldn’t see my back.

one could tell that these notes remind of the Highlight Reel as Namjoon follows this girl, leaving the yellow hair band as well which looks so damn familiar. 

i realise that Namjoon’s HYYH: the notes are very vague, broad if you would call it, his notes in this case dont really explain anything about whats been happening but it just explains what he thinks - his thoughts actually on how he sees things 

now I'm guessing that the lady he saw was someone he saw frequently but not enough to call a friend, let alone an acquaintance. i guess to Namjoon, people usually acknowledge his presence, but not enough to know his story enough.

that last line ‘I couldn't see my back’ to me signifies that he cant see his own story, hence he doesn't know whats going to happen in the next chapter in his life - the true unstableness and fragility of youth is what he is experiencing now.

L Version 15 May YEAR 20

As I walked across the storage classroom that became a hideout for those of us who had nowhere to go, I set a few chairs straight. I wiped away the dust off the fallen desk with my palm while I was at it. Endings make people emotional. Today is the last day I go to school. It has been decided 2 weeks earlier that we would move. I didn’t know if I could possibly return. I wasn’t sure if I could see my hyungs or younger brothers.

I folded a piece of paper in half and placed it on a desk, I even got a pencil out but I didn’t know what words to leave behind, and so I let time pass. While I was scribbling useless words, my pencil lead snapped with a sound. “You have to keep living” on the paper with the marks of the graphite lead that I had scribbled with realizing. In between the black dust powder and scribbles were stories of poverty, parents, dongsaengs and moving.

I crumpled the paper and placed it in my pocket and then I stood. I pushed the desk away and the dust rose. As I began to leave, I blew onto the dirty window and wrote three characters. No goodbye would ever be enough yet no matter what I say, it would be conveyed as ‘”Let’s see each other again”. More than it being a promise, it was just a wish.

now Namjoon’s notes makes more room for explanation - again a school setting here, most likely high school. it seems as though Namjoon is leaving them for good considering he is struggling to say his goodbyes. 

but whats interesting is that he didnt officially say his goodbye face to face to all of them but rather leaving a note behind in the storage classroom that became their hideout ( as seen in Jungkook’s notes - ‘Two weeks before, Hyung and I were the only ones in the hideaway classroom when the teacher opened the door. )

also, the fact that Namjoon wrote on a piece of paper ‘You have to keep living’ - similar to the one who wrote on the mirror in the Prologue ‘You have to survive’. Namjoon is begging them to stay alive, but question is, why do the boys not want to? 

of course, some of them have lost the will to live given their family backgrounds, but for the rest of them, why do not they not want to live? 

also, the fact that Namjoon mentions in his notes ‘No goodbye would ever be enough yet no matter what I say, it would be conveyed as ‘”Let’s see each other again”. More than it being a promise, it was just a wish.’ 

he seemed so sure that the boys won't meet again at all, what caused them to be so astray? could it be something that one of them had done eg. Taehyung that driven them all away? or was it due to multiple reasons and circumstances including family background that just led them all further away from each other? 

one by one, it is revealed that the boys indeed hadn't met each other for a while, Yoongi and Jungkook, in which Jungkook saw Yoongi for the first time since he had quit high school at the rundown music store, Hoseok didnt see Jimin anymore once he left the hospital, Namjoon left as well, Seokjin too and Taehyung too as he ran away from the guesthouse. 

why were they all leaving? 

V Version 11 April YEAR 22

I was looking for a t-shirt for a while until Taehyung reached for a t-shirt behind me. It was a shirt that had the same printed letters as the one that I was wearing right now. With an awkward laugh, he removed the ripped shirt. In the faint illumination of the lights that hung from the trailer ceiling, I momentarily caught a glimpse of his bruised back. Hoseok looked at me with a shocked expression. Taehyung put on my shirt and looked at his reflection in the dirty mirror. Then he laughed. 

“This punk. He arrived late after getting caught by the police for doing graffiti.” I pretended to hit Taehyung and he pretended to be sorry. Yoongi Hyung who had been sitting at the corner of the trailer, slowly approached Taehyung and smacked his shoulder.

again, Namjoon and Taehyung’s pairing is prominent here. but here one could tell, this looks like Stigma in which Taehyung was arrested by the police for doing graffiti - something that Taehyung was commonly doing throughout the whole series ever since the Prologue etc. 

even in Run, it could be seen that Namjoon used to partake in Taehyung’s reckless activities that got them arrested, but it seemed as though the rest of them were already used to what Taehyung does - even if it was illegal. 

Taehyung

L Version 25 June YEAR 22

I deliberately delayed my steps as I sensed to the small steps that was following me. This was the 3rd time already at the convenience store. If there was something different, it was that today they ran away when they saw me. They hung around a vacant spot behind the convenience store but as I turned up, they hid themselves again. They hid themselves well but their shadows were reaching to the front of the store. I let out a laugh. I pretended that I didn’t see but they began to follow me.

I entered a narrow alley. This is the the only place in the neighbourhood without a broken streetlamp. The alley was long and the streetlamp was somewhere in the middle with my shadow stretching. The shadow now stretches behind me. It could have been stretching all the way to the person who was following me with ragged breath. I started walking a little bit faster. As I passed the streetlamp, my shadow disappeared beneath my feet. Not long after, a shadow that wasn’t mine appeared on the cement floor. I stopped walking and so did the movements. The two shadows of different heights stopped side by side.

I said, “I’m going to wait until you come here.” The shadow behind me leaped out of shock. Then it became still as if it wasn’t here. “I can see everything.” I pointed to the shadow. The footsteps became nearer and deliberately were noisy. I laughed.

here it shows Taehyung is being followed but question is, who is the one following him? could it be the police which would then explain him getting arrested? but then again, looking at the dates, Taehyung was being followed, possibly this is when Taehyung ran away from the guesthouse since based on Seokjin’s notes - 13 June YEAR 22 ( ironically, bangtan’s debut date ), so technically, how long were they trying to find Taehyung? 

not to mention, it seemed as though Taehyung knew who was following him since he had the audacity to even provoke him. 

L Version 29 December YEAR 10

I took my shoes and threw my bag and went into the main room. My father was really there. I didn’t think of how long he was going to return or where he had been. I only raced recklessly into his embrace. I don’t remember clearly afterwards. Whether it was the smell of alcohol, the cursing or the slap to my cheek. I didn’t know what was going on. He reeked of alcohol and his pants were foul. His eyes were bloodshot and his beard was growing wildly. He hit my face with his large hand. He asked what I was looking at. He then lifted me in the air. His crimson eyes were frightening but I was so terrified that I couldn’t even cry. This wasn’t my father. No, this is my father. But then again, he wasn’t. My two feet shoot in the air. In the next moment, my head crashed hard into the wall and I slumped to the floor. It was as if my head exploded. My vision flickered and I blinked a few times. My head was filled with the sound of my father’s harsh breathing.

here it shows that Taehyung since young already had a broken family background with the father being abusive towards him since he was young. hence, to Taehyung, he might even have grown up thinking that violence is acceptable - or a way of love but of course in his notes, he mentions that he felt scared of his own father, his alcoholic and abusive father. 

V Version 22 May YEAR 22

I passed by a pine tree forest as Hyung picked up a phone call and started to lag behind. Nowadays, there were more times like this. He moved far away so that he could pick up the call where others couldn’t eavesdrop. I deliberately slowed down ad hid myself off towards the ocean. Hyung wouldn’t be able to see me when he passed by. “He’s only one year younger than me. No, I don’t really care. Anyway, I’m not going to be the one taking the responsibility, just do whatever is best.”

