#do I have to make ANOTHER slideshow to get my son to victory?
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OK MY LIST OF BRIBES FOR EVERYONE SO YOU WILL VOTE FOR 2012RAPH
I WILL DRAW HIM IN A FAIRY PRINCESS DRESS!
I WILL DRAW MONA'S REACTION TO THE DRESS!
I WILL MAKE AN ENTIRE ASS ANIMATIC FOR RAPH!
I WILL WRITE AND PUBLISH THE FINAL FOUR CHAPTERS OF ARC ONE OF WHEN THE WORLD CRUMBLES (on tumblr because I am still in ao3 jail :c)
@teenagemutantninjaturtleshowdown
TAKE THE BRIBES ANS VOTE FOR RAPH!!!
#tmnt 2012#2012raphsweep#raph propoganda#raph bribery#do I have to make ANOTHER slideshow to get my son to victory?#If I do then so be it#RAPH WINNING WOULD BE THE MOST BADASS THING#PROVING ALL THE HATERS AND EVERYONE WHO CALLS HIM ABUSIVE AND A BAD BROTHER WRONG
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Honestly, One Punch Man Season 2 is the most disappointing thing since my son. I’d go on a tirade about it, but I don’t wanna bore you with details about plot and such. Instead, I wanna talk about the OP cuz that sums up why this season pales in comparison to the first.
Like, the first season’s OP was great because not only did the song fucking slap, it told a story.
The Story of Saitama
For the first half of the OP, you see Saitama trekking through various lands, mostly at a distance, emphasizing that this man is unlike any other character. You don’t see much action happen, just the sight of towering monsters and scenery that makes Saitama look small but never unrecognizable; his cape standing out among everything.
There’s one scene where it looks like Saitama destroyed a monster but you don’t see it happen; you just see this serious looking bald guy walk away victoriously. It hypes up the feeling you get that Saitama is more than you realize, that he could be that devastatingly powerful.
Then we get to this scene of him in a desert and that scene, no,
this closing of the fist says that you’re finally about to see Saitama fuck shit up. And you do. You see Saitama body these monsters quick and effortlessly, living up to his name “One Punch Man.” That’s what you came to see, and the OP gave you that ten fold, with incredible animation to give it genuine impact and energy it needed to sell you 100%. And there’s a detail I’m surprised very few have brought up: the context.
If you know the series, you know that this isn’t how Saitama usually is, not by a long shot. So one can say that the intro was tricking you into believing this powerful man is fearlessly fighting those creatures with spirit, but I believe this OP is actually a prologue of sorts. If you re-contextualize it knowing who Saitama becomes later, this OP tells of one man’s quest to battle somebody without killing them instantly, the increasing frustration in facing off against these towering foes only to overpower them in little time. And in the end, head back home with groceries in hand.
All things considered, it gets your attention by focusing on the character that deserves it; gives you a reason for investing in that season.
The second intro lacks because it throws a lot at you and doesn’t put in the effort to make it look investing. It continuously jumps from one thing after another, basically slideshowing everything you might see this season instead of letting you savor one thing to look forward to. Doesn’t help that the animation for it is weak, making Saitama look like he’s punching holes in clouds as opposed to the 1st where it looked like he hit the enemies hard. Hell, you don’t even get to see any clear action other than Saitama’s pathetic looking punches, a second of Metal Knight clashing with something, and Genos and Garou clashing only to do some blurry fight moves. Compare this to Mob Psycho 100′s second season OP where a lot goes on in it too, but presents everything at a better pace and they give us clear action and on top of it.
Additionally, OP 2 doesn’t tell much of a story. It gives you the heroes, the monsters, Garou, who will be fighting characters, and Saitama will be there even when he’s barely connected to the actual story until the near end. Again, throws a lot at you but doesn’t let you in on what might happen in the season. It makes the season appear episodic when, compared to the 1st season, it’s not. The music slaps as well, but the animation lacks the punch to give the hype of the intro its staying power. Just saying, the first intro honestly represents the glory that was its first season, and the second shows that they didn’t bother trying to live up to that meaningfully.
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Good Morning fellow gamers and Happy New Year. We made it once again and of course it is a New Year to look at some titles that you might want to keep on your radar. So, this Beast gamer right here is here to tell you my personal list of games that I am keeping a close eye out on. Just a heads up that some links will take you to Play-Asia.com which helps us in the long run. All right shameless plug over lets get to that list.
Anthem First Up!
This is one of the highly anticipated games that also has me worried. You know that feeling when something looks damn good and the developers show actual gameplay from jump. It just looks way too good to be true, but I am still all in since this might be the game I am looking for. It has that nice Iron Man feel to it and a hint of Fantasy as each soldier has their own special abilities.
This new Bioware title will be available on Xbox One X, PlayStation 4 Pro and PC. Thankfully you obtained more time with a February 22, 2019 release date.
“The game features a shared-world where players can either play it solo or through a co-operative multiplayer. Team up with up to four members of your squad and fight savage beasts and ruthless marauders. Explore lost ruins and encounter massive, world-altering terrain occurrences.”
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Looking forward to that and of course we have to share some of the features.
Venture into danger – In this shared-world action-RPG, you and your friends are Freelancers – the bold few with the courage to leave civilization behind, explore a landscape of primeval beauty, and confront the dangers you find
Unite with friends – Up to four players band together to take on whatever perils you discover as a heroic team. As your friends support you in your journey, so do you victories and rewards benefit your friends
Rise to any challenge – Wield an arsenal of Javelin exosuits, each equipped with unique weapons and abilities. Customize them with gear you earn and craft, then use them to fly, leap, and climb through a contiguous open world
Chart your path – Experience massive, world-altering occurrences like Shaper Storms. Fight savage beasts and ruthless marauders. Delve forgotten ruins as you seek to defeat the forces plotting to conquer humanity
Control your fate – Your power grows with every step into the unknown. Whether plunder, revenge, or gory lures you onward, your choices will irrevocably change you – and the world around you.
Be sure to pre-order here.
Devil May Cry 5
This is a long lineage going back from the PS2 days and now with the fifth installment will it live up to the legacy? It was a hit or miss with the DMC titles, I am one that enjoyed the reboot which had more of a badass western feel towards it. The combat has always been my favorite and of course the monster designs were top notch.
Several years after the Order of the Sword incident… An unusual phenomenon suddenly appears in Red Grave City. A gigantic tree pierces through the surface in the middle of town, attacking with roots that drain the poor citizens of their blood. Young Devil Hunter Nero races into Red Grave aboard the mobile Devil May Cry vehicle with his partner Nico, a self-styled “artisan of arms” who provides Nero with his new weapons.
Nero seeks to recover many things in Red Grave: Lost pride…stolen power…and a man left behind. Brandishing his beloved Red Queen sword and custom Blue Rose revolver, Nero plunges into Red Grave, routing the demon hordes as he makes for the menacing phenomenon in the city center. All the while, a new power crackles through his right arm. The all-new anti-demon arm known as the Devil Breaker. “Not bad…let’s see what this can do!”
Now there is a playable demo on Xbox One, but many of you might not have that chance, so check out this video.
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Legendary action series returns – The 16 million unit selling series is back with original Director Hideaki Itsuno at the helm of development
A battle of good and evil – A demonic invasion begins with the seeds of a “demon tree” taking root in Red Grave City. This hellish incursion attracts the attention of the young demon hunter, Nero, an ally of Dante who now finds himself without his demonic arm, the source of much of his power. The supernatural family drama also continues as Dante, the Son of Sparda, seeks revenge for his brother’s corruption and mother’s murder
High octane stylized action – Featuring three playable characters each with a radically different stylish combat play style as they take on the city overrun with demons
Groundbreaking graphics – Developed with Capcom’s in-house proprietary RE engine, the series continues to achieve new heights infidelity with graphics that utilize photorealistic character designs and stunning lighting and environmental effects
Take down the demonic invasion – Battle against epic bosses in adrenaline-fueled fights across the over-run Red Grave City
Demon hunter – Nero, one of the series main protagonists and a young demon hunter who has the blood of Sparda, heads to Red Grave City to face the hellish onslaught of demons, with weapons craftswoman and new partner-in-crime, Nico
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You will be able to fight your own demons come March 8th, 2019 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Be sure to pre-order here.
Dead or Alive 6
This is a personal favorite of mine actually being a fan since day one since it has an interesting fight system. The counter attacks are one of the best in any fighting game and going back and forth is where the challenge begins. So what do we expect for this sixth installment and hopefully it is not a cash grab like Core Fighters was.
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After a sinister incident in a village… Kasumi, a successor of the legendary Mugen Tenshin ninja clan, abandoned her clan and became a “runaway ninja,” secretly living in a hermitage in a mountain village. Meanwhile, Helena Douglas, president of the new DOATEC, is involved in an incident…And yet another…. A so-called genius chuckles at a mysterious light emitting an aura… Behind a quiet time, a sinister plan is set in motion.The passing days are about to be unduly overturned due to an open desire. As Kasumi writes to her mother, her pen overflows with hesitation. …It’s not over yet.
Features:
Break Gauge System – A Special Attack meter new to the series. use the Break Gauge to Execute new tactics such as a Break Blow or a Break hold.
Break Blow – A Break Blow is a special skill which has a powerful smash while parrying an enemy strike.
Break Hold – A Break Hold is the ultra hold which returns upper, middle, and lower attacks.
Fatal Rush – Fatal Rush is a powerful combo attack of up to four neatly animated punches and kicks making a first time player look like an expert.
DOA Central – The new DOA CENTRAL mode is open! Customize your favorite characters before joining the fight!
Danger Zones – These are special regions found in most stages that cause heavy damage when a fighter gets knocked into them. Danger Zones can range from basic walls to blockbuster explosions and careening cars. Some Stages also have Danger Zones within the Floors as well.
Rumble Danger – If a fighter is blown into the crowd, the spectators around the edge of the ring can push the fighter back in and will lose their balance and stagger. This creates an opening for the perfect chance to attack.
Mass-Destruction – Stage Objects such as boxes or jars are destructible. Earn extra damage by blowing opponents into them. Broken items do not regenerate, but you may want to break them before your opponent decides to use them on you.
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Be sure to pre-order your copies here.
Ace Combat 7
Hitting the Danger Zone is a nice thrill for any pilot looking for a mixture of Ariel combat and Sci-Fi creativity. You will have access to maybe planes with a rich story to get a hold of.
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“ACE COMBAT players and fans looking for more ACE COMBAT 7: SKIES UNKNOWN goodness will want to reserve their copy of the ACE COMBAT 7: Aces at War Bundle which will be produced in limited quantities and offered exclusively on the BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Official Store. The ACE COMBAT 7: Aces at War Bundle will include the game, a special SteelBook® case, and a 150-page ACES at WAR: A HISTORY 2019 art book containing exclusive illustrations, interviews, and four short stories written by Japanese writer-director Sunao Katabuchi. Players can check out the goods for both the PlayStation®4 and Xbox One versions of the Aces at War Bundle.”
Features:
INNOVATION IN THE SKY – Breathtaking clouds coupled with highly detailed aircraft and photorealistic scenery make this the most engaging Ace Combat to date.
RETURN TO STRANGEREAL – The alternative Ace Combat universe composed of real-world current and near-future weapons, but with a history steeped in Ace Combat lore.
VIRTUAL COMBAT – VR missions made exclusively for the PlayStation VR that provide unprecedented immersion.
Ace Combat 7 will drop on Janurary 18th, 2019 and please pre-order here.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
It is not Tenchu but it is as close as we are going to get and I am impressed. Saw Sekiro first at the Sony Experience last year and I was quite amazed by the action and story lore that goes with it.
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Features:
Kill Ingeniously – FromSoftware delivers their best in class combat in this fast-paced, action-adventure game featuring all new mechanics.
Exploration is key – Players will experience the thrill of exploration and discovery in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice like never before. Through exploration, players can uncover new items, meet new characters, and encounter hidden enemies.
Armed – Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice gameplay is centred around sword combat, enhanced by a variety of prosthetic arm attachments that supplement or change the way a player fights. Achieving strategic mastery of “Sekiro” or the “one-armed wolf’s” techniques and abilities, from prosthetic tools, swordplay to stealth and the grappling hook is no easy feat. To overcome difficulties and bring each situation under control, gamers must discover, integrate and use a variety of new tools when heading into combat.
One-armed wolf – Play as a highly talented shinobi in the service of a young lord raised in isolation. After suffering defeat at the hands of a shadowy Ashina samurai seeking the unique heritage of your master, the two of you are separated. Deep in the mountains, in a dilapidated temple, you reawaken to your fate. You must take back your master and exact revenge on your enemy at all cost.
Hard to the core – Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a hard-core game worthy of the name FromSoftware. Miyazaki designed Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice this way! Fans of FromSoftware will find the gameplay challenging, yet fun and rewarding. The quality of combat, level of challenge, and creative enemies and bosses are something that can only be found in a FromSoftware title.
Reimagined world – This reimagining of Japanese aesthetic blends a withered, yet vivid, world of the late 1500s Sengoku Japan as the age of warring states nears its end. Witness a world brought to its knees by constant bloodshed; a ravaged world on the brink of destruction. Explore these environments, rich with FromSoftware’s intricate design and steeped with secrets to discover.
Larger than life enemies – Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice features fantastical fearsome enemies and bosses. Players will battle with larger-than-life enemies that will test their mettle in a variety of situations. From hidden enemies to discover to 3D combat, the quality of creative enemies and bosses are something that can only be found in a FromSoftware title.
Resurrection – Used as an opportunity for a tactical retreat or to deceive an enemy and go on the counter-offensive, this new combat strategy allows players to resurrect on the spot, even after a hasty death.
A fantastical, dark, and twisted new gameplay experience awaits you in Sekiro Shadows Die Twice. It is developed by the notable dev team, From Software, and published by Activision. It is an action-adventure game combined with RPG elements. The game is directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki and is played in a third-person perspective.
March 22nd, 2019 is your day to deal with the Shadows so pre-order here.
Fae Tactics: The Girl who Destroyed the World
Indie titles are always on the list because the creators have a lot of heart and catches my eye.
Team Vs Speed – Endless Fluff Games went back and forth on this idea on how their game would be. Luckily they settled on a Hybrid style makes it the best of both worlds. “The combat is still locked into rounds and each unit only has one turn per round. The Speed stat determines where they are on the turn order, so having a higher speed gives you the advantage of going first or the flexibility to delay your turn until you feel the moment is right to make your move.”
Spell Talisman – You will be allowed to have up to 3 spell talismans, but there are over 40 spells in development. As of right now, there is 29 which gives gamers a lot of room to strategize on what they will need and utilize. Either be defensive or offensive or mix it up as well as support spells. Keep in mind you and the enemy can only use one spell per round so think on that. Expect some cool down with spells as well.
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As prior post stated you will be updated as time goes on but for now keep an eye on on Humble Bundle. Coming Soon.
Hades – Battle out of Hell
Defy the god of death as you hack and slash your way out of the Underworld in this rogue-like dungeon crawler from the creators of Bastion and Transistor.
Rogue Like video games are quite fun in a frustrating way which is hilarious to me. Hades Battle Out of Hell shows the fun in rebelling against your parent and this time you will have to deal with the entire house. I find that funny because all you want to do is leave!
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Right now there is an Early Access Offer for PC which goes for 20 bucks and that not that bad.
We got to work on Hades less than a month after our previous game, Pyre, launched on July 25, 2017. Each time we’ve completed a project, we’ve found ourselves eager to dive into something new. This time around, we wanted to make something that combined aspects of all the best ideas we’d picked up over the course of working on our three previous games: the immediacy and accessibility of Bastion, the rich atmosphere and combat depth of Transistor, and the big and colorful cast of characters and forward-moving story structure in Pyre.
Hades is also our first game adapted from an existing mythology — the world of Greek myth. We felt we had a unique perspective on this theme, and saw the adaptation process as a new and exciting creative opportunity to explore. Our take on Greek mythology assumes no prior knowledge of the subject. Yet, those familiar with Greek myth should find our take on it to be true to the spirit of the source material, from Homer to Hesiod. Greek myth comes from stories of ancient gods and heroes filtered through new points of view; we’re excited to share ours.
Epic Games website can provide you with Early Access and you can check that out here.
Crackdown 3
It was a smart move on Microsoft to have Terry Crews as the front runner for an explosive action packed game! I still remember the first time trying out crackdown on because we got an opportunity to play a new Halo title. Too our surprise Crackdown was actually good. They kind of dropped the ball on the sequel but I still had my fun. Here is to hoping with Crackdown 3.
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“Our fans’ response to the signature antics and explosive gameplay of “Crackdown 3” has been incredible. To ensure we deliver the experience they deserve, “Crackdown 3” will be launching in Feb 2019. We look forward to sharing more on “Crackdown 3″ this Sunday during the Xbox E3 2018 briefing.” – via WindowsCentral
As an Agent it is your duty to take down the criminal element even if the city must go through a lot of collateral damage. It was supposed to be slated for release in 2018, but I stated before I rather developers take their time on video games instead of rushing them out the door.
Features:
Skills for kills – Level up your super-Agent skills to jump over skyscrapers, hurl trucks at your enemies and fight like a boss
Dangerous open-world playground – Play with up to four friends over Xbox Live to take out a violent criminal empire and use the city as a weapon against your enemies
Crime claps back – Lure vindictive crime lords out of their strongholds by roughing up their street soldiers, attacking criminal operations and taking out high-value gang captains
Boom goes the dynamite – Join with up to 10 agents online to tear the city apart piece by piece in a 100% destructible multiplayer arena, available with your purchase of Crackdown 3
Pre-order here!
