#i posted a longer video a long time ago and i wanted to shorten it lmao

[sugarcomatosed]

On Miyuki Inaba and Macross:

I’ve heard nothing but love for wave 2-10 of destruction; but I’ve realized that the scene loses some of its magic for western audience because they don’t know it’s a shout out. 

So today I want to break down for you today the biggest reference in 13 Sentinels you most likely missed out on; Miyuki Inaba, Lynn Minmay and The Super Dimensional Fortess Macross.

Join me under the cut for massive spoilers for Sentinels of course, and a nearly 40 year old anime you’ve never seen.

I think everyone knows Sentinels is chock full of sci-fi shout outs. From War of the Worlds, to Terminator, The Matrix, heck even GroundHog’s day, the list goes on and on. Most western audiences will be able to spot the bulk, so why haven’t you heard of Macross?

Simply put, copyright battles. In 1985, Hamorny Gold stitched together three unrelated animes to create Robotech. One of the anime series involved was Macross and Harmony Gold has kept a tight leash on the copyright preventing the series from ever getting a real proper English release ever since.

...so what is Macross?

Well, in super blunt Wikipedia stolen summaries:

Macross (マクロス, Makurosu, English: /məˈkrɒs/) is a Japanese science fiction mecha anime media franchise/media mix, created by Studio Nue (most prominently mechanical designer Shōji Kawamori) and Artland in 1982. The franchise features a fictional history of Earth and the human race after the year 1999, as well as the history of humanoid civilization in the Milky Way. It consists of four TV series, four movies, six OVAs, one light novel, and five manga series, all sponsored by Big West Advertising, in addition to 40 video games set in the Macross universe, 2 crossover games, and a wide variety of physical merchandise.

If you asked me to boil the series down to it’s three staples I’d pick the following three elements. Big robot fights, love triangles and music, usually all interplaying together to make some of the most exciting fight scenes in anime.

The series is going strong in Japan ever since its 1982 release, with the most recent series Macross Delta’s newest film “Absolute Live!!!!!!” getting its first teaser trailer days before I sat down to write this post. It’s insanely big in Japan and you’ve probably seen a half dozen Macross references if you’ve watched a sci-fi anime before. Most likely the signature missile blast.

Sentinels pulls specifically from the 1984 film: the Super Dimensional Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? The story is largely a shortened version of the first tv series which aired in 82 and is considered in canon a film retelling of the events.

The film focuses on a colony ship adrift through space suddenly being attacked by an alien race called the Zentardi, it’s both a war film and a very quiet drama all tangled up in the three central characters of Hikaru Ichijo, the young pilot, Misa Hayase, one of the bridge officers and then Miss Macross herself; Lynn Minmay.  An idol singer aborad the ship who has during its journey become a huge celebrity after starting as a simple waitress at her family’s restaurant. 

Minmay is considered something of the face of the series and while other characters may never come up again in its extended universe, the story of Lynn Minmay is akin to legend in later entries in the seires. 

When mankind was faced with these invaders, there was one simple thing that managed to send the enemy into disarray, the music of Lynn Minmay shocked the Zentardi who had no concept of culture and music. They end up capturing her and the other two leads during the course of the film and while the others manage to escape; Minmay is trapped behind with the Zentardi.

They eventually ask her to look and exam a relic they’ve kept on board their ship, and Minmay discovers it’s of all things, a song.

So, if isn’t obvious enough by this description alone, Miyuki is modeled after Minmay. It’s not a 1 to 1, but the curls in her hair and the style of her outfit make it even more obvious.

They have a lot of the same general vibes too, Minmay over the course of the film becomes a tragic melancholic figure and a symbol of the war effort against her will. Her sweet dreamy smile and glittering energy become subdued as she faces set back over setback. She remains strong up until a point behind her facade of confidence until she discovers Hikaru now has feelings for Misa. Culminating in the finale of the film where a despair filled Minmay refuses to sing because it all seems pointless.

Miyuki foils this of course with her journey from the plucky Tomi Kisaragi of a prior loop to a ghost in the machine; a somber beautiful figure but a changed person. She only has this role she’s taken on in the end. All she can do to impact the out come of this fight is sing and hope Shu hears her.

In the finale, Minmay is given a wake up call and asked by Hikaru to sing her song and try to save the lives of everyone left aboard the macross. Roused from her despair, Minmay agrees and the final battle is set to the tunes of the song the Zentardi had shown her, now with lyrics Misa had translated. At long last reaching them and halting the conflict.

This is of course, what 2-10 is a direct reference too. Miyuki sings Seaside Vacation until she can’t be heard any longer.

Even if you’ve never seen the film, the clip alone is a treat in itself. It’s a lovely piece of animation 

But Macross’s influences go deeper than just Miyuki and the original Macross. In Macross Plus, the primary idol is the artificial intelligence Sharon Apple. She is also it’s major villian as her AI becomes destabilized during the course of the film.

With the illegal modifications installed in Sharon takes control of the capital of Earth with her music and nearly destroys the city. Miyuki’s character is all Minmay, but her role in the story is a heroic Sharon Apple.

And outside of Miyuki, Macross references and influences can be spotted in Tomi’s story in which she and Nenji are trapped in 2025 and he begins to fall for her mirrors the arc that occurs between Hikaru and Misa after they escape the clutches of the Zentardi. The pair find themselves trapped on a mysterious planet, which turns out to be Earth rampaged by the Zentardi. Misa and Hikaru’s hostility towards each other fades as they try to come to grips with this truth. They spend a long time alone in the ruins and eventually fall in love before eventually being saved by the Macross. Which, is roughly what occurs in Tomi’s story between her and Nenji.

Shu’s story as well, with the minor focus on his confusion of his feelings towards Tomi and Yuki are also arguably a tongue in cheek reference towards the series many Love triangles, which aren’t always true triangles but always remain a corner stone of the series. 

Does Shu actually have feelings towards Tomi? No but she’s showing up everywhere and it’s left him a little out of sorts and plays into the misinformation sentinels feeds you, leading you to think there’s a triangle of some sorts:

Maybe they’re stretches, but considering it was stated in an interview the film was a huge inspiration for the game, I wouldn’t be shocked. I found the interview on twitter back in November but can’t track it down now and I’m v. sad

There’s also the matter of the Protoculture.

The Macross is a massive colony ship, sent out into space with the goal of returning to earth after a long space voyage to insure humanity’s survival, much like the probes the 2188 colony sent out. Misa and Hikaru return to find this was the only thing that’s had prevented humanity from being wiped by the Zentardi.

While on earth, Misa and Hikaru manages to discover a set of ruins of a highly advanced civilization that had created both humanity and the Zentardi. The protoculture.

The logs they manage to Find reveal that their inventions grew too great and they have all but disappeared from the universe, but humanity in the end are aliens as well. The invading Zentardi were just tools used by the Protoculture to wage war on itself and contributed to the death of their people.

The song Minmay sings is a relic of the Protoculture, an ancient highly advanced civilization from thousands of years ago.

Now Hm. Why does that sound familiar? What was it Fluffy said about 2188 and the Deimos code....

They’re obviously not 1-1 references, but Sentinels was such a labor of love that pulled from so many genres it’s nice to see such an iconic series get a well thought out reference. 

I hope this was something of a fun read and gives you a better love of Miyuki and 2-10.

I don’t know if I’d recommend getting into Macross if you liked Sentinels, but if you’re interested send me an ask and I could probably give you a helpful breakdown. I love both series so much and consider them my top two sci-fi! 

[goatsandgangsters]

For the trans asks! 1, 6, 14, 18, 25, 41?

1. How did you choose your name?

So the majority of people in my life call me either Em or EJ, though some people still call me Emeline (which is my given name). I don’t think I’ll ever consider it a deadname, because I do have some attachment, but I think the nicknames Em and EJ suite me better. People are welcome to use any of those options. While I’m particular about people getting my pronouns right and using neutral- or masculine-coded language, I’m kind of shrug emoji when it comes to names.

Em is actually largely @meyerlansky‘s doing (still suspended, rip), because they just... have a tendency to shorten people’s names and started calling me Em several years ago. And it just caught on! Particularly among online friends or mutual IRL friends, I looked around one day and was like “oh huh, a lot of people call me Em now, don’t they?” 

EJ has a bit more of an intentional story behind it: I first thought of EJ back in mmmmaybe late 2018? I saw a post on tumblr that was like, “I think it’s cool how there are a couple different Categories that transmasculine names tend to fall into” and listing those out. And one of them was initialisms—with examples like AJ, CJ, TJ. And I noticed, you know, J is always the second letter. And EJ is ACTUALLY MY INITIALS. And I just instantly felt really good about that, because here was a Very Gender Neutral Name, but it still already felt like a name I’d had my entire life. It was fresh and familiar all at once. It fit into this J pattern while also still feeling unique, because EJ is not as common as other -J initialisms. I first tried it out when I started going to a trans group IRL, so I have an entire trans friend group that only calls me EJ. The majority of people at work also call me EJ—similarly because nicknames just spread sometimes. I left my official documentation under Emeline, but mentioned to a couple people that I also go by EJ and then I blinked and almost every single person I work with calls me EJ. 

Both Em and EJ amuse me, because I’m surprised at how easy it is for people to pick up a nickname. I’ve found that people adjust to using a different name WAY more easily than they adjust to changing pronouns? Which is on the one hand an interesting observation, but on the other hand, it’s unfortunate because I CARE MORE ABOUT THE PRONOUNS PEOPLE USE THAN MY NAME

6. When did you realize you were transgender?

Short answer: 2012. I was a sophomore in college and one day I found out some people actually want to be their assigned gender?? I had thought we were all just miserably putting up with it. 

(There’s a longer answer here about realizing my gender in 2012 but then spending years and years overcoming my internalized guilt about “not being trans enough” and constantly moving my own goal post of “well I’m not trans enough because I don’t do x” and then doing x and going “OKAY BUT I HAVEN’T DONE Y” and then doing y and going “YEAH BUT I DON’T DO Z” and then wanting z and finally realizing, hey uh, how many times are you gonna move this goal post and also you’re eventually going to run out of goal posts—and finally having to go OKAY FINE, YES, I’M TRANS ENOUGH. I’M OUT OF EXCUSES TO INVALIDATE MYSELF.)

14. How long have you been out?

2018 was the first time I started telling people directly to use they/them pronouns for me. (I know, I know, took SIX YEARS RIGHT? But processing that is what my therapist is for.) But before that, I was definitely like in that vague place of “blogs about gender feelings and nonbinary stuff often enough that everyone who follows me like probably knew for a number of years before I said anything directly.” But in 2018, I was finally being Concrete and Direct about it, put it in all my socials, etc. Then in 2019, I came out to my parents and at my job for the first time. So officially, 2–3 years overall! 

18. How does your family feel about your trans identity?

If you asked them, they would tell you that they love and support me and they’re proud of me and they fully accept my identity. 

If you asked me, I would tell you that while they do love and support me, trans stuff is COMPLETELY BRAND NEW to them, so they don’t always know the right ways to show that support. It’s one of those “sometimes I wish it didn’t take work, but I know they’re trying and they mean well” situations

They ARE making progress, albeit more slowly than I’d like. Neither of them had ANY IDEA what I was talking about when I first came out. They very much... did not understand what I was telling them. So I made them both read a very good book on the subject, which they did read, and that helped lay some groundwork.

My dad has been consistently good about using neutral language from the start and as of a couple months ago started consistently using my pronouns! My mom still has not used my pronouns ever, which is kind of a bummer because she’s had... two years. She’s at the stage of “notices when she gets it wrong” or “aware enough to avoid pronouns,” which is better than not noticing at all, but it’s still not as good as getting it right. iT’S A PROCESS. I’m trying to be patient with it. They mean well. But god I wish it could just be easy, like a light switch. 

I still haven’t told them about my plans for top surgery. I’ve been putting off that conversation for....... months. It was actually the “pin in that for next week” comment to my therapist when we were wrapping up. But like, IDK IF YOU’RE STILL WORKING ON PRONOUNS, I FEEL LIKE “SURGICALLY REMOVING MY BOOBS” MIGHT SOUND LIKE A LOT?

25. What do you wish cis people understood?

I MEAN, QUITE A LOT. But if I have to get specific, I wish there was more understanding of why pronouns are actually important. I get the sense from a lot of cis people who are older and who don’t have a lot of understanding about queer stuff to begin with, that they think of pronouns as like “something they have to be PC about” and if they use the wrong pronouns I’m going to be mad and offended and they’re going to be sent to pronoun jail by the language police. Like, people approach pronouns by thinking “I need to remember that she uses they/them pronouns, so I need to only call her by them/them pronouns.” 

But actually, I’m asking that they stop seeing me as a woman. I don’t want a linguistic bandaid slapped over internal misgendering. If you can’t internalize that I’m not a girl, then pronouns will continue to be a struggle. I’d rather people call me the right thing than the wrong thing, but I don’t want to only be called the right thing. I want to also be seen as the right thing, too. It’s like one of my friends had a coworker call them by the wrong pronoun and the coworker came to apologize and then was like “alright, see you later girl!” with apparently no cognitive dissonance whatsoever. Pronouns are important, but they’re also not JUST language. Pronouns are important because they signify seeing people authentically. I want people to get my pronouns right, but I don’t want getting my pronouns right to be ALL that people do. 

Also, the idea that trans people are “angry and offended” when you misgender them because everyone is so sensitive and political correctness has gone too far, instead of like “it’s a painful reminder that you never get to just exist as your gender the way that cis people do, that no matter what you do there are always people who’ll use the wrong pronouns—sometimes unintentionally, sometimes intentionally, and it’s death by a thousand cuts” is a whole other rant I could go on. But if I get into how the myth of trans people being “easily offended” is dangerous, unfair, and untrue, we’ll be here all day. 

41. What is the place (blog, website, forum, IRL space) you get most of your info on being trans or on trans related things?

When I was first starting out, I did—for better or worse—get a lot of information from tumblr. On the one hand, I can’t shit talk, because it did allow me access to information that at the time I couldn’t find anywhere else. On the other hand, tumblr is often an ugly place for information (and whatever nonbinary discourse and misperceptions might exist now, it was 38475785 times worse in 2012. good god. just fuckin wall-to-wall trusc*m). I can’t tell you how many “HOW TO PASS AS A MAN (FTM)” articles and blogs I read back in 2012 as well. I absorbed any information I could find about anything, anywhere, because it was not as widely available. 

In the interceding years, I feel like I don’t know exactly where my information comes from. I just absorbed so much of it, wherever it could be found, that I don’t have a strong sense of where it comes from. I’ve watched countless “1 month on T / 3 months on T / 6 months on T / one year on T” videos on YouTube. I’ve trawled transbucket and facebook groups looking at people’s top surgery results. I’ve read lots of articles on fitting clothing and masculine style onto bodies that weren’t necessarily intended for those clothes. 

Spending IRL time with trans people though has been by far the most enriching and healing, though. It wasn’t necessarily where I learned the basics like different methods of top surgery, but it was where I started un-learning a lot of the emotional baggage I’d picked up along the way. 

[Trans ask game! What has been your gender journey?]

[bearhatarmy]

I really really miss photography. 

Photography feels like an old friend I’ve lost touch with. It pains me greatly that I just don’t have the energy or stamina to do it anymore. It really filled a creative void after I was unable to create my original comedy posts any longer. My illness keeps taking and taking from me and it is a challenge to find ways to adapt and cope.

The saddest part is that I felt like I was just starting to master photography as an art form. I was at that point where I could instinctively do all of the technical things and concentrate purely on the art. Lighting was becoming intuitive to me instead of a complicated puzzle I had to solve each time.

Yes, I took a lot of photos that I am really proud of. (Which I am spreading throughout this post).

But sometimes I mourn the photos I could have taken if my chronic illness hadn’t worsened.

It’s also hard seeing the new cameras and lights that have been released since I had to stop. I *just* missed a technological revolution. New features that would have allowed me to do more with less energy. To push the boundaries of my creativity. To get shots I could only dream of back then.

Full frame mirrorless cameras have opened up so many creative possibilities. The low light performance, the detail, the dynamic range--it has all been improved greatly in just a few years. But there are also many automated usability features that allow the camera to offload work and concentration from the brain. These new digital wonders can even be used as cinematic quality video cameras--something I would have liked to have explored.

I had to take these match photos in a pitch-black room, with a reversed lens, with no control over my aperture, and a manual flash. It took forever to time it properly because I had a whopping 3 frames per second. It would have been a cinch with a mirrorless camera, with super fast burst modes and an electronic viewfinder. You can see exactly what your image will look like before snapping it. But you can also “see in the dark” using a high ISO preview. Before you had to use a live view mode on the back screen. But on older cameras that mode was clunky and slow and... it just sucked.

Enlarge!

MOAR BIGGER!

Weirdly, one of the biggest advances is due to a shortened “flange distance” where the lens connects to the camera body. It seems like a small thing. Literally only a centimeter or so. But because of the lack of mirror, camera designers are able to move the lens closer to the sensor and design more advanced lenses with incredible sharpness. Combined with increased megapixel counts, that would have been amazing for my macro photos.

Electronic viewfinders take the guesswork out of exposure--even in bright sunlight where screens get washed out from glare. And being able to compose portraits with highly accurate eye-tracking autofocus would have been a tremendous advantage. 

No more “focus and recompose.” 

No more “Did I get the eye? Let me zoom to 100% on this tiny screen.” 

I could have spent more of my concentration getting natural expressions from my subjects and composing my photos without distraction.

And IBIS! 

I missed out on motherhecking IBIS!

This photo of my wonderful friend Erin was taken handheld at sunset. The original RAW version was extremely dark--even though I was using a high ISO. I had to do a ton of work to get this to not look like noisy garbage. But there just wasn’t any other way to capture it... UNTIL NOW.

IBIS (eye-bus/👀-🚌) or “in-body image stabilization,” allows the camera sensor to kind of... float. You can eliminate camera shake caused by the subtle micro-movements when handholding. 

How do I explain it? Ummmm...

It turns the sensor into a chicken head.

