#my setup is also way less than ideal i have my water up on my desk im in my chair and then the wheel is on the floor bc it is an extremely

[moreaujeans]

genuinely felt like a swamp monster just now that was a ghastly amount of slip

[theunholybastard]

Could you do more era 3 ghoul content??? Anything, go wild lol

Absolutely!!! Perfect excuse for me to dump all my headcanons 😈🙏 I have not written NEARLY enough for this era smh </3

Era 3 Ghouls General Headcanons

(CW - Brief mentions of sex and poly/open sexual relationships)

Omega

•Very popular headcanon I know, but Terzo and him are lovers. Duh, goes without saying.

•Open relationship, but even with permission, Omega doesn't like to sleep around much; not without Terzo, at least.

•Big softy. Biggest softy. Can't watch sad movies. Or happy ones. He'll cry either way.

•Hopeless romantic. Long walks on the beach at sunset, candlelight dinner, rose petals everywhere, the whole shebang. Needs it like oxygen.

•Loves kids. Always dreamt about being a father, having a big family. Like, a big family, 5-6 kits ideally.

•Him and Alpha are always arm wrestling in the Ghoul den. Terzo is forbidden from being watching because he enjoys it wayyyy too much.

Alpha

•Resting bitch face under that mask. He's a chill guy, but he sure doesn't look like it.

•Also loves kids, but unfortunately, kids don't seem to like him. He's just too big and intimidating, and his aura is just a wee bit less pleasant for the little ones than Omegas is.

•Not to mention he's a bit awkward around them. Like he does not know how to talk to kids at all, just treats them like mini adults. (Like "Hey man what's up" to an infant or some shit)

•Has the opposite of a sweet tooth. He will physically recoil if the tiniest bit of sugar is in his coffee. He needs it black and scalding, anything else is like desert in a cup.

•May or may not have fucked Secondo once. Or twice. Or maybe a bit more than that. Who's counting?

Mist

•Genderqueer sapphic (no I'm not projecting)

•Them and Sunshine... Yeah, lovers.

•Mist and Sunny are probs the only Ghoul couple in the Ministry that is strictly monogamous. It's against a Ghouls nature to only have one partner, Ghouls are by default poly and insatiably lustful creatures. These two just happened to defy all odds.

•Very protective. They sre small but mighty and WILL bite a motherfuckers ear off. Quite confrontational when prompted.

•Big nature lover! Especially bodies of water. (She's a water Ghoul, after all)

•When they're having a bad day, they'll just go to the nearest pond or lake and wade in the water, the sound of toads croaking and crickets chirping calming her enough to return to civilization.

•People (Pebble, mostly) have had to physically pull her out of the water because she won't stop recreating the painting of Ophelia anytime she is slightly inconvenienced. They may be a bit dramatic sometimes.

Pebble

•Evil little gay boy. Not really, but kinda.

•Pissing people off is his hobby. It gets him all giggly. #1 ragebaiter.

•He has a soft spot for Mist, they're probably the only Ghoul he won't intentionally be a little shit to. BFFs 4eva <3

•Absolutely TERRIFIED of Primo. Hides behind Alpha anytime hes around. Alpha hates it.

•Takes up a lot of hobbies spontaneously. Literally anything you can think of, he's tried out for at least a week. He's been getting real good at glassblowing recently.

•DON'T touch his drums. He doesn't trim his claws and he will go for the eyes first.

Ifrit

•Loud talker. Absolutely terrible at volume control, if he's not actively thinking about it, he's yelling every sentence.

•Lover of spicy foods, the more tongue-numbing the better. Handles it better than any other fire Ghoul, it's scary...

•Big ol' goofball. You can't take anything he says seriously, it's either a setup to a joke or an elaborate prank. Ghouls will be Ghouls, I guess.

•Secretly a huge magic nerd and is VERY ashamed of it. Pebble is his #1 bully about it. Only a select few can be trusted to see him do a trick or two. He's very good at slight of hand.

•Old ladies seem to love him. I don't know why. He doesn't either. He's not complaining though, he fucking loves being invited to bingo night.

Zephyr

•Fiber glass eater. I am so serious he thinks that shit is delicious.

•Chronic pain, mainly in his legs and back. Lucifer knew he would be too strong if he had full mobility.

•Closest with Ifrit and Mist. Other than that, he doesn't really enjoy being around that many people. Not because he's a hater (like Pebble) but because he's a loner. Fiercely protective over the few he lets occupy his company.

•Quiet. Doesn't talk often, but when he does, he's very direct and well spoken, cool and calm, never raising his voice.

•Clueless. Cannot read social cues, its takes someone starts screaming at him for him to realize he may have said something upsetting.

•Ifrit is always "borrowing" his clothes because he just smells too damn good. He pretends to be annoyed by it but in reality he's actually flattered. He's a terrible liar too, hence why Ifrit continues to "borrow."

Phil/Special

•Probably the most normal guy in the Ministry.

•Hes slightly off-putting sometimes because he zones out quite a bit and doesn't realize he's staring into someones soul. Even when he isn't zoning out his eye contact is really intense.

•Also likes to keep to himself most of the time. Nobody really knows what he does all day by himself, nobody asks. Enjoys the company of Zephyr and Alpha on the occasion.

•Cannot play music for the life of him, which is why he wasn't in the touring band. He tried to learn anything, guitar, drums, singing, and he sucks at all equally. It kinda bums him out sometimes, because he's so damn passionate about music. Its chill though, he enjoys his role in the Ministry fine enough. What is his role, exactly? Uhhhhhhhhh

-

[cyanocoraxx]

your centipedes are so cool, ive been wondering about how to start! do you have any resources/tips?

of course! bear with me here because there's a lot to go through

if you're going all out and want to get it perfect, you need: a plastic tub with a locking lid (ideally), a drill for making ventilation holes, tongs for feeding/maintenance, a water bowl, peat or topsoil, sand, gravel, and some bark for hides and decoration.

-- SPECIES --

"beginner" species: scolopendra polymorpha (#1 recommendation), scolopendra cingulata, scolopendra morsitans & ethmostigmus trigonpododus. these guys are relatively inexpensive, usually pretty docile, easy to care for, easy to find & have milder venom than the larger species! however, you can obviously keep any species you want and it's your choice. just do plenty of research first. as cute as they are, many of the other species are extremely venomous and lightning-fast and deserve respect. it won't help either of you if you buy a pede that terrifies you to care for. ):

⚠︎ venom ⚠︎: several scolopendra species are extremely venomous, including subspinipes, sp. malaysian tiger, and dehaani. and you do decide to go for one of the spicier land dragons you need to fully understand the responsibility it entails. an escaped centipede can harm not just you, but your other pets and family members. you need to be sure you can handle the risk not just to yourself but others. please thoroughly research bite reports of the species you're looking for before buying so you know what you're getting in to. <3 also invest in some tongs for general maintenance. don't go putting your hands in willy nilly or you get the bitey witey ....

-- SETUP --

enclosure: expect a true escape artist. centipedes cannot climb smooth surfaces like glass or plastic but they CAN push themselves up against the surface to their fully stretched body length and if they can reach the lid it's game over. they can also grip on to ventilation holes and push off of enclosure decor. you would need a plastic enclosure that is taller than your pede and substrate combined. i currently use these tubs for my larger pedes as they have locking lids with very small gaps around the edges.

above are my setups for astraeus and choso! they have ventilation around all sides. i also have velcro straps securing the lids as double protection just because I got paranoid when I first put them in their new enclosures, but now I keep them on anyway because I feel better that way sbdhnfjm

ventilation: cross-ventilation is ESSENTIAL. there's a lot of misinfo online about this. a centipede needs ample ventilation at the bottom of their enclosure on all sides to prevent stagnant air and gas buildup so you would need to drill a few rows of ventilation holes. also make sure they're not big enough for a smaller pede to squeeze out of, because they can and will if they can fit!

⚠︎ MYCOSIS ⚠︎ is a thing. it's essentially a fungal infection that centipedes can get in damp, stagnant conditions, and it starts out as black spots typically on the legs and antennae. keeping a pede too wet with little or no ventilation just spells out disaster. don't be tempted to over-spray a pede's enclosure. if a pede does get mycosis, it can molt of out it if its enclosure is allowed to dry out more.

HOWEVER! the more ventilation you add and the less you spray, the higher the risk of desiccation (drying out). this is where it gets a little tricky. there needs to be a balance between the setup being too wet and too dry. best way to combat this is to keep one side damp and the other dry whilst providing a water dish. this way the pede can choose if it wants to be damp or dry.

above is astraeus modelling the substrate in their enclosure. they have a mix of sedge peat, desert sand, and gravel. they're leaned up against their fav piece of cork bark here too, where they spend the entire day before coming out at night.

substrate: this depends on the species you pick, but most pedes do well on a mixture of peat/topsoil and sand. mix gravel in as well as they like to move it around. the internet says to use coco fiber. DON'T!!!! pedes ingest some substrate when they eat their food and the fibers from coco coir will cause impaction and death.

