#and other towns and cities exist but they are much less interconnected and have much more varying levels of whats available

[rxttenfish]

Is there even any infrastructure for humans visiting merfolk underwater settlements? Or are they too deep for humans to comfortably dive/swim in? Or maybe the merfolk just say, "of course we don't have any support for you under several hundred feet of water. literally why would you even try?"

there's not any infrastructure for human (or any other sophont besides gorgons that already live there, anyhow) visitation! mostly that's because this is a bit of a first contact situation, albeit one that was born more out of political isolationism and not necessarily caring about the land-based sophonts...

basically, the current political entity overseeing all existing or known merfolk settlement is a fairly old one, that slowly grew from a smaller polity into a more all-encompassing unit by swallowing up its neighbors. it's more of a complicated shell game than this necessarily makes it seem - like i said, a lot of time has passed, and significant cultural shifts have happened within that time, as well as shifts and establishment on how its government and policies would function, so it's a little bit more of a larger conglomerate containing within it many smaller governments, who are allowed independent control of the populations within their allotted territories, just so long as they take up the job of translating the broader governmental laws and taxes down onto that population. the details are rather vague, and so long as the results are what the larger governmental body asked, the intermediary areas are allowed a lot of different ways to interpret what that means.

however, one of the things that got lost in that shuffle of politic and history was the presence of merfolk inland. historically, merfolk have actually periodically spent time inland! usually it was still very tied to the water, being more like seasonal beachcombing using temporary shelters and housing, but they utilized the land a lot more for potential resources and ways to live. the nomadic families especially used to take advantage of these opportunities, and there was much more interaction with landfolk in these contexts.

the exact way it was lost varies, in that not everyone agrees what came first or what was the reason or who did what, but most of this was probably limited and then lost due to the larger governmental body, in the process of colonization, banning merfolk from going up onto the land in order to prevent political enemies and refugees from fleeing up and onto the land, using it as a base of operations, or otherwise using it as a means to escape to other bodies of saltwater. like i said, these periods inland were mostly seasonal, and merfolk did still majorly depend on the water, so what merfolk did make settlements inland mostly ended up vanishing over time anyways - either through simply vanishing into landfolk populations, or through dying out, it wasn't particularly sustainable.

but, time still went on, and this ban remained, and somehow it slowly disseminated into popular thought that the land was just not really very interesting in the first place. sure, merfolk knew there was stuff up there, and other animals and even fairly smart animals, but that doesn't necessarily make it worth investigating. travel over land is hard for them, and it's hard for them to live on land for long periods of time, and everything that they need and depend on is in the ocean anyways. there's a lot less space to the land, there's nothing that would interest merfolk, it would be uncomfortable and painful for them to visit (a lot of myths and legends about the land and what lived there got started in this time, with a lot of focus on undead monsters that had dried out and were lit from within by the hateful light of the sun, and a lot of merfolk made a habit of coming up with scary stories about the weird things that must've lived in such an extreme environment), and there was a lot more political movements and such focused on other merfolk to begin with.

even moreso because merfolk still, technically, did go out onto land? it just wasn't very large portions of land, that is. mostly they would set up on much smaller islands and atolls, which would mostly be used for manufacturing or more technical jobs that required being done in the air. they really just needed the space, not anything specific already on the land itself, and the space was all functional, very little exploration or relaxation areas. sometimes these were used specifically to produce novelty items or experiences, but usually this didn't go much further than exploring the uniqueness of being in open air for the first time, and wasn't really pursued as much more than that.

so merfolk still knew the land was important and needed for ecological functioning - something they had learned the hard way, after an earlier period in their history pre-unifying government became known for a particular and acute ecological disaster, felt even harder by all merfolk on account of the properties of water and everyone living in the ocean. they view the land as functional in its own right - a needed recycling facility that operates itself and helps keep them alive, and one in a place that they had no interest in and could set aside for such tasks.

they also knew there was life up there, even intelligent life, but considering the period in time when merfolk ceased interacting with land-based societies, and the predominant view that what makes something sapient for them being a multiplicity and plural nature to it, on top of the complex interweave of language and meaning, they basically just viewed it as "smart animals". i've compared it before to like if we actually discovered warrior cats was real and there was a population of feral cats in a national park that had their own tiny society. it's interesting, for sure, but it wouldn't be the kind of thing that they might feel too passionately about, and can easily pass it off as a curiosity and a thought experiment all of its own.

the fact that this has changed at all, and especially in such a small time frame and with such major turnaround and abrupt interest in the outer governing body is actually really odd, and a major question and mystery in what i'm writing! the starting interest happened only just in the previous generation, and now they're making major steps towards introducing themselves to land-based civilizations in just miranda's generation, even to the point of sending her inland as an ambassador and an active participant in this shift.

most people on the land already knew that someone was in the ocean and actively preventing anyone else from crossing it or even getting particularly close, but they had no context for this any more than anyone else, and thus they might not raise as many questions about why this is happening than they should, especially since they don't know merfolk history. even most merfolk don't necessarily have all of the details of this shift, but they do know more than nothing, and certainly can note how odd it is and how weird such a change is.

likewise, neither civilization has very much to accommodate for the other, given as they barely even knew of each other by the time they were already designing how it was laid out, so the issues humans have accessing merfolk spaces is at least mutual, if nothing else. it's also something very likely to change over time, depending on how said first contact goes.

[papermariosuggestion]

What are you hoping for from a new Paper Mario? What's your "golden ideal", I guess?

I could spend, like, years thinking of things I’d like to see in a Paper Mario game, but I’ll try to narrow it down. Here are some of the main things I’d really like to see:

☆ New partners (plural)

• Based on previously established Mario species, preferably “enemy” species, as “The circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant; it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.”

• Unusual, but believable, and perhaps even poignant, backstories and fully realized character arcs. I want to care about these characters because I’m invested in this world, its inhabitants, and those inhabitants’ personal successes and failures, not just because their design is so kawaii and/or their dialogue is so funny, though those things are a plus.

• Distinct personalities and opportunities to show those personalities off (through design, body language, dialogue, etc).

☆ RPG mechanics

• Built on the solid foundation established in Paper Mario (N64)

• Turn-based combat

• A leveling system where you get to choose which stat to increase

• Badges (Including superficial badges like the L Emblem and Attack FX badges)

• Something new, like being able to use two partners to perform a Bros.-Attack-like move, or maybe even stats specifically pertaining to your partners.

☆ New locations

• It’s a delicate balance. Locations should both feel like they could realistically exist in Mario’s world and feel like something we’ve never seen before. TTYD has some great examples of this (Rogueport, Boggly Woods, Twilight Town, etc). Super Paper Mario has some creative locations as well, but because it takes place in another dimension, not in the typical world that Mario inhabits, none of them really feel particularly “Mario-esque” in nature. They’re all a bit off-brand, so to speak.

• On a technical level, graphics are improving all of the time, but that doesn’t automatically lead to more intriguing and/or more visually satisfying designs. At it’s core, Mario is a fantasy franchise, an escape from reality, and the Paper Mario series is one of the few series in the franchise that really builds out- or at least used to really build out- its world, and that world was interesting because it was new and mysterious, it practically begged to be explored. Paper Mario games should show me something I can’t see in reality; I know what paper and cardboard and lemons and steaks look like, show me underground cities and palaces, show me sprawling gardens with talking flowers, show me a floating tourist trap in the sky. The biggest limit is your imagination, so let it run wild, and show me that, show me that Alice in Wonderland-like controlled chaos.

☆ An interconnected world and motivated backtracking

• No stage-selection maps. Even if the game is fairly linear, I don’t need to have that shoved in my face. I don’t want to feel like I’m working my way down a to-do list, glued to a track, I want to journey through the world and explore somewhat freely.

• No fast travel by default (maybe you unlock fast travel after beating an optional challenge like the Pit of 100 Trials)

• No pipes that take you right from the hub world to the chapter area; I wanna walk…

…and I want it to be through a believable, expansive, intricate world that changes as I progress through the game, a world I could see hundreds of times and never get sick of because its details are constantly in flux, and because those details are the kind that make it feel realistic and lived-in. I don’t want to be teleported from A to B, or confined on a path from A to B to C, I want to explore, I want to discover, I want to experience this world and to form an attachment to it. This alone would make backtracking more worthwhile, but…

• …another way to make backtracking even more enjoyable would be to add events that make walking into a game in and of itself, like having to follow a creature up in the trees, or having to get through a cursed area in Mirror Mode, or having to dodge and weave through falling rocks because there’s a huge earthquake destroying- and altering the actual geometry of- the area. Walking doesn’t have to be a chore for you to complete in order to get on with the game, and it shouldn’t be, it should be part of the game, just as engaging as anything else you’re involved in.

☆ Non-linear elements

• The game should still be fairly linear overall, because Paper Mario games are chapter-based stories with beginnings, middles, and ends, but having some say  in which chapter comes next, or which partner you meet, or even just which puzzle you solve next would give the player a stronger sense of agency. Story-driven games are at high-risk of making the player feel like they’re just along for the ride, and this would help to counteract that.

☆ Spin dashing

• Gotta go fast! Getting rid of spin dashing always felt like an odd choice to me. Characters like the Yoshi kid, Carrie, and Dashell kind of replaced it, in the sense that they allow you to move quickly, but being able to speed up without switching partners, as well as being able to spin attack and just to witness the utter chaos of Mario flinging himself across the screen again, would make backtracking and walking around in general less of a slog. It would also give you more agency in the overworld and serve as a nice callback to the original game.

☆ Free-moving NPCs & situational dialogue

• In past games, NPCs have been confined to certain paths and locations. They might move from chapter to chapter, but they would always stay in the same general area until you triggered an event that placed them somewhere new. I’d like to see characters wandering around, going in and out of buildings, visiting other locations, having private conversations with one another, getting into fights, buying and selling items at the shop, putting on different clothes, and doing just about anything else they would typically do in-universe. Obviously this would be huge challenge to program, but we’re talking about an ideal here, and anything in this general direction would be an improvement in my eyes. We already see a bit of this in the series, but I’d like to see even more.

• When NPCs say things like “Where are your manners, Mario? You shouldn’t climb on the table” and “Don’t be so careless. There are too many enjoyable things in the world to gamble with your life!” it makes it feel like they actually see what you’re doing and care about what you’re doing. Having NPCs respond to you differently because of where you’re standing, or what partner you have out, or what badges you’re wearing, and so on, makes them into more than just set decoration or a sign to read, it makes them people, or at least more person-like. Nintendo’s been pretty good about this in recent years, probably because technical improvements have made it easier than ever before, and I think it would be fitting for a series known for its world-building.

☆ Dynamic lighting design & a day/night system

• This is all about aesthetics because, as it turns out, visuals are pretty important in a video game. Paper Mario (N64) had some really interesting lighting design, notably in darker areas like the secret passage in Peach’s castle, and we haven’t really seen a lot of that since, despite having more advanced technology that would allow for advanced lighting.

• I’d like to see things like swinging chandeliers that cast beams of light, and cracks in the ceiling that light pours through, and mirrors/reflections that Mario uses to solve puzzles, and shadows that hint at secrets. Lighting is a huge part of shaping a world, and using it in a variety of different and meaningful ways just makes your world seem that much more complex and grounded.

• As for the day/night system, I am picturing a game that visually changes based on the actual time of day, kind of like Animal Crossing games do, but not a game that requires it to be a certain time of day for any gameplay purposes, not for the main quest, not for side-quests, and not even for easter eggs. All I want is for it to be bright when I play in the morning, orange when I play at sunset, and starry when I play at night. This also would add to the game’s replayability, as different chapters would look and feel different depending on what time of day it was when you played through them.

☆ Easter eggs that reference other games in the franchise

• I want it to be clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Mario we see in Paper Mario games is the same Mario we see in other Mario games, not another person, and talking about the time he visited Isle Delfino or when Bowser fused with a sentient tennis racket would really drive that home.

• Make me really look for some, though. It’s cool to spot easter eggs in plain sight, but what’s really rewarding is having to dig for them. I don’t just wanna see Luigi standing in the background, I want to spot little inconsistencies and cracks in the walls and cryptograms spread throughout the world. Sure, the five-year-olds playing might not find them on their first playthrough, but when they’re fifteen and they remember that awesome Paper Mario game they played a decade ago, they won’t just be revisiting a world they’ve fully explored, they’ll be playing on a whole new level, figuratively speaking.

☆ amiibo Compatibility/functionality

• I’m not a big fan of DLC in general, as it’s often overpriced, but I do think amiibos are neat; using a real object to unlock something in a virtual world makes the virtual world feel just that much more alive to me, that much more like it’s a little world I can actually affect.

• The Paper Mario series never really got official merch, and while you do see a bit of your partners’ lives in the epilogue, it’s only a glimpse into their future, so getting little figurines of past partners that make them appear in the game, tell you about a recent adventure they had, and give you a unique badge based on their abilities/personalities/experiences, would be like a dream come true.

☆ Just be creative (I know it’s not that simple, but like, figure it out)

• Surprise me; throw in something inventive and revolutionary, like Wall Merging from A Link Between Worlds or The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device from Portal.  There’s a whole universe of possibilities out there; please dream a little bigger than items disguised as a gameplay element and a hammer that fills in glaringly obvious gaps in paint. Nintendo’s always pushing the video game industry forward with their creative consoles. Use that, take whatever whacky control method they come up with next and integrate it like Super Paper Mario did- but hopefully even better than Super Paper Mario did- with the Wii remote.

• I see fans writing stories, and drawing characters, and making sprites, and working with all kinds of mediums to make art that knocks everything from recent “Paper Mario” games out of the park. Obviously Intelligent Systems can’t just steal those ideas, but I’d love to see them get on that wavelength and match that passion.