Resident Evil 2 Remake
Our very own Kikee took first jabs at this new in her previous post last year which you can check out here.
In Resident Evil 2, the classic action, tense exploration, and puzzle solving gameplay that defined the Resident Evil series returns. Players join rookie police officer Leon Kennedy and college student Claire Redfield, who are thrust together by a disastrous outbreak in Raccoon City that transformed its population into deadly zombies. Both Leon and Claire have their own separate playable campaigns, allowing players to see the story from both characters’ perspectives. The fate of these two fan-favorite characters is in players hands as they work together to survive and get to the bottom of what is behind the terrifying attack on the city. Will they make it out alive?
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Features:
A spine-chilling reimagining of a horror classic – Based on the original PlayStation console release in 1998, the new game has been completely rebuilt from the ground up for a deeper narrative experience
A whole new perspective – New over-the-shoulder camera mode and modernized control scheme creates a more modern take on the survival horror experience and offers players a trip down memory lane with the original gameplay modes from the 1998 release
Terrifyingly realistic visuals – Built on Capcom’s proprietary RE Engine, Resident Evil 2 delivers breathtakingly photorealistic visuals in 4K whilst stunning lighting creates an up-close, intense and atmospheric experience as players roam the corridors of the Raccoon City Police Department (RPD)
Face the grotesque hordes – Zombies are brought to life with a horrifyingly realistic wet gore effect as they react in real time taking instantly visible damage, making every bullet count
Iconic series defining gameplay – Engage in frenzied combat with enemies, explore dark menacing corridors, solve puzzles to access areas and collect and use items discovered around the environment in a terrifying constant fight for survival
See favorite characters in a whole new light – Join rookie police officer Leon S. Kennedy on his first day in the job and college student Claire Redfield, who is searching for her brother amidst a terrifying zombie epidemic
Step into the rookie shoes of both heroes – Enjoy separately playable campaigns for both Leon and Claire, allowing players to see the story from both characters’ perspective
This is an exciting time for horror fans and I do hope it keeps to its style of fear and great jump scares. In that definitely pre-order your copy here.
Jump Force
This one is pretty simple to get into. What do you get when you add all the Shonen Jump characters into one Universe to brawl and you get something intriguing.
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Standard Edition ($59.99)
JUMP FORCE software
Deluxe Edition ($89.99)
JUMP FORCE software
Character Pass
Nine additional playable characters post-release
Access each DLC character release four days before they are available on digital storefronts
Ultimate Edition ($99.99)
JUMP FORCE software
Early access to full JUMP FORCE experience three days before official February 15, 2019 launch date
Character Pass
Nine additional playable characters post-release
Access each DLC character release four days before they are available on digital storefronts
16 Avatar T-shirts used for Avatar customization
Jump Start Pack
Includes various consumable in-game items to give players a jump start at the beginning of their journey
Jump Force will star the world’s most popular and classic anime franchises such as Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, Naruto, and many others. Players are tasked to form their three-character anime dream team and bring them into battle. Get ready to fight in Jump Force’s unique setting. The game introduces you the merging of the Jump World and the Real World. Battle with your foes with stunning backdrops of various landmarks around the globe. This includes New York City’s Times Square and the Matterhorn in the Alps.
The borders that separate our world from the Jump world have been destroyed. With this, the evil forces from the other world are spreading all over the real world to rule over mankind. Now, the greatest manga/anime heroes such as Goku, Luffy, Naruto, and others must work together to turn down the evil forces of the Jump World.
Features:
A unique setting, merging the Jump World and the Real World
The Jump Force, an alliance of the most powerful Manga heroes from Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto and much more
Realistic graphics bring Manga characters to life like never before
Jump Force releases on February 15th, 2019 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. Grab your pre-order here.
BONUS STAGE: Kingdom Hearts III
This was an obvious choice, but I can’t help but add this title to the list. Kingdom Hearts has always been a unique title being that it is a mixture of the Final Fantasy universe and the Disney Universe. I think they go hand in hand with dreams and fantasy as well was tragedy. There is a sad story to be involved with, but it is a strong story of friendship.
KINGDOM HEARTS III tells the story of the power of friendship as Sora and his friends embark on a perilous adventure. Set in a vast array of Disney and Pixar worlds, KINGDOM HEARTS follows the journey of Sora, a young boy and unknowing heir to a spectacular power. Sora is joined by Donald Duck and Goofy to stop an evil force known as the Heartless from invading and overtaking the universe.
Through the power of friendship, Sora, Donald and Goofy unite with iconic Disney-Pixar characters old and new to overcome tremendous challenges and persevere against the darkness threatening their worlds.
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Features:
Adventure in Disney and Pixar Worlds – Embark on an adventure that spans the Disney universe: Travel across Disney-Pixar worlds to protect them from the Heartless invasion, and befriend and join heroes from Toy Story, Big Hero 6, Tangled, Hercules and more
Unlock the Power of the Keyblades – The powerful Keyblade can now transform into additional forms with new attacks, moves and animations. Players can equip multiple Key-blades, and combo their attacks between different themed Key-blades.
Experience the Magic – Cast visually stunning, powerful magic spells to battle the Heartless. Call upon Disney-Pixar friends and partner with them for support. Turn the tide of combat by summoning theme park inspired attractions using the all-new “Attractions.”
Prepare for Battle Interact directly with the Disney-Pixar world. Players will fight off swarms of Heartless as they scale massive cliffs, dive deep underwater or even as they fall freely through the air
Relive Classic Disney Shorts Through Mini-games Take a break from saving the world with mini-games inspired by classic Disney short films.
Kingdom Hearts III finally embraces fans on January 29th, 2019 so please pre-order here.
This is just the beginning of the new year and please feel free to share your own persona list in the comments below. I hope everyone has a great New Year and lets make 2019 popping. – Beast Out –
Beast Top Ten Games for 2019 to Grab Good Morning fellow gamers and Happy New Year. We made it once again and of course it is a New Year to look at some titles that you might want to keep on your radar.
#Ace Combat 7: Skies Unkown#Anthem#Crackdown 3#Dead or Alive 6#Devil May Cry 5#Fae Tactics: The Girl Who Destroyed the World#Hades: Battle out of Hell#Jump Force#pc gaming#Play-Asia#PlayStation 4#Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice#Video Games#Xbox One
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SUMMARY In the kingdom of Aruk, the high priest Maax is given a prophecy by his witches that he would die facing the son of King Zed. So he sends one of his witches to kidnap and kill the child, but before she can kill him, a villager rescues the child and raises him as his own son. Named Dar while raised in the village of Emur, the child learns how to fight, and has the ability to telepathically communicate with animals. Years later, a fully grown Dar witnesses his people being slaughtered by the Juns, a horde of fanatic barbarians allied with Maax. Dar, the only survivor of the attack, journeys to Aruk to avenge his people. In time, Dar is joined by a golden eagle he names Sharak, a pair of thieving ferrets he names Kodo and Podo, and a panther he names Ruh.
Eventually, Dar meets a redheaded slave girl called Kiri before getting himself lost and ending up surrounded by an eerie half-bird, half-human race who dissolve their prey for nourishment. As the bird men worship eagles, they spare Dar when he summons Sharak and give him an amulet should he need their aid. Dar soon arrives at Aruk where Maax had assumed total control with the Juns’ support. Maax has taken the children of the townspeople, and is sacrificing them to his god Ar. After having Sharak save the child of a townsman named Sacco, Dar learns that Kiri is to be sacrificed. On his way to save her, Dar is joined by Zed’s younger son Tal and his bodyguard Seth, learning that Kiri is Zed’s niece as the three work to save her. While Seth goes to gather their forces, Dar helps Kiri and Tal infiltrate the temple and rescue King Zed.
Zed leads his forces to attack the city, but they’re captured. Dar returns to save them from being sacrificed. In the conflict that follows, Maax reveals Dar’s relationship to Zed before slitting Zed’s throat and facing the Beastmaster. Despite being stabbed, revived by his remaining witch before she was killed, Maax is about to kill Dar when Kodo sacrifices himself to cause the high priest to fall into the sacrificial flames. But the victory is short-lived as the Jun horde is approaching Aruk, arriving by nightfall to face the trap Dar and the people set for them. Tal is wounded as Dar succeeds in burning most of the Juns alive while defeating their chieftain before the bird-men arrive to consume those remaining. The following day, Seth invites Dar to be the new king, but Dar explains that Tal would make a better king, and he leaves Aruk. Dar sets off into the wild with Kiri, Ruh, Sharak and Podo (who has given birth to two baby ferrets) on the path to new adventures.
DEVELOPMENT/PRE-PRODUCTION Beastmaster found a home under the protective wing of Sylvio Tabet’s own production/financing company, Leisure Investments. This arrangement allowed the production company more artistic freedom than studio financing would have permitted. Tabet then proceeded to seed the production staff with the finest artisans and craftspeople he could find.
“We have a very good team, it’s very professional,” Tabet comments. “John Alcott, the cinematographer, made The Shining and Barry Lyndon. He’s an Academy Award winner! He’s giving a tremendous look to this picture. He’s painting the film in a kind of goldish, rust color which gives us the feeling that this picture is of another time. He had a way to light interiors with only torches and candles, using practically no light at all. Again, I think this film has been very challenging for everybody, but the results on screen are incredible—it’s working incredibly well.”
“We spent two years researching Beastmaster. You need it! We studied each movement of the actors because there is a lot of sword fighting in the picture, and you have to choreograph the movements on paper before you can bring it to the screen. We’re also working with a lot of special effects, miniatures and animals. I’ve had to create a whole new world for this film. Or at least, I’m trying.
“It’s very challenging. Sometimes I don’t sleep at night….” Tabet pauses. “But I must say, I’m very pleased with the results. On the screen, the film has a totally different look, much imagination.” And for Tabet, the end result on the screen is his reward for the hard work and lost sleep.
The shoot itself was a demanding one. Bad weather and difficult night shoots plagued the production. Everything in the film had to be built from scratch, and built to last. Film Builders Productions in North Hollywood provided villages, sets and a 70-foot sacrificial pyramid that had to endure five months of location shooting. But Tabet, director Don Coscarelli and producer Paul Pepperman assembled a cast of special effects artisans who had the vision and the ability to meet the demands of budget.
FX Lineup Mike Minor provided the Art Direction for the Special Effects Unit. Under his direction, Will Guest built the miniatures which were photographed by Bill Cruse. Makeup artist Bill Munns created the fantasy makeups, and pyrotechnic wizard Roger George marshalled the explosions.
The fantastic creatures which populate Beastmaster were a pioneering effort in Tabet’s eyes. “There are many new SPFX concepts we are testing,” he explains. “The bird warriors in the picture are one of a kind. They are men who are like bat creatures. We had to create winged clothes on the actors (which were articulated), to close around the enemy. The enemy starts to disintegrate, and you can see the disintegration through the wings.”
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Witch women cling like spiders to the ceilings and fly through rooms, weaving evil spells at the bidding of Maax, their high priest. Jun warriors devastate villages. Zombie death guards sacrifice innocent children. Giants smash cities into ruin. Beastmaster promises a feast of visual effects for its viewers.
“All kinds of special effects!” Tabet chuckles. “It’s a fantasy with a lot of action, a lot of dreams. This kind of film you’ll never see on television. It has a large scope. It is a very ambitious project.”
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“It took me a year to put together,” he says. “I believe in the talent of Don Coscarelli. He sees everything fresh, new ideas.”
“We did a lot of storyboarding,” says Coscarelli, “but it all turned out to be pretty useless once we got to the set. A lot of things changed.” Some of those changes may have had something to do with the special considerations of cinematographer John Alcott (The Shining, Terror Train) and special effects man Roger George (Phantasm), since perhaps 90 percent of the picture was shot in natural illumination and torch or firelight of some kind. “Roger George was in charge of all the pyrotechnics,” says Coscarelli, “and we worked out some incredible things; explosions, and a 200 foot long wall of fire 25 feet high. We shot that same scene for three weeks.” Says Coscarelli of John Alcott, “it was a different experience having another person doing the cinematography, but John Alcott is terrific. He was easy to work with just a real nice guy-and he was very responsive to my wishes.”
The Beast Master by Andre Norton
The Beast Master tells of Hosteen Storm, a Navajo and former soldier who has empathic and telepathic connections with a group of genetically altered animals. The team emigrates from Earth to the distant planet Arzor where it is hired to herd livestock. Storm still harbors anger at his former enemies the Xik, and has sworn revenge on a man named Quade for his father’s murder. According to Kirkus he finds “life and hope” instead.
The animals in Coscarelli’s film are possibly the most unique aspect of it, and were, perhaps, the most difficult. It takes time to film animal scenes, especially if the animal must perform some bit of business that is vital to the plot. Boone Narr, of Gentle Jungle in Burbank, California, supplied the beasts, including some 20 ferrets, each trained to do a different task (so that it would appear that the two ferrets in the story were doing everything), and Kipling, an extremely large Bengal tiger that was colored black for his role as Dar’s pet. “Kipling,” chuckles Coscarelli, “had absolute casting approval.” Had the big cat been less amicable, Marc Singer (Dar) might have wound up as leading meal, rather than leading male. There were only a couple of instances when the tigers (there were three-as stand ins for one another) appeared to get out of hand. One cat got loose in the dark warehouse that was being used for the interior sets. “A black tiger in a dark warehouse!” laughs Coscarelli, “We didn’t hang around to see how they were going to catch him.” The cat was caught, quickly, however, and without incident-credit the animal handlers from Gentle Jungle.
“The animals are really difficult –it’s a matter of sitting around with 80 people, spending a fortune, until you have what you want. Then, when it does happen, it’s like magic; no one can figure how we get them to do it. The ferrets are very workable-we have about 20 of them, to represent the two in the movie. Some are jumpers, some are quick ones, some are trained to carry beads; they’re all trained to do different things, all of them in marked cages waiting for their set call.”
As talented as the animal cast may be, finding the right human cast was one of the most arduous preproduction tasks. Certainly the best-known cast member is Rip Torn, one of New York’s most respected stage actors, reputed to be a very interesting’ person to have in any cast. Pepperman confirms that there were few dull moments while Torn was on the set. “We only had him for a while, and we’ve really missed the action since he left,” says the producer.
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For the part of Lara the slave girl, Tanya Roberts-a former Charlie’s Angel who is exceptional in appearing to be both beautiful and bright-was selected after a lengthy period of open casting calls and dozens of readings. “When she came in, we all agreed that she had the look and the feel that we had in mind for that character, and she’s been wonderful. She does a lot of very athletic things in the film; just two nights ago we were out on top of this 80-foot cliff, with Tanya and a stuntman in the outfit of Maax’s Deathguard, who was to take a high-fall off of it, and the role required her to stand at the very edge looking down. She was letting out a little scream every once in awhile-but she was out there doing it.”
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Pepperman seems most grateful for having Marc Singer on board. “We literally saw hundreds and hundreds of people for that lead role, through the two casting directors that were with us through preproduction. “Name” people, unknowns, all kinds of people. We were looking for a guy in really good shape-not an overdeveloped bodybuilder type, but somebody normal-looking who was in really good shape. We were looking and looking, and Marc’s name came up twice-once on a list that mentioned him as part of a San Francisco repertory production of Taming of the Shrew. Our casting director at the time said no, that won’t work. Then his name came up again a couple of months later on a list of ‘name’ people to be considered; his credits included a TV movie called The Contender, in which he played a boxer, and another called For Ladies Only, where he played a male stripper. We knew from those roles that he had to have a body, and we knew that if he could handle The Taming of the Shrew he had to be able to act, so we had him in. We found that he had the body, he had the look, and he could act, so he was in. As another plus, we never asked whether he was able to handle a sword-but it turned out that he is a more than adequate fencer, and he does a heck of a lot of his own stunts, too. I imagine that without Marc, we would have been maybe three weeks behind schedule.”
Principal filming will be finished as you read this, and plans call for the edited film to be delivered in early July. “For us that’s working very fast,” says Pepperman, “but then, again, this is the first time that Don has not done the editing entirely on his own.”
During lensing of the sword-and-sorcery adventure, Marc Singer notes he got along well with director Don (Phantasm) Coscarelli. “I’m really happy we turned out such a great movie. I received excellent directorial advice on my character from the man who was sort of ‘helping’ in the direction of Beastmaster, Chuck (Gumball Rally) Bail. He was on set as a ghost entity to help with the production and he gave me clues for Dar’s character. Chuck did so much on that film that I hesitate to say how much he truly did. In my opinion, he was the backbone of the project.”
Playing a warrior who can telepathically bond with animals, Singer found himself in close contact with hawks, tigers and bears– not to mention ferrets. “It was very demanding, working with the animals, but it was also exhilarating,” he says happily. “I would have to say it was more inspiring than it was hard, except for the bear, which had a tendency to want to eat people. That was the only animal you had to stay away from.
Singer to work closely with some beastly co-stars: tigers, eagles and ferrets. The actor remembers the experience with mixed feelings; “At first, I had to work with five different tigers to find the tiger with which I had the best relationship. At one point, one turned around and grabbed me by the leg. Everyone froze for a minute, then the cat let me go.
“I had a very good relationship with my tiger. In fact, I miss it and think of it often. It was like a religious experience everytime I was near this animal, and I developed a great and abiding love for it. I think the reason the tiger accepted me, and was good to me, is that whenever I was on screen with it, I felt it was an enormous privilege. I always let the tiger be the boss. The film may have been titled The Beastmaster, but whenever I was on screen with that tiger, I said to it, ‘This is your forum to tell us of the beauty and majesty of the natural world and why we should take care of it and have a responsibility towards you.’”
