#its even rarer that i finish them so please be kind 2

[fourthwingingit]

Ties that bind (fatebound)

A poorly done fic written too quickly by someone who just loves dorym more than is healthy

beta'd by @standbyyourmantis

Orym ran to catch up with Fearne’s longer stride. The skyship would be landing any second and a gods damned fight had broken out so they couldn't be early like they both had wanted. Soon, though.

A smile crept onto Orym's face just as the shipyard came into view. A split second later Fearne let out a whooping cheer as she spied blue skin and ombre hair. She sprinted at full speed, Orym running not far behind as fast as his short humanoid legs would let him. And while it was not usually as fast as Fearne’s long fae stride, he used his second wind to overtake her and take a flying jump into Dorian's arms.

The bright bubbling laughter of his surprised friend rang in his ears before it redoubled as a large pair of arms enveloped them both with a cry of "YOU'RE BACK!". And for the first time in a long time, Orym’s heart settled.

"Well hello there! I knew I would be missed but- well this is- this is just so lovely"

"Well." Fearne took a step back, Orym clung like a koala "You couldn't possibly imagine all the things we've been through. I have a statue now, we saw a man about the moon, stole from an annoying man who maybe tried to kill us, unlocked Ashton’s tragic backstory, bought a bowtie for mister that won't burn.... oh and we also found out that Imogen is maybe seeing the moon and some other magickey supernaturally stuff is happening I guess."

Dorian laughed and oh how Orym loved that he could feel it in his whole body.

"Well it sounds like quite an adventure, I already know a little from our friend here." He gestured to Orym, "He gave me updates via the sending stone most nights."

Orym was suddenly very glad that his face was mostly buried in Dorian's shoulder as it turned a slight pink, he hoped his ears didn't blush like his mother said they did.

"Well, I wanted you to be able to come back knowing what had been going on. And now you're here."

Dorian’s arms settled like a blanket around Orym’s shoulders.

"Now I'm here!" He said, his high voice still reverberated in Orym’s whole torso and it was a luxury he still couldn't believe was his to have.

"Don't go again?" Slipped out, hardly audible and completely garbled into a shoulder

"Hm?"

"Oh! He said don't go again. A sentiment I must agree with I mean really, without you there we're just not complete. No you're my people and I stole you from the Crown Keepers fair and square so you should both stick with me at all times. Okay? How does that sound?" Fearne said, with a softly concerned expression on her face that only just belied her anxiety.

Dorian chuckled "I am going to have to leave again, but when Cyrus is on the throne and things are a little less, euuuughhhh, BAD... I'll be back for good"

Fearne’s ears perked up, her fae nature unable to let the opportunity to get exactly what she wanted pass. "Do you promise? Do you swear you'll be with us forever? That you won't leave us again?"

Orym laughed. And, pretending the watery sound of it wasn't there, he said, "Fearne Calloway I do solemnly swear to try to travel with you and Dorian the most out of anyone else in my life. As long as we're on good terms."

"Fearne Calloway I swear. Once I'm done with this, I'll travel with you and Orym again. I'll even stay as long as I can."

Fearne's smile turned sharp and satisfied, like a hungry traveler given just enough to eat before a long trek that would end in a banquet.

"The pact is forged." Her smile was blinding, and Orym felt the outline of his soul being branded, and for a moment it burned like nothing else.

Then he felt a tether, and without opening his eyes he knew he would be able to find the other two on his first day being blind and deaf in a room full of broken glass and tall furniture. He noticed Dorian breathing the same pattern as him, and knew somehow that Fearne was too. Or rather, they were breathing hers.

"You know? This isn't exactly what I meant, but I can run with it."

"Well you offered a contract to a fae! What did you expect?"

Orym smiled as he found he could just barely feel the contented purring of Fearne’s soul against his and Dorian’s, both awash in shock and affection for the fae girl.

[missing-aria-blog]

“Invisible” Chapter 2: Stand in the Light

A year has passed since that night when your life changed forever.  You fled the city of your birth and never looked back.  You now lead a quiet life as a healer’s apprentice in a town far from your home.  The prince of this region is a bit… odd, but his people were more or less happy and Prince Average had never met you so there was no chance he’d recognize you if you were to see him in the streets.  

You lived in the attic above the shop that your teacher, Mistress Grey, ran.  She hadn’t asked too many questions when you’d answered her help wanted sign.  Your knowledge of herbs and slaves had been more than enough for her to take you on as an apprentice and the work suited you.  You’d been getting on well enough that she largely left the general business of making remedies to you these days.  Her daughter ran the shop below and was kind to you, even if she had no healing gift herself.  She knew the stock and that was all that she really needed.  

You step out onto the rooftop terrace where your herb garden thrives.  Your assortment of healing herbs and flowers was probably half the reason your teacher had taken you on so easily.  You smile as you trail your fingertips over the leaves and petals around you, each plant seeming to twine briefly around your hand as you pass over it.  Pulses of joy and contentment at the morning sun’s rays filtered through their touch and into your mind.   Good, you could enjoy your day off to its fullest.

Today was the last day of the local festival and your teacher had given you leave to enjoy the celebration.  She was to depart the next morning to buy some of the rarer materials needed in the practice’s medicines, so you needed to enjoy the time off while you had it.  She’d offered to bring you with her, but this particular trip would go a bit too close to your hometown for comfort.  

Even in the short time you’d been with Mistress Grey you’d been able to travel all over the continent.  She’d even taken you to the ocean!  That had been a fun trip and she’d taught you all sorts of medicinal uses for various seaweeds.  You’d miss her while she was gone this time.  Her daughter, Marina, was your age though and was excellent company.  

You left the terrace, closing the doors behind you before going to examine yourself in the mirror.  Your hair was done up in a braided crown, silk flowers woven into it in hues of pink and white.  Your green dress was well suited to the spring festivities and beautiful weather.  

Taking your light cloak off of the hook by the door you make your way downstairs.  Marina is packing jars of salves and pouches of dried herbs into a large basket, probably to bring out to the stall set up in front of the shop for the festival.  She looks up and smiles at you as you peer into the basket.

“Are you sure you have enough for today?” you ask as you notice certain cures are looking a bit low, namely the hangover teas.  Not surprising given the parties that went on during festivals.  

Marina playfully rolls her eyes at you, “Yes of course!  Mother is already working on packaging up what you two made yesterday.  Go enjoy yourself.  I saw the baker putting out some of those croissants you love so much.  If you hurry you’ll catch them while they’re still warm.”  

“Fine fine.  But you will let me know if you need me, yes?” you pull a necklace out from the front of your dress.  It’s a simple leather cord with what looks to be a plain white adder stone hanging from it.  There was magic in the rock.  If Marina or her mother activated their own stones it would let you know to return to the shop post haste.  They’d been a pricey bit of magic, but completely necessary when emergency patients came through the door.

“You know I will,” Marina made a shooing gesture with her free hand, “Now leave before I tell mother that you need a whole WEEK off.”