So instead of increasing the ISO (which is like a volume knob for light which gets grainier as you crank it), you can lower your shutter speed. In the past, depending on the lens, 1/60th of a second was about as slow as you could set it. With IBIS, as long as the scene you are capturing is relatively still, you can take photos in very low light without a tripod. This is great because tripods are a pain in the ass and you can’t always have one handy. Plus, you can combine an IBIS camera with a stabilized lens to get a de-blurrification multiplier. Then you can get sharp handheld photos that are technically considered long exposure. I’ve heard people say they got sharp photos exposing at several seconds. Literally going from a fraction of a second to 2 goddamn Missisisppi. I can’t even quantify how many fantastic photos are being taken right now that would have been unusable blurry messes a few years ago. We get to enjoy these photos all because they installed a chicken head inside cameras.

AND DARN IT ALL TO HECK I HECKING MISSED IT, GOSH HECKING DANG IT!. 

Sorry... didn’t mean to curse like a sailor that stubbed his toe while stepping on a Lego. 

I think I’ll have a cool refreshing root beer to calm my IBIS envy.

(Those water droplets are a total fraud, by the way. It’s fake blood without the red added.) 

And with the progress in battery and wireless technology, artificial lighting has become lighter and more portable while still being powerful enough to compete with the sun. I could have used strobe lights in my little studio, packed them up into a small case, and gone to the middle of the field to use them there.

Yes, I was able to convert my old studio lights to be “portable-ish” but we had to lug so much equipment to accomplish this photo of Brittany in the red dress. The battery pack alone weighed as much as one modern light. I was stuck in bed for a week afterward from all of the carrying of heavy gear.

Before that, this was my hacked together “outdoor” light. The Flash-O-Tron 3000. It looks cool but it was delicate and hard to get through doorways.

After charging 12 AA batteries overnight, I had to drag this contraption outside at the buttcrack of dawn to get my favorite photo of Otis. 

I had to use a handheld mirror to reflect my popup flash in the direction of the Flash-O-Tron 3000 to trigger it. It worked about 25% of the time. Oh, and I was laying on cold wet grass, manually tracking Otis--who refused to sit still. I had to line up a single autofocus point on his head for every snap. The concentration required felt like my brain was juggling chainsaws.

But guess what they invented last year?

PET. EYE. AUTOFOCUS. 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? 

A little robot inside the camera is all, “Hey, that’s your dog’s eye!” and just follows it no matter where your pup moves.

I NEEDED THAT SO BAD!

This shot took 10 minutes of me trying to lock onto his eye with a macro lens. The depth of field at that distance was the width of his eye and, again, he does not sit still. 

I want a time machine so I can go back and retake every blurry Otis photo. 

Also, many of the modern strobes have NO WIRES. You just stick a thing on top of your camera and you can set off lights several football fields away. My photo studio has tons of wires routed in the ceiling and coming out of the walls. 

[Hi-Res Version]

And then those wires all go into a weird analog remote with old school sliders that controlled the power of the flashes. But the sliders were difficult to finely adjust.

Now you can load an app on your phone and adjust the flash power digitally and adjust the brightness in 10% increments. You can save lighting ratios and recall them instantly. And you can preview your work with high powered LED modeling lights so you don’t have to take 50 test shots. 

No more nudging a light and taking a picture. Raising the power and taking a picture. Swapping out a modifier and taking a picture. Back and forth, back and forth. 

Essentially, what you see is what you get, so setting up lighting takes a fraction of the time and effort with these new lights and cameras. That would have been so helpful with my disability.

Oh... the lights are less expensive too.

The future of camera tech looks exciting as well. I think the computational photography that is in the latest smartphones will soon be added to more professional cameras. That is going to make high-end photography so much more accessible to anyone who wants to try it as a hobby. The learning curve will flatten further, and as long as you are creative, you will be able to take beautiful, high-quality photos.

Some might say that not having all of the new tech helped me gain important experience, expertise, and problem-solving skills. Some believe the inconveniences are a photographer’s trial by fire. The struggle makes the art more authentic. And since I learned how to do it the hard way, my journey is more valid than some photography influencer on Instagram with an iPhone.

To that I say... BULLLLLSHEEIIIT.

Those inconveniences just made me SUPER DUPER TIRED.

And some of those influencers take really kickass photos. Not all of them are butts either.

I love photography but there is a reason I had to stop. Like anything, doing it well was a lot of work. I always ended up having to quit taking photos much sooner than I wanted. I had to scale back my ambition to fit my energy requirements. I could only do photography on days when my body was cooperating fully. I had to cancel many photoshoots because the preparation was just too much to handle. And after my bigger projects it took me forever to recover.

GIVE ME ALL THE CONVENIENCES PLEASE.

That “you have to struggle” attitude is no-good-gatekeepy-ableist crap. 

Old photographer grumps are upset because they spent years learning how to focus manually on horseback and use the sunny 16 rule and develop film in a converted shed they built by hand and now “those darn kids” can use an iPhone on a skateboard while doing a kickflip with their eyes closed and still pull focus.

However, despite there being a lower barrier for entry, the technological improvements add new complications to the advanced side of things. So you can make photography as difficult as you desire if you are willing to learn new stuff. Which old school photo grumps are notoriously averse to.

This new tech has all kinds of novel things to discover and figure out. There is drone photography. There is advanced macro photography using robotic focusing rails and ever-improving focus stacking software. You can now network more lights together than ever before. Karl Taylor did a photoshoot with 12 lights! (Captain Picard would totally lose his shit.) Long lasting batteries and computerized sliders have created new timelapse possibilities. Stabilization software allows complex hyperlapse videos. Better low light performance and sharper lenses with big apertures combined with stacking or star trail software has improved astrophotography. Advances in material science have allowed darker and darker high quality neutral density filters for extreme long exposure photos. New focus tracking algorithms have allowed for wildlife photography that was never possible before. You can capture fast-moving birds in the sky from farther away and still get amazing detail. Faster burst modes allow people to capture split-second action. Never miss a good header at your kid's soccer games. (Is that a thing? I have no kids and don’t remember how to soccer.) IBIS allows photography without a tripod. So now people can trek to harder to reach areas, AT NIGHT, and take sharp photos with little noise. Increased dynamic range and new HDR displays will allow photographers to take images of lights and capture their actual intensity. What if the lights in photos could glow like they do in real life? Think about a neon sign at night in the rain reflecting in a puddle. That would look so neat. 

Not to mention learning how to process photos in editing software is an entirely separate and challenging skillset you can master. There are thousands of techniques you can learn to elevate your images. Dodging & burning, frequency seperation, and compositing, oh my! Programs like Lightroom and Photoshop are constantly updated with new features that expand possibilities.  

None of that is easy. It will all require diligent study and practice to master. Technical skills will always be an aspect of photography that anyone can pursue. But not everyone will need as much technical skill to start having fun and create art. 

And much to the chagrin of those grumps... phones are perfectly viable to create that art and they will keep getting better.

You might find it odd that this love letter and goodbye to photography has so much talk of technical gadgetry. But, for me, it isn’t out of place in this sentimental essay. Technology was my first love. My parents bought me a 66mhz Packard Bell computer when I was 12 and technology was the first thing I was ever good at. I learned every function of that machine. I would sometimes break it just so I could learn how to fix it. I took it apart and put it back together. It was my first true obsessive hobby. I found my creativity soon after, and I immediately used that technology to help me create art. I wrote comedy. I learned how to digitally paint. I recorded music. And eventually I found photography. It was the perfect marriage of technology and art. I could nerd out as much as I want while still getting my creative fix. 

So yeah... I miss it all. 

I miss all of the technical nerdery. I miss trying out new gadgets. I miss editing the photos I’ve taken. I miss taking pictures of my beautiful friends. I miss taking pictures of weird products. I miss asking Delling to call apiaries to find me freshly dead bees so I can take macro shots of their fuzzy little torsos.

I really hope some day I find a treatment that gives me enough energy to take photos again.  

Thankfully my writing helps me feel creative and productive and fulfilled. And it’s something I can do even if I’m not able to get out of bed. And I am grateful I have so many awesome people that actually want to read what I have to say.

So thanks to everyone for that. 

I always find a way to move forward. That’s just the nature of surviving chronic illness. But glancing back at what I lost is a pain I never quite get used to. 

Though, writing this has helped. 

Looking back at all that I accomplished has helped. 

And I do feel lucky I was able to accomplish what I did--even if missing it makes me sad sometimes.  

[ankcna-blog]

hello guys !! i’m blaire, and i come to you with a VERY belated greeting !! i went to a skz concert a few days ago and as you would expect my life has been flipped upside down ever since !! but now that things are calming down, i’ve got things in order and would like to introduce you to my beloved weirdo kwanchai, more commonly known as dreamdrop’s choreographer KAI ! i’ve wanted to join you all for the longest and can’t wait to have some fun now that i’m finally here ! without further ado, you can find all his links here ( more to come ) as well as some important info about him below ! and of course, like this if you want to plot ! i’ll also be joining the discord very soon, so that’ll be an option too !

background !

from bangkok, thailand ! maybe it’s because of this he’s such a city boy and loves being around people, because that’s basically been his whole life ! in bangkok there were people around nearly all the time and now that he lives in seoul, it’s no different !

like his fc, he’s ethnically chinese but his nationality is thai ! honestly he feels more of a connection to his thai side because it’s the one he’s the most familiar with, though recently he’s been trying to connect with his chinese side. 

grew up around mainly girls, 3 older sisters and one younger ! his dad’s the only boy, but his parents are divorced. they still co-parented pretty functionally, though, so he mainly stayed with his mom and did weekly visits to his dad. he believes the heavy presence of females in his life is the reason he grew up to act a little more conventionally “feminine” and why he has such a high respect for women ! his sisters have always been .... v strong in comparison to him ojoijoijoij so it makes sense why !

his sister is the original dancer of the family, picking up ballet at only 5 years old ! she’s older than him so, wanting to follow in her shoes, he begged his parents to join as well !

his parents were v apprehensive at first, especially his dad, because they weren’t the most progressive and didn’t think a boy dancing ballet looed good. it took some convincing, but eventually they allowed him !

absolutely loved it, would come home dancing nearly every day. once they realized he was really enjoying himself and taking himself seriously he convinced them to add on tap and hip hop classes as well !

always been into american culture, he was always watching shows & listening to music from america, and that transferred into a general interest for the country ! so in high school, he studied abroad for a semester w / a host famiy !

this really helped his english skills and is the main reason he’s so fluent today, which definitely helps with his job ! it’s the reason he sounds less like a foreigner now when he’s speaking.

coincidentally, through america, he found an interest in korean culture ! his host family lived in california, which already was home to a lot of korean spots, but his host sibling was a kpop fan and got him into it ! so when he got back home to thailand he had gained an interest for it.

he started listening to a lot of the music, and at 17 made a very spontaneous decision to send in an audition tape to a company ! ( not noir, a smaller up-and-coming one probably ! )

he was .... incredibly shocked that he’d gotten in, but ecstatic for the chance to do what he loved ! not everyone was quite as ecstatic as him ... mainly his dad who thought his career choice was unfit for the one son of the family.

regardless, he packed up things and moved to korea, where he began to train to become an idol ! contrary to what he’d thought he kind of hated it lmao ! he had a super hard time trying to learn korean initially and didn’t deal too well with the stress of such a cutthroat environment. on top of that, he wasn’t favored by the company and they kept giving other trainees opportunities he didn’t have ! he didn’t like that because he felt he had the personality and drive, they just weren’t willing to take a chance on him. but he really loved the chance to perform alongside other passionate people and learn from them.

so it was a bittersweet moment when, at 18, he terminated his contract. he felt relieved with all that extra pressure off him e but was also sad to no longer be performing. he tried to lie and act like he didn’t to his family but eventually, they found out and his mom sent him back home to thailand. his dad was livid and promised that if he didn’t do something within 2 months to get a job he’d stop helping him out.

kwanchai wanted to keep dancing but still needed a job, so did the best thing he could think of ! a choreographer he’d met in seoul promised him a room in his house if he agreed to fly back to korea and start working as a sort of dance apprentice under him at a studio !

so, going back yet again, he agreed and made one of the best choices of his life ! he got a lot better and not only dance but teaching / choreographing it ! with this, he comfortably began to adjust to the country and learned a lot !

the more he was there, the more he realized how much he enjoyed choreographing ! his friend gave him the chance to begin creating dances from the studio and it was then he decided he wanted to do it as a career !

he didn’t want to feel like a burden at his friend’s for so long, so it was then he decided to apply for a job at noir as a choreographer, hoping to save up and buy his own place. he applied unsure if he’d really get it due to his short experience, but was ecstatic when he did !

the whole thing has proved to be one of the best choices of his life - he’s got a steady job that’s very fulfilling, he saved up enough for an apartment, and he gets to dance while maintaining the level of freedom he’d craved as a trainee !

personality / random tidbits !

his app summed it up well, he’s incredibly eccentric ! he’s just different in nearly every way and if told to do something one way, he’ll probably do it the other. 

his name is kwanchai, but ever since he was 17 he’s gone by kai, a shortened version of his full one ! it’s because it not only easier to pronounce for koreans but to his many american friends as well, and honestly it makes him feel less out of place as it’s a fairly universal name !

he’s super talkative, inherited from his sisters, but in turn is a very good listener ! so you’ll catch him either ranting about all his problems or listening to someone else doing the same.

naturally, he’s very fun and excitable ! rarely takes anything seriously, that is .... unless he’s dancing ! typically when teaching he likes to crack jokes and such to make the experience fun, but if it’s crunch-time he does a whole 180. when he has to he takes dancing very seriously, sometimes maybe even too much ! he may come off as controlling but in reality he’s just very passionate and a true perfectionist in terms of technique. 

speaking of dancing, seeing him do it is quite an amusing sight ! kind of like j-hope he’s always making noises when he does it, and always has some sort of noise or word that correlates with his dance move ! def the type to say “and jazz hands !!”

maybe it helps, maybe it sounds stupid ! but since he has such a horrible memory it does tend to help him out a lot.

his hair right now is dyed, and the best reference i can give you is the john’s banana video lmao !! he keeps it pretty short to keep it out his face when he dances, and tbh his hai is a different color all the time !

he has a food blog, “rate what i ate”, where he does food reviews for restaurants ! it’s really fun for him because he loves to eat and has a very strong opinion on nearly everything. muses feel free to come eat with him, he’ll never say no to a dining buddy !

aside from that he has general social media and an ig where he posts short dance covers ! thinking about starting a yt cover channel.

coffee is his everything. he’s got a horrible sleep schedule, staying up late and having to wake up early ! but coffee is the one thing that gets him through, and no matter what time of the day he can always be found with his favorite cup in his hand.

remember how his app said power poses ? well it’s something kai actually does ! every morning and before doing something important he stands in a power pose for 5 minutes, saying affirmations rather dramatically. that alongside his guided meditation obsession makes kai in the morning time quite the amusing sight.

he has a black bombay cat affectionately named luna ! she’s his daughter whom he loves very very much and would die for. a total sweetheart who will accept all love, muses feel free to pet !

even though he’s fairly happy somewhat out the spotlight, he still has the idol mentality, and definitely has the whole charming personality thing going on ! he’s a whole personality and it’s almost a sin he didn’t become a talkshow host, but i assume he’d have a small following because of it ! not dreamdrop level of course, but a little bit of recognition !

that’s all i can thin of right now, that and i don’t want to keep you all waiting for this intro for too long ! i’ll add more as i see fit, and again, i can’t wait to meet you all !

[icewindandboringhorror]

hmmm’st....Another group of replies since I’m trying to keep up with my inbox better this year !! (I know #3 is missing, I accidentally mislabeled them and skipped straight to 4 and don’t feel like re-editing the photos lol ) 

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1. “What would you recommend doing with a 1x1 ft square of tapestry-eqsue fabric ?” (question typed out in a shortened way/some words left out)

Hmm, I’m not really sure!  I always have problems with tiny squares of fabrics since I often like.. am in love with the colors or texture or pattern or etc, but at the same time it’s too small to actually serve as a really substantial part of the outfit lol, so I usually just use them in small ways for accents? Squares are really good for making collars out of, since you can just cut a hole in the middle and put your head through it and it’s done lol, but you can also tuck them into shirt collars or belts so they hang out a little and just serve as a pop of color or something. If you don’t mind cutting it, you could also turn it into little strips or change the shape, make it into a small pocket/bag, wrap pieces around the arm or tie it around boots as decor, tie the cut up buts together to make it into a longer piece of fabric then use that as a belt or sash or headband, etc. Idk, I have trouble with small fabric bits as well, but maybe some of these ideas help!!

(other answers under read more so it doesn’t get long)

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(note: sorry to everyone who's questions I had to shorten when re-typing them here, I hope I abbreviated them okay and didn't leave out anything you saw as very important! The full message is still shown in the images above and I just wanted to save myself a little time on the typing aaa!) 

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2. “Sorry this is random,  but you seem like a very nice and thoughtful person. Hope you have a happy new year”

Thank you!! I always try to include one or two of these nice ones in here just to continue to show appreciation for people who send me kind things! Even if I don’t respond to all of them (since I feel really awkward just like.. publicly responding to a ton of compliments lol), still know that I really appreciate it! I hope you also have a great year, anon! 

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3. accidental mislabeling error means free space for cat image

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4. “will you do more videos? vlogs, tutorials, explaining your art, games, podcast, anything? sorry if it's weird to say, but I just really enjoy listening to you speak!” (question typed in a shortened way/not fully quoted) 

Possibly? I just can’t think of many things to make that would work well for me?

vlogs:  I don’t like to do vlogs anymore because of my mental illness and becoming more anxious about showing my face or daily life in public. Though I do enjoy aspects of the “lifestyle blogging” sort of content, like I think it would be cool to be able to make easy videos where all I do is sit down and talk about my hair or something for 20 minutes lol, or etc., but I guess as I get less comfortable with showing myself, I tend to stray away from stuff like that?

