#i love unofficial strategy guides for some reason

[vykker]

Oddworld Abe's Oddysee Brady Games Unauthorized Strategy Guide

[nothingunrealistic]

naturally was going "hmm what kind of fins (fish) would young taylor in the bathtub wish for. how would we know what they think would be the best fish tail to have" & then was just thinking of Younger Taylor Hcs just in general. got any you'd wanna share, or like, any faves from what's been provided either as unofficial ideas or via those glimpses of info in the show's text. Fave can be in a "truly enjoy this" way & or simply more of a "truly Thinking About This An Extra Lot" sense lol. They

Boy Do I… first, a listing of everything we Know from canon about their childhood / early life / family:

taylor grew up in “a place like” connerty’s small apartment where “the heat pipes bang practically all night” in the winter [2x11]

taylor’s mom would deem the apartment they rented for her & douglas too expensive, and if she & douglas were shopping for furniture, they’d argue about how much things cost [4x07]

taylor never thought they’d be thinking about living a life where they book private jets [2x09]

the masons’ home is hundreds of miles from any body of water (as shown here) and douglas had to fly to nyc to see taylor [4x03]

douglas figures taylor’s mom won’t miss him getting in her way back home [4x03]

taylor has a sister; when she gets married, in michigan, taylor is part of the wedding party [2x09]

at a young age, taylor was always measuring information around them, and sweet / affectionate, especially toward douglas [4x03]

taylor’s favorite cereal as a kid was frosted flakes [4x09]

taylor was never really douglas’s “little girl” like he claims [4x03]

the first time douglas brought taylor to his lab, it meant a lot to them, and the next day they gave him designs to remake it [4x06]

douglas taught taylor: “don’t just have an idea, build the model that proves it” [4x07]

according to douglas, taylor gets the “unyielding compulsion to get it right” from him, and their relationship was best when they “kept things mathematical” [4x03]

douglas wishes he could have built real wealth / success and given it all to taylor [4x03]

wendy mentions to taylor that douglas has “exploited your need for his approval,” and taylor agrees that douglas only cares about his own advancement rather than being a father first [4x07]

douglas dislikes the military / the government [4x06]

taylor is surprised by douglas quoting a pop song [4x07]

when taylor was younger, the bathtub was the only place they could go to be alone and think, and they’d press their legs against the sides hard enough to make them go numb [3x11]

taylor started playing online poker at age 12 under the screen name ZackCody892 and played up to 16 tables at a time (and for thousands of hours) [2x03]

douglas was fired from his job at an aerospace firm when taylor was in 7th grade. this firing damaged their relationship with him and “affected the home life.” for years, taylor thought douglas had been fired so that the firm could steal his invention, and only found out the truth from his personnel file [2x11, 4x05, 4x06]

taylor has had 927 hours of therapy prior to their session with dr. gus, and that number hasn’t changed at their first session with wendy [2x03, 2x08]

douglas, in bringing taylor food and coffee, claims they rarely take the time to look after themself [4x04]

taylor used to lie to themself and others but is now past that, and knows “how hard it is to have things inside you that you can’t communicate” and “what it’s like to face public scrutiny over who you are” [2x08, 3x02, 4x04]

when taylor reminds douglas about their pronouns, he says “this talk again?”, implying it’s a discussion they’ve had before [4x03]

taylor once got into a bar fight with a high school classmate (it’s unclear whether they were still in high school at the time) after seeing y tu mamá también in a theater [5x07]

taylor was active in occupy wall street in college [2x10]

taylor played poker in college against classmates, grad students, & professors, but their opponents kicked them out for winning too much; additionally, the competitive aspect made them sick (described as “malaise” or “vertigo-like symptoms”) [2x03, 4x12]

taylor planned to go to chicago for grad school and study with eugene fama [2x02]

mafee picked taylor as his intern because they were the only applicant who wasn’t boring / didn’t care about the same bullshit that everyone from wharton or harvard did [5x04]

douglas initiated the visit to taylor, claiming it was because he’d missed them, after not being ready to see them even though taylor’s mother wanted to visit countless times [4x03, 4x07]

taylor is trying to be “everything to their father” in funding his company, and neither of them will be able to come back from taylor being forced to betray him [4x06, 4x07]

wow that’s a long list. and now, my own thoughts and extrapolations:

taylor grew up somewhere in the west / midwest with their parents and sister, who’s a few years older than them, in a house small enough that they had to share a bedroom with her. hence, needing to hide out in the bathtub to get any space & time alone.

from very early on, taylor was douglas’s favorite child and he was their favorite parent — douglas saw taylor’s intelligence & insight (and saw himself in them) and chose to put time & effort into teaching / guiding / molding them, hoping they’d one day follow in his footsteps / support his ambitions, and taylor liked that attention & recognition. (douglas’s attitude toward taylor’s sister is essentially “well she’s here too i guess.”)

douglas taught taylor enough about aerospace engineering & mathematics for them to understand the value of his lattice fin concept, and to generally have a better grasp of engineering concepts than your average (even very well-read) business major / financier. (remember how rebecca knew a robot’s “proprietary” power source was a combustion engine because her father was a mechanic? same deal here. see also: the “smash electronics apart to find the microchips inside and figure out who makes them” strategy; taylor comparing losing grigor’s money to building a turbo engine and having the nitrous tank blow up in their face.) this manifested in both directly teaching them in his lab and in playing games like the silverware-stacking game we see in 4x03, or like douglas throwing out math problems for taylor to solve on the spot, or the two of them solving math problems together.

douglas also imparted his taste in music (which does not include anything new / popular) to taylor, though their taste as an adult (or even as, like, a teenager) isn’t identical to his. this is how they discovered rush in the first place and why they have such strong opinions about The Best Rush Albums. (if douglas had such a ranking, it’d be closer to axe’s than to taylor’s.)

listening to rush helped make taylor a libertarian 😔 that’s just life when you’re a neil peart stan, which of course they are. they admire his lyrics + his drumming talent + his absolute poker face in performances.

douglas also taught taylor to play blackjack, which inspired them to go and learn poker on their own and start playing online. they tried to keep it a secret, but it's hard to be secretive about spending hours a day playing online poker on the family computer. (this is 2006 or so, after all.)

taylor figured out that they were Not A Girl (or at least had thoughts of “hm i don’t enjoy being addressed / perceived as A Girl”) fairly young but didn’t acquire a concrete vocabulary for / specific understanding of that for some time. (if douglas is calling they/them pronouns “that woke stuff” in 2019, he sure wasn’t saying anything clear or favorable about trans people in 2009 or 1999. ditto for online poker sites.)

douglas’s firing exacerbated every negative aspect of the mason family dynamic. he doubled down on pushing taylor toward his field, urging them to succeed where he’d failed, and warning them against letting anyone Steal Their Value. money got tighter, taylor’s parents argued more, and any activities taylor was in (like, say, swimming at the ymca) that required payment got cut; they may have figured out how to make money (illegally!) from online poker at this point. the combined stress of financial instability, being torn between pursuing their own ambitions and fulfilling douglas’s expectations for them, and increasing Gendered Expectations in general — plus the whole “playing online poker for hours a day” thing — probably put taylor in therapy within a few months, if they weren’t in therapy already. (how did their parents pay for it? i don’t know either.)

stealing this from that interview asia & brian & david did in 2017: if taylor had not already taught themself to think and speak directly & incisively and look people in the eye when they talk, et cetera, it started here, whether in therapy or on their own time.

taylor went to college in new york city. douglas did not want them to do this, for a number of reasons, and would have preferred they stick closer to home (and study something other than finance), but doing so would have made them miserable.

by the time they finished high school (circa 2012), taylor had properly heard of trans people and figured that they were somehow One Of Them, but not until college did they hear of people being nonbinary and go “ohhhh yeah that’s me.” (they’d also gotten a Short Haircut in high school, but didn’t go full buzzcut until college. unsurprisingly, they got some shit in high school for being Visibly gnc.)

for some period of time while figuring out their gender situation, taylor went by the name neil as a nod to neil peart. (it’s fun to imagine that they still have a faceless twitter / tumblr account where they go by neil. doubles as a way to prevent anyone connecting it to their real life.)

taylor came out to their family while in college. their mom and sister had fairly similar reactions of “well i don’t Get this exactly, but i love you and want to support you and i’m sure you know what you're talking about better than i do and you did clearly hate it every time i urged you to conform to Standards Of Womanhood so sure i can call you Them and my [child / sibling] :)” given some time to think about it. douglas… well. if he’s starting from a place of “i don’t get this,” he’ll end up at “so it must be wrong and stupid, because i’m always right,” especially if This = his favorite child being different in some significant way from who / what he thought they were. obviously he doesn’t react well or supportively, and the strain in his relationship with taylor tips over into full-blown estrangement. bad times for everyone.

if taylor’s bar fight happened when they were old enough to legally enter a bar, it happened after coming out to their family (also after the live poker fiasco), and before making plans for grad school / internships. most likely it was on a summer break they were spending back in their hometown. (another fun thought: taylor seeing the video of axe punching a guy, just weeks after they punched a guy, and going “well maybe i should work for him.”)

if douglas was at taylor’s sister’s wedding (and maybe he wasn’t!), it was awkward for everyone when he and taylor crossed paths again. barest of pleasantries, passive-aggressive comments, et cetera. naturally, it took a few more years — and douglas realizing that taylor, now being fairly wealthy and successful, could probably fund his dream project if they didn’t hate him — for him to decide to visit them.

[scenariosofkonoha]

Winter headcanon for Shino and Kiba with their s/o, thank you in advance!

Hey Anon! Sorry for the wait! Thank you for the ask. I’m glad I got to write something seasonal for these two. They are a little short I hope you don’t mind and I really hope you like it! ~ Admin Little Lace 🎀

Shino

Shino loves the outdoors. When given the choice he’d rather but outside in the clean air “experiencing the ecosystem” (his words) than shut up inside. Well…during the warmer months that is.

The resident bug expert is not a fan of cold or wet, so winter in the leaf is not his ideal time of year. This is generally when he stays inside, slowly developing a touch of cabin fever.

To combat the feeling of antsiness, he takes up reading. He can finally get through all the books his busy schedule didn’t permit him to finish. This is also the time he can catch up on his etymology studies. Taking painstaking hours figuring out the breeding patterns of a genus of beetle that will be the ultimate partner in battle.

The shinobi will likely spend all of his free time in just this fashion if someone doesn’t step in. When he was younger it was his teammates job, dragging their friend from the house with the promise of adventure. Kiba going on about ‘snow brawls’ and Hinata, gently saying how happy she would be if he came with them. But as he grew older the task fell to his S/O, forcing their lover to at least spend some time enjoying the season.

“You’ve got to get out of your cocoon sometime,” they grinned, pulling his hand. Taking Shino away from his lower study table and out of his bedroom door.

This is task is easier said than done, as Shino believes there is no reason for him to be out in the cold. But nothing gets him to leave more effectively (and stay out) than the promise of of insects.

During the winter, some insects go through breeding process or metamorphosing. Ergo the perfect time for the bespectacled nin to  collect new  specimens that will be ready to reproduce in the warmer months.

His partner, simply happy he is leaving the house on his time off, does their best to assist him in finding the larvae and eggs. Sure…it isn’t a “traditional” winter activity, but to see his face brighten as he explains the genus and species of each of their finds, warms their heart.

“They should be fully grown by spring, these beetle can build an immunity to poison,” he said holding out a naked hand to them, the small ridged beetle perched on his finger tip.“Guess there little guys are helpful, huh?” they said bridging the man’s digit, allowing the insect to crawl onto theirs. Shino watched as his lover smiled at their new little friend, smiling himself.

Not all of their finds around for ‘scientific’ or ‘ninja’ purposes. His S/O has watched on more than one occasion as he collected just the stray bug, seemingly alone in the snow covered forest or along the wall of a building. At their quizzical look, he simply responded.

“It isn’t their season,”

This little saying a why to state, that they don’t have much longer in their cycle and the Aburame just wants to house them for the remainder of it. During the winter the man’s menagerie filled with species of all kind riding out the winter being comforted and cared for.

It isn’t all just bug collecting and insect saving. As a reward for helping him, or he is just too happy to refuse, his S/O has been known to convince him to go ice skating. The argument of, “We’ll bundle up, it won’t be too bad,” easing him into accepting.

Shino actually has adequate balance on skates and isn’t bad at skating. But he always allows them to lead him, a clever ploy to get his lover to hold his hands as they guide him along.

“You’re doing so much better, darling,” they said skating backwards, their hand clasped in his. “Soon you won’t need me.”“I’ll always need you,” he replied honestly, watching as they blushed into their scarf.

But even the promise of warm hands encircling his can keep him outside forever. Eventually the nin will get cold and want to go back inside to get warm. His books and mountains of blankets calling his name.

Much like a moth to a flame, if a kotatsu is set up, Shino will stay under it and not move very far. Given some hot tea, he is guaranteed to be trapped for hours. His S/O, having taken him from his book long enough, will stack them on to table along with a pot of tea.

Joining in on the warmth, they cuddle up close to their shinobi. His lover’s presence is one of the few things that can distract the man from reading or studying. So the books are more often than not forgotten as the two watch the snow fall.

The two always talk to each other in hushed tones, like a lover’s secret. His partner trying to talk him into  more winter activities.

“How do you know if you won’t try?” they tease sweetly.“I’m positive snow angels don’t sound fun at all,” he answered smiling at their droopy eyes.“Ooooo~” they yawn, “Okaay~ you don’t know what you are missing~”‘

Between Shino and the heat from the kotatsu, they usually fall asleep, leaving the Aburame to his much anticipated reading.

The nin watched through dark lens as his love slept. Head lulled on to his shoulder, a soft snore escaping their lips. Easily, he turned to his book, wrapping arm around the, their head slipping on to his chest with a contented sigh.

He supposed he could learn to enjoy winter, if his lover stayed with him like this.

Kiba

Unlike his teammate, winter is the time of year that Kiba looks forward to. The snow, the holidays, snow forts, and hot pots…yes it was his season. As soon as the snow starts to stick, he and Akamaru are out the door to do play in it. And literally the very second, the man has more that once run out to embrace winter wearing nothing but his boxers.

Luckily, his S/O makes sure that everyone is properly covered before leaving the house.