• Make a game that you’d never want to put down because you just can’t get enough of it, and don’t even bother with that “You’ve been playing for a while. You wanna take a break, grab a snack, chill out for a sec?” message; if I die playing your game because it’s truly that good, I see that as an absolute win. That’s legendary game design, my friend; aim to make a Paper Mario game so good it’s worth dying for, and if you fall short of that, hopefully you’ll still land on something pretty awesome.

[sigmaleph]

Book recs masterpost

y’all really came through here, thanks! Here’s a collected version, I will continue to update it if recs keep coming. Format will be a little inconsistent but I will try to keep books by the same author together and give the summary if it exists and who provided the rec.

Under a cut cause it gets long:

Gene Wolfe:

The Fifth Head of Cerberus

Three interconnected novellas about life on an authoritarian twin planet system where humans have apparently wiped out the natives. Superbly well written and thoughtful imo

rec by @femmenietzsche

Book of the New Sun 

rec by @napoleonchingon

Octavia Butler:

Dawn, rec by @empresszo, @typicalacademic

Parable of the Sower, rec by @st-just

Kindred, rec by @squareallworthy

Angelica Gorodischer:

Kalpa Imperial

epic fantasy in the style of conan the barbarian, we see the stories of an old empire in some nondescript country, a nondescript amount of millenia ago. small vignettes of different time periods within the country. very light in fantasy, basically an entire book of nothing but lore for a D&D campaign

Trafalgar

comedy sci fi. the life stories of a sales man, a guy who goes door to door selling whatever he can, except IN SPACE. all the stories are framed as him in his little bar in rosario with his friends or drinking mate, telling his latests adventures through space.

La saga de los confines by  Liliana Bodoc

lord of the rings except instead of taking inspiration from nordic folk tales is based on the american conquest. see fantasy races and cultures based on the native american population from south america. lots of poetry, lots of cool classic fantasy with a fresh new flavor

(Already read)

la batalla del calentamiento by marcelo figueras

the fantasy here is very understated to the point of it being magical realism but still my top three favourite book of all time. it starts with a man who suffers gigantism receiving a message from heaven delivered by a wolf speaking in latin. the most colorful and endearing little town with the most wacky of habitants open their arms to the guy who is desperatly in search of redemption

homestuck (by Andrew Hussie)

there is really nothing i can say about this that you havent already heard, so im not even going to bother. just give the first arc (which is about a hundred pages long) a change and see where it goes from there

All of the above suggestions by @fipindustries

Ada Palmer. Terra Ignota series (starts with Too Like the Lightning) (seconded by @youzicha)

(read the first one, have the second one but haven’t read it yet)

Jo Walton, Thessaly series (starts with The Just City)

Yoon Ha Lee, Machinaries of Empire series (starts with Ninefox Gambit) (seconded by @terminallyuninspired)

Ann Leckie:

Imperial Radch series (Starts with Ancillary Justice) (seconded by @youzicha and @squareallworthy)

Raven Tower

N. K. Jemisin:

Broken Earth trilogy (starts with The Fifth Season) (seconded by @typicalacademic)

Dreamblood duology (starts with The Killing Moon)

Seth Dickinson, Masquerade series (starts with The Traitor Baru Cormorant)

(Good rec, already read the first one)

Jeff Vandermeer, Southern Reach series (starts with Annihilation)

Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom

Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire

M. R. Carey, The Girl With All The Gifts

All of the above by @st-just

Le guin:

The Dispossessed, rec by @st-just, @youzicha

The Left Hand of Darkness, rec by @youzicha and @typicalacademic

both also seconded by @squareallworthy

(I love Le Guin, read both of these)

Zelazny: Lord of Light, rec by @st-just

Charles Stross:

Missile Gap.

A Colder War.

Peter Watts, Blindsight

Bruce Sterling, Heavy Weather. (I assume. There are multiple books named such)

All of the above by @youzicha

Fonda Lee, Jade City

Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon

Shining Path, more thorough rec here.

all by @typicalacademic

Lois McMaster Bujold:

the Vorkosigan Saga

(rec by @omnidistance, seconded by @squareallworthy. Already read all of them, excellent choice)

The Curse of Chalion, rec by @theorem-sorry

Greg Egan:

Permutation City

Orthogonal

above two and “anything else” by him, rec by @saelf

Diaspora, rec by @squareallworthy

The Clockwork Rocket

Physicist discovers relativity in a Riemannian (as opposed to Minkovskian) universe. Also the world is ending.

rec by @jackhkeynes

Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

Dick, The Man in the High Castle

Gaiman, American Gods

Gibson, Count Zero

Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Liu, The Three Body Problem

Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife

Niven and Pournelle, Footfall

North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Powers, The Anubis Gates

Wilson, Spin.

All of the above by @squareallworthy

Pratchett, Discworld books (going postal, thud!, unseen academicals, or the wee free men recommended by @acertainaccountofevents, Wyrd Sisters rec’d by @squareallworthy)

Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon & D.O.D.O.

Ted Chiang, Story of Your Life and anything else by him

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (also suggesting this review)

 C.J. Cherryh – The Faded Sun Trilogy.

Honestly not sure there’s anything groundbreaking or unique about it but a solid scifi tale with aliens and politics and it really fleshed out and made me empathize with all the opposing and strikingly different factions.

Taiyao Fujii – Orbital Cloud

A space-related technothriller, quite fun! If you liked the first 2/3rds of Seveneves you’ll probably like this.

Gwynneth Jones – Life.

Story of a woman trying to be the best biologist she can despite a lot of setbacks, bascially. Barely counts as science fiction, really, but I just really like Anna and Spence as characters and their relationship. This a very feminist book, at times quite preachy–but personally it came across as characters being preachy not the author, and therefore much less annoying, but ymmv.

Katherine Addison – The Goblin Emperor.

Fantasy high politics but nice? Like also pretty level headed but not grimdark like fantasy high politics usually is. Also love the worldbuilding, the linguistics, and my precious cinnamon role Maia who deserves good things.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

the most tumblr print book I have ever read. TBH the cover blurb is better than the book but it’s a quick read and enjoyable.

Paolo Bacigalupi - The Windup Girl.

Ian MacDonald – The Dervish House.

The twenty-minutes-into-the-future setting has aged weirdly since it was written back when Turkey was trying to join the EU, but I reread it recently and the plot and characters are still compelling.

All of the above by @businesstiramisu

"James S. A. Corey", The Expanse series (rec by @justjohn-jj)

Mariam Petrosyan’s The Grey House

kids and minders in a boarding school for the disabled, their relationships and their setting. Mostly a coming-of-age thing but with a lot of weirdness and some fantastic elements. Extremely readable

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky:

Hard to be a God

Inhabited Island

Roadside Picnic

Stanisław Lem:

Fiasco

Cyberiad

Karim Berrouka’s Fées, Weed & Guillotines

what it says on the tin. Pretty fun. I would suspect his other fantasy mystery novel comedies are good too.

The Invisible Planets anthology

extremely hit or miss, but definitely has its hits.

Bernard Weber’s Les Fourmis

All of the above by @napoleonchingon

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells

Sarcastic cyborg tries to avoid humans and watch entertainment media all day and perpetually ends up saving some. With all the snark.

rec by @rhetoricandlogic

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North

Guy is born in 1910s, dies at 80 or so… and is born again in the 1910s, and so on. Also the world is ending.

The End and Afterwards, Andy Cooke

A probe to Alpha Centauri, an idealist Nigerian biotechnician, a humdrum English family – and then the world ends.

Against Peace and Freedom, Mark Rosenfelder

50th century interstellar humanity is mostly doing okay. But socionomics doesn’t cover crises, such as the dictatorship that’s taken over Okura, or the unscrupulous tycoon who’s plotting something over on New Bharat. For that we have Diplomatic Agents. Like you.

all of the above by @jackhkeynes

Meta-recommendations:

worldswithoutend.com, their list of lists, and in particular, defining science fiction books of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.

@squareallworthy

Jo Walton’s Revisiting the Hugos series. (by @businesstiramisu)

[conscirearchives]

NARNIA’S CITIES [Complete]

Reference: Jacaranda, NARNIA’S CITIES: a guide (2345), type: pamphlet, facsimile, Underground, Ultimo.

Dear Traveler,

Welcome to Ultimo, the first city this side of the Western Wild. Find one of our comfortable inns, where our kind hosts will surely have been waiting for you, and have a nice, hearty meal to relax. You’ll saddle up soon enough!

Now, you have either come out of Narnia’s extensive underground road system, connecting all of us border cities and Archeland’s capital, Anvard, or you have travelled from above. Both are excellent choices of transportation but which you will use from Ultimo onward depends on where you decide to visit. Here is a brief account of all the Narnian cities you can visit on your time here! We hope you love it as much as we do!

.

THE CITIES OF OLD

—     Cair Paravel

Ancient house of monarchs of Narnia, Cair Paravel is forever the crown jewel of all Narnian cities. Rebuilt during the Tenth war by order of King Caspian X, after centuries of disuse by the old Narnian, Cair Paravel is now the center of most cultural conflation in the country. Not only does it house the ruins of the old castle, open for visits, it is also home to the first Academy of Narnia. A port city full of history, it’s a paradisiac island for those wanting a bridge to the rest of the world.

—     Beruna

The Ford city. The Center of Narnia. Countless battles have been fought for this amazing city located right next to the Great River, the main attraction for anybody who visits Narnia. If you are lucky, you may even get to talk to the lonely river God! Beruna is the second largest city of Narnia and the one that gets the most traffic outside our capital. Commerce is its main attraction, in Beruna you will be sure to find whatever you’re looking for. Near rests a small village called The Stone Table, due to its main attraction, where those loyal to Aslan still wait for him. A spiritual experience!

—     Glasswater

Glasswater creek is exclusively for those who are in love with water. Home to the queerest of naiad species (and a few newly awoken mangroves), here’s where you will want to go if your interests are more nautical-focused. This is Narnia’s port by excellence, with much traffic and the best ships you could ever find in the entire known world. Be sure to try the calamari stew!

—     Dancing Lawn

If you ever wanted a place to party after a day of hard toil, Dancing Lawn is the place for you. Granted, you must send notice of your visit days ahead, so a welcoming party may greet you at the beginning of the Southern Woods. They sure are daunting for a newcomer and they are bursting full of life! To preserve that life, and to celebrate with it, be sure to be kind to all involved. Dancing Lawn is less of a city and more of a series of interconnected living spaces scattered between the woods, that congregate often in one of Narnia’s biggest clearings for celebration. Don’t miss the Harvest Festival at the end of the year!

—     Beaversdam

Second smallest city of Narnia, Beaversdam takes its name from Mr. and Mrs. Beaver’s former home. Advisors to the great Kings and Queens of Old, they transformed their home into an orphanage of sorts for all the children of Narnia. Beaversdam remains a place of learning and raising, with many, many children still living there. It’s a crossing point for the entire country and many parents send their children there for a season or two to learn from many types of lives!

—     Cauldron Pool

Just bordering the mountains to the Western Wild, Cauldron Pool’s main attraction is a beautiful cascade that flows, it’s been said, from the very center of the world. The clearest water you’ll find in Narnia is in Cauldron Pool. The smallest city of Narnia is for those quiet souls who wish for respite, but don’t be mistaken! It is also an important point of Narnia’s underground road system.

THE CITIES OF NEW

—     Arlanza

The most important city of Narnia is its capital, Arlanza. It is both the administrative and economic pillar of Narnia, gathering the head of all three representative powers and, most importantly, the throne. Rebuilt after the Tenth War, repurposing and expanding the Caspian castle and citadel, Arlanza is the biggest metropolis in the country and where most important things happen. There’s so much to do Arlanza has its own set of pamphlets! Among such things, visiting the castle grounds (with the eldest willow in the world!), the beautiful and quaint fountain plaza dedicated to Aslan, the Council Room and the gorgeous view of the canyons in which Arlanza was built. If you’re lucky, you might even bump into the Kings and Queens of Old taking a walk through town!

—     Renteria

Renteria is the northernmost city and the first Telmarine settlement Caspian the conqueror built. It’s a fortified wall city, nestled between the mountains. The gentle slopes nearby are perfect for playing in the snow during winter! It’s been known to be the winter home of many important people—and their extensive peach farms! Enjoy the warm comfort of winter in the most lovely of frosty places we can offer.

—     Morenia

Another of the towns that settled along the Underground road, Morenia is actually the passing city to the Western Wild by excellence. Although it may not seem much in the surface (get it, because it’s mostly underground), it is one of Narnia’s hidden jewels. It is Narnia’s prime mining center and home to the largest congregation of dwarves, both black and red, that exists in the country. Food in Morenia is said to be the very best in the whole country! There you can enjoy the peculiar, yet hearty dwarven stews while you admire the incredible underground architecture typical of these lands!

—     Lumes

A small town nestled in the middle of the Western Woods, Lumes has a great story to tell. It used to be called lantern waste and the legend says the woods contained a portal to another world! This is where the Kings and Queens of Old were born, as well, and it is a place they hold dear, so you may see them there as well. Lumes mostly houses fauns and the families that run Beaversdam.

—     Lagos

Lagos’ main attraction is, of course, Narnia’s Frozen Lake. Though much time has passed since Frozen Lake has defrosted (since the time of the White Witch!), the name remains an inside joke for the locals. The inhabitants of Lagos get to enjoy the calm waters of the lake, in which many fun activities can be carried out. You can even get fishing lessons from the Bears! If water isn’t your thing, don’t panic! The Shuddering Woods are right next to it and they offer many other diversion — though be careful at night, rumours run that speak of ghosts and other devilish appearances living in its depths. Let us know if you will explore!

—     Jemis and Nara

Though both cities are in different extremes of the Shribble lathe, they serve as the anchors for most of the northern parts of Narnia. Relatively new, built during the second phase of the Tenth war by none other than Queen Lucy and her followers, Jemis and Nara serve as curators of the most eccentric of Narnian characters. Jemis was built as central command for the Narnian army up north and lays in the middle of the Marsh territory, though it is also known host of many owls, as Owlwood is a flap of wings away. Nara lays all the way to the center of Narnia, guarding the plains between the mountains that give Shribble lathe its border, and was created as an outpost to guard from intruders. It has the largest and most beautiful set of doors carved out of ancient marble, reminiscing of the architecture during the Golden Age. Two flowers courtesy of Queen Lucy!