(this is also why I’ve been shifting more towards like... costumes, art, world-building, making games, etc. as opposed to outfits/personal style/personal life type content, since I feel much more comfortable being framed as more of a ‘detached and faceless creator that shows some personality but is still mostly obscured’ than ‘open personality that posts selfies and talks about their life extensively’ or etc. Obviously I still post personal stuff like questions and thoughts/opinions and cat images and etc., but less so.. like I don’t even remember the last time I posted an actual selfie where my face wasn’t obscured by costume makeup or something lol..) 

I would absolutely still do stuff like “room tour” or “what’s in my bag” videos, or like a single video showing my usual daily routine or something,,  if those were ever requested of me/interest was shown in them..  I’m okay with small one time “lifestyle” genre sort of content. But anything too invasive or long term (daily/frequent vlogging, or like “story time” videos) I think I would get uncomfortable with lol. 

tutorials: I’m not really sure what I would do tutorials on? If you want me to make a tutorial about something, feel free to let me know something in specific! My main problem is that I don’t feel like there’s anything unique that I do that there aren’t  already 100 other tutorials for, so I’m never sure what I should make those about. I get occasional asks with people saying “do a makeup tutorial” or “do a sculpting tutorial” or something, but they don’t ever say WHAT SPECIFIC makeup or what SPECIFIC thing they’d like to see me explain, so then I’m still left alone with vagueness and unsure what to do lol! 

art explanation: Same kind of goes for the “explaining your art” thing like, what art? Explaining what specifically about it? You mean worldbuilding? Or sculptures? etc.??  I’m actually always happy to make videos for anything people want to see (since I enjoy the process of making them, usually), but I just am never sure exactly what to do. But if I had specific prompts I would be glad to explain something though! Videos are fun, I just never know what to make them about lol

games: I would absolutely love to do let’s plays/game videos or something (I assume this is what you meant by just saying ”games”??)  since I enjoy games, and my whole thing about not being able to relax (I feel guilty about playing games (or any other leisure activity) unless it’s working towards something, I have to have a way to justify the activity being productive, which is why I rarely ever play games despite liking them a lot lol..but if I made videos or etc. it would feel slightly more worth the time/effort).. But seeing as I’m fairly lower income I really don’t have much money to buy games, and I don’t have a very good computer situation lol. I would need to have money to fix my current computer, and a few other things, etc. etc. 

 Idk, it’s something I think about occasionally and that would be extremely convenient  for me and my current situation (in terms of having something simultaneously low effort/relaxing/ suitable to my needs/mental illness/physical issues, but also that feels productive at the same time), but it’s also a very weird genre of stuff (idk if I’d feel comfortable being anywhere near the broader “games” community ghggb), and I would need a little money first lol.. 

podcast: I would never start my own podcast because I have no idea what I would even have a podcast about, and I also don’t have any friends who do that sort of thing (podcasts usually have multiple people, right??). I would do one with someone else or something like if a close friend asked me I guess, but idk... I couldn’t ever see that being something I start by myself?? Especially since I don’t know anything about them or what equipment or programs are required to edit together the audio, I’ve only listened to a few of them every once in a while, etc. am not really tech savvy in the field of like. how podcasts work ggh. So that’s probably the most unlikely one out of everything you listed, sorry!! 

As for other stuff, I’ve thought of answering questions in audio form instead (so rather than writing them out here, I’d just make a video (though not with visuals, since I don’t like filming myself talking..maybe I could put footage of cats over the audio though lol) of me going through my inbox and answering things, since I feel like typing takes me so much longer than speaking, and sometimes it’d be more convenient). 

I’ve also thought about just like.. talking about world-building stuff, like.. rather than writing out a post, I can just ramble about things or something,, but I’m afraid I’d get too disorganized, so it’d probably only be good for answering questions about specific things (which I don’t really get questions about worldbuilding stuff that I could have enough to sit down and answer in a video lol.. I think I’ve gotten two so far?? which I already answered in text posts).

So idk, maybe those could also be ways to hear more of me talking? If I used audio more often to answer things or discuss things (like answering asks that way) rather than typing.. which would save me time anyway lol.. But I just feel unsure about it since it seems.. weird.. like.. some people might just want a quick answer to their ask and not have to skip to a certain time stamp of a video and hear me talk about it for 5 minutes lol.. 

But anyway, yeah, feel free to offer specific suggestions or support towards anything mentioned if it’s really something you want to see! I really appreciate that you even watched the silly little vocabulary video and especially that you actually enjoy my rambling lol (I sometimes feel annoying when I speak), and I hope I can make something sometime!! I just have trouble deciding on what content I should be making or etc., but maybe I’ll try to find a few more things I can do where I’m actually talking! 

(also thanks for hoping I feel okay! I am a little bit better, but still sick lol)

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5. “Hope you feel better (emoji heart that I can't type on a computer)”

Thank you!! It’s been really stink to be sick the entire first month of the year lol, but hopefully I’ll be better like.. by mid February at least!!! With how goal focused I am, it’s been like... utterly evil to not be able to start the year off well and get all of my to-do list stuff done.. I’m finally at a point where I’m finishing a few things again (like this post, and a few of the worldbuilding things from a week ago or etc), but I still can’t stop myself being.... deeply annoyed, by my loss of time and how much I feel like I should have gotten done already aaaAAA.

Especially I REALLY WANT TO DO another costume soon!!!! I have some laid out in my closet that I hope to do, but I keep waiting until I’m feeling better, since I’m afraid of having some random sickness related health problem in the middle of getting dressed and then having to like.. show up to the doctor while I have elf ears on and half a horn on my head or something ghghggh... 

But anyway, I can’t do anything to change it now, so the best I can manage is just to kind of.. ignore my losses and move forward and try to be as productive as possible from now on! I really hope I can still get some of my main goals (like the game, costumes, music, worldbulding stuff) finished in reasonable time, even if I basically lost the entire month of January into a void lol. Sometimes you just lose an entire month of time... life is just Like That and you have to move on and make the most out of it I guess! 

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6. Would you ever like consider selling your outfits???? I have an extended non violent larping thing coming up and i really love your outfits!

I might actually! I mentioned it before I think like, months ago, but i have a LOT of clothes I really want to get rid of, it’s just that it’s SO daunting. I’ve sold clothes before and it took hours and hours of effort, and you have to constantly keep up with it and track sales, and on top of that I really underestimated shipping prices (especially making the mistake of shipping internationally on one of them I think), and I ended up making no profit and actually losing $70 just from paying people’s shipping that I didn’t charge them for (which for me and my financial situation is.. A LOT.. like.. I do NOT have that kind of spare money ghghh).

This time I want to be careful about it and also I’ll have to charge a lot more (which of course, I feel guilty about since I have Bigg Money Anxiety and wish everything was free for everyone all the time gghb), and also it’s hard for me to find the time and energy to take literally hundreds of photos of hundreds of items and then list them somewhere and etc. etc. etc. 

BUT to cut down on that workload I’ve thought about actually just grouping them into outfits or like, groups of clothing that all match each other or etc. and selling them all together (so that I don’t have to photograph and list every individual item), and additionally that way I can maybe just do one batch at a time like.. maybe sell two of them a week or something, instead of all at once. 

Maybe just buying a certain size of box/envelope thing and stuffing whatever I can into it and selling them all for a set price like $40 a piece or something. Which to me sounds extremely expensive I guess since I’m someone who would never have $40 to just spend on clothing lol, but I really kind of can’t go much lower than that if I want to allot for shipping and not make the same mistakes again as last time (and definitely not allow people to buy internationally unless they pay me like.. $50 extra or something, which would be ridiculous lol). 

But anyway, especially since I have a few things I could really use money for (paying my guardians back for recent medical copays, and for my cat’s vet visit a few months ago, and also I have to fix the battery on my computer or buy a new one, etc.), I’ve thought about trying to do that soon!  Maybe sometime in the next month I can start listing some themed clothing groups/outfits/etc. and sell them at a slower better pace for me (like one group a week or so). I’ll definitely post about it if I do!

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7. (this one will have to be shortened a lot since it's so long, but I'll try to just type the main parts I'm replying to)  “Are you making/would you consider making a story with your fantasy worlds? Like a book or a zine or youtube videos where you roleplay as the characters and make them talk to the viewer or each other? If you don't want to create plot, you could just do characters seeking to educate humans bout their cultures or something.  I used to scroll past your posts since I'm more visual when it comes to fantasy, before realizing how interesting they are and I feel like your ideas need more playing out and exposure. ALSO, how do you feel about collaborating with other people on creating art? Or just being art pals and sharing ideas/plans/etc.? I just read your FAQ about collaborations so I understand the terms and my offer to be art friends still stands!” 

-- About whether I’ll make more things with my world:  

Thanks so much for the very nice message!! Worldbuilding stuff is one of the most fun creative activities for me to do, so I always appreciate it when people discuss it with me and etc. (not that I don’t also appreciate compliments on sculptures and costumes and etc., those are great too! But I guess because world stuff is something I’m so much more personally invested in yet also never get to talk about lol, anytime anyone sends me anything related to characters or worlds or etc my brain is instantly like !!!!!!!!!!!!! O v O !!!!!!!!!!!  ghgh). 

I am actually making a game like I may have mentioned a few times, which though it’s more character focused and doesn’t really have a plot/broader story (it’s basically like a dating sim except without romance/dating, but it has similar mechanics in the sense that the main goal is to get to know characters in the world and do tasks for them and etc.), it will include a good bit of things that have do with my world, seeing as it like... takes place there. 

And since each of the characters have their own backgrounds and etc., they’ll of course speak about various world-related topics. Like for example, one of the shop-owners you can work for is an elf from outside of the elven alliance, and another shop the player can work at is owned by a set of twins who were formerly part of a royal family within the alliance, so those characters (when getting to know them and doing quests for them and etc) will of course have different perspectives on the world and talk about some of the stuff that’s been brought up in my worldbuilding posts, just obviously in a more personal/casual way, since it’s dialogue rather than me writing exposition infodump posts. 

Like for example, the fact that alliance elves and non-alliance elves often have very different takes on the main elven religion, meaning if it comes up in conversation, both shopkeepers would give different dialogue relating to it, etc. Which since every character has their own unique situation and heritage and etc. (the game is set on a popular market street in a large global city, so here it actually makes sense for a bunch of different species to all be in the same place and etc.), I think could maybe expose players to a lot of the central worldbuilding concepts, depending on which shopkeeper they go with. 

Obviously characters aren’t going to just be doing unnatural exposition dumps about the extensive background of the world or something lol, but even just naturally and playing through a character with neutral favor (meaning not unlocking any special positive/negative dialogue options/etc), you’d still be able to get at least a few tidbits about the world. (especially since some character’s conflicts stem from cultural/worldbuilding factors, so it’s not unnatural for them to bring it up if that’s like.. something that seriously impacts their life lol.). It probably wont expose people to Advanced Lore like the time gaps or obscure types of magic or etc (well.. depending on which shopkeepers you talk to hbhbb), but it could help with some of what you’re talking about.. In the sense of it being a more accessible visual medium that, while not the MAIN focus of the game, does end up covering some of the world background information through natural dialogue. 

(always feel free to send an ask or something if you have any questions about the game, I never talk about it but every time I start to my brain unlocks and I have to stop myself from like.. saying literally every single thing about it ghgbhj)

Other than that though, I’m not currently working on anything that actually involves my world. I totally get what you mean though, and I’ve often tried thinking of ways to make it more accessible and etc (shorter posts, more clear topics, more visual elements, etc.), but it can be hard for me to work within those constraints when it already takes so much time for me to put those things together. It’s like I have so much planned out in my head, I kind of just want to get it out there however I can, since if I spend too much time deliberating about it or etc. it will become an endless task lol..

Ghhbh I actually have an extensive background in acting out characters, I’ve pretty much walked around talking to myself in different voices and etc. for my whole life and am used to like acting multiple characters at once and improvisational storytelling things (this is still what I spend a lot of my time doing lol.. I just.. walk around my house having conversations out loud pretending to be random people.. Especially when doing chores, like washing dishes or etc. is more fun if you pretend you’re a group of travelers working in a weird little elven restaurant bickering with each other the whole time hgh), but idk if that would be something I would do for videos. I feel weird about being on camera personally, even if I were in costume. But it is a really good suggestion since that is something which would be much much easier to produce than like, doing a full animation or writing a book or something lol. 

I have thought of reading my worldbuilding posts aloud/ doing audio versions of them, so that people could just listen to them instead of reading them (there would be no visuals like.. just black screen or something with audio of me reading it), but the way I write is like.. hard to read back? I love to read out loud (one of my favorite activities to entertain myself is to actually find random text I’ve never seen before and see how well I can sightread it. Especially random medical articles with a lot of words I don’t know in them lol, it’s fun to just try to go through a new text fast in a convincing narrator voice or something, scrambling to mess up as little as possible), but I find that I have to modify my writing in order to read it that way (I’ve attempted to make a worldbuilding audio thing before, this is how I know this lol), so it’s almost like I’m writing a whole second version of the post, which makes it take longer?

I could modify my writing style (less having things in parentheses and etc., side sentences that occur in the middle of main sentences and break reading flow, etc.. Like this one lol), and have thought about writing in a way that would be easier for me to read back, but it’s just a whole thing I’d have to plan. I’ve definitely considered it though, and could pursue that idea further if people were interested or something! 

I’ve also thought of writing dialogue out between characters as a method of worldbuilding (not a story, but more like a script) since I think that’s a good natural way to convey things or give snapshots of moments in history or etc... but like.. That would just be more text so it wouldn’t really solve the problem lol. I could do audio reading them I guess, but since I’m more used to improv stuff, idk how I would do trying to read actual already written lines, even if I was the one who wrote them, it would definitely be something I’ve never done before lol!  

I also just think doing smaller things could help, and anything interactive. Like shorter posts, especially with more visuals in them, typically get seen more, and then stuff like me making a game or other condensed things.. I’ve thought of making like.. a character selection screen, not an actual game but kind of like a dress up game where you get to choose your background from the different species in my world and then dress them up a little or etc. but that would be a LOT more work than it seems probably lol.

A lot of social media is just a combination of luck/the right connections, quantity, and consistency especially. I’m sure if I could do a short post a day or a drawing of a character every other day or something and reblog them a lot, then more people would see the other things I do as well and etc., but it’s just... very difficult for me to operate that way since it’s so inherently antithetical to my personality and how I work lol (I tend to be more of a.. .. ‘stay isolated working on things and barely post anything for 3 months then post 10 things at once out of nowhere before going inactive again’ type of person ghbh.. which is like.. horrible from a Social Media Strategy standpoint). 

(Oh also, I still have no idea what a zine is even though I've seen them around and looked at a few and even looked up the definition of one to try to understand them hhghgg.. I’m still not exactly sure like.. what qualifies as one or how I would make a world-related one lol.. so this is why I didn’t really go into much detail on that specific suggestion of yours since.. I’m Uneducated Fool )  

But anyway, Idk if I could do acting videos, but I could do audio reading of posts or other things, and I am at least in the middle of working on a game which heavily involves elements of the world, so maybe that counts for what you’re talking about! 

Though personally it really doesn’t matter much to me if many people see my world stuff or etc., since really all the fun is just that I sincerely enjoy coming up with ideas and creating worlds and etc., even if I’m not doing anything major with it ( making a book series or comics or etc. I don’t feel like worldbuilding has to be working toward another project, and like that it can just be done for it’s own sake as a hobby), I still truly appreciate the sentiment and that you enjoy the world enough to give suggestions and etc. for stuff like that!! I’m going to keep at it however I can just because I love doing it so much, no matter if anyone really pays attention, but it is always unexpected and very meaningful when people like you engage with the content, so thank you for that! I’ll continue trying to make things and be productive and maybe use a few new ideas here and there just so it’s easier for people like you who tend to be more visual with things. I want to avoid leaving people out, and try to make a variety of things that can cater to more visual people as well or etc.! 

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-- About possibly being art friends or working together: 

Well you said you read the collaboration FAQ, so I’m under the impression that I no longer need to answer that part of your question lol, thus I’ll just continue on with an answer assuming you know all of that information! 

I’m always up for it I guess! I’m not sure about collaborating since I know nothing about you, and also don’t know where you live (remember I mention that it’d be much easier to collaborate with people I live closer to so we don’t have to like.. skype or some other weird digital method of communication in order to talk about ideas. Just since that sort of thing can get so lengthy, especially if it’s an actual project being taken seriously, I’d rather speak to someone in person and be able to work on it alongside each other better). If I got to know you for a few months and thought I could trust you/know we have a similar vision/don’t clash creatively or personality wise,  AND we also lived close enough to meet at least occasionally, then yeah! project collaborations could work. If otherwise, then unfortunately it might not work in that regard. : U

(OH also if we’re a similar age?? I forget that people on the internet can be way younger than me.. I have nothing against younger people (very against the weird overly-simplified generational stereotyping ggh), but I would just feel kind of weird being an adult (early 20s) working with a minor who’s like 13 years old or something. I would be happy to talk about things from time to time and help with ideas or something, but actual like.. long term collaborative projects like writing a book together or creating and selling a game or something may be strange just due to us being at such totally different stages in our lives and etc. So, to collaborate on projects or even just communicate frequently about them or etc. I would also prefer we’re a similar age range (you’re somewhere from like 19 - 28 yrs old or close to that) ghhbh) 

As for just talking about art though, that could work fine probably! Since it would just be casual discussion and less serious than full on project collabs or etc., you wouldn’t need to live near me or etc. Though of course I would still need to know about you first (especially politics and stuff like.. I don’t want to get 50 long conversations in with someone only to find out they hate trans people or are a huge racist or etc. I always like to establish that ahead of time or at least have some idea of a person’s leanings.), and understand your personality a little.

 I am pretty socially anxious and due to health problems and stuff can sometimes be bad at replying ( I know some people expect instant responses, whereas I usually reply in a day or two ( depending on how long the message is)), but I also don’t currently have any friends to talk about world-building stuff with really or who care much about that sort of thing, so I’m always open to having conversations about stuff like that! 