“Why are you dressing him up?” Kiba asked, watching as his partner’s paws were wrapped up by his lover.“The cold could damage his hands and feet,” they spoke kissing the carefully gauzed-bound paw. Akamaru nuzzled their neck in return.“I got that, but why the scarf?”“Because we match,” his partner added a ‘duh!’ as he barked with pride.

Kiba’s S/O is the one to have them all dress in matching hats and scarves. He never thought he would be the guy to be in this kind of relationship, but their their love of winter as high as his, he couldn’t find it in his heart to take the silly tradition from them. Plus it made Akamaru happy, if the ninken’s strutting was any indication.

Speaking of the Ninken, his favorite winter past time was sledding. Something about the air whipping around his face. He had been going with Kiba since they had first been partnered up. As tradition, the large canine always sits in front, their sled perched on the steepest hill that Kiba can find. His sheer size and weight setting the speed and timing of when the three go shooting down the slope.

With his S/O sitting between and his partner, Kiba holds them close. Arms fastened around them protecting from any eminent wipe-out. With Akamaru pressed to their front, his lover is safe and warm until they eventually hit the snow bank at the bottom of the hill.

Kiba’s partner could do this a great many times without getting tired. The ninken more than capable of dragging the sled up and riding it back down the hill. The shinobi following him, each time smiling as the two fo the most important beings in his laugh squealed down the slope.

Being on the competitive side, the Inuzuka’s season is not complete without a snowball fight. As a child, he was known for how legendary his ‘Snow Brawls’ were. The little snowball fights turning into all out war on one of the training fields. It was a take no prisoners affair, casting most of his classmates and, if he was lucky, a sensei or two.

But now as an adult, getting his S/O to play was no small task. Every winter they shared together, saw them making him work for it. With each duck, nonchalant evasion and deflect, they thwarted his fun with a smile. This clever game could go on for a while, his S/O loving to give their boyfriend a hard time. But Kiba is nothing, if not persistent.

“Hello there,” his lover greeted as he wrapped himself around them. Sufficiently stalling the construction of Akamaru’s snow fort. the ninken giving his partner a sour look.“Hey,” he returned with a smile, “you’re so warm,” he cooed, sliding a cold hand under their coat and shirt slightly. The action granting him a shiver.“And you’re so cold.”“Not as cold as this,” laughter turned to a scream as the nin shoved a snowball under their shirt.“Dammit Kiba!” but he was long gone running away as he gained their attention. And a bevy of snowballs launched his way.

It is never a simply snow ball fight for Kiba. Oh no, if he is going to play, he will do it like he does everything else, like a ninja. So their simple fight begins to pick up speed as they run on roof tops, only stopping to launch their frozen ammunition at one another. Akamaru never far behind knocking down large sheets of snow on top of his friends.

As it does every year, the battle catches the attention of former classmates, teammates and friends. And like the unofficial welcoming of winter, everyone is found on a training field. Kunoichi, Shinobi, Ninken and Sensei all on the attack.

Between hailstorms of rotating snowballs launched by shadow clones, large boulder like balls falling from the sky, “mud walls” constructed from snow and strategies for victory being planned, all that could be heard was the laughing and merriment of full grown ninjas…acting like small children.

The night find soaked and freezing clothes, lined by the fire place drying. Not far a sleeping Akamaru wrapped in towels as the last of the snow melts from his fur.

The other survivors of this year’s “Snow Brawl” are underneath every blanket that could be found in the house. Kiba convincing them both to be naked because “you warm up faster that way.” His S/O in no condition to argue as they share slow kisses and laughter over the highlights of the day.

Yes, Winter was Kiba’s favorite time of the year.

[suburbanmetaldad]

What can I do for you?

Here, friends, is my super power:

I can create an entire book — a good one — quickly, with very little help.

You want a book with your name on it. I can make that happen.

Maybe you typed up a draft, and you’re not sure where to go next.

I can take it from here.

And anything smaller than that will be cheaper and faster.

Get on the schedule while you can.

Following are more details about me and my work.

Follow are links to different things D.X. Ferris makes & does. 

I am D.X. Ferris.

I grew up obsessed with music and reading. I went to school for writing. At the time, I thought I couldn’t create things. I didn’t know it yet, but I was wrong. I tried to quit. Writing wouldn’t let me. It kept pulling me back in. 

Once I figured out how to do what I wanted to do, I made up for lost time. Now I’ve covered a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction for Rolling Stone. I endured a career-ending injury. I’ve been to the Pentagon on business. I’ve written books with & about some of my iconic heroes. Communication is my business, and business is good.

I do a lot of different things. 

I am an award-winning writer, editor, manager, publisher, teacher, speaker, cartoonist, maker, co-author, ghost writer, and overall communications professional. To me, those various & sundry processes are all part of the same sphere — and here’s the common thread: Communication is the art of organizing information. That, friend, is what I do. I can do it for you. And we can make some money together.

I have written/co-written nine books. My personal record is four new books in 16 months.

I cut my teeth as a rock & roll journalist. Then I successfully transitioned to hard news. Lately, I’ve been creating motivational literature and self-help books. I write very effective press releases & promo material. I write & storyboard short videos. I’m writer for a documentary I can’t talk about yet.

I get around. I teach college. My CV includes work for dozens of publications, including Rolling Stone and Alternative Press (America’s two top rock & culture magazines). I’ve also written for leading outlets such as The A.V. Club and Decibel. I write and stage communication seminars. 

I have been to the Pentagon and National Air & Space Museum on business. I have been backstage at the Vans Warped Tour on business. My body of work includes book-length oral histories. 

I have collaborated with certified Grand Masters, civilians, and high-profile musical & Hollywood creative types. I have had Almost Famous moments on the side of the stage at European festivals. I wake up so early it hurts. I make money for my partners.

I am a 33 1/3 author. An Ohio Society of Professional Journalists Reporter of the Year. And a third-degree black belt (in Taekwondo). Also a 32° two-time WM/PM.

Let’s do some good work — and then let’s do some good with what comes from it.

Click the following links for my...

Good Professional Wrestling: Full Contact Life Lessons From the Pinnacle Performance Art The Good Advice From... series is now officially a franchise. Volume II features a foreword by Diamond Dallas Page, motivational icon, founder of health & wellness movement DDP Yoga, and WWE Hall of Famer. Professional wrestling is the toughest business. It is a form of competition built on collaboration and cooperation. Every successful wrestler has a diverse skill set that can help you get over too, no matter what your business or lifestyle. Filled with short chapters and useful advice, this browsable motivational manual features inspirational quotes from dozens of wrestling icons. Each is followed by easy-to-read analysis and actionable tips that can turn a life around.

I collaborated with Darren Paltrowitz on this one-of-a-kind positivity handbook. It breaks down the habits, skills, and strategies that your favorite superstars practice — and you can too, starting today.

Good Advice From Goodfellas: Positive Life Lessons from the Best Mob Movie It’s the last — or maybe first —  motivational manual and self-help guide you’ll ever need. 320 pages, paperback; Kindle ebook also available, cheap. At 145 short chapters, it’s the perfect airport/travel book. This unique meditation & reading finds teachable moments in all your favorite and quotes and scenes from this beloved, seminal movie. If you know what to look for, Goodfellas covers all the same evergreen topics as your favorite business podcasts and startup seminars... but it’s a lot more fun. No, seriously.

Co-author of motivational/how-to Masonic leadership manual

Co-author of parents’ motivational guide to kids’ martial arts

I am the most prominent, prolific non-marquee contributor the music-writing/music journalism textbook How to Write About Music, from the brain trust running Bloomsbury/Continuum’s 33 1/3 series. TECHNICALLY, I AM ON THE SAME LABEL AS NEIL GAIMAN. This is one of two or three books on this topic. Note to self: Write your own.

Wrote the official book with Donnie Iris and the Cruisers For my money, Donnie Iris & the Cruisers are the best-kept secret from 80s rock radio. That had not one, but seven hot 100 hits. The bandleader/songer penned an enduring disco hit. AND he worked with three Rock Hall of Fame artists. The band have a continuous near-40-year run. During this epic tale, they work with a young Trent Reznor, Kiss, Breathless, Cinderella, Sam Kinison, Gamble & Huff, the Jaggerz, Wolfman Jack, and bunch of others. The book is a painstakingly researched oral history that plays like a mix of the four-hour Tom Petty documentary, the movie That Thing You Do!, and the American Hardcore book. Coffee-table book, 464 pages, 102 images, 308 endnotes, 8.5x11″.

Wrote two books about thrash-metal icons Slayer

One is part of 33 1/3, the vanguard series of music-related writing.

One is an exhaustively researched full-length biography featuring 33 images and over 400 endnotes.

Publisher of 6623 Press, home to creator-owned, useful, reasonably priced, unconventional books about popular culture, success, and other cool stuff. People like them.

Full-service, full-contact indie publishing. I write, co-write, ghost-write, edit, and publish books. Quickly.

Do you have book in you? We’ll get it out.

Worked for Rolling Stone, the no. 1 music & culture magazine ever.

I’ve been writing for Alternative Press — America’s no. 2 music magazine — off & on since 2002. More recent pieces are here. Older material is here.

Wrote for alternative newsweekly Cleveland Scene, in various capacities, for 8 years. Won numerous awards for news reporting, business reporting, arts reporting, commentary, feature writing, personality profiling, and sports reporting. Click here for profiles, business features, columns, reviews, and more.

I think this piece about Cleveland’s LeBron James banner won me the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists’ Best Reporter award: Literally the entire city was looking at an iconic, massive piece of public art/advertising — and I was the one person who looked behind the scenes. For alt-weekly Cleveland Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/64-and-counting/archives/2010/08/05/goodbye-lebron-banner-hello-sunshine-workers-behind-the-banner-speak

For Rolling Stone, I interviewed a band and created unofficial liner notes for a classic album:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/they-might-be-giants-flood-track-by-track-guide-to-the-geek-chic-breakthrough-82345/

This kind of piece is a specialty. For Alternative Press, I interviewed an infamous punk musician about his friendship with the late, great Anthony Bourdain. I supplied many conversation prompts, transcribed it, then edited his answers into one continuous narrative, while I remained invisible in the piece. If it looks like I didn’t do much, then that was the entire point.

https://www.altpress.com/features/anthony-bourdain-harley-flanagan-cro-mags-tribute/

I visit a business, describe the experience, and research how a controversial industry works. For Cleveland Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/game-of-chance/Content?oid=2183398

While the rest of the rock-journalism world were writing SOPA stories (Summarizing Other People’s Articles) about a developing story, I dug deep, excavated some court records, and wrote an informed summary. For Metal Sucks — for my money, the best metal news & views site.

https://www.metalsucks.net/2019/06/11/how-many-more-misfits-reunion-shows-will-there-be-according-to-legal-documents-probably-just-one/

A friendly multi-person Q&A and sidebar, stitched together from three different interviews from different media. For Alt Press.

https://www.altpress.com/features/punk-goes-fearless-records-interview/

Cover story/feature profile of the president of a local university — and how his work has helped shape the city. It’s pretty whitebread and dry, but I can work in that style when I’m not writing about raging hellions. For Cleveland Magazine, the city’s upstanding guide to what’s happening and who’s doing it.

https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/the-read/articles/city-mission

News interview with Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cavaliers and Quicken Loans. For Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/enhanced-interrogation-dan-gilbert/Content?oid=1678536

Excerpt from Good Advice From Goodfellas, my self-improvement book that draws positive life lessons from the greatest gangster movie:

https://6623press.tumblr.com/post/181078213342/the-new-self-helpmotivational-manual-good-help

Christmas Sevenfold: Metal Dad, Compendium Two  My second comic-strip compilation collects seven years of Christmas & fall holiday stripes, with new art, a foreword, and an essay about why the kind of guy who wrote two books about Slayer still loves Xmas. 180 pages, oversized 8.5 x 11″ paperback.

Suburban Metal Dad, Compendium One: Raging Bullshit. The first compilation book for my webcomic. It collects Years III and IV of the comic, with 172 strips, 8 previously unreleased demo strips, an updated FAQ, and a true-life, all-text real-life metal dad story (so there’s something to really read). 180 pages, oversized 8.5 x 11″ paperback.

Individual strips of Suburban Metal Dad, an online comic that has run twice weekly since 2010.

I am totally into the Misfits/Danzig/Samhain, and wrote a bunch of stuff about this record-setting continuum of ground-breaking musicians

I wrote things for Metal Sucks

Guest on heavy metal podcasts, and bloggage about it all

Guest on assorted TV and superhero-show podcasts

Guest host on rock podcast Lost Together

Annotated both versions of “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” at Genius

Random bloggage about stuff that isn’t necessarily metal... mostly movies and holiday stuff like a survey of Christmas imagery in True Detective season 1

Tweet too much, but it’s healthier than taking cigarette breaks.

The Pentagrammarian: I take note of writing, grammar, usage, and the business thereof. I am one of very few professional writers who can list the four parts of a well-rounded profile or break down the constituent parts of a sentence, in correct technical grammar terms.

The goat had it comin’. I swear.  

[thebestbusinesspodcast]

More Than Being a Business Owner: The Guide to Entrepreneurship with Carl Taylor

Entrepreneurship is about more than just being a business owner. It involves taking risks and finding potential in unfamiliar industries. The challenge that entrepreneurs face is knowing how to capitalize on opportunities presented by other businesses. 

By the end of this episode, listeners will gain a new perspective on how to thrive in business. Our guest, Carl Taylor, shares the blueprint for his transformation from introverted student to successful business strategist. He talks about the value of buying already existing businesses over starting from scratch. We also discuss common mistakes to avoid, struggles with self-doubt, and resources for aspiring entrepreneurs. Join us on this eye-opening and inspiring journey to reach your dreams.

Episode Highlights

Carl’s Beginnings

Carl was introverted and bullied as a child. He used this as motivation to improve his skills and find something to succeed in.

His grandmother lent him the money he used to start his first unofficial business venture. He learned his first lesson in business from this experience: without customers, you have no business.

Carl was always interested in computers. He learned how to code, which served as the foundation for much of his success. His first real business was doing web design and development. 

After selling his first business, he saw the potential of buying and selling businesses. He has since been sharing this strategy with aspiring entrepreneurs. 

He lives by the Tony Robbins principle of “you meet your musts.” Carl believes in the importance of understanding what motivates you. 

Overcoming Initial Challenges

The fundamentals of being a business owner remain constant: get people interested in your product, convert them into customers, and make sure they keep coming back. It’s only strategies that change, depending on your type of business.

