#have to go again in 3 months because bureaucracy. we might change our mind in the next 3 months after having wanted it exactly like this for

[schadenfreudich]

It's always great when people whose entire job revolves around bureaucracy think the amount bureaucracy is needless.

Anyways, we went to the Standesamt.

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

Wip Wednesday

Untitled Fic (Correspondence)

Summary/Story so far: HotchReid, slow burn, AU where Reid never joined the FBI, but got roped into consulting for the LA field office while working and teaching at Caltech. Hotch gets his email from a fellow agent, and they start to work on cases together – until they start talking on a regular basis. Regular becomes frequent, frequent becomes constant. This goes on for months, their tentative friendship turning to flirtatious virtual dates, and now that Hotch knows how old Spencer actually is the barriers just continue to break down one by one. The next escalation? Stepping up from text messages... to a phone call. But it isn’t planned, or how either imagined it would be. In fact, it all begins because of a case...

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

(Set in late season 6/early season 7, unbeta’d, first draft)

(Without getting into spoilers I’m going to skim over the how and the why of Hotch knowing Spencer’s age now, just know it happens. It had to at some point, right? But they both still don’t know what the other looks like, or even heard each other speak... until now.)

-

Spencer doesn’t even see the caller ID flash across his phone screen. He's too busy with the security work he’s been buried in all morning. A project that the Attorney General sent to their department, specifically, and yet Spencer always gets roped into completing it on his own. Because ‘you can finish it faster than all of us combined, have at it tiger’, and while he may have the Ph.D.’s and titles to back up his academic positions, he’s still the newest and youngest member on the board. Seniority trumps intellect, yet again. He hates bureaucracy with a passion. But Spencer doesn’t even bother to look down at his phone when it rings, just reaches over for it blindly with a half-suffering sigh. Phone calls are always consultations, or requests from other universities, or students and faculty calling in for favors, or something else that isn’t as important to him whatsoever.

Not like Hotch is.

But Hotch is always a text. Spencer knows that text tone, his heart skips when it chimes, his ear is trained for it now. This morning, however, that’s not what happens. His phone rings, and he answers like he always does during office hours. Not even looking up from his work as he puts his phone to his ear.

“This is Dr. Reid.” 

There’s a heavy pause on the line, and Spencer is in the middle of writing out an equation that takes up half a page of his notebook. Too busy to notice it right away.

“... Dr. Reid, this is SSA Hot--” the man stops, clears his throat, voice pitching even lower in an attempt to quiet the conversation. Wherever he is at. “... it’s Hotch.” 

Spencer’s heart literally stops in his chest.

The deep bass, reverberating tones, ring in his ears like church bells and he doesn’t quite comprehend what is happening even as his mind whirls. Stalled, like a car engine that is being revved uselessly, to no avail. 

There’s no way…

“H-Hotch?” 

If he was in his right mind whatsoever, instead of stunned speechless, Spencer would have winced at the breathless sound he just let out.

“I didn’t -- I’m sorry, this wasn’t how I wanted our first phone conversation to go,” Hotch says, his voice clear and concise and smooth as water flowing over river stones. Just as cool, somehow, and yet there’s warmth in the layers underneath. They weave their way in after he apologizes, earnestly, like a small dam breaking in his cadence. He truly was sorry that he had sprung himself on Spencer like this, bringing them into a new light. Another barrier broken between them. “But I need your help.”

That shakes Spencer out of his mild panic. His irrational worry about how he sounds on the phone -- how young he sounds on the phone, because it’s far too late to do anything about that, now -- or how his voice cracks when he answers the older man. Still partially in shock, mind racing to righten itself, somehow.

“R-Right. Yes, of course. You’re still on your case, in Wyoming?” It all comes out in a rush as Spencer closes his notebook and stands up from his desk in a shot, immediately pacing along one of his floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in his office. Free hand raking through his hair to ground himself.

“Yes, the geographical profile is too complex for us to decipher and we don’t have time to cycle it through digitally. There’s a snow storm up here, we have next to no service. I can’t even get text messages or email out… just phone calls. Emergency phone calls.” There’s an authority to Hotch’s voice that just feels like it fits him, and his job, and how Spencer remembers their first emails sounding -- it’s nothing like how they text, how they message each other at all hours of the night and make each other laugh on different sides of the country. He finds he likes it, though, finds it soothing in a way that calms his rattled nerves the more he speaks, and gets Spencer to focus on the task at hand. Hotch’s team is on a case, people are dead, a killer is on the loose. Hotch needs his help. “It also means we can’t access anything from the home office at Quantico, so we’re stuck up a creek at the moment.”

“I’m faster than a computer, anyway, have Ms. Garcia send it all over to me as soon as she can,” Spencer tells him, putting his phone between his ear and shoulder as he scoops up his laptop and races out of his office. Making a beeline towards the conference room where he’ll have more room to work. Spencer is already logging into his email and closing the door with his foot for privacy when he juggles his phone to his hand. “I’m putting you on speaker, but it’s just me in here. I can start when I have everything.” He drops his cell to the table and leans over it as he sets up, clearing off the work space as quick as his frantic hands allow. 

But something stops him. Spencer pauses in his shuffling of papers left over from that morning’s meetings as a thought sticks in the forefront of his mind. Entirely inappropriate, considering the circumstances, but… face flushed red and eyes darting to the phone -- Hotch’s name there above the call time duration -- Spencer licks his lips nervously and asks, anyway. 

“... am I on speaker there?”

“Not yet, I was about to switch you over.”

“Wait! I just --” he pauses, flushing further at his outburst, and he knows his words have gone a little breathless and high and he’s embarrassed by it all but... he has to say it. The development is too shocking, too out of their realm of influence. If and when they had planned on moving up from texts to phone calls, it wouldn’t have gone like this, or have had this much urgency. It’s still the first time Spencer has ever heard Hotch speak, and he can’t ignore how groundbreaking that is. What it’s changing between them, even as they work on a case that requires all their attention.

“-- I really like the sound of your voice,” he admits, his own words quieted because he knows this isn’t the time or the place. “The decibels are soothing, which is so fascinating to me and I’m sure there’s a science behind it, I’ll have to look it up later. And…it’s close to how I pictured you might sound… but better?” God, Spencer never stumbles over words like this and he clears his throat as he tries to righten his composure to something a little less… awestruck. Focus. They have a case. “Will you -- can we talk tonight, too? Please.” 

“Of course,” Hotch says quietly, assuringly, and his voice rumbles through the speaker on the table. Spencer feels it like a shockwave, from shaking breath to numb fingertips. He’s glad he’s leaning against the table, when it happens, because he goes a little lightheaded from it. “You’re… just as I expected.” And there’s a tone there that says it like praise, and Spencer’s heart feels light as air. “We’ll talk more about it later,” Hotch promises, and suddenly Spencer can hear a door opening on the other end of the line and a click of sound as the police station background noise filters through the conference room. “You’re on speaker with my team,” Hotch says, his voice a little bit further away, but not any less stronger for it. “This is Dr. Spencer Reid at CalTech, he’s going to finish the geographical profile for us.”

(tbc...)

[unicorn313]

Ok, so i’m not sure if I have any Norwegian followers here, but this is some info for all the Norwegian Trans people out there. (I realize this might also be interesting for other trans people too). I’m sorry this is so long XD 

Disclaimer: This is only stuff I know from my own experience, feel free to add stuff. As a trans man I don’t really know much about what happens for trans women, but I imagine that steps 1-3 are the same. At the bottom there’s some tips for all.

So, In Norway we have this system where you have to go to the national hospital, which is in Oslo, to get your treatment. The whole prossess to get hormones and surgeries is quite long so I kinda made a step by step list here:

1. You have to talk to a therapist about getting a referral to the national hospital. If you don’t have a therapist already, talk to your doctor and get them to refer you to one. You should tell your doctor why you want that referral, so the therapist knows what to prepare for. 