The eagle, on the other hand, proved less amenable. According to Singer, the only person it tolerated was its trainer. In one scene, the bird flew directly at Singer, scoring his back with its talons. “It really was a question of the eagle’s maternal instinct fixating itself on its handler. To the eagle, anyone else was an intrusion and a threat,” Singer explains. “Obviously, we had to reshoot the scene.”
Another animalistic incident involved a Japanese grizzly bear. “This was the very first shot of the film,” Singer recalls. “And the handlers said to us, ‘Gentlemen, if you’ll all stand back now, we’re going to bring out the bear and use him in this shot. Please be very quiet and anybody not needed on the set, please go away. Everything will be just fine.’
“They turned around and unlocked the cage. This bear-it’s about eight or nine feet tall jumped right out and began mauling one of the handlers. Just tore him to pieces. They had six guys trying to get it off the trainer and back into the cage.”
SPECIAL EFFECTS Though Phantasm had a goodly number of makeup effects, the size and scope of The Beastmaster required Coscarelli, for the first time, to engage in the creation of a makeup effects unit. It wasn’t easy.
“Our problems in the makeup department,” Coscarelli says, “were chiefly problems of organization. We shopped around for a time, while we were in preproduction. We had something on the order of 50 different things that had to be accomplished. One very well-known outfit priced the job at $300,000, and another group that had just completed a successful sword and sorcery picture figured it at $100,000. For a while, we employed a fellow who had done some work for New World Pictures; he came in, and was very pleasant, and he gave the impression that he could handle everything that we needed. But apparently we made a mistake by not checking more thoroughly into his background-I recall one time that he explained that something we needed wasn’t ready because he had used the wrong fixative on his plastics, and that he’d passed out in his lab for three hours!”
If only for his own safety, it was thought best to let that individual go, and the search resumed for the right effects man. With the schedule grow among his recent credits, has proven to be a valuable addition to the crew. In other areas, however, it has proven, for Pepperman at least, to be a shade less satisfying.
“There’s not as much of our being able to get in there and say, ‘OK, this here’s the way we want it, the way it should be done,’ showing people exactly what you mean. This has been a long, hard haul, and day after day ! promise myself that the next one will be a nice, small movie. This way, there are so many departments, and so many people in each department … it becomes a problem to have little things changed. The prop department needs something, it gets drawn up, then it gets fabricated, and by the time you see it, if something is not quite right, it’s a big process to send it back to have it changed. And it’s necessary sometimes, though we do have a lot of topnotch people.
‘On special effects, there were a lot of things that, on Phantasm, we had to figure out how to do-now we’ve got people who tell us right off the bat what we’re going to do, with mechanical and pyrotechnical effects.”
In addition to the expanded scope of the production, further complications were introduced to the project in the film’s extensive use of prosthetics: witch women-beautiful bodies topped by hideous faces; bird warriors-extra tall, lean actors dressed in elaborate costumes; and various other worldly beasts are all dependent on realistic prosthetics for their convincing portrayal. Add to that the task of shooting many scenes with trained animals, and you may begin to conceive the types of problem is faced and solved by the young filmmakers.
Enter Bill Munns, Munns is the subject of some controversy in special effects circles; his work in The Boogens and Swamp Thing has received some sharp criticism and yet both of these films were made on budgets that require Munns to practically pull his monsters out of a hat. What Munns lacks in terms of a glamor reputation is amply compensated by his growing reputation as an fx man who respects the movie makers’ budgets and schedules. By the time Munns joined Beastmaster, the schedule had been cut desperately short by the previous fx dead ends. “When I saw the things that Bill had done for us,” recalls the director, “I wasn’t immediately pleased with all of them; but everything Bill did was done on time and on schedule. And by taking extra care with the lighting, everything looks good on screen, so, in general, our experience with Bill was a good one.”
The original makeup designer (Michael McCracken, Jr.) did not put any mouth or nostrils on these masks, and the people wearing them couldn’t breathe. I had no time to resculpt and remake the masks, so I just cut discreet holes in the masks and put straws up into the masks and into the actors’ mouths. Then, right before each scene was filmed, I took scissors and clipped the straws off right at the mask surface so they wouldn’t show, but so the actors could still breathe. These photos were my own on-set photos between takes, which is why the straws stick out so obviously. I was just taking reference photos of the suits. Another curious thing about these suits is they have no backs, because there wasn’t enough money left for me to make back-torso sections.
The work I am most proud of on this movie is at the upper right top, the “eye ring”. This curious thing was supposed to be a living eye magically infused into a ring, worn by an unsuspecting person, so the ring could spy on people and report visually back to its magical owner. There were six rings total, three just regular with eye closed (the left ring) and one with the eye open, plus the “Hero” ring with animation built in so the eyelid could open and the eye could look side to side, and finally a ring with a gelatin eye that could be burned and melted with a flaming stick. The “Hero” eye ring was one of my more ingenious feats of engineering, because it was still a practical ring the actor could wear.
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The beginning of the film, where a witch steals the queen’s unborn child from her womb. They wanted to see the unborn baby struggling against the woman’s stomach skin as it was magically being extracted. So I had to build a cable-controlled baby head and hands that could push against the foam latex stomach skin and also build a large air bladder so the belly could be expanded and contracted with air pumped rapidly in and out. At left, the green and black hoses are the air hoses for inflating and deflating the bladder. At the bottom, you can see the baby animation device and the cables controlling them. Bottom right is the foamed latex skin that covers the effects devices.
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SCORE/SOUNDTRACK The Beastmaster (1982) Lee Holdridge
The score was composed and conducted by Lee Holdridge; it was recorded in Rome with members of The Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Cecilia of Rome and the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Rome. The soundtrack album was originally issued by Varèse Sarabande, and subsequently by C.A.M. In 2013 Quartet Records released a 1200-copy limited edition featuring the original album (tracks 1–13, disc 1) and most of the film’s score (Holdridge wrote eighty minutes of music for the film; a few cues could not be found, but the album includes music that was not heard in the finished product).
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CAST/CREW Directed Don Coscarelli
Produced Paul Pepperman Donald P. Borchers Sylvio Tabet
Written Don Coscarelli Paul Pepperman
Based on The Beast Master by Andre Norton
Marc Singer as Dar Billy Jacoby as young Dar Tanya Roberts as Kiri Rip Torn as Maax Donald Battee Don Battee as Chameleon John Amos as Seth Josh Milrad as Tal Rod Loomis as King Zed Vanna Bonta as Zed’s Wife Ben Hammer as Dar’s father Ralph Strait as Sacco Tony Epper as Jun Leader
Tara Candoli … makeup artist Ailen Derderian … makeup effects assistant Katrin Derderian … makeup effects assistant Karen Kubeck … assistant makeup artist Louis Lazzara … makeup artist: second unit David B. Miller … makeup effects artist Michael Mills … prosthetic makeup artist Jaklin Munns … makeup effects assistant William Munns … special makeup effects designer Peter Tothpal … hair dresser Michelle Triscario … makeup effects assistant Mark Shostrom … special makeup effects artist (uncredited)
CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Starlog#63 Starlog#84 Starlog#271 Fangoria#18 Fangoria#22
The Beastmaster (1982) Retrospective SUMMARY In the kingdom of Aruk, the high priest Maax is given a prophecy by his witches that he would die facing the son of King Zed.
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Title Spirit Hunter: NG Developer Experience, Ghostlight LTD Publisher Aksys Games Release Date October 10th, 2019 Genre Adventure, Horror, VN Platform PC, Nintendo Switch Age Rating Mature 17+ – Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, Violence Official Website
I probably wouldn’t have become a fan of the Spirit Hunter series if it weren’t for Aksys Games. After all, they pretty much forced me into the horror adventure genre with the wonderfully twisted Zero Escape series. I’ve also played other compelling horror stories published by Aksys such as Creeping Terror. The point is, I’ve really grown to appreciate a well written horror story, despite being a gigantic wimp when it comes to survival horror series such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill. When I heard that Spirit Hunter: NG was the sequel to Death Mark, a horror adventure game I rather enjoyed when I reviewed it last year, I knew I had to be the one to tackle it.
Let me start by saying that Spirit Hunter: NG is at the same time very similar to and very different from Death Mark. To start, whereas Death Mark is pretty much a supernatural roller coaster from the very beginning, NG is a game where the supernatural is lurking in hidden corners, and slowly surrounds you in a vice. The story is a much slower burn, but once it gets going, you’ll be in a constant state of terror. Because unlike in Death Mark, in NG you never know where supernatural creatures will attack you. In the first game, you’d be pretty much safe so long as you weren’t in a haunted location, but here not even your home is a safe harbor. Having said all that, there’s still a lot of similarities between the games. They play almost identically, both feature a mysterious mark that counts down to your death and both include a diverse crew of eclectic personalities. Thankfully the gameplay, though similar, has also been overhauled here, and is much more streamlined. I can’t count the number of times some mechanic frustrated me in Death Mark, nor how often I got lost wandering about. Neither of those were an issue in Spirit Hunter: NG, which was incredibly satisfying. Which isn’t to say I was never annoyed, but it happened far less often.
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Before I get too much farther, I need to talk about the story in Spirit Hunter: NG. Whereas Death Mark started with a big question mark, with your protagonist suffering amnesia from the titular mark, here things begin much calmer. You play Akira Kijima, a rough-and-tumble third year high school student. You’re pretty much a loner, with a dead mother and no father in the picture. Thankfully, your Aunt Natsumi is a kindhearted woman who makes your life better, and her young daughter Ami views you as her big brother. Under their guidance, Akira does his best to be a better person and less of a hooligan than he was in his youth. Which doesn’t mean he’s gonna get student of the year anytime soon, but it does help soften his rough edges. That said, Akira is still a bad ass. His best friend, Seiji Amanome, is the son of a Yakuza boss, and uses his growing influence to manipulate people to his whims. Years back, he was responsible for helping Akira make a quick buck in underground matches, but Akira’s trying to clean up his act. Things are relatively calm and boring, until one day when he finds a black card on his doorstep. Ami solves the card’s riddle for him, and the hidden message reads “let’s play”. Little does Akira realize how completely his normal life is over from that moment onward.
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Soon after receiving the card, Akira is confronted by a strange talking doll named Kakuya. If you played the first game, your radar probably just started pinging off the charts, and rightfully so. Kakuya forces Akira to play the first of many dangerous games, and starts by sending a restless spirit to kill him and Ami. Barely surviving the encounter, Akira thinks things are calming down until Ami somehow disappears from his own residence. Turns out, Kakuya has employed supernatural means to kidnap Ami, and is using her as leverage to force Akira to continue playing her games. Each one will have him face off against a restless spirit, survive their attacks and eventually beat them. Along the way, Akira will discover many hidden truths about the nature of the game, the evil doll Kakuya, and perhaps even his own murky past. Though this structure is very similar to Death Mark, I was totally fine with that. Yes there are parallels, but there were more than enough ways that Spirit Hunter: NG distinguished itself from the first title.
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One way that Spirit Hunter: NG is different from the first game is that there are less characters overall. I can’t confirm that 100 percent, but going from memory it seemed there were a lot more people you interacted with in Death Mark. This would be a problem if they weren’t all distinct and well rounded people, but thankfully each member of the cast serves an important role. In fact, the members of your band of misfits serve such a distinct role that if you allow any of them to get killed, you’ll be locked out of the best ending. Though I was tempted to use a guide to get the best ending here, like I did when I reviewed Death Mark, I’m kind of glad I didn’t. For one thing, the other endings are far more terrifying and disturbing, and do a lot to contextualize the stakes while motivating players to try again. For another, puzzles in this game were far less challenging to figure out, with two large exceptions I’ll discuss later. I really grew to like the characters in NG, so every time I failed a test and someone was the victim of a supernatural hit job, I got even more invested in the story. See, whenever you face off against a spirit, you can either defeat them or purify them. While my default reaction is usually to kill the monster, and the game definitely plays off that instinct, you’ll be well rewarded for finding the harder way to victory. If you destroy the spirit, their curse will transfer to a member of your team, and then they’ll suffer an untimely demise. You’ll never know if you made the right choice til later, and then be treated to a gruesome tableau of their death. This only happened twice to me, and both times I felt utterly wretched and horrified. If you want to avoid losing anyone and don’t like guides, I strongly recommend you don’t save til after you know the result, and make sure to save before every Survival Escape scenario.
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More Horror on Page 2 ->
Like in Death Mark, in NG you have to thoroughly explore your environment, acquire objects, gather clues and escape dangerous situations. You had something called Soul Power in the first game that would count down in tense situations and which could be increased with items. Here it’s called Security, and while you can’t increase it, it does fully replenish after every Crisis Choice. Another way this game is very different is that you don’t have to “combat” the spirits. You would have to use item combinations and partner abilities to progress in Death Mark, and while that was cool in theory, it got really frustrating when I couldn’t find the right combination to proceed (which happened more and more as I played). In Spirit Hunter: NG, your choices are far more linear, and it’s up to you to either make the right choice to escape attack, or pick the right item to use at the right time. No combining things, no partner abilities (other than during exploration), far less headache. As an example, when facing the second spirit, you can either trick them into getting hit by a train using a stuffed animal or repair that teddy bear and give it to the spirit, putting them at peace. This is far less complex and I applaud the developers for keeping the tension here while avoiding the frustration. Besides the core aspects of the game, there’s a new feature called the Judgment system. You’ll occasionally be asked questions by key characters, and can choose your response from a spectrum of visual reactions. Depending on what you do, your relationship may improve with that character, unlocking a more robust biography for them in the extras. I was happy when I learned this had no bearing on which ending you got, since it can be unclear what the right choice is.
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One cool new mechanic that was absent from the first game is Bloodmetry. At one point early on, Akira learns he can get psychic impressions from bloodstains. This is put to clever use all throughout the game, and the farther you get, the more grisly and dark the environments. While you won’t truly learn the reason Akira has this skill ’til the end of the game, I can say it is worth the wait. It was also satisfying playing as a more fearless and powerful character than in Death Mark. Akira is practically an action hero, kicking and punching his way out of harm’s way. While he can’t do much against spirits with his fists, you’ll encounter lots of more mundane threats, such as patrolling security guards. My only complaint regarding Akira is that the story hints at his past, but never directly shows it to you in any meaningful way. I would have loved to see how different he was when he was fighting for money, for example. But thankfully, not seeing that didn’t ruin my immersion. Another new feature is D-Mail. You’ll receive these messages from a mysterious person called D-Man, and he gives obscure clues to find cards with supernatural lore on them. These are totally skippable, but I enjoyed going out of my way to find each and every card. Doing so I was rewarded later with a meeting with the man himself, and it was quite an experience.
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Though the band of characters is a bit smaller, they make up for it by being really quirky. One of the first characters you meet is named Kaoru Hazuki. She dresses like a Gothic lolita and acts like a damsel in distress, but is quite snarky and strange. She’s utterly obsessed with supernatural phenomenon, and she just happens to be a good friend to Ami. Then there’s Maruhashi, a Yakuza thug that gets on the wrong side of Akira early on, only to realize he’s good friends with the Yakuza boss’ son, Seiji. After that, you discover how big of a softy Maruhashi is, and his hidden fanboy tendencies. One of my favorite characters is Rose Mulan, a supposed magician that loves to drink and flirt with young men. There’s a few more I won’t mention, but all of them are integral to the story and the fabric of the game.
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Visually, Spirit Hunter: NG is equal parts scary, unsettling and beautiful. The game uses Abrupt Scares to keep things fresh and spooky, though you can dial them all the way down if you’re afraid. Character designer Fumiya Sumio did wonderful work in the original game, and continues that trend here. You can read the personalities of each person just by their face, and no character looks the same as anybody else. Take the mohawked fat boy Maruhashi, or the lanky police officer Reina Ooe. Not to be outdone, the spirit designer, kera, does a wonderful job of crafting monstrous and twisted visions of these restless ghosts. And the concept art by Kazuhiro Oya is also great. My only minor complaint is that on occasion the characters look pretty different depending on who is drawing them, but that’s a minor issue. Musically, I really enjoyed the game. At first I wasn’t sure about the old-timey noir music in the calm moments, but when contrasted with the tense piano music during dramatic moments, things flowed really well. The sound effects were especially effective for constructing the horror tenor, such as unearthly cackles, shrill screeches and much more. You’ll also grow very accustomed to the yells of pain from Akira every time you are executed just before the Game Over screen flashes. Overall, the visual presentation is a treat.
Earlier I said there were a couple instances I had issue with, and I’ll talk about those now. You get a lot of hints as you play, which are collated in something called the Spirit File. It’s a sort of shorthand account of what happens as you experience each case, and though it’s good in theory, often the information there is more vague than I would like. A good example of the limits of this happened in the second case, with spirit Kubitarou of Kintoki. You come across a padlock around a well, and have to find the right three-digit number from 0-9. Though the game gives you a hint to help solve it, it references information that’s not stored in the Spirit File, but instead is only found a couple times in visions you encounter via your Bloodmetry. I had to actually ask the developers for help on this, since there are so many numerical combinations you literally cannot find it by process of elimination. Another unfortunate example happens in a much later case. You’re told to come up with a word related to a Japanese crane myth, and to spell it only using the letters A, B, S, T and U. Not being fluent in Japanese, this was a bit of a challenge, especially since I wasn’t familiar with the crane myth in question, and the game doesn’t really recount it. Worse, when I found the answer in a guide, it was a word that was purposefully misspelled, which made things even worse. Thankfully, other than those two puzzles, I mostly got through the game’s many brain teasers without too much effort. At worse, I would use the process of elimination to get farther when stuck.