—     Archen

Right in the middle of Mount Pire and Stormness Head, Archen is a little nook of our neighboring country in Narnia. Previously the home of the only humans in Narnia, now Archen houses a variety of third generation Archenlanders and Terebinthians who have established successful trading posts in the region. Archen is much like Cair Paravel but with a much more relaxed attitude — they even say Bacchus himself has settled there. Let us know if you hear the hooves of Silenus’ donkey!

[elizasepistolarytravels]

Mexico, racism, and storing extraction in our bodies. A year on.

Today I want to talk about racism in Mexico. 

The point for me in these letters is to talk about stuff that I find sometimes has not been named enough, not as a final statement, but more a need to digest and process in the way that I have found useful- through setting literal pen to handmade paper, to think about topics important to me as I am going through the process of making my paper: shredding, mulching, and at last hanging up a new blank sheet to dry for me to pour my thoughts onto. 

This thought has been churning in me in its complexity for a whole year, and at last it has a semblance of structure. So here goes the story:

Since I arrived in Mexico, I have not been able to shake off an uneasy feeling, and a growing concern for a reality I am finding harder and harder to accept, now that its fibers are made evident. My experience of Mexico has been similar to living in a cast system, and I want to talk about that and possible places to start to open this up. 

My journey started when I arrived last January to the cool slopes of Valle de Bravo my head full of dreams, to start my course in alternative education in a town that I was conscious was full of interesting people and projects that promised practice in the ways of transitioning to a possibly better future. While the dreams have not left, this more extreme aspect of my experience I think can shed a light on much of what I think is lacking in these spaces even in countries like the UK where there is much more social acceptance of these discussions. 

Mexico is a place of myths: one dear to its heart is that around the concept of mestizaje. The mestizo has a heart of fire from Spain, flamenco and the corridas while lashes sprouting from agave spines and desert dreaming eyes twirl as if they were all one. The reality of the mestizo is a little less exciting, and much more of what you would expect: the mixing of peoples and ethnicities that happened in the Spanish colonisation is much more the stratification of peoples into a cast system according to their lineage and their ‘whiteness’ and much less a tale of a beautiful melting pot and a story of when ‘colonisation was ok’. Today, there is still this cast system, and much unnamed pain still stores itself in these spaces between people, in even in the most ‘woke’ environments. There may not be here as much ‘overt’ wealth separation, but I argue that if we do not address how the extraction and violence of colonisation has stored itself in our white (and whiter) bodies and continues to create separation in us, and thus, systemically racist structures, we will not achieve any of the community based projects we have set out to create, treating the effects and sources of racism being one of the most important points in creating transition towards a future that can regenerate the world.

While it is true that many of us have dark eyes and dark hair, in amongst these spaces where people look like me, there is an unspoken knowledge that in reality much of our ancestors really have lighter skin because they never spoke Masahua, toltec, or tsetsal to each other; they spoke Spanish, French, maybe English or German. Our kinship was never of this land, and the mestizaje that did happen was always absorbed as much as possible back into the homogenising force of colonisation, back into the racist idea of whiteness. And that is why we are the wealthier and the whiter, that all appear together, that is why there are still ‘clubs’ (leisure centres) in Mexico city where you can pay a good sum to be cut off from the rest of its squalor, the ‘club France’ or the ‘club Spain’, where you can live out the extent of colonisation today, mixing only with people of your ‘line’. I have simultaneously seen spades of temazcales, plant medicine offerings, drumming and ancient healing practices (a genuine interest for things that I understand), and people going back to the same race relations where the darker skinned and those who speak a language of this land are the ones who uphold these lifestyles of relative ease of the whiter and wealthier. I am not saying that the search for meaning, for the return of ritual is wrong, but that this dynamic is evident of the deep embeddedness of the cast system in the Mexican psyche so much that much of of what I described here I think is completely obscure to most people and not seen as a problem. 

Again, the search for growth is not wrong, but the point of all this was to remember that you are deeply interconnected and interdependent with the people and beings around you, and that you and your little ego is not that important really. Ritual reaffirmed what actions and practices and interconnections were going on in your community already, they do not substitute them. My problem with these spaces is that I do not see any real attempt to create interdependence with people outside of your socio-economic (and racialised) class, thus maintaining the same racist structures of our predecessors. After a plant medicine ceremony, people go back to their houses where their help is darker skinned, has less formal education than them, and this will be the only point of contact with someone outside of their cast. Wage labor can never be fertile land to create interdependence, to create actual friendship and care. I feel that racism in Mexico expresses itself in those subtle ways only those on the receiving end know how insidious it can be: in the lack of care for breaking down the structures that keep us separate, unseen, and really interdependent. Lets face it, people do not really want to knit society with those who cannot participate in the cultural game of appearing woke like they do, they can only be seen with them in the form of ‘helping them’, ‘giving them a job’. To be actual friends is very very rare, and you can only participate in the game of appearing woke if your body has inherited a certain history of privilege. 

I see that despite all the good, sustainable initiatives and the ‘healing’ done in these circles, we are not open to see how our white bodies have stored racist, capitalist and extractivistic structures of wealth, that make it that even as a middle class student making it by, if unchecked, the same structures of oppression and pain will perpetuate themselves, and there will be no real planetary healing, no real chance of changing anything for the better in any really substantial way. The hoarding of value expresses itself in the overconfidence of whiter bodies, in the looks of comparison and the implication that something about you is not enough, spurring the original wound of capitalism and the need of endless consumption, hoarding, and taking from those you deem expendable. Colonialism in white bodies is the search for charisma, is the search for medicine for your own self agrandizaition, for it being commodified and consumed, folded back into capitalism, with no context and connection to creating interdependence with the people who imparted such knowledge. You will remain a cristal tower to the world around you, and you will find yourself saying that you have tried to connect with people outside of your cast, but, it’s like they don’t want to. And it’s not on them.

To counter this, I find that to start, try and create other spaces to exist outside of waged labor together, even if it is just in the form of conversations where you genuinely care about the others wellbeing. Trade from a point of equality, of truth. Breaking from racist woke structures demands that we paradoxically break some of the uber-confidence that I have argued, is the residual storage of wealth extractivism and colonialist violence that gets stored in how we use our bodies. It demands a de-sensitisation to reactions to how we can be culturally different, just let the differences be, see them without needing to sort and categorise or see how this could benefit you. Be humble in ways where you feel no one needs to take up more space then they need to. In the same way, no one needs to dress differently, put on an accent, play being the other, pretend something is different then it is. It is a genuine curiosity to know your neighbour, the complexity of their life, their highs and their woes just like you, and see how we can help each other out, fumbling towards being friends who do not shy away from the realities of being born into a world of separation and what that implies. I am in no way dismissing my paradoxes and how I struggle, even in my own family, where this relationship sometimes still plays on, and leave me forever uncomfortable. 

We will still exist in a world in Mexico where wage relationships as a standard are the reality, and if like many, you benefit from the help of people in your house, the issue is not the exchange of value, but wage relations in this way is an extension of colonialist history, and mostly the only history, and that the numbing to the reality of the roots of this separation is what keeps this going. Lets look into what lenses we were given, how we hold our bodies, where our priorities lie. 

Much love. 

E xxx

[clickbliss]

Yakuza 6 makes Kamurocho feel like a new playground once again

by Amr (@siegarettes)

Yakuza 6

Developer- SEGA

Publisher- SEGA

PS4

Becoming familiar with the Yakuza series means becoming familiar with Kamurocho, the bustling entertainment district that the series calls home. And like Kiryu Kazuma I’ve come to accept that Kamurocho is a place I can’t escape, but also a home of sorts. The are others cities, each with their own character and charm, but the heart of Yakuza has always been Kamurocho. So I’m pleased to see that Yakuza 6 has once again brought new life to this city. 

Yakuza 6 feels firmly modern. Not only in its facsimile of its Tokyo tourist town, but in the basic feeling of moment to moment play. There’s still plenty of the old spirit of PS2 RPGs around, but the world is much less segmented, and full of small touches that make it feel more alive. After playing so many of Yakuza games it feels deeply bizarre to walk up to a door and walk right through it rather than see a loading screen. Despite that it still feels philosophically aligned with the approach of the old games, with its architecture still firmly rooted in communicating a sense of city above all else. 

In other open world games the world often feels like a delivery vehicle for endless activities. No space exists without providing some gameplay benefit. And while there’s plenty of side quests, collectibles, and mini-games in Yakuza 6, there’s also spaces that just exist. Rooftops gardens, offices, interconnected buildings, cafes and establishments that people clearly hang out it, but can’t be interacted with because Kiryu clearly doesn’t feel like he has business there. This extends to new details like the working vending machines. They technically provide some benefit, but they feel more like they’re there because wouldn’t it be cool if you could not only see every individual drink but buy them too? And you know, it definitely is.

On top of that it’s finally possible to explore in first person. It feels fantastic, both because it let me get a much better look at the people and places of the game, and because the narrow streets can often feel cramped when walking around in Kiryu’s absurdly wide frame. Kiryu still has the same stumbling movement that often had me unintentionally walking into scenery, but the addition of physics to environmental objects makes it both easier to navigate and in a roundabout way kind of ends up adding to Kiryu’s characterization. Seeing signs, bikes, and furniture be launched out of the way, or straight up disintegrate in some cases, upon coming into contact with Kiryu, really solidifies him as a foolish brick wall of a man in an endearing way. 

The seamless world also benefits the combat, allowing fights to spill from the streets into the interiors of convenience stores and cafes, and allowing you take on a lot more enemies at a time. To adjust for this Kiryu gains a few new moves. Most important are his ability to swing an enemy into the crowd around him, and a parry that’ll redirect enemy attacks. There’s also an Extreme Heat move that gives you access to new attacks and heat moves, and allows you to instantly pick up items in the world to bash people with, similar to the Beast style in Yakuza 0 and Kiwami. 

Like previous games, Kiryu isn’t exactly a graceful man, so fights often get messy and I was never able to have a clean fight. I’ve made peace with the fact that Kiryu is someone who’ll get through a brawl on sheer toughness and by chugging down health drinks. The new additions unfortunately exasperate some of the messier aspects of the combat, and make Heat moves and other techniques feel even more situational, meaning I saw a lot less of them. The Extreme Heat mode in particular ended up with me picking up items or burning my Heat meter when I didn’t want to, or on the wrong targets. 

The brawling still ends up being fun, and I spent a lot of nights looking for trouble and seeing what situations I could get into, but there was less for me to look forward to in terms of mastering combat. Instead it was the suite of new activities and side stories that picked up the slack, once again providing the drama and humor the series is known for. Once again, Yakuza managed to provide a satisfying playground with an endless momentum that no other series has quite matched. 

And it’s good that this playground feels so fresh because Yakuza 6′s core melodrama feels much weaker this time around. It’s concerned with the legacy of Kiryu, bringing in factions from his past and detailing the reverberations of his time with the Tojo Clan. These reverberations hit everyone from national crime organizations to his would be daughter, Haruka. And Yakuza 6 is keen to explore this range in attempts to answer questions about what a man’s legacy should be, and where Kiryu, a representative of the past, stands in a world run by fresh blood without concern for the old ways. 

Yakuza 6 never reaches the sprawling absurdity that gave Yakuza 5 its momentum, nor does it feel as tightly woven as the intrigue of Yakuza 0. It keeps its focus contained to a small number of locations, but spreads itself too thin by introducing too many factions and doing little with them in an attempt to reckon with the impact of Kiryu’s life, and in some ways, the history of the series itself. The core cast is still a joy to hang out with, but the plot relies too much on stringing Kiryu along and forcing him into reluctant situations, even more than the series usually does. 

The series’ conservative streak once again drags it down as well. While it never reaches the pitiable depths that other entries do, Yakuza 6 once again sidelines all its women in its reckoning with its ideas of masculine responsibility, and dips back into the well of xenophobia for its depictions of the Koreans and Chinese. While entries like Yakuza 0 feel far more egregious in terms of their most exploitative scenes, they also manage to create strong characterization and sympathy in ways that Yakuza 6 doesn’t. Again, it’s not ruinous, but it is hollow in a way that stands in contrast to how vibrant other parts of the game feel. 

Even with these problems, Yakuza 6 still manages to feel perpetually compelling. There’s something about the way the game threads together substories, side activities and absurd story revelations that keeps the pacing from dragging down. Every time I played it I found myself swept away, managing to play longer than I thought I would so I could see the next story beat or fit in a few more brawls or substories. Yakuza 6′s world and characters remain charming, and there are few pleasures like being able to see them again one last time. 

[fightersforpeace]

About places, heritage and memory

When I first came to Beirut in the year 2000, I immediately felt a connection between Beirut and Berlin, the city where I had been living for 10 years before coming to Lebanon. I had experienced the years of freedom, change and some anarchy during the process of reunification and reconstruction in the heart of Germany in the 1990s. I found a similar spirit in Beirut where I arrived in the year 2000. Both cities had suffered from a conflict, both cities had been divided and carrying with them deep scars. Also, in Berlin and in Beirut, I was drawn to architectural ruins – old villas, buildings, cinemas, factories. It would inspire me and let me dream about the life that had filled these ruins in times long gone.