When the therapist decide that you are mentally stable, i.e. no depression or anxiety, which you unfortunately have to get treated for before you get a referral (This is not them being mean, this is just them making sure that you are in the right state of mind to make this huge decision). When they decide you’re fit, they will send a referral. This might take some time, it took three months for me to get my first appointment. 

2. The second part of the process will at least take a year. About each other month you will have to go to the national hospital (more tips on transport later) to talk to a therapist. These people are trained in their field and work to figure out if you actually are trans or if there is something else that needs to be addressed. They want to figure out if you are totally sure that this is what you want, the hormone treatment we use in Norway have a quick effect and many of the changes are irreversible. 

During this year you should also do a thing called a “real life test”. This is when you live like the gender you feel like for a year to be sure that it is correct. During your first appointment, they will recommend that you change your legal name and pronouns and this is to have a proper real life test. I’m sorry for y’all who have disapproving parents and/or friends, but at this stage it will not be possible to stay fully in the closet if you really want hormones.

To change your name you have to be 18 or need a legal guardian to sign the form. You can do it here: 

https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/folkeregister/endre-navn/?gclid=CjwKCAjwiN_mBRBBEiwA9N-e_nGnR8v0ckBsWTaVYSq8WQ9noxgH4cvKSi_h5CPs_YAa3vBhAxbM1BoCTUUQAvD_BwE 

P.S: You can only change your name once every ten years, so you have to be sure of your new name. You can, however, change it back to your old name any time. 

Here is the link for changing your legal gender, I think the same rules apply:

https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/folkeregister/endre-kjonn/?gclid=CjwKCAjwiN_mBRBBEiwA9N-e_ncJ-WqFQhdkciimMagIMzLosdlX8-ah54nOrIAml8kodAqVpteDpxoCN9AQAvD_BwE

(if the links don’t work, they show up when you google changing your name)

3. When they have decided that yes, you are trans, you get a diagnosis and they put you on the waiting list for hormones. This can take about 6 months, as there are few doctors and high demand (not only trans people, cis people have problems with their hormone balance too) 

You will get an appointment with the hormone doctor and they will take a general look at your body, how much hair you have, amount of pimples, take your blood pressure etc. Then they will tell you what changes you will experience, both the good and the bad. Ex: Men get muscles but can also get a lot of pimples.

About a week later you will have your prescription and you can have your doctor inject it. In Norway (this is for trans men) you get a 4ml shot of testosterone in your buttock. This hurts like a motherf******er but you will be so happy. I promise. The first two will probably be quite close to each other, but normally you take 4 shots a year. Every shot hurts less, but you might have problems sitting the rest of the day. (I spent the day of my first shot sitting on my knees by the dinner table). 

The good thing with 4ml testosterone, is that it’s a lot and it has a quick effect. I started noticing changes in my voice after a month, and now after 1,5 year on it no one doubts that I’m a man. Also, normally you stop getting your period after a month, but be careful because you might still be able to get pregnant. Also, cramps are still a thing.

4. Surgeries. What we all want right? If i remember correctly there is some boring bureaucracy here. You first have to have an information meeting where they tell you all about the different operations. PS: they want you to have a BMI (stupid measurement i know) on under 30 to consider it safe to operate. Then you need another appointment to get referral to the plastic surgeons and the other hospital that takes care of the removal of ovaries.

Waiting time for the removal of your ovaries is about 6 months, while top surgery is about a year after a consultation with the surgeon. Waiting time for bottom surgery is about 2 years after the consultation. 

The reasoning for the waiting time is that you get better results after longer time on hormone treatment, plus there’s high demand. 

When you remove your ovaries it will be on the women’s ward, so it might be triggering but they are really nice over there. Be prepared for it to hurt a bit, I was sure I would be able to go about my life as usual 2 days after, and boy was I wrong. Get ready for laying on your bed for a while. BUT you should be in some activity. Go for a short walk every day when you feel good enough. You will also bleed for a while (don’t be scared if it stops for a few days and then starts again, if you don’t have to change your pad once every hour you’re good), but when you are totally done bleeding you will be free of that struggle for the rest of your life. 

I will have to update when I’m done with the other surgeries, but I’m expecting happiness mixed with pain and discomfort. It will be worth it though, No more binding.

Ok, some other smart tips:

- Traveling to Oslo is expensive, but if you call “Pasientreiser” (find the number on google), they will order plane tickets for you. Make sure to keep your receipts so you can get some refund. This you have to apply for at Helsenorge.no (maybe at minjournal.no if you live on the east coast)  

- Binder: you can get a custom made binder sent to you for free. Ask the people at the hospital. Make sure you take care with selecting the type and doing your measurements, mine didn’t fit as it should. 

- Testosterone: you get a “blue prescription”, which means that you only pay part of the testosterone, which is good cuz that shit be expensive. (You don’t pay for it after getting your freecard)

- Freecard (frikort): In Norway, because we have free healthcare, we only have to pay part of the doctor’s fee. After using about 2500kr in a year, you get a free card, which means that you don’t have to pay the deductible for doctor’s appointments or the hormones. This also applies to appointments with your therapist.

- Under 18: you won’t get a surgery before you turn 18. But if you are a preteen, you might get hormone blockers that will halt your puberty. If you are a parent and you think your kid is trans, take them to a therapist to find out. 

- I overheard someone talking at the waiting room, and I think Trans women can get shampoo that make their hair grow faster. Trans women also have a right to get laser treatment or waxing of their body hairs. Talk to the doctors about this.

I know this seems like a lot of waiting time, and yes it is. But keep in mind that this is for the best, as we both make sure that this is the right choice and the hormones get to be in our system long enough for the surgeries to get good results. You would be surprised to know how fast time passes. Just try to keep yourself occupied with activities. I also recommend working out, if you go online you can find exercises that help your body look more feminine/masculine 

[sportsgeekonomics]

BEWARE THE NCAA OKEY-DOKE on NIL!

I read this article last week  by Dennis Dodd (https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/mark-emmert-open-to-student-athletes-earning-money-off-their-likeness-but-fails-to-recognize-the-urgency/)and it reminded me of something everyone should always remember: BEWARE THE NCAA OKEY-DOKE! 

Dodd quoted Mark Emmert as saying:

 "We've talked to the congressman and tried to understand his position," Emmert said in his annual state of the union address at the Final Four. "There is very likely to be in the coming months even more discussion about the whole notion of name, image and likeness [and] how it fits into the current legal framework.

"Similarly, there needs to be a lot of conversation about how, if it was possible, how it would be practical. Is there a way to make that work? Nobody has been able up with a resolution of that yet."

This is one of the oldest NCAA tricks there is, which is to address something on the surface but not really change.  As an example, look at the SAAC, which is a sort of fake union the NCAA set up to fend off past efforts to unionize college athletes.  Or the Student Assistance Fund, which is designed to provide money to really poor athletes so their lack of proper clothing isn’t an embarrassment to the NCAA or a vehicle for people to argue that athletes deserve to earn what they are worth.  In NCAA logic, if you solve the symptom (athletes have no outlet, athletes have no winter coats) you can avoid solving the problem (athletes have no SAY, athletes have no RIGHT to earn their worth so they can afford a coat).  This is just more of the same.