You must believe in your ideas and fight self-doubt. Having the right mindset is crucial.

Having an initial success doesn’t mean you’ll continue to be successful.

Carl has two acronyms for fear: “False Expectations Appearing Real,” and “Finding Excuses And Reasons.”

Starting Your Business The Smart Way

Rather than starting a business from scratch, you can buy an existing one.

Buying an established business saves you the time and effort of building it, finding clients, and setting up systems for it.

If you negotiate properly, you can buy a business for less than the asking price, even with minimal capital.

Personal Development

Read and research on all the great thinkers of your industry.

When you’re stuck, learn something new.

The answer to a mental block is more research.

Avoiding Common Mistakes

When considering buying a business, look beyond your expertise. Don’t limit yourself to what’s familiar to you — look for what you can add value to.

Look beyond your budget. Don’t limit yourself to what you can afford. Remember that you can always negotiate.

Don’t get emotionally connected. Fact check, evaluate the business, and gather information from the business owner.

Don’t act out of desperation. Even when taking risks, make sure they are calculated.

There Are No Shortcuts

No guru has a secret to making money.

All that exists are systems and tools, but your success as a business owner will still require legwork and implementation.

Find out what you have an excess of — time, knowledge, or money — and leverage it to work for you.

Build a team.

Powerful Quotes

“One of the big myths in business is you think just because you’ve been successful once, means you’ll continue to be successful.”

“And that’s who my audience is. They’re the people who, they’re passionate about business, they see that this is how they can change the world. This is how they can achieve their dream.”

“I think when you truly become that serial entrepreneur, it’s no longer ‘I do business.’ It’s like, ‘I am business.’” 

“If I think I can, I can. If I think I can’t, I can’t, because I’ll give up.” 

“Business is a team sport. You know, business is not something you do solo.” 

About Carl

Carl Taylor is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and business strategist. He was a business owner at 15 years old and has since gone on to buy and sell multiple companies. Carl also teaches aspiring and existing entrepreneurs how to save time, money, and effort by buying, building and selling businesses. He mentors other business owners through his business education company, Business Builders Academy. He also founded Automation Agency, an online marketing agency that helps small business owners implement the latest marketing strategies.

You can connect with Carl through his website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. You may also check out Business Builders Academy and Automation Agency. 

Enjoy the Podcast?

If this podcast inspired you to know more about how you can become a successful entrepreneur, then hit subscribe and share it with your friends.

Rate us! We would love to hear from you. Leave us a review and help us reach more people aspiring to become successful entrepreneurs.

For updates and more episodes, visit our website. Subscribe and tune in on Apple Podcast. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram.

P.S.

Do you already have a successful business, meaning you're up, running, and paying your bills with some profit left over?

Are you interested in growing your business, automating/streamlining things, and staying one step ahead of your competition?

Do you want to achieve your goals, get more things done in less time, and double your sales?

📨 If you can answer YES to all three questions, visit: https://www.members.bestbusinesscoach.ca/problems-we-fix/ To see if we can fix what's holding you back.

Check out this episode!

[regnigt]

Ranma 1/2 - one page per manga volume, 20/38

Art reads left to right

(Sorry, again, about the wonky quality of the scan!)

The Shishi Hokodan arc is great for character interaction between Ranma and Ryoga, and to a slightly lesser extent Akane. Shishi Hokodan, an attack of compressed air shaped and guided by the ki of a heavy heart, has the peculiar effective that it's less effect the better and more confident you feel about yourself - but the more it seems you'll lose, the stronger you get! It is also pretty damn powerful: Ranma tried fighting Ryoga normally after Ryoga had learned the move, but couldn't even come close enough to touch him, and that's with Ranma's speed!

Two warriors with equal tendency to grow heavy-hearted can probably battle on for a long time, but between Ranma and Ryoga there's no contest in that area. It's not so much about objective reasons to be downcast - Ranma has plenty of those when you take a look at his life - it's more about temperament/personality/coping strategies, and Ryoga's a wallower in angst to the core. (One can only hope he'll develop some distance and sense of humour one day - he does need it!) As Cologne says and Akane realises, the attack isn't good for your mental health in the long run - but, as many fic writers have made note of, it's very handy as an emergency back-up!

Incidentally I have always been rather impressed by Ranma's sheer refusal to be dragged down by Ryoga's heavy emotions, and how he didn't try to win by cheering Ryoga up, but instead developed his own unique move powered by cockiness, the Moko Takabisha. I'm particularly fond of the page where he reveals his new move. He looks so damn proud of himself, and still so comical somehow, I just had to laugh - but not without admiration. I love the guy.

Ryoga lands two victories on Ranma in this arc before losing in the final, official fight. The first two wins were labelled as training matches, so Ranma didn't "officially" lose - but he did give it his all. And from this moment on Ryoga doesn't really challenge Ranma seriously again, or at least he doesn't issue another "let's see who's the strongest" kind of challenge with no other immediate reason. It might just be that Takahashi didn't have any more ideas in that area... But looking at it character-wise, it's not hard to imagine that the unofficial but honest wins that Ryoga got in this arc took away some of the bitter edge in his grudge against Ranma. The two are still often at odds in future stories, yet something seems to have shifted. (Meanwhile, Ranma still won the official fight, so he's fine with the outcome, too!)

[adventure-hearts]

Any advice for trying to introduce friends to Digimon? Especially the Adventure-verse?

Great ask! I do have loads of suggestions. 

(However, keep in mind that I haven’t actually tested any of these on other humans, because I haven’t talked to IRL friends about Digimonsince primary school. I’m weird.)

Here it goes!

» R’sUnofficial, Untested Guide to Introducing Your Friends to Digimon Adventure «

First, some assumptions:

You’re mainly interested in getting your friends intothe anime side of the franchise, specifically Adventure.

The friends in question have never had any significant contact with the Digimon franchise (or they watched it as children, but have no attachment to it).

They are grown-ups.

They would not just laugh at the suggestion of(re)watching a children’s anime from 1999, as most people would, for somereason.

Arguments

Yes, because before you get your friend in front ofthe computer or the TV or their phone, you have to actually convince them to give Digimon Adventure a chance, and explain why they should spend their precious time with this thing you like instead all the other things they would rather be doing instead. 

Here are some reasons you can present them:

It is one of themost well-known animes of all time, globally. It’s just a classic.

It transcendsits genre by far. It has little to do with Pokémon or similar series for boysfeaturing fighting monsters – it’s much more of a character-driven drama withsci-fi, fantasy, horror, and action-adventure elements.

The story isbased on time-tested formulas and so fits into a much wider literarytradition. It’s the hero’s journey mixed with one of the most traditionalscenarios in children’s literature (being transported to a mysterious world).

It’s filled withreferences to pop culture, literature, film, mythology, technology, science, andphilosophy, that elevate it in a grown-up’s eyes.

It discussespretty deep and sometimes dark themes.

You’ll fall inlove with the characters.

It has a greatsoundtrack and voice acting that make up for the dated animation.

It can be prettydamn funny… despite the poop jokes.

The content issurprisingly unproblematic.

It can be a gateto a wider franchise with other anime series, films, video-games, toys, books, music, and even a stage play.

The Digimon fandom is apretty damn cool community.

Use whatever relevantdetail that will convince your friend to like it. Try to connect the series to theirindividual interests. It could be something as simple as “Voice Actor X is on it!”, but don’t be afraid to go personal or dark!

And once you’ve actually convinced them to give Digimon a chance, it’s time to decide how you’re going to get started.

Strategies

1. Start with one of the Hosoda movies. 

I think this isactually the easiest way to introduce someone to this franchise.

Not only are Movies1 and 2 short and accessible, but they also require little to no context or time commitment. Moreover, they’re one of the few Digimon products that can actuallybe considered artistic – they’re beautifully animated and Mamoru Hosoda is an extremely respectedfilm director. 

Our War Game is probably the more entertaining of the two, and you have theconnection to Summer Wars that givesit some further cred. It also has the bonus of introducing you to the maincast. Don’t worry about the backstory: If your friend likes it, you can show themmore later.

2. Start with Episode 21 of Adventure. 

It is a truthuniversally acknowledged that the first two arcs of Adventure are asentertaining as watching paint dry. Don’t make a newbie sit through them on afirst watch.

Sure, thoseearly episodes are great at introducing the characters and explaining how theworld works and have some pretty iconic moments. We know that. But if you start from thebegining, I guarantee that you’ll lose your friend before Devimon even makesan appearance. “But they will miss so much!”, you may be thinking. You canfill in the basic details, and if your friend ends up liking the show, they’ll haveplenty of time to go back later and catch up.

Episode 21 maybe a good starting point precisely because it’s such an outlier and a turning point in the story. Again, there’s the Mamoru Hosodaconnection – it’s the best animated episode in the series, by far – and thatstrange, nostalgic mood that somehow captures the best this universe has tooffer. It’s an interesting starting point.

After Taichi goes to Odaiba and back, the plot runsmuch more smoothly. The remainder of the Crests arc is more than enough tointroduce you to the characters, the relationships between them, and how theworld works. And then you plunge right into the Vamdemon and Dark Masters Arcs, which are easily the best parts of DigimonAdventure.

3. Start with tri.

I’m ambivalent about this strategy because tri. isn’tfor everyone – in fact, it has many of the same pacing problems of theoriginal series. But tri. is made to revive interest in Adventure and to coverall the bases – devoted fans, fans who haven’t watched it in ages, or evenpeople who barely remember the previous series. This may be the best option for people who still have some vague recollections of watching Digimon as a kid.

For some people, it may seem less daunting to start witha modern, 20-episode anime series instead of a 50-episode series from the1990s. If they like tri. and are curious about its background, then they’ll bemuch more motivated to go back to the original series. In fact, perhaps not having that background will makemany of tri.’s problems seem less obvious? 

Alternatively, you run the risk of your frienddisliking the first few episodes of tri. or just feeling completely lost orbored, which will turn them off Digimon forever. That’s why this is a risky option,so it depends on your friend’s personality and what you feel their tastes are.

Bonus: Out-of-the-box strategies

4. Start with 02.

I know, I know. Sounds bonkers. But hear me out.

I know multiplepeople who got truly hooked on this universe via 02 – including myself. I hadwatched Adventure as a small kid, but it was the debut of 02 (when I was a bitolder), that made be want to dive deeper into things, and urged me to revisit Adventure. 02 simply has this je ne sais quois,especially in the first half, that makes it really fun, compelling viewingexperience for a newbie.

Moreover, 02 is the opposite of Adventure: it peaks inthe first half and it has better pacing at the start. By episode 4, the plot hasbegan in earnest and you know all the characters and the antagonist. You evenget mentions of backstory, the charismatic older characters, and an almostmythical aura around “the previous adventure”, which can be enough to make you want to re-watch Adventure right away.

02 has its share of problems, but, like tri., watchingit without comparing it to all the things Adventure did better can actually bean advantage. And getting introduced to Digimon Adventure asa prequel to 02 could make it lookeven better.

Think of this as the Machete order of the Adventureuniverse. Unorthodox, but it can actually make it more satisfying for newpeople.

5.Start with other Digimon series.

Not my favourite optionm since I think the Adventureuniverse is so crucial that its more interesting to watch it first and then goto the series that deconstruct it or homage it in some way. 

However, this is alwaysan option, especially if you know your friend’s taste would be more in tunewith other series. Just be careful with what you pick. Digimon Tamers and Appmonwould be solid introductions to the franchise. Xross Wars or X-Evolution? Probablynot a great idea.

6. Start with video games.

This is more directed to those friends who are obsessedwith gaming and have limited time for other media (we all know the type). The Adventure-related games may be a goodway of getting them attached and curious enough to check the original anime. 

Alternatively,the newer, high quality Digimon games (like Cyber Sleuth) could be an effectiveway of making the franchise more appealing for hardcore gamers.

Don’ts

These are strategies that I would NOT recommend (although in some cases, Isuppose any of them could work):

Starting withthe English dub (sorry: you know I feel strongly about this issue) or, godforbid, Digimon: The Movie. Original version all the way.

Starting withfanfiction, analysis, or the fandom in general. Let them form their ownopinions first!

Hyping theseries too much or being super-extra about it.

Bribing or blackmailing.

I hope this helps! Feel free to test these suggestionsand give me some feedback on wether they worked or not.

And if anyone has more ideas, please share! We all wantto make this stupid franchise more known to the world :)

[ateamforumsfanworks]

Lancer 103 - The Art of Basic Breaking (Part I)

11-22-2016, 01:43 AM Originally posted by Forum User: LaconicLeaf Last updated: 10-15-2017, 05:02 PM

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(Credit: Match-i for this drawing of my character)

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__________________________________________________ Table of Contents __________________________________________________  I. Introduction II. Build Suggestion (Pre-7th Slot)  III. Build Suggestion (Post-7th Slot)  IV. Monsters, Example Monster Sets, and Comparisons  V. Lancer Skills (Pre-5th Ring)  VI. Lancer Skills (Post-5th Ring)  VII. Basic Abilities  VIII. Lancer Procs  IX. Gameplay (PvE) - aka "How to Break the Basic Attack's Potential Open"  X. Weapon Proc and Skill Build Suggestion (PvE)  XI. Weapon Proc and Skill Build Suggestion (PvP)  XII. Apollo Set Blessing - yes or no?  XIII. Event Quests Walkthrough  XIV. "This is how you DON'T play Lancers"  XVI. Credits  XVII. DPS Scaling Data for Lancer Attacks

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Previous Guide Archives

Lancer Guide 2.0 (by Vostera) Lancer 101 (by Cobalt)

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__________________________________________________ I. Introduction __________________________________________________

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Lancers were once extremely overpowered during the pre-4th Ring days.

Forget about

Forget about

!

That's right.