Coming to Beirut and living here for 20 years has been emotionally challenging. So many beautiful old villas were abandoned and at the brink of destruction. My first story I filmed for German TV was in Beit Beirut about the divisions of Beirut and Berlin and the difficult process of reunification. A few years later, I filmed the story of my husband and myself in the “egg”, in Khiam prison or what’s left of it, and in Saufar’s old castle. In my first year in Beirut, I shared an apartment with German students who were urban planners. They would go to Zokak al Blat, the part where I live now, and study the urban fabric of this area, recording in detail the old villas, streets, shops, and social fabric, and their master thesis would deliver recommendations for safeguarding this old part of Beirut. But living in Zokak al Blat for the last 13 years or so, I had to experience how “developers” demolished a big portion of the old heritage over the years. Every day I used to walk my daughter to school – a school which still has an old villa and a beautiful garden as part of its campus – I would swear at the wild west capitalism, the greed and ruthlessness of the owners who sold their heritage for money and the construction companies that built soul-less concrete blocks, I would swear at the lack of political will (not the lack of legislation) that gave room to demolish these beautiful old villas and gardens to be replaced by massive, ugly, brutal high-rises. I cried and was depressed.

It is possible that the small high-rise where I currently live was also built on the ground where once an old villa or a garden had been in place. When we moved in, we had a view on downtown, the port, and from the balcony we would look down to a traditional Lebanese house with red tiles, being surrounded by oleander bushes and bougainvillea and trees. My daughter was born in this apartment, while feeding her or putting her to bed, I would peek out of the window of her room, see the city at night and the sunrise over the mountains. This view wouldn’t last long, as in Beirut no one is entitled to have a beautiful view, because a Saudi or Kuwaiti developer destroyed the old house, ripped out the oleander bushes and trees and built a high-rise right in front of our noses. I cried and was depressed.

It is ironic that this very building, which was robbing us of the remainders of Lebanese heritage and a beautiful view, would somehow protect us during the explosion on 4th August, except for the old baby room where my daughter would normally sit on her bed, read or chat with her friends. The explosion destroyed all of our windows and doors and if we had been home during the blast, for sure my daughter would have been sitting in her favorite spot in her room and would have been injured by broken glass which landed on her bed. Thank God we weren’t home. Nevertheless, I cried and was depressed.

The landscape of Beirut has changed drastically over the years. More high rises, more office buildings, less sky, less greenery. Sarcastically, I would comment that in Beirut, “everything old and everything green has to go”. That was the mentality, it seemed. But the mentality of whom? Of the Beirutis who were disconnected from the history of this place, or the mentality of real-estate developers, the mafia ruling post-war Lebanon? Sometimes I’d feel that it would even be better to destroy the entire remaining heritage and make Beirut a complete concrete city. At least then we would no longer be reminded of how beautiful Beirut had been before, we would no longer cry over the loss of heritage because it would have been totally erased from our memories.

As a good old European, who cherishes everything old, I would find some consolation first in Monot street, then in Gemmayzeh and later in Mar Mikhael, the only parts of town where entire quarters were still intact with heritage buildings. I would feel that the soul of Beirut was still preserved and very much alive in these areas; I would be happy to see that a mix of restaurants, pubs, galleries would mingle with little grocery and craftsman shops that had been there long before the hipsters arrived; I’d appreciate a mix of old and young, local and international folks, conservative and crazy ones living side by side. And most importantly, at least, the heritage seemed to be safe!

These areas are no more since 4th August – or at least they’re highly endangered and much of the heritage has vanished. And the real estate developers are already waiting around the corner, knocking on people’s doors – people who have lost their homes, their businesses, their galleries and workshops and living rooms; people who had put a lot of effort in maintaining their heritage buildings, in renovating them and turning them into something beautiful and alive; people who are now homeless and devastated – the real estate sharks are around the corner, abusing people’s suffering and vulnerability of this cruel moment in history, to buy off the lands for a cheap bargain, to knock down the last remainders of Beirut’s history and soul, in order to replace the heritage by ugly, massive, brutal high rises. Their greed and ruthlessness and lack of empathy disgusts me. I cry and I am depressed. If this heritage goes, then I am gone, too. If Gemmayzeh, Mar Mikhael are no longer, I will leave Beirut and never return.

Beirut is at a turning point: Either it will be saved – and with it its heritage, memory and soul – or its soul will be gone. It is heartwarming to see how thousands of young volunteers help the inhabitants and business owners to clear the rubble, collect the broken glass and save what can be saved. There are numerous initiatives like Save Beirut Heritage, AUB Neighborhood Initiative and others who are fighting for save-guarding Beirut’s last heritage. I wonder if some reasonable real estate developers exist which appreciate Beirut’s heritage and are willing to rebuild these destroyed neighborhoods while respecting the people’s will, maintaining the social fabric and the heritage.

And there is the Forum for Memory and Future, a network of Lebanese NGOs, academics and international organizations which deal with Lebanon’s complicated and painful past. This network should expand its mission – (heritage) places and the collective memory of a nation are interconnected. This Forum had as aim to Deal with the Past of the Lebanese civil war. Parts of Beirut who were severely affected by the blast – Monot street, the port, Gemmayzeh for example – were important locations during the war years. This Forum should not focus on the Lebanese civil war only, but become broader and more inclusive in its approach and focus now on lobbying to safeguard Beirut’s heritage which was destroyed on 4th August. It also should lobby to safeguard the ruin of the wheat silo which was destroyed in the explosion and turn it into a memorial site. Because when heritage sites are lost, Beirut’s soul will be gone and with it its memory.

In Berlin, in the hype of the reunification years in 1989 and after, the Berlin wall – symbol of a painful division – was almost totally demolished. The young generations no longer know where the wall was, they do not feel the inhumane character of the wall and the death strips – some even don’t know that Berlin was once divided. Heritage sites and locations are deeply connected to the collective memory of a nation. In Berlin as well as in Beirut. That’s why it is so important to safeguard physical heritage. The memory has a chance to live on, from generation to generation, when sites are kept. And why should the Lebanese remember only the painful past of the civil war? Why not remember the beauty of old Beirut, the 1900s, the 1920s; the heydays of the 1960s when the international jet set would come for holidays? This is also part of the complex and often contradictory collective memory of Lebanon!

I no longer want to cry and be depressed. I hope that the Beirut blast will be a turning point in Beirut’s history and that something positive will come out of this horrible disaster: A rebirth, but with the participation of its people, giving room for a deep connection between the Beirutis and their city, a strong and emotional one. I hope that there will be a new political will to safeguard Beirut’s heritage, and a deep appreciation of this heritage, the history and collective memory which weighs more than dollars.

I no longer want to cry, because I ran out of tears. I no longer want to feel depressed, because the emptiness in my heart has given room to a new, hopefully better beginning.

Christina Foerch 23 August 2020

Article supported by IFA-ZIVIK

[malaceinthepalace]

You learn something when you simply remember the accounts that lead you to a place in life. I am in NYC Chinatown during Chinese New Years during the outbreak of the Wuhan cronivirus during my stay Kobe Bryant died and David Stern was buried. Kansas City won its first Super Bowl in 50 years and a member of the Republican senate in a act of integrity voted against party lines to find the president of the United States guilty of the charges that lead to his impeachment. These are all things that happened around my sphere of vision of what I find to be interesting in the world. My world is full of things that come with my existence. When I was born my existence in the plantet could be confirmed by my parents. Like a game of pong they attempted to keep me in the middle and because it’s real life and not a true game game you don’t win when you get it past the other side and the game aspect of the events in the theater of reality is the zero sum out come when one side of the equation fails to bounce the little ball back to the other. The grander picture reveals the results like if one paddle is not present one side must work harder to not fail or if one paddle still thinks they are a little ball.

I am still a little ball I love little balls I and with them all my life and they have lead me to here in Chinatown after playing in China for 5 years, learning conversational mandarin and can dog cuss you in Cantonese. I have said China is globally misunderstood and could be better viewed as an absolute monarchy that hold the Mandate of Heaven. What they say is law and like how it took England 1000 to hold these people accountable with the interconnected world ideals like freedom of speech are beginning to quicken that process within the Middle Kingdom. The regime that is in place now has the authority to lock in 400M people could you imagine if the virus started or was a virulent as it is in parts of the Middle Kingdom in the United States or Europe? The idea of a sickness that has the same kill rate according to the numbers as the yearly flu shutting down our way of life is borderline crazy to me but I have been called crazy so maybe it isn’t. The implementation of this in the United States would lead to mass panic and hysteria.

Kobe Bryant dying was hard on me. I wondered around the town like a zombie having to stop at times of the walk to sit and would cry uncontrollably. I could not understand it but the event hit me so hard due to how much of a shining star he was to so many on the planet. I would compare the impact to his passing similar to Kennedy or Lennon but the tragedy is amplified by the loss of the young girls that included his daughter. Having children and being able to say I got to play against him made me think of literally everything from the good the bad and the ugly. There was so much more of the latter two but I have learned that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and like art it is rarely appreciated in its time. The ugly of my life with time has turned to maybe Sarah Plain and Tall. The other nba figure that passed was David Stern I had less interaction with him than I did Kobe Bryant but I had absolutely no way to describe how I felt when I heard he died. I think it’s disappointment that I could never show him that what he actively tried to destroy isn’t a weed but a rose growing through the concrete. I had no positive feelings about him during his life and I currently don’t have any either. I have had very deep and sometime dark feelings about him but that is now in the past due to his death. I wanted to sit him down and talk to him like the interview he did with Al Harrington but now I won’t get that chance.

The chiefs winning the super bowl sparked the same bullshit that the Obama presidency did. Because of the actions of the of this country on its own people specifically against the descendants of the captured population of Africa when a person of this color does well its as amplified as if they do poorly by the other sides historic efforts. So when I read the stories about him winning as a black QB it makes me confused because it’s as similar to when they call Colin Kaepernick black for taking up the flag of the violence of the police. They are Americans of African descent but Americans. When they win or stand for a cause it’s not as a black male but as an American male which should not divide in thought and allow the population to unite with a sound national identity that is inclusive of skin color. Putting aside our phenotypic traits to grow our understanding of who we are as a global society is the only path towards peace that will allow our species to colonize the stars. I’m not saying that either of those players are not black because of their mixed race and if they identify as black they should be allowed to because in today’s age you can be called what ever you want no matter your genetic makeup.

This brings me to Mitt. During Obama vs Mitt I came up with the slogan “Mitt ain’t shit.” I don’t think it caught on because I was wrong but it was funny. He might not be shit but he is a man of integrity and conviction. He stood on the correct side of history when he voted the president guilty. Even the cowards who voted party lines over Conscience admitted the presidents guilt. In the grand scheme of things why does The 44th President live rent free in the feeble minds that are under those red hats? I don’t know but in the end I hope 45 wins and tries to get a third term making it open for Obama to beat him in an open election.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I came back to my apartment yesterday to little fanfare and a new refrigerator.  I left the house around nine.  Spent the day shopping for gifts for my mom’s birthday.  There was never any reply to my initial text to my landlord which included a request to install my new smart thermostat.  I had left in the text that I could always return it.  The old thermostat was refastened to the wall securely as if to prove a point.  Two hundred dollars less spent after a return but still the amount of things you have to read into is priceless.  That’s par for the course in this city.  Nobody likes confrontation.  Nobody is particularly good at it face to face.  I walked out my door to some gang shit.  My instinct is always to get out of the way.  First you look at people’s hands.  Then you make sure there are no guns.  Then you change your course quietly and walk away from any heated arguments.  I get on the bus to be greeted by my old neighbor who is Korean and a medical student.  I smile and nod politely.  Then spend the morning playing Hearthstone over coffee at a cafe called the wormhole.  It’s communal seating but I don’t feel very uncomfortable or out of place.  In New York being comfortable in public at a coffee house for me is the same as back home.  You are sitting there in public and people leave you alone for an hour while you do your thing.  I grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago in a bleak cultural wasteland.  The epicenter was a twenty minute drive to the next town over.  I drank so much coffee at Denny’s they eventually hired me.  I’d play magic the gathering in the smoking section until four in the morning.  Sometimes we’d meet up and drive to raves the next state over.  These days I don’t own a car anymore.  I’ve seen it parked around the city.  That’s a door to the past I’ve sealed shut with holy water and dark magic.  Life is always in your face to remind you how it really is.  Confronting the reality of it is akin to grabbing the hounds by the teeth.  What are you really trying to say with all that barking?  After travelling all over the world I’ve learned communication is a complex thing.  I’ve felt more accepted in silence than I have being explained over countless times.  Sometimes people say things without saying them.  My landlord is Polish.  The only word I know is be quiet.  When I told the landlord they didn’t quite smile.  It was in the emptiness of the moment I knew how things are.  Just like nobody dares move that Jesus statue in the parking spot when the snow goes above five inches.  There are unwritten rules and unspoken narratives in real cities that go untouched for better or for worse.  Mine just so happens to have a new refrigerator and the same familiar feeling.  No sudden changes financially or otherwise for the time being.  Nothing new worth confronting in the outside world other than in game currency.

Am in the matrix or am I outside the simulation?  If life had an on and off switch I’d be flipping that shit randomly to create the sickest of all strobe effects.  Sadly mortality doesn’t quite work that way.  Yolo is king.  The worst thing people could say behind my back is that I don’t fit in.  That I don’t belong when it’s so easy for me to be invisible in plain sight.  Every narrative walking around in the deep jungles of urban planning has a place.  Some of it you don’t want to be trapped in.  Some of them you cannot avoid.  It’s a geography of many overlapping circles or rhizomes.  Interconnected by impossible relationships and hidden values.  It’s quite daunting to navigate openly and transparently.  But half of the aesthetic of the clothes I wore wistfully cherished this sort of open rebellion.  An elegant sort of punk.  That you could come crashing in at any moment like the softest wave and roll back out to sea unknowingly.  And the tides would bring you back to the same point again and again.  Riding the wave isn’t something you control.  I have not yet mastered the ability of forcing gravity to do my bidding.  There’s rules you follow and practice involved.  But there is a knowing of when you are in danger at all times.  The more you value of yourself the less you are interested in rocking the boat or adding additional weight.  I like to think of whatever aura I project as rooted in some sort of accountability.  It’s easy to forget what all I do and how great I really am sure.  When I look back all I see is failure.  Kind of like when I look at a map and see Indiana just across the lake from us.  You stay over there with your dunes and your guns.  If I look at how long I’ve done the same things with broken results I know what doesn’t work for me.  I know suffering through the daily struggle doesn’t really have much to show for it other than being a good person.  I do know for however public or private people think I am it varies where on the map I’ve dropped the pin.  My reputation often precedes me so often that I constantly have to make sure people don’t get the wrong idea.  In my little bubble there are very few people outside of this blog that know or listen to anything personal.  I may talk to myself in the back room often instead of projecting it on the internet.  But I know the results of putting it all out there in the moment sound confusing when I hear myself say it.  I take time to reflect in my little world which is easier to do with a refrigerator that isn’t making noises all the time.  I have a consistent space where I renew and grow.  That space follows me out into the wild for better or for worse.  But the only real trouble at my doorstep are a couple of feral cats.  I can say after all these years that I have very little baggage other than the usual wrinkles under the eyes.  That’s what I get for staring at the screen at all times.  Somewhere out there I’ve got three oculus strapped to my forehead like I’m the edge lord of the inception.  Locked in a freezer or cryo for eternity would be poetic justice.