Here you have Emmert saying they are open to allowing NILs but then claiming to not know how to do it.  Since the basic idea behind NIL rights is pretty simple: stop preventing athletes from signing contracts with endorsers, the "no one knows how” misdirection is a tell that they don’t want to actually give athletes their rights, but instead they would like to give them a sop they can claim is close enough.  I would wager a large chunk of change that the NCAA version of NIL rights would be something like this:

If someone wants to commercialize his/her image, they submit a permission request to an NCAA committee or quasi-independent group (perhaps headed by Condi Rice again) which assesses the market rates for a person with a comparable Q score [and most college athletes will have a very low Q score outside of their college town] and then put a cap on the dollar amount that third party can pay that athlete.  And if it so happens the third party has donated money to the athletes’ school, then it will either be forbidden outright or further curtailed.  

It won’t be a market – it will be a Politburo. 

And the thing is, almost surely, for the vast majority of athletes, the business that would want to tap into their (local) star power to sell products would be the sort of business already sponsoring the sports teams at that school.  The Chevy dealer who wants the offensive linemen to come and pose in front of some pickup trucks looking beefy is already “the Official Truck of the Generic State Football Program.”  The local competitor to muscle milk who gives free product to the basketball team is also the company that wants those muscled basketball players to be in local ads, etc.

My caution is that every time you hear “but what’s the plan?” recognize that it an invitation to move away from the elegance and simplicity of a market into something centrally planned, and moreover that impulse is not designed to improve the system, but rather intentionally to harm it, to delay it, or perhaps even to eradicate it entirely. 

If I can make another prediction, I would wager you will eventually hear an NCAA person say “we want to make sure these are not FAKE NIL payments.”  And if you ask what fake means, they are not worried the business will offer $100 but then not pay, but rather they are worried the business will offer $1,000 when in the NCAA’s mind, $100 was the right amount.  The NCAA is worried about athletes getting too much, not too little.  Becasue in the bizarro world of the NCAA, getting more than the NCAA thinks you should is evidence of you being exploited.  Really.

Stepping out of bizarro world, can you think of a reason why Americans should be worried if a privately owned business decides, based on its own assessments, that paying a celebrity endorser is worth $x to them?  Or that there sshould ever be government or private trade organization intervention to say "no, no, no – that’s too much money to pay that person.  He/she isn’t worth that much-- you mustn’t exploit them by overpaying them.”

Let’s put it this way, if that IS how we want America to work, Mark Emmert is the first person I want this new system to scrutinize.

What they mean by fake is “we are worried that the NIL payments will function as a bundled payment for NIL and also playing services, since a lot of the sponsorship will come from people whose goal is not just to sell product but also to make their local team better.”

First off, as someone who believes that by and large and with limited exceptions (e.g., human organs), markets are the best means of allocating scarce resources, why should anyone care even if the goal is to make the local team better.   Every local car deal with a connection to a university will want to do that and if Alabama’s boosters care more than Troy’s boosters, then Alabama will have a better team (like that do now) and higher NIL earnings (like they don’t know).  The only difference will be the earnings of the young men and the taxes they pay the State of Alabama and the IRS.  I could on a long jag about how, no this won’t hurt competitive balance by making Alabama better than Troy, but I’ve done that before and you can read it all here: https://deadspin.com/the-competitive-balance-argument-against-paying-athlete-1576638830.

 But as an economist whose very first published paper was on valuing intangible IP (it’s about how to figure out the right real-world price for an imaginary sword in a computer game: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxM4wdtZ5uI-enRJZE5qTjFCVVk/view?usp=sharing ), I can assure you that any purchase/licensing of intangible IP rights like NIL is always a bundled purchase.  To the local car dealer in Tuscaloosa, of course the NIL rights of an offensive lineman are greater if he attends Alabama than if he goes to Troy.  And so if any local booster is seen trying as trying to improve Alabama football via NIL payments, I would argue that that’s just good business.  Is he going to sell more cars when he is sponsoring Alabama football and using a star recruit in his ads if Alabama goes 11-1 or 8-4?  And so any claim that someone on some committee can assess what portion of a free market offer between a willing buyer and a willing seller is “real” vs. “fake” that cannot assess the value of the athletes playing skill as part of “real” is not going to capture the full value.  Especially for athletes, where their skill is so inherently part of their commercial appeal (with a limited number of exceptions for athletes of rare charisma or physical beauty), how could an NCAA committee ever disentangle the complex economics of commercial appeal of a celebrity from the complex economics of the utilitarian value of an athlete to a team.

So (1)  it’s a fool’s errand even for a wise council aimed at the truth.

Amd (2) I doubt the NCAA’s goal is the truth so much as simply to depress payments b/c they fear if their athletes win the right to a market rate for their NIL they might start asking for the rest of their rights too.

And (3), why would we even want to interfere with the world’s best assessor of true market value – a vibrant market with many buyers and many sellers, operating without collusion among either side of the transaction?

If we need a plan to get the NCAA on board, I propose we use the plan that is already in place for figuring out how much of every school’s head coach’s radio gig is a payment for his radio charisma vs. a payment based on his coaching skills.  We should use that exact same plan for the athletes.  After all, we can tap into that same bureaucracy the NCAA uses to assess market offers for coaches and to separate out the real from the fake payments.

What’s that?  There is no plan to do that, we just let schools and radio shows and coaches negotiate in a marketplace?  Exactly!  And that’s also how much plan we need for the equivalent transactions for athletes.

As some people reading this know, I am part of a group trying to create a professional college basketball league, the HBL  (HBLeague.com).  We have a plan for how our athletes will be allowed to commercialize their NIL, and at core our extremely complex system boils down to: "you own your brand.  Go get an agent and make some money.”

Now it’s a tad more complex if they want to use HBL trademarks in the ad or get a group license with dozens of other players, etc., but even those complexities are easily solved.  For example, the NBA and the NFL and pretty much every professional team sport has sorted all of those rules out and it is a wheel the HBL did not need to reinvent, so we didn’t.  The only reason the NCAA doesn’t feel it can borrow from the existing solutions for how athletes can use their rights to maximize their brand value– and listen carefully – is because the NCAA DOES NOT WANT Athletes to maximize their brand value.  To the NCAA, the problem isn’t that a market WON’T determine the optimal payment level for each athlete, but that it WILL.  And that’s the last thing the NCAA wants because the NCAA is built on the idea that it can abrogate athletes rights for its own convenience and economic gain.

 This is not really about the amount of money, rather it is about economic rights.  If America is fine with a radio show providing “fake” salary to a football coach for doing a weekly radio show, as a way to supplement his income beyond what a state entity like a university can pay, then it should not be good public policy to take that same right away from the starting QB.  The QB is not less of an American than the coach.  And the system that works for the coach will work just as well for the QB.  Or else, as I said above, let’s start with Mark Emmert.  Let’s put the microscope on what the head of a non-profit organization based in Indianapolis should earn if we separate out the fake parts of his pay from the real.  I’d be happy to serve on that particular committee.  Heck, I’d do it for free, for the love of the game.

[withinthescripts]

Season 2, Cassette 3: El Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (1974)

[tape recorder turns on]

Welcome to El Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Lima. My name is Caty Velasquez, and I am the curator of our current exhibition, “Cityscapes in Modern Art”. We have collected work from a range from all over the world, with help from several of our partner galleries. Included in the collection are three pieces by Claudia Atieno, including one on loan from the private collection of Atieno’s close personal friend and artistic contemporary, Roimata Mangakāhia. We are grateful for Roimata’s contribution to this collection, which she makes in addition to giving us insight into Atieno’s featured works on this audio guide. We are honored to have Mangakāhia’s insight into the once famous, now mysterious Atieno, who has been missing for over two years. The controversy over her disappearance has generated speculation, ranging from the plausible to the conspiratorial. The opinions expressed in this audio guide are those of the narrator alone.

You can find the works discussed here on the east wall of Room 2. For tapes discussing the other work included in this exhibition, please see the front desk.