Especially if it’s a low-pressure causal sort of thing in the sense of like “hey let’s just see if we get along well conversationally and if we don’t then no hard feelings”, etc. One of the main reasons I’m often afraid to talk to strangers is that if we end up NOT getting along and I decide that I want to stop talking or etc., I’m afraid they’ll get mad at me or lash out at me or something. I prefer it when the expectation is set ahead of time like “we can both walk away at any time and should feel free to openly communicate how we feel about this conversation at any time. if we wouldn’t make good art friends or have trouble communicating then that’s fine and we just respectfully stop talking”.  Which sounds like.. very common sense but.. I've talked to a few people in the past who struggled with communication and would be passive aggressively mean to you about it or something like that instead of just being open about them not feeling like talking anymore or etc., which is always a confusing situation to be in and I’d like to avoid it! 

Anyway though! I can’t promise anything since I don’t know you and am cautious about new people (I don’t want to be like “OH sure we’ll be best friends!!” before I even know you and set up false expectations), but I’m definitely at least open to talking,  especially about world-building stuff, if we’re compatible and respectful to each other and etc. And am also open to collaborations, under the right circumstances like what I’ve mentioned. Thank you  again for the very nice set of asks!!!! I hope you have a great day, anon~ 

--

And that’s all for the reply post. Thanks to everyone who sent in asks about stuff!!

[bountyofbeads]

‘People Actively Hate Us’: Inside the Border Patrol’s Morale Crisis https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/15/us/border-patrol-culture.html

Excellent article looking at what the Trump administration immigration policies are having on the men and women inside Customs and Border Protection (HINT:Not Good)

‘People Actively Hate Us’: Inside the Border Patrol’s Morale Crisis

Overwhelmed by desperate migrants and criticized for mistreating the people in their care, many agents have grown defensive, insular and bitter.

By Manny Fernandez, Miriam Jordan, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Caitlin Dickerson Photographs by Kendrick Brinson | Published Sept. 15, 2019Updated 6:26 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted September 15, 2019 |

One Border Patrol agent in Tucson said he had been called a “sellout” and a “kid killer.” In El Paso, an agent said he and his colleagues in uniform had avoided eating lunch together except at certain “BP friendly” restaurants because “there’s always the possibility of them spitting in your food.” An agent in Arizona quit last year out of frustration. “Caging people for a nonviolent activity,” he said, “started to eat away at me.”

For decades, the Border Patrol was a largely invisible security force. Along the southwestern border, its work was dusty and lonely. Between adrenaline-fueled chases, the shells of sunflower seeds piled up outside the windows of their idling pickup trucks. Agents called their slow-motion specialty “laying in” — hiding in the desert and brush for hours, to wait and watch, and watch and wait.

Two years ago, when President Trump entered the White House with a pledge to close the door on illegal immigration, all that changed. The nearly 20,000 agents of the Border Patrol became the leading edge of one of the most aggressive immigration crackdowns ever imposed in the United States.

No longer were they a quasi-military organization tasked primarily with intercepting drug runners and chasing smugglers. Their new focus was to block and detain hundreds of thousands of migrant families fleeing violence and extreme poverty — herding people into tents and cages, seizing children and sending their parents to jail, trying to spot those too sick to survive in the densely packed processing facilities along the border.

Ten migrants have died since September in the custody of the Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection.

In recent months, the extreme overcrowding on the border has begun to ease, with migrants turned away and made to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are processed. Last week, the Supreme Court allowed the administration to close the door further, at least for now, by requiring migrants from countries outside Mexico to show they have already been denied refuge in another country before applying for asylum.

The Border Patrol, whose agents have gone from having one of the most obscure jobs in law enforcement to one of the most hated, is suffering a crisis in both mission and morale. Earlier this year, the disclosure of a private Facebook group where agents posted sexist and callous references to migrants and the politicians who support them reinforced the perception that agents often view the vulnerable people in their care with frustration and contempt.

Interviews with 25 current and former agents in Texas, California and Arizona — some conducted on the condition of anonymity so the agents could speak more candidly — paint a portrait of an agency in a political and operational quagmire. Overwhelmed through the spring and early summer by desperate migrants, many agents have grown defensive, insular and bitter.

The president of the agents’ union said he had received death threats. An agent in South Texas said some colleagues he knew were looking for other federal law enforcement jobs. One agent in El Paso told a retired agent he was so disgusted by scandals in which the Border Patrol has been accused of neglecting or mistreating migrants that he wanted the motto emblazoned on its green-and-white vehicles — “Honor First” — scratched off.

“To have gone from where people didn’t know much about us to where people actively hate us, it’s difficult,” said Chris Harris, who was an agent for 21 years and a Border Patrol union official until he retired in June 2018. “There’s no doubt morale has been poor in the past, and it’s abysmal now. I know a lot of guys just want to leave.”

EDUARDO JACOBO, AN AGENT IN CALIFORNIA’S EL CENTRO SECTOR:

The difference between doing the job now and when I started is like night and day. Before, it was a rush of adrenaline when you caught people with drugs. You were doing more police stuff. Now it’s humanitarian work. If you ask anybody about being in Border Patrol, they’re playing a movie scene in their head, jumping into a burning building and saving people. Now, it means taking care of kids and giving them baby formula.

By and large, the agency has been a willing enforcer of the Trump administration’s harshest immigration policies. In videos released last year, Border Patrol agents could be seen destroying water jugs left in a section of the Arizona desert where large numbers of migrants have been found dead.

Some of those who worked at the agency in earlier years said that it had changed over the past decade, and that an attitude of contempt toward migrants — the view that they are opportunists who brought on their own troubles and are undeserving of a warm welcome — is now the rule, not the exception.

“The intense criticism that is being directed at the Border Patrol is necessary and important because I do think that there’s a culture of cruelty or callousness,” said Francisco Cantú, a former agent who is the author of “The Line Becomes a River,” a memoir about his time in the agency from 2008 to 2012. “There’s a lack of oversight. There is a lot of impunity.”

The Border Patrol was established in 1924. Early agents were recruited from the Texas Rangers and local sheriff’s offices. They focused largely on Prohibition-era whiskey bootleggers, often supplying their own horses and saddles. Though horseback units still exist, the culture of the agency bears little resemblance to its past.

It has become a sprawling arm of Customs and Border Protection, the country’s largest federal law enforcement agency, which is responsible for 7,000 miles of America’s northern and southern borders, 95,000 miles of shoreline and 328 ports of entry. On a practical level, the Border Patrol’s hubs along the Mexican border, known as sectors, operate in some ways as fiefs.

In border cities, sector chiefs become household names, delivering annual State of the Border speeches. In the 1990s, an El Paso sector chief, Silvestre Reyes, used his popularity to win a seat in Congress.

In El Paso and other border communities, becoming an agent has long been viewed as a ticket to the middle class. A starting agent with a high school diploma and no experience can expect to earn $55,800, including overtime, climbing to $100,000 in as few as four years.

But given the long, solitary work, often in punishing heat and far-flung locations, and a growing workload, the agency has had difficulty recruiting: It remains about 1,800 agents short of its earlier hiring targets.

Some trace the increasing bitterness and frustration among agents to 2014, when large numbers of migrant families, as well as unaccompanied children, began arriving at the border. Many agents said they weren’t given the money or infrastructure to handle the emerging crisis. Desperate mothers and sick children had to be herded into fenced enclosures because there was nowhere else to put them.

Some agents blamed migrant parents for bringing their children into the mess. Their anger began building under President Barack Obama. Then, with Mr. Trump’s election, it found a voice in the White House.

Mr. Trump “said it to us, he said it in public, ‘I’m going to consider you guys, the union, the subject-matter experts on how we secure the border,’” said Mr. Harris, the former agent and Border Patrol union official from Southern California who retired last year. “We had never heard that from anyone before.”

The private Facebook group, which was created in 2016 and had more than 9,000 members, became a forum for agents to vent about the increasingly thankless nature of their jobs and the failure of successive administrations to fully secure the border.

Some agents who were members of the group said the tone of the posts shifted after Mr. Trump’s election, becoming raunchier and more politically tinged. A post mocked the death of a 16-year-old migrant while in custody at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Tex., with an image reading “Oh well.” A member used an expletive to propose throwing burritos at two Latina congresswomen.

AN AGENT IN SOUTH TEXAS:

What really pisses me off is that the agency knew about this group for a while. Those stories are true. There were patrol agents in charge on there. They knew it was wrong.

Most agents interviewed said a minority of those in the Facebook group were responsible for the most offensive posts.

BRANDON JUDD, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL, THE AGENTS’ UNION:

We have been pointed at with this broad brush and there are certain segments trying to make this out that all agents are bad and ‘Here’s the proof, look at these Facebook posts,’ when really the vast majority of our agents are very good people.

In some ways, though, the posts reflected a culture that was long apparent in parts of the agency. For years, the Border Patrol has quietly tolerated racist terminology. Some agents refer to migrants as “wets,” a shortened version of “wetbacks.” Others call them “toncs.”

Jenn Budd, a former agent of six years who is now an outspoken critic, said a supervisor at her Border Patrol station in California had explained the term “tonc” to her: “He said, ‘It’s the sound a flashlight makes when you hit a migrant in the head with it.’”

Josh Childress, a former agent in Arizona who quit in 2018 because the job had begun to wear him down, said the Facebook posts hinted at a deeper, darker problem in the agency’s culture. “The jokes are not the problem,” he said. “Treating people as if they aren’t people is the problem.”

Calexico, Calif., 120 miles east of San Diego in Southern California’s agrarian Imperial Valley, offers a glimpse of the relationship between a border community and the agents. Hemmed in by rugged mountains, desolate desert and the Colorado River, the valley has an economy that revolves around seasonal farm jobs and government work. Temperatures top 110 degrees during the parched summer months.

About 800 Border Patrol agents work in the vast El Centro Sector, which runs about 70 miles across the Valley. They patrol on bikes and in their white vehicles in Calexico, whose downtown sits up against the rust-colored bollards that separate the United States and Mexico.

When Mr. Trump visited the city in April to tout 2.3 miles of a new border barrier — a row of 30-foot-tall, slender steel slats with pointed edges — Angel Esparza organized a binational unity march that drew 200 people. But he said the march was to protest Mr. Trump, not the Border Patrol.

Mr. Esparza has featured Border Patrol agents on the covers of two issues of Mi Calexico, a magazine that he produces and distributes sporadically in this town of 40,000.

“The Border Patrol agents are part of the community,” he said.

NATALIA NUNEZ, A COLLEGE STUDENT IN CALEXICO, CALIF.

Being in the Border Patrol is a normal thing around here. I have three cousins who are agents. I have friends whose parents are agents. They aren’t supposed to talk about it. I wonder how they can sleep at night if they have to lock up kids in cages like animals.

David Kim, the El Centro Sector’s assistant chief patrol agent, is the son of a South Korean immigrant who worked for the Postal Service. He has been with the Border Patrol since 2000.

Asked about the agency’s relationship with the community, he recalled the government shutdown that began in December 2018, when Mr. Trump was locked in a standoff with Congress over funding for an expanded border wall. Border Patrol agents, who were working without pay, were offered food vouchers by restaurants. Jujitsu academies and gyms offered free passes. Mr. Kim’s chiropractor waived his co-pay.

Mr. Kim, seated in the sector headquarters building, went silent for about a minute as he talked about it. Tears rolled down his face. “The community,” he said finally, “stepped up for the Border Patrol when we were furloughed.”

But with the fraught atmosphere across the country over immigration policy, hostility can emerge even within agents’ own families.

BRANDON JUDD, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL:

I just had a relative four days ago send me one of the nastiest emails I’ve ever had in my life. How bad of people we are. How taxpayer dollars should not be used to abuse individuals.

Operating in communities that are often heavily Hispanic and quietly hostile to Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda, the Border Patrol has become more openly political than at any time in its history.

Agents have nurtured a strong loyalty to the president, whom many of them see as the first chief executive who is serious about border security. The union endorsed Mr. Trump in 2016, a move that gave the Border Patrol a line of communication to the White House but has also created friction in Democrat-dominated border communities.

A 10-YEAR VETERAN AGENT IN SOUTH TEXAS:

I have personally not come across any agents that do not like Trump’s positions on border security, on immigration. Hispanic, Latino, black, white — it doesn’t matter the origin of the agents, they all have a strong border-security mentality. So they love what Trump brings to the table. What they hate, what is detrimental, is the complete opposite feeling from the Democratic side.

Democratic lawmakers flocked to the Texas border throughout the spring, many holding news conferences to criticize the filthy, crowded conditions  in which migrants, including children, were being held — some with unchanged diapers, little access to showers and little or no hot food.

Agents said they had done the best they could — some bought toys for the children in their care — but were overwhelmed by the number of new arrivals.

AN AGENT IN THE EL PASO SECTOR:

‘Oh, that kid’s cute’ turned into, ‘Oh, there’s another one, there’s another one.’ We’ve done more for these aliens than these senators and congressmen that come down here. They make this big scene but then the next day they get on a plane to go back home. They didn’t take any of them with them, right? They’re going home to their running water, to their nice, comfortable bed, and meantime, we’re here dealing with them.

The Border Patrol’s culture is unabashedly self-reliant and male-dominated. Agents operate largely alone in the desert and brush, using neither body cameras nor dashboard cameras.

About 5 percent of agents are women. Some interviewed spoke highly of the agency and their male colleagues. Others described a culture in which women were demeaned, passed over for promotions and assaulted by co-workers. A supervisor in Chula Vista, Calif., pleaded guilty in 2015 to seven counts of video voyeurism, admitting that he had placed a camera in a drain in a women’s restroom.

In a written account of her time at the agency, Ms. Budd described women being forced to perform oral sex on fellow agents and subjected to humiliating labels. “I never, ever met a female agent that was not targeted by the male agents,” she said.

The job has taken a psychological toll on men and women alike.

From 2007 to 2018, more than 100 Customs and Border Protection employees, many of whom had worked as Border Patrol agents, killed themselves. Ross Davidson, who retired in 2017 after 21 years with the agency, said he was certain that stress from the job has been a factor.

“The repetitive monotony of doing the same thing over and over and seeing no outcome, seeing no end to it and nothing changing,” he said. “It’s just going deeper and deeper, and getting worse and worse.”

SERGIO TINOCO, AN AGENT IN THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY OF TEXAS:

Now, with all this rhetoric, I actually have to go home where I want to unwind, and hear my wife tell me the comments she was told, and my kids tell me the comments they’re told. So at what point do I relax? The only time I relax is when my eyes are closed and I’m dead asleep.

Nicholas Kulish, Mitchell Ferman and Erin Coulehan contributed reporting.

[longgonegays]

LGG’s Long Gone Days Chapter 1 (pre-update) Review

A year in the making!

PREFACE

In April 2018, I played through Long Gone Days for the second time. I had more of a critical eye after my first run through, and I wanted to write down my impressions. However, I got incredibly busy and wasn’t able to publish my initial reactions. As of now, I have played through the story a third time, alternating endings all the way, and even though the game is getting a MAJOR update probably soon, I figured I might as well post my thoughts and suggestions here!

SPOILERS BELOW

THE GOOD STUFF

Let me start off by saying that the art is phenomenal. I’ve loved it ever since the first demo was released in 2016, and it’s honestly one of the best looking RPGs I’ve played in a long, long time. The characters are interesting and have lots of room for growth, the music is atmospheric and cool, the devs are responsive, the story is unique, and the community is new and exciting! There’s so many good things. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve shared this game with. One of my friends even backed the indiegogo along with me!

As with any up-and-coming Early Access title, there’s bound to be mistakes or mechanics that could be optimized better. I’ve found many things that have the potential to make a greater impact on the player if done a little differently. However, I am no video game developer, so if any of my suggestions on the technical side are impossible, just know it’s not my intention to make the team do 500 more hours of work. :P

LET’S GET INTO IT!

There are different categories of issue. They will be sorted chronologically and marked as CONSISTENCY, GAMEPLAY, LANGUAGE, STORY, or TYPO.

TYPO: A pretty crucial one! The directions tell you to press X to shoot the drones in the tutorial, but when pressed, X does nothing. Z is the correct key.

CONSISTENCY: There should be a period after the word "half". All other notes at this point end in complete sentences, so it feels strange to not end the same way.

CONSISTENCY: The lowercase b in "Power bar" should be "Power Bar" since it appears that way in the Consumables menu, and it is properly capitalized when another one is picked up later on.

STORY: It's a little strange that the Shooting Range Clerk can fix a broken elevator card. I would've never related the quest to him; I actually didn't solve it the first time because I didn't think talking to the clerk was worth it. Unless there's a briefly explained in-story reason for him knowing how to fix them, another NPC beside him or even a sign with something akin to "Repair" in the description would give the quest direction more of a hint. (Just as an aside, it would be neat to return to the Kitchen Clerk and discuss what you saw thanks to the fixed card!)

TYPO: The description should read "has run out of batteries" and not "has ran". It would read "ran" if it were simple past tense (The watch ran out of batteries), but not when it's the past participle (anything with has/have). 

LANGUAGE: You could say "The following series of exercises only take five minutes at the time...", meaning it would only take 5 minutes to do them on the field, but it may flow better with the way the phrase is most commonly used, "...only take five minutes at a time", or just shortening it to "...only take five minutes."

TYPO: Instead of "Why are we hiding for?" it should either be "What are we hiding for?" or "Why are we hiding?"

TYPO: The real hut code is 07734, but afterwards, it states in both the Quest List and the Notes that it is 007734, which is incorrect.

CONSISTENCY: The Quests for Kaliningrad are available in the menu a little early. You have access to them before you get to the stone bridge on the right and fight The Core soldiers for the first time. The player hasn’t even met Ivan at this point.

TYPO: This is the beginning of the quest. "Found" should be "Find" since we haven't actually found her sister yet.

TYPO: “Forget” should be "I almost forgot", since "I told you I'd bring cake" is past tense.

GAMEPLAY: The "find the items" prompt only appears AFTER you collect the first item for Gleb's mother. Before that, it's just "convince the mother to go to Gleb's house". It would make more sense for the description to switch immediately to "Find the items" after she tells you which items she needs. (Sidenote: If someone accidentally clicks through the dialogue too fast, they'll have no idea what they're looking for. It may help to list Flower Pot, Painting, and Toy to show what items are needed.)