But really it’s just the same old Tim again this year.  The nightmare keeps getting realer.  I don’t know that I’m all that bothered by that.  It’s like I’ve set up a huge bulwark in my life over the years.  I put a lot of positive practices in motion with absolutely no validation.  And it hurt often.  Made me cry.  Made me think I would never be good enough.  And I faced those feelings.  I grew from them.  And ironically became more of the person I needed to be.  Whatever that is.  That’s the mind fuck of all of this.  Nobody has the answers for you.  You do.  And people will still make you question your reasons for living.  Make you feel your dreams are not possible.  That however far away they might be it’s not as distant as the silence you have to read into daily to survive.  Communication is rough.  We talk all the time.  I write down here week after week thinking someone will finally get it.  And someone does.  The person that gets it is me.  That’s why I write.  It’s very easy to reflect on the narrative a year ago.  Because it came from within me.  And I know where it’s failed.  And I know where it’s grown.  And most importantly I know where it matters and where it doesn’t.  If they say life is what you make it then we all should have an opportunity to make it better.  And then some people make over people’s entire right to exist in the process.  Just because they feel they know better.  Society is a constant steam roll of ideas that can be bad if you are too close in proximity.  You can’t force people to understand you and you also don’t need to accept half assed attempts at being understood.  The way I’ve navigated this over time has largely been time management.  There’s things like prioritzing, scheduling, financial planning, and dark looks into the mirror that coalesce.  I know people make me feel guilty daily for not sharing my power.  My life has practically been an open book nobody wants to acknowledge is a best seller.  I don’t really sell anything other than the places I eat when my refrigerator is broken.  In that respect the Chinese dumpling place by work is very cute.  But imagine if I wasn’t putting myself out there.  Or if I wasn’t comfortable living in this city alone, transparent and always questioned for interaction’s sake.  Life is pretty exhausting.  It’d be far more emotionally draining if I wasn’t able to just shut the door and stare out the window at peace over good coffee.  I think if anything I’ve become more comfortable with where I am in life.  And most of that is about being the king of my particular circle.  A very small space that represents individuality and freedom here in a very naughty country called America.  Change comes from within.  And while I don’t really see much changing I know I’m not going anywhere for the time being.  Other than sticking around here with you.  In the matrix.  Away from the prying eye’s of Sauron.  My lips are sealed much like my fate.  Six more months of WoW.  I’ll keep my heart on ice until further notice.  The frozen throne.  How many winters can I survive alone?  Trick question I’m a viking.  I’m genetically predisposed to be cold in the best possible way.  And I have the appliances to match.  <3 Tim

[ruffoverthinksthings]

Auradon Improvement Initiative Explained! (Part 3): The Divided States of Auradon

Note: This is 1,800 or so words. It is a VERY long read.

“No one argues with Beast’s decision because he’s the best and the smartest and the most Good leader of all,” to paraphrase Melissa de la Cruz (author of the main Descendants book series), is the in-universe justification about how no one complains about Beast’s overarching decisions like the Magic Ban.

To me, it honestly sounds like propaganda from a totalitarian regime like North Korea, the kind of oversimplification and shielding from brutal reality that a parent would give a very young child, or a massive insult to the intelligence of the people of Auradon, especially egregious because I can name at least two Disney Princesses who have “incredible intelligence and studiousness” as one of their key traits, Belle (Beauty and the Beast) and Jasmine (Aladdin).

You could say this is actually even MORE insulting because one of them is actually married to the man, and would have unparalleled influence in his decisions.

This part of my long, drawn-out, and at times “very concerning for the sheer passion I’m putting into it” series of how I would improve Descendants advises doing away with the “United” States of Auradon.

Instead, it would make them the “Divided” Countries of Auradon, unified only by international agreements and trade, but otherwise each their own government.

As of now, Auradon is like a Federal Government, with a central government that enforces nation-wide policy and being the ultimate source of power (Auradon City, Beast, and eventually, Ben), but each state/kingdom has its own regional government that actually handles the nitty-gritty of day-to-day operations and their own unique local issues and concerns (the various monarchs who still rule over their dominions, such as Aladdin and Jasmine over Agrabah, the Emperor over China, or what remains of the Parliament of London).

The regional governments have been shown to have incredible scope of power, as with King Arthur being legally able to literally keep Camelot in the Dark Ages, and Ben is presumably unable to veto that for whatever reason, but as the above quote says, everyone generally falls in line with whatever Beast says because “he’s the King.”

I hate that.

I want disagreements between states, actual fucking politics, diplomacy, and compromise, show how difficult it is to get all of these vastly different cultures to agree on something as inane as the theme for an annual international event, much less trade agreements that could literally end with people starving to death, or dire emergencies like outbreaks of disease that could spread VERY quickly everywhere, largely because of Auradonians habit of gelling together and crowding in the streets for random dance numbers, all whilst singing at the top of their lungs.

Make it so that Ben is frequently shown or referenced to be in long, grueling meetings, constantly overseeing, reading and listening to, and making decisions for the government like an actual King in a modern, interconnected environment like this, and how it’s a delicate high-wire act with a lot of ass-kissing, self-sacrifice, and sometimes pandering to the most frivolous aspects of your fellow rulers and influential figures.

It may be ridiculous to knight a duchess’ dog, but it’s not so ridiculous when that act stands between you and solving a massive uprising in the farmers who demand to finally be able to own the land they’ve been tilling, rather than to still have to pay tribute to the lady of the estate AND taxes to the government.

And then show that this is just Auradon City level politics, that this isn’t even going into how deep, complex, and ridiculous it can get the individual kingdoms, especially a hub of international trade activity like Arendelle.

Make a reference to how they DID try to have Beast be the Supreme Ruler, but after a few months of his dictatorial, no compromises, “Obey me or I will yell at you until you do!” leadership style, everyone got sick of his shit, and realized this was a bad idea.

Teach kids that being a leader (especially a King) doesn’t mean you always have to fight for and get what you want, it’s figuring out the best solution for everyone, and is oftentimes an inglorious, difficult job where the criticisms are many and the praise is few.

And if you constantly throw tantrums and demand everyone bow down to you, that’s a great way to turn your allies against you, have them unite in their desire to kick you out, and make even more trouble for everyone.

(On a side note, I headcanon that relations, professional or personal, between King Beast and Queen Elsa are still strained to this day. The staff make sure they are never alone together in a room.)

All the realism aside, to make everyone hold hands and dance 24/7 is an insult to the classic Disney movies, which thrived on division between the people within a single kingdom, or even a small town.

To use Beauty and the Beast, would Belle and her father Maurice’s plight have been as interesting if they weren’t ostracized for their intelligence and bookishness? If they all got along just fine, and the mob heading up to Beast’s castle was just to politely ask what happened to Belle, not to “Kill the Beast!”?

It would also make the world extremely interesting by giving every individual state/country/kingdom their own identity and theme, a culture and a personality, rather than just be aesthetic choices like a “UN Pride Parade” with all-white, middle class, American paraders wearing traditional costumes of countries they may not have even heard of.

Make it so that Auradon City is like Washington DC, a hub of political activity and where the children of diplomats and politicians generally go to get educated, but it doesn’t have much else going for that—in fact, it would be nothing of value if Auradon didn’t exist.

After all, the value of the Silver Dollar is entirely dependent on there being a government that recognizes its value, otherwise it’s just worth as much as the silver, gold, or jewels it’s made of.

Make China, Arendelle, and Agrabah as the three major economic powers, having massive sway in all political decisions because they could bankrupt or cause untold damage to the World Bank, and be perfectly fine within their own borders as they are completely self-sustaining, or people would trade with them regardless.

Show the effects of a culture and a kingdom that lives and dies by trade and worships the Silver Dollar, what kind of people that would produce, what sorts of products they have going for them and the unique challenges in having all this money flowing around freely.

I can guarantee you that the crime rate wouldn’t be at 0% as Ben says in the novels.

Make Sherwood Forest and Corona the countries for “Gray” characters, the last stop between Auradon and the Isle, and a safe-haven for those that don’t fit in. Redo the Snuggly Duckling scene but on a larger scale, humanize the Islanders and show just how cruel and inhumane the Isle of the Lost is by showing the people that just barely the boats, and have them not be that different from what we’ve seen from the ones actually behind the barrier.

And I would love it if there is mention of rehabilitation centers to make offenders right their ways than leaving them to rot in jail, and these two are the most active states with social programs meant to help the marginalized, the outcast, and the poor—where most “criminals” and “Evil” people originate.

Make London, (Now-Not-So Ancient) Greece, and Atlantis* (not to be confused with the Atlantis in Triton’s Bay) as centers of technological advancement, because they were industrial revolution natives, are known for their artisans and their scientists already (Icarus and Daedalus, among others), and of course, are really intent in reviving their old technology and advancing it to fit the brand new world they live in.

Have the most blatant, fantastic shows of science and technology here, not just smartphones which are so everyday, but flying vehicles en masse, intelligent robots, and Icarus yet again flying to close to the sun, only this time, it’s with jet propulsion and a digital HUD telling him exactly just how high is too high.

Make Bayou de Orleans, France, and Camelot as centers of culture preservation, popular tourist spots that have embraced both the modern amenities of the internet and improvements in infrastructure while not completely (or sometimes, literally) paving over with concrete their rich histories and the natives.

Show people all the numerous bits of culture and history without all the commercialization (or alternatively, make commentary about how they got commercialized and disrespected because of greed), broaden the horizons of your viewers, pay homage to the many wonderful artists and arts that have sadly been forgetten, if not outright erased from history by abusive ruling classes.

Camelot would be particularly interesting as I would see it suffering from King Arthur’s phobia of technology, and even more so with the Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Beep-Boop headcanon before this post.

It could be a criticism of excessively conservative culture, but also acknowledge that people can suffer from “Future Shock,” and you should be helping them adjust to this new world, than claiming they just need to “get with the times” and demeaning them.

Make DunBroch, Neverland, Motunui, and Hawaii as their own independent countries, not part of the union, use them to really hammer in the tension and the problems that came with Beast’s unified rule, and how their “perfect leaders” aren’t so perfect, and banding together and joining hands may not always save the day—the world is much more complex than that.

Above all, though, I’m saying Descendants would really be improved by EMBRACING THE CULTURAL DIVERSITY DISNEY IS TRYING TO SHOW WITH THIS FRANCHISE.

A diverse cast of POCs and retroactively making White characters into POCs is a good start, but until the different cultures they all come from stop being a purely aesthetic matter, and start being a valuable, realistic, and integral part of who they are, we’re going to have problems.

There’s a world of difference about how someone will act, think, or do, depending on where in the world and what kind of society they’ve been raised into.

As of now, Auradon is WAY too “White Upper Class America” for my taste, and could do with a good deal of realism, and showing the other 99% that don’t live in unparalleled luxury, comfort, and privelege, than just exclusively the Royal 1%.

* Atlantis hover vehicles may have been hit by the magic ban, though. But then again, I would imagine they have a lot of exceptions, as full enforcement would mean that EVERY SINGLE ATLANTIAN (again, not to be confused with Ariel’s domain) would be immediately sentenced to death as their life crystals are why they’re still alive after all this time.

[moniqueensevilla-blog]

I have almost reached my two week mark in this city and I cannot believe how quickly the time is flying by. Every day is unique to the last and every day I find myself learning something new.

 I type this from the balcony outside my house as I just got back from walking our dog, Peleyo, through the streets. The dog was so thrilled to go outside because as a city dog he spends almost all of his day indoors. It was nice for me, too, to have a task to do today because Saturdays and Sundays I have no scholarly obligations.

 This Tuesday is my last day of the May term and this Wednesday we have our final exams and then we will have a four day break . Hopefully we will find some way to fill that time.

 I am finally learning the labyrinth that this city consists of and how everything is connected in some way.. it's kind of cool how it works and how different this city is compared to any where I have ever lived before in my life.

 Growing up in a small farm town in Connecticut taught me the benefits of living a life outdoors and the values of a tight knit community. Suffield is so unique in the sense that we have such little culture and there are large gaps in between houses. Worcester, Massachusetts provided me with an opportunity to live in a city, but a city that is very spread out. In Worcester, there are a lot of people and a lot of things to do but it's not as condensed as here

 Seville, however, is unique in every way. The largest difference between here and anywhere I have ever lived is how old it is. While Main Street in Suffield has it's houses from the 1700s, Sevilles streets were made thousands of years ago. My favorite Spanish poet was from Seville and I find it so remarkable to think that he walked the same cobblestone steps as I do every day. While I was shopping on Calle Sierpes Yesterday, i saw a billboard that said “You're shopping on the streets where Cervantes got his inspiration”. It really made me think about the integration of the past and present that exists in this city. There are such modern stores like H&M constructed inside of buildings made so long ago.