-- DIET --

food: live prey includes gut-loaded crickets, locusts, superworms, and roaches. centipedes reach their maximum sizes most often when fed a varied diet. you can include raw meats (no fat!), shrimp, low-copper cat food and even fruits from time to time. most pedes aren't too picky and will eat whatever they can get their forcipules in to :P akaza above eating a prawn for tax/proof!

centipedes are opportunistic. they can eat large prey items and then go a long time without eating. every week is fine for an adult.

be sure to remove uneaten food to prevent the build up of gases and bacteria. springtails in the enclosure can help to minimize waste that is missed.

i think that covers it. maybe. i hope ASDFG

TOO LONG DIDN'T READ VERSION:

mix of peat/topsoil and sand

no coco fiber.

one side damp one side dry

water dish

wood for hides/decoration

tongs for feeding/maintenance

varied diet

cross-ventilation

most importantly, have fun. <3

(p.s. big thank you to the people of the chipotle centipede server for all their help and info as well, without them I wouldn't know half of this.)

[finsterhund]

A break from bedrotting

So um, somehow I've been up and more active. Idk how or why. I saw some neocaradina shrimp and it motivated me.

So for those who don't know, reorganizing and doing a remodeling of my plant area of my bedroom is long overdue. But *gestures at everything* some of my weaker seedlings actually died off because of this :(

a hypothetical idea was getting a small planted tank where I could keep the majority of my terrestrial plants in the land area of a palundarium and make it a self sustaining system which would mean I could leave them for longer and take longer trips to visit friends. As well as finally get back at least a little bit into aquascaping. (Growing up I kept multiple amphibians)

I guess actually seeing shrimp and aquatic plants at the store helped me realize that life is good and this is worth the effort to rearrange everything to make the space

Unfortunately, my roommate wants that if it's got animals in it that he will be able to see it. Which ruins my entire plan of where I was going to setup. In particular using the same lights and timer I use for my plants. But other than that, no issues so far.

I also finally beat my grief and depression enough to finally setup the rock tumbler Fishy gave me. So I've gotten past a rather large mental health hurdle. For the longest time I didn't feel like I deserved it and left it in its box. While I struggled with my depression. My current design for the tank space is having my rock tumbler in the base of the stand along with the sump. Keep potential leaking from both all in one easily isolated area.

Ideally I want to be able to make my own aquarium stand. If I get all the pieces precut and prep them on the living room floor I can theoretically put it together in the space.

However then there's the issue of roommate wanting visible access to it. So I may use my bedside table instead and use that space for something else. My bedside table currently holds some trinkets and the ice pack laptop. Which I have been using less and less. It might finally be retired in favor of finally switching to doing everything on my gaming PC. The original plan was to put my second monitor on the bedside table but *shrugs*

Neocaradina shrimp technically need less space than the secondhand tank I have so maybe I compromise and set up a smaller tank just with some of the resulting shrimp population and some small plants and hook a filter that connects it to the larger tank to split the bio load. So that he can technically look at some of my shrimp on my bedside table and I will still have the larger tank as a self sustaining palundarium where I originally wanted it. If I keep water parameters right this would be safe for the shrimp and give an added benefit of being a potential quarantine tank that I could cut off from the sump if needed. Plus having the shrimp so close to my bed would benefit my mental health for sure. Thinking about it now I could also do things I like but wouldn't do with the palundarium like using my beloved (fight me) neon rainbow gravel in this smaller tank.

I am not getting fish and probably will not get fish ever because unfortunately negative associations with my birth father who briefly had oscars that he abused. But that just means less of a bio load. I know some people hear "you're getting an aquarium with NO fish?" And act like that's unbelievable but it is. Tbh I'm way more interested in the plants and the aquascaping. I was only really going to get shrimp for the same reason I want daphnia and springtails and maybe snails. To breakdown decaying plant material. But he I actually got to see real life neocaradina shrimps and they are extremely cool to look at and have been really helping me get over my fear of crustaceans.

I'd like to state right out the gate that I am still undecided on if I will be going fully through with this. So don't be disappointed if I end up just going "I'm keeping plants in a glass box with no animals" before this all happens but I just wanted to discuss this.

[hardwiredweird]

Can I ask what may possibly be a dumb question but why do people do virtual art, like where they do drawings but on an ipad or some kind of thing? Is it less time consuming than drawing on paper? Can you erase mistakes easier than on paper? Also what happens if the ipad/tech drawing thing breaks, do you lose all your work then?

I'll take this as a good faith question and assume you're being genuine. I'm someone who does both digital and traditional art, but generally prefer traditional.

First and foremost, let me clarify one thing: Digital art (virtual is a bit of a weird phrasing, but that might be because English isn't your first language?) is not in any way 'lesser' than traditional. It's still art and it requires pretty much the same types of skill as traditional.

Digital has a whole host of advantages over traditional art. Some being in the process itself and others in the end result.

Digital pieces are easier to reproduce, for example. They are already in a printable format and don't have to be scanned/digitized to be shared. In today's world where so much happens online, that's a huge plus.

Digital is also much more 'approachable' and accessible for a lot of people. Most people have a computer already and a starter drawing tablet is less than 50 bucks, while there's plenty of free drawing programs out there like Krita. Yes, that is a lot more than a pencil and paper, but it is capable of more than the paper and pencil combo and will last you for years.

Digital, as you already figured out, has plenty of advantages over traditional like the ability to infinitely erase (which isn't possible when with a pencil), reshaping/repositioning elements endlessly, having layers and adjustments that can be manipulated individually... The list goes on and on.

Something that might be less obvious when it comes to the advantages of digital especially when we're talking about devices like an iPad or other standalone tablet device (I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab S8+, or example) is that it has a lower barrier for getting started. These devices are easy to have with you, are instant on, can be used handheld or on your lap and as soon as we start going beyond a simple sketch (which in traditional would require just a pencil and paper) it has zero setup time.

If I set up my paints, it requires special paper, my paint palette, my mixing palette, at least one, ideally two cups of water, my brushes... If I want to colour something digitally, I just need my tablet and pen.

Professional art supplies are also expensive and require space to store them (often under specific conditions. Dry, dark, clean, cool), while a tablet or PC has a use beyond art.

Digital has a long, long list of benefits over traditional, all coming down to 'if you mess up, you can fix it a lot easier and you don't have to waste materials on it'. Not everything is perfect with it (for example, it's much easier to learn bad habits on digital, the tactile aspect of traditional media is lost and the ability to infinitely erase and manipulate your pieces can hobble your progress with the mindset of 'eh, I can always fix it later') but generally, it's 'easier' in a lot of ways.

As for your last question: all digital drawing programs have the ability to export workable files like .psd files and it's generally just good digital hygiene to back up your files regularly in at least one or two locations. I recently upgraded my drawing tech (not because something broke, but because I was fortunate enough to get the chance to) and already had all my files in another location.

[ask-a-vetblr]

So i have a germaphobia issue, my doctor recommends i get a pet to both help with my exposure therapy, and to give me a companion to help with depression, i’m currently considering a crested gecko? Basically what i’m asking is are they messy animals? And if so should i consider something else?

Hi, mod @release-the-hound here!

All animals are going to eat, so all animals are going to poop. All animals will require some amount of cleaning. Whether or not that's a mess you can handle is sort of up to you. For example, I find bird poop way ickier to deal with than dog poop, so I don't own birds! You may find lizard poop not that bad, or it may be the worst thing in the world (in which case I'd recommend an animal that is not a reptile). I can't tell you what animal you should get. But I can tell you "ick" factors that you'll have to deal with if you own a crested gecko, and ways you might be able to overcome them.

Lamellae are the hair like structures that allow crested geckos to stick to things and climb so well. They might feel weird on your skin. The good news is you don't have to handle your geckos a lot if you don't want to, and you can wear gloves and long sleeves so you don't have skin to skin contact with your gecko.

Crested geckos like to lick stuff! Watch some videos of them online to see if that grosses you out and if it's something you can tolerate seeing in your own home.

Crested gecko diets include fruit puree, powdered diet, and live insects. Make sure you are comfortable handling all of these substances before purchasing a gecko. Crickets and dubia roaches are probably the insects you will be feeding your gecko. The fruit puree can sometimes develop bacterial growths if you leave it out for too long, remove it after about 4 to 6 hours to prevent this.

Humidity in an enclosure should be 50% during the day and 80% at night. Crested geckos sleep during the day and only start to wake up around sunset. Therefore you're going to have to mist their enclosure on a daily basis.

A hot (ideal temp is 72F to 80F) and humid environment is an environment that bacteria love to live in. Your geckos will need hides. Cork wood is less prone to rot than other types of wood hides. PVC pipe hides are also an option. You will still have to clean these hides on occasion. You could also use disposable hides made from paper towel rolls and tissue boxes, and simply throw them out whenever they get gross. Crested geckos also need driftwood for climbing, which may need to be cleaned.