Something cold slithered down my spine. It felt as if everything in the world crumbled and crashed with a bang. It felt as if I was floating alone in the deep ocean. It was scary and frightening. I was miserable and insignificant. I was angry. I couldn’t contain my anger. I wanted to cause a scene. I wanted to smash something, to hit something, to wreck myself. I was always afraid. That my father’s blood would run in me. I thought that maybe his violence was what I inherited. It seemed that something was stabbing my tight defenses.

the thing about Taehyung’s notes here is that he doesn't specific which Hyung is he mentioning - of course the more probably answer is that it would be Namjoon but at the same time for some reason, it could also be Seokjin. if you haven't noticed but theres also a really subtle pairing of Taehyung and Seokjin as seen in Seokjin’s notes and confirmed by the BST JP. version. 

but of course, based on this notes, this happened before the whole guesthouse, considering the dates. but who exactly is this Hyung talking to, and why is it about Taehyung? could it be because of his juvenile delinquent actions and how Namjoon/Seokjin is trying to ail him out? but who is taking responsibility and for what action must the person take the responsibility ?

now looking at the notes and the dates and years, ( i doubt the years reflect their ages because it wouldn't make much sense considering the high school system, the highest age is 18 and not 19. ) 

Seokjin - 13 June YEAR 22,  15 August YEAR 22,  2 March YEAR 19,  11 April YEAR 22

Yoongi - 8 June YEAR 22, 25 June YEAR 20, 7 April YEAR 22

Jungkook - 16 July YEAR 22, 11 April YEAR 22, 25 June YEAR 20

Hoseok - 31 May YEAR 22, 15 September YEAR 20, 25 February YEAR 21

Jimin - 3 July YEAR 22, 30 August YEAR 19, 28 September YEAR 20

Namjoon - 30 June YEAR 22, 15 May Year 20, 11 April YEAR 22

Taehyung - 25 June YEAR 22, 29 December YEAR 10, 22 May YEAR 22

now, arranging them in a timeline 

29 December YEAR 10 - Taehyung 2 March YEAR 19 - Seokjin 30 August YEAR 19 - Jimin 15 May YEAR 20 - Namjoon 25 June YEAR 20 - Yoongi  25 June YEAR 20 - Jungkook 15 September YEAR 20 - Hoseok 28 September YEAR 20 - Jimin 25 February YEAR 21 - Hoseok 7 April YEAR 22 - Yoongi 11 April YEAR 22 - Seokjin 11 April YEAR 22 - Jungkook 11 April YEAR 22 - Namjoon 22 May YEAR 22 - Taehyung 31 May YEAR 22 - Hoseok 8 June YEAR 22 - Yoongi 13 June YEAR 22 - Seokjin 25 June YEAR 22 - Taehyung 30 June YEAR 22 - Namjoon 3 July YEAR 22 - Jimin 15 August YEAR 22 - Seokjin

so on 25 June YEAR 20, the incidents of Yoongi coming back from a funeral to him drinking and drowning his grief led him to the broken music store - to the sound of Jungkook trying to play the piano - the first time he has seen Yoongi since he quit high school 

then on 11 April YEAR 22, Seokjin has passed the gas station, the one that Namjoon used to work at, and he wishes for them to meet sometime soon as he gathers courage, as he returned from the sea and on the same day, Jungkook ran into the thugs to get beaten up, just as how he wanted it to be. also, on this day, Taehyung got himself arrested and was late to meeting Namjoon and Yoongi who both brushed off Taehyung’s earlier arrest. but later on 13 June YEAR 22, Seokjin found out from Hoseok that Jungkook has gotten into an accident and that the boys haven't met up with each other for some time already, much like when Taehyung ran out from the guesthouse. 

interesting that so much has happened in YEAR 22, but the rest of the details have yet to be filled out, and im still awaiting for bangtan’s upcoming albums who could then fill these gaps. 

[Photo Source] Bighit Entertainment  Credits: maxine ☕️ DO NOT REPOST ©

[cloudminister]

Technical SEO: 11 Best Practices

SEO, Search Engine Optimization, who owns a website, must be very familiar with it, right? SEO is basically what helps you increase the crowd on your page or website.

But have you heard anything like Technical SEO? It said to perk up the ranking of the pages in the search engines like Google by dealing with the technical aspects. Fulfilling the basic requirements of Search Engines (like a faster website, indexing, and improved scrolling) are all covered under technical optimization.

With every other day passing, these requirements are relentlessly getting more and more refined, so does the part of Technical SEO, which creates a perfect marketing aura to your website or page to excel in search engine results.

 Few Technical SEO Best Practices to Implement

1. Guarantees that your websites’ content can be crawled and indexed

Search engines discover the updates and latest content with the help of a team called crawlers and spiders, and the process is referred to as crawling. The search engine then indexes the content if it is valuable. If your website content is not there in the index, no user can find that.

You must not have blocked search engines to crawl or index the content on your page. Search engines got informed about the pages they can crawl via a file named Robots.txt. To check yours, you can search yourwebsite.com/robots.txt. Google Search Console is where all the blocked pages by robot.txt can be found in the coverage report. In case there is any link that is needed to unblock, robots.txt can be edited or removed.

Further, a search engine can’t index a page until the x-robots header and Meta robots are set to “noindex” in the On-page data report of a free SEO Toolbar, Ahref’s. The indexability report can be checked easily by running a crawl and Site Audit in the same tool.

2. HTTPS Use

The data sent amid a website and visitor is encrypted by HTTPS to secure susceptible information like personal details, card details, etc. from threats. Knowing HTTPS benefits, HTTPS has been there in ranking factors for years now.

Navigate to https:www.yourwebsite.com, and the lock icon on the loading indicates that your website uses HTTPS, but if it says NOT SECURE in red color, you will require installing TSL/SSL certificates. Some WordPress sites provide that free when you purchase a domain name. LetsEncrypt also gives you one free of cost. Otherwise, you can grab fully managed vps hosting for a secure HTTPS connection.

NOT SECURE warning in grey color represents that regardless of the page running over HTTPS, its other loading resource files like CSS and images run over HTTP. To know all the predefined SEO issues on other pages, crawl your website on the Ahrefs Webmaster tool.

3. Getting rid of duplicate content issues

As simple as it sounds, the same content appearing on the internet on multiple websites. Though Google has confirmed it multiple times that they don’t charge you any penalty for duplicate content, there are many other issues that duplicate content can cause like;

Wasted crawl budget

Undesired URL’s in search results

Outranking your website due to Scraped or syndicated content

Backlink Dilution

To check open Coverage Report in Google Search Consoles, it will show you duplicate URL’s recognized by Google, but to check for other duplicate URL issues that Google has not identified, go through Duplicate Content Report in Ahregs Webmaster Tools.

4. Generating a Sitemap

All the crucial content of your website is listed on a sitemap in most commonly XML files. In 2019, a Google representative confirmed the sitemaps to be the second most relevant URL sourcing for at least Google, at reason being orphan pages that Google cannot find via crawling. Having internal links to crawlable pages is essential for spiders to see that.

In WordPress, a sitemap can be generated using SEO plug-ins like RankMath, whereas Squarespace, Wix, Shopify are some advanced CMS that automatically create a sitemap.

Using canonical tags wherever possible helps fight duplicate issues as in sitemaps, Google recognizes URLs as canonicals.

5. Hreflang to specify the language of the content

Specific Geographical targeting of a webpage can be done via an HTML attribute like Hreflang that helps other language versions of the same page or website get indexed and not to be counted as duplicate content by Google.

HReflang also helps to improve rankings in other countries by allowing the multilingual versions of the website to share the same signal through a cluster share.

Hreflang can be implemented by just adding the suitable Hreflang tags to the page versions you have.

6. HTTP to HTTPS redirection

If a website is running over the HTTPS version, it might still be available to those who use HTTP. But what’s the point if your website’s non-secure version is still accessible to the visitors?

Try running your website with HTTP, and if it is accessible, then HTTP to HTTPs redirection is required. Otherwise, you would have been automatically redirected to the HTTPs version. For redirection, it requires a specific code added to the .htaccess file of your site. However, WordPress is much simpler, where Address and site address can be changed to https easily in General Settings. You can also get managed vps server provider for a secure connection easily.

7. Schema markup for “rich snippets.”

“Rich Snippet” is referred to that extra information that appears below some websites in search results like URL, ratings, review, description, etc. which sometimes improve click-through rate as well. In general, schema markup helps the search engines identify and display your content in the search outcomes. When you provide Google with accurate information about your page or website via schema markup, it might make you qualified for rich snippets.

8. Orphaned Page issues

Earlier above, I mentioned that as orphan pages have no links internally on your website from crawlable pages, the crawlers cannot find or mark them for search results.

Even most of the auditing tools are sometimes also unable to search these pages as they are more likely to work similarly to the search engines. Using CMS as a URL source in the ahrefs Site audit helps you to check these.

Read More: How to install centos web panel on centos 7?

Conduct a crawl, and when done, look for the orphan pages in the Links Report. Important URLs must be incorporated in your website’s site structure, adding internal links in basic. Unimportant URLs can be ignored, deleted, or even redirected, depends on you.

9. Loading Speed

As confirmed in many reports, today’s generation’s attention span has decreased to 8 seconds only; they want everything quick and in one click. They get easily annoyed with slow loading websites, so page loading speed is a crucial factor for ranking since 2010 in PCs and 2018 in smartphones.

To resolve a complicated factor like this, you got to use advanced tools and metrics to boost speed. Google’s Pagespeed Insights can be a perfect, reasonable option for beginners that tell you about the loopholes and what improvements can be made. Further, it scores your page based on performance. However, here I have wrapped up some things that you can ensure for an improved page speed:

Installing a caching plug-in to help deliver the files to the visitors efficiently and in no time; WP Super Cache and WP Rocket are quite options to use in WordPress.