You gasp in mock horror before giving her a quick hug and heading out the front door.  

It was still a bit early and most of the stalls were only just finishing their set-ups, but the baker was already quite busy.   Even so, he spotted you and waved you past the crowd, “I set one aside special for you my dear.  You really helped me out of a bind with those herbs.  I really thought we’d ordered enough but that boy must have counted our stock wrong.”  

“Don’t be too harsh on him, he is your grandson after all,” you smile as you gratefully accept the offered croissant swirled with pink strawberry jelly, “He’ll get the hang of it.”  

The baker sniffs but it’s obvious he isn’t actually mad about the situation.  Just putting on a face, “Well, either way, keep me in mind if you ever have a surplus in the future.  I don’t know how you grow such flavorful stock but you truly have a gift.” “I will!  Thank you for the breakfast!”  You wave and duck out of the way of the hungry crowd.  

You munch on the pastry as you wander through the stalls, stopping here and there to browse and occasionally purchase items to be delivered to the shop later on.  There are dancers, musicians, and other artists displaying their talents for everyone to witness and you stop here and there to watch and listen, your body swaying gently to the music.  

As the day goes on the town square begins getting set up for the evening musical performances and the dance that will likely last until the wee hours of the morning.  Multicolor paper lanterns are strung from cords above the square and lit with care.  Vendors sell the springbell flowers that are the icon of this particular festival.  It’s tradition to buy one to give to those you hold great affection for.  A symbol of the hope that your bond will grow in the year to come.  The flower is one that can sprout roots from its stem when tended with care, and it’s considered good luck if the flower you’re gifted with thrives under your care.  

You stop at one of the carts, “Two please,” you reach into your belt pouch and pull out the required coins, handing them to the seller as she hands you back three of the blooms, “Oh, you gave me an extra one…” The woman shakes her head, “It’s the same price for three as it is for two.  We had a good harvest this year.  Thanks for that fertilizer by the way.  It worked like magic!” “I’m glad!  Let me know if you need more.” you carefully tuck the blooms away in a hardshell leather pouch, making sure the stems are properly wrapped before closing them up safely inside.  

As you turn back towards the town square you hear shouting coming from one of the alleyways.  Out of curiosity you make your way towards the sound.  Whomever is making the noise is clearly moving away from the main street but you can still make out some words.  ‘Hand it over’ stands out in particular.  You hurry after the retreating sounds, reaching out with your inner magic to feel for the roots under the paving stones and the vines crawling up walls.

The alleyway makes a sharp turn behind a shop that’s closed for the festival, which would explain how no one else had noticed this happening in what was a mostly safe town.  You press yourself against the wall before peeking around the corner.  You see two men, clearly not locals, standing over something, or rather… someone.  You can’t see whomever they’re harassing, but it clearly isn’t a friendly encounter.

“I can tell by your clothes that you’ve got money dwarf, so hand it over and we’ll let you go without TOO much damage.” the man’s companion chuckles darkly as he flips a knife in the air.

“Ah yes well, you see there’s the problem,” the responding voice is heavily accented, but speaks with a distinctly calm air.  You aren’t sure if it’s confidence or stupidity, but either way  you can’t stand idly by.

“Hey!” you shout as you step out from behind the corner.  You can feel the magic in the earth below you responding to your anger.  How dare these thugs try to ruin someone’s day like this!  Your attention is locked on the two who whirl to face you, so you don’t really see who they were threatening before said person seems to blink out of existence.  A fellow magic user?  Well that would explain why he hadn’t seemed concerned.  Of course that left you with two very tall, very buff thieves to deal with on your own.  

They both narrow their eyes, then sly gins split their faces as they realize they’re dealing with a single, if a bit angry looking, girl.

“Well well, what do we have here?” the knife flipper takes a step towards you.

“You lost us our payday girlie…” the other growls, “You should have just kept going.” “Maybe so,” You can feel the roots under their feet pushing at the flagstones, “But maybe you two just picked the wrong town.”  

You’re about to call the roots up to tangle their legs when a barrel lid comes flying out of nowhere, braining the knife guy upside the head.  The other turns, confused, just in time for an invisible something to come crashing into his nose, causing blood to spray as it breaks.  He sears as he looks around in a panic.  His eyes land on you, “W-witch!”  

You probably look just as confused as he does, “That wasn’t me...”  You gather yourself and smile at the guy, “Looks like you’ve ticked off the town’s guardian spirit.”  The lie rolls smoothly off of your tongue, you father was a master merchant after all.  You knew your fair share of fast talking.  

“G-guardian spirit?  You’re lying!” he tries to help his dazed companion back to his feet with one arm while his other hand covers his bleeding nose.  

“Well, I could be.  But then, if I’m lying then you’re right and I’m a witch that you just pissed off,” you shrug, “Either way, I’d say you’re screwed.”

The man’s eyes widen, “You’ll regret this!” he drags his friend along with him as he flees into the surrounding woods.

“Doubtful,” you mutter as he disappears from sight.  You send energy down the connected lifeforce of the woods, urging the very forest itself to trip up and otherwise hinder the thugs, lending credence to the claim of a ‘guardian spirit’.  When you’re sure that they aren’t coming back you scan the alleyway, “Hello…?”  

Silence greets you for a long while, then that accented voice answers you, “Merci mademoiselle, for the rescue.”  ------------------------------------------------------ Fanfic “Invisible” is available to read on Wattpad https://www.wattpad.com/story/259956086-invisible-jack-x-reader

[theincaprincess]

Shelter At My Future

Ok my darlings here is part 1 of my new Ori fic, I hope you all enjoy it :D 

Forever tag list @amyf20 @blankdblank @moonfaery @deepestfirefun @catthefearless @meyoko10 @tolkienprincess @starlightintherain89 @southsidesarcasticwriter @fuer-immer-jetzt

Ori tag list @bettythedwarfqueen @tolkien-fantasy @thesmellofasinnamonroll

*Again some of the tags are being a pain*

Word count 1,389

It had been months since Erebor was reclaimed and it slowly started to look like its old self again before Smaug had attacked, the halls were lined with dwarves, elves and humans all helping each other thanks to Thorin, Bard and Thranduil finally coming to an agreement that suited the three kingdoms. 

In the throne room Thorin was handing out papers with everybody jobs, Dwalin to train the army, Balin was in charge of the records and so on when Ori stepped up to his King he was feeling excited about a new challenge, but was disappointed when he read the paper he was going to be in charge of the library, turning his eyes to his King he went to protest but his courage failed him and he just smiled and made his way to the library, stepping into the library Ori's mouth dropped at the screen in front of him, books were all over the floor, the shelves had fallen and smashed, the desk and chairs were all over the place this would take him months to clean and reorganise everything, sighing to himself he placed his paper in his back pocket and started by pulling a sheet off the closest desk to find even more books under it.

....

Weeks had gone by and Ori had managed to push some of the shelves back upon their feet and hung new ones, after placing some of the older and rarer books on these new shelves Ori finished the last task on his to-do list and he made his way to the royal wing for the annual dinner with the rest of the company, entering the room to loud noise Ori knew he was late. 