 The community remains tight knit despite the grand number of people who live here. People value their relationships with their friends and family the most and because of this they spend meal times generally with their family and the rest of the day is spent out and about meeting with friends for cervezas or tapas. there have been many times that I'm out and I run into my host mother and she introduces me to a myriad of people all at once. Everyone greets me with the standard kisses on both cheeks and is interested to learn about me.

 I personally live right behind La Catedral de La Giralda which we actually toured with the program yesterday. It’s so cool that Christopher Columbus’s body is in this building. He refused to be buried on Spanish soil, so his body and the body of his son are held up by images of soldiers in the Cathedral. This is the largest gothic cathedral in the world and I have noticed I tend to use it as a landmark when I am finding my way home. This is a mistake, however, because almost everything is constructed with gothic architecture and one day I followed the steeple of a church, thinking it was La Giralda, home and ended up at a random plaza at a different church that just looked similar. This was another major cultural difference because in Suffield if someone told me to meet them at the church it would be relatively easy to distinguish things. I guess it's safe to say that everything looks the same which makes it incredibly difficult to understand where I am at times. This is also helpful, though, as I am able to get myself lost and find my way back. This lets me explore a new part of my city and go down streets I typically wouldn't. It also shows me how interconnected everything is and provides me with shortcuts to get to desired locations.

 I have also been taking advantage of the Sevici bike system that the city has. This system allows you to rent a bike for 30 minutes at a time with a couple of cents a minute after 30 minutes of biking. There are over 250 stations in the city so it’s easy to swap bikes if you bike for more than 30 minutes. I’ve been biking every day and using it as a way to get familiar with the city and spend free time. One time, I biked very far away into a part of the city called Macarena and didn’t realize I was there until I saw the ruins of the city of Macarena….. It was quite the trek home but certainly an interesting way to see the city.. I biked about 4 hours the first day just because I was enjoying myself so much! Every afternoon after the siesta I’ve been biking from the station by my house to a coffee shop that is right next to the Torre del Oro on the river… It’s a wifi cafe that’s perfect for iced coffee, which is so hard to find here, and to finish up my homework.

 I crossed the bridge into Triana the other day and felt a completely different vibe than how I feel in the center. There was much less to do and much less friendly people  At times its frustrating and awkward to enter a store and have the salesperson talk to you in Spanish after I wander alone thinking in English or with a friend conversing with Spanish.

 It's gotten a bit easier to catch the Andalucian accent. It's frustrating though when I don't understand a word, and then the person keeps talking, but all I can think about is the word I don't know, so I have to ask for them to repeat the sentence. It requires a lot of focus to switch from English to Spanish but I've noticed that I spend a lot less time translating what is said into English and my capacity to simply understand the Spanish that is spoken to me makes matters a lot easier and quicker to understand. Still, I don't always pick up when someone is asking a question. There is not as much intonation in Spanish as there is in English when a question is asked which makes it difficult to recognize when someone is asking you something or simply saying something.

 It's also gotten easier to understand my twin siblings. Rodrigo and Carolina are both ten years old and their voices are so high pitched. The thing is, they speak nonsense as it is which I didn't pick up on until recently. I didn't understand why they were talking about things but I guess it's just that they're children and they say weird things. They don't quite understand that I'd like them to slow down, but it's really only making me focus more because I want to understand everything to the best of my abilities.

 It's interesting being a foreigner in a city where just about everyone looks the same. The blonde hair distinguishes me from the Sevillanos which is frustrating at times as everyone jumps to speak to me in English when I want to speak in Spanish. This happens at least once a day, but they are generally impressed when I speak back to them in Spanish.

 This past Sunday, a couple of friends and I went to Portugal for a beach trip. It was about 2.5 hours both ways but the time passed quickly. There is a company called We Love Spain that does beach trips every Sunday and it’s a really good deal because it’s only $20 for the bus ride to the beach, a sandwhich, and unlimited Sangria. The beach itself was cold and the sun didn’t come out until about ten minutes before we left, but it was still super cool to cross into Portugal and soak in the views of another country! It was interesting to see the signs turn into Portuguese and see another culture… someone asked me if I spoke Portuguese and I just had to laugh as Spanish has been such a struggle with the Andalucian accent.

 I'm excited for this next week and the adventures and lessons learned that will come. Hopefully my language acquisition will enhance and I will have more cultural experiences both in and out of the house.

 Thanks for reading!!

[devontroxell]

COVID-19 Makes Marketing More Important Than Ever

None of us know what the next 12 months have in store in terms of social distancing, mask-wearing, or vaccines. Regardless of that, whatever you previously thought marketing was must now change.

Thirteen years ago, when we launched our agency, part of my time was spent convincing business owners of the importance of a marketing plan. At the time, many of them remained unconvinced. It wasn’t because they didn’t recognize its importance. They had decided it didn’t apply to themselves or their business.

Today, implementing marketing efforts as a systematic part of doing business is still – unfortunately – a rarity for the majority of smaller businesses. Go back a few years and the situation was worse.

Back in the day, many organizations built their success from the efforts of what I’ll call ‘entrepreneurial’ personality types. These people were born salespeople, even though their title could have been Support Representative, Product Manager, or even CEO.

What they had in common is their ability for networking, empathy, and negotiation. These enterprising individuals were the ones with their finger on the pulse of customer buying drivers. They’d spend long periods away from home visiting contacts, prospects, and customers.

Their mission was to schmooze, socialize, listen, and gather intelligence. During a conversation they’d explain how their firm’s product or service was ideally-suited to solving a customer problem.

In essence, they were leveraging their personal brand. They would inform, advise, educate, and even entertain.

They were marketing.

COVID-19 Has Changed All Of That

COVID implications affect us all

Today, the realities of COVID-19 have put a stop (temporary or otherwise) to much of these kinds of direct, face-to-face sales or marketing efforts.

Business travel is restricted, especially internationally. Conferences and seminars have gone virtual and, regardless of organizers spin, are a shadow of their former selves as a result. Towns, cities, and states close themselves down almost as quickly as they once opened themselves up. Businesses that haven’t already gone to the wall are trying to reinvent themselves as fast as their revenue model allows.

We’re all talking about the new normal when, in truth, none of us have a clue what ‘normal’ is, and what it means.

What seems clear as a result of the crisis is marketing has become more important than ever before.

Businesses Have Changed

It’s not just in the area of B2C where buyer expectations have evolved. Businesses have also had to adapt. Partly that’s due to a business model no longer sustainable in the current climate. But it also scales down to the micro level.

Take working from home as an example.

For years, we’ve known many organizations don’t need to have employees commuting to and from an office building 9am-5pm, five days a week. Much has been written about remote working increasing productivity and employee happiness, but few companies ever did anything about it.

Many businesses didn’t have any other option than to implement a WFH policy when governments mandated lockdown. After a few months to smooth out the bumps, what’s been the result? Everything we thought about working from home is true.

More and more businesses are moving to a permanent working-from-home employment model. Relishing their improved work-life balance, employees don’t want to go back to the way things were. People living in cities are moving to greener spaces out of town. If you only need to go into the office a couple of times a week, living in the country becomes a feasible option.

At the same time, commercial real estate rates in cities have fallen off a cliff. Not only have business owners realized that expensive trophy office has become a white elephant. They’ve realized that – regardless of where the office is located – they’re paying far too much rent.

The other side of the coin is the challenge to adapt workplace culture. Connections still need to be facilitated and actively nurtured. Of course the culture changes, but it still needs to exist in its own right.

Sales and Marketing Models Have Changed Too

If you can’t drive or fly to visit suspects, prospects, or customers, what do you do? You market to them.

Retail has had to adapt

For retailers, the explosion in e-commerce during COVID-19 has been the savior of the industry. A McKinsey report concluded that over the course of just eight weeks customers fast-forwarded their adoption of digital purchasing by five years. All those bricks-and-mortar store overly reliant upon footfall are falling over themselves to set up a digital presence. Not just to remain customer relevant, but to stay in business.

The fact consumers are moving to low-touch, online channels to get hold of products or services isn’t a shocker. What’s interesting are the huge numbers of first-time e-commerce customers. Again, this is nothing new – we’ve been saying online was going to be big for years. It’s just taken something like Covid to accelerate the process.

Even as business revenues fall, the majority of marketing budgets have either increased, or changed in their emphasis. Not because of forward-thinking business owners seeking to proactively invest in ‘better, more intuitive customers experiences.’ But because their firm will go to the wall if they don’t.

What does Marketing during and post-Covid look like? Obviously, that’s different for every business.

DTC

Perhaps there’s a need for a manufacturer to be less reliant on 2nd-tier sales channels and sell direct to consumer (DTC). However, to do this well means more than just throwing some money at developing an e-commerce portal. Branding, image, advertising, and social media outreach need careful consideration. Then there’s using data analytics to track buyer preferences and personalization. There’s also the commercial quandary of how to deal with resellers who now see you as competition.

Markets and localization

COVID-19 has given us a clear demonstration of the interconnectivity of countries, commerce, and supply chains. Depending on your business, now may be the time to diversify the dependence on a particular market segment, customer cohort, or even geographic presence. It may require a rethink on how you conduct business, internationalization, payment acceptance channels, operational agility, and support resources.

Sales and marketing collateral

Pre-coronavirus, we were seeing fantastic responses from print-based direct mail. But if your contact only comes to the office once a week, how likely are they to see – and react – to your offer? Are employees going to want to receive business mail at their home address? Marketers and business owners will need to rethink their contact points across an ever-widening list of channels. Things like videoconferencing, email, messaging/SMS, maybe even smart devices at home such as Google Home or Amazon Alexa.

COVID-19 Has Increased Marketing’s Importance

The structural changes resulting from Covid refocuses the concept of a coordinated marketing approach from being ‘nice-to-have’, to part of an organization’s survival arsenal.

A business shouldn’t have to rely on one person’s chutzpah to save the day. The cliché of someone slamming a Purchase Order on the table, delivering a sigh of relief from the CFO in the dying moments of month-end closing. Strategic objectives need to be considered over the longer term. Tactical execution must stop being a 3-month sprint which, when deemed a failure, results in someone getting fired.

All of us have been harping on for years about how brands need to rethink the ways they connect with customers. COVID-19 has lit a fire under all of us to get off our collective butts and get on with it.

COVID-19 Makes Marketing More Important Than Ever published first on https://wabusinessapi.tumblr.com/

[whittlebaggett8]

India’s Plan to Jumpstart Its Maritime Industry

The maritime sector (including maritime solutions, shipbuilding, and operational logistics) types the engine of maritime transport, which is a very important ingredient of a growing economic climate like India. SAGAR (Safety and Growth for All in the Location) and Sagarmala launched in 2015, are the two principal guidelines aimed toward boosting the domestic maritime field when at the same time partaking in maritime outreach with the littorals of the Indian Ocean Area.

As aspect of its continuing emphasis on the enhancement of ports and associated maritime infrastructure less than its Sagarmala initiative, the Modi govt declared in 2016 that maritime clusters would be the following focal factors for the economic enhancement of the country’s shoreline. A single of 4 pillars of the Sagarmala initiative is port-led coastal local community advancement. Talent growth and the enhancement in excellent of everyday living by way of developments in technologies and physical and social infrastructure capability making, infrastructure, and social progress to add values to fisheries and the marketing of coastal tourism form the main objectives underneath this pillar. To that finish, the Ministry of Delivery has allotted 1.1 billion Indian rupees ($15.8 million) toward the advancement of 23 coastal communities in Gujarat, Mumbai, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Goa. The proposed maritime clusters are therefore joined to the much larger aim of port-led development and industrialization less than Sagarmala and would be section of Coastal Economic Zones (CEZs).

Maritime clusters, also known as regional clusters, enterprise clusters, or field clusters, are geographical concentrations of inter-relevant organizations and related companies. In other words and phrases, clusters are a network of interconnected systems that foster innovation and bring in engineering, boost investments, endorse public-non-public partnerships, and generate employment. Although the maritime clusters are a new initiative for India, the place has a number of industrial clusters that have been performing for a long time, and maritime clusters are a popular follow amid made maritime countries.

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Maritime tourism, shipbuilding and ancillary providers, maritime products and services, and marine products and solutions are the essential parts of maritime clusters. These clusters also consist of a supporting community of firms that supply expert services this kind of as exploration, funding, and technological guidance. Maritime clusters are essential for the establishment of sustainable ocean advancement and are for that reason a important part of Blue Progress or Blue Economy. When facilitating competitiveness, efficiency, innovation, and effectiveness in the training course of reaping economic benefits, maritime clusters also preserve the environmental influence in verify.

To begin with, two these kinds of maritime clusters are proposed for Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. A third cluster has also been proposed at Goa. All the areas determined are in close proximity to shipyards, significant ports, metal clusters, automotive and engineering industries, and ancillary clusters along with universities and schools. They would consequently in flip be ready to draw in much more companies and enhance the business engagements of the clusters. The report also encourages the environment up of aquariums, water parks, maritime museums, cruise tourism, and h2o sporting activities near the clusters, with a look at to boosting maritime tourism.

Get the job done will commence on the very first of the two clusters at Gujarat Intercontinental Finance Tec-City (Present City) in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Gujarat handles extra cargo than any other Indian state, even though it is nonetheless to create a considerable maritime identification. The cluster is expected to be established up in four phases and would join with the Delhi Freight Corridor and Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor. Once operational, the cluster would offer all-inclusive services for the maritime marketplace in the point out. The cluster at Present Town would be able to enhance the current ecosystem by making use of the shipyards at Pipavav, Dahej, and Hazira ports, the ship-breaking property at Alang, materials of metal from Hazira, the ancillaries field at Bhavnagar, retail and leisure components and companies units in Ahmedabad, together with existing fish landing facilities as identified by the Gujarat Maritime Board.

At Tamil Nadu, 100 acres of land owned by Kamarajar Port have been determined for the cluster.