Crested geckos need plant life in their enclosures. You can develop a vivarium (aka. bioactive) enclosure, if handling dirt and dealing with plant care is tolerable to you. This lets you use live plants for your setup! Fake, plastic plants won't need much maintenance though, and can also be easily cleaned if they get dirty.

Crested geckos need to be provided with clean water on a daily basis in a shallow dish. These dishes will end up with bits of dirt in them so you have to be ok with cleaning them.

Crested geckos will shed, so you have to be ok with seeing that.

Substrates are tricky. An easy and common substrate for keepers early on is paper towel. It's great because it's quick to throw out and replace when it gets dirty. However, it makes it extremely visually obvious where your lizard has pooped, which might be difficult for you.

A natural substrate (ex. vermiculite or sphagnum moss) is a great option, because when set up properly, this "bioactive" enclosure naturally cleans up waste for you. However, this is very complicated to set up initially, and you'll have to be comfortable introducing fungi, and insects (typically springtails and isopods) into your enclosure (they're the ones doing all the cleaning up!). You will still have to clean the glass and hides on occasion, just as you would with a paper-towel substrate set up.

I'll also add some links that might help you: Overview of basic crested gecko requirements.

Guide to setting up a bioactive enclosure.

Hope this helps!

[tl-notes]

Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon S2 Episode 10 Notes

I’m extremely not an expert in birds, but I tried to look these up to see if they were a species native to New York (since they’re similar to the sparrows we usually see around Kobayashi’s place). Apparently there are few similar-looking species in New York? My totally uninformed guess is that they may be house sparrows.

The sun sets in Japan relatively early (probably around 6:30pm when this episode takes place), which would make it entirely plausible that if she just flew east (with a slight northward angle) she’d find herself over New York in the early morning while most of the rest of the country is still dark.

These bumpy grey pads at the pedestrian part of the intersection here are known as (among other things) tactile paving; they’re to assist people who can’t fully rely on eyesight to get around.

Interestingly (imo), they were actually invented in Japan in the 60s (by a Miyake Seiichi), where today they’re extremely ubiquitous. They even show up later this episode!

They’re often referred to in Japan as 点字ブロック, tenji (Braille) blocks, and they tend to come in two types: the “dot” design, which indicates a place to stop (or an angle change, or more generally “caution”), and the “line” design which indicates you can safely keep going. They’re generally colored yellow in Japan, ideally making them stand out more to help people with impaired vision find them, and are mandated by law in most places public transport can be found (among others).

Not really a translation note, but “deer cola” felt especially funny in the context of all the horse medicine stuff. 

I guess “[animal] [drink]” is a common branding device in-universe, given the crab beer Kobayashi’s always drinking.

Also not really a translation note, but the difference between how “hard” Kanna and Chloe are running to be at the same speed was a nice animation touch.

遊んだ遊んだ！ asonda asonda!

One feature of the Japanese language is a very heavy use of repetition. This includes “reduplication,” a linguistic term for creating words by repeating a root (e.g. a “boo-boo” in English or the dara-dara example below in Japanese), but also just like… saying the same word multiple times, as Chloe does here.

Typically this is done for emphasis or to help increase clarity: if you’ve worked in a Japanese office, you’ve likely heard someone in a phone conversation say desu desu in response to someone asking for confirmation.��

This acceptance of repetition sort of extends beyond the obvious uses like this as well: for example, personal pronouns are much less common; instead (if the subject isn’t dropped) you’ll often just use the person’s name again. You’ll notice similar trends with other types of words as well.

Not to mention the ubiquity of things like otsukare.

This often ends up being a challenge for translators, because reusing words in English (when it’s not for an obvious reason) tends to stick out rather unflatteringly, even if they aren’t that close together. 

(Like when I overuse “hence” in these notes.)

This “Christ” in the Japanese was “ったく” (short for 全く mattaku, but just used as a semi-generic exclamation). I mostly bring this up because it’s a good example of a word that doesn’t work out of its cultural context; e.g. it wouldn’t make any sense for a fantasy character to say “Christ,” but since this is an American speaker it works just fine (and helps distinguish that fact, even). 

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but English uses a lot of “explicit reference” words like this, that can break immersion if put in the mouths of characters who wouldn’t have exposure to said reference—which can be annoyingly limiting when trying to write dialogue sometimes.

As a bit of a culture shock for a lot of Americans I’ve met, most Japanese homes tend to have wall mounted air conditioning units, like this one, that are only for heating/cooling the one room they’re in. (Many also have a “Dry” setting that makes them act kind of like a dehumidifier as well.) It’s common to not have them in every room, like bedrooms, however.

This is in contrast to the central air conditioning system used by a majority of homes in the US (though type/use of AC in the US varies a lot by region; less common in the north for example)—and places like the UK where apparently residential AC units of any kind are quite rare.

You may have noticed that the doors between rooms always seem closed in Kobayashi’s apartment. That’s not just to make the backgrounds simpler, it’s also a good habit to keep if you’re going to be running the AC!

“Kobayashi, are you お休み today?” 

“Yeah, お休み.”

お休み o-yasumi, is a noun form of the 休む yasumu, to rest. The word has a variety of applications, as we see here. A day off work/school, i.e. a rest day? お休み. Want to say “good night” to someone before bed? Also お休み.

In this case, it’s not even necessarily clear it’s being said as a pun; as mentioned earlier, repetition is a common feature of the language, so despite the yawn there wouldn’t really be any reason for Kanna to think Kobayashi was about to go to nap or anything.

“Laze about” here is だらだら dara-dara, another phenomime (擬態語 gitaigo in Japanese)—one of those words that mimics the “sound” of an idea/concept/state, which don’t actually make a sound per se.

These phrases aren’t necessarily childish or anything (overuse of them can be, but you can find them even in news articles and political speeches for example). They are, however, used frequently by children, and by adults talking to children, as they’re very “easy” words: they’re expressive, they capture useful daily-life concepts, and they usually roll off the tongue. You’ll notice, for example, that Kanna uses them a lot.

Kanna has a very interesting way of talking actually, which I’ll touch on a bit more later.

Kobayashi’s “bean jam” here is あんみつ anmitsu, a traditional Japanese dessert (technically a spinoff of mitsumame). It typically is a mix of red beans (and/or red peas), agar (an algae-based gelatin equivalent), some fruit, some variety of rice flour product (shiratama in this case, similar to mochi), and a syrup (often black sugar based).

You can find it year-round, but it has a strong summer association and is even used as a summer season word. (It’s typically chilled and you can often get it with ice cream as an ingredient.)

It’s also sometimes paired with a green-tea flavored something as well (e.g. ice cream, agar, or syrup). The trinity of green tea, red beans (aka azuki), and shiratama makes what I like to think of as the “Japanese S’mores Flavor (for Adults)”. No I will not elaborate on this.

I will though point out the shaved ice flavor Kobayashi ordered later in the episode:

え？今スイカ様子あった？

A word of note here for language learners is 様子 yousu, which has a lot of definitions, but in cases like this where it’s attached to a noun or phrase means roughly “the appearance of __” or “an indication of ___” etc. In actual use, it typically means something that makes you think of whatever ___ is—or the lack of something that would make you think ___.

For example here, it’s like “Watermelon? Where’d that come from?” (since the TV was talking about a different dessert-y food entirely). 

Or an unrelated example: “I think that guy is hiding something” → “Really? I haven’t seen any yousu of that.” In other words, it can be a lot like “sign,” as in “I’ve seen no sign of ___.”

These color-bordered envelopes (originally colored based on the flag of the country of origin) used to be the standard for air mail, domestic or international, though they haven’t been required for several decades.

That said, they’re still popular for that “ooh, international mail!” feel (at least in Japan) and you can buy them at most places that sell stuff like envelopes. As here, they’re often used in media to immediately convey that a letter came from outside Japan.

Kanna (and Kobayashi) says エアメール, lit. “air mail” in English, which is used colloquially for international mail specifically, rather than “mail sent by plane.”

They’re having what’s called 冷やしそうめん hiyashi soumen, chilled/cold soumen for lunch here. (Soumen being a thin wheat noodle; udon but thinner.) As Kanna says, it’s very easy to make!

Basically you just boil it, wash it in cold water, add ice, get some sort of sauce to dip it in, and you’re done! It’s a popular quick meal in summer, and much easier than the more involved nagashi soumen setups you may have seen elsewhere, where they slide the noodles down a chute for you to try to grab and eat. (It’s basically the same meal aside from that though.)

(You can of course add more to it, but as we see here, you don’t really have to.)

The type of tea here, for the curious, is 麦茶 mugicha, barley tea. Mugi is the general name for cereals/grains including wheat (komugi), barley (oomugi), rye (kuromugi or rye mugi), and oats (enbaku or oat mugi). It’s incredibly common in Japan (and much of East Asia), where it's the household summer drink.

It has no caffeine like many other teas, and has a bunch of various nutritional benefits, so it’s considered a good way to stay hydrated as you’re sweating buckets in the muggy Japanese summer weather.

帽子した？  boushi shita? した！ shita!

I thought this was a cute way of phrasing this question/answer, and a good example of the “parent and their young child” way these two talk.