[bell chimes]

It is impossible to discuss Claudia Atieno’s cityscapes without discussing her politics. Which is difficult, as she herself never discusses them with anyone. There is little ground for speculation about what her politics are, or what they were perhaps. The most we have to go on is her art. And she contradicts herself there frequently.

It’s possible to argue that her near constant rudeness to any government officials demonstrates feelings of antagonism, or even opposition to the society. But I’m not sure. It is true she was often rude. But this could as much be because of frustrations with bureaucracy as secret thoughts of rebellion.

Atieno sketches cities frequently. It’s possible that the ideas expressed in these three paintings were often on her mind. But she rarely committed them to canvas. The cities Atieno chose to explore fully always seemed to be those in a state of transition. It’s possible she’s less interested in cities themselves as she is in change, in adaptation and movement, whether for good or ill.

Of course there have been plenty of alterations and transitions during her lifetime, many more than these three included here. She must have had reasons to depict the three scenes she did. But as she is currently absent from the known world, hopefully not for sinister reasons although some seem to take a strange delight in spreading rumors, it’s up to teach of us to try and decide for what her reasons might have been.

[bell chimes]

One. “A Palace Removed”.

With the removal of nations in 1952, came the removal of the semblance of nations in the years that followed. Flags were destroyed, anthems forgotten, and vast buildings meant as much to give status to governing powers as to serve a practical purpose were demolished. There was preservation, of course, when the buildings in question were seen as having cultural significance outside of their nationalist roles, but often this included the careful moving of the building in question to a more remote area, where its presence would no longer inhibit the development of a more practical, necessary building.

Buckingham Palace, by this time more a symbol than a useful building and taking up valuable mid-city space, was carefully taken apart to be reassembled in Somerset as a museum to the history of former England. This process began in 1959 and took 18 months to complete, and in that time the once grand and revered palace became a shell and was taken away, brick by brick, until it was an empty space. And then a new complex of affordable housing, shops and office spaces was constructed in its place.

Atieno’s painting depicts the palace almost halfway through being dismantled. It is not particularly true to life. Indeed, it is close to full fantasy. Look at the demolition crew, each carrying with graceful ease upwards of half a dozen blocks on their backs. These stone blocks are almost 50 centimeters wide, and nearly as thick. Examine the crew member on the lower left. Their unnaturally wide smile. The sharp angle of their back.

How much can you carry on your back? How much do you smile when you do it?

In addition, the interior of the palace was stripped in the beginning of the process, in order to prevent looting and damage to invaluable artifacts. Atiano, however, recreated the rich décor in the half-undone building. Lash red carpets, stretched across the exposed floors, and lavishly upholstered furniture stands in its place. There are even ornate vases on rare marble pedestals, next to broken walls and wrecking balls.

Notice the shadows across each room. They appear at first to be simply cast by the cranes that surround the building, or by the clouds that scutter along the sky above. But if you look closely, these shadows appear almost humanlike, ghostly figures left behind.

Do you see the ballroom on the right side of the painting? Which monarch’s shadow do you think is represented here? One of the Henrys? [whispering] Victoria herself? Or perhaps it is of the, at the time, still living George the sixth, the last monarch of the Commonwealth, not a ghost at all, but an incorporeal symbol of a new powerless vigor.

It’s possible to interpret this is Atieno’s sympathy for the displaced monarchs, or regret over the loss of national borders and national identity. Many historians mistake Atieno’s criticism of the new society for cultural conservatism. Alphra Bond of the times called “The Palace Removed” [mocking voice] “facetious slander. Atieno wants to preserve history and culture, but not a the cost of progress and peace,” Bond wrote. I have trouble picturing this is as being the case. Claudia had little respect for personal ownership of anything, whether a palace or a paintbrush. Indeed, I often found her to have considered my paint brushes as her won, even when they were propped beside –my- easle, still wet with paint. She saw no sense in anything, if that thing was not going to be shared.

So regretting the loss of a lavish palace inhabited by one family seems to me unlikely for her. Claudia told me a story of inviting Bond to a gathering at her home in Cornwall. When Bond arrived, the entire party was wearing masks and silently staring at her. She tried to start several conversations, but upon realizing the futility of the endeavor, Bond drank a glass of champagne, ate a cucumber sandwich, and left calmly.

I believe that the shadows in this painting represent the future, not the past at all. The people who would find use and life and joy in the space left by the building. The ghostly figures belong to the people who right now [whispering] are living and breathing within the new walls that arose to replace those taken down.

Or of course, it could mean both those things, or neither. It’s possible Claudia simply saw it as an image she liked and adapted it to suit her fancy. Perhaps I shall ask her about it, when she – resurfaces.

[bell chimes] [tape recorder turns off] [ads] [tape recorder turns on]

Two. “The Parade in Paris”.

The wistfulness of a palace removed moves to strange melancholy in “Parade in Paris”. Paris did not look much like a city at all after the Great Reckoning, obviously, as so much of it has been destroyed or repurposed for military use. I am not sure whether the scene depicted in this work ever took place. Or if it did, whether Atieno was actually there or simply heard about it later. I don’t know how soon after the wars it’s meant to be or how far into the implementation of the new society, but perhaps it does not matter.

The scece shows a city broken. It is being rebuilt. There are cranes everywhere, and even one or two completed new buildings. But there is still, at this stage, more loss than renewal. Paris in the midst of the impossible task of civic resurrection. And along the streets, we can see a ramshackle, unofficial parade. Notice that the parade doesn’t have floats or balloons or a marching band, it is simply made up of people walking. Ostensibly, this is about citizens who own nothing, celebrating at the end of the Reckoning. They cannot afford music nor décor, but a parade is simply a momentous movement of people through a town. It is easy to look at the gathering and see the optimistic determination of humankind.

Look at the faces of those in the parade. Are they optimistic? Are you?

But the triumph of humanity is not Atieno’s story here. Look again at the parade. It is made of people, yes, but more specifically what kind of people? Do you see each man and each woman? Do you see their uniforms, their vests? They’re stopping work to march, perhaps it’s a strike. But there’s still plenty of workers doing their jobs. Look closer. Do you see their children? It’s a parade of families. There is no reason for them to be there. They’re not protesting anything, they’re not celebrating anything. Unless they’re simply celebrating their own existence. Unless they’re protesting the hardships contained within it.

Atieno released this painting in 1968, but I believe she painted it much earlier. The painting is full of families, and the families are full of joy. And though they don’t appear to realize it themselves, they’re walking towards a future with no families in them at all.

There are a lot of things Claudia could be saying here, of course. She could be deriding the implementation of a society that ignored the concept of family in the favor of universal peace. She could be acknowledging that there is a joy and unity in the midst of destruction. As it happens, I have a fairly strong opinion about this painting, although it’s not one that I can support particularly well with evidence. I think the painting is a farewell.

Claudia was not made to forget her parents and her siblings, as those of us born a few years later than her were. She has to leave them and relearn what they had taught her. She had to divest herself of that family loyalty and become part of a bigger world. But it turns out loyalty can linger in ways we don’t expect.

I like this painting. This is a painting [whispering] I like.

[bell chimes]

Three. “The Arising”.

Both the London cityscape and the Paris one deal in destruction. Although the view of Paris includes aspects of rebuilding and therefore renewal, they serve more to highlight the remaining destruction and loss that surrounds them.

“The Arising” looks at what was newly created in the changing landscape of society. It shows a street in Kota Tua, Jakarta, probably in the early 1960’s. Atieno visited the former Dutch East Indies with a mutual friends of ours, the artist Cassandra Resa. They traveled extensively together for a time.

The painting is simple at first glance. See how the street, while mostly empty, has been rebuilt from scratch with a specific purpose in mind. Low buildings line the street with an open grassy square about a third of the way down. The buildings are new. The square is carefully planned and cultivated.