CONSISTENCY: Any time you talk to a group of two people, it's the same dialogue. It sets up the expectation that I'd just get the same words over and over no matter which person I talked to or in which order. HOWEVER, in Pay It Forward, the dialogue differs depending on which woman you talk to in the Residential District. You MUST talk to the lady on the left. I couldn't figure out how to solve this quest the first time because I didn't know who to look for (I thought I had seen all NPC dialogue since I already talked to the lady on the right). This is a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things, but I felt like I had to mention it.

STORY: Pay It Forward ends with you giving Anton the Conduct Pass. Yuliya (Downhearted Lady's Sister)'s dialogue doesn't change after progress reaches 100%, and she'll keep telling you to talk to the Residential District woman. A change in dialogue could help emphasize the fact that the quest is COMPLETE and no further action is needed on the player's part, just like the Business-Savvy Woman's dialogue changes after completion of the same quest.

TYPO: Just past participle again! "An uprising has began" should be "An uprising has begun".

TYPO: In the battle before you meet up with Ivan and Adair, an 's' should be added to make "Aggressive Soldier". I posted this one on the Bug Report forums a while ago, so I’m guessing it’ll probably be fixed in the next update.

GAMEPLAY: Maybe give a warning that Adair's going to heal you after the battle? I used a ton of my food for the first playthrough because I anticipated more fighting. Perhaps include some dialogue of Adair saying something like "I'll heal you properly after we fight the soldiers inside of the house." It would save some people from using too many of their resources too early and wasting them.

TYPO: "Why are you standing here for?" should be "Why are you standing here?" or the correct phrase, "What are you standing here for?"

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

GAMEPLAY: You mentioned planning to implement the option to switch control keys, which is great. I think the second most popular suggestion is to Toggle Shift (and add Right Shift) instead of having to hold it down every time you want to run. Both will save a lot of fingers!

STORY: Instead of “[Enemy] has fainted” you can put "[Enemy] is down". It is ambiguous yet straightforward if you really want to avoid the word "dead". The fact that the Gun Drones “faint” as well seems questionable. Using “down” or “has been downed” would eliminate the strange phrasing and make a little more sense.

GAMEPLAY: More information in the Kaliningrad Quest descriptions! In Pay It Forward, it would be good to specify within the description that the sister has red pants. In Searching for the Cure, noting the location of the pharmacy would help, even if it just mentions heading North. In Animal Rescue, tell the player to head East to find the Animal Advocate; add a sign for the Residential District! In The Lost Girl, include Lynn's hints about a sandy / dirt-filled location. The very first time I ran around starting these quests, it was incredibly confusing trying to navigate the map effectively and remember which direction things were. Especially when the descriptions are so vague; you have to remember a lot of tiny details only referenced in the Quest Start dialogue, and there's no guarantee the player will recall all of them if they're solving a bunch of quests at a time. Small hints can go a long way.

GAMEPLAY: All quests appear to be able to be completed as soon as you enter the area. However, it would make things INFINITELY easier if they were sorted in "Not Started", "In Progress", and "Completed" tabs. It's a bit of a hassle to scroll through and find which quests you're working on, especially since they aren't sorted chronologically or alphabetically. Additionally, "Locked" quests could be greyed out ones that cannot be completed anymore or ones that cannot be started at that point in the story. Some organization would be nice!

GAMEPLAY / STORY: After playing the game, my friend had this to say: "One thing I would like to see more game-mechanics-wise is the option of using stealthier methods of taking down enemies. For example, when you can sneak around the gun drone in Kaliningrad nighttime, have it so you can utilize your high vantage point (the rooftop) to snipe down enemies and avoid direct conflict."

I absolutely agree that Sniper Mode should be used more. It only makes sense. Why charge into battle with a long-range weapon? Even if Rourke has other methods of fighting, wouldn't he want to prevent close-quarters situations in the first place? That guy even has his back turned! Ambush opportunities are not used effectively.

LANGUAGE: A LOT of the dialogue could use more contractions. For example, at the beginning, Lynn saying "They are here!" would take longer rather than "They're here!", and she'd probably want to get the information across to Rourke faster. This isn't a necessary fix, as everything is readable without contractions, and some characters may just have a tendency to speak like that, but it would make the dialogue seem more realistic and flow more naturally for most of the cases.

CONCLUSION. . .

Long Gone Days is a wonderful game. I would recommend that everyone at least play the first 30 minutes, because it is definitely something else. I still get very emotional at certain points, like that scene with the Civilian Fighter where they first speak in Russian but then try to sound things out in English, finally telling Rourke "We are counting on you. Good luck." It gets me EVERY TIME. It's such a good and powerful moment, couldn't stop half smiling half tearing up when I read it the first time. The text speed and how it was presented was really effective.

I loved the Boss fight as well! The fact that the morale boosting events were saved for the very end of that chapter made it much more impactful than the consistent battle-to-battle challenges in the demo. During my first playthrough, I had to stop myself from letting the Lieutenant use his Attack because of how freakin' COOL the art and animation looked! Everyone’s cut-ins are great!

Unsolicited Advice-Giving Soldier is also hilarious, and I think sprinkling that kind of humor in is very important in a game like this. :P

Overall, I love this game. I really want it to grow. It’s a lot of fun to talk and theorize about, and Chapters 2 and 3 should have no shortage of conversation material. With a bit of polish, Chapter 1 could be an even more effective introduction to the dangers the Kaliningrad Squad will have to endure in the future!

Thank you for reading! I’m looking forward to the full release!

[shorthaircutsmodels]

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The Ensemble came to us (and everyone) to talk to her when she was very attractive and she had hair. Come on, look at this. This page talks about Pixie back, which looks at other details of Lily Collins ' short haircut. Short hairs gained popularity over time. Lily Collins's Short Hairstyles Lily Collins's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, The trend for women has shifted from long locks to short arms because they want to look fashionable and trendy among their peers. That's why they see their favourite personalities on TV to follow the latest fashion and trend Model. Lily Collins is one of the most beautiful British-American actresses, models and writers who is a big fan of short hairs. How can we better explain how versatile she is with her short haircuts, elegant appearance. Lily Collins's Short Haircuts Lily Collins's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, Lily Collins caught the attention of many on Instagram by giving a playful glimpse into some of the most stunning hairstyles of the past decade. On Tuesday, the 30-year-old actress posted a fun photo series that began with a photo of her soft tousled red hair. "Tuesday transformations, hair stories edition: 2010-2020 in ten shades and styles," he wrote. Lily Collins's Short Hair In addition to her first redhead appearance, Collins features photographs of ombré, as well as dark brunette shades. While everyone and their mother recently sold their old hairstyles for a blunt, middle lobe, Lily Collins bravely decided to step away from the crowd. We see Lily Collins as a real beauty icon in the present day, and the 26-year-old lives entirely up to her title, even changing and changing her appearance before she is hanged. Lily Collins's Hair She wrapped up at a Chanel show yesterday and modeled her own lust-worthy look; this punky pixie crop. So beautiful. Loose curls hairstyles are always perfectly popular, as they are quite effortless to recreate and also quite romantic, attractive and require low maintenance. Loose curls are suitable for all kinds of situations. Lily Collins's Hairstyles Loose curls are best suited for Square-faced people. It seems the Hollywood actress has a thing for scissors, shortened this month because earlier in the year we're all jealous of Bob. About four months ago Lily ditched her already short bob for a super chic fairy. The result was edgy, glamorous and gave some serious Victoria Beckham vibes. Lily Collins's Haircuts The 26-year-old actress took to Instagram last Saturday to show off the slightly altered cut. While the style gives the same air overall, there are a few differences to consider. Lily Collins hair short Roszak appears to have taken a little longer from behind to help maintain the drama that accompanied his first cut. While we love all these freshly cut lobes, we have to admit, Lily is making a serious case for Pixie to be the hottest haircut of the summer. I think we can agree that Lily Collins has the best eyebrows in Hollywood. Lily Collins Inspired Short Hair Tutorial Textured bob is absolutely flawless. For the past six months, the actress has cut off her long locks and while I'm partial to long hair, I think the cut is the perfect change for her. I'll just put it back, but it gives me another advantage. Lily Collins Hairstyles, Hair Cuts and Colors Perhaps he wanted to reposition himself from cutesy Snow White to a Badas on Mortal Instruments. If so, well done.) Plus, the texture seems very natural, giving him this carefree attitude. This is the cut every girl dreams of. My roommate actually bought a similar one, and because her hair is naturally wavy, she doesn't need to use any product to get those rough waves. But the rest of us need help with straight-haired girls. Lily Collins Hair Transformations We dug in to find out how Lily's stylist, Mara Roszak, got the texture, and it's pretty simple. December December October Lily, 25, first showed off her short locks back, but she looked better than ever in a shorter and blunt look on Dec. 3 at Love Premier, Rosie in Tokyo. The young actress in this style is super stylish and joins the long list of other celebrities who have received the big chops this fall. Best Lilly Collins hair images You know this feeling just after you've finished getting a haircut, your stylist turns the chair around, you look in the mirror and suddenly your eyes are well-not-so happy with tears? It may be difficult to trade their beloved spinners for a shorter period of time. Lily Collins hair color city of bones Most people know that feeling. But here they go on a limb and say Lily Collins is not one of those people. The girl can shake any hairstyle. Really. We named it shoulder-past strands, edgy bobs, beautiful pixiessen, just did it, he embraced it and then moved on. "Lily has a face shape that can really pull off any hairstyle. Lily Collins natural hair color Granted, it's been going progressively shorter for years, but there's something quite dramatic about a super-short fairy cut. No matter what she does, her hair is always stunning. In the future, find nine reminders that Lily Collins can rock any hairstyle. And when you look good at any length, why not? Lily Collins short bob inspiration Lily's latest chops are as short and perfect as they are in the summer heat. He even hashtagged "# ShortandLovingIt " on Instagram when he revealed the big cut. Here, take a look at Lily's hair adventures and prove once and for all that she looks great. Lily Collins Bob Haircut No matter her length. Is it just us or has it been a long time since Lily Collins just released pixie Cut? Like many stars, Collins spent the last year flirting with different iterations of her cropped 'do, and now she's finally gone to the top of the chops: the pixie cut. Lily Collins short hair tutorial Lily Collins may be on a collision course with her edgy, dangerous jewelry and dark side with clothing. Lily's brunette hair has Auburn lights, almost like a battle of light and darkness. we don't yet know which side wins. With a small portion, Lily's hair has a carefree, wash-and-go finish. He wears a gold ear cuff at the tip of his ear, which hangs onto the lobe with a glittering gold chain. Lily Collins hair color To polish her adventurous aura, Lily has a floor-length black dress with blood red lips and leather trim. Considering that short haircuts are all the rage and we always see ourselves as shorter, we think Collins has done an exemplary job of taking a gradual, non-daunting approach to the bold look. Be your haispiration guide this summer. Another actress Rose to a level in the short hair Club—Lily Collins cut her chin-length locks even shorter. Short hair Lily Collins Check out his new cut, which he debuted at the Oscars last night: a couple of other angles: view image | gettyimages.com view picture | gettyimages.com it's almost a pixie cut on the long top that makes her neck look a million miles long. Lily Collins curly hair And judging by the fact that she posted a few shots to her Instagram account with the hashtag #shorthairandlovingit, I can tell she's feeling her new cut. And personally, I feel that as long as he doesn't touch those perfect eyebrows, he can get away with anything he wants in his head. Therefore this can be stamped Approved. Lily Collins red hair Now check out this adorable video of Collins on the cover of glamour from behind: Lily Collins may not be at this year's Oscars,but the 25-year-old stole the show earlier in the evening . The young actress was spotted rocking an edgy pixie cut as she arrived for the Vanity Fair Oscars party.

[sastudiosnyc]

3 important video analytics for creating better videos

Today I'm going to be showing you the three most important video analytics that you should be looking at in order to create better videos and increase audience retention on social media. There are a few video analytics that are incredibly important when it comes to understanding if your audience is paying attention.  I'm going to show you how to use these analytics to figure out what's working, and what's not working. What you need to change in order to get your audience to actually watch your videos and engage. We're going to be focusing on the three main analytics that I think are really the most important. And I am not talking about vanity metrics which are more about how many views you got or how many impressions. A couple of months ago we posted a video on LinkedIn and Facebook that went pretty viral. Now, what that means is, it got a couple hundred thousand views in the first few hours. I want to use this as an example of a video, not because it got so many views, but because it got such high engagement, which means that it really struck a nerve and got people to comment, talk, share, like etc. Those things are valuable in terms of understanding what our audience wants to see and how to then take that and make more videos like that. We then went through all of our previous video analytics and tried to understand where our audience was paying attention the most and where they were dropping off. What triggered their responses and got them to engage. We then we built an entire video based on those analytics. Always pay attention to what's working and what's not working, and make changes as needed. The resulting videos will be a lot more effective than if you just guessed and put stuff out there. Let's look at the analytics that we looked at in order to determine what we could be doing better to have people watch and engage with our videos. Audience Retention The first analytic you need to be looking at, is audience retention. This is the most important analytic to start with, because it's going to tell you a lot about your audience and what they want to see and what they don't want to see. Facebook does a great job breaking down all the different types of analytics that you might be interested in. Like how many minutes in total your video is viewed...which is just nice to know. One minute views - how many people actually stuck around and watched it for a minute. You'll also notice three second views, which are always going to have the highest number, just because that's considered a view on Facebook. So, if anyone watched your video for just three seconds, it counts as a view. Facebook also tells you the average video watch time. That's how long, on average, somebody watched your video. But what I want you to focus on is audience retention. Audience retention is going to tell you, how long is your audience watching for and at what point are they abandoning the video. Now, this is going to show you where in your video are the most engaging parts or the least engaging parts.  And you're going to analyze them to figure out what you can do better for next time. If you can hook people at the beginning of the video, they're much more likely to stick around for the rest of the video. Use some psychological hacks to increase audience retention. A good rule of thumb that I like to suggest to people is to have a pattern interrupt every five to eight seconds. This can be text, an icon etc, or it could just be cutting to a different shot and zooming in a little bit. If you're doing the talking head type of video, then instead of just having the one static shot, cut the scene and zoom into your face a little bit. Something that triggers people's attention to reactivate every five to eight seconds, because the attention span of most humans is about eight seconds. If you do not capture your audience's attention in the first five seconds, then you've lost most of the people who are watching your video. Do not waste your time, starting off with your logo, don't introduce yourself. Don't put a lot of beautiful shots or a drone shot or establish the setting, just dive literally right into the video so that people know exactly what this video is going to be about. That way you come out of the gate running and people know okay... I want to watch this video they know exactly what it's about and there's no build up. If you can capture their attention in the first 3 to 5 seconds, you're much better off in the long run, and people will be more likely to stick around. Also what I noticed was that when we started adding title bars to our videos, there was a serious decrease in the number of people that dropped off at the beginning of the video. That's because right away, they were able to see what we were talking about before we even opened our mouths, because the title really gave it away. It meant that people were a little bit more intrigued than if they had to wait three seconds to hear what I was going to be talking about. Engagement The second most important analytic that you should pay attention to for your videos, is engagement. The engagement of a video is just as important as the audience retention. If you can get your audience to engage with your video, then you've already taken a significant step towards developing a relationship with them. The way that you calculate engagement rate, is by adding up all of the likes, comments, and shares that you've got, and dividing it by how many people your video reached. Most people on Facebook are silent engagers, so you'll see people actually click to watch your video, but they didn't actively engage and they didn't comment, like or share. Now something that I've noticed about engagement and a basic rule of thumb is that if you don't ask people to engage, they won't. Getting people to pay attention is one thing, getting people to actually click Share, Like, comment is a totally different one. If you're going to ask people to engage with you, you will need to engage with them first.  And you also need to actually tell them what you want them to do. Now, you can ask 100 people to like the video and they might not. But if you are building relationships and going to their videos and commenting and not even asking them to come to your video, but focusing on giving value to somebody else, you'll find that people are a lot more willing to engage. Video Average Per Search Watch What does this actually mean?  This means how much of the entire video is actually being watched by your audience. Now it's important to realize that the longer your video is, the smaller the percentage of the Video Average Per Search watch is going to be. This is an important analytic to have, because it's kind of going to give you an indication at the beginning of where your information should be going. A lot of times we think that the climax is supposed to happen at the end of the video, and we build up to the punch line. But if nobody's sticking around for the punch line, the video has kind of lost momentum. So it's really important to look at your analytics in terms of how much of your video is actually being watched. Here's the punch line, I can pretty much assure that my audience will get the same value from the first 20 seconds as they will from watching the whole thing. And that's important because at the end of the day if your audience doesn't remember you or if you haven't triggered any sort of emotional response in them, you've lost them. It's about you, maximizing the amount of time that they are watching and making sure that you're getting the most out of that. For example, if people are only watching 3% of your video or 5% of your video, consider shortening it significantly so you can start increasing that percentage. Those are the three main analytics that we use to really study our data and understand how to make better videos. Like I said, in our video that kind of went viral on LinkedIn, we used all of the tactics that we've talked about in order to make it the most engaging. Once we figured out that it was really about hooking people in, and then continuously getting them to stay by reactivating their attention every five to eight seconds with pattern interrupts, and also making sure that the video was the optimal length, we were able to see the video go much further than we imagined. It's important to realize that, it's not about the vanity metrics, it's not about going viral, it's looking at what you can learn from the videos that do go viral. Let me know in the comments below what you took away from this article, and I'll see you next week. Read the full article

[kohakuhime]

The Reluctant Guardian, Ch. 5

Surprise! I’ve finally caught up again after being a week behind schedule. Barring unforeseen circumstance, we should be back on for regularly scheduled Sunday updates.

Takes place post canon. Michael and Kazuo belong to @mpuzzlegirl; Rowen, the twins, and Sylvie belong to me; and YGO and its associated characters belong to Kazuki Takahashi.

                                            +++++++++++++++++++

“I’m going back to put dishes up. Anything I can get you before I go?” Rowen asked.