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Ultimately, I spent about 15 hours playing through Spirit Hunter: NG. Though I got the normal ending, I really enjoyed my time with this sequel. It does justice to the first game while still differentiating itself enough to keep things fresh. While it may sound like a short game for $49.99, only having five main chapters, I found myself happily immersed in the experience. I’m glad this one got localized in North America, and feel fans of horror have a lot to enjoy here. If you are hankering for a spooky mystery this October, you can’t go wrong with Spirit Hunter: NG.
[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4.5″]
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REVIEW: Spirit Hunter: NG Title Spirit Hunter: NG
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As inflation soars, Facebook drives trading in Argentina
SAN MIGUEL, Argentina (Reuters) – At an abandoned train station in Buenos Aires’ working-class suburb of San Miguel, hundreds of Argentines gather with bags of clothes, rice, flour and sugar to trade.
People barter goods in San Miguel market, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina June 15, 2018. Picture taken June 15, 2018. REUTERS/Martin Acosta
Most are women, some accompanied by children. Cardboard signs with their names scrawled in black marker hang from strings around their necks. They walk slowly around the old concrete platform yelling out the names of people they had agreed to trade with in a forum on Facebook (FB.O).
They are the face of a resurgent but little-reported phenomenon in the suburbs surrounding the Argentine capital – barter clubs.
The clubs have tens of thousands of members and are attracting hundreds more every week. They have become an unofficial economic indicator, showing the toll that soaring inflation and high unemployment are exacting on South America’s second-biggest economy.
The barter clubs have surfaced before, during Argentina’s 2001-2002 economic crisis and in the 2009 global financial meltdown. In between those crises they never completely went away, but today the clubs operate differently. Many members are part of Facebook groups where they arrange trades before exchanging goods in person at places like the railway station.
Membership in the clubs has been soaring in recent months as poor Argentines, many of whom have lost their jobs or work off-the-books, struggle to find the cash to make ends meet. They are one sign that progress made by President Mauricio Macri last year in reducing poverty is beginning to reverse.
The country’s inflation rate is running at above 25 percent, and the currency has lost more than 30 percent of its value this year in a financial crisis that economists say will likely trigger a recession.
With unemployment running at 9.1 percent and many salaries chewed up by years of high inflation, members of the barter clubs bring second-hand goods, rice or homemade produce like desserts to trade.
A chart posted on the San Miguel group’s Facebook page outlines a points system for certain goods. It’s aimed at ensuring participants feel their trades are fair.
A 1 kg (2 lb) pack of flour serves as a reference, with a hypothetical value of 30 pesos, or one point. Two packs of flour are worth one bottle of sunflower oil. Four packs of flour is the suggested price for one cake, while three packs can be used to get adult jeans.
When Reuters visited the San Miguel market and one in Merlo, another Buenos Aires suburb, most people seemed to be leaving with food.
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HOW ONE FAMILY BARTERS
Cecilia Gómez, whose husband lost his job at a struggling restaurant in February, was among those trading at the market.
“This helps me bring my kids milk, sugar: the things that are most necessary,” she said.
Her husband spent several months working as a cartonero, the local term for people who sift through trash bins for recyclable goods, before finding a new job at a grocery store last month. He earns just 10,000 pesos ($350) per month, far less than his previous salary.
Gómez also receives a 1,000 peso-per-month subsidy from a government welfare program for each of her two children, but after paying 3,700 pesos per month for rent and 1,200 pesos for her husband’s travel to work, there is not enough cash left for basic goods.
Recently, the 30-year-old housewife saw a post on the San Miguel barter club’s Facebook page offering up a pair of boots in exchange for a 0.9 liter bottle cooking oil, two packets of sugar and three packs of crackers.
Gómez desperately needed the boots and accepted the offer even though she didn’t actually have any of the items the poster wanted.
So she made a post of her own asking for those items, and offering in return some used clothes and a bottle of cologne she had bought for her 9-year-old son that he had never opened. After another member accepted the offer, she made both trades in person at the market.
She also brought homemade cakes and alfajores, a shortbread-based treat, to trade in exchange for some milk, flour, oil and sugar to bring home. That trade was also arranged on Facebook.
‘THE MONEY IS NOT ENOUGH’
Barter clubs are not unique to Argentina. Similar clubs have popped up during economic crises elsewhere, such as in rural Greece in 2015 after Athens defaulted on an International Monetary Fund loan and shut down banks to prevent a run on deposits.
The informal nature of bartering groups in Argentina means their growth is difficult to track. A spokesman for Argentina’s Social Development Ministry declined to comment on the rise in barter clubs.
But Jesica Galera, founder of a Facebook barter group called ‘Cambio x Mercaderia’, said her group is receiving 50-60 new members per day.
“There are many new faces – women whose husbands lost their jobs, or those couples who both work and their wages are not enough,” said Galera, who founded the 30,000-member group in April 2016.
The victory of Macri’s ‘Let’s Change’ coalition in midterm congressional elections last October was due in part to improved support among residents in the sprawling, working-class suburbs of Buenos Aires, where the barter clubs are mostly based. His performance raised the likelihood that Macri would be re-elected in next year’s presidential election.
Since then, however, thousands of Argentines have taken to the streets to protest rises of up to 40 percent in utility bills, part of Macri’s plan to cut the government’s budget deficit by trimming subsidies for gas and electricity.
Higher interest rates of up to 40 percent which are meant to stem the fall in the value of the country’s currency, the peso, have cut off access to finance for many businesses. More than 5,000 small and mid-sized businesses have closed in the past two years, according to the government.
As the peso lost value against other currencies in recent months, it became more expensive for Argentina to pay its debts, which are largely denominated in U.S. dollars or euros. So Macri turned to the IMF in May for financial help.
Many in the Buenos Aires area are feeling the pinch from the rise in inflation that has resulted from the currency depreciation.
“The money is not enough,” said Silvia Aranda, the administrator of a barter club with 46,000 Facebook members in Merlo, a suburb of the river-front capital with more than 500,000 residents. “Before, we were getting 100 requests to join per day. Now, it is a lot more.”
POVERTY RISING
Rising inflation this year has had the biggest impact on the roughly 20 percent of Argentine workers who work irregular, off-the-books jobs, said Agustin Salvia, a researcher at the Catholic University of Argentina.
Those workers, who do not benefit from union bargaining agreements that keep salaries above inflation and often find themselves without work during economic slowdowns, make up the bulk of barter club members, Salvia said.
Data published by Salvia’s Argentine Observatory of Social Debt shows that nearly 29 percent of people were below the poverty line in 2017, down from nearly 33 percent in 2016 and nearly 30 percent in 2015, but the same as the nearly 29 percent registered in 2014. Salvia said he expects an increase of 2-3 percentage points in the poverty rate this year.
But Galera, the organizer of the San Miguel market, doesn’t need to wait for the new poverty data to know that people are hurting. With more and more people attending her market, she said she plans to ask municipal authorities to grant her a permit for a larger space to trade in.
And housewife Cecilia Gómez will be returning to the market on Friday, again laden with her homemade alfajores. She’s hoping to trade them for milk, detergent and ‘yerba,’ the bitter herb base for Argentina’s signature ‘mate’ infusion.
“That is what I need urgently at home,” she said.
Reporting by Nicolas Misculin; Writing by Luc Cohen; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Ross Colvin
The post As inflation soars, Facebook drives trading in Argentina appeared first on World The News.
from World The News https://ift.tt/2zcwUIu via Today News
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As inflation soars, Facebook drives trading in Argentina
SAN MIGUEL, Argentina (Reuters) – At an abandoned train station in Buenos Aires’ working-class suburb of San Miguel, hundreds of Argentines gather with bags of clothes, rice, flour and sugar to trade.
People barter goods in San Miguel market, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina June 15, 2018. Picture taken June 15, 2018. REUTERS/Martin Acosta
Most are women, some accompanied by children. Cardboard signs with their names scrawled in black marker hang from strings around their necks. They walk slowly around the old concrete platform yelling out the names of people they had agreed to trade with in a forum on Facebook (FB.O).
They are the face of a resurgent but little-reported phenomenon in the suburbs surrounding the Argentine capital – barter clubs.
The clubs have tens of thousands of members and are attracting hundreds more every week. They have become an unofficial economic indicator, showing the toll that soaring inflation and high unemployment are exacting on South America’s second-biggest economy.
The barter clubs have surfaced before, during Argentina’s 2001-2002 economic crisis and in the 2009 global financial meltdown. In between those crises they never completely went away, but today the clubs operate differently. Many members are part of Facebook groups where they arrange trades before exchanging goods in person at places like the railway station.
Membership in the clubs has been soaring in recent months as poor Argentines, many of whom have lost their jobs or work off-the-books, struggle to find the cash to make ends meet. They are one sign that progress made by President Mauricio Macri last year in reducing poverty is beginning to reverse.
The country’s inflation rate is running at above 25 percent, and the currency has lost more than 30 percent of its value this year in a financial crisis that economists say will likely trigger a recession.
With unemployment running at 9.1 percent and many salaries chewed up by years of high inflation, members of the barter clubs bring second-hand goods, rice or homemade produce like desserts to trade.
A chart posted on the San Miguel group’s Facebook page outlines a points system for certain goods. It’s aimed at ensuring participants feel their trades are fair.
A 1 kg (2 lb) pack of flour serves as a reference, with a hypothetical value of 30 pesos, or one point. Two packs of flour are worth one bottle of sunflower oil. Four packs of flour is the suggested price for one cake, while three packs can be used to get adult jeans.
When Reuters visited the San Miguel market and one in Merlo, another Buenos Aires suburb, most people seemed to be leaving with food.
Slideshow (10 Images)
HOW ONE FAMILY BARTERS
Cecilia Gómez, whose husband lost his job at a struggling restaurant in February, was among those trading at the market.
“This helps me bring my kids milk, sugar: the things that are most necessary,” she said.
Her husband spent several months working as a cartonero, the local term for people who sift through trash bins for recyclable goods, before finding a new job at a grocery store last month. He earns just 10,000 pesos ($350) per month, far less than his previous salary.
Gómez also receives a 1,000 peso-per-month subsidy from a government welfare program for each of her two children, but after paying 3,700 pesos per month for rent and 1,200 pesos for her husband’s travel to work, there is not enough cash left for basic goods.
Recently, the 30-year-old housewife saw a post on the San Miguel barter club’s Facebook page offering up a pair of boots in exchange for a 0.9 liter bottle cooking oil, two packets of sugar and three packs of crackers.
Gómez desperately needed the boots and accepted the offer even though she didn’t actually have any of the items the poster wanted.
So she made a post of her own asking for those items, and offering in return some used clothes and a bottle of cologne she had bought for her 9-year-old son that he had never opened. After another member accepted the offer, she made both trades in person at the market.
She also brought homemade cakes and alfajores, a shortbread-based treat, to trade in exchange for some milk, flour, oil and sugar to bring home. That trade was also arranged on Facebook.
‘THE MONEY IS NOT ENOUGH’
Barter clubs are not unique to Argentina. Similar clubs have popped up during economic crises elsewhere, such as in rural Greece in 2015 after Athens defaulted on an International Monetary Fund loan and shut down banks to prevent a run on deposits.
The informal nature of bartering groups in Argentina means their growth is difficult to track. A spokesman for Argentina’s Social Development Ministry declined to comment on the rise in barter clubs.
But Jesica Galera, founder of a Facebook barter group called ‘Cambio x Mercaderia’, said her group is receiving 50-60 new members per day.
“There are many new faces – women whose husbands lost their jobs, or those couples who both work and their wages are not enough,” said Galera, who founded the 30,000-member group in April 2016.
The victory of Macri’s ‘Let’s Change’ coalition in midterm congressional elections last October was due in part to improved support among residents in the sprawling, working-class suburbs of Buenos Aires, where the barter clubs are mostly based. His performance raised the likelihood that Macri would be re-elected in next year’s presidential election.
Since then, however, thousands of Argentines have taken to the streets to protest rises of up to 40 percent in utility bills, part of Macri’s plan to cut the government’s budget deficit by trimming subsidies for gas and electricity.
Higher interest rates of up to 40 percent which are meant to stem the fall in the value of the country’s currency, the peso, have cut off access to finance for many businesses. More than 5,000 small and mid-sized businesses have closed in the past two years, according to the government.
As the peso lost value against other currencies in recent months, it became more expensive for Argentina to pay its debts, which are largely denominated in U.S. dollars or euros. So Macri turned to the IMF in May for financial help.
Many in the Buenos Aires area are feeling the pinch from the rise in inflation that has resulted from the currency depreciation.
“The money is not enough,” said Silvia Aranda, the administrator of a barter club with 46,000 Facebook members in Merlo, a suburb of the river-front capital with more than 500,000 residents. “Before, we were getting 100 requests to join per day. Now, it is a lot more.”
POVERTY RISING
Rising inflation this year has had the biggest impact on the roughly 20 percent of Argentine workers who work irregular, off-the-books jobs, said Agustin Salvia, a researcher at the Catholic University of Argentina.
Those workers, who do not benefit from union bargaining agreements that keep salaries above inflation and often find themselves without work during economic slowdowns, make up the bulk of barter club members, Salvia said.
Data published by Salvia’s Argentine Observatory of Social Debt shows that nearly 29 percent of people were below the poverty line in 2017, down from nearly 33 percent in 2016 and nearly 30 percent in 2015, but the same as the nearly 29 percent registered in 2014. Salvia said he expects an increase of 2-3 percentage points in the poverty rate this year.
But Galera, the organizer of the San Miguel market, doesn’t need to wait for the new poverty data to know that people are hurting. With more and more people attending her market, she said she plans to ask municipal authorities to grant her a permit for a larger space to trade in.
And housewife Cecilia Gómez will be returning to the market on Friday, again laden with her homemade alfajores. She’s hoping to trade them for milk, detergent and ‘yerba,’ the bitter herb base for Argentina’s signature ‘mate’ infusion.
“That is what I need urgently at home,” she said.
Reporting by Nicolas Misculin; Writing by Luc Cohen; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Ross Colvin
The post As inflation soars, Facebook drives trading in Argentina appeared first on World The News.
from World The News https://ift.tt/2zcwUIu via News of World
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As inflation soars, Facebook drives trading in Argentina
SAN MIGUEL, Argentina (Reuters) – At an abandoned train station in Buenos Aires’ working-class suburb of San Miguel, hundreds of Argentines gather with bags of clothes, rice, flour and sugar to trade.
People barter goods in San Miguel market, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina June 15, 2018. Picture taken June 15, 2018. REUTERS/Martin Acosta
Most are women, some accompanied by children. Cardboard signs with their names scrawled in black marker hang from strings around their necks. They walk slowly around the old concrete platform yelling out the names of people they had agreed to trade with in a forum on Facebook (FB.O).
They are the face of a resurgent but little-reported phenomenon in the suburbs surrounding the Argentine capital – barter clubs.
The clubs have tens of thousands of members and are attracting hundreds more every week. They have become an unofficial economic indicator, showing the toll that soaring inflation and high unemployment are exacting on South America’s second-biggest economy.
The barter clubs have surfaced before, during Argentina’s 2001-2002 economic crisis and in the 2009 global financial meltdown. In between those crises they never completely went away, but today the clubs operate differently. Many members are part of Facebook groups where they arrange trades before exchanging goods in person at places like the railway station.
Membership in the clubs has been soaring in recent months as poor Argentines, many of whom have lost their jobs or work off-the-books, struggle to find the cash to make ends meet. They are one sign that progress made by President Mauricio Macri last year in reducing poverty is beginning to reverse.
The country’s inflation rate is running at above 25 percent, and the currency has lost more than 30 percent of its value this year in a financial crisis that economists say will likely trigger a recession.
With unemployment running at 9.1 percent and many salaries chewed up by years of high inflation, members of the barter clubs bring second-hand goods, rice or homemade produce like desserts to trade.
A chart posted on the San Miguel group’s Facebook page outlines a points system for certain goods. It’s aimed at ensuring participants feel their trades are fair.
A 1 kg (2 lb) pack of flour serves as a reference, with a hypothetical value of 30 pesos, or one point. Two packs of flour are worth one bottle of sunflower oil. Four packs of flour is the suggested price for one cake, while three packs can be used to get adult jeans.
When Reuters visited the San Miguel market and one in Merlo, another Buenos Aires suburb, most people seemed to be leaving with food.
Slideshow (10 Images)
HOW ONE FAMILY BARTERS
Cecilia Gómez, whose husband lost his job at a struggling restaurant in February, was among those trading at the market.
“This helps me bring my kids milk, sugar: the things that are most necessary,” she said.
Her husband spent several months working as a cartonero, the local term for people who sift through trash bins for recyclable goods, before finding a new job at a grocery store last month. He earns just 10,000 pesos ($350) per month, far less than his previous salary.
Gómez also receives a 1,000 peso-per-month subsidy from a government welfare program for each of her two children, but after paying 3,700 pesos per month for rent and 1,200 pesos for her husband’s travel to work, there is not enough cash left for basic goods.
Recently, the 30-year-old housewife saw a post on the San Miguel barter club’s Facebook page offering up a pair of boots in exchange for a 0.9 liter bottle cooking oil, two packets of sugar and three packs of crackers.
Gómez desperately needed the boots and accepted the offer even though she didn’t actually have any of the items the poster wanted.
So she made a post of her own asking for those items, and offering in return some used clothes and a bottle of cologne she had bought for her 9-year-old son that he had never opened. After another member accepted the offer, she made both trades in person at the market.