Start using a faster DNS provider like Cloudflare, which lets you create a free account as well. A Content Distribution Network, i.e., CDN, stores all your web page copies on servers globally via Cloudflare. What it will do is it will make the nearest server accessible to the visitor for faster file loading.

Minification of files (HTML, JavaScript, and CSS) via WP Rocket

Images are mostly the most massive files on a web page, making it essential to compress them for loading time reduction. Try using Shortpixel for image compression.

10. Schema for knowledge graph inclusion

Google has its database as a knowledge graph where it evaluates millions and billions of web searches for relevance (relationship of one entity to another). Use Yoast and RankMath like WordPress Plug-ins via Schema markup generator to add an organization markup.

11. Nofollow Internal Links

Nofollow links are meant to endorse other WebPages to get the pass along ranking credit. The Nofollow links flag those external links. If the internal links are nofollowed, then it would do more harm than good by making it an orphaned content that cannot be crawled and so not can be indexed. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools helps you find the related issued via its Links Report which is already mentioned above.

Final Verdicts

There is a lot much more to add to this article, which we could not conclude as Technical SEO is a vast and sophisticated topic. Thus, above, we have tried to squeeze down the significant mishaps and solutions to improve your website’s performance as much we could do.

[metawitches]

In episode 6 of season 7, Agents of SHIELD continues to celebrate July 4, 1976 in the Lighthouse. Coulson and May are interrogated by Rick Stoner while the Chronicoms quietly steal the faces and personalities of SHIELD agents. Mack and Elena break his parents out of the cell Hydra and the Chronicoms have locked them in. Deke discovers that Nana Jemma has become a cyborg. Enoch helps Nana Jemma with her malfunctioning cybernetic implant, Diana, which helps her stop thinking about her missing husband, Bobo Fitz.

I need one of those implants. This is a fun season, but I miss Fitz. What if they can’t get back to him at the end of this adventure? Will he be lost in time and space FOREVER? Isn’t the real world bad enough without making us worry that FitzSimmons won’t find their way back together???  #BringFitzHome

Recap

We begin inside the synapses that make up the strands Sibyl manipulates between her hands when she acts as an oracle, which is just super cool. She speaks of the patterns followed by all of life, from oceans to leaves, then asks Luke if he can sense the living energy of the new world he now stands on.

I admire her optimism that’s he’s more than a soulless machine.

He’s soulless, but has the overdramatic streak typical of Chronicoms. He tells her all he feels is the death of their hopes and dreams because she failed them miserably with her bad predictions and now she’s allowed SHIELD to bring down Project Insight.

Truly, there is nothing better than a poetic but restrained soulless monster. Luke is beginning to come into his own. The Chronicoms have developed into a delightful race of Data-Spock style extremely understated over emoters, lost children forever searching the universe for the place where they truly belong. I still think the war would end immediately if each Chronicom were assigned a human best friend.

Luke is sad about Freddy’s death, too, which is sweet. Sibyl is patient with him, trying to reassure him that she sees 10 steps ahead, plus all that other stuff from Freddy’s villain monologue last episode. Luke has read the Predictor pamphlet and thinks he knows the truth.

Sibyl helps him see more clearly, reminding him that Daisy and Sousa have been captured by Nathaniel Malick, Shield was forced to reveal their location and Mack will come to the Lighthouse to retrieve his parents.

The Shield team is under pressure and separated. They will make fatal mistakes soon.Sibyl instructs Luke to begin the next phase of their plan. They must continue to adapt.

He leaves his virtual reality session with her. We see him remove his hands from 2 ports in the Chronicom time ship, then activate the wake cycle for several hunters. There are dozens of Chronicoms in storage in this room of the ship.

In the Lighthouse Command Center, Stoner’s agents discover that Insight is down. Stoner orders them to find the ship that took it out. May and Coulson are brought to him as prisoners. Coulson tries again to convince Stoner that alien robots are responsible for Insight, so it needed to be stopped.

Stoner still can’t see himself as the villain in a space age Bond conspiracy. He blames Chastity for the loss of the steak he’s using to stop the swelling in the eye she punched in episode 5.

May is forced to admit that Chastity McBride isn’t her real name, which is just a sad, sad time for all of us.

I wanted Patrick Warburton to say her full alias, with relish, everytime he spoke to her, all episode. Or all season. May could reveal her true name at the end of the episode (or season), when she tells him her rank.

Then my fan fiction begins and it’s a private session, so none of you are invited. Sorry.

In the meantime, we discover the Chronicoms gave SHIELD some futuristic space tracking tech which allows them to track the Zephyr now that it’s revealed its location once. SHIELD’s goose is cooked! So far, no one has made a move against them, even though they haven’t recloaked because the quinjet was docking, but it’s only a matter of time.

Jemma orders Enoch, who’s in the pilot’s seat, to recloak, then turns to Deke and Elena. She’s surprised they didn’t bring Malick back with them. Elena tries to cover for Deke, but he admits straight out that he shot Malick dead. Mack is on his way to rescue his parents and not okay with the idea of murder. He won’t even pause for a quick debriefing of the mission, which is part of his role as director.

Elena would have brought nuance to the story, had she told it to Mack.

He decides that there’s no possibility of extenuating circumstances and grounds Deke in the Zephyr.  Mack ignores the fact that Deke knows the Lighthouse best, which makes him a good choice for this mission. In Mack’s mind, Freddy had 2 sons who just lost their father, thanks to Deke’s impulsiveness. He’s worried the Chronicoms may become impulsive with his parents, too.

Mack is also probably flashing back to everything he never liked about Fitz’s moral judgements. Fitz always threw tough moral decisions into stark relief for Mack and highlighted the complexities, which Mack wanted to ignore in favor of harsh black and white lines. Fitz would come down on the side of the greater good for a very inclusive all, no matter the personal cost to a few individuals, while Mack would come down on the side of humans and the least violence toward them first, no matter the outside cost.

With Jemma being the one exception. Fitz would let the world end rather than let her be hurt.

Deke is a pragmatist who chooses the method that will work best in a particular situation, but his talents are in analysis and adaptation, so his mind is open and scanning for the best solution among the available options. Like his grandparents, he’s not judgemental about who he saves or cares about. He judges “people” as individuals.

Now Mack is going into a base filled with SHIELD agents and Chronicoms who will both see him as the enemy and who he might not be able to tell apart. Mack is fine with killing robots and non humans (according to his own fluctuating definition of who is human and who isn’t), but doesn’t like to kill humans ever and hates collateral damage.

This mission is a nightmare for him, one which he’s taking out on Deke.

Elena brings up that the Chronicoms are using Mack’s parents as bait to lure him to the Lighthouse. She’s not going to let him go in alone.

Before he leaves, Mack asks about Daisy and Sousa, but Jemma hasn’t heard from them. He tells her to scan for them and for the enemy ship. He wants to bring the pain to the Chronicoms for once.

On the way to the Lighthouse, Mack worries about the rescue op and recounts memories of spending the Bicentennial with his family as a kid. He didn’t think this is how he’d introduce Elena to his parents. She says that she’ll make a heroic first impression with them. But she also says that the Chronicoms are purposely messing with his head and he needs to stop letting them.

Back in the Lighthouse, a Chronicom with a sense of humor has initiated the lockdown protocol. The Rick Stoner projection is giving safety tips all over the facility. The real life Stoner is annoyed by himself, but the Chronicoms have seized control of several systems so the projection can’t be turned off.

This is a nod back to our first encounters in the Lighthouse, when Enoch and Noah had been using it as their home base and storage facility. Though SHIELD built the Lighthouse, the Chronicoms have always known more about it than anyone, other than maybe Robin and Deke.

I’d love a visit from teenage Robin before the end of the series. She could be their oracular secret weapon.

The weapons systems have also been hijacked, while the radar has picked up the Zephyr. Coulson tells Stoner it’s the Chronicoms, but Stoner is NOT IN THE MOOD FOR SASS from prisoners ON AMERICA’S BIRTHDAY. He forbids weapons fire, but they do anyway. The Zephyr is hit.

Daisy, who was hit by an icer fired by Nathaniel Malick in episode 5, is just now waking up. She and Sousa are drugged, shackled and on the floor in a barn. When she discovers she can’t quake, thanks to the drug in her system, she calls Nathaniel Malick’s Little Psycho. He walks in at just that moment.