Sylvie handed her plate back to her brother. “I don’t think so,” she replied, snuggling back under her blankets. “Thank you for breakfast, Rowen.”

“Anything for the little lady. Pancakes are the best cure for colds,” he said sagely. “That and orange juice. It’s to make up for having to take that nasty cough syrup earlier. That stuff’s gross,” he added, making a face.

Sylvie started to giggle, but the laugh triggered a coughing spell that left her breathless. Her coughs were jagged and harsh, especially coming from such a small and quiet child. Rowen sat on the mattress next to her, unable to fully banish the uneasiness at the sound.

When she was finished he wordlessly handed her a Kleenex. “Sounds like the cough syrup isn’t the only gross thing around here.”

“It tastes icky, too,” she said unhappily. The little girl crumpled up the used Kleenex and gently tossed it into the wastebasket by her bed. “Do I have to spit that stuff up?”

“Unfortunately, lamb,” Rowen replied with a good deal of sympathy. “Otherwise it’ll get stuck in your lungs and get you really sick. Then you’d have to go to the hospital and get poked with needles.”

Sylvie’s face scrunched into a frown. “I don’t like needles. They always miss the pincushion when they bring the needles around me,” she said stiffly. “They missed Papan’s arm too.”

Rowen hid his smile. “Who said being sick was fun? And those doctors are always under the impression you’re the pincushion, kidlet,” he replied warmly. He stood and took hold of the coverlet. “I’ve got to go do dishes, but I’ll be back up here once I’m done. If you need anything, just give me a ring,” he continued, gesturing to the little bell he had left on the nightstand. “Do you want a movie on in the meantime?”

Rowen had brought the television upstairs for his little sister last night, as something for her to do while he worked today. He had to dust, vacuum, and finish cleaning the downstairs; he was supposed to clean the whole house, but he was concerned that the chemicals and flying dust would only agitate Sylvie’s cough.

Sylvie nodded silently. She waited until Rowen finished loading in one of her movies before speaking again. “Can I please have Filly before you go? She fell off and went under the bed.”

Rowen came back over to her bed and bent down, reaching for her stuffed rabbit. The plush had been made by their mother when Sylvie had been born, a fluffy and soft crème colored rabbit with flowered patches sewn onto its belly, paws, and inner ears. The rabbit’s full name was Felicity, but Sylvie hadn’t been able to pronounce her name and so Filly had stuck. “Here she is, Sylvie, and she’s happy to see you,” he declared, handing her the rabbit.

His little sister instantly snuggled with the plush. As Rowen finished pulling the covers up she directed a warm smile at her older brother. “Thanks, Rowen.”

“Of course, lamb,” he responded warmly. “I’ve got the movie on for you, but if you want to take a nap feel free, ‘kay? I want you getting better.”

Rowen left after that, and he had been partially down the stairs when he heard something and paused. He leaned over the banister and looked down the hallway. Had his grandparents come back? He did not see anything unusual and so he kept on going to the kitchen—at least until he heard the front door open and close.

“Hello?” he called, walking back to the front hallway. He looked around once again, starting to frown. “Grampa? Grandma? Is that you?”

There was no answer, but when Rowen went to the front door he found it unlocked. “That’s odd,” he murmured. He opened the door and stepped outside, his eyes moving across the front lawn. “Hello?” he called again.

No one answered him and Rowen sighed, running a hand through his bangs. Maybe he’d just been hearing things. It was something all too common these days for him, since he had spent so much time hoping for his parents to come home. There wasn’t anyone outside anyways, just parked cars and an occasional bird that flew overhead.

Well okay, then. Definitely hearing things again. Rowen shut the door and locked it, and then as an afterthought locked the other deadbolt. He moved for the garage door and the back door next, making sure that they were locked as well.

Just to be sure.

                                       +++++++++++++++++++

“Michael? Hey, you’ve been awfully quiet, you okay?”

Michael started and redirected his attention back to his cousin. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied quietly. “Just…something caught my eye, that’s all. Don’t worry about it.”

Kazuo studied him for a while longer. “You aren’t fooling me any, Michael. What’s up?”

His red-haired cousin shrugged. “Just feeling kinda weird, that’s all. You seemed like you were going to say something?”

Kazuo frowned, not entirely convinced that the younger boy was all right. “Yeah…Mom just texted me. She’s coming to get us.”

“Mmkay.” Michael was still distracted, not entirely paying attention to the other teenager.

Kazuo raised an eyebrow and poked Michael’s cheek. “You sure you’re okay? You keep looking around like you’re expecting to find something. Did you see something in a shop?”

Michael made a face and pushed Kazuo’s hand away. “I’m fine, really, Kazuo. So Aunt Isabel is coming? I thought she said we had about another hour or so.”

“That was before Mister Travis’s flight landed early. Mom’s on her way to come get us, so we’re gonna go meet her. It’ll be easier for her to find us in the mall.”

“Okay. Anywhere in particular?”

“Yeah, same place we came in. Food court in about fifteen minutes.”

“Let’s get going then,” said Michael, walking past Kazuo. His cousin had to half jog to catch up to Michael, as he had not realized the other boy was already walking.

“Hey, wait! We aren’t in that big a rush to get back! Michael, slow down!”

Michael did not wait for Kazuo, though his stride shortened the smallest amount to allow his cousin to catch up. Truth be told, he didn’t want to even slow down that much—he wanted to get back to Aunt Isabel and get out of here.

It would at least make it harder for the man in the sunglasses to keep following them.

Michael had noticed him about twenty minutes ago, starting from when they had left the video shop. He didn’t stand out too much, wearing slacks and a black turtleneck sweater, but Michael didn’t like it. Maybe it was coincidental he kept showing up when they did, he had thought, but when they had started moving so had he.

They had to get out of here, he thought grimly, and as they walked he started looking for mall security. His hand gripped his cell phone, his stomach clenching unpleasantly. It was taking everything he had not to start running, as that would alert the man tailing them that Michael was onto him.

Where was security when he needed them?

“Michael, you’re starting to scare me. What’s going on?” his cousin asked. His blue-green eyes darted around them as they walked.

“Kazuo, keep walking,” he ordered quietly. “We’ve got unfriendly eyes on us.”

Kazuo said nothing for a beat, and then said just as quietly, “You mean the guy that’s been following us for almost thirty minutes?”

Michael shot his older cousin a startled look, then recovered. Of course Kazuo would have seen him—he was a Kaiba and he had learned to spot threats a long time ago. “Yeah, that guy,” he said curtly. “Have you seen any other of his friends?”

“No…not really. Maybe it’s coincidence?”

“Maybe.” Michael sounded just as doubtful as his cousin did. “Let’s stick to the crowds, yeah?”

“Yep,” replied Kazuo, eyes dark. “Already messaged Mom to get here as quick as she can.”

Michael’s grip on his phone tightened. Already the debate to message his other cousins had started raging, but without knowing anything yet for certain he didn’t dare message Rowen and the twins. Not until he was sure this wasn’t an isolated focus on Kazuo. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would want him—Kazuo was a Kaiba, and while no one in Domino was foolish enough to take a Kaiba prisoner it didn’t mean outsiders held the same restraint.

“We need to lose our tail altogether,” he said aloud. “Any ideas?”

“Duck into a store and lose him in a clothes rack?” Kazuo suggested seriously.

“Yeah, that actually sounds like a good idea. On three?”

“Three,” Kazuo said, grabbing Michael by the arm and tugging him into a large department store on the right. They pushed through the crowd and instantly moved for the dressing rooms. They didn’t have to talk about where they were going, since they both had the same destination in mind. Once they got back there, Michael resolved to text Rowen and the twins.

The boys had nearly made it to the dressing room when an announcement sounded in the store. “All right, folks, our five minute special begins now! Shop until you drop!”

The store had been crowded to begin with, but the announcement seemed to send the shop into a frenzy because the aisles burst with frenetic activity. Kazuo tried his best to keep his grip on Michael’s arm, but then one gentleman cut between them and his older cousin lost his grip.

“Michael!”

Michael tried to fight his way back through the crowd, but then a new hand on his arm started dragging him towards a door that led outside. Another man in a turtleneck and sunglasses, not the same one from before but definitely friends with their other “shadow”.

He struggled angrily against the other man. “Let me go!” he snarled, futilely tugging at his arm. He shot a desperate look back into the store. “Kazuo! Kazuo!”

But his voice was swallowed by the crowd’s excited babble and he couldn’t see his teal-haired cousin in the chaos. He scowled up at the man trying to drag him away. A blast of cool air hit him as he was pulled out of the mall altogether, finding himself in the parking lot instead. “Hey, mister, you don’t have a gun, do you?” he guessed coldly. “You would have pulled it by now.”

The man smirked down at him. “How astute of you, but I don’t need it for a scrawny brat like you,” he sneered.

“Yeah? And what about shin guards?” Michael challenged, gaining a smirk of his own. “Is that a part of your Goon Squad uniform too?”

The man didn’t get a chance to fully grasp the significance behind Michael’s question meant before the boy swiftly kicked the man, making double sure to kick him as hard as he could at the inside of the leg. His captor swore angrily, but his grip loosened enough for Michael to pull away sharply.

He would have to trust Kazuo would be okay in the crowd in the shop. There wasn’t any time to get back into the store, especially if the men tailing him knew where he was going. He’d only endanger his cousin, and there wasn’t even time for Michael to call for help.

No time for him to think or process. He turned on his heel and ran.

                                     +++++++++++++++++++

“And that should do it,” Rowen declared. His eyes swept around him as he started undoing the hair clips holding his bangs back. It had taken an hour, but now nothing was out of place and everything had been dusted. He had done all the dishes and even started laundry.

He hadn’t heard the sound of any ringing bells while he had been working, even checking in after he had finished vacuuming. So far Sylvie had been content where she was upstairs, though he could hear her coughs from downstairs; the last he had seen her, she had dozed off and had been curled up on her side, Filly in her arms and giving small coughs in her sleep. He’d never heard such a grating and harsh sound out of his little sister before, and if it hadn’t cleared up by tomorrow he resolved to take her to the doctor.

He was about to start going up the stairs to check on Sylvie when he felt his cell phone start to buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out and arched an eyebrow at the caller ID: Unknown Caller.

“Sorry, buddy, not in the mood,” Rowen said, pocketing the phone again. He never answered unknown callers.

A few seconds later, Rowen felt the phone vibrate twice in rapid succession. A text message? He pulled his phone back out and stared in surprise at the brief and curt message: Answer your phone.

The phone started ringing immediately after he read the three word text. This time Rowen answered it, though it was with a good deal of reluctance. “Hello?”

“You are Rowen Knighton?”

Rowen frowned. The voice sounded aristocratic, a stranger’s voice he had never heard before. “Yeah…hey, how did you get this number?”

“Get out, boy.”

He stopped trying to place the voice once he processed the warning. “What? Who is this?”

“Who I am does not matter. Get your sister and get out. They’re coming.”

“Who is?” Rowen repeated, voice hardening at the mention of Sylvie. Dread washed over him in cold waves. “Who’s coming and why do I need to leave? Who are you?”

“I do not have time to explain. Get out or get caught, your choice. If you value your sister’s safety, you’ll run. Go, now.”

“But—“ he growled when the other line went dead. “Hello? Hello?”

Rowen stared at the now silent phone, thoughts racing a mile a minute. Either this was a prank call or this was something of legitimate concern, and from the sounds of it he didn’t have enough time to figure it out.

He moved back down the stairs, cautiously peering through the window. There wasn’t anyone he could see out front, just a black car at the—

Wait, hadn’t that car been there earlier this morning? Come to think of it, Rowen didn’t recognize the car as one of his neighbors…why would it still be there unless…and now it was starting to drive into the neighborhood…

There was no uncertainty now, no hesitation—he knew what he had to do. Rowen pulled out his phone again, opening a group chat and typing just one word into it before he pocketed the phone and ran back upstairs.

He hurried into his own room, grabbing a backpack from a closet and the blanket his mother had made him long ago before returning to Sylvie’s room. He moved to her closet and pulled out a smaller backpack, then strode to her bed.

“C’mon, kidlet,” he murmured gently, scooping Sylvie into his arms. “Get this on.”

Sylvie blinked at him hazily, her bangs matted with sweat. He was not pleased to note how flushed and yet pale her face was, nor of the glassy quality of her eyes. “Row’n…?”

Rowen gently eased the backpack onto her back and then wrapped his blanket around her—it was brisk outside, but it would be even colder to his sick little sister and there was a chance they would be gone until evening. “We gotta go pick some blueberries, Sylvie.”

Sylvie’s protests died immediately. Her arms moved and then wrapped around his neck. “Filly…?”

“She’s in your backpack,” he said brusquely, already out of her room and starting towards his parent’s bedroom. “I know it’s hard, lamb, but try not to cough. We have to be quiet now.”

He kept his voice calm and even for the sake of his younger sister, but he couldn’t stop the fear from internally climbing when he heard the sounds of someone picking the locks at the front door.

                                             +++++++++++++++++++

“Almost got ‘im, Claire! Now he’s gonna start using sequence attacks—“

“I know, I know, hush,” Claire retorted impatiently, eyes glued to the screen. “Can’t focus with a backseat driver.”

Sora rolled his eyes, biting into another Pop Tart. “Noth a backtheat drwver,” he said, sounding sulky.

“Sorry, bro, don’t speak Poptart-in-mouth,” she replied with a quick glance and a grin at Sora. “Not something we were taught in school yet.”

Sora opened his mouth to reply when he heard their phone vibrate and trill. “Ohp, we got a text. Probs Mikey, wishing for us to come save him from the dreary boring mall,” he declared. He reached over for the phone to check the message. “Hey, Claire.”

“Yeah it could be Mikey, but it might be Ro checking on us.”

“Claire.”

“Heck, it might be Risa, or maybe even Uncle—“

“Claire.”

Sora’s voice was sharper this time, enough so that Claire turned in her seat to look back at her twin. She heard her character in the game yell in agony as he was defeated and only briefly caught the Game Over sign flashing on the screen from the corner of her eye. It didn’t hold her attention nearly as much as her brother did.

For once there was no amusement in her brother’s eyes, no smile on his face. He looked sober, grim-faced and tight-lipped.

It scared her more than she cared to admit. “Sora?”

He held out the phone wordlessly to his sister. Claire didn’t even have to hold the phone to see the message, a single word on the screen, and she sucked in a sharp breath. “You think…?” she began slowly.

“Ro wouldn’t bluff. We gotta go.”

The twins were off the couch in seconds, already going for their shared room in what was their aunt and uncle’s office. They grabbed their knapsacks, briefly checking to make sure they had what they needed. The twins, along with Rowen, Michael, and Sylvie, all had “emergency packs” that remained stocked with a change of clothes, a first aid kit, and any personal items. While their original packs had burned in the fire in their old home, Sora and Claire had found spare backpacks in their relative’s home to use as their emergency bags instead.

Once assured they had everything they needed, an easily twenty second check, the twins headed to the back patio. There was no time to leave a note, and both of them whispered a hurried, “Sorry Auntie Mai, sorry Uncle Joey” as they passed a picture of their relatives. The first chance they were able, they’d send a message out—but right now they had to go.

They were on the fifth floor of their apartment complex, but that didn’t deter them any. Claire was in gymnastics and Sora had enough parkour experience to know how to scale down the side of the building. There was a reason “monkeys” were included in the ever expansive collection of nicknames they had.

They vaulted over the rail in a smooth, near simultaneous motion. Hands over feet, moving as easily as if they were walking, Sora and Claire climbed down.  They reached the ground in a matter of seconds, already heading for the side entrance of the complex and keeping largely out of sight. After one last check to make sure no one unfriendly was at the gates, the twins pulled on baseball caps and hurried out of the complex, melding into the crowd.

They left just in time. They were not there when the apartment door swung open and the strange men rushed inside. The intruders weren’t able to find anything beyond an empty apartment and an open patio window, curtains fluttering in the breeze.

Previous | Master Post | Next

[arwenadreamer]

Wharning: What I have to say is going to be anti Destiheller and also rather anti Misha. (Not anti Destiel shipper, just anti people who want Destiel canon at any cost.) I was seeing all these gifs and snippets from the panel floating around. Some pro Destiel, some anti. So I wanted to see for myself. Often gifs and short videos carry only a tiny bit of the truth and can even warp it into something else. So I went ahead and watched the whole Jensen/Misha panel that soon became the Jensen/Misha/Jared panel. And oh boy, was it painful to watch.

I consider myself rather good at reading people, It´s my job. So here´s my take what I got from that: This whole panel (Jensen/Misha) seemed so forced. Jensen was on edge the whole time. He really was not happy. (I saw someone post this con was like a Cockles-Christmas, and I kept asking myself: Where is there any holiday spirit in this panel?) First, Jensen came too late. He shortened the panel effectively by 15 Minutes. It was supposed to be 35 Minutes long, but Jensen and Misha where alone on stage for 20 minutes. Jensen came in and started with: Have I told you today that I love you? (That short sequence has been floating around a lot, too.) A short hug ensued, one handed from JEnsen´s side, clearly purely for show, and then he followed his statement up by: “There´s a reason I haven´t. I don´t!” Ok, that good all be good humor, but know that Jensen was told by a fan during autograph session that his jokes about Misha are Ill received, and whether he actually hated him? (I mean, come on, what is he supposed to say to that???)