She also brought homemade cakes and alfajores, a shortbread-based treat, to trade in exchange for some milk, flour, oil and sugar to bring home. That trade was also arranged on Facebook.
‘THE MONEY IS NOT ENOUGH’
Barter clubs are not unique to Argentina. Similar clubs have popped up during economic crises elsewhere, such as in rural Greece in 2015 after Athens defaulted on an International Monetary Fund loan and shut down banks to prevent a run on deposits.
The informal nature of bartering groups in Argentina means their growth is difficult to track. A spokesman for Argentina’s Social Development Ministry declined to comment on the rise in barter clubs.
But Jesica Galera, founder of a Facebook barter group called ‘Cambio x Mercaderia’, said her group is receiving 50-60 new members per day.
“There are many new faces – women whose husbands lost their jobs, or those couples who both work and their wages are not enough,” said Galera, who founded the 30,000-member group in April 2016.
The victory of Macri’s ‘Let’s Change’ coalition in midterm congressional elections last October was due in part to improved support among residents in the sprawling, working-class suburbs of Buenos Aires, where the barter clubs are mostly based. His performance raised the likelihood that Macri would be re-elected in next year’s presidential election.
Since then, however, thousands of Argentines have taken to the streets to protest rises of up to 40 percent in utility bills, part of Macri’s plan to cut the government’s budget deficit by trimming subsidies for gas and electricity.
Higher interest rates of up to 40 percent which are meant to stem the fall in the value of the country’s currency, the peso, have cut off access to finance for many businesses. More than 5,000 small and mid-sized businesses have closed in the past two years, according to the government.
As the peso lost value against other currencies in recent months, it became more expensive for Argentina to pay its debts, which are largely denominated in U.S. dollars or euros. So Macri turned to the IMF in May for financial help.
Many in the Buenos Aires area are feeling the pinch from the rise in inflation that has resulted from the currency depreciation.
“The money is not enough,” said Silvia Aranda, the administrator of a barter club with 46,000 Facebook members in Merlo, a suburb of the river-front capital with more than 500,000 residents. “Before, we were getting 100 requests to join per day. Now, it is a lot more.”
POVERTY RISING
Rising inflation this year has had the biggest impact on the roughly 20 percent of Argentine workers who work irregular, off-the-books jobs, said Agustin Salvia, a researcher at the Catholic University of Argentina.
Those workers, who do not benefit from union bargaining agreements that keep salaries above inflation and often find themselves without work during economic slowdowns, make up the bulk of barter club members, Salvia said.
Data published by Salvia’s Argentine Observatory of Social Debt shows that nearly 29 percent of people were below the poverty line in 2017, down from nearly 33 percent in 2016 and nearly 30 percent in 2015, but the same as the nearly 29 percent registered in 2014. Salvia said he expects an increase of 2-3 percentage points in the poverty rate this year.
But Galera, the organizer of the San Miguel market, doesn’t need to wait for the new poverty data to know that people are hurting. With more and more people attending her market, she said she plans to ask municipal authorities to grant her a permit for a larger space to trade in.
And housewife Cecilia Gómez will be returning to the market on Friday, again laden with her homemade alfajores. She’s hoping to trade them for milk, detergent and ‘yerba,’ the bitter herb base for Argentina’s signature ‘mate’ infusion.
“That is what I need urgently at home,” she said.
Reporting by Nicolas Misculin; Writing by Luc Cohen; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Ross Colvin
The post As inflation soars, Facebook drives trading in Argentina appeared first on World The News.
from World The News https://ift.tt/2zcwUIu via Online News
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All Is Not Fair In Love and War
For some reason fans were made to believe this weekend with the divisional round of the NFL postseason under way, the fans would be provided with several great games. Instead what they were able to witness was a cacophony of noise , errant plays and teams who essentially provided a truly mediocre spectacle. I sorry , but this NFL season has been one to truly lament all-round. From my own standpoint, I am not so sure things are likely to get any better once the postseason resumes with the divisional rounds. Then the top-two seeds within each conference will enter the fray against their respective opponents .
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Slide show.
At this point last season everyone appeared to be in awe and again the players proved to be in some cases a major disappointment just us as they were over the weekend.With the New England Patriots about to begin the defense of their Superbowl title it will be interesting to see how they will fare against the Tennessee Titans . Tennessee’s quarterback Marcus Mariota will certainly have to raise the level of his play as he looks for his second career postseason victory . He faces a tough task against Patriots’ franchise looking to make NFL history with a sixth Superbowl title. Tom Brady for his part will be looking to drown out the nonsense of his having created the friction between Bill Belichick and team owner Robert Kraft , which led to the trading of his backup Jimmy Garoppolo to the San Francisco 49ers . Garoppolo has since provided the Niners with hope after their stirring finish to the regular season with five straight victories . Hope may well spring eternal for the struggling San Francisco 49ers after-all.
Roll Tide ! Well the National Championship was decided on the determination of Nick Saban’s willingness to take it to the house . That was clear from the very start of the game as Alabama took it to their Southeastern Conference rivals the Georgia Bulldogs . This Alabama team was all it was cracked up to be and then a great deal more . Saban’s coaching resume’ now adds another historical moment as he wins his sixth national title overall.
We all knew that it was bound to happen at some point during the NBA season and quicker than you could swat fly, LaVar Ball has begun to set fire to any type of relationship he might have had with the Los Angeles Lakers’ organization. Not content his back and forth sniping with another dumb-ass , Donald Trump . Ball has now taken aim at both Rob Pelinka , general manager of the Lakers as well as Magic Johnson , Head of Basketball Operations and last but not least Luke Walton the team’s head coach.
Over their last ten games as of the 7th January the Los Angeles Lakers are an abysmal 1-9 , with their lone victory coming in a highly contested game against the Atlanta Hawks , with a eighteen-point victory over their Eastern Conference opponent.
LaVar Ball might not be happy with the fact his son Lonzo Ball with each game is now being exposed an over-hyped and somewhat immature child. Granted, he has been thrust unto a big stage surrounded by non-plus players , but in all honesty was anyone actually expecting the Los Angeles Lakers to be anything special. This team on its best day isn’t fit enough to challenge perhaps a mid-level Southeastern Conference program within College Basketball , but yet their idiot fans were hoping for something more ? LaVar Ball might be stirring more trouble than he can really handle , while at the same time knowing the Los Angeles Lakers’ hierarchy have placed their faith in his son Lonzo Ball and to secure their future, with the aim being to return the franchise to their former glory of winning NBA titles . Ball Sr, cannot continue to harangue the Lakers’ staff without questioning the lack of leadership from his son. Up next for the Los Angeles Lakers will be a game against the Sacramento Kings on the 9th January , before facing another conference rival the San Antonio Spurs on the 11th January . Both games will be played the Staples Center in Los Angeles , California .
Rob Pelinka and Magic Johnson have already begun to assess the roster and the waiving of veteran Andrew Bogut as a cost-cutting exercise is simply a start of things to come as they look to place themselves in a position to acquire big-named marquee free agent for the 2018 NBA season. As things now stand , I am not so sure if the Los Angeles Lakers are playing for pride and respectability or simply looking to “tank their season” altogether.
Say what you will for the Los Angeles Lakers, this organization ,but they’re either going to go down in flames or do their darndest to prove to others they are fighting.The Lakers’ counterparts and also residents at the Staples Center , the Los Angeles Clippers are not having the type of season many of their fans had expected. Doc Rivers is struggling to get this team to play with a great deal of imagination let alone intestinal fortitude . Chris Paul was the stabilizing force that made the team click, but with his departure they’re essentially back to the ways of old. Billionaire team owner Steve Ballmer spent $2.5 billion to purchase the franchise with the promise that he was willing to spend whatever it took to win an NBA title. The Clippers have fallen way short of that target , while the front office now seems incapable of making the necessary decisions needed to make them competitive.
Blake Griffin has now been entrusted to lead the Los Angeles Clippers and while he remains the team’s most potent offensive weapon , there is not a great deal to back him up . Doc Rivers has been given far too much latitude in the day-to-day running of the franchise, when he should essentially be concentrating totally on the playing staff and their preparations for each game . In their next contest the Clippers are set to face the Golden State Warriors on the road in a match-up to be played on the 10th January . This should provide Blake Griffin and his teammates with a true test and gauge themselves against the best team in the league.
Make no bones about it , this season everything will have to go through Golden State in terms of determining this season’s NBA champions . If the Warriors are to be challenged as a finalist, then expect their antagonist to be either the Boston Celtics or the Cleveland Cavaliers . Boston has proven this season, they’re more than a match for the Cavaliers, in spite of having been defeated by the Lebron James’ led team . The difference between the two teams , I firmly believe has come down to the play of the respective point guards’ , albeit that Isiah Thomas has only made his debut for the Cavaliers while Kyrie Irving has simply proven , when given the opportunity he can be so much more than just the quintessential point guard .
You’ve had your fun and now you’re on the verge of picking up the pieces. The Los Angeles Dodgers have become the whipping post for any team they tend to face during the postseason. That much has been particularly true since 2012, when the ball-club was purchased by Guggenheim Baseball Properties for over $2 billion . At some point, you have to wonder if the partners of the syndicate group might not spent that sum more wisely by purchasing perhaps an EPL (Premiership) soccer club or even an NFL franchise , were one up for grabs at the time? As profitable as the Dodgers are , their performances on the field during the postseason remain lackluster. The franchise’s last win of the World Series came in 1988 and their actual appearances since then have only provided them with once chance and as we know it all came to an abrupt end when they fell in stunning fashion to the Houston Astros .
Dave Roberts and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ managerial staff are so far behind the ‘eight ball’ , I am not so sure the manager still can provide the acumen needed to take the ball-club and the players over the hump. If the Dodgers are unable to compete this season, then all bets are off and the payroll will have to be reduced significantly, along along with the shedding of some under-performing players.
The Los Angeles Dodgers will go through their customary Spring Training Schedule before embarking on their regular season with a set of home games against divisional rivals the San Francisco Giants . The opening game will take place on the 29th March , 2018, the Official Opening Day for Major League Baseball for this year. The Dodgers have not been major players in the free agency market during the off-season to date. Having missed out on Giancarlo Stanton who opted to join the New York Yankees , there still remains the chance that they will seek out a productive slugger to add more offense to their lineup. Even with Andrew Friedman not being able to entice anyone to take an interest in acquiring Yasiel Puig , the Dodgers will still have a formidable lineup to start the season.
With the Los Angeles Dodgers having been so disappointing this past season , the upheaval within the New York Yankees’ organization was not totally unexpected. Joe Girardi was sent packing by the front office as the team’s manager and I was somewhat surprised that Brian Cashman wasn’t also sent on his way. Granted, he’s still thought of as an astute general manager, but it has been almost a decade since a team built on his acumen has been triumphant in the Fall Classic (World Series). Former Yankees’ favorite Aaron Boone has been brought in to succeed Joe Girardi and it will be interesting to see what Boone brings to the table by way of his own managerial acumen. This will be his first managerial position in the Majors and I seriously doubt there will be a great deal of patience by the fans should this team begin to struggle at any point during the season.
No longer the free-wheeling big spenders in recent years the New York Yankees have tapered off in terms of payroll, but having acquired Giancarlo Stanton , it could be said things are now back to the ways of old. Stanton has a substantial sum still remaining on his existing contract, which in part will be honored by the Miami Marlins as well as the obligations which will have to be fulfilled by the Yankees.
Expectations are high with the combination of Aaron Judge , Gary Sanchez and Giancarlo Stanton in this lineup for the New York Yankees. It certainly will be interesting to see if this team is capable of producing two players capable of hitting at least forty-home runs apiece, while driving in triple digit runs batted-in. Aaron Boone is being asked to turn around the fortunes of the New York Yankees and a great is expected of them this season , especially as they hope the win the AL East , a title that they last held in 2012 . That season the Yankees fell in the ALCS , losing out to eventual World Series’ losers the Detroit Tigers who were defeated by the San Francisco Giants in the postseason finale.
As competitive as we know the AL East to be, the New York Yankees’ toughest battles will be against their divisional rivals , most notably their perennial stalwarts the Boston Red Sox . Both teams will be vying for divisional supremacy as well as looking to dominate the other. Their regular and postseason battles have become synonymous with some of the greatest moments history between the two powerhouses of baseball. There’s a reason why they are among the most successful as well as valuable teams in all of baseball. The New York Yankees will begin their regular season with a game against the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre in Toronto , Ontario , while the Boston Red Sox begins its regular season schedule taking on the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field in St Petersburg, Florida on the same day, 29th March, 2018 . The Yankees are scheduled to meet the Red Sox nineteen times over the course of this season at home and on the road . Let’s up they can provide the type of excitement their fans have come to expect from such meetings.
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Picture gallery. By clicking on an individual frame you can view that image in a reformatted size along with the accompanying narrative.
What do you believe were the most fascinating match-ups taking place within team sports during 2017? Do you believe that 2018 will be able to provide with the type of excitement seen last year ?
Tophatal ………
NFL news from around the league
NFL schedule postseason (divisional round)
NCAA Football
NBA news
NBA games schedules for this week
NBA conference standings (conference) and divisional standings
MLB news
MLB transactions (December 2017) and January’s transactions
All Is Not Fair In Love And War All Is Not Fair In Love and War For some reason fans were made to believe…
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Q&A: Panthers Coach Bob Boughner on Rugby, Aaron Ekblad and Being an Original Predator
https://www.vionafrica.cf/qa-panthers-coach-bob-boughner-on-rugby-aaron-ekblad-and-being-an-original-predator/
Q&A: Panthers Coach Bob Boughner on Rugby, Aaron Ekblad and Being an Original Predator
A few days after the Panthers hired him as their head coach last June, Bob Boughner wandered into a bookstore near his offseason Ontario home—“I’m old school,” the 46-year-old explains, “my kids make fun of me”—and purchased a paperback copy of Legacy, a 224-page tome chronicling the history of the All Blacks, New Zealand’s decorated national rugby team. Armed with a highlighter and pen, Boughner devoured the text, jotting notes in the margins and dog-earing passages to remember, which wound up being most of them anyway. He had already been brainstorming messages to send his new players in Florida, elements of the revamped culture he hoped to establish. “When I read the book, it hit me like a pile of bricks,” Boughner says. “It was right in my face. No need to look anywhere else.”
In a fashion befitting a former pugilist with 630 career NHL games and 1,382 penalty minutes, inspiration quickly turned into action. He arranged a conference call with graphic designers in the front office, gushing about the lessons he had learned. When Boughner first arrived in mid-August, he oversaw renovations of the Panthers’ locker rooms at their practice facility and home rink, where words and phrases employed by the All Blacks were painted onto the walls:
PERFORMANCE
AUTHENTICITY
HONESTY
INTEGRITY
RESILIENCE
LEAVE THE JERSEY IN A BETTER PLACE
SWEEP THE SHED
For the first week of training camp, Boughner never mentioned the decorations, too busy implementing X’s and O’s instead, until he called a team meeting to explain. In a 30-minute slideshow presentation, Boughner played video clips featuring the All Blacks—the squad boasts a 77 percent all-time win rate and two Rugby World Cup titles this decade—and outlined how those principles would be integrated into Florida’s upcoming season. “Sweep the shed,” for instance, describes a ritual wherein veteran All Blacks grab actual brooms and clean the locker room after games. “No, we’re not actually sweeping,” Boughner clarifies. “It was more words to live by.”
Performance? Well, that's been a mixed bag. Two years ago, inspired by the disembodied head of a star-dusted Kevin Spacey, the Panthers strung together the best regular season in franchise history, earning 103 points and an Atlantic Division title. Then came turmoil. Twenty-one games into 2016-17, Gerard Gallant was fired and replaced by Tom Rowe, who descended from the press box to double as head coach and general manager. When Florida eventually bottomed out with an 81-point, sixth-place divisional finish, Rowe got canned from both roles and Dale Tallon returned to oversee hockey operations as GM—the role he once occupied before a reshuffling in spring 2016 knocked him upstairs.
This was the environment that Boughner was tasked with changing upon his arrival. “We know what happened last year, the struggles they went through,” he says. “I knew that in my interview going in, right? They were looking for a change and it was going to be different and the structure was different. I wanted to give these guys something to grasp onto, something we could build our whole year around.”
It has worked so far. Eight games into Boughner’s debut NHL head coaching season—he previously served as an assistant for two years in San Jose under Pete DeBoer—Florida was 3-5-0 following Tuesday night’s 5-1 loss against the Canadiens. Each player received a copy of Legacy following that preseason meeting; Boughner regularly spots several of them digging into the pages during road trips. In the grand tradition of their Spacey In Space sweatshirt from ‘15-16—and a barbershop cape last season—the Panthers even began passing around an All Blacks jersey and rugby ball to the player of the game in their post-victory celebrations.
“There are times you come to the room and we have a meeting and we talk about having a bad period, we refer back to some of the things from our culture meeting,” Boughner says. “It’s been a useful tool for us. We talk a lot about authenticity. That’s one of the most important words for me, doing what you say. [The All Blacks] talk about how they’re so relentless, they never change their mantra, how they approach the game. They don’t get too high as a team. They take care of all the little things. They don’t rely on anybody else. They rely on the guys in the room, hold each other accountable, make sure their culture and identity is forced every day.”
After the Panthers’ morning skate in Montreal, Boughner called SI.com and spoke about his double life owning a Canadian junior team, reaching the Stanley Cup Final with the Sharks, striking fear with his fists, and more:
SI: I feel like you would’ve been a pretty good rugby player.
BB: I’ve probably got the legs for it, but I’d fall apart at my age. I watch every once in a while on TV. It’s not like I’m a rugby fanatic at all.