He reintroduces himself and makes it clear that he’s only tangentially Hydra. Nathaniel doesn’t care about the crime syndicate or squid worship sides of the evil organization. We saw this the first time through the timeline in S3, when Gideon offed his brother by rigging the Heads of Hydra pebble system that determined who was sent to Maveth to be sacrificed to Hive.

This time around, Freddy kept Nathaniel alive long enough for him to discover an interest in the inhumans’ superpowers. He wants to transfer Daisy’s powers to himself. Which actually makes Nathaniel’s first fate a good fit, too, when you think about it. As part of Hive, he also became an inhuman, in a sense.

When Sousa speaks up, Nathaniel tells him that he’s the most well-preserved 60-something Nathaniel has ever seen. He assumes Sousa is also an inhuman, since he appears to be aging so slowly, and says it won’t go well for Daniel if he doesn’t have super powers.

Nathaniel explains to them that he’s not holding them for a ransom. He plans to experiment on them, with Daniel Whitehall’s help. He loves Daisy’s whole vibe and nothing she or Daniel say threatens him. He’d love to see a demonstration of her powers, but the drugs are still in her system. He orders his goons to take her to his lab.

Stoner takes Coulson and May to an interrogation room, where their handcuffs are locked to a table. Stoner pretends to listen to Coulson when he describes the face-stealing Chronicoms for the 3rd time, but when May joins the discussion, he makes it clear he still isn’t taking them seriously.

He does say “Chastity McBride” again, though.

A junior agent brings Stoner a message. She walks over behind Coulson and May, giving a threatening speech, then tells Stoner he’s needed in the basement. She puts her hand on May’s shoulder. Stoner tells them that Malick is dead, then leaves with the junior agent.

Once he’s gone, May tells Coulson that the junior agent was emotionally dead. She was a Chronicom.

Jemma, Deke and Enoch put out the fire on the Zephyr, but then Enoch notices that the exterior cables which control the time shielding and allow the ship to jump through time safely have been damaged. If the ship jumps through time without the shielding, parts of the ship will be left behind and crushed. Since they could jump at any time, they need to fix it immediately.

Except Jemma stumbles when it comes to giving exact instructions for how to fix the shielding. She sends Deke off to look at the power regulator, while she and Enoch look at the control panel. But she can’t remember what to do once they’ve opened the panel. Enoch tells her it’ll be okay, but he needs to help her now.

Mack and Elena cut a hole in the cell wall to get to his parents. He rushes over and hugs his surprised mom, Lilla, who of course doesn’t recognize him. Elena tries to cover for him, saying he’s just happy that Lilla and his dad, John, are safe now. They introduce themselves, then get moving. Mack’s parents don’t understand why they were chosen as hostages and he doesn’t want to influence the future by telling them. He tells them to take cover if fighting breaks out.

The junior agent tells Stoner that his help is needed on a problem with the mainframe in the basement. As they walk to the elevator, he remarks on how annoying it is that his face is still playing on a loop. She tells him they’ll remove his face in a minute.

Coulson argues that the junior agent, Agent King, can’t be a Chronicom because they saw her display personality. They realize that he can show personality and the Chronicoms are mimicking him. They figured out that they can copy what he does, except he’s not stealing something from a living person.

He goes on to tell May that he doesn’t appreciate her lack of attitude. He would normally turn to her after dying and coming back, but she won’t give him anything, not even her thoughts.

May: “You want to know what I think? You never die. You always come back. You know how many times I’ve mourned you? I’m not doing it again. And I’m certainly not doing it for a decoy with a simulated personality!”

Coulson: “Thank you! There she is. Don’t look now, but your emotions are coming back. Unless you just picked that up from watching me… They’re mimicking me. Adapting.”

May: “Are we done sharing now?”

Coulson breaks free from his shackles with ease, then breaks May’s. He was only staying locked up to be polite.

His says that Luke told him the Chronicoms had ways of adapting. He guesses that they’ve developed a method of stealing memories and personalities, then uploading them into Chronicom bodies, allowing them to infiltrate and take over in much the same way Hydra did.

May realizes Stoner must be next. Downstairs, he’s taken into the room where the Chronicoms keep their face and personality copy machines. They’re making copies as fast as they can.

Mack and Elena lead his parents through the corridors to the quinjet. His dad gets tense and snaps at Mack. Mack has a hard time holding his own temper in check. Mack’s mom explains that they’re worried about what will happen to their sons if they don’t make it home. That brings Mack’s focus back.

They need to get through a heavy, motorized blast door to get to the quinjet, so Mack has his dad, who’s also a mechanic, help him figure out how to get it open without the passcode. They share a family saying, “If you can’t fix one thing, you fix another.”

Stoner is in the personality copier when May and Coulson come to the rescue. One of the Chronicoms gives an order to “Bring another Hunter up for the next conversion.” May and Coulson bring him a fight instead. When they get Stoner out of the machine, he says he now believes them about the alien robots.

They explain the face and personality stealing process to Stoner. He figures out that the faceless bodies on the floor are dead friends and colleagues and that he needs to get the rest of his people out of the Lighthouse.

Coulson tells May to rendezvous with Mack and Elena. He’s going to figure out where the Chronicoms are bringing the Hunters up from. He discovers a hatch in the floor with a ladder inside.

Sousa watches Nathaniel’s experiments through a hole in the wall. When Daisy’s brought back to the barn, Nathaniel says he took as much blood and spinal fluid as Daisy could handle without dying, plus a couple of glands. He’s going to synthesize it all and inject it into himself. If this doesn’t work, he’ll “switch from needles to knives.”

Daisy tries to tell Sousa that the same thing has happened before, with her mother, Jiaying, but he doesn’t understand. He pulls her head onto his lap and tells her the story of his war injury to keep her awake.

He was hit in the fog and knocked out. When he came to, he was alone and his leg was a pulpy mess. Then Mike Stephens, a guy he didn’t like, showed up. Mike stayed with him and kept talking. He carried Sousa back from the front line. As the Germans advanced, Mike kept telling Sousa they were going home. Eventually, Sousa was in a stretcher and Mike wasn’t, implying Mike died to save him.

So Sousa is going to keep Daisy alive as a way of repaying Mike Stephens. He tells her insistently that they’re going home. She struggles to open her hand and show him that she palmed a sharp metal shard. He admires her fighting spirit.

Jiaying is, or was, basically immortal. Daisy is hard to kill, largely because she refuses to give up. But also now she has gravitron in her.

Deke finds Enoch working on Jemma’s head. The scan that he’s using shows something implanted into her spine and brain. Deke thinks quick and uses defibrillator paddles to shock Enoch into unconsciousness. Then he uses smelling salts to wake Jemma up.

She’s not okay with what he did to Enoch.

Coulson climbs down the ladder and into the ship full of hibernating Chronicoms. He sticks his hands into Sibyl’s ports and asks if he’s come at a bad time.

It’s never a good time to stick your hands into a woman’s ports uninvited.

Mack and John have to force the door open anyway. John’s arm gets cut while they’re pushing. Mack leaves them to keep working while he fights some Chronicoms.

Coulson chats with Sibyl, who’s surprisingly open. She says she sees no reason not to answer the questions he’s asking. She tells him that his body is in their time ship, which appears underground. That’s why SHIELD hasn’t been able to find it.

His mind is in her virtual space. She says they call her the predictor, but she simply reads the time streams. Coulson asks if she sees the future.

Sibyl: “I see the past. As written by a single future. A tree grown, but also the many trees it could have grown to be.”

They have the usual semantic discussion about whether Coulson is actually a Chronicom or not. How do the Chronicoms define themselves? What is the essential part? Sibyl refers to herself as having a digital mind. Is that what makes her a Chronicom?

We were told in the beginning of the season that Coulson is an LMD enhanced with Chronicom technology. Was that description meant to make Mack (and us) okay with this new version of Coulson, even though it’s a robot? Even though the LMDs were murderous, too?

Jemma rushes to fix the ship while she and Deke argue about whether or not he was justified in saving her from what looked like a creepy robot attack. Jemma tries to get away with saying IT’S FINE AND DEKE OVERREACTED TO THAT THING IN HER BRAIN, which by the way looked like it had a couple of tiny tentacles. But Deke is from the future and even then an implant like that wasn’t okay, especially when it’s being “adjusted” by a robot who’s switched sides multiple times, if we’re being honest. Deke doesn’t buy her excuses and insists on real answers.

It’s about time.

She finally tells him, “He was fixing my memory so we can fix the ship.”

That definitely explains everything.

Deke realizes that she just said she doesn’t know how to fix the time machine that she’s currently working on.

I’ve been wondering when someone would remember that Fitz is the engineer, not her. Though I’m sure she’s picked up a fair amount of engineering, the same way she picked up several alien languages in S6, it doesn’t change the fact that engineering is Fitz’s gift and they kept their science disciplines separate for a reason. He’s the one who invented the time machine in S5. I doubt that changed in this timeline.