Look at the children in it, playing together with hoops and balls. Some of them are reading. Some are sitting on the ground talking. What books are they reading? What are the children talking about?   You know, but you have been made to forget.

The complex depicted in Atieno’s painting set up on the abandoned street in Kota Tua was one of the first collective homes set up. You can see the caretakers dotted around. The children, of course, are all under ten. Once they’re ten, they’ll be set on the path towards adulthood, leaving behind every memory they made in this place.

It is a picture of innocence, but there is a darkness to it. look at the adults around the edge of the park, their backs stiff, arms straight, faces almost without features. Do you feel a sense of tightly wound control?

I only met Cassandra Resa once or twice when Claudia was there. I don’t know if Claudia knew that I’d kept in touch with Cassandra. That I’d even stayed with her once, at her home in Nicosia.

Cassandra has a large studio full of work that the public has never seen. Some of it was unfinished, some of it was barely started. I looked through it once. I don’t know if Cassandra knew that I saw that painting, the one of the street in Kota Tua, Jakarta, with the new buildings, with the square, with the children and caretakers and innocence stained by control. It was her painting. It was different than the one you are looking at now. Notice the children in the public park and the adults standing like prison bars around its perimeter. Cassandra’s painting had none of this ominous political subtext, it was a celebration of rebirth, of a ne world. It was beautiful and inspiring, and I hoped the world would see it some day. But I doubt Cassandra could prove at this point that she painted hers first. I can’t prove that either, but I know. All of us in Claudia’s life knew. In retrospect, I wasn’t surprised to find that painting. Honestly I would have been more surprised not to. I didn’t tell Claudia, I never told Claudia. I didn’t tell Cassandra, either. I don’t know what I thought Claudia would do if I told her what I had seen. Maybe she would have demanded that I acknowledge her painting to be the better of the two, anyway. Maybe she would have pretended not to understand. Maybe she would have – thrown something.

Maybe she’ll object to this if I ever see her again. I suppose I should say –when- I see her again. I’m sure we will have words if I see her again, but Claudia didn’t hold grudges. Doesn’t hold grudges. I’m trying to remember to use present tense. Didn’t hold grudges, doesn’t hold grudges. Uh uh, Claudia is, not was.

Claudia doesn’t hold grudges, but others do. [whispers] Present tense, Roimata. Present tense.

OK yeah, we’re done.

[tape recorder turns off]

Within the Wires is written by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson and performed by Rima Te Wiata, with original music by Mary Epworth. Find more of Mary’s music at maryepworth.com. the voice of Caty Velasques was Anairis Quinones.

And if you haven’t already, go to withinthewires.com and fill out our audience survey. It’s a brief thing and it only helps us with advertisers, it’s a great way for free to support our show.

Within the Wires is a production of Night Vale presents. Check out our other podcasts, like Welcome to Night Vale and Conversations with People who Hate Me, and our newest podcasts starting this month, It Makes a Sound and I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats.

OK, our time is done. It’s your time now. Time to stop by the museum giftshop, grab yourself a souvenir book of paintings about paintings about paintings. Pick up a poster featuring your Mom  and buy a commemorative vase made out of weird Twitter jokes.

-- Hey, thanks for listening to episode 3 of Within the Wires. Stay tuned right now of the pilot episode of Night Vale Presents’ newest fiction podcasts, It Makes a Sound, by Jacquelyn Landgraf. You can subscribe at Apple podcast, or wherever it is you get your podcasts.

You can read the transcript at https://itmakesasoundtranscripts.tumblr.com/post/165879604217/episode-1-are-you-listening

[rilenerocks]

November, 2014

Michael had a cyst on his eyelid which was drained by our eye doctor. He also had a visit with the dermatologist who observed some odd tissue on the crown of his head and performed a biopsy which showed precancerous cells. She asked him to return in December for a second look. Hyper vigilance continues.

We welcomed Thanksgiving with stunned gratitude. After the 2013 holiday, we thought we’d spent our last favorite family holiday together. That previous November, we’d been told that Michael’s Merkel cell cancer had returned, scattered throughout his bones, and that absent treatment, his prognosis was 2-3 months. With treatment, perhaps he’d have a year. And here we were, past that year with the family gathering again in our home. Michael had weathered his chemo well but despite that, we knew that the cancer, which had been undetectable for 4 months, was now visible again in a few spots on his skeleton. Thus far, he remained asymptomatic. We’d managed to take a few special trips and were doing pretty well at living mindfully. But we were also tired and stressed. The anxiety of living from scan to scan had worn both of us down. Life outside Michael’s cancer hadn’t stopped either. My mother, aged 91, was now showing signs of dementia. Her life in assisted living was getting harder to manage as she regularly confused her medications, causing dizzying symptoms. She was also having wild diabetic episodes which required frequent trips to the ER. My sister and I were trying to manage her problems together, but as her power of attorney for health care, I needed to be present much of the time. I resented having to be away from home at all when Michael was struggling with the disappointment of his scan. In the midst of everything, I was reminded of what I’d learned as a much younger woman – during times of crisis it’s likely that people will become more like themselves rather than developing new and better responses to stress. That certainly applied to both Michael and me. When the family dispersed, he went into a dark, irritable space. Facing his mortality every day was wearing on him and withdrawal was one of his go-to life management techniques. Mine was to begin probing and pushing, getting it all out on the table, aggressively trying to dissect every feeling and every thought. Michael had frequently said drily throughout our lives, “would you mind removing your feet from my back?” Yes. I was usually impatiently stamping my feet at the finish line before Michael got out of the blocks. In the best of times we tolerated each other’s differences pretty well. These however, were not the best of times. Being angry and alienated from each other is truly a dreadful feeling when you know that time is so limited by disease. Neither one of us could allow too many days to pass before limping back to each other, trying to find our common ground so we could reunite and face whatever was coming next. There’s no manual for dealing with terminal illness. We just kept going, trying to manage ourselves and our relationship in the best possible way.

December, 2014 was an intense month. Michael went back to the dermatologist who destroyed more tissue on the top of his head with liquid nitrogen. My mother continued to deteriorate both mentally and physically. She was in and out of the hospital every few weeks. I realized that assisted living was about to become a thing of the past. In two years she’d gone from living with me to the partial care facility – now she seemed destined for a nursing home.

Meanwhile Michael had his December scan. Not only had the three spots which were radiated failed to respond but there were two new ones. He was still pain-free but we knew he needed to get some systemic treatment before the cancer became more widespread. I had sent out a dozen inquiries to researchers across the country who all felt like Michael’s best bet was the clinical trial for a PD-1 inhibitor rather than the possibility of using Tarceva and Zometa which might affect one of the mutations in his tumor tissue. A branch of that PD-1 trial was starting in January at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, only a few hours away from home. We were desperate for him to get approved for that before there was a decline in his overall physical condition. The learning curve about clinical trials was steep. In our naïveté, we thought having a proven incurable disease targeted by the experimental therapy was enough to qualify. Instead there were rigorous standards involving previous treatments, blood count levels and in Michael’s case, what was the most challenging – evidence of measurable disease. We found out that bone metastases were not considered measurable disease; rather there needed to be soft tissue that could sized for potential shrinkage from the treatment. I still can’t understand the narrow parameters of a trial to treat a rare and incurable disease. However, our local radiation oncologist informed us that the scans he used to develop his radiation plan for those first three recurrent cancer spots showed soft tissue involvement along Michael’s rib. He gave us copies of those scans with the rib area highlighted. We managed to get an appointment to see the principal investigator for the St. Louis trial in mid-January.