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Believe it or not, even as a 190 AP (200 with passives) attack, Knight's Blitz once landed swift 2HKOs against the majority of the opposition, while Archers and Mages often got OHKOed. Nearly everyone built Lancers for pure offense, getting as high of an ATK stat as possible with maxed Weapon and Monster slots. The guild crystal didn't give any multipliers to a member's HP, thus KB had barely any counterplay. You could try using Guard, but Lancers can use Savage Sting to bait it, wait it out, and then slam you with KB. With the sheer firepower Lancers had, and how easy and brainless their playstyle seemed, it’s no wonder they were given the moniker, “Cancer Lancer.” When 4th Ring was announced, it was hyped that Lancers would be overpowered, all thanks to Dragon Crush, which has 190 AP and hits 3 targets. Furthermore, KB got its AP increased from 190 to 210 (220 with passives), and people were panicking that Lancers would be God Tier again (they actually were, but everyone switched to Soldier/Mage/Archer due to FoTM status). But as time passed on, Dragon Crush was actually a bad AoE skill, as its animation speed was slow, and Mage's Meteor Rain, a similar AoE but deals multihits like Meteor Strike, was much faster, on the same speed tier as KB and Basic Attack.

As a result, Glass Lancer builds started falling out of favor with higher level caps and crystal caps, the latter finally increasing the HP of guild members in combat. Thus, KB no longer landed 2HKOs, and while this was going on, the original Lancer guide author, Cobalt, ranted about stuff like Amaterasu coming out before Apollo, and "Why Lancers are the weakest class in the game,” on what was arguably the "Lancer Hate Era" (or the "Dark Age of Lancers," kinda like the "Dark Age of Sonic"). Threads suggesting to buff Lancers, and all kinds of random crap, with Lancers being underpowered and everything, were also being thrown about all over the forums. This was the time when Lancers were surrounded with crappy publicity, being kicked out of Event Quest parties for being "useless," and even kicked out of guilds to make room for Soldiers, Mages, or even Archers. But the dark days of 4th Ring have long passed. There were a few uncharted techniques and merits about Lancers which other players, like , were discovering even in 4th Ring, like the sheer single-blow damage of Knight's Blitz being able to pulverize the raw defenses of Soldiers and Clerics, and Break Thrust's proc-bypassing capabilities doing extremely well against defensive walls in PvP. Plus, Reo also shared the "Attack Stance Basic Attack Strategy," which greatly improved the efficiency of Lancers in PvE; use Stings to Break, then Basic Attack to DPS. This was a fighting style Reo never got a chance to use since he used a Cleric/Soldier cost distribution with a few weapons; this actually started my love for the Basic Attack as a timed and true attack skill. In hindsight, Lancers were probably the best class during the pre-5th Ring meta, but not for reasons you'd expect. They can bore through Soldier Frontlines with Break Thrust and Knight's Blitz, with the former ignoring procs (can decimate Clerics), and the latter having sheer firepower that DEF scaling cannot overcome (Mage and Archer attacks were easily tankable with enough raw defenses). Against Meteor Rain Mage Frontlines, if the Lancers used Guard, and a more tanky build, they can withstand their attacks while also being able to instantly burst down each target one at a time. Their Anti-Class, Archers, were non-existent in the Frontline because Soldiers can instantly cleave them with Dual Sword, and Archers can't do much to them back. Eventually, 5th Ring is another time where Lancers are at a strong point. They gain skills which take advantage of Break and turn it into an AP boost, which drastically improves the damage they can dish out. While the AS+Basic strategy is still viable, the new 5th Ring skills yielded a new playstyle for Lancers that is more accessible. This ring also brought about buffs for Double Sting, turn it from a useless cost dump, Heart-proc reliant skill to a Swiss Army Knife with good all-around utility and DPS, while greatly improving Lancer's PvP game with stronger skills like Severe Sting and Cross Assault. Even Break Thrust got some love, with a lower cooldown and added Break bonus to make it usable with Cross Assault to some extent. The 5th Ring release also expressed a "What Could Have Been" dichotomy: Dragon Crush got not only its cooldown timer halved, but also a buffed animation speed too. If that AoE HAD its Basic Attack/KB/Meteor Rain-tier animation speed, we would've had a completely different meta entirely in 4th Ring. Lancers would've been able to decimate Mage Frontlines with coordinated Dragon Crushes, and it would've still been Lancer meta like it was during 3rd Ring. Unlike Meteor Rain, the high base AP of Dragon Crush would've been able to pulverize Soldiers and Clerics; no amount of DEF can reliably reduce the damage Dragon Crush could do. While I may not be the highest GS Lancer, only about 210k as of the time this guide was published, but now 350k and counting, or the highest ATK Lancer, sitting around 75k - 80k (again, when the guide was published); now lingering around 120-135k, at least I understand the game mechanics quite well, and can carry PvE runs with reliable Break uptime, so for those of you out there... I hope you’ll at least learn something new about Lancers after reading this guide.

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Why SHOULD You Be A Lancer? (Pros)

+ Fastest attacks in the game

+ Second highest HP in the game, and the gap between a Lancer's HP and Soldier's HP is shorter than between an Archer's HP and a Cleric's/Mage's HP

+ High damage in each and every hit of their attacks, which makes raw DEF investment less effective, and deals great damage even while proc less

+ Adding to the above point, even Soldiers and Clerics take a sizable chunk of damage from Lancer attacks like Cross Assault. Since the latter has the same Max HP as a Mage, and Lancers can flat-out ignore their procs with Break Thrust, they can be considered the "Unofficial Anti-Cleric Class"

+ Absolutely dangerous after a Unison; since everyone freezes while a Unison clash completes, Lancers have the speed advantage. They can outright choose who to kill, since their attacks come out so quickly, if the enemy Clerics use Aid on the wrong player, they may as well kiss one of their teammates goodbye.

+ Anti-Class to Mages, a (former) common frontliner with their AoEs, and the AP damage mitigation further makes Lancers the best class to use against them; any Mage trying to drop rocks on your head will have to be extremely lucky with procs to even lay as much as a scratch on you; even Star Burst, which can potentially one-shot other classes, has a hard time killing you too

+ 5th Ring and ToJ skills are a massive boost to DPS, and allows Lancers to finally take advantage of Break for higher damage

+Negative Pressure can catch people off guard when least expected, can even win Colo games too; a metagame-defining skill that can turn Unison Battles in your favor, or even deny uni by erasing 2 Cheers' worth of meter

+ Can ignore shields and defense procs with Break Thrust (with a few exceptions)

+ Best class to inflict Break with

+ Flexible combo potential with skills, even if said skills don't explicitly have a combo effect with one another (like using Break Thrust with Cross Assault)

+ Break carries teams in quests with Unison upkeep and Defense Penetration, allows for earlier buff Unis, and carries United Offense and other boss content; can even allow people who died in Colo Round 2 without full Uni to have a chance to Uni in Round 3

+ The offensive class who is least likely to die from random monster reflect skills thanks to how Basic Attack doesn’t deal enough damage for a 50% reflect to bounce off lethal damage through Wards (and their animation speeds let them hit confirm BEFORE reflects apply)

+ Best user of the Basic Attack, which scales extremely well with just about every buff in the game due to its low cost and cooldown (you could even use it to humiliate others just by showing off how powerful the default attack is)

+ Thus, Basic Ability replacements are optional, and are more suited for PvP because the Basic Attack is just THAT good by default (although Deadly Blow admittedly comes VERY close to beating Basic Attack)

+ Extremely effective against Soldier Frontlines, as Cross Assault hits harder than Mage's Blood Oath despite Anti-Class, doesn't risk getting Reflect proc-killed, and has high HP to withstand multiple Rage Slashes; Negative Pressure can be a pain to them too, especially when coupled with Dissonance

+ 4th Ring skills (Break Thrust, Double Sting) are still viable in the current meta for their unique properties, unlike the other classes

+ Strong damage floor (All Rings)

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Why Should You NOT Be A Lancer? (Cons)

- Low damage ceiling (Pre-5th Ring) when using non-Basic Attack skills

- Useful monsters by stats are generally limited to Fire, Water, and Haste elements; only two of these elements are useful for GvG unis. Farmable utility monster choices are poor (has to use Amaterasu or other off-element monsters for utilities).

- Even with high damage in single blows, Mages and Archers will still outdamage you (though 5th Ring made Lancers actually out-DPS Mages to some extent, or become rather equal to them)

- Apollo Set actually "nerfs" your Break rate due to the Proc Priority System mechanics, makes you more squishy due to sacrificing Main Slots

- Break Thrust has low base power, reliant on procs to deal real damage in PvP

- Null Damage effects (Unisons, Charisma, Null Physical Damage) and Guard still stuff Break Thrust

- Long cooldown times for certain skills; Smash moves from Soldiers out-DPS the Sting moves (until 5th Ring/ToJ)

- While I used to list "Secret XXLs being relevant today" as a "Pro," I'm gonna move them to the Cons because the new ToJ skills have high Break Bonus to the point where it's not really necessary to carry Savage Sting and Double Sting anymore. (Although Secret XXL does work out great if Double Sting is your only attack in PvP for your guild strategy, because Mastery-tier AP and proc rate is amazing)

- “Four Moveslot Syndrome” - Want Attack Stance? Take off EE or Mass Refresh/Balancing. Want Cross Assault? Take off Attack Stance. Want Negative Pressure? Cheer, Guard, or a second attack must go. (and so on)

- Basic Attack replacement weapons take off a high-DPS skill. As mentioned before, they're more suited for PvP, where burst damage is favored with Cleric heals being common. (Only Deadly Blow comes extremely close as a true upgrade)

- Due to having high raw ATK, a “Confused Attack” can potentially OHKO a Lancer or another player if they try using a buff/support skill while Confused (so please, think twice before deciding to EE out of boredom after you finish a quest while confused, or trying to Yolo Refresh)

- The buffs to Cleric's Aid skills for faster casting times actually make them the fastest skills in the game. They go so fast that they will land before a Lancer attack connects.

- Certain Event Quests (Wind Mobius, Eva Collab 1.0) have "Low HP, Low DEF, High Break Tolerance" mobs, which make Break builds less practical

- Death Pierce is useless, and a waste of a 5th Ring attack skill space.

- Anti-Class disadvantage to the current “OP Class” in the game -- Archers. Better hope you’re stacked with Magic Reflection or Magic Damage Down procs, so their Deadly Arabesque won’t OHKO...

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Miscellaneous Issues

(4th Ring Issues)

- At one point, Lancers had a history of being stigmatized by others, being the bearer of several misconceptions, such as being called the "worst class," "why be a Lancer when you can play a Mage or Archer and do tons more damage," "if you're building tanky, be a Soldier instead," and what have you. (Thankfully, the vitriol has worn off, although Soldiers are arguably currently at the position where 4th Ring Lancers used to be)

- Many people think Lancers are THE "Damage Dealer class" given the class description, and complained about it on the forums due the description given by the game, using it as a crutch to prove their points (which was true... on like the Lv. 80 cap!)

- Even then, there's still some people who insist in Lancers being intended to be built Glass Cannon as an optimal build; this ill-advised build leaves Lancers with sub-30k MDEF, making them die to even proc less Meteor Rains.

Otherwise... Some player-related cons (it's the PLAYER'S problem, not the class):

- Class Passives encourage equipping Armor and Helm type gear to maximize your GS. However, this leaves you with low MDEF, and a small amount of Anti-Magic procs. (Unless they were all Reflection/Damage Down XLs, but that’s a different story)

- Players bringing the wrong abilities, like Thrusts, Dragon Assault, Dragon Crush, Death Pierce, or CURE (4-digit heals FTL), into Event Quests or Mobius

- In addition to the above point, Lancers who don't bring Attack Stance and just spam Sting, Savage Sting, and Knight's Blitz whenever they're off cooldown (the past equivalent of Severe Sting, Cross Assault, and Death Pierce) are guaranteed to keep asking for Haste at the beginning of a quest; these Lancers also tend to Break the wrong target too, and never use the Basic Attack

- Basic Attack is extremely under appreciated, and some players asked for more replacements for it (like replacing it for Cheer or Guard) when it's already OP as is

- Some players still tend to use Cross Assault incorrectly, oblivious to the fact that it has an AP Bonus damage effect while hitting Broken targets

- Lancers who don't take advantage of Break for their 5th Ring skills, or abuse AP Modifiers with the Basic Attack, will end up being out-DPSed by Soldiers

- While Lancers are least vulnerable to Reflect attacks, there’s still some players who Cross Assault or Knight’s Blitz head-first into a 50% Reflect target, and dying like a Mage or Archer that way

- Noobs thinking it's a great idea to use DRAGON ASSAULT, the absolute WORST move in the game *death glare*

- Complaints about Lancers being useless because they can’t SELF-HEAL unlike the others (by far the absolute MOST common complaint about Lancers)

- 5th Ring Sub Quest is SOLO Only! It’s difficult to beat this quest as a Lancer alone without dying. Thus, I highly recommend building a Cleric as a secondary class to make this Sub Quest a lot easier. Trust me, it pays off in cutting the amount of gems you would spend on reviving if you tried brute forcing your way through otherwise. (Though thankfully, stacking Water defense will help tank these mobs; this Sub Quest came before Elemental Defense was a thing)

.

Part II >>>

[theawkwardterrier]

The Things I've Left Unsaid

Steggy Positivity Week, day 6 Prompt: Quotes, Lyrics, etc.

Summary: Steve tries to plan a date. Things don't go quite as planned.

AO3 link here.

There are plenty of great things about actually getting to date Peggy Carter. Their snatched moments during the war might have made his breath catch and left him with sweet dreams, but bunker lights and night operations were so dim that he is only now finding out how truly dazzling her smile is, and war rationing had made it impossible to know that she always got an extra scoop of ice cream and didn’t have any shame about stealing from his too.

He’d just like all that discovery better if they actually got to go on regular dates.

He’s proud as hell of Peggy for the work she’s doing, and furious about what she has to put up with to try to get anything done, and, strangely, a little relieved that she refuses to let him pull strings to help her out. But their work together during the war was just that: together. The things they’d done– sitting, heads bent, for strategy sessions, and passing each other you’re–not–quite–supposed–to–have–this information– had been in such proximity to each other, revolving around the same goals, the same focus, that he’s finding the separation of their lives unexpectedly difficult. There are things she can’t tell him or forgets he doesn’t know. There are places she goes that she can’t take him, and times where she’s gone for so long, working, that he doesn’t quite know what to do.

He knows it’s his problem, though. He’s the one who chose to leave the shield and uniform life behind, after losing Bucky and a year of his life under the ice. He’s sure as hell not going to blow up at her for doing her work and doing it better than the next ten guys, including him. He wouldn’t give her up for anything, especially not his ego; it’s just a little harder than he’d thought it would be.