When the endeavor is however at a incredibly nascent stage with constrained data out there as of now, principally, the two maritime clusters are becoming created to lessen logistics expenses and streamline the circulation of products and services. The clusters are also poised to gain the Make in India initiative and spur area industries, which in switch would aid the attraction of investments. Needless to say, the maritime clusters are also envisioned to add to skill progress and employment prospects.

To provide and sustain the opportunity of the maritime marketplace in India, the governing administration has initiated a selection of guidelines this sort of as the modernization of present infrastructure, granting infrastructure position to shipyards, augmenting port effectiveness, supporting environmentally friendly power, and developing info and know-how essential for the very same. And, most importantly, packages are underway to coach the qualified expertise desired to sustain the operation of the construction. In this respect, the Major Port Authorities Monthly bill released in 2016 marks a major transformation by making it possible for larger autonomy to port boards in final decision creating and reforming port management. It will also be the 1st phase towards transitioning to a “landlord port” model.  The monthly bill, nonetheless, remains pending amid opposition from labor unions.

Globally, the maritime marketplace is a cyclical one particular, with booms and slumps that would impression the maritime clusters. The transport market in India is also weighed down by time lags concerning buy and shipping and delivery, marketplace volatility, regulatory complexities, and so on. For India, with a maritime sector that requires a good deal of overhaul, much would depend on the aid of the federal government and the important involvement of the private sector. Nevertheless, with the governing administration now enjoyable, revising, and introducing regulatory reforms that would relieve the working of maritime field and expert services, there is a lot of scope for the clusters to be productive enterprises.

Some of the most thriving maritime clusters in the earth are situated in Norway, Iceland, Singapore, and South Africa. Singapore is one particular of the ideal examples in the world today of the positive aspects of connecting, streamlining, digitizing, and leveraging out there assets. Enhancing general public-non-public partnership and collaborations with maritime clusters in other countries would be helpful for India in building the requisite technological innovation and knowhow. On paper and in theory, the maritime clusters in India are poised to lead to endeavours aimed at a comprehensive revamping of the maritime business in the nation and the progress of a lively and robust maritime sector. It is very important that their implementation is adopted by and sustainable mechanisms set in put for the clusters to thrive.

Pratnashree Basu is an Affiliate Fellow at the Observer Research Basis, Kolkata, functioning on maritime geopolitics and  connectivity issues in India’s eastern and southeastern neighborhood.

The post India’s Plan to Jumpstart Its Maritime Industry appeared first on Defence Online.

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[transienturl]

Here's an 1800 word analogy about the internet infrastructure in your house, for some reason:

All of the computers and phones and other internet-connected devices in your house are like homes and businesses in some sleepy backwater of a magical wizarding world where homes and businesses sometimes appear, disappear, or get up on two legs and move around at any random time. (It's called IP world, for some reason.)

Your home router is the post office of this sleepy backwater, and the postmaster's job is not a particularly easy one. What he does, if you have DHCP enabled on your router, is whenever he gets word that a new house has shown up, he assigns it a new street address in his handbook. Sure, the street addresses aren't physically in order, but as long as you keep a table of which house is actually located where, the mail gets there just fine. These are local IP addresses. (They often look like "192.168.1.6" in the-actual-internet land.)

Our sleepy backwater is connected to the rest of the world by a railway line, which the mayor of our house pays by the month to keep us connected. Most areas only have a few potential railway lines to extend into their neighborhood, or even only one. Some of these are huge (like Comcast Railways), while others serve small local areas (like VTel, who only serves the far-off lands of the Vermont region), but all of them interconnect at huge, complicated railway yards. Us small-town dwellers usually don't have to worry about the particulars; we just assume any railway can connect at reasonable speed to any other railway thanks to their incredibly smart postmasters. These are, of course, internet service providers, or ISPs, and the railyards where they physically link up are called Internet exchange points, or IXPs.

Of course, if anyone in our sleepy backwater wants to send a letter to another resident of our sleepy backwater, they don't need to use the railway: the postmaster will just pass the message along directly. Like, if two neighbors are playing correspondence chess, they need not involve the railway and its comparatively large delays in letter-sending. But this is uncommon, since let's face it: our sleepy backwater is pretty boring, and if we need to send a really big package to someone in the same neighborhood, we can just drive it over in a truck. These are, respectively, local LAN gaming, and putting files on a flash drive to transfer them.

Usually, though, we want to send and receive letters from the big cities. How about questioning the great library of Google, or requesting the news from the New York Times? How will our mail get to them? In fact, to whom do we address the letter?

Just like in our sleepy backwater, far-off homes and businesses of IP world are constantly vanishing and appearing and changing addresses. (It just happens when you have a lot of wizards.) And libraries like Google have multiple branches, each with the same information, to spread out the flood of letters their hardworking scribes must reply to every day. And so the central post office network of IP world keeps a carefully synchronized system of handbooks matching address numbers to places where people might want to send a letter. This is the DNS system ("domain name system" in the actual internet; let's say it's "delivery number-synchronizing system" in IP world.)

By default, each railway provides along with its service an address at which one can inquire about this information. I can, for example, send a letter to the Comcast office asking what address the library of Google is at, and they will reply that 216.58.217.46 should work nicely, and I can then address my letter to the library to 216.58.217.46, and through Comcast's and others' train networks, it should get there. This extra mail is necessary, of course, because tomorrow that address may change, because wizards. And when it does change, one of the wizards must send a letter to notify one of the central DNS offices, and that office must notify the other DNS offices, and so on and so forth until the office I use is updated as well.

Now, most houses use the DNS office recommended by their postman, and most postmen use the DNS office recommended by their railway company, which works fine for the most part. Some, however, choose other DNS offices. Reasons may include the railways' offices' reputation for phoning it in and dilly-dallying; the potentially undesirable business practice of targeting advertising flyers based on which addresses people look up on the DNS system; and the practice some use of simply sending back advertising in lieu of "that doesn't seem to exist" letters when there's nothing in their books for the requested mail destination. In any case, there are plenty of reputable, fast, privacy-focused DNS offices on the network, some with memorable numbers like 1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8, 9.9.9.9, etc. And some offer additional services like refusing to look up addresses for criminal enterprise or child-unfriendly service. These can be implemented either on a per-home basis (by simply choosing to use them rather than the postman's recommendation) or on a per-neighborhood basis (by having the postman recommend them to everyone).

(Occasionally, this does break things, however: some railroads use special addresses in their DNS offices to send administrative mail directly to the railroad; if a town has trouble with the mail system, it is important to remember to switch back to the railroad's expected configuration.)

Now, we have mentioned privacy in DNS mail; however, no matter what DNS office one uses, where their mail goes is obviously known by the railroad, and this is not necessarily or generally desirable. Furthermore, the contents of one's mail is by default discernible by any passing snoop! In reverse order, the solutions to this are:

Encryption, which works just as one would expect. Through a particular exchange of enchanted messages with the desired recipient, one can produce a cipher key that only the recipient can decode, ensuring the mail looks like gibberish to anyone else. (With a sufficient application of magic, this can be overcome, but it is fairly easy to strengthen the cipher to the point where all the magic in the world would take significant time to break it). This encryption is generally viewed as best practice for any new business receiving mail, and obviously one should never send payment details or personal information without its presence. This is HTTPS encryption, which should be indicated by your web browser with a lock icon.

And second, a VPN (virtual private network). This goes one step further by also obscuring from the railway the intended recipient of the mail, which along with encrypted DNS makes them completely unaware of your mailing habits. This works by addressing your mail to the proper intended recipient, then enciphering the entire thing and sending it addressed to a reputable processing center, who will decrypt the cipher and send it on its way as originally intended. This is useful when one is traveling, and wants to send important information via a particularly shady-seeming post office, or perhaps to make one's mail seem like it is coming from and/or should be replied to at a certain city different from one's own. Naturally, one must trust their VPN processing center not to be spying on them, as all of their data flows through that location.

Changing gears, let's talk about speed. Or rather, and often more importantly, capacity. The actual time it takes to send a letter does vary significantly, often due to conditions in the global rail network out of our control, but for the most part it's not much of a concern to most people unless it becomes egregiously bad. Some isolated communities that can't have railroads hooked up have slow mail via balloon, though. This is ping, usually measured in milliseconds in the real internet (and the balloon thing is satellite internet).

Capacity, however, is important to basically everyone. Every wizard loves to watch flipbooks, and businesses like Netflips have made them readily available on-demand. And all of those flipbook pages take up a ton of room in a mailcar. Different regions of the world have different prices for the same mail-capacity-per-day, due mostly to the different kinds of rail infrastructure and the number of railways competing for the same business.

Residential railway connections are usually paid for primarily based on their capacity to bring mail into a neighborhood, not the other way around. This generally makes sense: most high-volume mail is produced by business and goes to consumers, not the other way around. And many railroad configurations can by nature be configured to be more effective in one direction than the other. Some, however, are symmetrical, and thus have identical capacity in both directions; optical mail, which magically converts messages to laser beams, is the gold standard and is slowly becoming more common and less expensive. But for the most part, neighborhood mayors sign their railroad contrast without much awareness of their capacity to send high volumes of mail, unless one of their residents demands such service.

A pipe is only as fast as its most restrictive section, however, and while the rail line into one's neighborhood is in most working-as-designed cases the bottleneck, this may not be true. First of all, the mail is only delivered as fast as the postman, and as rail lines upgrade, the postman may become the limiting factor. If a house is on the main street (i.e. wired), then any even vaguely modern mail truck should be able to keep the best railways from being clogged with mail, but once the postman has to fly to far-off houses (wifi), all bets are off. (I could make another elaborate analogy to explain the different specs of WiFi networks, which would involve multiple helipads and ranges of altitudes to prevent in-air mailman collisions, but we'll leave that for another day.)

In addition to that and the capacity of the mail's source, though, it is possible for the limiting factor in the delivery of a package to be the interconnections between the railways themselves. Remember how earlier I said, "we just assume any railway can connect at reasonable speed to any other railway?" Of course that doesn't always hold up in practice. And as railways' links to neighborhoods get higher and higher capacities, it becomes increasingly difficult and expensive to make the railyards hold up during busy times.

In the end, diagnosing a bottleneck in the mail effectively generally consists of flooding one branch at a time with mail to determine the limiting factor. Buying a new mail truck, of course, will do no good if the railway line is damaged, nor will negotiating for bigger railcars; conversely, if the skyway is flooded with mail-copters, only changing skyways or more efficient sky use will help.

[tbogost]

REVIEW: Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst

Published June 12, 2016, at ICXM.net

I, like many others, often enjoy playing a game simply because I find it fun. I coordinate with others during a 45-minute game of Counter-Strike and I push everyone else aside in order to grab the best loot for myself in Borderlands. Sometimes I’ll set out to build a house or town in Minecraft. “Sure”, I say, “I’ll probably destroy my creation eventually (unless someone else gets to it first), but I’ll gain a brief moment of pleasure seeing my achievement come to life when the last block is placed.”

But even more than fun, I enjoy experiencing a game that manages to exist outside of the world that surrounds it; the games which, when approached from an analytical perspective, can positively influence any person because of his inherent human qualities, not just gamers, are what truly interest me. These games require risks if they are to come together as a piece of art rather than mere fun. 2008’s Mirror’s Edge was a huge risk for DICE and EA, but it came out wonderfully because it was clever and unprecedented.

Some of the most popular games at the time included Gears of War 2, Call of Duty: World at War, Saints Row 2, and Far Cry 2; all sequels filled with guns, brown, dreary worlds, and gruff, often male characters, while Mirror’s Edge was a new IP featuring a female character, a peculiar design choice, and a complicated form of parkour movement as the primary system of gameplay. There were some issues, admittedly, but almost everything in Mirror’s Edge came together to forge an experience that I enjoyed so much I would revisit it again and again every few years.

While the original Mirror’s Edge did take place in an anti-utopian world full of corruption and enforced by totalitarian fear, it was still a refreshing counter to the dreary games of its generation. It did something new by implementing themes of hope through a minimalist world and Solar Fields’ oddly melancholy yet heartening electronic soundtrack rather than through unstoppable, gun-wielding heroes. Although it was possible to disarm enemies in order to use their firearms for yourself, doing so made you a slow, easy target. Attempting to use the gimmicky guns may have been frustrating, but it reminded the player that protagonist Faith wasn’t a Marcus Fenix or a seemingly invincible soldier from Call of Duty, but a young girl with strengths and weaknesses and fears. It was a pleasure to move through the levels in Mirror’s Edge too, with each parkour-inspired movement and sound conveying the liberation from the real world of both Faith as a protagonist and of the player himself. Mirror’s Edge was a game about finding freedom in a world devoid of it.

Eight years later, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst serves as both a prequel and a reboot to Mirror’s Edge. The origins of certain circumstances from the original game are implicitly explained in Catalyst and a few characters are the same as those from the first in all but name. Even so, Catalyst is still very much a new vision for the Mirror’s Edge franchise; it’s just disappointing that that vision isn’t a reflection of the original beauty, but a vapid creation modeled off of every other lifeless game out there.

Catalyst has stripped down almost everything that I loved about the original game, replacing certain inherently “Mirror’s Edge” design choices with those apparently vital to every game nowadays while also refusing to refine the few issues that I did have with the original.

What stands out as most insulting is the new open world, which, contrary to what might be expected, is far more limiting than freeing. You must run through the world to reach missions, races, and deliveries, lead by a GPS-like red line called “runner’s vision”. There are a couple different hub areas over the course of the game where you will be forced to return to dozens of times. Taking the same routes to and from these hubs repeatedly is bad enough, but the overall design of the City of Glass makes these repetitious journeys far worse. The entire world is separated into groups of buildings with long bridges interconnecting them, forcing you to run across flat surfaces often which completely drain the simulation of adrenaline in the player that Faith’s freerunning is meant to produce.