Turning the corner he saw the rest of them sitting at the table "finally you showed up, I've saved you seat" Dori shouted over the rest to him and he hurried around the table and took his place, while Dori placed the plate in front of him, digging in he listened to talk among the company about how their new jobs were going. 

After Balin had finished the company eyes turned to him "so Ori, how is life in the library?" Fili asked. 

Taking a sip of his drink he nodded "I managed to get all the rare books into a new place, but I am still needing help to lift the heavy shelves up, you all said you would help me last week but I'm still waiting." 

"We can't do everything" Dwalin huffed. 

"I'm only asking for an hour of your time and at least four of you would help me out" Ori huffed back.  

"Their only books" Kili smirked. 

"Laddie you have been doing it for weeks now, I'm sure you can manage" Gloin spoke up, causing the rest to begin shouting over each other making Thorin look to Balin and roll his eyes at how every dinner always ended up in an argument, slamming his fists on the table Ori stood and exited the room as it went silent.

"Where is he going now?" Dwalin huffed out, walking the halls in a mood Ori came to the front gate and looked down at Dale, deciding he would take the next day off and take a trip into the city. 

....

Packing his sketchbook and pencils, Ori made his way through the halls to the front gate, passing the rest of the company who he was still angry with, leaving Erebor he walked down the road and towards Dale, while the rest of the company watched on in confusion before returning to their own jobs and knowing they would make amends with him later on, stopping at the outskirts of Dale Ori looked on in amazement at how the city had been rebuilt, pulling out his book he sat on a rock and did a few sketches, before repacking and entering the city. 

Wandering around the city, Ori was impressed with how Dale looked now, how there were new shops and new roads, how the people looked happier, turning the corner Ori saw the carousel had been rebuilt and was now working with children on it, and smiling parents at the side, taking out his book again he sketched their happy faces, moving through the city he sketched more and more until his stomach started screaming at him for food, looking around he saw the local tavern The Royal Shark, and decided to stop in there for something to eat and drink. 

Entering the tavern Ori saw a booth in one of the corners, walking towards it some men got up and blocked his path trying to scoot around them, they blocked his path again. 

"We don't want your kind in here dwarf" the dark hair man hissed at him and the group walked forward while Ori made his way back to the door, being pushed out of the tavern Ori walked away from it and stood at the carousel the man hissed at Ori again. 

"Go back to your city dwarf" making the others laugh as they returned to the tavern, feeling the anger build in his body Ori took out his catapult and picked up a rock firing it and watched as it hit the back of the dark mans head, smiling to himself he watched as the man turned with a glare. 

"Throw rocks at me, will you? Get him" the man ordered as the group charged at him, dropping his smile and turning Ori ran through the streets as the men were gaining, trying to open different doors for a place to hide but they were all locked, turning the last corner he saw one more building Ori ran for it and tired the door falling through it as it was unlocked, getting up he shut the door and hid behind the main counter hearing the giggling of the girl standing behind it.

Hearing the bell above the door the girl turned her eyes to the men who were just chasing Ori "you, did a dwarf come in here?" The dark hair man shouted at her. 

Shaking her head she looked at the group "you are my first customers of the day, what books are you looking for?" she asked innocently with a smile. 

"None we were looking for that dwarf if you see him you tell us right away got it!" 

"Of course sir, right away but if your not buying, please leave my shop so I can go on lunch" the girl spoke holding her ground, moving around the counter she walked to the door and held it open for the group to leave, after they left she watched as they returned around the corner, shutting the door she locked it and returned to the counter leaning on it looking at the crouching dwarf, "they're gone, and the door is locked, you can come out now" she spoke slowly and softly. 

Raising his eyes to her Ori saw her bright (y/e/c) eyes shining and her (y/h/c) over her left shoulder, standing up Ori twisted his fingers in his hand and held a small smile while trying to think of what to say. "I'm (y/n), and this is my bookshop so you're safe."

Straightening his clothes Ori smiled and finally spoke "thank you for that, I'm Ori, nice to meet you (y/n)." 

"And you Ori" you smiled at the shy dwarf returning some of the books from the counter you continued to speak "don't worry about them, drunken thugs, they wont come back they will be back in the shark by now getting drunker" walking around the counter Ori stomach growled so loud it made you giggle "Oh you poor thing, you must be hungry I'll make us so lunch." 

"You don't have to Miss (y/n), I'll be heading back to Erebor" Ori shyly spoke.

"Nonsense my Mother always told me if you have enough food to share you share it, plus I have a chocolate cake for after." 

"Well I could stay for a few more minutes" Ori replied making you smile.

"Through that door and up the stairs you will enter the kitchen" you smiled as Ori passed you making his way up to the kitchen, looking around the store you nodded and followed him up to your kitchen.

Part 2

[megatentious]

Majin Tensei 2 and Shin Megami Tensei If… let’s talk about them

This past year saw the fan translation release of two 16-bit Megaten games, Shin Megami Tensei If… (lord help me if I need to type this ellipsis every time) and Majin Tensei 2. I am maybe the only person who decided to play through both of these games for the first time in English in one year, and so maybe it will be instructive to see how these two series black sheep (can you call a game a black sheep if no one has actually played it?) fit together in the context of the larger franchise. Or maybe this is just an ungainly excuse to cobble together months-old observations into blog content. Let’s find out!!

Both of these games come from a period when Atlus was still trying to figure things out from a game design perspective, testing how much they could push their console audience with PC dungeon crawler inspirations. There were no compunctions at this point about making unforgiving design choices, even in their crowning achievement mainline series games. Sometimes this worked, like the lack of guidance in Shin Megami Tensei 1 leading to perfectly tuned feelings of lonely exploration. Sometimes this didn’t quite work, like the tedious backtracking and brutally untelegraphed stat skill check requirements of Shin Megami Tensei 2. “Getting Megaten’d” is a message board expression meant to describe the sudden game overs that can occur in this series after hours of play, so it’s not as if unforgiving punishment is something that has been eradicated from the more modern games. But there’s a reason even many Megafans (yes i just said megafans, please deal with that) refuse to play anything in this franchise that released before the Playstation 2, and it’s because of choices that are perceived as promoting tedium and time-wasting. We’ve seen how this can affect their big marquis mainline successes, but what happens when you apply these principles to dicier spinoffs? Well…

Majin Tensei 2 is at least, quite conceptually ambitious. Spanning numerous worlds and time periods, showcasing political intrigue and explicitly defined characters with varying motivations, five distinct endings across light-dark and law-chaos axes, hidden events that depend on how many turns you take and which demons you have in your party, there is a lot (too much!) to keep track of. There are ideas in Majin Tensei that pre-sage much of what makes up Devil Survivor, from demon races with differing map skills to introducing demon fusion to a strategy RPG space that was mainly just Shining Force and Front Mission. In practice though, what you do repeatedly in Majin Tensei 2 is slowly s l o w l y clear fifty plus maps, maps that will occasionally provide fun challenges, but more often that not will repeat large not particularly memorable landmasses with simply hellish amounts of monsters. Seriously look at this screenshot I took, this is less than one third of the map!