The suru (past tense shita) verb used here is the ultimate in “generic verb,” and it basically doesn’t get any simpler grammar-wise to phrase something as “noun+suru” like Kobayashi does here (even the particles are dropped). 

Kanna, for her part, doesn’t respond with a “yes” or etc, but instead just repeats back the verb itself in confirmation.

Just to note another one of those words like dara-dara: bura-bura, used for things like wandering around, doing something (or nothing) casually/aimlessly, or (with one bura) for something dangling/swinging in a more literal sense, like a spider, slack yo-yo, or wind chime.

These booklets are a common homework assignment for practicing kanji; you can see along the left side there it shows the stroke order, with the first block giving an example to trace over & showing where to start each stroke.

Each character is made up of radicals (e.g. “hot” above: 日 and 耂), which each have a standard way to write them. There’s 214 such radicals (though many are pretty niche; only about ~50 of them are needed to make most characters), and once you get a hang of them it makes learning new characters much easier (not too different from learning word spellings in English imo).

Kanna is repeating out loud the reading for the “hot” character as she writes it.

In addition to the above workbooks (which usually involve both kanji and math problems at Kanna’s grade), elementary school summer homework in Japan typically involves doing an illustrated diary (not a daily one necessarily) and some sort of research project about a subject of your choice. (Think kind of like a small science fair project).

The “research” project part is pretty expansive, and you can typically even do something more arts & craftsy for it.

Manhole covers in a lot of Japanese municipalities feature art representative of the area. For example, the city of Chofu, where the author of GeGeGe no Kitaro lived most of his life, has several with art of that series.

(Photo from https://www.gotokyo.org/jp/spot/1734/index.html)

I mentioned earlier that Kanna has an interesting way of speaking. Probably a better way to put it is that she has a pretty convincingly childish way of speaking (despite the monotone). That is, she uses simple grammar and “easy” words most of the time, but then throws out random big words and fancy idioms from time to time that make you go “...where did you learn that?”

In this case, the phrase she uses is 巷で人気 chimata de ninki. Chimata originally means like a fork (in the road), and since those are often places with lots of people passing through, it expanded to mean “the undefined place where people talk about ~stuff~.” So it’s used for “many people are saying~” or “word on the street is~” types of situations (or “talk of the town,” as here).  

It’s kind of an “adult” word though; for example the character for it isn’t included in the jouyou kanji (the 2000+ that are taught in elementary through high school). Hence Kobayashi’s reaction here.

The word she uses for “protected” here is 死守 shishu. The word is the combination of the characters for “death” and “protect,” ~meaning to protect something even at risk to one’s life (to the death, as it were).

It's a word that you learn in third grade in the Japanese education system—the same grade Kanna is in!

Both of these types of signs are common sights in residential areas like this: depending on where you live, it can feel like there’s always some sort of construction project going on, and Japan’s many family/individually-owned businesses like this tend to be closed on various extra days during the summer (and certain other times) to allow for time off.  

In this case, them being closed August 12th~16th implies they’re taking off for Obon (and probably leaving town to visit family).

The word Kobayashi uses here is 風物詩 fuubutsu-shi. Fuubutsu refers to something that makes up part of the “scenery” of a place or season, in a pretty broad sense. This shi typically means “poem.”

So fuubutsu-shi is originally a type of poem celebrating a season or a scene of natural beauty, that sort of thing. From that, it’s also now (more popularly) used to describe things that are representative of a season; the kind of stuff you say “it’s not winter until…” about, or “you know it’s summer when…” (It can also be used for places + seasons, like the ice sculptures of Hokkaido winters, or even summer Comiket in Tokyo.)

They’re very similar to the season words I’ve mentioned previously, though they’re far less strict about what counts as one. Here, Kobayashi’s could be referring to the whole package experience of “having to take cover and wait out a sudden heavy rain, despite it being mostly clear skies a few minutes ago,” which you could call fuubutsu-shi (summed up probably as like 夏の雨宿り etc.)

In contrast the relevant season word here would probably be yuudachi (or niwaka-ame), a word referring to the short, sudden bouts of rain that tend to fall (from cumulonimbus clouds, the makings of which are noticeable in the backgrounds before this) on summer evenings.

Feels like in season one she woulda eaten it. Three cheers for character growth!

The parentheticals there are just the “English” in hiragana/katakana.

Kobayashi’s comment (nihongo de ok, roughly “you can just use Japanese”) is an internet-born term people originally would use to reply to someone who said something that didn’t make any sense, had terrible grammar, or was so full of katakana loanwords it was hard to read etc.

Kanna says this line in English, and while I have no proof at all, my guess is that the specific choice of “wicked” was taken from the translation of “maji yabakune?” used in season one.

[anomander-dragnipurake]

Haunted Castle

I don't remember what sparked the idea but basically this fic is based off an idea I had for what might be a cool spinoff or something in the Luigi's Mansion series. We see Bowser as an almost good guy sometimes so I think it'd be neat for him to be the person being saved for once. It's never going to happen of course but I still think it'd be neat.

This was supposed to be a quick drabble just setting up the idea, mostly just as a way to sharing the idea, but then it became 2k words long. It's still just the setup for now but I might continue it, I haven't decided yet.

~

It started with just the doorbell ringing. It set Polterpup off into a fit of excited barking but Luigi ignored it. He wasn’t excepting anyone and therefore it couldn’t be anyone he wanted to talk to. But then after maybe a minute, it rang again, quickly follow by another a few seconds later before whoever it was descended into just spamming it.

With a sigh, Luigi put aside his book and careful to avoid being visible through the front window, snuck over to the door. Peeking through the peephole he saw… nothing. But the bell was still going off and Polterpup was going absolutely mad about it. Before he could pull away to attempt to stealthily peek through the window…

“I know you’re in there. I can hear your dog barking. If you don’t let me in, I’m going to bust through your window.”  It was muffled by the door but it was still distinctly the voice of a child. It was also familiar, Luigi had heard it multiple times before, though he couldn’t quite place where right now.

With that in mind and not wanting to deal with a child trying to bust through his window, Luigi put a hand on Polterpup’s head to finally calm him before answering the door at last. … Bowser Jr. was on the other side, one clawed hand still raised, pressing the doorbell.

“Finally,” he said as he pulled his arms in to cross them over his bandana, puffing out his chest while he did so. “About darn time. Now uh… uh…” he faltered deflating a little before with a growl he kind of just invited himself in, striding into the middle of Luigi’s living room as if he owned the place.

There wasn’t much Luigi could do to stop him short of using physical force which he didn’t want to do if he didn’t have to. So with a sigh, he closed the front door and turned to face the intruder. “What do you want?”

Whatever it was, he clearly hadn’t planned what he was going to say before getting here as he looked off to the side in silent thought for a few seconds. In the hallway behind him, Gooigi stepped out into the living room. They stayed silent though so Luigi let them be.

“King Boo took over Papa’s castle,” Bowser Jr. finally said, regaining his confidence as he looked back at Luigi. “And you’re going come with me to take it back and beat him up.”

Luigi was shaking his head ‘no’ before Bowser Jr. even finished speaking. He even shook his hands ‘no’ for more emphasis. “No, no, no. I don’t do ghosts.” They were scary and he was done with scary things. He was going to have to call up E. Gadd later and scold him for losing King Boo again. … Assuming he had, this being Bowser Jr. meant it could theoretically be a trap.

Bowser Jr. frowned at him. “You’re a ghost hunter though. You’ve beat up King Boo three times now. Also, I didn’t ask, I said you’re going to and so you are.”

“No!” Luigi was proud of the amount of force he was able to put into it. He was done with scary things and he was not going to take orders like that. “Ask someone else.”

Bowser Jr. faltered again, his shoulders sagging a little as he made a visible effort to maintain a confident demeanor. “But… you’re the only ghost hunter in either this kingdom or my dad’s. So….” he growled, balling his hands into fists at his sides, “you can’t say ‘no’.”

Luigi crossed his arms and turned his head away. “I’m sure that’s not true.” There was no way, right? He knew from experience that it was a rather lucrative endeavor so people who weren’t scared of ghost and wanted to make some good mood should flock to it. “You can ask E. Gadd. He’s not really a ghost hunter, he just studies them. But I’m sure he knows some ghost hunters you could ask. I can even call him for you.”  Luigi wasn’t a heartless monster so there was no way he could send Bowser Jr. away completely and he needed to call up E. Gadd anyway. Before he could pull out his phone to do so though…

“E. Gadd’s obviously the first place I went. He’s the one who told me to go to you because you’re supposed to be the best and only ghost hunter left alive. He even gave me your address. So you have to do it because… you just have to, okay?”

Luigi refused to believe he was the ‘only ghost hunger left alive’ because that meant the profession – if it could be called that – was even more dangerous than he’d thought. Just thinking about it made him want to go even less. “I can’t.”

The last of Bowser Jr.’s confidence vanished. “But… but… what am I supposed to do then? He turned Dad and Kamek and all my siblings and… everyone into paintings! I only got away because I hid in the closet like a stupid coward because Dad told me to.”