So he does this instead: plans dates for the two of them, postpones them if necessary, tries to add that bit of sweetness to their lives. They’ve done park picnics (Steve kept the picnic set he’d bought) and baseball games (Peggy forgot the name of every player, asked him about every rule, and kept calling the team the Doggies, until he caught a touch of a smile just as his head was going to blow off around the fourth inning and she switched to yelling down at the field with him). But tonight, he’s gone simpler, just dinner, a movie, and then dancing after.

That’s the idea at least.

Mrs. Fry doesn’t like him much. He’s sort of used to that in general– he still gets looks around his neighborhood from guys who don’t dare beat on him anymore but still remember Steve Rogers mouthing off to them for years– but usually he’s polite enough not to get stone-eyed glares from older ladies. He made sure to press hard with the iron and shine his shoes beforehand, so she lets him take Peggy, with just the usual fifteen minutes of pointed questioning. He gives his usual polite answers, Peggy adds in her charm, and they’re on their way.

They can already hear the fullness of the restaurant from the street, and the host tells them apologetically that it will be at least a few minutes before their table is ready. He offers them a drink in the meantime, and they corner themselves by the bar, small-talking about the latest annoyance in Peggy’s office, and the ongoing drama with Steve’s next door neighbors and their son who likes stray animals a bit too much.

After about ten minutes, they get the signal that they can come sit. Steve has just let Peggy slide in front of him when behind him he hears a loud, “Marge!” A hand comes down with what Steve thinks is meant to be force on his shoulder, and the voice says, “And Steve-o! Good to see ya.”

Jack Thompson, who Steve’s met a couple of times before, has just come over, a blonde beside him. Jack seems to have been enjoying the bar already, and is attempting false joviality, or maybe everything just looks false on his face. His date has enormous owl eyes and a killer grip on her handbag. Steve and Peggy trade glances, wondering if she’s some sort of unassuming assassin, or if she just wants to be able to get a good wallop if Jack gets handsy.

Peggy nods crisply and says, “Nice to see you, but I’m afraid we have to find our table now.” She starts to step away, and Steve follows, admiring that easy way she’d handled things, and the fact that she’d managed to make the “nice to see you” part not sound like a complete lie.

“Now, well, wait a minute, Marge.” Thompson steps to follow her, dragging his date along with. “This place is pretty full up, and it’ll be a while before we get someplace to sit.”

“Plenty of other restaurants in town,” Steve says blandly. “I’ll make you a list.”

“Nice of you, nice of you,” Thompson says, clapping Steve on the shoulder again. “But how ‘bout instead we just make it four at your table, make things easier on everyone?”

Steve and Peggy both open their mouths to object, but the waiter has overheard and, although he says nothing, Steve was a waiter once too and the guy looks honestly a little desperate to winnow down the standing crowd a bit. Steve turns toward Peggy, who gives a resigned nod to the waiter, who brings a couple of extra chairs, which is how they end up crammed around a table with Jack Thompson and his date, who’s apparently named Belinda, although her voice is so quiet when she introduces herself that Steve can barely be sure.

“My aunt and her aunt do...something together,” says Thompson, waving a hand before starting to saw into his steak. Best thing he’s done all night, in Steve’s opinion, not looking for a soup course. “Knitting or gardens, something.”

Belinda fills in softly, “They’re library ladies at St. Anthony’s in Queens. They bring the book cart around to the patients most afternoons.”

Steve smiles. “That’s important work. There was one winter when Sister Mary Rose and her regular deliveries of Alexandre Dumas were the only way I made it through to spring.”

Peggy places a hand over his on the table, and when he turns to her, he sees the rise of affection covering her face. “I think it’s a little late to thank Mr. Dumas, but I might try to see if Sister Mary Rose is still around.”

“You know nuns,” Steve says, voice just as low. “Those rulers keep ‘em upright forever.”

“Yeah, I forgot you had all those problems as a kid,” says Thompson. “But I guess you really turned it around.”

He glances over at Belinda as if trying to decide if she can put things together by herself or if she needs it spelled out for her, and Steve can nearly feel something inside him saying, “Enough.” Thompson has crashed their date just so he could get to a table a little sooner, and shown little kindness at all to Belinda, who seems perfectly nice. But it’s too much, the idea of Thompson just coming out in the middle of a crowded restaurant and even hinting that Steve’s Captain America, especially when that’s barely even true anymore; as if Steve wants to be anyone these days but a guy who has a little easier time setting things right.

“Sh–” Thompson says suddenly, choking himself off as people look over at him. Steve knows better, glancing over at Peggy instead, who holds her fork daintily and stares across the table in a politely puzzled way. He drops his chin and twitches aside the tablecloth in time to see her foot move away from Thompson’s shoe. She’d ground it in hard enough to leave a scuff mark, though. Steve stifles a smile.

Steve had been imagining a nightmare where Thompson would try to tag along with them for the rest of the evening and Steve and Peggy would have to duel it out over who would get to set him straight. Somehow, though, his better sense has prevailed and they basically ignore each other as they divide up the check.

Peggy and Belinda return from the powder room, and Peggy takes Steve’s arm. The smile he gives her comes automatically, but not without meaning. He loves days without army regulations, nights without espionage, the simplicity of her open hand touching him.

“Nice to meet you,” Steve says to Belinda.

“Have a good evening,” Peggy adds, then turns to Thompson and simply says, “Monday,” before guiding Steve toward their favorite movie theater.

“You think he’ll be able to decode that?” Steve asks as they walk. The night is warm enough that the gray suit coat he wore feels a bit much, but he’s distracted by Peggy’s hand still tucked against his arm and the waves of the ruffled bottom of her dark purple dress as she walks.

“Thompson can be a brute and a snake and a terrible date, but he’s not stupid,” Peggy says placidly. “He can recognize a threat, likely better than the next man.” They cross the street toward the glow of the marquee. “I offered Belinda a chance to come with us and she declined. Apparently she felt it ‘a woman’s job’ to see the thing through.” Steve looks at her and finds her that her face reflects his: half admiring the wherewithal, half dismayed at the reasoning. “But I told her that if things didn’t improve during the rest of the evening, I could make things equally unpleasant for Thompson at work.”

“Equally unpleasant? To a date with that guy?”

Peggy makes a quick nod of understanding. “Well, I can be extremely creative. So, nearly as unpleasant, at least.”

They arrive at the theater in such a timely manner, that it feels like something of a sign that things are finally going right. Steve pays for the tickets, doesn’t forget to stop for popcorn, and they manage to get good seats for the 9 o’clock showing of the latest Thin Man movie. Peggy’s fond of them, so it had seemed the perfect thing when he saw it in the paper.

Their unofficial pact is to wait to eat the popcorn until the movie actually starts, but they both brush half absentminded hands near the carton through the ads and the newsreel and the cartoon. Finally the music cues up for the feature, and they reach for the box at the same time. They’re too busy glancing at each other to notice that something’s awry on the screen.

“Sorry, folks,” announces an usher a minute later. “Somehow the reels got damaged. Not to worry, though, we have something else all cued up.”

Steve likes Mary Astor and the new actress Elizabeth Taylor, but the alleged comedy they’re in is half depressing and half sentimental and not worthy of either of them. He sinks down in his seat a little bit; it’s certainly not his fault, and Peggy’s not storming out, and the film isn’t that bad, but he had a plan for this. He and Peggy get a quick cup of coffee together at the automat as often as they can, and nearly every time he’s wonderfully surprised to see her there across from him. She’s impressive, and he wanted to impress her tonight, and so far he feels that he’s failing.

“What was your favorite part?” Peggy asks as they walk out afterward. “The part where everyone had to give up the dreams they once had, or the supposed happy ending where they celebrated the father getting to keep the job he doesn’t even enjoy?”

Steve’s real favorite part– really the only bright spot of the whole affair– had been his gradual clasping of Peggy’s hand, but he doesn’t think that’s what she means. “Hey, you know I always like a story where having a sick kid means the end of the world.”

He says it lightly, hiding the barest hint of pain, and her tone nearly matches his as she responds, “About as much as I like one where a pregnancy puts a stop to the things a woman wants to do.”

They both give small, ruffling shrugs, hers likely about the topic at hand, his partially in place of a wince. First a double date with Thompson, then a movie that hit them both in just the sorest places. If the rest of the night keeps going like this, space aliens are going to blow up the dance hall.

Luckily, it looks untouched when they arrive. They’ve gone dancing before, here and elsewhere. The first time was practically as soon as he was released from the hospital, the two of them turning quiet circles while everyone laughed around them. Since then, there’s been enough improvement (mostly on Steve’s part; Howard had made Peggy light, comfortable shoes with a metal frame to protect her feet from his first efforts) for them to become a little more adventurous; last time, they’d done so much swinging, Peggy’s quick spin and the confidence of Steve’s arms, that they’d ended the night breathless and laughing. But Steve’s not really in the mood for that kind of dancing tonight. He likes the idea of holding her, of getting this date to finally take a turn for the better just because he gets to have her in his arms.

The band’s playing a Nat King Cole song as they come in, and they blend immediately among the swaying couples. For the first time tonight, Steve actually relaxes. This is what he was hoping for tonight, just a quiet moment with Peggy at his side.

Her head rests on his shoulder, as the band changes over to Frank Sinatra. Steve leans over so he can sing very softly in her ear.

“So lucky to be the one you run to see in the evening, when the day is through,” and she spans so perfect in his arms. He feels so lucky to be here, holding her like this, feeling her smile against his throat, and then her shoulders begin to shake.

He pulls back immediately, wracking his brain for any reason she might be crying in the middle of the dance floor. “Peggy?” He keeps his voice down, but knows that his shoulders and hands are desperately spelling out alarm.

Until he finally focuses on her face, and sees that she’s laughing.

“I’m so sorry,” she says on a gasp. “This is–” She covers her mouth with her fingers, but he can still see her smile pressing out. “You have many talents, my darling, but singing isn’t among them.”

Steve knows this, has known this since Bucky told him in the second grade, and could hold up as proof the memories of every Mass and school performance his mother had winced through. But after the night he’s already had, he doesn’t want to hear it and certainly doesn’t feel like laughing it off.

“I think I’m done for the night. You ready to get out of here?” he says stiffly, already heading toward the door.

Peggy catches his hand as he pushes through the crowd but he ignores her, and the crowd’s chattering so loudly that she doesn’t try to talk beyond his name until they’re outside. The street has a bit of a strange smell, trading sweat and floor polish for standing water and gasoline, and Steve can see a beginning layer of fog, but even the city sounds are muffled. “Steve,” she repeats. “I didn’t mean to insult you, truly. I understand that you’re upset, but is it really worth ending the night here just because I was…less than mannerly?”

The way she looks at him usually brings him around to her way of thinking, but now he just throws up his hands. “It isn’t just that, Peggy! Nothing tonight happened how I wanted it to. I had a plan for all this, and maybe it wasn’t fancy, but it was supposed to be a nice night, and everything that happened was just...disappointing.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and makes to turn away from her.

She grabs his wrist again and when he stops, she says, very simply, “Since we met, I’ve never known you to stick to a plan. We’ve certainly never done so. Tonight might have been a bit unpredictable, but things are by no means ruined.”

The doors crash open behind them, and another couple comes out, the flash of music disappearing as the doors swing shut again.

“Johnny!” says the woman, reaching to grab his hand. “It was dark, Johnny, I swear I didn’t know he was your brother!” Johnny shakes her off and storms away down the alley, head down, while she tries to chase him without her heels getting caught in the pavement.

Steve and Peggy both stare down into the darkness for a minute. “Well,” says Steve eventually. “Things definitely aren’t ruined like that.”

“That you know of,” Peggy returns devilishly.

“Lucky I don’t have a brother, I guess,” Steve says absently, but something else fills his mind: the image of the woman grabbing onto her man’s arm, matching the way Peggy grabbed his. And what strikes him isn’t that his and Peggy’s troubles are lesser than those of other couples, but that they get to have the same sorts of fights, storming out and making up and holding onto each other. They’ve been lucky enough, struggled and survived enough, to get to this place, where he can feel secure about griping about not seeing her enough and getting upset over a few things gone wrong on a date.

They’ve achieved that normalcy, and it suddenly delights him. It’s like Sinatra was singing: Time after time, he tells himself how very lucky he is to be loving her.

“Let’s go back,” he says suddenly, wrapping his fingers around hers using the anchor to pull them closer together. “I think I still have a few more dances in me.”

“Are you sure?” Peggy says, but even in the dim streetlight, he can see her begin to smile.

“Yeah. We’ve got the night together. Let’s not waste it.” He wraps an arm around her waist, in love with the ease of it.

“I think I’ll be free Wednesday night as well,” she murmurs. “In case you wanted to give this a second try.”

“I’m tying Thompson to a chair,” Steve says immediately. “And keeping a good eye on the projectionist. But this part–” He holds open the door for her. “This part is actually turning out pretty perfect.”

And they move back inside for another dance together .

[gordonwilliamsweb]

‘Just Make It Home’: The Unwritten Rules Blacks Learn To Navigate Racism in America

ST. LOUIS — Speak in short sentences. Be clear. Direct but not rude. Stay calm, even if you’re shaking inside. Never put your hands in your pockets. Make sure people can always see your hands. Try not to hunch your shoulders. Listen to their directions.

Darnell Hill, a pastor and a mental health caseworker, offers black teenagers these emotional and physical coping strategies every time a black person is fatally shot by a police officer. That’s when parents’ worries about their sons and daughters intensify.

“They’re hurting,” Hill said. “They’re looking for answers.”

Hill, who is African American, learned “the rules” the hard way. When he was 12, he and a group of his friends jumped a fence to go for a swim in a lake. That’s when two officers approached them. One of the cops, a white man, threatened to shoot Hill and everyone else if he ever caught them there again.

“I was so afraid,” Hill, now 37, recalled. “He made all of us sit down in a line right by the lake.”

He still tells himself that the officer didn’t mean what he said that day. But Hill’s tone changes when he thinks about the second time white men threatened him with a gun.

Hill and his family moved to a small, mostly white town in Florida. He rarely left the house at night, but one day when he was a sophomore in high school, his grandmother, who wasn’t feeling well, asked him to take their car and drive to a convenience store for ginger ale.

He got lost along the way and asked two white men for directions. Instead of offering help, the men tormented him, Hill said. When he tried to drive away, the men followed him in their vehicle, chasing him around in the dark. He thought surely they would kill him if they caught him.