There’s a reason that so many volunteer debuggers dropped out during playtesting, and there is a reason that 100% of the ones who persevered used fast forwarding emulation features to finish. This is because Majin Tensei 2’s sluggishness can be linked to the infamous Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. problem, S.T.E.A.M. being a largely unloved Intelligent Systems strategy game on 3DS that was raked over the coals in reviews for allowing enemy phases to go on for inordinate amounts of time. Majin Tensei 2 does that game one better by allowing literal minutes and minutes to pass as each enemy decides its action one by one. Do you remember that map in the screenshot above? Imagine twice as many enemies as that taking 10 seconds each to complete their own turn. Majin Tensei 2 makes it clear that you are absolutely not supposed to kill every enemy, through turn limit bonuses and appeals to your general sanity. But that still doesn’t stop the game from dumping demons haphazardly across each map in the manner of someone pounding the bottom of a trashcan to make sure every piece of refuse has tumbled out. So even if you are trying to be efficient, with each passing turn you’re going to be dealing with plenty of downtime.

So yes, the game is cruel. Just to take one example, Majin Tensei 2 spends the whole game teaching you that you need to keep someone tough at your home base even if you think you are safe, since at any moment some sort of aerial demon can sweep in from 12 spaces across the map to occupy it and end your game. And then in one level 40 chapters or so in, the game will punish you for keeping anyone behind at your home base by spawning multiple inaccessible dragon type demons who will one shot anyone who was trying to hold down the fort no matter what (did I mention that this game has instant permadeath for all demons and instant game over for any of your five human characters, five humans whom you cannot possibly level up sufficiently to all be able to survive multiple demon attacks?). Majin Tensei 2 is willing to mess with you to the extent that it absolutely wants you to cheat. After all, this is a game that in 1995, allowed you to save after every turn, which is another way of the designers telling you that savestate abuse (or in my case, copious use of the rewind button) is built into the design.

So why put up with this sort of nonsense? Well, for one, you’re dealing with the atmosphere of a 16-bit Atlus game, a combination of visuals, sound design, music and tone that is simply unlike anything else in the industry. And there is absolutely satisfaction to be found in slowly conquering the game’s maps. But those who scoff at something like, say, Soul Hackers, will find this game absolutely impenetrable, which likely means it will only ever be played through by advance Megatenists (okay i changed it to this, are you happy). Majin Tensei 2 tries to do quite a bit, switching up much even from its direct predecessor, and the play experience ends up suffering despite the ambition.

SMT If in comparion, well … If is by far the least ambitious game in the series to date. While Majin Tensei 2 lavishes you with cool unique digitized photo backgrounds, an extraordinary soundtrack with lengthy moody electronica from the late great Hidehito Aoki, and spectacular boss sprites, SMT if reuses all the most drab and uninspired wall textures from its predecessors, and offers absolutely nothing in terms of new music. Worse yet, many of the reused tracks have somehow depreciated in the conversion. Listen to the offkey shrillness of the iconic Ginza music here , seriously what did they do to it!?. If does feature some lovely new boss sprites, showcasing demons from rarer mythologies that were never again revisited (where are all my Persians at ATLUS???), but even some of the best of these are hidden in new game plus routes the average player will likely never see. The general fugliness of the overall game and relentless asset reuse gives the whole experience a very unfortunate rom-hack feel, and though it’s not hard to figure out why the game ended up this way (it was cranked out less than 9 months after SMT2) it doesn’t make things better.

I should note one important item here, however, and that is that the PSX version renders almost all of these complaints obsolete. It’s the version I first played actually, stumbling through the first few hours untranslated during a Japanese PS+ trial period. The PSX version not only offers very dramatic visual upgrades and some excellent needed remixes, there is a small measure of kindness built in for the player through the game’s Easy Mode. It’s only in this mode for whatever reason that Atlus offers a design “solution” for the most infamous portion of the game, a dungeon in which you are required to wait for hours of lunar cycles in order for students to dig your path forward. In Easy Mode the time requirement is halved for you. Behold the design advancements of the 32-bit era!

If is generally an odd game in the context of the series. There is a type of person out there who likes to call this game Persona Zero, and for people who have played the Snow Queen route of Persona One I can see why the comparison is made. But despite the initial high school setting and pseudo-selectable party members, it still feels strange and off-putting to play a Shin Megami Tensei game with almost no meaningful narrative choices (routes here are essentially locked in at the start). Guardians are seen as proto-Personas, but in this game they are earned only through dying and are associated with combinations of stat augments and skill lists that are frequently at odds with each other. What you end up with is a system that is interesting conceptually (should I die to gain useful spells at the cost of my current stats?) but unworkable in practice (it is almost never worth the steep steep battle count cost to experiment). The seven deadly sins theming is sometimes used to inform the map design and dungeon concept, but again more often than not these concepts simply lead to unfortunate tedium for the player (shout out to the final dungeon of Reiko’s route though, which very brilliantly mashes together traditional SMT dungeon design and a thematically cool map floor I won’t spoil for you).

If we look at SMT If through the prism of 16-bit Atlus design principles, having the foundation of SMT1 and 2 to work from should in theory have led the developers to refine their decisions in ways that ought to have helped the player experience. Instead, the game makes bold choices that result in remarkably less fun. For example, If understands that guns were ludicrously over-powered in 1 and 2, and tries to course correct by … making it much more tedious for the player to use guns? Bullets now cost money and can only be bought by slowly ticking up the counter to 99 one click at a time, with each bundle purchase of 99 filling up a limited inventory slot. The encounter rate is as insane as usual, Estoma takes a little bit more time to get than usual, and the game’s economy does not afford you that many useful things to spend money on in terms of equipment. Combine these three aspects of the game and every player invariable ends up large quantities of makka on hand to spend on bullets to your hearts content, and given that bullets are still far and away the best way to dispatch groups of enemies, you’ll find yourself engaging in this tedium in order to play the game efficiently.

I’ve spent a lot of time repeating the word tedium in these observations, and it’s unfortunate that this is the main takeaway most players will get from playing these two games. Both SMT If and Majin Tensei 2 devise interesting systems and then execute them as grimly as possible from a playability standpoint. There are aspects of true unique accomplishment in both games (Majin Tensei 2 has the funniest demon negotiation dialogue in the entire franchise! SMT If’s final dungeon really is super cool!) but the kind of player who is willing to experience them is essentially a rounding error. I don’t have any regret at all that I played through each of them in their entirety (FYI Majin Tensei 2 is longer than Dragon Quest 7 or Persona 5 and SMT If has a new game plus with all new dungeons that increase difficulty and dullness), but I might understand if you have regret. Then again who knows, you made it to the end of this aimless and dull writeup so maybe these games will be right up your alley! Be sure to let me know!!!