And now Luigi felt bad, great. He maybe shouldn’t feel bad for someone who was technically an enemy but regardless of anything else Bowser Jr. was a kid who’d witnessed his entire family and probably everyone he’d ever really known get turned into paintings by King Boo. Given those circumstances, it was hard not to feel bad for him and maybe even a little tempted to help him. But… Luigi had already said ‘no’ and he didn’t like ghosts.

He looked back over at Gooigi, still standing in the hall watching. They nodded and gave him a thumbs up. What did that mean in this context? Were they telling him to say ‘yes’ to Bowser Jr.’s ask for help? Or were they approving his ‘no’?

“Let me have you ghost hunting stuff then.” Bowser Jr. stomped his foot and squared up his shoulders as he looked up at Luigi. “I don’t need you, I can just do it myself.

If he wasn’t a child, Luigi probably would’ve handed over the Poltergust and all its attachments with little argument – who was he to stand in the way of someone else catching ghosts, especially in a situation like that? But villainous Bowser’s child or not, he was still just a kid and sending a kid off to fight a castle full of ghosts, boos, and King Boo himself all on his own was just wrong. … And sending him off to look for another ghost hunter when neither of them knew where to even start looking for one was less than ideal as well.

Maybe he could send him off with Gooigi. But could Gooigi handle everything on their own? They were so fragile and their weakness being liquid, made them easy to defeat. An inch-deep puddle of water that couldn’t be navigated around or over would be enough to make it impossible for them to be of any help to anyone. Which meant Bowser Jr. would have to be helping them potentially the whole way which was still asking a kid to run around in a castle full of ghosts and boos, most likely culminating in a fight against King Boo himself.

Oh dear, Luigi’s conscious wasn’t going to let him out of this, was it? … Darn it! Why’d E. Gadd have to go and lose King Boo again? One would think he’d learn from King Boo’s prior escapes resulting in Luigi having to deal with him again. And speaking of that, he was going to go after Mario and Luigi again for sure because he was not the type to let a grudge go. So to protect Mario before he got turned into a painting again and to probably protect himself from a trap later down the line as well, Luigi should go take care of King Boo now when King Boo shouldn’t be expecting him, increasing his chances at another victory. It was the smart thing to do but… Luigi really didn’t want to.

It was so unfair. He just wanted to be done with ghosts and other scary things for forever. Wasn’t facing his worst fear three times more than enough? And… and… he wanted to stick to his guns. He’d already said ‘no’. … Maybe instead he could send Gooigi and someone else, like Mario. Yeah sure, Mario didn’t have any real experience in dealing with proper hauntings or in using ghost hunting equipment but he could learn, right? So that would maybe probably be fine?

“Let’s a-go!”

Luigi looked up to see that Gooigi had apparently left to retrieve the Poltergust from their room which they now carried in front of him. Any question about what their intention might be was erased as the beelined for Luigi with it.

“What is that?” Bowser Jr. asked, taking a step back as Gooigi passed by him.

“Gooigi!” Gooigi introduced themself, twisting their head to look at him in a way that would’ve been unnatural if they weren’t made of goo. Their head snapped back into proper orientation as they reached Luigi. “Let’s a-go.”

“You want us to help him, don’t you?” Luigi asked as if there were actually any question to it.

Gooigi nodded. Of course they did, they’d been brought into existence for the sole purpose of hunting ghosts so it would’ve been odd if they hadn’t wanted to help someone who came to them with his ghost problem.

“You can go. You don’t need me, right? You can ask Mario to go with you to make sure you don’t get into any trouble with water or anything.” And that way Luigi could stay home and not deal with a bunch of ghosts.

Expressionless as always, Gooigi didn’t reply. Instead, they walked around behind him and… pushed the Poltergust to his back. They held it there with one hand as they used their other to maneuver Luigi’s arms into the straps. He could’ve resisted but didn’t because this wasn’t a battle he could win, was it? His conscious, logic, and Gooigi trying to get him to do it made it hard to stick to his ‘no’. Which was not fair at all but there was nothing he could do about it.

“Let’s a-go,” Gooigi said again when they were done, looking at Bowser Jr.

“Uh… what’s going on?” he asked, understandably a bit confused. “Are you two going to help me save my dad now?”

Gooigi nodded and pointed to the door.

“Sweet! Let’s go!” With a grin that made him look even more like his father and namesake, Bowser Jr. hopped into motion, heading for the door. Gooigi followed, tugging on Luigi’s wrist to get him to come along too. And the final nail in the coffin was an excited bark from Polterpup before he grabbed at Luigi’s pantleg to pull him along in the right direction.

Outside on the front lawn was Bowser Jr’s flying clown car. It was a squeeze but the three of them plus Polterpup managed to get into it. The squeeze lessened a bit when Gooigi went back up into the Poltergust’s tank on Luigi’s back.

“Uh… that’s weird,” Bowser Jr. said. “It looks kind of like you but … what is it?”

Luigi sighed. “They’re name is Gooigi. E. Gadd made them to help me hunt ghosts. They’re made of goo and melt when wet.”

“Um… okay. You like for reals going to help me save my dad now though?”

“Yes.” Luigi still would rather not but he wasn’t being given much of a choice. It wasn’t like he hadn’t dealt with hordes of ghosts before though so hopefully he could get this over with fast and maybe convince E. Gadd to get some tighter security protocols on King Boo to hopefully keep him contained this time.

“Awesome!” Bowser Jr. said as he started up the clown car. With the added weight its ascent was a bit more sluggish and unsure than it probably should’ve been but once they got up in the air, there seemed to be little issue as he turned them towards in the direction Bowser’s castle presumably lay in.

“And uh… thank you,” he added with an awkward grin as he looked back at Luigi. Well at least he was being openly grateful now. Bowser and company better be grateful too otherwise Luigi was going to be real mad at them. He’ll have earned the right for some gratitude after this.

[concrete-paver-molds-blog]

How To Minimize Concrete Paver Molds On A Winding Path

This could be an important factor to assume about since you're considering of doing the project slightly bit at a time. I even have that very same mould and used it for a sidewalk years in the past. I have a 16x16 foot deck at our present house and used the mould for a sidewalk on two sides. It has held up good aside from the filler between the stones concrete paver molds.

Use a leftover scrap to make a single mold, or buy a benderboard roll and make a quantity of molds at once. Benderboard is often overlapped and secured with screws, however this will depart an impression within the paver, so you'll find a way to simply tape the ends collectively. First brush inner mildew surface with mould launch, making use of with a cheap paintbrush. Remove excess oil with a paper towel or dry paintbrush. Next, measure out dry concrete or mortar mix in a wheelbarrow or utility tub.

While you'll have the ability to definitely choose interesting and beautiful ready-made concrete pavers, making your personal provides a inventive dimension that appeals to many gardeners. Install a paver patio or walkway to add both visual attraction and performance to your landscaping. Pavers assist define a garden’s type while also bettering entry to it and including outdoor dwelling area. Ready-made pavers, although, may be cost-prohibitive for many concrete paver molds homeowners.

Many people are turning to paver molds to create floors for patio areas. Rather than fussing with laying large blocks of stone, they're using the molds to make beautiful patterned areas for out of doors entertaining. In at present's world of big box home and garden stores and smaller specialty backyard centers, you might surprise why utilizing a mold to make concrete pavers is better than buying ready-made pavers. Find a flat, level place on the bottom or a piece of plywood the place you'll find a way to lay your type once it is able to obtain the moist concrete. Pour 2-3 inches of sand on the flat spot, and degree the sand.

If you employ the best concrete paver molds recipe, it can be as sturdy as cement, and quite a bit cheaper; in my case, I basically mixed cement with the clay I dug out of my yard. Bend the benderboard items to form a circle with the two ends butted towards each other. Follow the pure curve because of the board being in a roll.

You additionally could have plenty of time to regulate the color as you're working on them. You don’t need to end up having to buy expensive stains or dyes, together with etching products and sealants, to appropriate the colour if the color isn’t what you have been going for. Let these take a look at items remedy a minimum of three days -a week is better. You don’t need to use your vinyl straps, just plop your wet combination onto the ground where your stones will go and make them into any shape. Just bear in mind that when the cement is wet, it appears quite darkish, however will cure to quite a light-weight shade of gray that nearly appears white. With my vinyl straps, I was limited to creating solely three molds at a time.

Return tackle isn't the company address on Jaxpety web site. Our customer service will provide you a return handle after return approved. All NON-seller mistake returns for refund are subject to 10% re-stocking payment and purchaser will be liable for the return shipping charge. We need you to be utterly satisfied together with your buy on Wish. Return all products inside 30 days of delivery if they don't seem to be as a lot as your satisfaction. According to the structural design of the concrete ditch, there are notches on the 2 ends of the facet to facilitate the inspection of the ditch blockage.