“They told me it was [N-word] season,” Hill recalled. “I was terrified.”

The traumatic event is hard to talk about, Hill said. His voice still shakes as he describes how the night unfolded. That’s one reason he’s helping teenagers unpack their trauma — and guard against experiencing more — as they try to cope with the mental health burden of other people’s racist assumptions.

His unofficial guide to what he calls “living while black” can be tough to remember under pressure. But Hill said the survival skills feel essential to many who grow up feeling that the color of their skin makes them vulnerable to becoming the next George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer on May 25, an event that has prompted civil rights protests around the world.

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But well before Floyd’s death, Hill’s phone began to ring more. It was the start of the coronavirus pandemic and his young clients from the Hopewell Center, a mental health agency in St. Louis, needed help processing the closing of schools, loss of jobs, social isolation and loss of loved ones. So instead of working from home, Hill put a folding chair in the back of his car and started making house calls. He planted his seat in front yards and sidewalks while his clients stayed on their front porches.

The conversations Hill was having grew more complicated, though, after Floyd’s killing. Two months before Floyd’s death, Breonna Taylor was killed in Kentucky after officers with the Louisville Metro Police Department entered the black woman’s apartment dressed in plainclothes. Taylor’s boyfriend thought the officers were intruders, so he fired a single shot. Officers responded by shooting Taylor at least eight times. Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was chased down and fatally shot while jogging in Glynn County, Georgia. Three white men were arrested.

The mental anguish for some black families exploded as they saw these images and stories repeatedly on the news.

“When these happen, we have to address them,” said Lekesha Davis, vice president of the Hopewell Center. “It’s having a direct impact on [black families’] mental and emotional well-being.”

Hill offers coping skills as he makes his rounds every week. His conversations during regular visits now include discussions about police brutality, civil unrest and how to survive. Part of Hill’s work is teaching the mechanics of navigating everyday encounters — from walking in a public space like a park to being stopped by the police or entering a business.

Isaiah McGee, 18, is a mentee of Darnell Hill’s. McGee has aged out of the program at the Hopewell Center where Hill works as a mental health caseworker, but Hill still checks in with McGee every other week. (Courtesy of Isaiah McGee)

Don’t make any sudden moves. Watch your body language. Don’t point your fingers, even if you’re mad. Don’t clap your hands. Listen. Know the law. But don’t say too much. Make eye contact.

While many black families have their own sets of rules, he hopes that following his “do’s and don’ts” will allow kids to survive as unscathed as possible to realize their life ambitions. “Let’s just make it home,” Hill tells them. “We can deal with what’s fair or not fair, what’s racial or not racial at a later date.”

White children and teenagers, meanwhile, aren’t generally taught these sometimes futile survival skills with the same urgency. They’re just as unlikely to learn about the systemic racism that continues to create the problems, and almost certainly not what it would take to undo it.

Hill knows his training sessions don’t guarantee a win. He’s a husband, father, nonprofit board member and the president of the parent-teacher organization at his youngest child’s school. His voice is friendly and his demeanor is calm. Still, sometimes none of that matters when Hill drives in a predominantly white neighborhood. While he knows not all white people stereotype him, he remains aware that his height and weight (he’s 5-foot-10 and over 300 pounds) and the color of his skin could turn him into a target — even when he’s trying to order lunch.

It’s impossible for him to prevent an officer from invading the wrong apartment. He can’t teach black boys how to sleep, jog or bird-watch in non-threatening ways. And he can’t stop a prejudiced cop from firing shots at an unarmed black man.

Hill’s just glad he can fill in the gaps when families need him. And he knows it has helped on occasion: A 16-year-old client recently told him he’d channeled his advice when he was stopped by two police officers near Ferguson, Missouri. The teenager had been walking around with his lawn mower to make some money cutting grass. On his way home, the officers stopped him and asked why he was outside and how he had obtained the lawn mower. The teen told Hill the next day his advice had helped him stay calm and defuse the situation so he could get home safely.

Another teen Hill has worked with, Isaiah McGee, 18, has aged out of Hopewell’s youth mental health program, but Hill still checks in with him every other week.

The teen recently graduated from high school and plans to study music in college this fall. “I’m just trying to make it somewhere in life,” McGee said. “Leave my thumbprint on the world, become a legend.”

‘Just Make It Home’: The Unwritten Rules Blacks Learn To Navigate Racism in America published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[stephenmccull]

‘Just Make It Home’: The Unwritten Rules Blacks Learn To Navigate Racism in America

ST. LOUIS — Speak in short sentences. Be clear. Direct but not rude. Stay calm, even if you’re shaking inside. Never put your hands in your pockets. Make sure people can always see your hands. Try not to hunch your shoulders. Listen to their directions.

Darnell Hill, a pastor and a mental health caseworker, offers black teenagers these emotional and physical coping strategies every time a black person is fatally shot by a police officer. That’s when parents’ worries about their sons and daughters intensify.

“They’re hurting,” Hill said. “They’re looking for answers.”

Hill, who is African American, learned “the rules” the hard way. When he was 12, he and a group of his friends jumped a fence to go for a swim in a lake. That’s when two officers approached them. One of the cops, a white man, threatened to shoot Hill and everyone else if he ever caught them there again.

“I was so afraid,” Hill, now 37, recalled. “He made all of us sit down in a line right by the lake.”

He still tells himself that the officer didn’t mean what he said that day. But Hill’s tone changes when he thinks about the second time white men threatened him with a gun.

Hill and his family moved to a small, mostly white town in Florida. He rarely left the house at night, but one day when he was a sophomore in high school, his grandmother, who wasn’t feeling well, asked him to take their car and drive to a convenience store for ginger ale.

He got lost along the way and asked two white men for directions. Instead of offering help, the men tormented him, Hill said. When he tried to drive away, the men followed him in their vehicle, chasing him around in the dark. He thought surely they would kill him if they caught him.

“They told me it was [N-word] season,” Hill recalled. “I was terrified.”

The traumatic event is hard to talk about, Hill said. His voice still shakes as he describes how the night unfolded. That’s one reason he’s helping teenagers unpack their trauma — and guard against experiencing more — as they try to cope with the mental health burden of other people’s racist assumptions.

His unofficial guide to what he calls “living while black” can be tough to remember under pressure. But Hill said the survival skills feel essential to many who grow up feeling that the color of their skin makes them vulnerable to becoming the next George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer on May 25, an event that has prompted civil rights protests around the world.

Don't Miss A Story

Subscribe to KHN’s free Weekly Edition newsletter.

Sign Up

Please confirm your email address below:

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But well before Floyd’s death, Hill’s phone began to ring more. It was the start of the coronavirus pandemic and his young clients from the Hopewell Center, a mental health agency in St. Louis, needed help processing the closing of schools, loss of jobs, social isolation and loss of loved ones. So instead of working from home, Hill put a folding chair in the back of his car and started making house calls. He planted his seat in front yards and sidewalks while his clients stayed on their front porches.

The conversations Hill was having grew more complicated, though, after Floyd’s killing. Two months before Floyd’s death, Breonna Taylor was killed in Kentucky after officers with the Louisville Metro Police Department entered the black woman’s apartment dressed in plainclothes. Taylor’s boyfriend thought the officers were intruders, so he fired a single shot. Officers responded by shooting Taylor at least eight times. Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was chased down and fatally shot while jogging in Glynn County, Georgia. Three white men were arrested.

The mental anguish for some black families exploded as they saw these images and stories repeatedly on the news.

“When these happen, we have to address them,” said Lekesha Davis, vice president of the Hopewell Center. “It’s having a direct impact on [black families’] mental and emotional well-being.”

Hill offers coping skills as he makes his rounds every week. His conversations during regular visits now include discussions about police brutality, civil unrest and how to survive. Part of Hill’s work is teaching the mechanics of navigating everyday encounters — from walking in a public space like a park to being stopped by the police or entering a business.

Isaiah McGee, 18, is a mentee of Darnell Hill’s. McGee has aged out of the program at the Hopewell Center where Hill works as a mental health caseworker, but Hill still checks in with McGee every other week. (Courtesy of Isaiah McGee)

Don’t make any sudden moves. Watch your body language. Don’t point your fingers, even if you’re mad. Don’t clap your hands. Listen. Know the law. But don’t say too much. Make eye contact.

While many black families have their own sets of rules, he hopes that following his “do’s and don’ts” will allow kids to survive as unscathed as possible to realize their life ambitions. “Let’s just make it home,” Hill tells them. “We can deal with what’s fair or not fair, what’s racial or not racial at a later date.”

White children and teenagers, meanwhile, aren’t generally taught these sometimes futile survival skills with the same urgency. They’re just as unlikely to learn about the systemic racism that continues to create the problems, and almost certainly not what it would take to undo it.

Hill knows his training sessions don’t guarantee a win. He’s a husband, father, nonprofit board member and the president of the parent-teacher organization at his youngest child’s school. His voice is friendly and his demeanor is calm. Still, sometimes none of that matters when Hill drives in a predominantly white neighborhood. While he knows not all white people stereotype him, he remains aware that his height and weight (he’s 5-foot-10 and over 300 pounds) and the color of his skin could turn him into a target — even when he’s trying to order lunch.

It’s impossible for him to prevent an officer from invading the wrong apartment. He can’t teach black boys how to sleep, jog or bird-watch in non-threatening ways. And he can’t stop a prejudiced cop from firing shots at an unarmed black man.

Hill’s just glad he can fill in the gaps when families need him. And he knows it has helped on occasion: A 16-year-old client recently told him he’d channeled his advice when he was stopped by two police officers near Ferguson, Missouri. The teenager had been walking around with his lawn mower to make some money cutting grass. On his way home, the officers stopped him and asked why he was outside and how he had obtained the lawn mower. The teen told Hill the next day his advice had helped him stay calm and defuse the situation so he could get home safely.

Another teen Hill has worked with, Isaiah McGee, 18, has aged out of Hopewell’s youth mental health program, but Hill still checks in with him every other week.

The teen recently graduated from high school and plans to study music in college this fall. “I’m just trying to make it somewhere in life,” McGee said. “Leave my thumbprint on the world, become a legend.”

‘Just Make It Home’: The Unwritten Rules Blacks Learn To Navigate Racism in America published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[dinafbrownil]

‘Just Make It Home’: The Unwritten Rules Blacks Learn To Navigate Racism in America

ST. LOUIS — Speak in short sentences. Be clear. Direct but not rude. Stay calm, even if you’re shaking inside. Never put your hands in your pockets. Make sure people can always see your hands. Try not to hunch your shoulders. Listen to their directions.

Darnell Hill, a pastor and a mental health caseworker, offers black teenagers these emotional and physical coping strategies every time a black person is fatally shot by a police officer. That’s when parents’ worries about their sons and daughters intensify.

“They’re hurting,” Hill said. “They’re looking for answers.”

Hill, who is African American, learned “the rules” the hard way. When he was 12, he and a group of his friends jumped a fence to go for a swim in a lake. That’s when two officers approached them. One of the cops, a white man, threatened to shoot Hill and everyone else if he ever caught them there again.

“I was so afraid,” Hill, now 37, recalled. “He made all of us sit down in a line right by the lake.”

He still tells himself that the officer didn’t mean what he said that day. But Hill’s tone changes when he thinks about the second time white men threatened him with a gun.

Hill and his family moved to a small, mostly white town in Florida. He rarely left the house at night, but one day when he was a sophomore in high school, his grandmother, who wasn’t feeling well, asked him to take their car and drive to a convenience store for ginger ale.

He got lost along the way and asked two white men for directions. Instead of offering help, the men tormented him, Hill said. When he tried to drive away, the men followed him in their vehicle, chasing him around in the dark. He thought surely they would kill him if they caught him.

“They told me it was [N-word] season,” Hill recalled. “I was terrified.”

The traumatic event is hard to talk about, Hill said. His voice still shakes as he describes how the night unfolded. That’s one reason he’s helping teenagers unpack their trauma — and guard against experiencing more — as they try to cope with the mental health burden of other people’s racist assumptions.

His unofficial guide to what he calls “living while black” can be tough to remember under pressure. But Hill said the survival skills feel essential to many who grow up feeling that the color of their skin makes them vulnerable to becoming the next George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer on May 25, an event that has prompted civil rights protests around the world.

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But well before Floyd’s death, Hill’s phone began to ring more. It was the start of the coronavirus pandemic and his young clients from the Hopewell Center, a mental health agency in St. Louis, needed help processing the closing of schools, loss of jobs, social isolation and loss of loved ones. So instead of working from home, Hill put a folding chair in the back of his car and started making house calls. He planted his seat in front yards and sidewalks while his clients stayed on their front porches.

The conversations Hill was having grew more complicated, though, after Floyd’s killing. Two months before Floyd’s death, Breonna Taylor was killed in Kentucky after officers with the Louisville Metro Police Department entered the black woman’s apartment dressed in plainclothes. Taylor’s boyfriend thought the officers were intruders, so he fired a single shot. Officers responded by shooting Taylor at least eight times. Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was chased down and fatally shot while jogging in Glynn County, Georgia. Three white men were arrested.

The mental anguish for some black families exploded as they saw these images and stories repeatedly on the news.

“When these happen, we have to address them,” said Lekesha Davis, vice president of the Hopewell Center. “It’s having a direct impact on [black families’] mental and emotional well-being.”

Hill offers coping skills as he makes his rounds every week. His conversations during regular visits now include discussions about police brutality, civil unrest and how to survive. Part of Hill’s work is teaching the mechanics of navigating everyday encounters — from walking in a public space like a park to being stopped by the police or entering a business.

Isaiah McGee, 18, is a mentee of Darnell Hill’s. McGee has aged out of the program at the Hopewell Center where Hill works as a mental health caseworker, but Hill still checks in with McGee every other week. (Courtesy of Isaiah McGee)

Don’t make any sudden moves. Watch your body language. Don’t point your fingers, even if you’re mad. Don’t clap your hands. Listen. Know the law. But don’t say too much. Make eye contact.

While many black families have their own sets of rules, he hopes that following his “do’s and don’ts” will allow kids to survive as unscathed as possible to realize their life ambitions. “Let’s just make it home,” Hill tells them. “We can deal with what’s fair or not fair, what’s racial or not racial at a later date.”

White children and teenagers, meanwhile, aren’t generally taught these sometimes futile survival skills with the same urgency. They’re just as unlikely to learn about the systemic racism that continues to create the problems, and almost certainly not what it would take to undo it.