[whattaylormademedo]

National Rare Disease Day is the last day in February yearly in the US

This year, I decided to challenge my body and do something I desperately needed to do for myself for Rare Disease Day, my first one since my diagnosis of a devastating rare disease called Stiff Person Syndrome.

On Rare Disease Day, people in the rare disease community were encouraged to “Show Your Stripes.” I’m still coping with how disability has changed with my appearance and how that appearance makes people react. I cannot currently bring myself to show my face or body, like the community was encouraged to do. Instead of showing my face, I chose to show another part of me (a part of my body I could bring myself to share AND a part of the person Who I‘ve Always Been, but lost from recent progression of disability), and challenge my diseases in doing so.

As the National Organization for Rare Diseases says, “every stripe has a story.” Those words ring true to me. I have Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS). I also have a number of other disorders: several rare, a few common, most unresponsive to treatment, a few poorly understood disorders. My biggest current concern and disabling disease is my Stiff Person Syndrome. SPS causes nerves to make muscles tense up painfully in charlie-horse-like, maximum-strength muscle spasms. They are triggered by even the slightest touch to the skin, movement of my muscles, and even a bump to the home hospital bed I’m confined to. I’m starved of human contact because it physically pains me to touch anything or anyone. Everything hurts, but some things hurt more at different times as my SPS ravages every muscle in my body.

SPS causes spasms that are stronger than any living being could voluntarily move. Mine occur in every muscle in the female human body (voluntary, involuntary, skeletal, striated, smooth, you name it and it spasms). Muscles push against other muscles and other body parts, risking breaking bones, snapping ligaments & tendons, & tearing muscle fibers. Muscles vibrate in use (even involuntary use). That slight vibration is enough to stimulate nearby muscles, so it spreads spasms across my body (like a tissue brushed lightly on my knee could eventually spread to spasms that contort my body from my shoulder to my toes and cause that leg to try and turn backwards). Spasms are stronger than I can resist and leave my body painfully contorted and paralyzed in those contortions (that are often unnatural and hurt). Spasms last anywhere between an hour and forever (there’s never a way to know when it’ll free up, if it’ll free up).

By far, my biggest, most disabling, and rarest is SPS, which is itself a 1-in-1-million disease. I have 2 rarer subtypes: 1 makes me 1-in-5-million, the 2nd makes me (as one of the few-and-far-between SPS experts said) among “a handful of cases.” Plus, I’m among the younger demographic, which is very uncommon.

I’d equate it to being a character in a horror movie: I never know what will go wrong next, where on my body, how severely, if it’ll happen again more, exactly what will happen to cause things to go wrong (sometimes there’s not even a clear cause), if I’ll make it out in one piece, what the future holds for me, and if it’ll be a happy ending or end in tragedy. The “audience” in this comparison are my friends, family, and admittedly-confused doctors who watch in horror as I suffer, helpless to stop the spasming, contorting, uncontrollably-screaming-and-crying pain of my muscles twisting, tugging, and pushing, and crushing of my body parts.

The spasms are nonstop, coming and going regularly and unpredictably. It’s a nightmare for me as 2 years ago (it feels like a lifetime ago) I thought I knew exactly how my future would play out. I’d laid it out at age 9 and thought I prepared myself for every outcome and setback along the way, I had dreams that would have become reality had SPS not crushed them in every possible way. I craved predictably so much that I spent a decade preparing for every outcome, or so I thought. I, like most people, didn’t know SPS even existed. Nobody could have predicted that could happen to a 19-year-old, let alone all of the rarer subtypes. Regardless, it did.

I planned & worked on something my Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS) has prevented me from doing it since it struck on December 24th, 2018. I needed just one project (even just one minor-but-tangible thing) to make me feel like there’s a chance for me to “get my art back,” (a coping mechanism & my favorite piece of myself that I lost when my SPS made my body fight itself).

While I knew I could use my hands (but not well or without difficulty), I chose to something meaningful to me. I did it, though I had to modify it a lot to accommodate my disabilities, endured pain, had frustrating mobility challenges, and needed assistance from family and caregivers who handed me the supplies I asked for. It was my way to celebrate this horror for once and Show MY Stripes on National Rare Disease Day. It meant so much to me to do this that I’ve spent days of my waking hours on it. I worked on it itself for much of the day of February 28th, plus the 29th & March 1st from 9am-5am, then (just to type this post) in periods on March 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and early morning on the 5th (aka today). I imagine I was set back a lot from difficult treatments I had on the 1st and 2nd, their Lon-lasting side effects, and the 4th’s physical therapy that I’m still recovering from. All I did for the project itself and for writing this post would have taken under half a day for me to do, just less than a year and a half ago.

My goal was to do a meaningful manicure. I haven’t been able to do my nails (and I go all out, it’s never just a simple polish. I have a tackle box and now 200+ polished in 2 separate carrying cases. To see some of my nails, my nail art problem, and that tackle box as it was a few years back, search the word “nail” on my blog without the quotes) I’ve been working on painting zebra striped nails, black and white for rare diseases, some stripes made of colors that symbolize ribbon colors for some of my other diseases (many rare, many not so rare, and many common, and some I don’t know the ribbon colors for that I didn’t include) and an accent nail to symbolize my Stiff Person Syndrome with its ribbon colors: silver and black zebra-stripes. After all that work on them and the past few days of making this post, I finished it all. It took me a week, but I did it. Now I can show them, along with the other Zebra-striped items that kind people have sent me (and the silver nail kit in SPS ribbon colors, I’ve had since early childhood as if it was real-life foreshadowing). NOW I CAN SHOW MY STRIPES. Here they are:

Lastly, a (somewhat fun) fact: Zebra Stripes are the symbol of rare diseases for many reasons: to show uniqueness, how everyone has their own “zebra stripes” or disorders that make them distinct individuals, how diseases affect people differently, and how people who suffer from rare diseases are often misdiagnosed before diagnosed, thus “hiding in plain sight” so to speak. Zebra stripes are all different. Hence, zebra stripes being the symbol of and ribbon for rare diseases.