Concrete Success options all kinds of mould shapes to create interlocking patio stones as well as stones for backyard paths. With so many molds to choose from, you're certain to search out one that matches your backyard. Since including stones and pavers takes time and effort, and the results aren't easily moved once they're put in, take your time to select the right look and feel on your backyard. Be positive the concrete is filled to the top of the shape and is leveled and smoothed.

Mainly prefabricated concrete edge blocks for urban roads. If you do find yourself with leaf stains, a stress washer and some OxiClean, or maybe tsp will help remove them. You need a mix that permits for the biggest dimension stone you propose to make and can meet the thickness you need. Otherwise, good ole fashioned hand mixing with a hoe and extensive bin will work. Here are two different fun tutorials where I used concrete to make a stone formed planter and in addition to make a rock shaped planter. I had my concrete covered because it was the height of pollen season and I didn’t need the yellow pollen staining the stones.

I think you'd be better off with sand or screenings between them rather than mortar unless you'll have the ability to put a concrete base underneath the pavers, you then could be OK with mortar between them. A couple of things I wish to point out earlier than I get onto my question. The first is that the mildew creates particular person stones, this isn't a stamp. Once the mold is removed, they are utterly separated pieces. The mortar is swept in dry, then sprayed with water to create a bond between all the blocks / stones. The second thing is that the finished cement is 2 inches thick.

At my customer's insistance, I did a flagstone patio dry laid on a tamped mattress of stone over fabric & upper layer of screenings. We did everything we may to roll water off the patio. We used mortar joints between the flagstones and so they popped some joints. The key's to make sure you begin with good, quality molds and that you combine constant batches of concrete.

I truly have 225sqft I'm going to be putting in pavers on so roughly $500 or so for normal formed pavers. My spouse is wanting different designs so if this methodology is cheaper it might be a good route. In common, customers are extremely glad with the functionality and usefulness of the Pathmate random stone mould.

The very first thing you have to determine is whether the "completely different designs" your wife needs may be satisfied through the use of molds, or by alternating the design of pavers . Also understand that the finished molded concrete pavers will crack (ideally alongside their "grout" traces, which isn't an issue), and can respond to frost heave less properly than pavers. Spray the inside of the paver mould with nonstick cooking spray to make it easy to release the concrete.

Concrete Countertop Molds And Edge Molds

As well, you should spray down the stroll maker form after each couple of uses- this helps it launch easier. Wash the Poly PVA Solution off the unique stepping stone mannequin with water after which place the original stepping stone and reproduced stepping stones into the walkway. Apply Pol-Ease® 2300 Release Agent to the stepping stone, mold box walls and mildew box bottom board after which brush it out with a dry brush to encourage even coverage. We left zero.75″ of house between the stepping stone and mold field walls to create 0.75″ thick mildew walls. Some gardeners may be intimidated on the thought of making their own concrete pavers. If you might make a cake, you can even make concrete pavers and stepping stones.

If you have a very porous mannequin, like the one on this tutorial, you might have to use more than one coat of Poly PVA Solution. We applied two coats of this sealer, waiting for it to dry (~ 1 hour) in between coats and earlier than moving on to the following steps. Select essentially the most intact stepping stone from the walkway.

There are extra choices than you assume in relation to the molds needed to type stepping stones.

The best part is that once the pavers are laid and vibrated in, the project is done and usable IMMEDIATELY.

This helps to take away any air bubbles that could show up within the stone.

Since I'm in no rush and have loads of time I want to hear from someone who has really tried this technique earlier than.

Dampen the Sand Mix with a nice mist of water (do not over-wet).

If you have the actual DIY spirit, or are simply looking to save money in your next hardscaping project, contemplate making your own concrete pavers. A reference value is offered by the vendor of the merchandise . Percentage off and savings quantities are based on the vendor's reference worth. The reference value can give you a sign of the value of the product butsome shops may sell the merchandise for lower than the reference worth. If you feel a reference price is inaccurate or deceptive please report it with the URL for the itemizing to report-

My concern with massive concrete slabs is the 10x10 that is already there has cracked in several locations and just does not look good. The identical settling in a paver setup could make them slightly off degree in a certain spot, but that is much easier to treatment and look good than a cracked slab. Home made high quality control might attain the extent of crappy 2x2 slabs however not of commercially produced patio/driveway pavers. An interesting aspect observe, was talking to my brother yesterday and talked about I was thinking of getting slightly concrete mixer. He bought a garage and it has a industrial concrete mixer in it with a new electric motor.

Our concrete molds are designed to final, and you must use one p ath maker many occasions. The only cause why one could contemplate shopping for another concrete p ath mould is to make the process even quicker. You could fill in the second brick paver mildew while the primary one is getting dry. But for some purpose, when I made these concrete stepping stones, I didn’t suppose the colour of the pavers would turn out gentle -like the bowl in my exams did. Make natural looking DIY concrete stepping stones or pavers. Color the concrete and mould it into the form of real fieldstones or flagstones.

We actually have 1000's of great products in all product categories. Whether you’re in search of high-end labels or low-cost, economic system bulk purchases, we assure that it’s here on AliExpress. Each order comes with easy to use mold instructions to create ornamental wanting ornamental pieces for your house or garden. • Avoid vigorous tapping when eradicating air bubbles; this can trigger cracks within the plastic. Should a crack develop in the mildew, fill it with epoxy or Bondo, found at any ironmongery store. Apply these adhesives to the outer surface of the mildew.

How To Minimize Pavers On A Winding Path

The Pathmate Paving Stone Mold offers an ideal method to mildew a walkway in a yard with pace and effectivity. It's constructed of a plastic materials that is out there in black shade. This paving stone mildew features varied shapes and sizes so you could get creative along with your pavers. It may additionally be reused after cleansing so you can make as many as you need. This concrete paver mold allows you to design your own path with numerous colors and designs.

Add any desired imprints or elaborations, corresponding to mosaic tile, immediately before the floor begins to set. Using a hose and spray nozzle, clean the concrete residue off the mould earlier than it dries if you finish up finished using it. Gradually add water to the concrete mix based on the directions on the package deal. Stir the water into the concrete with the hoe as you go.

All of the center sections can be accomplished as fast as you can drop them into place. You can estimate approx $2.50/sq ft for the finishing supplies and somewhat bit extra for the gravel/base mix and a few sand to prime it off. The best part is that once the pavers are laid and vibrated in, the project is finished and usable IMMEDIATELY. It is easily repairable and may easily assist automobile and truck traffic. Again, the price just isn't as much as you would suppose becase the pavers are fashioned from very high energy concrete and colored through. To duplicate this, you would wish to buy the most costly type of bagged mix and if you have not priced the dye/coloring combine, you might be in for a suprise.

I can color the concrete to my likening and I get to work at my own tempo and budget. A couple pics of another person's work may be discovered right here and here. Since I did most of this project by myself, I discovered it was best to go combine one other batch and arrange the following mold, pour it and frivolously stage it. This technique made it straightforward to see that I would have a mixture of 5 giant stones and a number of other small stones – again, which if combined, would make 9 giant stepping stones. Also, many people wish to make ornamental stepping stones like garden mosaic stepping stones. They are usually made by including mosaic glass or different embeddable materials into the concrete.

I'm seeking to put a garden shed on some this summer time. Seem like most the stuff I discover on there is leftovers. 225sqft doesn't sound like a lot but if you break it down by pieces I would wish over x8 pavers or x12 pavers.

[magicalgirldiary]

workday in the life: hybrid teaching

first thing in the morning, I wake up and commence my morning routine. much of this is the same as it was pre-pandemic: I shower and do my makeup, make coffee (and put most of it into a thermos), eat breakfast, and try to give myself writing time before I think about the day at school ahead.

a few minutes after I wake up, my phone starts sending me push notifications to complete the daily health screening that allows me to come to campus. I’m asked to self-report symptoms and whether I have knowledge that I’ve been in close contact with anyone who had tested positive. when I complete the questionnaire, I get a message that clears me for the day. on my way out the door, I choose whichever mask best coordinates with my outfit and throw it into my purse.

when I arrive on campus, I put my mask on after parking the car. masks are required in all public spaces on campus, including outdoor spaces if you’re moving around. when I get to the front door of my building, I have to scan my ID to open the door. inside, I use the health app to scan a QR code to record where I am on campus.

in my office, I take my mask off, hanging it just beside my desk. mid-morning, building staff come by to empty trash cans and wipe door handles and light switches, and I slip on the mask whenever they knock on my door and briefly enter my space.

some of my colleagues who share a hallway with me come to campus, and I hear their doors open and close. now and then we’ll stop and have a conversation in each other’s doorways (by which I mean one person in or just outside the doorway, the other person seated at their desk), masks always on. our building used to be busy with tons of faculty offices and students dropping by for office hours, but we’ve all moved our office hours virtually and our floor doesn’t have classrooms on it, so the only student we see is the student worker if we happen to stop by the printer room. some faculty have permission to teach entirely remotely for health or family reasons. the building is uncannily quiet.

some days I bring lunch, keeping it in the refrigerator in our work room. all our hallways, rooms, and buildings have signs on the doors telling us which route we have to take to avoid people walking too close to each other, but as it happens I never see another soul in these rooms.