But the focus on horizontal movement seems to be present throughout the entire world, not just on bridges, with most areas featuring a plethora of open spaces along with the occasional ladder or obstacle. Mirror’s Edge showed off exciting cinematic events along with tight environments that incorporated the movement system into various puzzles. Catalyst, as spread out as its map is, manages to be more scattered and restricting in play. While the movement system itself has undoubtedly been perfected to allow for the smoothest possible experience, the world design is so dull that it’s hard to notice sometimes. A grappling hook unlocked part way through the campaign gives the impression that new, more interesting paths might become available to travel by, but alas, it is used so seldom that it clearly exists merely for the sake of authenticity.

The open world seems to have been designed purely because it’s a popular theme in most video games today and an easy way to boast that there’s plenty to experience. You can collect documents, glowing orbs, and electronic parts from stations throughout the world—whatever good that does—as well as run races and create time trials for your friends. Oh, there are also a few indoor “gridnode” towers that you can climb to unlock fast travel locations (Far Cry, is that you?) and an outdoor electronic tower which when deactivated sends nearby enemy helicopters to chase you à la Grand Theft Auto. None of these activities are thrilling and serve only to fill up the world map with meaningless icons that symbolize more and more beloved “content”.

Something that I thought could have been developed better in the original Mirror’s Edge was the society where ordinary people lived. I was hoping that Catalyst would examine the circular relationship between the evil KrugerSec corporation, the runners in the sky, and the people on the streets, who we’ve never truly seen before. Yet Catalyst does none of that. There is zero conceptualization of either a mundane world or the horrors of a dystopian one. I never saw more than three vehicles at a time on the ground below me, nor did I see the effects of my actions in the open world or in the campaign missions. The runners supposedly chose to live on the rooftops of the City of Glass in order to avoid the corruption elsewhere, but that corruption is never visualized to the player in any shape or form. Simply including a few new additions to the color palette does nothing to negate the new, sterile city. What was a minimalist yet still-developing design choice in the city of the original Mirror’s Edge seems to have been manipulated into an excuse to exercise the least amount of work creating the new one.

Apart from the five or six characters central to the narrative, the few remaining NPCs in the game are spread out across the open world, unmoving and still, less lifelike than the automatons found in amusement parks. Even their faces are blurry, with eyebrows meshing together to form one dark scar across the temple and lips barely inching apart at all to usher commands. The one purpose of these NPCs is to assign side missions, such as one version that requires you to deliver a note into a futuristic-looking mailbox within a certain time limit.

Unfortunately these deliveries are extremely challenging to complete, and not in a way that’s at all fair. You are encouraged to explore multiple pathways in order to find the most efficient one to complete a delivery in time, but it’s impossible to find new routes efficiently before the thirty-second timer runs out, forcing you to retry over and over again and to sit in front of a loading screen after every failed attempt. Surely there could’ve been a better way to enhance their engagement and playability.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst’s campaign consists of fifteen fairly short levels, few of which offer the same level of excitement that the original game did, but which are totally inoffensive overall, and certainly better designed than the new open world. The cutscenes are animated well and the voice acting is good throughout, but neither the narrative nor the characters are captivating. The story somehow manages to be both short and uneventful, and although there are a few surprising incidents, the entire world was so sterile that I couldn’t be emotionally affected by anything I witnessed. I also found there to be a sincere lack of both backstory and character development throughout. I couldn’t even get myself to root for Faith, who came across more so as a surly teenager than a loving sister in this installment.

The new combat system is something I was excited about seeing in Catalyst. During one of the first tutorials there is a fantastic freerunning sequence in which you kick enemies to the side while maintaining forward momentum, prancing upon walls and heads like an urban ballerina. I was happy to see that I could take on one or two enemies with my fists and legs if I wanted to, but that rather than forcing me on enemies, the game would always give me the option to run instead if I wished. Boy, was I wrong.

Just a few missions later, about fifteen enemies were thrown at me all at once in a closed-off area similar to an arena. I was forced to fight, building up my “focus shield” (which can deflect bullets for a short while) by performing acrobatic moves in the environment and then attacking each enemy individually. Rather than showing just how helpless Faith is against a group of highly trained soldiers like Mirror’s Edge did before, Catalyst emphasized that Faith was a powerhouse with infinite stamina, capable of performing a cyclical pattern of running, rolling, and jump kicking over and over again until she had overpowered all of her opponents.

Of course, after ten minutes of repetitious switching between refueling my focus shield and attacking enemies, I defeated the antagonistic group and relaxed. Faith bobbed up-and-down on her tiptoes, anxious to get moving again so soon already. A notification popped up in the corner of my screen, alerting me that I had been awarded a skill point to spend. I had already unlocked the few upgrades in the uninspired movement tree near the start of the game, so I navigated down to the combat tree instead. Here I could choose between a number of different upgrades, each of which would do essentially the same thing: increase damage output. Who doesn’t want to kick less, right?

Although up to that point I hadn’t been satisfied with Catalyst as a whole, I had still remained optimistic about its potential to impress me eventually. Unfortunately, I lost all hope at that moment. The human Faith who I had known eight years prior was dead, bound to a different code on a different file in a different game universe entirely. Faith might have been portrayed as a human character once before, but she had now become no different than the average protagonist in the average open world game. She was an invincible pawn, gaining experience, upgrading her skills, and collecting trinkets in an invisible cage on the rooftops. She wasn’t free any longer.

All of the above things contributed to me disliking Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, but many of them sprout from my allegiance to the original. Although the majority of gamers nowadays may disagree with my opinions on the dehumanization of Faith as a character and on the sterile world she lives in, no one can argue in favor of the graphical qualities of the game on Xbox One. Although Catalyst runs at sixty frames per second most of the time, the 720p resolution and the blurred in-game character models are major issues, and the constant texture pop-in and lack of advanced anisotropic filtering are complete eyesores. Had this game been as technically sound on Xbox One as it is on other platforms, I would’ve had no qualms giving it a relatively higher score. Unfortunately, the quality is lacking on the console.

Hey, at least Solar Fields came back to compose again. I guess that’s something.

Summary

“Everything you wanted of Faith’s return” has been EA's marketing term for Mirror's Edge Catalyst, cavorting through my Twitter feed the past few weeks. I have to say, I’m a bit insulted. As a long-time fan of the original Mirror’s Edge, I was happy to hear about a new game in the series, but I should have been prepared for the worst. To be fair, I may be exaggerating. Catalyst may not be a terrible game to most people. In fact, it’s a totally playable, completely okay, thoroughly mediocre title. But for someone like me who was so enchanted by the artistry that the original game induced, Catalyst falls victim to exactly what its predecessor masterfully avoided, becoming a stereotypical video game that takes no risks and forgets the human features of its own characters. Looks like I lost my Faith.

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10 Movies To Accompany You As You Stay Home In Your PJ's When Going Through A Break Up

Break ups are one of those things in life that almost all of us have had to endure. Whether it was mutual or not, it can hit you hard and those initial few days or weeks can be tough to get through.

Seeking refuge under the covers or sprawled out on the sofa with a pint of ice cream is pretty cliché but it’s actually one of the things we all should do to help heal ourselves.

But this article isn’t going to give you that magic bit of advice on how to get over a break up. Instead it’s going to provide you with the 10 best down-to-earth movies to keep you company while you have a cry, curl up on the couch in your PJs and feast on the questionable leftovers you found at the back of the fridge.

1. John Tucker Must Die

John Tucker is a serial cheater and when three of his scorned ex-girlfriends get together, they decide to reap revenge by setting him up for heart break with the new girl in town. As the title aptly shows – revenge is sweet.

Revenge is sweet: Although going through the motions during a break up is important and revenge is a phase we may contemplate, this movie should be taken with a pinch of salt. However, the comedy element will hopefully leave you feeling better after seeing some girls taking revenge on their ex.

2. The Break Up

This is a story about Chicago couple Gary and Brooke. The opening of the movie takes us through their first meeting and subsequent blossoming relationship but picks up at the point where their relationship is starting to break down. Showing the reality of a bitter divide, we see the couple fight over their luxury condo and the break up getting more and more ugly.

The best form of love is to love yourself: This film doesn’t sugar-coat love like the majority of romantic movies. Instead it serves as a reminder that falling out of love and breaking up with someone that doesn’t care for you is much better. It will help you see that not all relationships are meant to last and you’ve just got to love yourself and move on to find another person who’s more of a perfect match.

3. 500 Days of Summer

An offbeat romantic comedy about a woman (Summer) who doesn’t believe true love exists, and a guy (Tom) who falls madly in love with her. Tom believes deeply in the concept of soul mates, and thinks he’s finally found his. Undaunted and undeterred by his breezy lover’s casual stance on relationships, Tom summons all of his might and courage to pursue Summer and convince her that their love is real.

There is no such thing as ‘The One’: This is a movie that shows that love doesn’t always work out how we expect it to. It can be unrequited, messy and sometimes feels like a let down. Just because we love someone deeply and share the same interests, it doesn’t mean they are the perfect one for us. Go with the flow, detach and let life send you someone when you’re complete and ready.

4. A Lot Like Love

Two friends Oliver and Emily first met when they were college students sharing a flight from California to New York. Emily spontaneously seduced Oliver on the plane, and they spent the next few days together in the city. When they parted, Emily was not keen to pursue a relationship with Oliver even though he was interested. Over the next several years, fate kept bringing them back into each other’s paths and they remained close friends, while still certain that they aren’t meant for each other. Eventually, after nearly a decade, with both Oliver and Emily edging into their thirties, they begin to wonder if they’ve allowed a great opportunity to pass them by.

Timing is everything. If it’s meant to be it will be: Sometimes relationships are just bad timing and shouldn’t be forced. We need to let go, detach and carry on with our lives. Only then, if it’s meant to be, will that relationship come back to you.

5. How To Be Single

A group of young women going through different phases of life, navigate love and relationships in New York City. Alice temporarily dumps her college boyfriend Josh and moves to New York City to be a paralegal. She moves in with her sister, Meg, an OB/GYN who refuses to have a baby or any form of relationship. Alice befriends wild co-worker Robin, who enjoys partying and one-night stands, and local bartender Tom, who wilfully embraces the bachelor lifestyle and hooks up with various women including Alice. Tom meets Lucy at his bar when she uses his Internet for free. She explains she is looking for “The One” using various dating sites.

Move on and get back out there: This is a rare gem of a film because it truly celebrates the positives of being single. It highlights the need to really use this single time to get to know yourself, free of men and the need to be with someone to feel whole and complete. The ending to the film celebrates independence without implying that we should all become cave-dwelling hermits who live off foraged roots and rainwater. The end scenes encourage the viewer to use the power of their own interpretation and the positive views of accepting the scary excitement of where life will take you next.

6. Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Devastated Peter takes a Hawaiian vacation in order to deal with the recent break-up with his TV star girlfriend, Sarah. Little does he know, Sarah’s travelling to the same resort as her ex – and she’s bringing along her new boyfriend.

One for the guys out there: Men can sometimes deal with a break up differently to their female counterparts and usually involves distraction, mishaps and bad decisions. This comedic movie will show you the lighter side of getting over a painful break up and help you laugh along the way.

7. Bridget Jones’s Diary

Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) is an unattached 30-something who realizes she’s got to change her life. After a New Year’s Eve, she vows that this new year is the one in which she’ll get her act together. She’ll lose weight, she’ll smoke and drink less, and she’ll document it all in a diary.

Complicating everything is Bridget’s attraction to her boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), a man of questionable character. They launch an affair and Bridget falls for him head over heels, only to realise later that her feelings aren’t reciprocated, when her boss gets engaged to another woman. Thrown into the mix is barrister Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), who admittedly finds Bridget attractive but whom Bridget finds repulsive.

It won’t be until Bridget clearly sees the truth about Daniel, that she also clearly sees Mark for the man he is, and her feelings for him for what they really are.

Live it with someone who’s been there and done that: Love lives can be complicated and sometimes when you’re going through bad times, you need that kind of film that’ll just be your break-up buddy. Bridget Jones is someone who you’ll easily identify with and make you feel less alone in what you’re going through.

8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

After a painful breakup, Clementine (Kate Winslet) undergoes a procedure to erase memories of her former boyfriend Joel (Jim Carrey) from her mind. When Joel discovers that Clementine is going to extremes to forget their relationship, he undergoes the same procedure and slowly begins to forget the woman that he loved.

When you just need to cry it out: This is one movie that will tug at your heartstrings, pour on the nostalgia and change everything you think you know about love.

9. Celeste & Jesse Forever

Longtime sweethearts Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) married young, but are now drifting apart. Celeste is an ambitious business owner, while Jesse has a more laid-back attitude toward life and work. Celeste wants a divorce and believes that she and Jesse can remain friends. Jesse passively goes along with her plans, even though he is still in love with her. However, as the reality of their separation sinks in, Celeste begins to have second thoughts.

Are you contemplating a friendship with your ex?: When we don’t want to lose our ex completely, we often contemplate a friendship in order to keep them in our lives. Watch this film and you’ll rethink what it means to be friends with an ex.

10. He’s Just Not That Into You

In Baltimore, five women and four men try to sort out the signals that the sexes exchange. Gigi imagines every man she meets is Mr. Right; she gets reality checks from Alex, a sweet but cynical saloon keeper. Janine and Ben seem solidly married until he chats with Anna in a market checkout line; meanwhile Anna is indifferent to the pursing Conor. Neil and Beth have been together seven years; she dumps him when she realises he really and truly isn’t going to marry her.

When you just need a bit of a reality check to move on: This movie shows the misinterpretations of human behaviour for which the majority of us are blind to when we’re in love. These interconnecting stories show and deal with the challenges of different situations which may help to give you that reality check you need to move on.

If you’re going through a break up right now, give yourself permission to get those comfy PJs on, reach for the junk food and put on a film that will help you along your emotional journey and eventually get back on track.

The post 10 Movies To Accompany You As You Stay Home In Your PJ’s When Going Through A Break Up appeared first on Lifehack.

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