SI: What would you have been doing if not for hockey? This has been your whole life.
BB: I’ve never really known anything other than that. In business I learned a lot from my NHLPA days and owning the [Ontario Hockey League’s] Windsor Spitfires. I love business.
SI: How do you manage owning a team and also coaching another one? What’s your day-to-day like?
BB: It’s not bad. We have a great bunch of guys, from our general manager to the scouting staff to the accountants. I stay in touch by email, conference calls usually once a week, and if anything comes up then a couple phone calls. I don’t really spend much time on it during the hockey season. During the summer, when I go home, I go to the office about 3-4 days a week, put in a few hours to stay on top of everything. But during the season I’m all-in with the Panthers, got so much on my plate as is.
NHL Q&A: New Coyotes Coach Rick Tocchet on a Young Franchise and Lessons From Pittsburgh
SI: Your mind never wanders to what’s going on back home?
BB: I follow the box scores, I get the updates on how they’re doing. [Coach] Trevor Letowski will call once a while to talk hockey. Other than that, it’s fully controlled there. Which is nice. It gives me a peace of mind that we have the right people to run it. It takes the stress away from me.
SI: What’s your earliest memory of [fellow Windsor, Ontario native and Panthers defenseman] Aaron Ekblad?
BB: Oh god. Probably watching him play when he was about 12, 13 years old. He was playing Triple A for the Sun County Panthers back in Windsor. He towered over all the kids. He was huge for his age, controlled the whole game, had the puck the entire time. Just the poise he had at that age, you could tell there was something special there. Then I got to know him better as he got into 13s, 14s. My son and him became friends, started hanging out. I’ve seen Aaron quite a bit hanging around the house as a kid.
SI: How is he as a sleepover guest?
BB: Just like all the rest of my kids. A mess. Sloppy. [laughs]
SI: He’s referred to you as an uncle figure. What kind of dynamic does that create? Is it weird now?
BB: He’s like any other kid, regardless of how much money he makes, how much fanfare there’s been around him being a first overall pick. He’s like anyone else. Look at Brent Burns in San Jose. They need a shoulder to lean on sometimes, they need confidence and structure. It’s no different with me and Aaron. He knows it’s business around the rink and it’s been like that since day one. I told him I’d be completely honest and transparent with him, and treat him no different than anyone else on the team. Obviously he respects that as well.
SI: Since you mentioned Brent, do you have any good Burns or Joe Thornton stories?
BB: Too many. Burnsie was great. He made every day going to the rink a lot of fun. He’s high on life. That’s him. High on life. Completely the nicest guy you’ll ever meet. Pavelski, Thornton, they’re like a bunch of kids still. They love the game. They love hanging out at the rink. That’s why they’re so good. That’s what makes that group so special. They love hanging out with each other, love coming to the rink. It’s not really a job for them, to be honest. It was a pleasure being around a group like that.
SI: That was your first time reaching the Stanley Cup Final, with San Jose two seasons ago. What did you learn from a run like that?
BB: A lot of things have to go right. Health is number one. Two is travel. We were talking about that the other day. Our series with L.A. was a heavy series. Then we’re flying across the country to St. Louis, flying to Nashville across the country, then our last series against Pittsburgh. I think we got a little worn down. Not to take anything away from Pittsburgh. They were the better team. They deserved to win. But we were worn down.
From a coaching standpoint, you learn to try to conserve some energy during the season for that long run, try not to overplay guys and give them the proper rest, because if you’re fortunate enough to be in that situation, May and June are so draining. You’ve got to have some gas in the tank.
SI: Do you remember your first NHL fight?
BB: It was in Boston. It was Dean Chynoweth. I was the third man in and got tossed in my first NHL game. I thought Brian Holzinger was going to have to fight, so I stepped in. First fight, first game.
SI: How did the nickname Boogeyman strike you? Did you like it?
BB: It was more of a fun thing. I think it was two games later I got into a fight with Reid Simpson and it was a long fight. Rick Jeanneret, when he was still in Buffalo doing play-by-play, said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, put your kids to bed, the Boogeyman is out.’ In a joking way, but it stuck. I thought it was fun. It was cool. I’ve been called Boogeyman my whole life.
SI: What do you remember about the inaugural season in Nashville in ‘98-99? What are the players in Las Vegas experiencing now? What will stick with them from year one?
BB: It’s one of my most fun times in hockey. To be an original Predator, that’s something that’s still true to my heart. We got to be the pioneers down there when it wasn’t a hockey market. I remember doing a ton of things away from the rink to promote the game in the South, and those are some of the best times I’ve had. Meeting the country stars, bringing it all together, educating the fans, those are the things I remember. I remember the milestones—the first win, the first of everything. When I go back there, I still get a pretty good feeling that we were the guys who brought hockey to town and started it.
Same thing in Vegas. I think a lot of these guys, 20 years from now, when that’s a thriving hockey market, they’re going to look back and feel pretty cool that they were the original guys who got the business of hockey started. That’s what I took away from my experience anyway.
NHL Q&A: Predators’ Coach Peter Laviolette on the Olympics, Pregame Speeches and His Dog Stanley
SI: Lately I feel like I’m hearing the phrase “future Selke winner Aleksander Barkov” more and more often. What say you?
BB: In my mind, from what I’ve seen so far, he’s one of the better 200-foot player I’ve ever seen play. He’s gifted offensively, but he cares so much about his own end. He cares about winning face-offs, a lot of the little things.
SI: Last one. Have you checked out Roberto Luongo’s Twitter feed?
BB: Once in awhile. I don’t have social media, but some people have told me and showed me some things. I think it’s hilarious. He’s definitely one of the most unique guys when it comes to that. It’s great that he has fun with it. He’s got a great personality.
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Finally comfortable enough to do this.
I was a fat little oomph. I mean seriously. Size 16 down bottom, 38 H breast, and 1x shirts if not larger depending. I was a nice 225 and while everyone would comment on my weight, good or bad, I personally was at the lowest of my confidence and self that I had ever been.
See – this is me at 18. A solid 180 lbs., 36 DDD boobies. I was a healthy “thick” weight, for my age. Yet the attention I would get from grown men was a different story.
Then – I attended Morgan State University, and lost weight. Got down to 160. Hey Me!
After my first born, I stayed at a good 180 lbs. My tits were nice, my thighs were right and my ass was POPPIN! It wasn’t until my pregnancy with my son, I battled weight the most. In 2011, after giving birth and going from 176 to 215, I hovered at 195. I wasn’t happy but I didn’t have to wear girdles and shapers. I was comfortable. Then, the weight kept increasing. I got to a good 225 and was shopping at Forever 21, and I couldn’t fit my 16’s anymore. 18’s were perfect, and I cried. I remember putting the jeans back, and saying “Fuck that!” and I began my weight loss journey.
Being that big, I didn’t have the support I needed or wanted. My mom would always say I’m fat. I should stop eating. I need to lose weight. Hell, she even offered to pay my gym membership and where she saw it as her trying to help me, she was hurting me. Already being one clinically diagnosed with anxiety and depression, I was the person who would turn to liquor and food to curve my bad days. Those things didn’t hurt my feelings, they were always there when I needed them.
2/15/13 in the wee hours of the morning, my stupid and drunk ass, passed out behind the wheel of my car, and ended up on railroad tracks somewhere in South Baltimore. Two men were around and helped me, but it could’ve gone really bad and I could’ve lost my life, or killed someone. So I began to slow down my drinking. I got married 04/24/14 and the week after, I had emergency surgery to get my gallbladder removed. Now, I don’t really know why, but the removal of my gallbladder put me in a place where it was time for me to get healthy and better.
Fast food, junk food, greasy food all made me sick and feel extremely yucky. I wasn’t happy with my weight. I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror. So I began to work to lose the weight. I started out with a few online challenges (Thank you Coach Taryn!) and realized losing weight isn’t just about losing weight. It’s a lifestyle change. I had to change my mentality and my approach on everything. From 225, my goal weight was 180. I made it see…
But with my depression and anxiety as well as being in an unhealthy relationship for two years, the icing fell on the cake and the weight continued to drop off. I would sit and say “I’m too small” because that’s what I hear now, even from the same people who told me I was fat and needed to lose weight. But, daily, I take pictures in the mirror, and I am falling in love with what I see. I lost 101 lbs., so I sit at a cool 124, I wear a size 6 bottoms, 34 E Bra (these tits aren’t going nowhere), and a small/medium shirt depending on the cut. And I am HAPPY! Happy because, I did this. I lost the weight, I didn’t need surgery. It was an option but one I chose to not take. I feel a different type of confidence when I walk out of the house now, despite the fact I really am still wearing my fat girl clothes, most have no idea what lies underneath.
XL Shirt, 14 Skirt. 😦
I didn’t want to be the one taking and posting pictures, or “thirst traps” as they call it, but fuck that I look DAMN good, and it’s going to make 30 be so much better for me, because internally I am happy. I love what I see. I love how I feel. I love when people ask me what I did. It’s a LIFESTYLE CHANGE.
My mindset has gone from negative Nancy to positive Pattie. I have not one bad blood or bone in my body for anyone. I mean its bitches that don’t like me but that’s their problem because they don’t know me. YOU MISSING OUT BOO, I’M COOL AS FUCK SIS. I am happy again and I smile more than I cry. I have bad days but this was more than just weight loss for me. It was me finding myself, learning how to be unapologetically me. Learning my body and learning what works and what doesn’t. How eating certain foods caused triggers in my mood.
I’ve always been a sage burning, energy loving fool, but now that my mind, and body are aligned, my soul is happy. If I died today, I would be okay, because my soul has eternal happiness. Now how will I feel if I gain weight again? I don’t know. But I work my ass off to make sure it doesn’t. Seriously, I hate when I eat and my stomach is fat afterwards.
I’ll do another post with videos of the workouts I used during my weight loss. I will share recipes of meals I made that were both healthy and yummy as fuck and more detail of how I am maintaining myself now.
In total, I lost 101 lbs., sitting lovely at 124. Some say I’m too small, some say I’m just right. I say, thank you to the toxic relationships and people for giving me the drive I needed. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Left: 225 (08/2015) Right: 124 (taken 9/2017)
Besos, my loves. I did it!
I was always one who battled with my weight. It almost won, but I got the victory. Finally comfortable enough to do this. I was a fat little oomph. I mean seriously. Size 16 down bottom, 38 H breast, and 1x shirts if not larger depending.
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What does it mean to receive Jesus Christ? It means to take Christ to be to yourself all that God offers Him to be to everybody. Jesus Christ is God’s gift. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Some accept this wondrous gift of God. Everyone who does accept this gift becomes a child of God. Many others refuse this wondrous gift of God, and everyone who refuses this gift of God perishes. He is condemned already. “He that believeth on the Son is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).
What does God offer His Son to be to us?
First of all, God offers Jesus to us to be our sin-bearer. We have all sinned. There is not a man or woman or a boy or a girl who has not sinned (Romans 3:22, 23). If any of us say that we have not sinned we are deceiving ourselves and giving the lie to God (1 John 1:8, 10). Now we must each of us bear our own sin or someone else must bear it in our place. If we were to bear our own sins, it would mean we must be banished forever from the presence of God, for God is holy. “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). But God Himself has provided another to bear our sins in our place so that we should not need to bear them ourselves. This sin-bearer is God’s own Son, Jesus Christ, “For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). When Jesus Christ died upon the cross of Calvary He redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse in our stead (Gal. 3:13). To receive Christ then is to believe this testimony of God about His Son, to believe that Jesus Christ did bear our sins in His own body on the cross (1 Pet. 2:24), and to trust God to forgive all our sins because Jesus Christ has borne them in our place. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Is. 53:6). Our own good works, past, present or future have nothing to do with the forgiveness of our sins. Our sins are forgiven, not because of any good works that we do, they are forgiven because of the atoning work of Christ upon the cross of Calvary in our place. If we rest in this atoning work we shall do good works, but our good works will be the outcome of our being saved and the outcome of our believing on Christ as our sin-bearer. Our good works will not be the ground of our salvation, but the result of our salvation, and the proof of it. We must be very careful not to mix in our good works at all as the ground of salvation. We are not forgiven because of Christ’s death and our good works, we are forgiven solely and entirely because of Christ’s death. To see this clearly is the right beginning of the true Christian life.
God offers Jesus to us as our deliverer from the power of sin. Jesus not only died, He rose again. To-day He is a living Savior. He has all power in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). He has power to keep the weakest sinner from falling (Jude 24). He is able to save not only from the uttermost but “to the uttermost” all that come unto the Father through Him. (Wherefore He is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through Him, seeing that He ever liveth to make intercession for them.—Heb. 7:25, r. v.) “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). To receive Jesus is to believe this that God tells us in His Word about him, to believe that He did rise from the dead, to believe that He does now live, to believe that He has power to keep us from falling, to believe that He has power to keep us from the power of sin day by day, and just trust Him to do it.
This is the secret of daily victory over sin. If we try to fight sin in our own strength, we are bound to fail. If we just look up to the risen Christ to keep us every day and every hour, He will keep us. Through the crucified Christ we get deliverance from the guilt of sin, our sins are all blotted out, we are free from all condemnation, but it is through the risen Christ that we get daily victory over the power of sin. Some receive Christ as a sin-bearer and thus find pardon, but do not get beyond that, and so their life is one of daily failure. Others receive Him as their risen Savior also and thus enter into an experience of victory over sin. To begin right we must take Him not only as our sin bearer, and thus find pardon; but we must also take Him as our risen Savior, our Deliverer from the power of sin, our Keeper, and thus find daily victory over sin.
But God offers Jesus to us, not only as our sin-bearer and our Deliverer from the power of sin, but He also offers Him to us as our Lord and King. We read in Acts 2:36, “Let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Lord means Divine Master, and Christ means anointed King. To receive Jesus is to take Him as our Divine Master, as the One to whom we yield the absolute confidence of our intellects, the One whose word we believe absolutely, the One whom we will believe though many of the wisest of men may question or deny the truth of His teachings; and as our King to whom we gladly yield the absolute control of our lives, so that the question from this time on is never going to be, what would I like to do or what do others tell me to do, or what do others do, but the whole question is what would my King Jesus have me do? A right beginning involves an unconditional surrender to the Lordship and Kingship of Jesus.
The failure to realize that Jesus is Lord and King, as well as Savior, has led to many a false start in the Christian life. We begin with Him as our Saviour, as our sin-bearer and our Deliverer from the power of sin, but we must not end with Him merely as Savior, we must know Him as Lord and King. There is nothing more important in a right beginning of the Christian life than an unconditional surrender, both of the thoughts and the conduct to Jesus. Say from your heart and say it again and again, “All for Jesus.” Many fail because they shrink back from this entire surrender. They wish to serve Jesus with half their heart, and part of themselves and part of their possessions. To hold back anything from Jesus means a wretched life of stumbling and failure.
The life of entire surrender is a joyous life all along the way. If you have never done it before, go alone with God to-day, get down on your knees and say, “All for Jesus,” and mean it. Say it very earnestly; say it from the bottom of your heart. Stay there until you realize what it means and what you are doing. It is a wondrous step forward when one really takes it. If you have taken it already, take it again, take it often. It always has fresh meaning and brings fresh blessedness. In this absolute surrender is found the key to the truth. Doubts rapidly disappear for one who surrenders all (John 7:17). In this absolute surrender is found the secret of power in prayer (1 John 3:22). In this absolute surrender is found the supreme condition of receiving the Holy Ghost (Acts 5:32).
Taking Christ as your Lord and King involves obedience to His will as far as you know it in each smallest detail of life. There are those who tell us that they have taken Christ as their Lord and King who at the same time are disobeying Him daily in business, in domestic life, in social life, and in personal conduct. Such persons are deceiving themselves. You have not taken Jesus as your Lord and King if you are not striving to obey Him in everything each day. He Himself says, “Why call ye Me ‘Lord, Lord!’ and do not the things that I say?” (Luke 6:46).
To sum it all up, the right way to begin the Christian life is to accept Jesus Christ as your sin-bearer and to trust God to forgive your sins because Jesus Christ died in your place; to accept Him as your risen Saviour who ever lives to make intercession for you, and who has all power to keep you, and to trust Him to keep you from day to day; and to accept Him as your Lord and King to whom you surrender the absolute control of your thoughts and of your life. This is the right beginning, the only right beginning of the Christian life. If you have made this beginning, all that follows will be comparatively easy. If you have not made this beginning, make it now.
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Beginning the Christian life Right What does it mean to receive Jesus Christ? It means to take Christ to be to yourself all that God offers Him to be to everybody.
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WATCH New body camera footage shows chaos, carnage inside Pulse nightclub: Part 1
The Orlando police released 11 hours of new body camera footage on Wednesday from inside the Pulse nightclub on the night of the worst mass shooting in modern American history almost one year ago.
The footage contains dramatic scenes of chaos and carnage as first responders tried to save the wounded and hunt down the shooter who killed 49 people in the name of the Islamic State.
In a series of interviews ahead of the release of the footage to be broadcast tonight on “World News Tonight With David Muir” and “Nightline,” first responders and survivors told ABC News that the memories of that night, and the emotions stirred by them, are still raw.
“Several of us commented that this was gonna change the city forever,” said Roger Brennan, the police department’s commander on the scene, “and probably change what we do forever.”
By early morning on June 12, it had already been a violent weekend in Orlando. Litte more than 24 hours earlier, a young singer named Christina Grimmie was shot and killed while signing autographs for fans following her performance at the nearby Plaza.
On Saturday, Pulse, a popular spot in the city’s gay community, was packed with patrons, many of them young revelers eager to forget the previous night’s tragedy.