Also, and this is pure rumor, I don´t know whether it´s true, a fan said they heard him say under his breath “I´ll be back with the guy I pretend to be friends with.” So my take on the whole situiation is: There has been a serious talk a few month ago, maybe shortly before season 14, that JEnsen would no longer put up with all the extreme Destiel crap that Misha kept pushing. I think Misha was told by TPTB to cut it down. They also made sure that Misha had more time on the show, but that there were less moments that could be interpreted as Destiel. At the same time everybody made sure that Jared and Misha are goofing around more together on cons and official events. JAred often seems to stand in between Jensen and Misha. Give the audience Misha-time with one of the leads, but not with Jensen. And I have a feeling that the relationship between Misha and Jensen is strained at the moment. To say the least. All that has been going on for quite some time now, I think. Now we have this panel, that Jensen seems to have to force himself through. I mean, there is fake crumpy Jensen, and then there is real bad mood Jensen. And to me it seems that this one was the latter. Let´s fast forward to the point where Jensen lay on the ground and Misha was on top of him. These pictures raised my hackles, tbh. Especially since Misha had his hand around Jensen´s throat. But after watching the video I have to say I was wrong on that front. They were reeinacting the scene between Sam and Cass in Peace Of Mind. And yeah, Sam had his fingers around Cass´throat in that scene, so Misha had a reason to do that. But that was the exact Moment Jared chose to come on stage. Nobody can tell me that he wasn´t watching the whole panel right behind the curtain, ready to jump in whenever it became necessary. And he considered this moment necessary. What happens next? Jensen, who has been rather silent and stiff the whole twenty minutes, hardly saying anything and hardly goofing around, jumps up and runs towards Jared. He starts spinning the weel, then he phyisically pushes Jared in the middle of the stage, between himself and Misha. Jared asks the audience if it´s ok if he stays. He clearly has learned from last years drama that followed him crushing the panel. He was very careful, made sure he was rather quiet, not intervening too much. Yet, he didn´t leave. He stayed there for Jensen. My interpretation, sure, but it just looked like it. The show goes on and the scene so well gifed above by @nothingidputbeforeyou happens. Just look at all their faces. Look how Jensen trys to stop Misha from mentioning Destiel by blocking him with his arm. Look like he looses it when it´s out there. Look at that helpless gesture from Jared. Look at Jensen. Even Misha can´t laugh anymore, because he know´s he went too far. The show goes on and Jensen is in an even worse mood than before. When the unicorn falls onto the guitarr he goes over and get´s it, brings it to Jared. Then he puts an arm around Jareds shoulder, as if he needs his friend right now. Jared leans in, put´s his arm around Jensen´s waist and they wisper a bit. Next Jensen turns around, gets a pocket knife open, turns back suddenly and slashes the unicorn. More unicorns are thrown at stage and he slashes those too. As if he is venting his anger and frustration. As I said, the whole thing was painful to watch. I myself read the occasional Destiel, ship and let ship. In private. In fanfiction. In fanart. But the whole Destiel thing got widely out of hand due to some extreme, entiteld shippers. And that, right there, is the result.

Since apparently some people are giffing only one sentence of this from fuzzy, hard-to-see video clips, several anons requested that I do the whole thing. So here it is. Start to finish with nothing omitted. Draw your own conclusions. 

Also? I had to include Jared in that one gif because his face was literally this emoji 😬😬😬 when he saw how mad Jensen was. 

Here’s the video from thiniassk in it’s entirety so you can see for yourselves.

JIBCon 10 for multiple requests

[crackmyheart]

Cataclysm (Sequel to Wanderlust): Chapter 17 (Kellic)

a/n: ehh i dont feel like explaining myself twice (already did in the author’s note of my badlands fic) but basically i would literally die before i let this story go abandoned and i’m not dead so here ya go

—

Chapter 17 - Mesmerizing

MasterPost

The next morning, I wake up before Kellin in our Four Seasons room in Atlanta. It’s a five-star hotel and probably the fanciest place I’ve ever stayed in. Bree sent me a message saying she booked a room for us way in advance for one night (which apparently means we’re right on schedule, I guess?); it seems that after our little spa treatment today, we should prepare to move to a different location.

Deciding not to wait any longer, I grab my phone off the nightstand and dial Mike’s number. Part of me isn’t even certain he’ll pick up, but this way is faster than sending him texts that he can ignore and waiting endlessly for him to respond. Even if he declines my call, I can still call him again and annoy him until he picks up, because that’s what brothers do.

Surprisingly, after a few rings, I hear his tired voice: “Hello?”

“Mike,” I say, trying to keep my own voice down so that I don’t wake Kellin up. “We. Need. To talk.”

Mike groans. “Is this about me and Tony? Vic, I really don’t—”

“Listen to me,” I interrupt, desperate for him to understand. “Listen to me if you won’t listen to him. You cannot let your own problems ruin this.”

“You don’t understand,” he says. “He’s stifling me, Vic. I feel like I can’t do what I want.”

“How is he stifling you?” I ask. I figure it’s best to get both sides of the story, even though I already have a pretty good idea of what’s going on.

“He doesn’t like me going out,” Mike says. “He argues with me when I say I’m going to a bar or club or something. I swear I’m not hooking up with anyone; I’ve just been…” He trails off.

“Just been what?” I prompt, but I already know the answer. “Drinking? Drowning your sorrows in alcohol?” I know it because I’ve been through it myself. Our family is prone to alcoholism.

“Maybe,” he says slowly, even though we both know that I’m right. “But that doesn’t matter. I’m just having fun. It’s not hurting anybody.”

“It’s hurting you, and it’s hurting Tony,” I tell him. “Mike, you’ve seen me addicted. So has Tony. Now that you’re in a similar situation, he’s scared for you. All he wants is for you to get help.”

“I don’t need any help,” Mike says immediately. Typical. “I’m fine.”

“Tony would not be this worried if you were fine,” I say. “He’s seen you drunk before. He knows your limits. It seems to me like you’re going way over your limits. I’m telling you, Mike, the first step towards recovery is recognizing that you’ve got a problem.”

“I don’t—” He cuts himself off, taking a deep breath. “Okay. Maybe I get drunk a lot. Like, a lot. Maybe I need to drink a lot more than I used to so I can get smashed. Maybe I’ve been having trouble living with myself lately, and drinking makes it easier. Okay? There. Happy?”

“So you admit that there’s something wrong? That things aren’t how they used to be?”

He sighs. “I used to feel good without any sort of substances in my body. I used to make Tony happy, not worried. I get defensive with him. I guess the only reason I’m not that snappy with you is because you know about these things.”

“I used to get defensive, too,” I say. “We all want to believe there’s nothing wrong, Mike. So listen: if you truly don’t feel anything for Tony anymore, then I suggest going ahead with the divorce. But if there’s a larger part of you that wants to try to save your marriage, try to save yourself—even if it’s hard—then I’d suggest not giving up just yet. Okay?”

Mike is silent for a moment, and then he quietly says, “Okay.” I think he’s going to hang up, but then, out of nowhere, he asks, “So how’s that band thing going? Last I heard, you were driving up to Oregon to join some band you’ve never met before.”

I almost choke on my breath, realizing that I haven’t even told any of the guys what’s been going on. I feel like I haven’t really had the time, and chances are, they’ve been busy, too. “Um. Yeah. About that.” I clear my throat. “It’s a very long story, but to shorten it up…I may or may not be on a road trip with Kellin again. And I may or may not be staying in a fancy hotel in Atlanta right now.”

“You—what?” Mike sputters out. “How did that happen?”

“Turns out, Kellin was the lead singer of the band I’d never met before. Remember his weird ex-girlfriend who sent us on the first road trip? Yeah, she decided that she wanted us to make up after our little fallout. And now here we are.”

Mike makes a low whistling sound. “Wow. That’s unexpected. How’s it going with him, then? Did you two make up?”

I glance over at where Kellin is still (thankfully) asleep. “Ehh,” I say vaguely. “It’s complicated.”

Mike snorts. “Figures. I’d ask if you need to talk about it, but my relationship advice would probably be shit.”

I laugh a little. “It’s fine, dude. I think it’s best if he and I figure it out on our own anyway.”

“Okay,” Mike says. “Well, um…thanks for calling. Really.”

I nod, even though he can’t see it. “I’ll talk to you later?” I say.

“Of course,” Mike replies. “Talk to you later. Promise.” Then he hangs up.

—

The “Ritual for Two” spa package is, predictably, designed for couples (which is presumably why Bree, matchmaker that she is, chose it for us). It also, of course, happens to be one of the most expensive treatments available, since it’s a two-person package—though Bree insists that she’s got it covered. How, I don’t think I’ll ever know.

I haven’t been to many spas in my lifetime, but even I can tell right from the beginning that this one is high-class and that the workers are very good at what they do. The atmosphere is calm and soothing like nothing I’ve ever experienced, all soft lighting and lit candles. Even with Kellin and I together in next to nothing but our robes, I can’t feel any sort of awkwardness or tension.

The treatment is split up into two sections: an aromatherapy massage and a facial. I don’t know much about either one, but the masseuses explain what they’re doing. The aromatherapy in particular helps a lot with my emotional state, especially considering how dramatic the past few days have been. It feels as if all my troubles are just washing right off of me.

Every once in a while, I glance over at Kellin, and it occurs to me just how exposed we both are, just how much of a bonding experience it really is even if we’re both wrapped up in our own individual treatment. Kellin’s expressions are uninhibited, and I’m sure I look the same—the looks on his face range from calm and content to something like euphoria. At one point, he and I look over at each other at the same time, and his gaze meets mine. He flashes me a wide smile, looking fearless and truly peaceful for the first time in a long time. I smile back at him, and for a few blissful seconds, we hold that moment with all we’ve got, neither of us sure when to let go.

“So,” one of the masseuses says, “how long have you two been together?”

That snaps us both out of our mutual trance, reminding me that this is a couples’ treatment. I’m relieved that they’re not openly homophobic, at least, but I’m also kind of at a loss for words, caught completely off guard with no explanation prepared—how do I tell them that our relationship status is basically the “It’s Complicated” option on Facebook?

Thankfully, Kellin saves me. “Um, we met a little over a year ago,” he says truthfully, winking at me in a way that I could only describe as flirty.

“Hmm,” the masseuse hums. “What made you decide to come here?”

Kellin and I exchange glances, unsure how to explain that most of our “deciding” is done by a devious girl named Bree. “It just kind of, uh, happened,” I say with a short laugh. “Minimal planning involved.”

We both come out amazingly refreshed and much more calm than before. Like Bree said, we’re served a bit of champagne at the end. Kellin takes the picture while I hold the glass, and then afterward he offers to drink mine for me. “Just because—well, you know.”

“Go ahead,” I tell him as he posts the picture online. “I don’t need it.”

—

For the next two nights, you’ll be sleeping in a treehouse—I’ve already booked your stay. At some point, take a short video called “Kellin and Vic Fight Voldemort” (even if you don’t actually fight Voldemort) because I am tired of all these boring video titles.

Through a quick Google search, Kellin and I find the treehouse she’s talking about. The checkout time for Four Seasons is noon, but we can’t check in to our treehouse until two, so we pack up all our stuff and then decide to explore the city for a few hours. I mostly let Kellin lead, since I don’t really have any ideas myself, and we find ourselves at a random pub for lunch.

“I really wanted a treehouse when I was little,” Kellin says as we’re waiting for our food. “Until I tried to climb a tree one time and fell down and broke my arm. Then I decided I’d pass.”

I snort. “My brother did that once. I told him he was gonna get hurt, but he didn’t listen. And then he fell and blamed me and said I told him to do it.”

“Typical,” Kellin says, resting his head in his hand, his expression turning slightly distant. I realize then that he’s probably still sensitive to the mention of siblings—it reminds him that he no longer has one.

“You know,” I say slowly in an attempt to change the subject, “I think she’d be proud of you. Your sister.”

Skeptically, Kellin raises an eyebrow. “Proud? Why?”

I shrug. “Because you didn’t let it eat you alive. Because you got to the point that you could admit everything, to yourself and to me. Because you’ve been smiling again. I’m sure she’d be glad to see how you looked at the spa today. How peaceful you looked.” And how beautiful.

Kellin, his eyes trained on the table, glances back up at me. “Peaceful,” he repeats softly, nodding. “Yeah. I did feel peaceful. And I hope I can feel it again someday.”

It’s around two o'clock by the time we finish lunch, but instead of checking in immediately, we figure we’ll hang out for a while yet. One of the places that we end up at is the Centennial Olympic Park, where Kellin promptly runs through the “Fountain of Rings,” a series of bouncing fountains in the shape of the Olympic Rings, and then calls for me to join him. After some time exploring and talking, we take our time browsing different shops downtown.

We don’t check in until after dinner, but when we do, I’m kind of glad that we waited because I don’t think I’m going to want to leave now that I’m here. The treehouse is made up of three compartments—a living room, a bedroom, and a deck—all connected to each other by suspension bridges and decorated with fairy lights that, in the twilight, make it look like a fantasy dream. The hosts of the place introduce themselves and give us a little tour of the whole thing; it’s very rustic and filled with all sorts of intricate details and antiques, as well as stocked with wine and snacks. It feels like we’re closer to nature but also secluded at the same time.

By the time we’re alone, it’s pretty dark outside. I’m sitting on the couch in the living room, taking in the scenery, when suddenly, Kellin comes up to me with his phone held up, as if he’s taking a video. “Ready to fight Voldemort?”

I snort. “That’s not something you just casually ask someone.”

Kellin rolls his eyes, switches to the front camera, and says in a more high-pitched voice, “Oh my God, Kellin, you can’t just ask someone whether or not they’re ready to fight Voldemort.”

I just laugh. “What’s that from, again? Legally Blonde?”

“Mean Girls, dummy,” Kellin corrects, making a dramatically shocked face at the phone camera.

I raise my hands in surrender. “Sorry, I got them mixed up. I’ve never actually seen either of them.”

Kellin gasps even more dramatically. “Vic, I can’t believe I’ve known you this long and I haven’t forced you to watch Mean Girls yet. We’ll have to have a movie night sometime. Truly a cinematic masterpiece.”

He turns around and heads for the bridge leading to the bed. “Come on,” he says, gesturing for me to follow him. “I’ve got, like, thirty seconds left and I wanna show the world this badass treehouse.”

I follow him as he waves his phone around, pausing at certain features of the bedroom, such as the little desk and the bed itself, which can be slept on indoors but can also be wheeled out onto an outdoor platform under the stars and just above a stream. “Beautiful,” Kellin says primly, blowing a kiss at the camera. “‘Kay, I’m out.” That’s the moment, I assume, when Instagram ends his sixty-second video.

He sits down on the bed, humming while he captions and posts the little video. I can’t help but watch as he types—everything about him pulls me to him, and though he’s changed since the first time we met, the feeling is similar. He’s mesmerizing.

When he’s done, he sets his phone down and flops down on his back, sighing deeply. “Come try this,” he says as he stretches out. “It’s super comfy.”

I shrug and lie down next to him, propping my head up with one hand. Admittedly, it’s a fantastic mattress. “Hmm. You’re right.”

Kellin meets my gaze, flashing a grin that disappears a few seconds later after neither of us break eye contact. In that moment, my heart aches with want. “Kellin,” I say slowly.

Kellin’s eyes flit down to my lips for the briefest of seconds. Then, before I can even begin to think about what that means, he leans forward and bridges the gap.

The kiss is soft and sweet at first, but it quickly deepens, Kellin grabbing onto the collar of my shirt and sucking on my bottom lip. Breaking away, he says quietly, “I’ve missed this.”

My breath catches—I’m not even sure how to respond. “I—um—” I stutter. “I thought we were just friends.”

Kellin’s mouth quirks up. “Yeah,” he agrees, “we are. Friends can do this.” He crawls onto my lap, his eyes shining with something new: desire. “It’s called ‘having benefits.’”

I wish we could maybe have something more than that, but if “friends with benefits” is as close as I’ll ever get, I’m eager and willing to take it. Besides, I’ve missed this, too.

Kellin leans down, leaving light kisses all up and down my neck and collarbone, all while rocking himself on me. I rest my hands on his hips, and when he lifts his head up, I take the liberty of reconnecting our lips in another long-awaited kiss. Friends, enemies, lovers—no matter what we are, I’ll never get tired of those beautiful lips of his.

Kellin reaches one hand into my hair, the other draped around my neck as my tongue brushes the outside of his mouth, which he opens slightly in order to let me in. I kiss him like I’m starving—I haven’t felt this electrified in a long, long time.

Suddenly, Kellin breaks the kiss off, winking at me without a word as he hops off the bed. I start to ask him what he’s doing, but I figure it out halfway through my question: he’s closing all the doors and windows so that not even the birds will hear us.

After that, he reaches into one of our many shopping bags from earlier and pulls out something completely unexpected: a brand new bottle of lube.

The smirk on his face says it all. “I was just in such a good mood today,” he says. “And so were you. So I figured, just in case…”

I just shake my head in awe. He’s confusing as hell, and I’m not quite sure how far his intentions go, but I know now that I haven’t been imagining the occasional frustrated looks that he gives me when he thinks I’m not paying attention.

“I like the way you think,” I tell him, starting to pull off my shirt. Tossing it to the floor, I add, “At the very least, now we can both say we got laid in a treehouse.”

Kellin pulls his own shirt off, grinning as he sets the lube on the nearby desk and climbs back into the bed. Immediately, I pull him back down on top of me, resuming our kisses as Kellin grinds on me more roughly. We’re both half-hard before long, so Kellin slides down to the end of the bed, playing with the hem of my jeans. “Just take ‘em off already,” I say with a laugh, starting to pull them off myself; when they’re partway down, he yanks them the rest of the way off and throws them to the floor as if they’re on fire, leaving me in nothing but my boxers.

Kellin pulls his own pants off, too. When he starts to climb back up and sit himself on my lap with his legs wrapped around my waist, I take the opportunity to start palming him, turning him on even more. “Why don’t you show me just how much you missed this, huh?” I tease.

Kellin responds by snatching the lube off the desk and handing it to me, then taking his boxers off. He doesn’t have to say anything—I already know what he wants me to do.

After opening the bottle of lube, I squirt some into my hands and spread it onto my fingers. Kellin sits down in my lap again, but he lifts himself up a little bit so that I can reach around and slide one finger into him. He tenses up at first but quickly nods for me to add a second one, all while rocking himself slightly in order to get used to the feeling. I have to go slower by the third finger, but before I know it, he’s telling me that he’s used to it, that he’s ready for me.

I pull my fingers out and take my own boxers off now, then proceed to lube myself up. I’m getting hornier by the second now; after so long without Kellin, I need to be inside him.