I still have to go across campus to check my mail. when I leave my office, I have to be sure I bring my keys, ID, and cell phone--all of which I need to get in and out of buildings. around the side of my building is one of our new outdoor classroom spaces--big plastic bench/desks that are spaced far apart but still close enough to the building to pick up wifi. once or twice I’ve seen a colleague holding office hours, their student sitting at the next table over.

the quads are sparsely populated if at all--all of campus feels like a ghost town. when I near the student center, I might see a handful of students eating lunch outside at picnic tables set up to accommodate social distancing. I enter the student center through the designated entrance beside the mail room, again scanning both my ID and a QR code on my phone. I enter through “enter” doors and exit through “exit” doors. if I have an errand on the upper levels of the student center, I walk all the way to one end of the building to use the “up” staircase; the other staircases are all designated as “down” only.

if I’m picking up lunch from the dining hall, I scan a QR code and check in with the staff, showing them the health pass on my phone that confirms I’m allowed to be on campus. the dining hall floor is covered in arrows and spacing markers to indicate proper social distancing. all plates, cups, and cutlery are disposable. to-go boxes are in high demand, so I’m unlikely to get one: I bring a plastic bag to hold my individually-packaged salads and dessert(s) so I can carry my open plate. all semester I haven’t seen more than a handful of students eating in the dining hall at once.

if I happen to meet another faculty member I know, we go upstairs to a huge, empty overflow dining room and sit in carefully-spaced chairs as we eat lunch together. otherwise, I take my lunch to my office and eat alone. on the days of our regular professional development lunches, I listen in to our Zoom call; but most of us don’t like eating on camera. except for the people presenting, even our own meetings are mostly full of little black “video off” squares. before the meetings begin, the hosts attempt small talk; but Zoom doesn’t allow for out-loud side-conversations. I usually pull up something else on my other screen as our Zoom call is going, even if I’m interested and paying attention. I think we all do, sometimes, even when we have our video on. my email is full of notifications from student health about this or that student who is out of class until x date. most of the students I receive emails about still log on to our class Zoom call.

after lunch, I teach. on the afternoons I teach one class, I have to leave my office at least 15 minutes before class begins even though I’m only going to the building next door. I print out any papers I need, load up my tote bag with all the components of my technology setup, retrieve a camera called a Meeting OWL from a locked closet (I borrow it from my colleague who teaches in the same room right after me), and then heft my full tote bag, the box the OWL comes in (almost as big as the tote bag), and my water bottle over to my second-floor classroom. I scan my ID to get into the building; like the building with my office, there’s only one “enter” door and “up” staircase. in the classroom we’re not allowed to move desks, but various pieces of the professors’ workstation get moved around a lot, so after I scan the QR code marking me present in my own classroom, I have to move a table, a podium, and a chair so that the HDMI cord reaches my laptop. I turn on the projector system and adjust the volume all the way up. I plug in my laptop to the power because it can’t run a full eighty-minute Zoom call without dying and to the ethernet because the wireless connection is randomly bad in that building some days. I plug in the OWL camera to the wall and to my computer. I open the Zoom call, make sure the projector is working, and start admitting students from the waiting room. I make sure Zoom is set to use the OWL as my camera and that sound goes through the classroom speakers. no more than three students trickle into the classroom; I ask them to show me their health passes because that’s part of our procedure. this was hard to keep track of in the first couple of weeks of the semester, but now I don’t even have to consult the sticky note of instructions I taped onto my laptop before the first day of class.

when class begins, I make sure the meeting is recording and that I can see the waiting room and the chat on the big screen. occasionally, this classroom has inexplicable audio issues and my Zoom students have to tell me the audio is “screeching.” usually if I mute and un-mute myself a few times in succession we fix the problem; but the internet connection is not so easily fixed. once this semester I had to abandon the classroom after 20 minutes and retreat back to my office to get a stable internet connection. the in-person students had to go back to their dorms and log on to their computers to finish class.

the class meeting is fine. the students are interested in the material and are frequently invited to speak from their personal experience, so discussion happens in spite of everything. but this is a class in which I made a special effort to learn “Zoom silence,” which is much longer than your usual classroom silence because you can only really see one or two people’s faces. sometimes I call on students and worry that they won’t answer, which is silly, because it’s their job to answer; but I still feel anxious about it. some students send me private messages in the Zoom call that they have to step away for a moment or that they’re going to the restroom--and although I don’t ask or require them to do that at all, it helps when I know that someone is definitely not going to answer right away.

assuming we make it through class with relatively few tech issues, I end class five minutes early so that I can pack up my things and give the next professor time to setup his various tech. this is also supposed to help with traffic in the hallways--to keep students from piling up in any one place--but not once this semester have I seen more than four or five students in an entire classroom building hallway at one time. students who don’t have a class immediately after mine will hang back to help clean, taking a paper towel and the class supply of disinfectant and wiping down their desks. I take care of the rest, spraying and wiping all the surfaces we’ve touched, even though it makes one of the tables I use particularly sticky. when I’ve unplugged and packed everything, I head back to my office.

on the afternoons I teach two classes, I’m in a different building with a different tech setup. my other classroom has a standing desk, which I prefer over having to teach sitting down. here, I plug in the computer to the wall, the ethernet, and the HDMI cable that goes to the projector. I unfold and plug in my folding document camera, a small clip-on webcam (although my laptop has a webcam) that I can swivel back and forth to try to capture more of the classroom, and a giant round directional microphone (not ideal, since students can’t hear me if I stand behind it--but it works better than my laptop or webcam microphones).

classes proceed in more or less the same way as the other classroom, though these classes involve more switching between cameras (which involves random, odd moves such as “advanced-share screen the doc cam instead of switching cameras because if you click ‘switch camera’ everything shows up backwards”). the doc cam is my whiteboard--even though I have a perfectly good and functional whiteboard--because we found out early on that cameras don’t pick up the whiteboard well.

the first day I taught my two classes back-to-back, I was scheduled to move to a classroom across the hall for the second class. I had to wait for a colleague to pack up her complex, multi-part tech setup and then redo my entire setup, which meant I started class frazzled and nearly ten minutes late. so I don’t move classrooms anymore. it turns out the class I was moving for is completely remote due to the professor’s health accommodations, so no one is trying to use the classroom after me.

in my second class, I often have only one student physically present in spite of expecting I’d have at least six or seven per class (and this was after I divided my class into two shifts who would have the opportunity to attend in-person every other day). since small group work is so important in this class, my lone in-person student often has to join the Zoom call just for breakout rooms; and I can’t drop in to that student’s breakout room once they’ve started. the college learned early on that if two people in the same room are on the same Zoom call with audio on, the audio begins to echo and then quickly mutates into something that sounds like someone has opened a terrifying, hellish wormhole. you can’t have more than one person in a Zoom call in the same room unless everyone is completely muted.

still, breakout rooms are often silent or chat-conversations only (comprised of things like can you hear me? and so-and-so your mic isn’t working and send me your emails for the Google doc). I know some of the students do the work and some don’t. I could have them turn things in individually to prove they’re thinking or working, but I don’t like the way that feels. I have no idea how to help them get out of the class what they normally would in the ways of conversation and community.

I try to make sure every student can see me listening to them when they speak, but I spend most of my time facing my computer. there are simply more students online, and I’m worried more about whether they can hear me than whether the student in-person can hear me from six feet away. sometimes in this classroom I accidentally end up literally turning my back on my in-person student(s), which I feel horrible about. but I have to be watching the chat for answers and also writing on a piece of paper under the document camera. I can’t step further away from the document camera, and I can’t move among the desks like I used to.

when each class is over, we wipe desks and surfaces as needed. I unplug everything and pack it back into my tote bag. sometimes it’s so still in the upstairs hallway that the automatic lights turn off. sometimes I’m so still in the classroom that the automatic lights go off on me, and students with their cameras on giggle to see me flailing an arm around to get the lights back on. the few people who attend in-person have long cleared the building by the time I’m ready to go, and I descend an empty “down only” staircase and walk back across an empty quad to the building where my office is.

when I return to my office and pack up for the day--when I don’t have a department meeting or an appointment with a colleague (all of which occur--where else?--on Zoom)--I make sure to take my laptop and charger cord home with me. I double-check that I’m not leaving behind any materials I would absolutely need to conduct the next few days of classes. every day, I pack up my office as if I won’t be back for two weeks, because I never know if I’m going to wake up the next morning with symptoms--or else if I’m going to be notified that having a student present in my classroom counts as having “close contact” with them, although our classrooms are measured out to make sure everyone sits six feet apart.

I wear my mask all the way to my car.

[korranguyen]

Some thoughts on romance in TDP and ATLA: What Does Rayllum Get Right?

Okay, I know this post doesn’t do much service to this claim, but I don’t love the idea of directly comparing ships to one another. Every relationship is different in the context it takes place, and it’s just as unfair to directly compare any two relationships as it would be to compare two different couples in real life: every person, and by extension, every character, is unique in their own way. Not to mention I’m a bit hesitant to write this because TDP just found its footsteps away from ATLA with the new season, and I honestly fear plaguing the lovely positivity of the TDP fan base with old wounds from the ATLA ship wars.