“We were all in a great mood,” said Jahqui Sevilla, a young woman who was at the club with friends. “We were in the club dancing. It was, like, one of the best nights I had — that turned into the worst day of my life.”
SLIDESHOW: Mass Shooting at Pulse Nightclub
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Just after 2:00 a.m., a man named Omar Mateen, the 29-year-old American-born son of Afghan immigrants, entered the club, armed with a military-style assault rifle, and opened fire. Mateen, a security guard from Port St. Lucie, was an angry and troubled man with a history of violence and failure.
An off-duty police detective working security at Pulse radioed in, and less than a minute and a half later, backup units began to arrive. One officer, Graham Cage, heard the call and jumped on his bicycle. He ran into the club while everyone else was running out.
“I had a helmet, but a bicycle helmet,” Cage said. “It’s not gonna do a whole lot with that.”
As patrons rushed for the exits, the shooter rapidly fired shots from inside the club. The bullets missed Sevilla but hit the two friends she was standing with, one fatally.
“He had a gunshot wound to his chest,” she said. “That’s when I saw that he was injured. He was nonresponsive.”
The first responding officers returned fire, forcing the shooter to retreat further into the club. As those officers followed in pursuit, they passed bodies, dead and wounded, everywhere.
Police training calls for officers to head straight to the active shooter, even if it means ignoring the victims.
“A person reached up and asked for help, but at that point we didn’t know where the shooter was, if he was detained, if he was deceased, or what was going on,” said Kyle Medvetz, one of the police officers who responded. “So as much as I wanted to help, I could not help him until we know for sure the shooter was detained, contained or deceased.”
The shooter had barricaded himself in the bathroom with several hostages, which according to Maj. Mark Canty, who led the Orlando SWAT team, required the police to change their strategy.
“This went quickly, very, very quickly from an active shooter to what we call a barricaded gunman to a hostage situation,” Canty said.
The shooter was still inside, cornered and dangerous, but rather than immediately storm the building, Canty decided to wait. It was a decision that would later be criticized by some, as it would take three more hours for police to gain full control and get all the wounded in the back to safety.
Chief John Mina, in the command post, however, says it was the right call.
“During that whole three hours, we were in there saving people from the dance floor, from dressing rooms, from the other bathroom,” Mina said. “We took 22 people out of the front bathroom. Once we were inside that club, there were no more gunshots until the final assault.”
Play
Police release new body-camera footage from Orlando shooting
A half an hour after he first opened fire, the shooter called the Orlando police department dispatch center.
“I want to let you know I’m in Orlando and I did the shooting,” Mateen said. “I pledge my allegiance to Baghdadi on behalf of the Islamic State,” referring to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS.
Sgt. Andy Brennan, a trained hostage negotiator, was working an off-duty detail at a bar downtown that night when he responded the radio call from Pulse and headed to the dispatch center. He engaged the shooter over multiple phone calls, listening to his rants about ISIS and Syria.
“You need to stop the U.S. airstrikes,” Mateen said. “They need to stop the U.S. airstrikes, OK?”
Meanwhile, officers used the time to get as many victims out as possible despite concerns that the shooter might attempt to hide among the victims.
Officer James Hyland arrived in his personal pick-up truck, which a partner quickly turned into a makeshift ambulance.
“We didn’t have any ambulances or anything there. He just started loading people up,” Hyland said. “And he was just going back and forth, doing one run after another, after another, after another.”
Other trapped victims who could not be reached used their cell phones to call loved ones, who then called 911 to plead for help on their behalf.
“My girlfriend’s in the bathroom,” said one caller. “There are now four dead in the bathroom and two more are bleeding out. If somebody doesn’t get there soon they’re going to die.”
“Yes, my son is shot in the club in the Pulse in Orlando, and he’s still in the bathroom where he’s bleeding,” said a sobbing mother. “He got shot, and nobody’s going in for him.”
The rescue operation continued until Andy Brennan, the negotiator, heard words from the shooter that quickly changed the dynamic for everyone inside the nightclub.
“By the way, there is some vehicles outside that have some bombs, just to let you know,” Mateen said. “Your people are going to get it, and I’m going to ignite it if they try to do anything stupid.”
He escalated the threat, telling the negotiator that he had “a vest,” before abruptly hanging up.
“When you start talking about explosives,” said Roger Brennan, the scene commander, “now you have to pull your resources back.”
The information circulated among the officers on scene, but not a single officer pulled back to safety.
“We were in it to win it, you know?” Medvetz said. “And we didn’t want to leave.”
Instead, the police prepared to move in. With victims still trapped inside the nightclub, and the suspect threatening to set off explosives, Andy Brennan knew he was running out of time.
In his fourth and final phone call with Mateen, Brennan tried again to persuade him to come out of the nightclub without his weapons, but after making his demands, Mateen hung up.
It was after that fourth phone call that Mina decided his officers would have to storm the back bathrooms of the nightclub.
“I wasn’t going to sit here in this command post and hear that explosion, knowing that he was going to blow up everyone, all those hostages inside that club, because there were many hostages left inside,” he said.
After getting Mina’s go order, the SWAT team moved toward the back bathrooms where they knew hostages were hiding.
“They said, ‘Hey, we’re going to push the air conditioning unit in, but before we do, you guys have to catch it because if you let it drop or make any noise, the killer is going to know where you’re at, and he might shoot through the walls and kill you,’” said Canty.
Canty said the hostages reached up to grab the air conditioning unit when it was pushed in and were able to set it down without making a sound. Eight hostages were able to escape from the nightclub through that opening, police said.
“I think the first person that came out was the person that was injured,” Canty said. “They were able to get out by themselves.”
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First responders to Pulse shooting describe eerie scene inside club
Inside a different area of the nightclub, Jahqui Sevilla also made her escape, carrying a friend who had been shot in the chest. He later died from his injuries. Her father, Benigno Sevilla, an Orlando firefighter, was waiting outside for her.
“I give her a quick once-over, make sure she has all her body parts,” Benigno Sevilla said. “I knew she was one of those who could be killed or injured.”
“It wasn’t until he was there and I knew that I could kind of just, like, collapse in his arms and I would be OK,” Jahqui Sevilla said.
After the air conditioning unit was out, police decided to move forward with their final assault. Officer Rob Woodyard drove an armored vehicle called a Bearcat toward the nightclub and tore open holes in the wall to create an escape route. SWAT team members following the Bearcat and then pulled hostages to safety as they ran out.
“Every person we got out was a victory for us,” Woodyard said. “At that point, we know that we need to get these people out this building. So one by one, they’re coming out of these holes, and it’s a great feeling, seeing them come out.”
Even with the Bearcat, officers said they were still being cautious because the suspect had told them there were explosives. Canty said there was also a concern that the suspect would start firing on the hostages as they ran out, and they knew people were still trapped in that back bathroom.
“You’re trying to save as many people as you can,” Canty said. “There’s 13 people in that bathroom, you want to save them, there’s five with him.”
But the plan worked. Once the Bearcat came through the wall, police said Mateen stepped out into the open and started firing on the officers and the Bearcat.
“It was just, like, a wall of freedom,” said Michael Ragsdale, another officer who responded. “There was 30 seconds of just the most awesome sound you could hear, because it was us returning fire towards him.”
During the shootout with Mateen, Mina said a bullet struck Napolitano’s helmet. If it had been an inch lower, Mina said, Napolitano “would have been dead.” But instead, Mina said, the officer “went down to the ground still returning fire, and the other officers returned fire, killing the suspect.”
When the call went out over the police radios that the suspect was dead, Andy Brennan said, a “giant cheer went up” inside the command center.
“We all hollered, ‘Yay!’” added Bill Hammer, a dispatcher. “It was a big uproar.”
After hours of fighting, the massacre was finally over, but the officers involved felt there was little to celebrate. Mina said he and many of the officers were heartbroken by what happened.
“I was very proud of the police response, but still, you know, this person went in and killed 49 of our community members,” he said. “And so as a community, we were devastated.”
Editor’s note: Jahqui Sevilla was killed early Monday in a car crash.
ABC News’ Pete Madden, Lauren Effron, Randy Kreider, Cho Park, Margaret Katcher, Alex Gurvets and Erin Galloway contributed to this report.
1 June 2017 | 2:43 pm
Source : ABC News
>>>Click Here To View Original Press Release>>>
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I arrived in Agra by train in the morning, got settled in at N Homestay, and at the suggestion of their guide/driver Mokul, I took the rest of the afternoon to visit Fatehpur Sikri- home of the Jama Masjid mosque and Mughal palace predating the Taj Mahal. Little did I remember that the entrance fee for the Historic palaces had gone up to 500 INR, so I only had enough money for it, and to take the bus back to Agra (and maybe a bag of chips). Lunch consisted of the leavings of my goody bag from Simla. Luckily I did bring a scarf (I had completely forgotten my hat) because the Jama Masjid is an active mosque. I have also been using my water purification drops when filling my water bottles from the tap, and so far, so good. One could go broke keeping up on drinking water here in India. Also, I paid $20 CAD for this water purification kit, so I might as well use it. TRAVEL TIPS TO FOLLOW, SO NECESSARY FOR SURVIVING FATEHPUR SIKRI.
Arriving in Agra, I knew right away I had officially arrived in India, and gone were the days of orderly, friendly, clean little towns. It was a madhouse of Autorickshaws around the train station, and all of the drivers clamoured at me “taxi? taxi? hotel, miss? hotel?” Basically one has to say “No,” firmly and give an emphatic shake of the head about a million times or or ignore them completely running the gauntlet until you find your driver, – which will happen, seemingly by magic. After riding the regular public bus from Agra (very hot and dusty- bring a scarf just to put over your nose to filter some of it out), there are tour touts waiting for you at the little bus depot in Fatehpur’s bazaar. If your hotel or homestay has a driver/tour guide and offers to take you to Fatehpur Sikri (hereafter “FS”) for 700 INR or suchlike cost- DO THIS! Learn from my mistake. I decided I didn’t want to spend the 700 INR for my own private autorick and tour, and simply took the 40 INR bus ride from Agra. I thought I was being really smart by forgoing the extra cost…
There is a direct path straight up from the bus depot in Fatehpour’s bazaar towards the gate to the mosque, but one is essentially walking a path of garbage, so I took the long way around and took a second look at the bazaar, which was full of vendors and services of every sort. Traffic slowed to a crawl those last 50 meters from the beginning of the bazaar and the bus depot. The road above the bazaar leading up to the mosque and palace grounds, though, is wide, free of traffic, and lined with ice cream and goodie vendors, so Indian families take full advantage of the refreshments before going into the so-called abandoned city. Walking up the ramp to the entrance of the huge and extremely impressive Buland Darwaza (Victory Gate) entrance to the Jama Majid mosque, I couldn’t help but laugh at the frolicking and leaping goats combing the ramparts for goodies left by tourists.
As soon as I entered into the mosque, a young man calling himself a “guide” offered to show me around. These guys (and there are a lot of them) are touts, not guides. They will indeed take you around the mosque, they’ll show you all the different parts of the grounds and tombs, they have good information, and they will even take really nice photos of you and for you while on the grounds, and will be very pleasant- but they will conclude their tour at their own little blanket set out with the souvenirs they sell- usually carvings in soapstone or alabaster. There’s nothing wrong with buying from them except they’ll give you the hard sell and you will have to haggle within an inch of your life, and there’s nothing wrong with not buying from them and tipping them for their time instead. They’re not as happy with the tip as they would to sell you their stuff, but whatever. Bazinga. I saw all the parts of the mosque- was encouraged to do all the little things that people do when they visit, like tying a string in the lattice screen of the white marble tomb of Shaikh Salim Chishti and making a wish (NO TELLING), and genuinely enjoyed my tour. I found the cemetery and the crowded ladies-only cemetery behind lattice screens interesting as the marker stones were very compact. The honour of being interred within the mosque was only conferred to family members of the saint. The white marble tomb with the reflecting pool before it, and single tree growing beside it within the broad expanse of the mosque complex courtyard was genuinely beautiful. I explored the courtyard of the mosque once I left the young tout, and there is no angle from which this little building is not striking and a spot of visual coolness in the expanse of baking redstone. It was also a constant hub of activity as people came to pay their respects, tie their string, make their offering of thrown perfume or rose petals and some rupees to the saint. Directly outside a group of musicians crouched in the shade, playing and singing their devotions. I noticed that the tomb had gutters leading directly to the pool, so that rainwater would be collected there for both its beauty and utility.
Exiting the mosque from the King’s Gate, I then proceeded into the expansive palace grounds, paying the entrance fee at that point. The architecture and gardens were unlike anything I had seen before (or would see again in India), especially the 5 tiered Panch Mahal, and it’s no wonder for King Akbar who lived here encouraged unique designs melding Islamic, Hindu, Christian and Buddhist elements and imagery in the decor. King Akbar decreed that each religion was to be respected equally, and to “seal the deal” he took a queen from each faith. The special audience hall (Diwan-i-Khas) and the decorative pool in front of his palace use a quartered square design illustrating the new faith he developed, called Din-i-llahi (God is One). Wandering around this place was genuinely enjoyable. There were lots of arcades in which to shelter from the sun, gardens to refresh the eye from all the red sandstone, and wonderful spots from which to view the surrounding farmlands. Within the palace grounds, I also discovered the striped chipmunk-like squirrels, wild green ring-necked parrots and many songbirds and swallows (and pigeons) that inhabit India. To sit in the shade from the softening afternoon sun and breeze, journaling and watching the parrots and other birds race from buidling to building to tree was a real joy.
I was really glad that I had come out to FS and explored these amazing buildings. Until I was foolish enough to NOT run and catch the bus I saw leaving the bazaar as I came down to the corner. “Busses run for another two hours,” I told myself, “I’ll grab a quick snack and catch the next bus.” Famous last words. I waited at the bus depot and no other bus arrived. I had a snack, wrote in my journal and exchanged a few pleasantries with a couple of the touts there who were brothers… and then it started getting dark. The young Islamic touts started to look a little uneasy on my behalf and gently remonstrated me “Why didn’t you run for that bus?” Finally one of the young men said “I don’t want you sitting here after dark. Tourists have been stranded here before by the bus. I have seen it and helped them get back to Agra before. Maybe the last bus will be here at 5:45, but if not then you should let my driver friend take you back to Agra because none of the tourist taxis come here.” This was factually correct and not an exaggeration on his part, I hadn’t seen a single white car with the blue and yellow “Tourist Taxi” emblem painted on the side since arriving in FS, and there weren’t even any Autoricks. Two of the young touts arranged someone to drive me back and they tried to quote me double the price of what my homestay driver had offered for the return trip. Boy was I mad at myself and a little annoyed with them as I tried to discuss the discrepancy with them. When he finally admitted that what he was really including in the price was a commission for him and his brother who had both kept me company for two hours while I waited, and arranged my ride, my frustration vanished. I was happy to give them a commission, but I was not happy about being ripped off for a drive back to Agra- qualitative or semantic difference, as either way I was out a lot more rupees than I wanted to be for the day, but I don’t have a problem with rewarding people for taking their time to help me.
As it was, there was a massive traffic jam on the road back to Agra, and my driver was fortunately able to get out of the jam before too many vehicles boxed us in from behind, so we took a link road around the blockage and made it back to Agra with only a little delay. It was a bit of an adventure itself and when I experienced some acute culture shock (see next entry). I tried to not kick myself too hard for having to pay so much money to get back to the homestay, but on the other hand FS is a good hour outside of Agra, and I was very relieved that I got back safely and in comparative comfort. Who knows when I would have got back to Agra if I had gotten on that bus. For all I know, it was the thing causing the jam.
Matriarch Naghma of N Homestay had a wonderful thali dinner waiting for me when I got back to their place, and was kind enough to sit and chat with me while I ate. She told me the interesting history of her family home, how happy and content she was to share it with travelers, and how this was definitely the best part of her life with her sons grown and one of them recently married. After eating, I was grateful to retire to my very spacious room, shower and wash my clothes and retire to bed.
Tomorrow is the Taj Mahal at dawn.
Fatehpur Sikri (Agra) Oct. 15 ’16 I arrived in Agra by train in the morning, got settled in at N Homestay, and at the suggestion of their guide/driver Mokul, I took the rest of the afternoon to visit Fatehpur Sikri- home of the Jama Masjid mosque and Mughal palace predating the Taj Mahal.
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SUMMARY During the American civil rights movement, white actress Julie Sawyer accidentally runs over a stray White Shepherd dog. After the veterinarian treats him, Julie takes him home while trying to find his owners. A rapist breaks into her house and tries to attack her, but the dog protects her. She decides to adopt him, against the wishes of her boyfriend Roland Graele. Unbeknown to her, the dog was trained by a white racist to attack black people on sight. The dog sneaks out of the house, and kills a black truck driver. Later, Julie takes the dog to work with her, and he mauls a black actress on the set.
Julie takes the dog to a trainer, Carruthers, who tells her to euthanize the dog. Another dog trainer, Keys, who is black, decides to try to retrain the dog. He dons protective gear and keeps the dog in a large enclosure, taking him out on a chain and exposing himself to the dog each day and making sure he is the only one to feed or care for the dog.
The dog escapes and kills an elderly black man in a church. Keys recovers him, and opts not to turn him over to authorities to continue the training, over Julie’s protests. He warns her that the training has reached a tipping point, where the dog might be cured or go insane. He believes that curing the dog will discourage white racists from training dogs like this.