Jemma: “You cannot imagine how impossible it was to track the Chronicoms through time. But Fitz and I found a place where all their moves could be observed. And to guide us, Fitz stayed there. He is completely exposed and they will kill him if they find him, so no one can know his location.”

But Jemma knows, so she designed a biological implant to suppress her memories, named Diana. They’re inseparable. But the implant is malfunctioning and she’s forgetting and remembering the wrong things, so Enoch was helping her with it.

Nathaniel’s goons come into the barn and uncuff Sousa’s ankles. Sousa attacks, using the metal shard as a weapon. He knocks the guard out, then unlocks his own and Daisy’s cuffs. She’s still unconscious, so he picks her up to carry her out. As they’re leaving, Nathaniel enters the room. He has Daisy’s powers and is causing an earthquake, but his bones are also fracturing. The barn collapses on top of Nathaniel as they run out.

Sibyl tells Coulson where Daisy is. She says Nathaniel’s chances of successfully stealing her powers are 22%. Daisy has an 86% chance of survival. She says they’re using Mack’s parents to get to Mack and they want Earth to ensure the survival of “my species.”

She tells him that Chronicoms are more valuable than humans because they live so much longer. Human lives are fleeting and they make stupid decisions because of it. Within a stable environment, Chronicoms can live forever. If necessary, they’ll wait the humans out.

Coulson tells Sibyl she’s wrong about 3 things. The first two are the human capacity for sacrifice and tenacity. The third is him. Dying is his superpower.

He pulls his hands out of the ports, then sends a brief goodbye to May. He blows up the time ship with bag of explosives that was originally meant to flood the Lighthouse, blowing up himself along with it.

Mack has been fighting Chronicoms all this time. The explosion lifts the lockdown, so the door to the quinjet opens. Luke is about to shoot Mack when May and Stoner show up and shoot Luke instead. Stoner walks them all to their ride.

He and May say goodbye. He offers to buy her a drink, now that he’s pretty sure she doesn’t work at the Lighthouse and isn’t under his direct command. She tells him she’s Level 7, which means she’s his superior officer, and gives him orders to clean up and cover up the operation.

Once everyone is in the quinjet, May tells the others that Coulson is gone, but he’ll come back, just like always.

Once Enoch has been revived, he finishes his work on Jemma. While he helps her, Deke give him a Jemma-approved apology.

Deke: “Enoch, I’m sorry about before. I didn’t realize that things were so dire… And you are a valued member of our family.”

Enoch: “That is the greatest compliment one could be paid. Apology accepted.”

When Enoch is done, Jemma’s memories and forgetfulness are back in place. She asks Deke to keep her secret.

Mack brings his father to the quinjet cockpit to tell him about the tech, while Elena and Lilla bond in the back. John touches May’s shoulder to thank her for her part in saving him and his wife.

Oops, rookie Chronicom mistake. May felt no emotion, so she sets the quinjet to circle and tells Mack to check the cut on John’s arm. At first, he refuses to show them.

When he does, it proves he’s a robot. Mack fights John while May fights Lilla. Fake John says that they killed Mack’s parents a while ago. Eventually, Mack has to kill both of his “parents” and push them out of the back of the quinjet. He has to listen to his mother beg him as he pushes her to her “death”.

Geez, this show loves to torture him. That was horrible. I was already still haunted by Hope disappearing in the Framework.

Not gonna lie, I’m still tempted to lobby for them to print out some of those Framework residents. They could be LMDs, like Coulson. Hope could get a new, slightly bigger, LMD body on her birthday every year.

My kid is a cyborg who gets a new insulin pump every few years. It’s not too many steps removed.

Sousa and Daisy make it back to the Zephyr. Jemma puts Daisy in the healing chamber. Sousa stays on the ship.

They jump without incident.

Mack gets on a motorcycle and takes off.

In the tag, Mack is sitting in a field of flowers a little ways from the Zephyr, facing away from the ship. Deke walks toward him to check on him. Jemma frantically calls Deke back to the ship- they’re about to jump. Mack doesn’t respond when Deke yells to him.

The Zephyr leaves without them.

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Commentary

In hindsight, blowing up the ship that had the Chronicoms’ time drive in it might not have been the best idea, since the Zephyr is tied to it. Who knows what this will do to their jump cycles?

OMG, I thought Henry Simmons (Mack) was about 35 and way too young to remember the Bicentennial. He’s 50 years old! Good on him. This cast never ages.

Rick Stoner really, really deserved to be rescued from the 70s and brought onto the modern SHIELD team. I will believe this until my dying day. He has essential qualities as an agent that would have saved the world many times faster than it will ever be saved without him, like having the foresight to build the Lighthouse and having a voice that makes every order sound crucial. The future Kree wouldn’t stand a chance against his manly tones when they tried to get all sinister.

Since human Coulson is gone, I’m going to assume that eventually May will find a way to get back to Stoner and live out her life with him, using the alias Chastity McBride. No matter how the series ends, this will come true in some happy timeline, somewhere. Time God Fitz will make it so.

Human Coulson will spend eternity in heaven with his violinist. Cellist?

LMD Coulson should get Sibyl to change sides to be with him, because she definitely has a thing for him. She has Luke ask him if he likes her-likes her and wants to be her boyfriend in, like, every time period.

This episode, she let him get to second base with her and her blew up her ship, so it might get ugly between them for a couple of episodes. I know true love when I see it though and it would be a shame to let this relationship die.

Timestreams and Predictions and Fitz and Mack

Sibyl: “I see the past. As written by a single future. A tree grown, but also the many trees it could have grown to be.”

Jemma: “You cannot imagine how impossible it was to track the Chronicoms through time. But Fitz and I found a place where all their moves could be observed. And to guide us, Fitz stayed there. He is completely exposed and they will kill him if they find him, so no one can know his location.”

There is a reason we were shown these two speeches one after the other.

This sounds to me like Fitz could be in the place Sibyl uses to read a single mind. Like maybe it was a honeypot trap and FitzSimmons fell into it. Why else would there be a place where Fitz can magically see everything the Chronicoms do, if it’s not also the place that the Chronicoms use for their predictions?

I just hope Fitz isn’t a disembodied brain now.

I think Deke is right to be suspicious of Jemma’s implant. I can’t guess which side Enoch is on, since he switched a few times in S6, but I wonder if Fitz is dead or trapped or a hostage and she won’t let herself remember it. Sibyl could be using the exceptionally detailed scan of Fitz’s brain that was taken when they scanned him and Jenna in S6. Or they could have scanned him a second time after the season ended.

Enoch did show up out of the blue at the end of S6 with a risky proposal for Fitz and Jemma. That could mean he’s really working for the other side. It wouldn’t make much sense, but maybe this is the only way the Chronicoms win without heavy casualties.

Nathaniel made that speech to Daniel and Daisy, telling them that they weren’t technically hostages, because he didn’t want to exchange them for anything. Could that be Fitz’s situation- he’s not a hostage because they have no intention of ever letting him go?

Coulson made a lot of mistakes when he interrogated Sibyl. He finished her sentences for her, rather than letting her talk. He made too many assumptions. It was really her interrogating him. LMD Coulson has the original’s memories, but not the instincts the man gained from experience. This Coulson still has to accrue his own experiences.

But anyway, I noticed that Sibyl told Coulson that she wants Mack. I wonder if that’s the truth.

The simplest answer to what she meant is that they were hoping that Mack’s Chronicom parents could turn him into a Chronicom. Since he’s the director of SHIELD, the rest of SHIELD would fall soon after. They could have turned May and Elena when they turned Mack.

But it seems like Enoch would be trying to lure them all into personality copiers if it’s all they wanted.

Mack is the team member who’s held onto his humanity the hardest and is often the moral compass of the group. But he’s not always honest and he’s been a traitor, though the show would often like us to forget that.

Then again, they specifically included Robert Gonzales’ name on the Project Insight list last week. Gonzales was the man Mack and Bobbi followed when SHIELD split into 2 warring factions (besides Hydra) in season 2. Gonzales knew that Fury had chosen Coulson as his successor and disagreed with the choice because he felt it was wrong for SHIELD to be led by a man with alien DNA. (After being resurrected using the TAHITI protocol, Coulson had Kree DNA in his system, just like the inhumans.)

For a long time, Coulson didn’t even know the 2nd SHIELD faction existed. Mack and Bobbi joined Coulson’s SHIELD as spies. It took Mack a long time to trust anyone who had anything to do with either alien DNA or robots.