If you want to help me get a way to my doctors so I can start to improve rather than lose progress, please donate to & share my GoFundMe (run by my parents) below:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/HelpMadelineShanley

[meingenious]

Adapting to the New Period of Search, Based on Moz's search engine optimisation Scientist

http://www.digitalmarketingbyrohit.com/?p=3390 Adapting to the New Period of Search, Based on Moz's search engine optimisation Scientist - http://www.digitalmarketingbyrohit.com/?p=3390   The period of the excessive Google click-through fee is nearing its finish and the age of the low-click panorama is dawning. Whereas Google remains to be the primary visitors supply for many websites on the net, over half of all searches nowadays lead to no click on in any respect. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); There are a mess of causes to clarify this shift. Extra searchers are discovering the knowledge they want from featured snippets, which have elevated in prevalence tremendously lately. SERP options — together with wealthy snippets, paid advertisements, and Information Graph information — have overtaken the outcomes pages, making at-a-glance solutions the norm. Moreover, more and more sturdy Google My Enterprise profiles present extra info than ever earlier than, permitting individuals to search out enterprise hours, e-book appointments/rooms/flights, and browse critiques within the SERPs themselves (along with a lot, far more) with out ever needing to go to a web site. These developments are nice for the searcher expertise, however they spell hassle on your shoppers’ website visitors. What’s a marketer to do? It is irritating when a lot of your reporting and success metrics are tied up within the very particulars which might be changing into rarer and rarer as Google redefines what it means to look. You are invested in preserving each shoppers and stakeholders pleased if you would like to maintain your job, and what retains them pleased are excessive income numbers and graphs that transfer up, and to the proper. However do not get discouraged — the brand new low-click panorama of search could really feel unfamiliar, however there’s extra potential there than you may assume. Let’s dive into three large methods fewer clicks from the SERP to your website can really be a superb factor. The right way to Optimize for Greater On-SERP Conversions A “conversion” is not the identical for everybody — it is all in the way you outline it. A conversion for a SaaS firm is likely to be the act of buying a software program subscription, whereas a conversion for a neighborhood enterprise is likely to be so simple as a searcher calling their enterprise. The sorts of conversions you may see occurring instantly on the SERPs relies upon largely on the kinds of shoppers you serve. Subsequent, let’s discover how one can optimize for on-SERP conversions. 1. Native companies and types can meet the wants of particular places. Google has devoted an enormous quantity of effort into bettering the native search expertise for customers. Native search outcomes are stuffed to the brim with particular options past natural hyperlinks to a web site, with Google My Enterprise (GMB) profiles and “native packs” being two of probably the most outstanding issues a neighborhood searcher encounters. As an example, when looking for a “close by therapeutic massage studio”, you may come throughout a Google My Enterprise profile like this one, which incorporates info on an organization’s hours of operation, telephone quantity, handle, and even critiques from the online. Once more, relying on what a conversion means to you and your shoppers, each native packs and GMB profiles present ample alternative for them. Native packs, proven within the instance beneath, even supply a brief listing of choices primarily based on the enterprise’ proximity to the searcher; upon clicking for more information, you are given the choice to go to the web site, discover map instructions, click-to-call, and typically even place an order by means of a third-party service. That is proper — for native companies, there’s an ad-free choice to promote your services or products instantly within the SERPs. No one wants to go to your consumer’s web site to search out its hours of operation, contact info, or FAQ. As an alternative, it is all laid out for them on Google as quickly as they hit “enter.” In a really actual sense, a neighborhood consumer’s Google My Enterprise profile is their new homepage. There are a mess of how entrepreneurs can optimize for in-SERP conversions for his or her native shoppers: Construct out correct itemizing info for every discrete location to make sure foot visitors pushed from search will get to the proper place (additionally a kind of conversion!) Use Google Posts to advertise gross sales, occasions, information, merchandise, and particular presents to entice each foot visitors and the now-elusive website click on. Ensure you have an attractive picture that features a CTA button Scale back friction and create an in-SERP FAQ by answering Google Q&A in GMB profiles Seed widespread business questions and solutions within the Enterprise Questions part Add UTM monitoring to Google My Enterprise profile CTAs that will help you precisely report your successes to shoppers and stakeholders Solely about 22% of companies are glad with their conversion charges. Which means you’ve got obtained an enormous quantity of alternative to wow your native shoppers by boosting their numbers by means of artistic, strategic use of the native SERPs. 2. Nationwide and digital manufacturers can harness the ability of the low-click panorama. In-SERP conversions aren’t restricted to your native shoppers alone. There are a number of methods sure nationwide and digital-only manufacturers can harness the ability of the low-click panorama to generate income and generate leads. In-SERP bookings: The journey and hospitality industries have an enormous quantity of potential for conversions instantly within the SERP outcomes, with the flexibility to e-book a lodge room or a flight typically showing instantly beneath the question. Media purchases: Films, albums, and books typically seem with choices to purchase instantly by way of varied platforms on the SERPs. These look rather a lot like Information Panel outcomes, however they completely drive conversions on your media shoppers. As an example, check out the choices for fast, in-SERP buying if you seek for the e-book Eat, Pray, Love: Searchers for the e-book can get the e-book as an book or audiobook straight from the SERP web page. Moreover, it is necessary to notice — up to now, trying up music lyrics would go to Google Play and drive purchases there, however the search engine has pulled again on that lately (probably because of backlash from lyrics websites). Suffice to say, it is price it to maintain an eye fixed out for any experiments or modifications Google may make that will characterize a conversion alternative. 3. Companies can construct model consciousness with on-page SERP options. This part goes to scare a few of you, and I do not blame you. However think about for only a second: possibly visitors is not the end-all be-all to look. Site visitors is simple to measure and appears good in studies, nevertheless it does not inform the entire story of your consumer’s model. Site visitors is a symptom, not a trigger. Your efforts to indicate up on web page one should not eclipse the truth that, on the finish of the day, Google likes to rank manufacturers, and the low-click panorama is virtually constructed to assist your shoppers construct their fame by way of branding, messaging, and elevated share of voice. That is not to say it is a simple activity, however think about the next: These statistics alone define a wealth of alternative for any consumer you characterize, whether or not or not it’s native, nationwide, or digital. Model consciousness typically will get deprioritized, because it’s arduous to measure success, it is tough to report on, and there all the time appears to be one thing extra pressing to measure. In a world the place prioritization could make or break your advertising and marketing, model consciousness typically will get pushed to the rear in favor of one-and-done initiatives that really feel extra tangible. However branding, messaging, and share of voice have a huge effect on whether or not or not somebody decides to purchase from a enterprise, and may by no means be ignored. Within the low-click panorama of search, featured snippets are among the best methods to realize a number of targets with one concerted effort. They seem within the coveted “place zero” spot as the very first thing a searcher sees, present a hyperlink again to your website (and might entice a click on, when you craft them proper!), and can go a great distance towards reinforcing your consumer’s authority and fame. As an example, in case your consumer’s retail website exhibits up because the primary, Google-endorsed reply to 5 separate queries evaluating totally different merchandise, you’ve got obtained a bulk of these all-important impressions down and the patron is now well-acquainted with the model. In the end, the place individuals used to go to a website to do analysis, they now go to Google. You may get fewer website visits general, but when the visits you do get lead to income and intent to buy, it is arduous to imagine you are lacking out just because visitors is down. The right way to Seize Featured Snippets for Improved Model Consciousness on the SERPs You may need to put within the elbow grease to seize featured snippets, nevertheless it’s effectively well worth the effort. Not solely will you be capable of fulfill that easy-to-measure, up-and-to-the-right feeling that shoppers crave, however you may even be doing a world of excellent for his or her model and beating out opponents in each authority and share of the SERP actual property. Listed below are just a few key recommendations on how you can begin incomes featured snippets on your shoppers’ manufacturers: Establish key phrases that set off snippets that you just already rank on web page one for. Analysis exhibits it is simpler to seize a featured snippet when you’re already rating extremely, so optimize the low-hanging fruit for finest outcomes. Perceive and play to the searcher’s intent. You may must dig into key phrase analysis and probably refresh your understanding of your model personas to verify the queries you are attempting to rank match the intent you wish to seize. Present succinct solutions. There’s solely a lot area within the field Google supplies — you are extra more likely to seize a snippet in case your content material is easy and useful. Formatting issues, so see what’s at present profitable and emulate: if it is a numbered listing, for instance, edit your content material equally to make it aggressive. Add summaries to widespread content material. Your current content material that is rating extremely is probably not triggering a featured snippet just because it is not concise. Including a abstract on the high may also help. Establish generally requested questions. You need your consumer’s model to be probably the most useful reply a searcher sees, and also you need as many searchers to see that reply as doable. Establish the highest questions requested which might be related to your consumer’s enterprise, product, or companies and begin from there. There’s quite a bit that goes into profitable, monitoring, and retaining featured snippets, however the very first step is being conscious of how a lot they’ll do on your model. In the end, not each drawback in advertising and marketing has a black-and-white reply. The pattern of lowered CTR from the SERPs to your shoppers’ websites is not doubtless going away quickly. It can show useful within the long-run to regulate our expectations and methods accordingly, reasonably than chasing the previous. Adapting to the brand new low-click panorama of search is not going to be as straightforward as pushing a button, however the reality stays that your search engine optimisation technique is about greater than easy web site clicks — it is about constructing your model, attracting certified prospects, and driving the enterprise initiatives that matter most. Supply hyperlink JOIN DIPLOMA IN DIGITAL MARKETING https://www.ingeniousacademy.in/digital-marketing-classes-aurangabad-digital-marketing-course/