Eventually, the dog becomes friendly towards Keys. Julie confronts the dog’s original owner, who has come to claim him. She angrily tells him the dog has been cured by a black person in front of his grandchildren who knew the dog to be a loving pet. Just as Julie and Keys celebrate their victory, the dog, without warning, turns its attention to Carruthers and attacks him. To save his employer’s life, Keys is forced to shoot and kill the dog.
DEVELOPMENT White Dog’s roots lie with a 1970 autobiographical novel written by Romain Gary of the same name. The story was purchased for use by Paramount in 1975, with Curtis Hanson selected to write the screenplay and Roman Polanski hired to direct. Before shooting commenced, Polanski was charged with rape and fled the country, leaving the production in limbo. Over a span of six years, the project was given to various writers and producers, who all focused on the stray dog story from Gary’s original work. Gary’s activist wife was replaced in the script with a young, unmarried actress because Paramount wanted to contrast the dog’s random attacks with a loving relationship between the protagonist and the dog. Paramount executives noted that they wanted a “Jaws with paws” and indicated that they wanted any racial elements to be downplayed. In one memo, the company noted: “Given the organic elements of this story, it is imperative that we never overtly address through attitude or statement the issue of racism per se.”
White Dog by Romain Gary A fictionalized memoir set in both the United States and France during the 1960s American civil rights movement, White Dog focuses on the events that occur after Gary and his then-wife Jean Seberg, an actress and an activist, adopt a handsome and clearly well-trained German Shepherd dog who comes back to their home with one of their other dogs. At first, the dog, which they name Batka, is an ideal new member of the family: intelligent, devoted, and quickly befriending the couple’s assortment of other animals. To their dismay, they discover that the dog, a former Alabama police dog, was trained to attack black people on sight. Although they are told the dog is too old to be retrained, they take him to a black dog trainer to try. Instead, the man trains the dog to attack white people, including Gary himself. Gary states that he changed the ending of the American version to be more optimistic.
By 1981, Gary’s wife, and then Gary himself, had both committed suicide. At the same time, Hollywood was under threat of strikes by both the Writers’ and Directors’ Guilds. Needing enough films to carry the studio through in case the strikes happened, White Dog was one of 13 films considered to be far enough along to be completable in a short time frame. With a push from Michael Eisner, White Dog was one of seven that Paramount put on a fast track for production. Eisner pushed for the film to be one of the selected ones because of its social message that hate was learned. Producer Jon Davison was less certain and, early on, he questioned how the film was being marketed. Hanson, back on board as the film’s screenwriter, suggested that Samuel Fuller be named the film’s director as he felt Fuller was the only one available with the experience needed to complete the film on such a short schedule and with a low budget, while still doing so responsibly with regard to the sensitive material. Davison agreed after visiting Fuller and seeing Fuller act out how he would shoot the film.
Shelve the film without letting anyone see it? I was dumbfounded. It’s difficult to express the hurt of having a finished film locked away in a vault, never to be screened for an audience. It’s like someone putting your newborn baby in a goddamned maximum-security prison forever … Moving to France for a while would alleviate some of the pain and doubt that I had to live with because of White Dog. — Sam Fuller
PRODUCTION
A prolific director, novelist and screenplay writer, the former newspaperman has learned (inspired by budgetary restrictions) to reduce the most grandiose and eloquent plotlines into tense, intimate and sweat generating stories.
His House of Bamboo (1955) pitted a lone undercover agent against a Tokyo protection racket; the corruption seen through the eyes of one observer. In Shock Corridor (1963) a reporter investigating an insane asylum got a firsthand glimpse of the world of madness by going undercover and entering the asylum as a patient. When the only per. son who knows his true identity dies, the newspaperman is stranded. In The Big Red One (1980), the World War II experience is graphically viewed by four raw recruits and their world-weary sergeant.
“I like close situations,” Fuller admits. “In this movie, you’ll not only see the incidents through the eyes of the white dog but you’ll actually perceive how the dog thinks. You’ll swear this dog is human. I directed him as if he was a human.”
As jarring as the premise of White Dog may sound to some moviegoers, the idea is actually not a new one. In fact, the film had languished at Paramount Pictures for over six years prior to Fuller’s involvement.
“I first encountered the White Dog story years ago when it appeared in Life Magazine,” recalls Fuller. “It was a story by Romain Gary, the husband of [actress] Jean Seberg. I knew Romain when he was the French Consul in Los Angeles so I was intrigued.
“Basically, his story was about him discovering a dog on his doorway. He finds out that it’s not an ordinary dog. It’s a racist dog, trained by white bigots to attack blacks. Gary takes the dog to be retrained by a black man named Keys. Keys re-programs the dog to attack only white. That’s the story.
“Basically, it was a symbolic approach by Gary; an attempt to represent his life with Seberg. It touched on their involvement with civil rights and the Black Panther movement.”
After the story’s publication, it was brought to Paramount as a Robert Evans project. Roman Polanski was set to direct. Curtis Hanson was tapped to do the screenplay. As quickly as the excitement for the project had mounted, it faded. Polanski encountered a few legal problems. Subsequently, so did Evans. White Dog hibernated at the studio for quite a few years.
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The slant of Gary’s story, according to Fuller, is what kept the dog at bay for that period of time. “It’s a compounded racist approach,” he states. “It’s not bad enough having a white bastard doing that to a dog, right? You have to compound that idea in a very evil way, a racist way, by having a black man reversing the process.”
Last year, Paramount decided to resurrect the film and asked Roger Corman alumni Jon Davison to produce. Davison was asked to mount the film quickly. A long-time movie buff, Davison immediately thought of Fuller to helm the project. After all, Fuller had done most of his movies under the gun; pressured by time and money and lack of same.
Fuller, however, was a hard fellow to approach at the time. An open, candid conversationalist, prone to phrases such as “ya get it?” “now, listen to this,” “are you following all this,” “can I give you an example?” and “son of a bitchin’,” he was a hot commodity after The Big Red One and already committed to a project. Returning home from location scouting in Buenos Aires, Fuller walked into his living room and found his wife hanging up the phone. “She told me it was a guy named Jon Davison,” Fuller recounts. “He and some executive from Paramount were coming over the next day to pitch a movie to me. I said that was impossible. I was already involved in one.
“They came over the following day and offered me White Dog. I was really excited about it. I arranged for my prior film commitment to be pushed back five months. Eventually it was scrapped.
“There were quite a few problems with White Dog from the outset. We had to re-work it entirely. When we approached the plot, we threw out all the racist elements. The only thing we retained was a white dog that attacked blacks.
“There had been six or seven scripts done over the years. The man who wrote the first script for Polanski turned out to be a friend of mine, Curtis Hanson. As a matter of fact, he came over to The Shack [Fuller’s nickname for his home] when he was doing it and I worked out a few scenes for him. How’s that for goddamn irony?
“More or less, all of Paramount’s script followed Gary’s original story … which was a pretty bad direction for a movie to go. I didn’t want to get involved in a racist film and I certainly didn’t go for all that anti-black crap.
“So Curtis and I wrote the movie together in 10 or 12 days. We tried to finish it before the writers’ strike began. Then, I tried to finish the film before the threatened directors’ strike.
Jon Davison on WHITE DOG
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“It’s handled like a thriller,” explains Fuller. “The reason this movie is going to shake a lot of people is that it’s different than most thrillers. Most monster movies have Frankenstein or Dracula or zombies or mushrooms the size of houses that take over a village. I love all those horror films. But most of the monsters are totally fictitious.
“We have a real dog. He’s a constant menace. A constant presence. He’s lethal wherever he goes. And, it’s legitimate. The tension is built-in right from the start. You don’t have to fake anything.”
Part of the impact of the movie, according to Fuller, rests in the fact that the dog is more than a mere canine. “He’s almost human,” he declares. “I treated him as a person. You will actually see this dog think through the reactions shown on his face.
“I’m quite proud of the way that aspect of the film works. I just wish I had a few more weeks to work with the dog. It was hard to establish communications. I didn’t know his language. Ya get me?
“I mean, this isn’t Lassie or Rin-Tin Tin. It’s not about a nice dog that jumps and barks and runs alongside a kid. This dog is a survivor. It does things intentionally. You see that.
“Can I give you an example?” the director asks parenthetically. “When the girl takes the dog to the vet, the dog is stretched out on a table. The girl is explaining the accident to the doctor. “I couldn’t see him. It was too dark. I hit him.’
“When she says ‘hit,’ the dog opens its eyes and, for the first time, sees the girl not four feet away. You have the first encounter between victim and driver. It’s just like you opening your eyes and, being semi-conscious and lying in a gutter, staring at some man standing over you telling someone else “I just accidentally shot this son of a bitch.’ You’re looking right at him and he’s chatting about your life.
“You instinctively feel the jolt the dog experiences in this scene. Originally, we were going to show the dog’s viewpoint with effects. Then, we decided against it. We thought we could handle his perspective more logically and acceptably if we filmed it from his point of view but without any jazzing up.
“For instance, when the dog is in the compound, he’s trying to escape. We handle the scene the way it would be done if it concerned a human planning a jailbreak. The dog chews his way out of the cage. There’s now only an electrified fence separating him from freedom.
“Now, pretend our dog is Bogart or Cagney. In a Bogart film, all the other prisoners would know about the jailbreak in advance. They’d hear the sirens or spot the searchlights and cheer the con on. In our movie, after the dog makes his break, the animals go wild, rooting for him to make it over the fence. Coyotes, wolves, lions, tigers, elephants … they’re all going nuts! ‘One of us not only has gotten out of his cage . . . one of us is going to get over the fence!’
“Now, there are searchlights all over the place. The dog hides under a truck. From his vantage point, he spots a small vehicle, parked next to a larger one, parked next to a bigger truck, parked next to the fence.
“We see the dog’s face. It’s studying the height of each vehicle. We cut back to the cab of the truck. We can almost hear that dog thinking: ‘Goddammit. If I can jump from that onto that onto that, I can clear that sonofabitch fence!’
“That’s how a human would react. That’s how we make our dog understandable. We cut from his eyes to a vehicle to his eyes to another vehicle and back to his eyes. You can almost hear the wheels turning. I had a hell of a lot of fun structuring those scenes. I mean, this isn’t The Doberman Gang, where the dogs sit up and growl and find purses. This dog is cunning. He kills. He attacks. When he leaps, he flies through the air. You can feel his blind rage, the emotional confusion.”
With action and the characters’ constant fear of an attack of canine munchies now being emphasized, Fuller feels that he’s successfully exorcised the spirit of racism that haunted the original premise.
“If anyone complains about this movie,” he chuckles, “it’ll be the Klan. Black audiences should love Keys. He’s a great character. A wonderful man. He isn’t played as a race. He’s played as a scientist.
“He’s not just an animal trainer but an anthropologist. His parents are anthropologists and their parents as well. He’s part of a family that’s comparable to the Leaky family in archeology. He has a tremendous academic background.
“He’s perfectly content working in this animal compound because, to him, it’s a large laboratory. Each animal is in a test tube as far as he’s concerned. He’s more relaxed and interested in this informal approach than in surrounding himself with textbooks.
“When this black anthropologist encounters this racist dog, it doesn’t mean anything to him personally. He wouldn’t care if the dog attacked whites, browns, pinks or blues. He is interested in dealing with this dog only because it gives him a chance to go inside the dog’s brain without using a knife. It becomes a challenge for him to de-program the animal. Keys knows everything about an animal’s brain. To enact change without operating, without performing a lobotomy, excites him.
“He only loses his scientific composure once during the film after finding one of the dog’s victims. His shell breaks. ‘I would have given anything to put a bullet through that bastard’s brain,’ he blurts to the girl. But he couldn’t conduct his experiment on a dead dog, could he?
“Keys is an interesting character. He realizes that the dog isn’t inherently evil. In fact, the dog is quite docile and loving when not under the influence of its past. Keys wants nothing more than to save the dog. To do that, he has to pit his own will against the animal’s. They’re like two gladiators, fighting within the physical confines of the compound.
“He actually explains a lot of the dog’s personality to the girl who is, at first, confused and, then, repulsed by the dog’s killer instincts. She doesn’t understand what could have made the dog so vicious.
“The scientist explains that, when the dog was a puppy, its first owners hired black drunks or hopheads to beat the hell out of it. All the puppy sees are black hands coming down on it. All it feels is pain. It’s no wonder the full grown dog reacts as it does to blacks.
“The message of this movie is about racism,” Fuller continues. “When someone’s been brought up as a racist from childhood, from their puppyhood, you can’t reason with them. You can’t change their minds, no matter if they’re a man or a woman. You can’t use logic. You might as well be talking to a wall.
“To change attitudes in this country, you have to reach the racists’ children. You have to reach the would-be racists when they’re young. The moral of the movie is implied but not stated. If you’re going to change people, go for them in their formative years. That’s the only way to defeat racism.”
With or without the moralizing, Fuller believes that White Dog is going to put the bite on thrill-seeking audiences this summer. “It’s unrelenting,” he beams, obviously enthused about the picture. “It’s based on individual and I collective hate and bigotry, violence · and killing. This isn’t Rosemary’s Baby or some outer space thing. This is real.”
In an earlier Variety magazine interview, Fuller stated that viewers would “see a dog slowly go insane and then come back to sanity.” Before filming began, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Black Anti-Defamation Coalition (BADC), and other civil-rights leaders began voicing concerns that the film would spur racial violence. In an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, Robert Price, executive director of the BADC, criticized the studio for producing the film based on a book by a white man and using a primarily white cast and crew, rather than producing the film with African Americans in key positions. He also considered Gary’s work to be a “second-rate novel” and questioned its use when “bookshelves are laden with quality novels by black writers who explore the same social and psychological areas with far more subtlety?”
Fuller, however, was confident in his work and the idea that the film would be strongly anti-racist, particularly with the changes he had made to the original work. The original novel’s hate-filled Muslim black trainer, who had deliberately retrained the dog to attack white people, was converted into the character of Keys, who genuinely wished to cure the animal. Fuller also changed the novel’s original ending into a more pessimistic film ending.
When we were getting ready to release the film in theatres, there was something going on behind the scenes that I still don’t understand. The studio called it ‘inappropriate’. This made Sam and I so angry. Sam fought in WW2 to defend democracy and fight Fascism. He won a Silver Star, and a Purple Heart. He fought in every major battle in the War. How they could call the film ‘inappropriate’ or fear the film would be seen as racist is beyond me. The ‘white dog’ is a symbol of racism itself. It’s a beautiful piece of work, and Paul Winfield and Burl Ives did such great jobs. – Christa Fuller (Sam’s Wife)
RELEASE/CONCLUSION The film was shot in only forty-five days at a cost of $7 million. Five white German Shepherd Dogs played the unnamed central character. After filming commenced, Paramount Pictures brought in two African-American consultants to review and approve the depiction of the black characters: Willis Edwards, vice president of the local NAACP chapter, and David L. Crippens, the vice president and stage manager of the local PBS affiliate. In the end, they walked away with different views of the film. Crippens did not find the film to have any racist connotations, while Edwards found it inflammatory and felt it should not have been made, particularly not during that year, when a series of murders of black children was occurring in Atlanta. The two men provided a write-up of their views for the studio executives, which were passed to Davison along with warnings that the studio feared a film boycott. But Fuller was neither told of these discussions, nor given the notes, until two weeks before filming was slated to conclude. Known for being a staunch integrationist and for his regularly giving black actors non-stereotypical roles, Fuller was furious, finding the studio’s actions insulting. He reportedly had both representatives banned from the set afterwards, though he did integrate some of the suggested changes into the film.
Paramount was hesitant to release the film out of continuing concerns that the film would be misconstrued. Though no one from the organization had viewed the completed film, the NAACP threatened boycotts. In early 1982, the studio finally held a preview screening in Seattle and later, in August, in Denver, with mixed responses. It was finally released in the US at five Detroit theatres on November 12, 1982 for just one week, with no trailer, no poster and no promotion at all. It did no business and was shelved as uncommercial by Paramount. Dumbfounded and hurt by the film’s shelving, Fuller moved to France and never directed another American film. Later in April 1987, during an interview held in Milan, Fuller stated that Paramount shelved the film also because they feared negative reactions from the KKK.
White Dog (1982) Ennio Morricone
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CAST/CREW Directed Samuel Fuller
Produced Jon Davison
Screenplay Samuel Fuller Curtis Hanson
Based on White Dog by Romain Gary
Kristy McNichol Paul Winfield Burl Ives Jameson Parker Parley Baer
CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Fangoria#017
White Dog (1982) Retrospective SUMMARY During the American civil rights movement, white actress Julie Sawyer accidentally runs over a stray White Shepherd dog.
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Vote for Raph!
Go go go!
(Plz I need the final chapters of arc one. And I need him to win.)
OK MY LIST OF BRIBES FOR EVERYONE SO YOU WILL VOTE FOR 2012RAPH
I WILL DRAW HIM IN A FAIRY PRINCESS DRESS!
I WILL DRAW MONA'S REACTION TO THE DRESS!
I WILL MAKE AN ENTIRE ASS ANIMATIC FOR RAPH!
I WILL WRITE AND PUBLISH THE FINAL FOUR CHAPTERS OF ARC ONE OF WHEN THE WORLD CRUMBLES (on tumblr because I am still in ao3 jail :c)
@teenagemutantninjaturtleshowdown
TAKE THE BRIBES ANS VOTE FOR RAPH!!!
#tmnt 2012#2012raphsweep#raph propoganda#raph bribery#do I have to make ANOTHER slideshow to get my son to victory?#If I do then so be it#RAPH WINNING WOULD BE THE MOST BADASS THING#PROVING ALL THE HATERS AND EVERYONE WHO CALLS HIM ABUSIVE AND A BAD BROTHER WRONG#prev
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