It could be the Chronicoms want to continue to exploit that old weakness of Mack’s. It could also be that they know about the death of his daughter, Hope, and the way it affected him both in reality and in the Framework. They might want to use it to push him past the breaking point.

If the Chronicoms have access to Fitz’s mind and the different potentials for it, they could see the way the other Fitz cracked under too much pressure, after too much dehumanization. Might they be trying to push Mack into that same type of breakdown? Making him murder his mother the way that they did felt like turning him into everything he hates, while also twisting his mind, since his fake mother was also a robot. It seemed like it was meant to start confusing him about who was real and who was fake.

Each episode this season has been patterned after a particular movie genre. Since Mack is the movie buff on the team and is the director of SHIELD, I’ve wondered if it’s a way to say that we’re seeing the show through his eyes.

But now I wonder if the Chronicoms also know that he’s a movie lover and are specifically playing to film tropes. Maybe they want him to feel the gangster films turning into 50s B movies, which become slightly more suspenseful 70s Bond and political thriller films. As Deke pointed out, horror movie tropes are sneaking in, such as the spoofed line from Terminator 2 and the body snatching.

But there’s another aspect to what we’ve seen all season. If the Chronicoms are watching the team through Fitz’s eyes and using what they see to devise a strategy to take the team down, it could be that Fitz is purposely directing what they see in order to mislead them.

Movie themes play to Mack’s strengths because they follow tropes and scenarios he’s worked with before. They have clear good guys and bad guys. By literally dressing the Chronicoms up as stock characters from the entertainment of the team’s past, they’ve been cut down to size and made a manageable enemy with clear goals and motives.

I don’t think we’ve been given all of the information yet, so we can’t fully understand what’s happening. But it feels like the Chronicom’s strategy is aimed at bringing down Mack, with a side of hoping to turn Coulson, one of the most loyal people around.

The Chronicoms may be using a divide and conquer strategy based on the way the team fell apart at the end of S5. It was Mack who stepped in as Director when Coulson’s health failed and SHIELD was a shambles. The Chronicoms must figure they can divide and conquer the team for good this time.

But this isn’t the same team. Coulson is a younger, more optimistic LMD. Fitz isn’t there to butt heads with Mack. Mack and Elena are on the same page. May and Daisy aren’t desperate to save Coulson. Or maybe that was why Sibyl set him up for the suicide mission in the time ship.

But it won’t work this time. May doesn’t have the same feelings toward the LMD that she had toward the man and and Daisy is distracted by Sousa.

Most importantly, Deke has stepped up as a member of the team. They may not fully accept him, but he’s chosen them. He’s lived through much worse than any of this and he’s not going back. He believes in the power of positive thinking and is loyal to a fault. He’s filling in some of the gaps in the team dynamic left by OG Coulson and Fitz, including quietly watching out for everyone’s safety and mental health.

As a character, he frequently suffers from the Cassandra Complex issue of seeing the problem before anyone else will believe it exists, but he doesn’t let it stop him. Geniuses are used to being ahead of their time.

Images courtesy of ABC.

#AgentsofSHIELD S7Ep6: Adapt or Die Recap-Stoner questions Coulson & May while Chronicoms snatch bodies in the basement. Mack & Elena break his parents out of the Lighthouse. Deke finds that Nana Jemma has a suspicious brain implant. In episode 6 of season 7, Agents of SHIELD continues to celebrate July 4, 1976 in the Lighthouse.

[handicapbola75]

Japan Begins Casino Legalization Debate in Earnest

Japanese administrator Takeshi Iwaya, a main advocate of land club sanctioning: 'It's ideal to strike while the iron is hot!' (Image: JapanDailyPress.com)

The planet's club chiefs will be intently watching advancements in Japan one week from now as the country's parliament known as the Diet is required in any case discussing a bill that tries to legitimize and direct land-based gambling club betting. Japan is viewed as a dormant beast of this industry: it's evaluated that a gambling club that is directed here could in the end produce $40 billion in salary yearly, which would make it the following biggest on earth, after Macau. What's more, Japan's lawmakers are frantic to discover new strategies for renewing the economy and benefit from the future Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

Hit Whilst The Iron is Hot

The country's decision Liberal Democrat Party introduced a bill to parliament in early which is sponsored by a gathering of in excess of 200 administrators december. Moreover, Liberal Democrat Takeshi Iwaya, a regarded advocate of the bill, expressed he had as of late made sure about help for the bill from an alliance accomplice and clients of the resistance that is primary.

'We are drawing near to beginning discussion,' he expressed for the current week. 'It is smarter to make the most of present opportunities.'

In the interim, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been visiting club resorts in Singapore, where he communicated their enthusiasm for the great effect that such endeavors may have on the Japanese economy.

'I figure the bill will pass,' certainly collaborator educator at Nihon University College of Economics Kazuaki Sasaki said as of late. 'Liberal Democrat Party is offering backing to the bill and in any event, for every single continuous gathering which can be against the bill, I don't figure they will put limitations on every part's vote.'

Whatever necessities doing

The significant club that is worldwide positively think the composing is in the divider, with any semblance of Las Vegas Sands Corp., Genting, MGM and Melco Crown climbing over the other individual to focus on improvement in a post-guideline Japan. a profoundly serious placing in an offer technique is foreseen for whatever licenses are made accessible. A while back, Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson vowed which he would contribute 'whatever it takes' to increase an a dependable balance in Japan if the market open up, more particularly $10 billion, fusing, for sway, he would be prepared to pay that sum in real money if fundamental and that LVS had just settled work environments in Tokyo fully expecting sanctioning. Should Sands get a Japanese video gaming license, it would hope to make a gambling club resort in a huge city, such as Tokyo or Osaka, Adelson noted.

In any case, there are worries that the bill may not be spent this a year, which would make it difficult for improvements to be prepared in time for the Tokyo 2020. The parliamentary discussion has just been deferred by various months, with other enactment taking point of reference, so when Iwaya concedes, the bill's supporters may delay a vote until fall, as a system to prevent rivals from killing it off.

The bill's supporters may wish to keep consitently the discussion in the diminished family unit where sponsorship is solid, Iwaya expressed. Concerns are that the bill may be suppressed in the event that it is raced into the house that is upper, that is led by an adversary to authorization. Keeping the bill into the decreased family unit would have been a methods for 'keeping a grasp' on it until it might be extended into a phenomenal parliament meeting later on in the whole year, he included, leaving it alone died in 2015.

Ex-Worker Strikes Back Universal Entertainment Scandal

Kazuo Okada, who has been charged with a worker that is previous of Philippine authorities (Image: Bloomberg)

Kazuo Okada, the extremely rich person proprietor of Universal Entertainment Corp., which is the Japanese producer of gaming machines that claims 21 percent of Wynn Resorts, has become the subject of a criminal grievance recorded by a previous representative in excess of a longstanding pay off outrage, which has slipped directly into a muddled proper question.

The claim identifies with $40 million which complainant Takafumi Nakano states he had been requested by his boss to give in pay-offs to purchase outside proprietorship and tax assessment concessions for the $2 billion club that Universal Entertainment is working in Manila Bay in the Philippines.

Nakano claims that the he had been requested to pay the heft of this sum in 2010 to Rodolfo Soriano, an expert who has close connections to Efraim Genuino, at the time the leader of this Philippine gaming administrative body. Nakano has made the case that is same in a common maligning body of evidence against Okada, who in change blames his previous worker, nearby two others, of moving the assets without approval. Every one of the three folks, be that as it may, state they unquestionably were acting compelled from Okada.

Claims and Investigations

The case has as of now activated examinations by the FBI, the Nevada Gaming Board and the Philippine government, and, should those specialists reason that there doubtlessly is verification of defilement, Universal could confront indictment both in the US in this way the Philippines. While the organization is headquartered in Tokyo, it has licenses to both produce and convey gambling club gadgets in Nevada, just as Mississippi and New Jersey. The organization may have sanctions forced upon it which could influence its top capacity to finish business in the United States.

It's perceived that the new protest had been given a week ago to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office. In it Nakano detailed: ' The main end is that $40 million was offered as incentives to Genuino or to other open authorities.' He moreover noticed that not long after the pay off was implied to occurred, the administration that is philippine its constraints on outsiders getting betting ventures and conceded Universal endorsement to utilize remembered for the Philippine Economic Zone Authority an administration organization that manages and oversees impetuses to organizations in the nation.

Claims and Counter-claims

Last thirty days, Reuters expressed that one of Universal's lawyers, Yuki Arai, had offered Nakano cash to drop every one of his cases and to cease from co-working with analytical organizations. All inclusive denied this and has now propelled activity that is legitimate Reuters for criticism. All inclusive cases the settlement offer was the essential idea of Nakano's legal advisor who had requested a large number of dollars. Nakano's festival arduously denies this and Reuters is remaining by its declaration.