In late December, we ran off to Starved Rock for a brief two day vacation, keeping up with the tradition we’d practiced for years. I left town with my mom still in the hospital. I was exhausted from trying to deal with the logistics of her life and the bureaucracy of both her health insurance and the assisted living home. I was also exploring our own health insurance for the drugs Michael would need if he didn’t get into the trial. Our trip had a forced element to it although it was better than not going. When we returned, my mom was too ill to be anywhere but a nursing home.

December 26, 2014

Dorothy to the nursing home today. Dismal, depressing and a bitter end. I always said I’d never put my mother in a nursing home but I actually did it. Who can ever really know what they will or won’t do? Life is full of unpredictable and unimaginable changes. Those who can’t adapt belong on the losing side of natural selection. But the strong ones who survive are mutated. I am mutated. Some days I am unrecognizable to myself. Is there any girl left in me? Am I completely brittle from my experiences? Where are the soft unprotected innocent spaces? Can I find some velvety smooth place to nestle in for just a few minutes?

Our family went out for New Year’s Eve dinner as we did every year. We’d started 2014 in terror and were ending it only slightly less fearful. By January 5th, Michael started feeling pain in his hip at the site of one of the lesions which had shown up on his scan. A few days later we were frantically packing up my mom’s apartment as the assisted living facility wanted it available for a new renter. We were hoping that Merkel Cell would, as our Dr. Luyun had stated, remain at least a little indolent for another week or so as Michael’s intake appointment for the immunological PD-1 trial was looming at the cancer center at Barnes in St. Louis. With no systemic cancer treatment since March of 2014, we were certain that the slow insidious return of disease could soon escalate. We tried to stay optimistic, hoping that entry into the trial was imminent and that this new immunological drug, soon to called Avelumab, would have more benign effects than Tarceva or another chemo. Michael already needed a narcotic for the new pain. We were teetering on the edge of a cancer abyss.

On a glittering cold and sunny January morning we drove off to St. Louis. We carried the scans from Dr. Stanic, where he’d clearly marked and measured the soft tissue along the rib which was mandatory for entry into the trial. The Siteman Cancer center was huge, gleaming and bustling with activity.

We were ushered into an intake office where Michael filled out the application and waiver documents required by the trial. The principal investigator’s nurse, Joann, unfortunately reminded us a bit of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, although she was actually more brusque. She did a cursory vitals exam and quickly got a blood draw. We mentioned that we were concerned about Michael’s low platelet issues. She said, “oh that’s no big deal – you can just get an infusion before your treatment.” We stared at her, dumbfounded. That didn’t sound much like what the protocols said. Within a few minutes we met the doctor, Gerald Linette who went rapidly over the documents and then surprised us by already having the blood test results. They showed that all Michael’s counts were adequate for the trial. Things evidently moved much faster at this large cancer facility than at our community center at home. We felt relieved and hopeful. Although this very different atmosphere was somewhat antiseptic and cold, all we really cared about was getting into the trial. We handed Linette our scan copies. He quickly informed us that Michael would be scanned on-site and that only their local results would be considered as opposed to those done on off-campus equipment. He ordered the scan and said we’d be informed of his decision as soon as the results were read by a radiologist. Michael was in and out of the test within minutes and suddenly we were on our way back home. We were mid-way through our return trip when Joann called and informed us that the Barnes scan showed only 2 sites of active cancer versus the 5 on our local scan. In addition, there was no sign of soft tissue involvement. I started arguing with her because she was being so dismissive. She cut me off and said abruptly, “Michael needs to go home and get sicker. Have him scanned every two months and call us back when things get worse.” And that was that. We were so disappointed, angry and frightened. With this avenue closed off, all we had left was the Tarceva/Zometa combination or another line of chemo. Either an untested choice or a choice we knew wouldn’t do much. The Tarceva was incredibly expensive and we needed to get insurance approval before we could begin that regimen.

The advent of pain into Michael’s life changed everything. Prior to the end of his remission, the only pain he’d ever suffered from illness was a byproduct of radiation treatment. Almost three years from his initial diagnosis, he was hugely fortunate that Merkel cell had thus far been a mysterious abstraction that he knew was inside him. Now it made its presence known round the clock. His need for pain medication became a complicating issue. The meds caused stomach problems. They didn’t really provide thorough coverage so pain woke him at night causing fatigue and mental fogginess. In addition, there was no way to pretend that he was okay, even for a short time. Although we’d been looking at the possibility of death for more than a year, the physical symptoms made things much harder psychologically. We tried to continue making the most out of every day but we had dark times, both alone and together.

We went about the business of getting Tarceva approved by insurance. Tarceva was an oral medication and the adjuvant Zometa was administered by infusion. By the first week of February, Michael began this experimental treatment, hoping that it would target the primary genetic mutation in his cancer cells and halt disease progression.

After only a few days on this protocol, side effects hit with a vengeance. Michael developed an angry pustular rash on his face, chest and the back of his neck.

He developed new pain which now involved both hips. We saw the radiation oncologist who zapped the first three spots of the returned cancer and he suggested that some of the pain might be attributable to arthritis. I was baffled by this suggestion as Michael had been through the pain of herniated disks in his life and never was as uncomfortable as he was in these moments.

He became very quiet, sighing a lot and saying he was trying to find his balance. On occasion he’d go back to teaching as a guest speaker, trying to feel like there was life outside cancer. I worried a lot about his being exposed to a broad community of germs but he needed to go there to stay sane. We’d always had differences about how much validation we got from external sources. So off he went while he could while I fussed away internally.

Within two weeks, the side effects went from bad to so bad that treatment needed to be stopped. His blood showed elevated liver enzymes and his dreadful rash covered his head and entire torso. He developed jaw and esophageal spasms, bloat and acid stomach. He grew so weak he could barely get out of bed. What a rapid and stunning reversal from the relative good health he’d maintained for so long. In addition, his pain was increasingly breaking through his meds. I found myself in the unenviable role of advocate and chief nag. Michael had little appetite and not much thirst. I knew that not eating and drinking would compound all the other issues. So it was up to me to push and prod, all day and all night, counting calories and ounces and driving my beloved husband crazy. Obviously I didn’t want this miserable job. But Michael wanted to stay alive and if he couldn’t manage his basic care, I would. Basically this failed treatment sapped his energy. He was prone day and night which only made him feel worse. Dr. Luyun suggested Michael try what was considered an “old people’s” antidepressant, Remeron. Its primary side effect was increased appetite and weight gain. At that point, anything was worth a try. By mid-February, Michael was like a shadow. Exhausted, in pain and spending lots of time sleeping. We set up appointments for X-rays to see if anything new would show up in his sore hips.

Meanwhile, at the crown of his scalp where he’d had the biopsy and the liquid nitrogen treatment, there was a peculiar lump growing. At first, the doctors thought it was a keloid and then perhaps a cyst. It was scaly, about 3/4 inches tall and seemed spongy. Dr. Luyun recommended removal. When Michael saw the dermatologist, she felt it would be better to have the head and neck cancer surgeon remove it because of its size. Our original surgeon had moved away so we went to the young woman he’d suggested. We saw her and she scheduled an outpatient surgery. That morning, I sat in the waiting room waiting for someone to call me back to see Michael in recovery. After awhile, I realized too much time was passing. I went to the receptionist who managed to send a patient liaison to talk with me. She informed me that the surgeon was sending one frozen section after another to a hospital pathologist. I immediately realized that the growth was a Merkel cell that had gotten by all the doctors. My heart literally sank into my gut. How could I tell Michael that what we thought was an innocuous cyst was cancer? Even worse was realizing that this growth, which had been present, albeit smaller, since December, was actually on his head when we’d gone to Barnes to try getting into the trial. He’d had the trial-precluding soft tissue component for months. And indeed, he’d gotten so much sicker that his liver enzymes would disqualify him from the trial at this point.