Hill knows his training sessions don’t guarantee a win. He’s a husband, father, nonprofit board member and the president of the parent-teacher organization at his youngest child’s school. His voice is friendly and his demeanor is calm. Still, sometimes none of that matters when Hill drives in a predominantly white neighborhood. While he knows not all white people stereotype him, he remains aware that his height and weight (he’s 5-foot-10 and over 300 pounds) and the color of his skin could turn him into a target — even when he’s trying to order lunch.

It’s impossible for him to prevent an officer from invading the wrong apartment. He can’t teach black boys how to sleep, jog or bird-watch in non-threatening ways. And he can’t stop a prejudiced cop from firing shots at an unarmed black man.

Hill’s just glad he can fill in the gaps when families need him. And he knows it has helped on occasion: A 16-year-old client recently told him he’d channeled his advice when he was stopped by two police officers near Ferguson, Missouri. The teenager had been walking around with his lawn mower to make some money cutting grass. On his way home, the officers stopped him and asked why he was outside and how he had obtained the lawn mower. The teen told Hill the next day his advice had helped him stay calm and defuse the situation so he could get home safely.

Another teen Hill has worked with, Isaiah McGee, 18, has aged out of Hopewell’s youth mental health program, but Hill still checks in with him every other week.

The teen recently graduated from high school and plans to study music in college this fall. “I’m just trying to make it somewhere in life,” McGee said. “Leave my thumbprint on the world, become a legend.”

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/just-make-it-home-the-unwritten-rules-blacks-learn-to-navigate-racism-in-america/

[endevent51-blog]

13 Advantages Of Individual Training

There are many factors why an Individual Trainer is important to achieving your fitness goals, whether they be weight loss-based, sports-driven or for sports objectives. Below, we have actually put together the most important reasons you should have a Personal Trainer, in addition to the benefits that you are most likely to accomplish. 1. It's Educational One of the key factors that a person ought to have a Personal Trainer is that they are trained in teaching others exactly how to exercise. And while exercise in itself is only a component of fitness, with nutrition as well as lifestyle playing a vital function in the overall image, if you don't get exercise right then, you will never ever accomplish your objectives. The importance of education when exercising is important for two key factors: 1) If you don't recognize which exercises are most reliable for the goals you have, you are unlikely to attain those objectives. For instance, if your objective is to build core toughness, yet you spend all your time on cardio exercises, after that you are not likely to strike your objective. 2) Education and learning when executing exercises is vital in lowering the threat of injury. Many individuals yearly are seriously harmed by doing exercises they have not gotten training for, and also this can impact their health and wellness for a very long time. Having a person educated in just how to implement particular tasks will substantially decrease the level of risk and also increase the performance of your fitness regimen. 2. They Help Perfect Type Having a Personal Trainer close to you to show the proper pose as well as technique is important. A Personal Trainer will guarantee clients are executing exercises properly and efficiently to take full advantage of outcomes. If your kind when working out is not proper, after that you go to enhanced risk of injury in addition to not achieving your goals (due to the fact that nothing kills a dreamlike ten weeks of prescribed bed rest!). 3. They Can Assist With Your Special Requirements Everybody is various, and that suggests every person's abilities and needs are various when it concerns exercise. This could be anything from having an old injury that needs special exercises to having a fear that might influence on where or exactly how you workout. For example, if you have an old knee injury that required surgery, yet considering that then you haven't done anything to reconstruct the muscular tissues or improve flexibility, then you are mosting likely to need various exercises and also goals than a professional athlete who is training to run a marathon. This is where Personal Trainers experience can make a huge distinction to your training program. 4. They Can Aid You Set Realistic Goals Everyone wants to attain their goals instantly, whether they be weight loss, cheese grater abs or Hulk-like toughness. But these are not constantly attainable, and if you do not strike them, after that you may be prevented as well as backslide. An Individual Trainer will not only help you set realistic objectives that you will have the ability to achieve - if you place in the effort, of program - yet they will certainly additionally have the ability to keep you on track to strike those goals. For example, if your objective is to accomplish a 'swimwear body' for summer, it's not almost doing 100 grinds a day for a month to function your abdominal muscles. It has to do with changing your diet to eat the right foods, blending cardio as well as weights to function the ideal muscular tissues, and also establishing a timeframe in which this can be attained. 5. They Aid You With Details Objectives As well as aiding their clients established realistic objectives, Personal Trainers are the excellent device to aid you accomplish a particular objective. This is perfect for those that are training for a particular occasion or need to achieve a certain level of fitness before they can do something they want. For instance, if you have a pail listing with 'Skydiving' on it however more than the optimum weight, then employing an Individual Trainer to aid with assisting you drop weight is an excellent start to accomplishing this goal. Or if your goal is to be able to run a marathon in six months, after that hiring an Individual Trainer to place you on the appropriate track might be all you require to complete a marathon. 6. They Hold You Liable How lots of times have you gone to sleep and also stated to yourself, 'Tomorrow I'm mosting likely to get up, most likely to the fitness center, and do a hr workout before I prepare for job,' and then got up as well as made a decision to rest for another hr as opposed to exercising? This is where a Personal Trainer is crucial to guaranteeing that you dedicate and adhere to your fitness goals. If you've made a consultation to meet your trainer for a session, then you are even more most likely to go still than if you are telling on your own you ought to go to the fitness center. 7. NO Lost Time= Optimum Outcomes There are 2 sorts of individuals who most likely to the health club: 1) Those who stray in, invest 10 minutes on one device and afterwards drift gradually over to an additional, before half-heartedly trying bicep swirls for 5 associates and also after that leaving. 2) Those who have a strategy in mind and hit the machines with a function. They generally have a set amount of representatives they do in sets of 2 or 3, and they'll understand exactly what they're doing on each device. The very first team will not be achieving their fitness goals unless they get some help and have someone to direct them, so if you recognize that you're one of those people, after that you should be employing the aid of an Individual Trainer ASAP. By choosing an Individual Trainer that has actually gone through details nutrition education and learning, you recognize that they will be giving the best dietary suggestions to achieve your objectives. 8. They're An Informal Therapist A lot of the moment, when working out with your Trainer, you will be informing them concerning your week, just how job is going, as well as what's wrong with your life at the time. This is typical! A Personal Trainer is there to help with your fitness goals. However they're additionally there to aid boost your general wellbeing. They care about just how stressed you are because that will certainly influence just how inspired you remain in your sessions. They care if you're unhappy in a connection, as this can result in eating unhealthily. There are myriad methods which having an Individual Trainer can be like having an unofficial specialist. 9. They Aid You Form Excellent Practices It can take weeks to develop excellent routines, and even longer to break bad ones - and trying to do it on your own is hard work. Having an Individual Trainer resembles having a great angel on your shoulder, encouraging you in the ideal instructions. They can help to say with the evil angel in your head, as well as keep you on track to accomplish your fitness goals. 10. Customized Training Plan There are always going to be some exercises that you delight in even more than others, past easy ability. For example, even if you can literally do burpees does not imply that you always desire to, but you could such as doing squat jumps and sit-ups instead. A Personal Trainer will be able to tailor your training strategy to match you and what you appreciate, in addition to motivate you to do the exercises that are best to achieve your objectives. Along with this, there are always mosting likely to be some days when the last thing you seem like doing is a tough workout, and also so having a Personal Trainer means that they can tailor your exercise for that day to both accommodate your state of mind while still making the session useful. 11. They Match Your Arrange No matter whether the only time you have offered to train is at an extremely very early hour before job, or on your lunch break, or mid-afternoon prior to the children get home from college. A Personal Trainer is just one of one of the most functional careers in regards to hrs. Online Personal Training understand that various individuals have various availabilities, and also so they will customize visit times to fit you. 12. Boosted Adaptability For Place Not everyone appreciates the atmosphere of a congested health club or needing to wait for the device you want to make use of to appear. The benefit of having a Personal Trainer is that you aren't restricted to exercising where tools is offered. Not just will your PT have some stuff that they can bring with them, however you can also pick the area in which you exercise. Whether it remains in the convenience of your very own home or your area park, with a Personal Trainer, you have the adaptability to workout any place suits you finest. 13. They Obstacle You Are you obtaining tired with your fitness regimen? Have you progressed beyond the exercises you recognize and have plateaued in your fitness? A Personal Trainer is what you require to take you to the next degree, and constantly challenge your capacities. Do not believe you can lift that medicine round? Positive, you will not fit back into your much-loved dress? Doubt you'll be able to contend in a charity run following year? A Better You is your life coach, nutrition guide and also encourager all in one, and without them, your fitness objectives are that much harder to achieve. So what are you waiting on? Locate a professional Individual Trainer today to assist satisfy your fitness goals.

[ourmrmel]

Mel Feller Discusses why Grandpas are Mentors and Memory Makers for Children by Mel Feller

Mel Feller Discusses why Grandpas are Mentors and Memory Makers for Children by Mel Feller

 Mel Feller believes that every child deserves a grandparent who will love unreservedly, and every grandparent needs the opportunity to love and to be loved. Although it may not take a whole village to raise a child, it definitely takes a loving family. Grandpas are a decisive ingredient in the family mix. They have a unique connection to their grandchildren and a wealth of gifts to offer, talents and insight to share with each child.

 For countless families, family life is spiraling out of control. Parents are progressively busier, and family life is more often like a compression cooker. The stresses of dual careers and a wealth of outside events leave far too little parent-child time. Grandparents can make a huge difference to these busy families.  As a grandpa, I try to be there and love to be there for my kids and grandchildren.

 I firmly believe that grandpas have many things to impart to their grandchildren, both by their modeling and their mentoring. Having lived numerous years and experienced a great deal, their understanding can comfort and enrich their grandchildren’s lives in a variation of ways.

 When you look at it intentionally, we see that grandpas are powerful models for their grandchildren, and their actions and example often speak louder than their words. From grandpas, children learn both attitudes, values and unconditional love. Grandpas show grandchildren how to be good citizens; they are witnesses to their faith; and they are models for getting older. Their very existence exposes children to the seasons of life and clarifies them respect for other ages and stages of life.

 Grandpas are custom-built mentors. They have a warehouse of insight to share. Over the years, they have refined their gifts and their talents, learned valuable skills and established interests that are advantageous, educational and advantageous to their grandchildren. Their life understanding can guide and teach their grandchildren immensely.

 In addition, grandparents mentor grandchildren when they share a talent or new activity, such as building a birdhouse, landscaping or gardening, visiting a museum, or taking a nature walk. Grandparents have a profusion of experience, which they often take for granted, and they generally have more time than parents do. Furthermost grandchildren welcome the occasion to try something new with a grandpa.

 In my experience, grandpas are perfect memory-makers. By spending time and mentoring their grandchildren, they build appreciated and treasured memories that will last a lifetime. They do not need a trip to Disneyland to do so, but it helps, nonetheless they do need a readiness to share their time and talent. If you are a grandpa who wants to try something new, birthdays and holidays are opportune times. Consider making a birthday banner that the grandkids might even help create. Make one-of-a-kind personalized birthday cards with a depiction of the birthday child. Give gift certificates for overnights at grandpa’s house or a special date or outing of their choosing. Write a letter to your grandchild explaining your excitement when they were born. Take your grandchild on a memorable trip or adventure for a milestone birthday.  Better yet just, take them on a trip with you.

 Grandpas can build memories by working on a combined project or developing a mutual hobby like stamp or coin collecting. Grandkids who are into sports love to have their grandpas follow the identical sports teams and compare notes with them.

 A sad reality today is that today, fewer and fewer grandpas and grandchildren live in the same community. A great many of the more than 72 million grandparents in the U.S. are long-distance grandpas. Both parents and grandparents must be innovative to keep connected. E-mail, skype, texting, cell phones and snail mail become important opportunities for staying in touch. The lines of communication can be maintained by sending stories, jokes, riddles or creating an on-going tale by e-mail.  My preference is still by phone and surprise visits whenever possible.

 Therefore, grandpas are distinctive models and mentors. The ages of their grandchildren will decide the experiences, activities and adventures that can be shared. As children grow out of some actions, they will grow into others. Interaction with their grandpas is assured to enrich their lives and leave them with an immense amount of treasured memories.

 Do you find yourself in a constant state of mental chaos? Do you feel like your career goals and lifetime dreams just can’t be met no matter how hard you work to achieve them?

 There is a reason, you will never reach your full potential unless you move from being an imposter to being who you really want to be by being deeply authentic. No amount of material possessions, money, or high-ranking career position will make you happy or feel fulfilled if your inner confidence does not match your external success. Mel Feller and Coaching for Success 360 coaching and the art and science of self-mastery will transform your life and get you there.

 Instead of traditional and motivational touchy-feely coaching, my style is edgy, bold, straightforward, instructional and results-driven. Motivation is great but only if you do something with it!

 Mel Feller chooses to work with people I feel a deep trust and connection with so we can make change on a cellular level, cognitively with passion and high-energy. No lies. No bull. No excuses. Purity, honesty, hard work.

 Mel Feller – Personal Development, Business, Executive, Internet and Real Estate Investments Coach/Mentor and Business Owner

 Mel Feller was a senior staffer for over 5 years with both United States Senator Jake Garn and The Senate Banking and Finance Committee.

 Mel Feller is a speaker at entrepreneurial forums training business professionals on marketing strategies and the “Secrets of Online Marketing”. He provides consulting services on all aspects of business including organizational performance, sales and marketing strategies, employee productivity and retention, successful solution implementation, technology leverage and customer service in all business and fields.

 Mel Feller's areas of technology expertise include emails and social media, solution development discipline and methodology, business process leads and project management.

 Mel Feller has twenty-five years’ experience with companies, nonprofits and individuals in the research and writing of both government and private grants.

 In addition to his regular consulting and management responsibilities, Mel Feller was published in the Top 100 Mentors; he has published two books on "Creative Real Estate Financing" and “Multiple Secrets to Success”, and presented numerous executive lectures for Fortune 500 corporations on “leadership and business practices”.

Visit him at www.melfeller.com and www.melfellersuccessstories.com

 Mel Feller’s dynamic presence, instinctive strategic vision, and creative thinking produce effective, sustainable bottom-line results for his clients. His “Can Do” attitude generates confidence in his executive coaching clients and strategic consulting corporate clients. Throughout Mel Feller’s career, he has increased the profitability of nearly every organization with which he has worked.