It's not known whether the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's work environment vows to seek after its very own investigation. In any case, Japan was as of late condemned by the Organization for Economic Co-activity and Development (OECD) for neglecting to thoroughly authorize its own special law against Japanese organizations paying off outside authorities, and Nakano has asked that the Prosecutor's work environment dispatch a top to bottom examination. Then, Universal Entertainment has completed its own one of a kind examination that is free it have not yet made open.

Catskills Casino Plan Folds in Face of Downstate New York Rival

The Catskills had been a reasonable area for a New York State club, however rivalry from areas toward the south may confine enthusiasm there. (Picture: Wikimedia Commons)

At the point when the New York gambling club advertise uncovered for business, the Catskills Mountains seemed to be one of the top choices among upstate zones to have a retreat. It wound up being previously a flourishing vacationer zone in days of old, and gambling clubs were viewed as https://gambling club reward free-money.com/regal vegas-gambling club/an imminent method to revive that soul. And keeping in mind that a gambling club in Orange or Dutchess County closer to nyc was a danger, all things considered, the state would put a high least on interest in those zones to keep the Catskills as a choice that is alluring.

Be that as it may, things haven't exactly played out as expected. While the essentials were higher in those areas that are downstate they despite everything added up to under $500 million in absolute speculation far lower than anybody would spend on a club resort, at any rate. And keeping in mind that the state would presumably support two gambling clubs in the spot, on the off chance that one appears in Orange County, it would make it very hard for another in the Catskills to endure. The result is a misfortune that is unexpected of in working inside the mountains.

Exchanging Cove Cancels Bid

One arrangement that is such just left in Thompson, a town in Sullivan County. Designer Trading Cove refered to the presumable rivalry from Orange County as the choosing entertainer in their choice.

'Exchanging Cove and furthermore the Stockbridge-Munsee Community have really finished up, after cautious survey, that the chance, perhaps even the opportunity, of a goal resort with gaming in Orange County so weakens the market in Sullivan County that building and supporting a retreat that is five star Sullivan simply isn't monetarily basic for us,' the designers wrote in an announcement.

'Sullivan County merits a quality goal resort,' they continued. 'Since we do possibly not accept we can convey that quality under the present economic situations, it truly is with profound lament that Trading Cove and the Stockbridge-Munsee won't offer for a gaming permit.'

The architects had just bought the land for the hotel a property that is 440-section of land paid a $1 million application charge to your condition of the most recent York. Be that as it may, by dropping endlessly before the finish of June, they could recuperate most (or just for) the charge. The announcement said that the gatherings would work with the town and province to locate a reasonable utilization of the property concerning the land.

Different Developers alternatives that are as yet considering

The Trading Cove proposition was off by a long shot to the main individual in Sullivan County. You will discover three different bidders that are in any case in the running there, notwithstanding one o

[bulgarianmermaid]

“You come for winter, you stay for summer, and eventually you move here for the community” – they used to say in Aspen, Colorado. The same couldn’t hold more true for Bansko, Bulgaria and the Digital Nomad community Coworking Bansko has built here.

I left the US an year ago to come help my parents in Bulgaria and a big piece of my heart remained in the American West. It wasn’t for the destination, despite nature being incredibly beautiful; it wasn’t for the journey, despite stunning landscapes and my favorite off road travel; it was for the people of the American West that I fell in love with. What was left of my “bleeding heart” Coworking Bansko stole within my first week here. I didn’t think I could be SO exuberantly happy in Bulgaria, the country where I was born and raised and I tried to escape at all costs. I thought my gypsy soul would always seek movement and adventure. That was until I landed at Coworking Bansko.

I arrived in Bansko in the off season, when all the ski tourists had long gone and the summer crowds had not yet arrived. With 2 weeks to spare between jobs, I was looking for a peaceful place to read and write and, if possible, expand my professional skillset. When Coworking Bansko invited me to put together a Digital Nomad Guide to Bansko I saw that as a sign from the Universe to take a break from life (because that’s what living here feels like) and come see what all the hype around Coworking Bansko is about.

A little bit of history…

Bansko is a small mountain village with rich 18th century Bulgarian Revival history in southwest Bulgaria about 2.5 hrs drive from Sofia and Plovdiv and 4 hrs from Thessaloniki (Greece). Matthias and Uwe started Coworking Bansko in December 2016 just as the ski season was about to kick off. They wanted to create a base for themselves in Bulgaria, live in this beautiful mountain paradise and take advantage of the 10% flat tax rate but without other like-minded people it would have been too boring. So they started Coworking Bansko as a community for location-independent remote workers to do their daily jobs and learn from each other while having fun. In just 3 short years Bansko has become a well-known digital nomad destination with 100+ members from all over the world coworking here each month. It is an amazing environment to be productive during the day and socialize in the evenings. In addition to the daily activities organized by the coworking space, the community hosts a wide variety of happenings on an array of interesting topics – from neuroscience to theater and from biohacking to ice cold river baths – there truly is something for everyone! The members explore the outdoors, practice sports and experience the incredible culture, and adventure in the stunning Bulgarian countryside. They share splendid wine, kayak through breathtaking canyons, and swim and relax in the healing waters of Banya’s 27 natural hot springs.

You come for winter…

In winter, Bansko is the most popular ski resort on the Balkans, featuring 75 km of ski slopes and 14 lifts with a season lasting from December to April. Being the highest ski resort on the Balkans, Bansko enjoys the deepest and most reliable snowpack in the region. In addition, the resort has 360 snow guns for early season snow cover and all the slopes have snow making capabilities. The town also hosts FIS World Cup alpine ski races annually which turn the small town into a big international event.

You stay for summer…

In summer Bansko is the starting point for exploring Pirin National Park and the surrounding mountains. The town offers multiple marked trails for hiking, mountain biking, and climbing; an 18-hole golf course; various horseback riding options; many spas with thermal mineral waters and wine tasting in nearby villages. Bansko also hosts a number of music, film, art and culture festivals which turn the small town into a lively scene with performers and guests from all over the world.

And eventually you move here for the community…

What stole my “bleeding heart” you may wonder? In the off season? Without a single tourist in town? And I am an incredibly picky, beyond demanding, extremely hard to please, high-maintenance customer…

perhaps it was the warm welcome Matthias and Uwe gave me, as if I were a long lost favorite cousin, that made me feel immediately like part of the family

This is not a pic of Matthias and Uwe but it is the current Welcoming Committee 🙂

or maybe the absolutely impeccable organization of my travel and stay

then came the welcome package with some unexpected goodies and my name on it

“Sometimes you want to go to a place where everybody knows your name…” – Cheers

and the series of on boarding informational emails that took care of all my questions before I had even thought of asking them

not to forget the super clean and comfortable accommodations

and how can I skip the delicious food at affordable prices at nearby restaurants, everyone leaves Bansko fat and happy!

a big but welcome surprise was the code of conduct and anti-harassment policy – I have never felt emotionally safer. No matter what my beliefs and opinions were, I was free to express them as long as they weren’t hurtful to other members.

daily activities organized by Coworking Bansko for members – whether it is Monday or Sunday, there is something happening and you can join for free

Hot springs in Banya is my favorite night of the week!

gatherings members organize ad hoc – in 2 weeks I never ate alone or at home 🙂

Food is delicious and portions are HUGE 🙂

weekend travel and outdoor exploration organized within the group – new friendships are formed, expenses are shared and trust is the building block of it all

Hiking from Rozhen to Melnik on a girls day trip to Southwest Bulgaria

and that’s not all, inspirational, educational, and professional development events are organized weekly and monthly on a variety of topics

Still don’t believe me – in 2 weeks I met over 50 new people through Coworking Bansko. Those were some of the brightest, kindest, quirkiest, most interesting personalities I have ever met. Some of them will stay lifelong friends no matter where we end up living and not ONE of them was someone I didn’t want to get to know better, couldn’t find something interesting to talk about or learn from them, or generally disliked. Not ONE!

Some of the coworkers even followed me to Plovdiv for Kapana Fest 🙂 (and they lived)

And to prove I am NOT delusional, in the last 3 years more than 30 members have decided to become residents of Bansko, buying apartments here and incorporating companies in Bulgaria. Coworking Bansko is steadily growing, a second Gondola location was opened in 2018 and a third River location is about to become a reality in 2020 to allow expansion of the community to comfortably accommodate 100+ members.