[thebathgolfclub]

The Golfer Who Died And Came Back To Life

Source: Golf Digest By Max Adler

Lightning won’t strike the same place twice, but what about a higher force? If one exists, it’d be hard to say it hasn’t taken some swings at the third hole at Kennett Square Golf & Country Club near Philadelphia.

There, during three months in 2012, a straightforward, slightly elevated tee box to a downhill par-3 green, framed by two bunkers and a backdrop of oak, transformed into a stage for the unfurling of all life’s tragedy and comedy. Vic Dupuis, now 57 and still playing to an 8, can’t get to the third tee without taking a moment. He just stares at the ground.

“When you tell people the story, they just look at you and say no way. But it’s true. I was there to witness all of it,” says Jeff Hollander, a member for 25 years and the father of the current women’s club champion.

It was a July Friday, and Dupuis—normally an outgoing and positive person—was harried from battling traffic returning from a business meeting in Harrisburg. He wolfed a turkey wrap in his car and ran to the first tee with shoes untied. His oldest daughter was moving to a new apartment, and he felt conflicted about not being there to help. But he’d committed to a partner, his neighbor Tom Henry, to play in The Devil’s, a much-ritualized club event featuring six holes of alternate shot, six holes of scramble and six of better ball (6-6-6). Dupuis apologized to his partner for his uncharacteristic state, for there was a not-insignificant pot up for grabs. But the agitated financial advisor appeared to settle, sinking a slippery 15-footer for bird on No. 2. In almost all other possible worlds, it would’ve been the last golf shot of his life.

Kennett’s halfway house is really a quarter-house, as the routing passes it four times. The first look comes after the second hole. You then cross a road to get to the third tee.

“The last thing I remember is walking out of the restroom, sweating,” Dupuis says. “My thought was, I’ve never been this hot on my golf course.” He sat in the cart’s passenger side, crossed the road, and at the third tee rested there while the rest of his group got out and gabbed, the logjam on the first par 3 predictable in events like this.

At first, no one noticed Dupuis die. When you stop breathing and have no pulse, the complete cessation of brain activity isn’t far behind. Henry glanced at the cart and saw Dupuis’ head back, his eyes oddly fixed.

“My first thought was, he was sleeping,” Henry says. After a good-natured taunt got no response, his partner’s earlier complaint of mild indigestion now clicked as a major harbinger. Henry, a burly man, immediately pulled Dupuis from the cart and began pounding his chest. Henry didn’t have CPR training, but his twin teenage boys had been recertified just weeks earlier. On the pick-up from the YMCA pool, they’d given Dad a decently thorough explanation. “I’m hitting hard, screaming at him to Come back! and all I can think about are his four kids,” Henry says. “Vic’s too young. They’re too young.”

Paul Dittmer—the remaining member of the foursome—called 911 as Hollander sped away in the cart. Back at the halfway house was a wall-mounted AED (automated external defibrillator) and the last sighting of William Ashton, M.D., whom they’d watched tee off on 17. Hollander delivered the AED, then went for Ashton. For more than a decade, in his car, at home and in his golf bag, Doc Ashton has stored a syringe of epinephrine. Not an EpiPen, but a more powerful dose for cardiac emergencies. He’d never used any of these. Never removed the box. It was just something an anesthesiologist like him did.

In the second fairway, Lee Russell wondered why play had stalled. He couldn’t see the crowd of 30 around the third tee, but did he hear shouting? A fistfight? That bizarre notion dissipated the moment he arrived and saw the row of stricken golfers relieving one another of the physical agony of compressing Vic Dupuis’ chest (effective CPR is performed at 100 beats per minute, or about the same tempo of the Bee Gees’ song “Stayin’ Alive”). Most onlookers were frozen, not knowing what to do other than maybe cry and say, “Vic’s gone.”

“His face was navy blue,” Ashton says. Speaking about the realities of medicine and statistics and death, you get the sense this doctor has never used hyperbole in his life. “By a traditional definition, he was dead. We were attempting to reverse it.”

Unable to find a vein, Ashton stuck the syringe under the tongue, the next-fastest way to infuse the drug. He repositioned the electrode pads of the AED on the chest. Each charge nearly lifted Dupuis’ 210-pound body off the third tee.

Kennett Square’s head pro at the time, Tom Carpus, had played a tournament that morning at another course and was driving back when he saw the ambulances and commotion. “When you consider the configuration of our course, it was very lucky it happened where it did. There are so many holes where he would’ve been a lot farther from the defibrillator, far from a spot where the ambulances could drive right up and, of course, Doc Ashton.”

That Dupuis took his first breath in 10 minutes, that his color changed from purple to red to dark pink, that he then opened his eyes and said, “What’s going on?” even though he has no memory of it, isn’t a miracle. That comes later. But for the story to make sense, we need to pick it up at Chester County Hospital, where Dupuis’ wife, Faith, was driving after listening to a series of increasingly frantic voicemails from Henry. What happened there is almost crushingly mundane. Dupuis didn’t report walking toward any white light or tunnels. Awaking a bit groggy to the familiar sight of his wife of 29 years, he asked her to call his assistant to cancel the appointment he’d intended on making after golf.

“I love you, too, honey,” she said.