When the young surgeon came to speak to me I could see she was totally shaken. She’d had to cut almost to his skull before she found a clean margin with no cancer cells. She was barely able to seal his incision which had a large yellow bolster pressed down against it that would need cleaning while it stayed in place until skin regenerated.

I felt devastated. I pulled myself together for Michael’s sake but this trajectory, coupled with my mother failing in the nursing home, was a gigantic weight, so much to carry.

February 27th, 2015

How did this happen? In January, his scans were stable. What’s happening now? I feel so defeated. Where do we go from here? How much time is left? When my eyes pop open in the morning, my brain is instant tumult, running possibilities, turning flips, the pace so rapid that I am breathless. I continue to cast around for alternatives. I am so lonely.

        I have been sitting on this for awhile, anxious about writing on tough topics during the pandemic and now the social unrest around the world. But I promised myself I’d tell my husband’s story after he died and I’m going to do it. This is part of a series-I’m re-publishing this piece which will be immediately followed by part 2. Thank you. November, 2014 Michael had a cyst on his eyelid which was drained by our eye doctor. He also had a visit with the dermatologist who observed some odd tissue on the crown of his head and performed a biopsy which showed precancerous cells.

[gosatsuvns]

Weekly Update #280 - 2019 Retrospect

This year has been a rather eventful one. A lot of things have happened and there have been some pretty big changes in my private life, which inevitably affected the development of our current visual novel project, the murder mystery GENBA no Kizuna.

Overall, I am happy with where I am right now, but there were quite some obstacles to face along the road, especially during the second half of the year. But let's start at the beginning and do a little recap of what we have accomplished over the past 12 months, because even though I wasn't able to reach all the goals I was aiming for, I am still proud of the progress we have made on GENBA!

Sprite Work:

The first couple of months were spent working on the assets for our extended demo. Half of the characters appearing in it didn't have any sprites yet and it took some time to lock down their poses, expressions and, in Terano's case, even the design.

Finishing these sprites marked a major step forward, though. Even for SHINRAI, it took more than half a year to complete the sprites for all major characters, which was rather discouraging, because it felt as though we were not making any real headway. Once they were finally done, however, there was a lot less to worry about and the same is true for GENBA as well.

With a broad range of emotions for all characters at our disposal now, sprite work should go a lot smoother from here on out!

We will definitely need to create more sprite variations for later scenes in the game, but it's just a matter of changing an expression or adjusting the position of a limb now. The hardest part was to get the base sprite right, because that is going to be the base for all future pose variations. Development already takes too much time as it is, so I can't afford to draw various, completely different poses for all characters. Just like with SHINRAI, we had to stick to one basic body posture per character, which required a good grasp on all the poses/expressions they will display throughout the entire story, and pick the base postures accordingly.

As you might imagine, this was a very time-consuming process, but with this out of the way, we can now speed things up a bit!

Polish:

The sprites obviously weren't all we had to worry about. A lot of time was also spent working on backgrounds, CGs and making tons of tiny tweaks to the overall presentation of the game. We really took the feedback to our initial demo to heart and adjusted GENBA accordingly. So I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who played our demos and even took the time to leave us their impressions and suggestions. This really helps us out a lot, because as a developer, you can easily become blind to certain issues. Sometimes, it takes a fresh perspective to point them out.

Delays:

Originally scheduled to be released in April and then during Jurassic June, the release of our extended demo had to be pushed back quite a couple of months. One of the biggest reasons for that is that (compared to the time when I was still working on SHINRAI) the time I can commit to VN development now has essentially been cut in half.

In January, I started looking for a day job, because one little indie VN obviously isn't enough to live off of. The first four months of the year were spent looking for offerings and writing countless applications. That alone took quite a bit of time away, but in May, I finally managed to get a job, which I have now been working ever since. Although it is only part-time, I still lose around 8 hours per day, which I could previously spend working on our projects, due to commuting.

On the bright side, this now provides me with a lot of additional funds that I plan to invest into our VN dev endeavors, and the job itself honestly isn't all that bad, either. I feel pretty lucky, actually. Nevertheless, this is a major reason development started to drag...

Extended Demo Release:

On the 26th of August, the very day SHINRAI was originally released in 2016, we finally unveiled our extended GENBA demo to the public. Despite the delays, I am happy with not only the result, but even the feedback we have gotten so far.

This was definitely one of my personal highlights this year. Although it's only a demo, providing about a fifth of the full game, it still felt almost as good as releasing a finished product. That feeling, coupled with the demo's reception, really fueled my passion and desire to get this game fully done ASAP. I had some pretty big goals set for the remainder of 2019. Mainly to finish writing the entire script. However, as I alluded to during the opening paragraphs, the second half of this year turned into kind of a mess...

Unexpected Roadblocks:

It actually started in July already, when we had an issue with the water tank in this house. I don't really want to bore you with all the details, but as a result, we were hit with a need for emergency renovations starting in mid August. Rooms had to be emptied out and various companies had to come by to renew floors and walls. It was a long, very work-intensive process and even by November, we were still cleaning up, buying new furniture and generally trying to go back to having a normal life "orz

Unfortunately, all of this happened right when Kuna, the mastermind behind the romance/mystery visual novel Pitch Black Serenade, finally moved to Germany, so we could start living together. And as some of you might know, we even got married on October 16!

As nice as the extended demo release was, this was easily the best day of the year (if not my whole life) for me! w

However, even though we had started planning all of this many months in advance, a lot of major last minute obstacles were suddenly thrown in our way, and I'm not just talking about those renovations. This could be an entire essay on its own and I'm already feeling the anger swelling up inside of me, just thinking about it again. So let me just sum it up in one word: bureaucracy.

In the end, everything worked out well and we spent a beautiful day together, so that's all that matters. But needless to say, there was a lot of stress and frustration involved. So much in fact, that it severely affected my health. Ever since August, I've been dealing with all sorts of stress-related issues. All of this together really made it difficult to focus on VN development and devote a lot of time to it.

As a result, I barely managed to reach any of my goals for the second half of the year. Development got stalled even more than during the first half, but at the very least, I'm finally getting back to not just a normal life, but a much better one, now that I can spend it with Kuna. Our ultimate goal is to eventually work on something together, and we're going to take the first steps towards that in 2020!

What Lies Ahead:

Like I said, in the end, I'm proud with what we have accomplished, but part of me feels very disgruntled about the lack of significant progress this year. I managed to get a lot of work on the script done, and even on some of the new assets, which will be needed for the next chapter, but it's far from what I original had in mind.

Guess I'm gonna have to use this feeling of dissatisfaction as fuel to make a lot more progress on GENBA next year. As a matter of fact, I am hell-bent and extremely motivated to accomplish quite a few things, but I guess that will be the topic for next week's blog post, when I will share my plans for the new year!

Speaking of which, for now, I just want to get the New Year's artwork done and chill out a bit more, enjoying the final days of 2019.

I'm also trying to be a bit more active on social media again, which is another thing I barely had time for during the last few months. Even though we added Instagram and even Discord to our repertoire this year (I really need to promote the latter some more)...

Anyway, that more or less wraps up my summary of 2019. At first glance, it was kind of a mixed year. However, despite the setbacks, I will always look back on it fondly, because the positives far outweigh the negatives. So let's make sure the same will be true for 2020 as well! We're not just starting a new year, but a whole new decade, so let's put some extra effort into it and work really hard!

But for now, please enjoy the rest of 2019 yourself and have a safe transition into 2020! Take care and see you next year! :3

PS: don't forget that SHINRAI is still on sale until January 2!