Since I am an adventure blogger, it wouldn’t be quite right if I didn’t mix work and outdoor fun during my travels. Here is a guide to the perfect Workation in Bansko, no matter which activities you choose or which season you come visit (but you may just want to stay year round not to miss a thing as I’m definitely considering it.)

Events at Coworking Bansko

Bloggers on Top – A 3-Day All Inclusive Travel Blogger UNconference in the mountains of Bansko, Bulgaria. Join us Oct 4-6, 2019!

Coworking UNConference – A 3-Day All-Inclusive Coworking Industry UNconference in the mountains of Bansko, Bulgaria. Join us Nov 8-10, 2019!

Bansko Nomad Fest 2020 – a celebration of the location-independent lifestyle and digital nomad mindset. For one week in June 500+ digital nomads, remote workers, entrepreneurs, and freelancers will take over the beautiful village of Bansko, Bulgaria for an amazing mix of presentations, workshops, sports, mindfulness and nature.

Summer Activities in Bansko – There is so much to do in the mountains and valleys around town in summer that even a year wouldn’t be enough to see it all. Located at 1000m altitude at the base of Pirin National Park, Bansko is the starting point for exploring the surrounding mountains, craggy peaks, meadows, and high alpine lakes.

Winter Events in Bansko – Ski in the morning, work in the afternoon, sip wine in the evening! Not a dream life, we call this our reality in Bansko 🙂 Ski races, movie events, concerts, cold beer, warm fireplaces, ice bars, hot springs, you choose, Bansko delivers!

Day Trips from Bansko – Once you have explored the Bansko area and you are ready to leave town for a bit, there are a number of sights to put on your “must-visit” list.

Want to learn more about Coworking Bansko (and not ready to come meet the team in person just yet?!) – check out this Digital Nomad Guide to Bansko I help them put together. Why do you think I couldn’t leave? After 20 pages of content I wasn’t even halfway done ONLY with the activities and events in the area 🙂

Coworking Bansko, Bulgaria – OR How to Build a Community for Digital Nomads "You come for winter, you stay for summer, and eventually you move here for the community" - they used to say in Aspen, Colorado.

[wlreports-blog]

India's Transformational Leader 2019 - Shalaka Randive, WE CAN DO IT

India's Transformational Leader 2019 - Shalaka Randive, WE CAN DO IT

I have worked in this industry for almost 25 years. Different challenges, ideas and opportunities arise at various stages - professionally and in personal life. Like in the creative field adaptability has influenced decision making process.  No matter what comes along, in order to achieve our goals we must be able to go with the flow as the means by which we achieve those goals are at times much more fluid. Success and failure also influence decision making – consistent success is elusive, failure is more common but successful people adapt, learn from mistakes and move on.

 A project or an accomplishment that you consider to be the most significant in your career?

Launch of DASTAK in Singapore – Singapore’s first and only Hindi theatre festival - was launched in 2016. A creative idea can’t be held back for long, DASTAK is one such idea that took seed in 2015. On a lazy evening over a cuppa, a bunch of us theatre enthusiasts (now the DASTAK organising team) were discussing Hindi theatre and reminiscing of everyone’s early days in theatre. I remember saying “It has been years since we did a play in Hindi. There is a great pool of local talent we can tap into now in Singapore and the Indian diaspora is missing a Prithvi type experience – affordable, enjoyable, local shows. Let’s do one!”. The structure of a festival was right in front of our eyes. Disrupt the traditional format – so instead of one play lets have 10, why one director when we can bring together 10, from 1-2 hour play format to 10 short plays of 10 minutes each – the idea evolved. A 'knock of opportunity' for artists, a knock of Hindi at Singapore’s theatre doorstep and DASTAK was born. I am extremely proud of this achievement. The festival is now in its 4th year and has its success is largely due to: Unique format of 10 plays by 10 directors for 10 mins in each show transcending genres Over 70 members of cast and crew and almost all of them locally based talents – from established names to fresh entrants Featuring recognized Singaporean, non-Hindi speaking theatre directors  Includes a mix of scripts – new, adaptation as well as international classics. All plays have English surtitles A platform for cultural exchange between India and Singapore How do you integrate corporate philanthropy or corporate social responsibility as a part of your business strategies? The model of my business is bringing together individuals from various cultural backgrounds to encourage and develop their passion for theatre/arts. Theatre as an art form transcends boundaries and the CSR element is to create and expand awareness within the Indian/Singaporean community. The stage is a powerful medium that can entertain, provoke thoughts and convey messages. In line with Singapore’s multi-racial ethos, the intent remains to showcase talent via Hindi theatre but not limited to Hindi-speaking audiences. DASTAK provides a platform for cultural integration in Singapore by including a good mix of Hindi speaking Indians, Indians whose first language is not Hindi and involving non-Indian artists of various ethnicities in the creative process. The English subtitles for all our plays to further broaden the appeal of the festival to all nationalities. Language nor age is a barrier as the festival has something for everyone whether you are 10 or 80 years old. What has been your driving force or philosophy in life? If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, don’t sweat it. This should not an indictment of you, your character, your morals or work ethic. The career path one follows is not always easy and is prone to change. A job for life does not exist anymore. More often than not, our work will challenge us and force us to do things with which we might not be 100 percent confident. However, at its core, we should ultimately enjoy what we do. If not, then why would we spend so much time doing it? Think about how much time the average person dedicates to work. Now, if you are spending all of that time being miserable, that is hardly being successful. What are the other philanthropic works you are involved in? I just do what I can as an individual, which is to support arts organizations and artists. The support is not necessarily financial in nature but contribution of valuable time and experience. Everyone wants meaning in their life and my objective is to create a platform which provides people with the opportunity to do what they want to achieve. I am also a supporter of girl’s education – in today’s new world it is important to inculcate the idea of independence, confidence and that with passion and willingness to put in the effort and time, they can fulfil their dreams. How do you define success and how do you measure up to your own definition? A successful person achieves their goals, then lends a hand to help others achieve more. Also success is not necessarily wanting to create the best outcome but it should be to leave a lasting, positive legacy. After 3 years, I can assuredly say that DASTAK has become a part of the Singapore theatre landscape. Every year people from diverse background and interests - from well-known professional local Singaporean artists to students, amateurs all who want to be part of something creative - come on board on their own accord. This is a testimony of the true success as it has unravelled new talent whether it’s on stage acting, directing or creative input or back stage production and technical support. We are constantly making things better, faster, smarter or less expensive. In other words, we strive to do more with less. Tell me about a recent project or solution to a problem that you have made better, faster, smarter or less expensive? The objective of my production company, Wecandoit, since 2009 has been to tap and encourage the local creative talent in Singapore. I have a small super dedicated team and with limited financial resources we launched DASTAK which has now created a niche for Hindi theatre in Singapore. Over the last 10 years I have tried to build awareness of theatre (largely English) through both social media platforms and constantly encouraging both local Singaporean schools and Indian international schools to include speech and drama classes as part of their after school activities. With the launch of DASTAK, affordable theatre is becoming popular and I am extremely pleased to see teachers from various schools bring along their students to see the performances. In your opinion what is the most significant aspect of leadership? Trust – your team has to believe in your ability to deliver and lead by example to build trust and respect. True enthusiasm for a business, its products or its mission cannot be faked. Employees can recognize insincere cheerleading from a mile away. However, when leaders are sincerely enthusiastic and passionate, that’s contagious.  Your perception of an empowered society. How far your industry has/can contribute for the same? An empowered society should be inclusive but needs to have a balanced view. It will never be possible to please everyone or to meet all objectives of creating an ideal society. The performing arts and entertainment industry has an important role to play. As I said earlier - Theatre is an art form that transcends boundaries. Today you see theatre staging performances with thought provoking subjects, more acceptance of LBGT as team members and generally more respect to each member of the team - irrespective of what type of work they do – everyone needs to be made to feel important. PERSONAL GRID One thing you wish to change and one thing you wish to retain about your industry? I would say universally theatre is ever- evolving.  Theatre practitioners are being more experimental while directing plays and mixed or multimedia is being increasingly used on stage. Today’s audience also want to see something new constantly and it is challenging to keep the audience engaged. To pull an audience who are addicted to their technical gadgets the attraction has to be greater. Hindi theatre unfortunately has not evolved to that extent and keep using the same tried and tested plays/scripts. Therefore DASTAK is an attempt to break from these fossilized ideas and try something new. One thing you have to let go off as an entrepreneur/leader? Micro management. Whom do you owe your success to? My family who are my pillar, my parents who always believed in me and my team who believe and work towards my vision. Best thing about your job? Giving life to your creative ideas. A message from you to all the future entrepreneurs/leaders? Be humble, set challenging goals - once achieved, don’t rest on your laurels – dream higher and raise the bar. Read the full article