 Mel Feller has a unique ability to relate to his clients because he came from The United States Senate, where Mel was the Chief of Staff for a United States Senator and was always meeting with prominent business people or politicians.  His main love was dealing with constituents that were the grass root voters!  Since founding Coaching For Success 360 In 1989, he has effectively translated that experience into results for his clients. He focuses on separating daily distractions from the real issues in order to put the executive and/or business on the right path to grow and prosper. Results are immediate, growth sustainable, and profitability long-term.

 Dozens of Mel Feller’s clients have been on Inc.’s 500/5000 list and many have been named as a “Best Places To Work.

Using Mel Feller’s intuitive, systematic approach, and our proven strategic and tactical tools, we help you plan for profit.

 Mel Feller believes that what gets measured is improved. Therefore, he is continually developing processes and systems that allow you to easily measure, manage and maintain a highly profitable business.

 Mel Feller is  ready to help you increase your sales, trim and manage your operating costs and see your profits soar and/or leverage your time for Business or Real Estate!

  “Truth telling, honesty, and candor: I loved you Mel Feller! You have so much energy and knowledge! I truly hope I get another opportunity to be coached by you. I see myself a little clearer now, and it’s not so bad.”

Lisa Mathews

 “Mel Feller you added more value than we can possibly see right now. Mel Feller, you are warm, inviting, and accommodating. Thank you for coming alongside us in this transition!”

Vanessa Cavanaugh

“Mel Feller the best education session that we have attended in many years! Thank you so much — I am very excited to put everything you have taught us into practice!”

Michael Randolph

 “Mr. Mel Feller, Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving a marvelous keynote at our Symposium! While we have not yet collected the official feedback, the unofficial feedback was that You Were a Hit! I heard nothing but compliments regarding your presentations. Thank you for making such a positive impact on our attendees! ”

Lyle Cunningham VP

 "Mel Feller uses his humor, compassion, and direct nature to help bring out the best in me. Mel Feller is committed to helping me live...I mean, really live, life to its fullest."

Jose Rodriguez

 Mel Feller Links

 https://www.instagram.com/mel.feller  

 https://ourmrmel.tumblr.com/  

 https://www.pinterest.com/cfs360/  

 https://twitter.com/melfeller

 https://wordpress.com/page/melfellerinternetbusinessinnovations.wordpress.com  

 https://dribbble.com/melfeller  

 https://biggerpockets.com/forums/79/topics/49008-larry-goins-bootcamp  

 https://txbusinessdb.com/p/mel-feller  

 https://xindex.com/c/12031660488/mel-feller-financial-services-group-inc  

 https://buzzfile.com/business/Coaching-For-Success-940-569-9260  

 https://melfellerrealestateinnovations.wordpress.com  

 https://myspace.com/mfcfs360  

 https://goodreads.com/user/show/86266194-mel-feller  

 https://mfcfs.contently.com  

 https://alignable.com/wichita-falls-tx/coaching-for-success-360  

 https://quora.com/profile/Mel-Feller  

 https://about.me/melfeller  

 https://independent.academia.edu/MelFeller  

 https://medium.com/@mfcfs360  

 https://melfellerentrepreneurialideas.wordpress.com  

 https://about.me/melfeller  

 https://thecoachingoffice.com  

 https://quora.com/profile/Mel-Feller  

 https://linkedin.com/pulse/reflections-journaling-mel-feller-mel-feller  

 https://creonline.com/finally-my-first-deal  

 https://etrainingguide.com  

 https://reitips.com/open-letter  

 https://thecoachingoffice.com/testimonials.html  

 https://fortunebuilders.com/student-success-old/testimonials/page/9  

 https://agrandpaslove.blogspot.com  

 https://plus.google.com/u/0  

 https://youtube.com/channel/UCk_zDXJgadnWwmab0PhaIkQ/videos  

 https://linkedin.com/in/mel-feller  

 https://challengesinlife.com  

 https://melfellersuccessstories.com  

 https://melfeller.com  

 https://www.slideshare.net/MelFeller

[swansandtheswimming]

University Pupils! Discover Exactly How To Melt Persistent Tummy Fat And Keep It Off Forever

History will certainly confirm that Kentucky, UCLA, North Carolina, Fight It Out, Indiana, WiFi is good everywhere in the university, the class are tidy as well as have the required innovation, and a throughout calm environment. We need to draw those sponsors in with comprehensive methods that treat those sponsors like they become part of the company (which they absolutely are). Alabama has actually 12 officially acknowledged national championships by the NCAA in addition there resemble 4 or 5 even more that are unofficial according to the NCAA. Can my pupil get a work to counter some of the additional expenditures like traveling, food and also enjoyment? • The pregnant women should additionally bear in their mind that consumption of mercury throughout the pregnancy can cause the instance of brain injury. Reduce wrapping with a crafted plastic wrap can minimize shrinkage, protect the fruit and vegetables from condition, lower mechanical injury and offer an exceptional flooring for stick-on labels. When they're fancied the ultimate house priests, they may as effectively manage financial resources, and save cash on purchasing paper luggage and also plastic circumstances sometimes. Barry Leavitt was a fantastic surprise at the end of his fresher year, reaching PR times in both the high (14.67) and also intermediate hurdles (51.48) and also racking up in both occasions at the 2004 seminar fulfill. Lisa Stone is honoring Sol Schwartz, that passed away suddenly previously this year, by organizing an event in his honor next month in Maryland. The actual start of the sport in its ideal occurred when American's who played these video games combined their guidelines for an all-American model. Jackson, who returned home to Illinois after playing the ITF Grade 1 in College Park. A fast instance: In 1996, when Jake "The Snake" Plummer was playing for Arizona State and had that great group, they played their competing Arizona at Arizona. If you are trying to obtain healthy and balanced and actually feel much better then as you can see, juicing is a terrific means to perform each of these goals concurrently. Iowa has signed Oliver Okonkwo of Great Britain. They normally look for greatness alternatives so that they can peek means extra lovely and also may have a healthy life style. Occasionally when it concerns weight loss, you might effectively be actually prepared on the prospect to neglect out on activities. Leading programs might not have to hire as high as those that are trying to transform programs about, however absolutely nothing beats watching a kid play when analyzing talent as well as temperament. Still, those that provide all this are really couple of. This is a guest message from David Hodge, that I know from his years as the assistant men's train at Stanford College. There is absolutely not a one that can not prepare if they have actually reputable details, and also some valuable recommendations to find from. There are no official education requirements for guiding on phase, in movies, or on tv. Wild environments are numerous, as well as wild populaces of plants as well as pets are likewise numerous. Your analysis comprehension is additionally likely to boost as you complete tasks for English Composition 101. Trainees, early in their university occupations, are commonly puzzled regarding why specific readings and also projects are offered. 60. T K R University Of Engineering & Innovation. The rest of those advancing to the 2nd round were even more foreseeable, with existing as well as previous college gamers in the majority. Need to be much shorter than the existing name. These charges have actually placed even more emphasis on the talk surrounding DeepOnion purchase occasions and charges. In the final, Saddlebrook beat Downtown 4-2. For extra on the competition, see this short article from National School internet site. Reasonably one is looking in the direction of 2 to 4 extra pounds of weight loss per week however that number usually reduces once you have actually almost reached your weight-loss objective. University fest is one event pupils excitedly await. By understanding your troubles, he will certainly carry out basic maths courses for you, so that it comes to be easier for you to construct the concepts of algebra at college degree. Because the Atkin's weight-reduction strategy is started on limiting the variety of carbohydrates that you just consume, having a graph will assist in preserving together with your carb objectives.

[rightsinexile]

The Illegal Economy of Refugee Registration: Insights into the Ugandan Refugee Scandal #PublicAuthority

The following short piece was originally published by Charles Ogeno and Ryan Joseph O’Byrne via the Africa at LSE blog portal. It is reprinted here with permission.

This article is part of the #PublicAuthority blog series, part of the ESRC-funded Centre for Public Authority and International Development.

In early April 2017, we received reports that the South Sudanese town of Pajok, 25km north of Ugandan border, had been attacked. The following day, Charles’ friend Celcio gave him some details about what had happened.

“For the last few years the government neglected us and we have been in the hands of rebels. Now the government has launched an assault on Pajok in order to take it back from the rebels.” He felt the gross injustice of this: “It is not a big deal for us if Pajok is with government or rebels so long as they protect civilians.” The rebels had harassed and forcibly conscripted civilians. The Government on the other hand had committed a massacre. In a later conversation with Charles’ cousin Anek, she said “the government came and attacked the community, destroyed our properties, our loved ones have been killed. Women have been raped… [and] when they find a man, they kill straight away.”After the attack, many people fled to Uganda, arriving at the border town of Ngomoromo. Another cousin, Ayari, praised the Uganda People Defence Forces (UPDF) for their understanding and fair treatment. She said: “the UPDF speaks well with us; they know how to handle civilians”.

As Western countries make it increasingly hard for refugees to cross their borders, Uganda has become well-regarded for its inclusive refugee policies. Once registered, refugees are given land for settlement and cultivation. They have freedom of movement throughout the country and are allowed to work, meaning they can earn a legitimate income.

There have been many reports about Ugandans’ warm welcome for South Sudanese fleeing violence, which may result from memories of being refugees themselves. Furthermore, refugee resettlement opens up new economic opportunities: when you compare Bweyale, the town closest to Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement, with Kiryandongo Town, the District Headquarters, there is a huge difference. The refugee settlement provides a ready market, making Bweyale a bustling centre with numerous economic activities. Kiryandongo on the other hand is less busy with relatively little economic activity.

Although refugees are welcomed because of the economic opportunities, infrastructure, and services provided to areas where they resettle, the amount of support they receive can generate envy, a feeling heightened by what is considered as inequality in resource distribution. With the conflict in South Sudan showing no signs of concluding, the high influx of refugees over the last two years has shifted the attitudes of locals who not only see refugees as having privileged access to food and land but feeling that the long-term costs of hosting refugees may outweigh any short term benefits.

It is within this context that the current Ugandan refugee scandal takes place: officials of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) as well as the UN are charged with numerous illegal or immoral accusations, including: suspicions of inflating refugee numbers so staff can pocket extra money and other resources; a widespread abuse of food, funds, and other resources destined for refugee settlements; and the ‘trafficking’ of female refugees into undesired ‘marriages’.

Such accounts are not new, and a number of Ugandans have been trying to register as South Sudanese refugees since at least early 2017. Charles discovered evidence of this himself when talking to some young Ugandans in a Kiryandongo bar in February 2017, and Okongo (28) and Ojeke (26) both said they and others were looking for ways to get the money needed to register as refugees and enable their resettlement in the West. Indeed, even in late 2016 we had heard rumours from our connections among South Sudanese in Uganda that refugee registration had become substantially and prohibitively monetarised. These accounts not only spoke of Ugandans trying to buy themselves refugee status – a transaction said to require approximately 500,000 Ugandan schillings (USD $140 or GBP £100) – but narrated that Ugandan government workers and UNHCR staff in some of the larger camps were routinely blackmailing refugees desperate to register. As the following examples from Bweyale in early 2017 show, at Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement, at least, such practices had become increasingly standard:

One woman explained that “Registration is a very difficult exercise for us. At reception, they asked for money from us in order to register. My registration form was thrown away because I had no money to bribe the registrar. I was told I would have to re-register – I regretted coming here”.

A 36-year-old man who heads an extended family of 20 children (comprising eight biological children and 12 orphans) was asked how and when he registered as a refugee. He said “I am not a registered refugee because to register I was asked to pay over UGX 1,000,000 as bribe to the registrars (USD $275 or GBP £195). I am struggling even to get food for these children, how can I get UGX 1,000,000 to bribe the registrar? And even if you bribe, you will not receive relief like the food ration. I know a family which paid UGX 350,000 (USD $95 or GBP £70) for only four family members but they are not even receiving relief services, so they are struggling to find something to eat just like us. So, if there is no relief, I see no reason to call myself a refugee. The UN should respect our rights! I took refuge here not because I wanted to but conditions in my country forced me”.

Because of these and similar activities, there are now refugees living in some settlements without legal refugee status. Some leave one settlement with the intention of reuniting with family in another, but this runs the risk of having their refugee status withdrawn on arrival at the second settlement and being told to return to the border to re-register, which is difficult and expensive. Worse yet are those previously-registered refugees who have had their registration documentation purposefully destroyed or removed, a seemingly not-uncommon practice when a poverty-stricken refugee family is unable to pay the money demanded from them.

These and similar stories demonstrate the veracity and significance of one of CPAID’s guiding principles: that public authority in fragile contexts does not always function solely via official or normative means, but rather involves multiple actors and institutions – both formal and informal – operating under their own logics and mechanisms concurrently with or alternate to more official channels. In the case of the current Ugandan refugee scandal, the same public authority institutions formally employed to promote human rights, good governance, and social justice are also those engaged in opportunistic social and economic exploitation, no matter how unofficially. Thus, in public authority situations such as this, we not only see how formal and informal mechanisms of governance can both play out through multiple alternate channels at the same time, but also how these varying governance forms can involve the same actors engaging in competing strategies simultaneously.

Given such a situation, the problem must be stated clearly:

Asking for money to enable refugee registration amounts to an illegal bribe which not only violates UNHCR best practice but should be seen as a human rights abuse.

We say this because the Geneva Convention not only emphasises that refugees have good reason to seek security, but further stipulates they should not be penalised for entering a country. Therefore, asking for money to register a refugee not only penalises that refugee – many of whom flee their country of origin with no money or goods – but also undermines international refugee law. Moreover, having inaccurate data makes refugee-related planning and operation extremely difficult for both UNHCR and the Ugandan government, further exacerbating the very problems which underlie the current Ugandan refugee scandal. For example, case studies like those above make it very difficult to accept Uganda’s refugee population figure, a major factor in donors’ calls for investigation into the Ugandan refugee situation. The fact is, many people can manipulate the registration process for their own benefit. In Uganda, however, it seems that despite negative discourses to the contrary, in Uganda it seems that it is humanitarian and government workers rather than refugees who are most grossly manipulating the registration process for their own enrichment. In doing so, they have not only breached their legal and ethical mandates to ensure refugee’s security and protection; they have also negatively impacted the views, opinions, and charity of donors and the international community, likely exacerbating the difficulties and tensions involved in managing the global refugee crisis.