[thecloudlight-blog]

New Post has been published on Cloudlight

New Post has been published on https://cloudlight.biz/former-u-s-mental-health-chief-leaves-google/

Former U.S. Mental Health Chief Leaves Google

Sixteen months after leaving the USA National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) for Google’s health sciences division, psychiatrist Tom Insel is the move again. The former NIMH director, who left Google on May five, is beginning his own employer. Insel’s organization, referred to as Mindstrong will try to infer a person’s intellectual-health repute by using analyzing the manner they use smartphones.

Insel stepped down as NIMH director in December 2015 which will begin a mental-health software called Verily inside Google’s Life Sciences group. One of the department’s desires overlaps with that of Mindstrong’s: Verily intends to build tools, that could consist of phone apps or PC packages, that can recognize characteristics of intellectual contamination the usage of a method called “virtual phenotyping”.

The method analyses elements which include a consumer

Word desire in conversation, voice styles when speaking to digital assistants, their physical movements and vicinity records to determine their state of mind. If a telephone could apprehend when its proprietor became feeling suicidal, for instance, it may doubtlessly interfere by means of imparting assets or alerting others.

Insel says that Mindstrong takes a comparable approach to accumulating mental-fitness information. The organization’s co-founders encompass Richard Klausner, a former director of America National Cancer Institute, and Paul Dagum, who holds patents on at least three digital phenotyping methods. They verify cognitive function — which will be impaired in disorders like Alzheimer’s ailment — from features along with misspellings and the duration of time among keystrokes, in keeping with the Mindstrong internet site.

A Former Missionary Finds God

David Flood and Aggie Hurst’s story of redemption is an image of endless grace that has captured hearts for decades. In the early 1900’s David and Svea Flood entered the venture field in Africa. Another missionary couple joined them. After little fulfillment at attaining the humans around them, the alternative missionary couple gave up and lower back domestic. The simplest contact the Flood’s had become a little boy who offered fruit.

Svea Flood gave start on the task discipline to a daughter, however, died from malaria quickly thereafter. It turned into then that David gave up as properly, gave up the challenge field, gave up his religion, and gave up his new child daughter. Feeling deserted by using God, he left the infant on the project station and again to his home, damaged hearted. The human beings that followed her named her Aggie.

For so long as Aggie Hurst had been alive

Her father David Flood had remained on the opposite side of the ocean, ignoring her tries at reconciliation. Years later she observed out he turned into deathly unwell. She turned into determined to look him. When father and daughter met for the primary time due to the fact that she changed into a little one, he tearfully informed her he in no way wanted matters to turn out to be like they did.

Aggie tried to consolation him by way of sharing that God had been there through all of it,

Working faithfully behind the scenes. David erupted in anger and instructed her now not to mention God in his presence. Forty years a widower, forty years since the task area, 40 years an alcoholic had left him filled with bitterness at the notion of a creator.

Then Aggie showed him an article, it confirmed a picture of a cross, a memorial to his former spouse Svea. She instructed him approximately the revival that came about within the Congo after he left the venture subject in disgust. She advised him about the little boy that bought fruit that has become a preacher and led the village to Christ.

Forty years become a long time to look ahead to recuperation.

But David Flood experienced it that day, turning his heart back to the one with the nail pierced palms.

It was no longer long after Aggie’s go to that David died, in the end at peace with God. But the Flood’s story changed into a long way from over.

Years handed and Aggie and her husband have been in London at a convention paying attention to a preacher from the Congo. After the convention, they approached him and asked if he knew David and Svea Flood. “I am the little boy that sold your family fruit,” he proclaimed!

Then he advised her that Svea Flood becomes one of the maximum famous humans within the Congo. Then he told her that when the village was transformed, the gospel unfolds like wildfire. He becomes now in London as a consultant of over one hundred twenty,000 believers in the Congo who traced their religious foundation again to Flood’s. Their tale is a photo of grace, great grace certainly.

Buy Organic Tamarind and Grab Health and Taste in One Go

Most biologists realize this thingamajig by means of the call of Tamarindus indica, below Fabaceae. Most homemakers and elders understand this miracle pod as the quick fix whilst one desires a good laxative, digestive, a solution for bile issues; or inside the kitchen, as a condiment or an emulsifying agent in syrups, decoctions, dips and chutneys of many types.

So why you ought to use tamarind in spite of everything?

Some researchers recognize tamarind because the state-of-the-art development for treatment options spanning across stomach ache, diarrhea, dysentery, constipation, irritation, bronchial asthma, gonorrhea, parasitic infections, fevers, and so forth.; as a powerful antimicrobial, anti-venom, antioxidant, wound recovery agent.

And maximum of us realize this as a spice or condiment that absolutely transports our taste buds into a wonderland, a revolt of flavors with a lingering after-taste.

Tamarind is largely a tree of a massive length that has thick foliage, and heavy drooping branches that dish out curved fruit pods in beneficent numbers across all its branches. The pods are enclosed in tough outer shells, thus, protecting the scrumptious, powerful deep brown gentle pulp internal, draped round darkish brown seeds.

Wait, it has more in the keep.

It has been famous when you consider that historical instances for its huge and impactful medicinal fee. It is perceived to speedy alleviate belly pain, issues with digestion, for fevers, sore throat, rheumatism, irritation, or maybe sunstroke. People have been using it in various bureaucracy – some use it dried, a few boil tamarind leaves and flowers to deal with swollen joints, sprains, boils, hemorrhoids, and conjunctivitis and a few make it into a concoction.

Its fitness repertoire comes from the presence of many elements inside. To begin with, it’s miles exceptionally rich in tartaric acid that other than endowing this pulp with a signature bitter taste additionally works as an effective antioxidant and protects the human frame from harmful unfastened radicals.

Tamarind fruit is brimming with vital risky chemical compounds, minerals, nutrients and dietary fiber even as its sticky pulp gives a ready torrent of non-starch polysaccharides (NSP), gums, hemicelluloses, mucilage, pectin, and tannins. Besides, assisting with bowel moves, this size additionally empowers it to combat toxins in the food and protect the colon mucous membrane from most cancers-inducing chemical substances.

  Targeted Traffic With Google AdWords

Getting centered traffic to go to our websites is the problematic a part of net advertising and marketing. We can have a top notch product and an excellent website but it’ll all be for nothing if our site receives no site visitors. We may additionally have written the greatest sales letter inside the history of advertising and marketing, but if no one reads it, all our talent and attempt will be in vain. The number one problem right here is simple; if we will carry focused site visitors to our internet site we can make money.

The maximum a success web sites, those that draw the most money

Spinning visitors are the ones committed to a totally precise and clearly described area of interest. The traffic that arrives at such websites is frequently made up of those who arrive in the ideal body of mind due to the fact they’re pushed by means of a totally particular preference or want. The greater particular your area of interest and the extra unique your advertising the greater precise might be the expectations of your website visitors.

It is frequently stated that it takes money to make money

which you need to take a position to build up. When thinking about net advertising techniques the one region wherein financial funding will definitely assist, is in your merchandising and marketing. Advertising makes humans aware of your enterprise and attracts humans on your website. If you get your advertising method proper it’s far viable to deliver an excessive extent of visitors for your internet site. Let’s say that three% of your site visitors make a buy of your product which sells for $37. If the number of site visitors is one hundred you may sell 3 gadgets making $111. If you have got a drift of 500 site visitors over that equal length your income will be $555. It is glaringly worthwhile spending a few cash on paid advertising to achieve this. Even if the advertising and marketing costs you $100 you are nevertheless $344 up at the deal.

Generating centered traffic with Google AdWords, in the eyes of many marketers,

Offers the first-class cost for cash in terms of producing leads. It is a scheme which offers whole manage over expenditure as we can set the parameters of our sales strategy and make certain that we by no means stray inadvertently over our advertising finances. The machine includes two steps; the first is to use the Google AdWords Tool to pick the pleasant keywords to use in our advertising. The 2nd step is to installation the Pay-Per-Click advertising.