When I’m ready, Kellin rests both hands on my shoulders and starts to lower himself down on me, letting out an adorably tiny squeak at first. Taking deep breaths, he moves his body down farther, and I wiggle my hips a little to make it easier on him. Slowly, steadily, he starts to ride me, making little moans as he moves.

I hold onto his hips again, letting him kiss me some more as I rock my body in time with his. In return, I lean forward and nip at a spot on his neck, reveling in his increasingly loud noises as I bite and lick at his skin, determined to leave my mark. I moan into his shoulder when he gyrates his hips—I forgot how good he feels.

“You’re so hot,” I breathe into his neck, both of us moving faster now. Eager to please him the way he’s pleasing me, I thrust my hips up hard just as he’s coming down, and he gasps, a soft whine escaping his lips when I hit the perfect spot.

“Right there,” he says, gripping my shoulders more tightly. “Do that again.”

Our bodies move in a rhythm, our moans mixing together until we can barely tell whose is whose. We’re all sweat and sound and lips and hands, and it makes me forget everything surrounding us, both literally and metaphorically. It makes me forget all about our situation; I focus only on him, how gorgeous he is, how lucky I am that I get to have sex with someone so beautiful.

I can feel myself reaching my climax soon, and my movements become clumsier, my thrusts more desperate. Kellin grins and rotates his hips around one more time, and that’s about when I let it all go and come inside of him.

Kellin is almost there, too, so once I’ve finished riding out my high, I reach over and start pumping him up and down, base to tip; sure enough, within a matter of seconds, I’ve got him moaning as he comes on my abdomen (better me than the mattress—I don’t really want to have to potentially explain anything to the hosts).

“Wow,” Kellin says breathlessly, lying down on his stomach. “That was…that was pretty great.”

“It was,” I agree, standing up to clean myself off, and Kellin follows suit.

Now that the euphoria has worn off and I can see things more clearly, I wonder if having sex was a good idea. I’m afraid it’ll just make things more confusing for both of us. As Kellin and I put on some sleep clothes and get ready for bed, I have to remind myself over and over of what he said as we were kissing. Benefits, I tell myself. Sex is just a benefit of our friendship. It means nothing to him, so unless I want to be longing and pining hopelessly for him, it’s going to have to mean nothing to me, too.

[ralphlayton]

Break Free B2B Series: Adi Bachar-Reske on Taking the Lead in the Evolution of B2B Content Marketing

Marketing leaders are at the forefront of a seismic transformation that continues to play out as we enter a new decade.  Organizational dynamics are realigning. Power balances are shifting. Trust – both internal and external – is emerging as the most essential crux in business success. For people like Adi Bachar-Reske, it's an exhilarating time to be leading the charge. Her history in marketing dates back multiple decades, so she’s been helping shape this evolution. “Twenty years ago, everybody’s in a suit. I was the only woman in the room, always,” she says. “It has changed a lot.” Today, she finds that she no longer tends to be the only woman in the room (though the balance is still a ways from where it needs to be), and that’s far from the only change she’s observed in her marketing leadership positions — most recently at Provenir, where she served as Vice President of Marketing before moving into a solo consulting role late last year.  Much of her experience, including at Provenir, has come in the financial technology (FinTech) space, so during my interview with her for the Break Free B2B series, we zeroed in on some key topics tied to the vertical: proving the revenue impact of marketing, staying on top of content consumption trends, and building trust with customers when sensitive data is in play. 

Break Free B2B Interview with Adi Bachar-Reske

If you’re interested in checking out a particular portion of the discussion, you can find a quick general outline below, as well as a few excerpts that stood out to us.

1:00 — Introduction to Adi

2:00 — Provenir’s marketing philosophies

4:00 — How are content consumption trends changing?

10:30 — Building trust in the financial industry

13:15 — How technology helps with personalization and trust

16:00 — Building trust in marketing internally

18:45 — Which types of content help sales most?

22:00 — How can B2B marketers break free?

24:00 — How to balance taking risks with playing it safe

Nick: What are you seeing from your end in terms of shifting content consumption trends and shortening attention spans? Adi: I find that myself, I don't read books anymore, my eyes get really tired and I just don't have the time to sit down and actually read, but what I do do, I got addicted to Audible right? So I walk through a long airport, or I sit down and wait for my daughter to finish her guitar lesson, and I'll just put it in my ears. I read at least two books a month that way and I love it because of the way Audible, they've changed too right?  So you've got the authors now reading the story. It's a bit like a TED Talk that lasts for a few hours, which is brilliant. And the same for blogs. Blogs were the big thing a few years ago, but again, we don't have time to read, so we did this test here. We took some of the blogs and we kind of condensed them, shrank them up into a one-minute video. It was the same content, but obviously a lot less. And we captured the essence of it, and the engagement was just phenomenal. I think we're all very curious people in the same way we were 10 or 20 years ago, we just consume information differently. [bctt tweet="I think we're all very curious people in the same way we were 10 or 20 years ago, we just consume information differently. @AdiBacharReske #ContentConsumption #BreakFreeB2B" username="toprank"] Nick: Being in the finance industry, I have to imagine that trust, data security, privacy, those are big issues. What are you seeing from your perspective as far as the condition of trust between customers and brands Adi: Years ago the saying was, nobody's going to lose their job for choosing IBM. If you were a big brand, you were safe, and the financial institution had an immediate trust in you. Easy peasy. But if you were a small brand then it was difficult to get in. They didn't trust you. You were just small, maybe you'll disappear tomorrow. It's funny, things have changed.  I speak to my customers, large institutions and small institutions, all the time and I ask them: why did you choose us? We're not a big player, we're not an IBM. In the past year or so, the answer I get is kind of surprising. They say, we chose you because you are small. We chose you because we wanted to work with somebody who's nimble, who can work with us, who can focus on us, because all these large businesses, you know they have other things to worry about. They may not focus on us, they may not sit down, listen to what we need, build something special for us ...  So these days, the way you build the trust is showing how nimble and flexible you can be. Both in your development and your product, but also it has to be reflected in your marketing and your digital presence. You have to look accessible, you have to look open. [bctt tweet="These days, the way you build trust is showing how nimble and flexible you can be. Both in your development and your product, but also it has to be reflected in your marketing and your digital presence. @AdiBacharReske #BreakFreeB2B" username="toprank"] Nick: As a marketing leader who regularly interfaces with other leadership in the company, what are your strategies for building trust internally, across departments? Adi: Numbers, numbers, numbers. So again, I’ve been around for a long time and marketers used to be the first one — when the quota hasn't been met or something happened like that — the marketers were the first people out the door. Why? Because we couldn't really show any numbers.  You know, we spend all that money on an event, or we spend all that money on a beautiful site ... What did it do for us? What did we get back for it? Nothing, nobody knows really. I mean there were anecdotes here and there but we don't really know. So over the years they created all these beautiful technologies that help us measure that, and it's up to us to create the KPIs that ensure the bottom line.  So my strategy from day one was to show the bottom line. We spent X, and therefore as a result we had Y inbound leads that turned into whatever converted and whatever closed ... With management, the way I grew my team is, I was able to show the numbers and how they grew, and with that I got more investment, and I was able to show more and more and more. Stay tuned to the TopRank Marketing Blog and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Break Free B2B interviews. Here are a few interviews to whet your appetite:

Break Free B2B Series: Hal Werner on the Intersection of Marketing Creativity and Analytics

Break Free B2B Series: Maliha Aqeel on How to Ace B2B Company Culture

Break Free B2B Series: Amanda Todorovich on Creating Content that Pays Off

The post Break Free B2B Series: Adi Bachar-Reske on Taking the Lead in the Evolution of B2B Content Marketing appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Break Free B2B Series: Adi Bachar-Reske on Taking the Lead in the Evolution of B2B Content Marketing published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/

[samuelpboswell]

Break Free B2B Series: Adi Bachar-Reske on Taking the Lead in the Evolution of B2B Content Marketing

Marketing leaders are at the forefront of a seismic transformation that continues to play out as we enter a new decade.  Organizational dynamics are realigning. Power balances are shifting. Trust – both internal and external – is emerging as the most essential crux in business success. For people like Adi Bachar-Reske, it's an exhilarating time to be leading the charge. Her history in marketing dates back multiple decades, so she’s been helping shape this evolution. “Twenty years ago, everybody’s in a suit. I was the only woman in the room, always,” she says. “It has changed a lot.” Today, she finds that she no longer tends to be the only woman in the room (though the balance is still a ways from where it needs to be), and that’s far from the only change she’s observed in her marketing leadership positions — most recently at Provenir, where she served as Vice President of Marketing before moving into a solo consulting role late last year.  Much of her experience, including at Provenir, has come in the financial technology (FinTech) space, so during my interview with her for the Break Free B2B series, we zeroed in on some key topics tied to the vertical: proving the revenue impact of marketing, staying on top of content consumption trends, and building trust with customers when sensitive data is in play. 

Break Free B2B Interview with Adi Bachar-Reske

If you’re interested in checking out a particular portion of the discussion, you can find a quick general outline below, as well as a few excerpts that stood out to us.

1:00 — Introduction to Adi

2:00 — Provenir’s marketing philosophies

4:00 — How are content consumption trends changing?

10:30 — Building trust in the financial industry

13:15 — How technology helps with personalization and trust

16:00 — Building trust in marketing internally

18:45 — Which types of content help sales most?

22:00 — How can B2B marketers break free?

24:00 — How to balance taking risks with playing it safe

Nick: What are you seeing from your end in terms of shifting content consumption trends and shortening attention spans? Adi: I find that myself, I don't read books anymore, my eyes get really tired and I just don't have the time to sit down and actually read, but what I do do, I got addicted to Audible right? So I walk through a long airport, or I sit down and wait for my daughter to finish her guitar lesson, and I'll just put it in my ears. I read at least two books a month that way and I love it because of the way Audible, they've changed too right?  So you've got the authors now reading the story. It's a bit like a TED Talk that lasts for a few hours, which is brilliant. And the same for blogs. Blogs were the big thing a few years ago, but again, we don't have time to read, so we did this test here. We took some of the blogs and we kind of condensed them, shrank them up into a one-minute video. It was the same content, but obviously a lot less. And we captured the essence of it, and the engagement was just phenomenal. I think we're all very curious people in the same way we were 10 or 20 years ago, we just consume information differently. [bctt tweet="I think we're all very curious people in the same way we were 10 or 20 years ago, we just consume information differently. @AdiBacharReske #ContentConsumption #BreakFreeB2B" username="toprank"] Nick: Being in the finance industry, I have to imagine that trust, data security, privacy, those are big issues. What are you seeing from your perspective as far as the condition of trust between customers and brands Adi: Years ago the saying was, nobody's going to lose their job for choosing IBM. If you were a big brand, you were safe, and the financial institution had an immediate trust in you. Easy peasy. But if you were a small brand then it was difficult to get in. They didn't trust you. You were just small, maybe you'll disappear tomorrow. It's funny, things have changed.  I speak to my customers, large institutions and small institutions, all the time and I ask them: why did you choose us? We're not a big player, we're not an IBM. In the past year or so, the answer I get is kind of surprising. They say, we chose you because you are small. We chose you because we wanted to work with somebody who's nimble, who can work with us, who can focus on us, because all these large businesses, you know they have other things to worry about. They may not focus on us, they may not sit down, listen to what we need, build something special for us ...  So these days, the way you build the trust is showing how nimble and flexible you can be. Both in your development and your product, but also it has to be reflected in your marketing and your digital presence. You have to look accessible, you have to look open. [bctt tweet="These days, the way you build trust is showing how nimble and flexible you can be. Both in your development and your product, but also it has to be reflected in your marketing and your digital presence. @AdiBacharReske #BreakFreeB2B" username="toprank"] Nick: As a marketing leader who regularly interfaces with other leadership in the company, what are your strategies for building trust internally, across departments? Adi: Numbers, numbers, numbers. So again, I’ve been around for a long time and marketers used to be the first one — when the quota hasn't been met or something happened like that — the marketers were the first people out the door. Why? Because we couldn't really show any numbers.  You know, we spend all that money on an event, or we spend all that money on a beautiful site ... What did it do for us? What did we get back for it? Nothing, nobody knows really. I mean there were anecdotes here and there but we don't really know. So over the years they created all these beautiful technologies that help us measure that, and it's up to us to create the KPIs that ensure the bottom line.  So my strategy from day one was to show the bottom line. We spent X, and therefore as a result we had Y inbound leads that turned into whatever converted and whatever closed ... With management, the way I grew my team is, I was able to show the numbers and how they grew, and with that I got more investment, and I was able to show more and more and more. Stay tuned to the TopRank Marketing Blog and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Break Free B2B interviews. Here are a few interviews to whet your appetite:

Break Free B2B Series: Hal Werner on the Intersection of Marketing Creativity and Analytics

Break Free B2B Series: Maliha Aqeel on How to Ace B2B Company Culture

Break Free B2B Series: Amanda Todorovich on Creating Content that Pays Off

The post Break Free B2B Series: Adi Bachar-Reske on Taking the Lead in the Evolution of B2B Content Marketing appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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[anthonystopscom]

Best Jump Rope Workout for Fat Loss | 15-Minute Weight Loss Routine

Best Jump Rope Workout for Fat Loss | 15-Minute Weight Loss Routine

Jumping rope is a big-time calorie burning exercise.

We are talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 calories per hour (not that any normal person could last that long).

So… when is the last time it was part of your exercise routine?

Most people probably only have experience with skipping rope in P.E. class in Elementary school.

(If the last rope you jumped looked like this, there’s a chance several decades have passed since you have skipped-the-rope.)

We have a corner of our gym with mats and a couple of jump ropes.

Few people last more than a minute or two.

Jumping rope as an adult is a whole different deal.

I tried jumping rope about 10-12 years ago for the first time as a full-grown adult.

I did it for about 10 minutes and could hardly walk the next day.

My calves were destroyed.

Speaking of walking?

Here’s some vintage 1983 footage of one of my favorite songs by The Cure… The Walk.

(Obvious lip-syncing and the cage dancers look like they are wearing prom dresses. Gotta love the 80’s!)

Jumping rope works your entire body and exposes weak points.

I wasn’t just sore in my calves.

I actually felt it in my obliques too (an area that I have a hard time feeling when I do normal ab workouts).

It makes sense why it is such a popular exercise for boxers.

It firms up your entire body…

…and it does make you feel lighter on your feet as you become proficient at it.

So what type of jump rope should you get?

Choosing & Adjusting Your Jump Rope

I recommend starting with a “speed rope”.

These are available at most sporting goods stores (or Amazon) for around $15-$20.

It will look something like this.

Almost all of these are adjustable.

Note: If you are into commercial-level advanced jump ropes, Crossrope is the premium solution in the fitness market.

How to correctly adjust your jump rope:

Place your jump rope on the ground

Stand on the midpoint of the rope (an equal distance between the handles)

Grasp the handles and pull them to your chest while standing on the rope

The top of the handles should reach about 6 inches below the collar bone (not as high as the collar bone or as low as the upper abs)

If in doubt, start a bit longer than this and shorten the rope as you get more experienced.

The 15 Minute Jump Rope Routine

Before you tackle the 15 minute routine that I’m going to outline below you have to learn the skill of jumping rope.

The big mistake I see beginners make is a “double bounce” between rotations.

It’s actually not a mistake…

…it is that this little double bounce allows a brief rest for their core and calves.

They don’t have a high enough level of fitness to jump cleanly in between each rotation.

Here’s a video that demonstrates the proper way to jump rope, along with some tips and common mistakes.

A good 15-minute routine is pretty easy to setup.

I’ll give you three levels examples.

Jump Rope Workout 1

This one is good for maximizing speed and explosiveness. The goal is to eventually learn how to do “double unders” for at least part of the 30-second sprint portion.

1-minute slow jumping warm-up

1.5 minute of rest

30 seconds fast jump

Alternate 30 seconds of fast jumping with 1.5 minutes of rest for a total of 7 times (14 minutes).

Double unders are a combo of conditioning and timing.

Here’s a video with some tips on how to get the timing down.

These take a little bit of practice to master.

Do as many as you can and finish off the 30-second rounds with “alternating foot jump” technique.

Here’s a workout using just this technique

Jump Rope Workout 2

This workout builds a bit more endurance.

It is also good if you aren’t able to do double unders well. It’s still intense and burns a good amount of calories.

1-minute slow jumping warm-up

1 minute of rest

1 minute of fast alternating foot jump

Alternate 1 minute of alternating foot jump with 1 minute of rest for a total of 7 times (14 minutes).

Really challenge yourself to push the pace during the 1 minute of jumping.

Once this ceases to be a challenge, simply introduce some double unders in with alternating foot jumps.

Follow skipping rope with some walking for a little fat burning bonus.

In my cardio course, I recommend that you follow intense HIIT type of training with 15-20 minutes of walking (when time allows).

Intense exercise like HIIT is good for releasing fat from fat cells.

Slow and steady cardio like walking is good for using it for fuel once it has been released.

Here’s a diagram I made demonstrating this.

It’s a bit more complicated than my diagram shows but gives a general idea of the principle.

You could also follow the jump rope intervals with 10-15 minutes of really slow and steady jumping.

You don’t have to do either…

…but Everything Counts!

(This is my favorite Depeche Mode footage. It’s from 1983 and they all look about 16. The German audience shows ZERO enthusiasm here.)

Experiment with the 15 minutes of jump rope intervals.

There isn’t an exact work and recovery period that you must follow to get results.

Studies show HIIT is effective for fat loss, but a lot of different length intervals work well.

The idea is to push hard during the work portion… rest… then push hard again.

If it becomes easy, simply reduce the rest portion or increase the work intensity.

You can also jump slowly instead of resting completely.

…but that is rough to maintain for 15 minutes.

One word of warning.

You may want to simply jump slowly for 5 minutes for 1-2 weeks to condition your body for this type of exercise.

5 minutes jumping rope feels like 30 minutes.

It’s weird, but time actually does slow down as soon as you begin twirling the rope.

Give it a shot.

-Rusty Moore

The post Best Jump Rope Workout for Fat Loss | 15-Minute Weight Loss Routine appeared first on Visual Impact Fitness.

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