A former nurse, Faith wasn’t surprised when the cardiac-catheterization test for her husband, who maintained a balanced diet and drank moderately, returned as only 10-percent blocked. As in, nowhere near clogged enough to cause a heart attack. Over the weekend, as the blisters on his chest caused by the waves of electric current began to subside, the prevailing diagnosis was that severe dehydration on a hot day had caused this golfer to faint. Faith wasn’t buying it, and on Monday morning she expressed her skepticism to fresh personnel. Dr. Clay Warnick agreed the case warranted more investigation and even suspected, correctly, a far rarer thing.

Sarcoidosis is a collection of inflamed white-blood cells that collect in little lumps called granulomas. More often they’re found in the lungs or skin, and just as often there are no, or only mild, symptoms. But when one migrates to the heart, it’s a deadly matter. At the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania—where Dupuis was transferred by ambulance despite the mischievous and nearly successful attempt of a male nurse with whom he’d bonded over Penn State football to secure him a helicopter—he’d spend a week awaking each morning with a team of doctors and students alert at the foot of his bed. “We only ever get to study cardiac sarcoidosis in cadavers” was a line Dupuis heard too many times. He and Faith discussed laminating a synopsis of his account to show new medical staff who always asked, “Please explain to me how you’re alive.”

What most concerned Dupuis was the prohibition against swinging a golf club for 90 days, lest his newly installed pacemaker not settle right. Every country club has its “mayor,” and the gregarious Dupuis had earned the nickname at Kennett for making things happen wherever he stepped on the property, be it at the golf course, tennis courts, pool, and the men’s and mixed grills. Staying away in the glory of late summer was hard. As soon as he was able, he started coming to the club to chip and putt. He also went back to work, and five weeks after his cardiac arrest, he sipped one glass of cabernet.

Carpus, the head pro, felt for the guy. So he said, “Come on, Vic, let’s get you fit for a new set of irons.” Swinging isn’t the only requirement for a custom-fitting, so the two killed a playable afternoon paying extra-persnickety attention to lies, lengths and grips.

“It was important to capitalize on his excitement about playing again. Give him something meaningful to look forward to,” says Carpus, who recently became a rules official on the PGA Tour Champions. In all, he worked 20 seasons at Kennett Square, all of them close with Dupuis.

“Vic was the chairman of our junior golf committee for 19 years. He’s the kind of guy who’s always giving back and volunteering,” Carpus says. “When I tell Vic’s story, people think it ends there.” With a new set of clubs. Or with the dinner party Dupuis threw at a local orchard to thank everyone who had played a part in saving his life.

Dupuis returned to golf the first day he was permitted, which happened to be an unseasonably warm one in November. Unwrapping the plastic from his new set of Ping i20s couldn’t be performed without a sense of ceremony, but everything else about the day was loose.

Several of his closest golf buddies were playing in—ironically, if you choose to see it that way—a memorial paddle tournament for a former member. Despite that draw, the first tee was packed. So Dupuis and two others snuck off No. 10. Walking off this first hole, whom did they see teeing off No. 9? None other than Ashton.

“I had seen everybody since the event except Doc Ashton, so that was an emotional intersection,” Dupuis says. After a long hug, the doctor removed a syringe from his golf bag, raised it for them all to behold, and said, “Don’t worry, Vic, I’ve reloaded!”

Maybe because Dupuis was free from three months of negative swing thoughts, or maybe just because, he played a decent nine holes. At the turn, they picked up Hollander, who’d finished his paddle match early. Given the routing, Dupuis shouldn’t have been surprised for the reencounter. Still, it was eerie passing Ashton on the 17th tee as they drove across the road to the third. The doc back in place like it was all happening again.

Dupuis asks Hollander to show him. “Right here,” Hollander says, and points to a spot of rough on the bank of the box, a few paces up from dead middle. “That’s where you were lying.” Dupuis presses. He needs to know more. Needs to know everything. Who was standing where? What was the exact sequence of events? But more happened in that eternity than can be reliably relayed.

All Hollander can say is, “Your first breath was the greatest relief I have ever felt in my life. In my mind, I had just seen you die.” Hollander doesn’t dwell on what happened next, at least not in this first retelling.

Tom Henry will say it later. “The ambulance has taken Vic away, the crowd has dispersed, and the three of us are standing there. Vic is with the people he needs to be. For us, it’s either go drink all afternoon in the bar or keep playing. I told Jeff [Hollander] and Paul [Dittmer] I’d be their marker for the tournament. So we teed off.”

Everyone bogeyed the par-3 third, understandably, but then the duo of Hollander/Dittmer had a red-hot card the rest of the way and won The Devil’s. “I feel a little guilty about that,” Hollander can now joke, “but to keep playing was the right thing.”

Months later, all’s well that ends perfect: 162 yards with a slightly helping breeze, Dupuis knows it’s a 6-iron. Always better to be short than long on this green. Plus, he hasn’t hit the 6 yet. Not this 6. Ever.

When it’s in the air, Hollander says one word: “Perfect.”

Two hops and in.

“I should’ve retired that 6-iron then and there, because I haven’t hit it anywhere near as pure since,” Dupuis says.

There’s yelling. And expletives. Dupuis falls flat to his back, and from the obscured vantage of the 17th tee, Ashton has a dreadful thought: Not again. But it flips when he sees the high-fives. These shouts of “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” are for something wonderful. They call the golf shop, and the word spreads. The remaining six holes are a blur. When the group reaches the 19th hole, there’s a crowd waiting unlike any other.

“It happened to be a busy day at the club, and so everyone is in there, yet we walk into a room of total silence,” Hollander remembers. “Everyone was in awe. People kept asking me, ‘Did Vic really get a hole-in-one on 3?’ “

As the hole-in-one insurance is claimed and reclaimed, again and again, the men’s grill turns boisterous. Doc Ashton, scotch in hand, gets a glint in his eye followed by a loss for words. “To come back for the first time to the hole he died on and make a hole-in-one, and with a brand-new club, well . . .”

Dupuis has attended church all his life. Sometimes it can be impossible to believe in God more than one already does. “He’s not a changed person. He’s just more himself,” Faith says. “He’s always been a glass-half-full kind of a person. Since the event, we both like to say his cup runneth over.”

“My belief is that the great fisher of men threw me back, and that he has an incredible sense of humor to add a hole-in-one,” Dupuis says. “But if I’ve come to realize anything, it’s that the people around me were most affected. They had to watch me die.” One witness quit smoking that day. Another had AEDs installed at each of his four business locations. More than 50 members have since taken CPR training. What can’t be counted is how many appreciate life with greater preciousness.

Every year on the last Friday of July, the anniversary of his “death,” Dupuis plays with the same foursome of Henry, Hollander and Dittmer. On the third tee, he has the club leave champagne on ice. The tradition started with one bottle and four glasses, but more and more members have requested to join the celebration, so now there’s a case.

If there is anyone who can raise a glass and not believe there is a higher force, then theirs is half empty.

Link to article: Click here

The post The Golfer Who Died And Came Back To Life appeared first on The Bath Golf Club.