BUT since there are already a lot of popular Kataang/Rayllum comparison posts floating around, I feel the need to share my two cents on the bit as someone who wholeheartedly enjoys the trajectory of Rayllum, but had my... reservations when it came to the canonized romance in ATLA.

Instead of dwelling on those reservations, though, I’m gonna focus on talking about and validating the parts of the ships we do like (meaning both Zutarians and Kataangers).

This essay, in a nutshell:

Two ships form an unlikely bond and find their peace in the midst of warring kingdoms fandoms. #amirite

What Rayllum Learns from Zutara

TBQH I surprised by how many embraced the Kataang/Rayllum parallels because the setup itself reminded me of Zutara— not Kataang. They share a similar origin story: Rayla threatens Callum in an attempt to pursue his little brother, just like how Zuko often pursued Katara to capture Aang. Their introductions are antagonistic, if not explicitly violent, but because the writers take the time to humanize both characters outside of these interactions, the audience understands that these conflicts happen because they’re driven by motivations from opposite sides of the war. Of course, when they are forced to become allies, it’s... not as smooth-sailing as you’d expect.

At its core, both Rayllum and Zutara are very cautious friendships. They don’t trust each other right away. It’s not perfect; they have their outbursts, reluctance to trust, and painful blows to their bond. But against all odds they eventually establish trust in each other. And because that trust isn’t just given, but needs earning, it takes its time dwelling on wounds necessary to transgress those lines and establishes extra depth in the meantime, making it well-earned and conducive to an understanding relationship. When they find their peace and friendship, it feels earned and respected on both sides, and both parties have a deeper understanding of each other than they could've had with a happy-go-lucky friendship.

Also, a side effect of the bitter work (sorry I had to lol) it took to to build that relationship, both Zutara and Rayllum have become especially in-tune with each other’s emotional cues. On the behalf of Zutara, there’s the moment when Katara comforts Zuko as he’s cowering in front of his uncle’s tent. She immediately recognizes that something’s wrong and approaches him about it:

Zuko opened up to Katara yet again about his insecurities and fears just like he did in Ba Sing Se. I love how easy it is for him. Zuko’s normally so guarded yet doesn’t mind being vulnerable with Katara. He’s so worried because he doesn’t see how Uncle Iroh can forgive him. It’s important that Katara’s the one encouraging him because she was also someone he betrayed that day. Someone who had faith in him to make the right choice, someone who changed for the better. She forgave him and she knows Iroh will too. That carries some weight with him. 

-- Geektastic08

Because of how many more opportunities Rayllum than Zutara to show off their perceptiveness of each others’ emotions, I could name off a lot of similar moments-- but I’m going to go with when Rayla slices open the mummy on the Cursed Caldera. When she returns and anxiously gets to ushering people forward, Callum notices almost instantly that Rayla’s acting off and expresses his concern. And, of course, Rayla opens up that she did, indeed, see something “horrible”— immediately opening up to him on the fact she was afraid, almost instinctively overcoming her reluctance to show her fears and weaknesses as established from previous episodes when Callum is the one who asks about it.

Also, this:

"I know that face. It’s your dumb idea face.” =)

Another reason: balanced-out co-parenting is a thing (Ezran vs. the rest of the Gaang).

On a more grand-scheme note, their relationship actually also shares a lot of the same “thematic importance” as Zutara as a symbol of overcoming differences and bonding. As cheesy as this line low-key is (IMO), Harrow says:

“I ask you and your brother to reject history as a narrative of strength and instead have faith that it can be a narrative of love.”

Yeah, read by the human boy crossing foreign lands with a she-elf to return the Dragon Prince to his mother as a gesture of bonding elves and humans and ending the war between nations. Having faith that history can be rewritten as a narrative of love and compassion.

To top it off, Rayllum owns it when it comes to living up to the not-overtly-kissy romantic foreshadowing of Zutara.

This is an allusion to the established Moon symbolism from earlier in the episode. As painful as it was, finding out about the king winds up illuminating, and eventually fulfilling, the possibility of deeper relationship and understanding of trust they originally couldn't see (but was still there) when Callum crosses the barrier into the “light face” from the “dark, shadowed side”. 

Also, this shipper’s haven scene:

Agh, yes.

What Rayllum learns from Kataang

Okay, so one of the bigger (and very understandable) issues with Zutara is that all of their development (aside from “Crossroads of Destiny”) happens very late in the last season. No matter how solid the moments we do get are, there simply isn’t enough time to fully wash away their damaged terms only a couple episodes prior, much less transgress necessary lines before a healthy relationship can occur. Whether or not their build-up does justice for their relationship arc as friends, by the end of ATLA, Zutara’s negative interactions still outnumber their positive ones by a sheer majority, so pushing that relationship into romance so soon comes with negative implications. (Which is where the Book 4 rumors seep in, but let’s not touch those today)(Anyway, even as a person who generally supports Zutara, I don’t advocate for that relationship to be “endgame”, or even as a part of canonized material because romance that soon after establishing that trust wouldn’t have conducive to a healthy relationship.)

On the other hand, Kataang gets a lot more credit in the time department. Because their friendship is established in such a positive light from the very first episode, Kataang has the benefit of faith from their countless endearing moments capturing a casual, comfortable friendship we can know and love, and then can grow nostalgic about over time. Even when their angrier moments play out, they usually fizzle out in the pool of happier memories they already have, so such instances are easily forgivable from the majority of the audience.

Now, despite initially being at odds with each other, Rayllum is established early enough to have the advantage of 5/6/7 seasons under its belt to build to that healthy relationship. Even in the less-immediate circumstances of their trust, the show still leaves plenty of time to fill with the necessary builds and prove their friendship through positive interactions. This is evidenced by the fact that by the end of Season 2, their negative interactions— even Rayla’s original position as Callum/Ezran’s killer— is water long down the bridge.

(Random tangent: To all who believe Zutara is an unforgivably abusive ship because of Katara’s and Zuko’s previous enemy relationship, let me pitch this to you: Rayla literally corners Callum and holds a blade in his face, about to kill him in the second episode yet Rayllum is very inarguably not abusive. The issue with Zutara isn’t that it’s inherently a sour relationship because they used to be enemies, it’s that there’s a dire lack of time to ease the ratio of interactions of Zuko hurting Katara to him helping her before the end of the show where starting that immediate relationship would have come with poor implications. In the case of Rayllum, Rayla actually gets a very extended chance to make that up in a larger span of time and exceeded those numbers two weeks ago long ago)

Thanks to all that screentime, maybe if our Season-2-Shipper-Scenes can be read as glimpses of a possible building crush early on like Kataang’s, that’ll stir up some of the heartstring garble later that it did with Kataang, too (for some, at least).

Rayllum’s interactions share the lovable silliness of Kataang. When it comes to picturing your ideal, sugarcane relationship, we will often find our soft spots in the couples who spend the most time smiling, laughing or being casually friendly with each other.

Also, here’s an interesting parallel: Katara was Aang’s primary support through his loss, just like Rayla was for Callum. Also, both Katara and Rayla struggled to hide the fact from their “romantic counterparts” at first, in fear of hurting newfound friendships with people they cared about, only to have this backfire later. However, I’d say it’s interesting to note that because Callum is almost 3 years older than Aang and thus arguably in a different phase of maturity (older childhood at 12 vs. teen at almost 15), the way they processed that realization took remarkably different forms between the two characters. Breaking the news to Callum meant surfacing more relationship-based questions about trust, meeting its resolution in a heart-to-heart conversation about honesty and hurting people you care about. On the other hand, because Aang is still, for most purposes, a child, that recognition on Aang’s part, as well as the honesty/lack of censorship on Katara’s part, doesn’t exist as much as an expectation in that relationship. Consequently, Aang’s grief process in “The Southern Air Temple” was wholly Aang-centric, coming to life in a display of rage and pain before he comes to accept his new position as the avatar and the last airbender in the arms of his new “family”. (I actually think the most obvious comparison to Aang here is Ezran, who became angry and ran away when he found out about his father’s death, then returned with a fuller understanding of the newfound individual responsibility he must face despite not being ready for as a growing kiddo. But that’s a discussion for another time; maybe I’ll write something on that later). 

Of course, the aforementioned covert foreshadowing of the Zutara ship comes coupled (pun intended) with the overt romantic foreshadowing of the Kataang ship! Because what kid (or kid in the heart) doesn’t let out the giddy squeals over that.

Also, it’s the male and female lead. Everyone’s gotta love those characters! Bet you money all the 2010s children who watch TDP are gonna get hella attached to that stuff and rack up the tears on how well-elaborated those characters were and how perfect they were for each other through thick-lens nostalgia goggles when they grow up. That’s just how dat shit works.

TL;DR If Zutara was too “dark” or “intriguing”, or “bound to make six year olds cry” (as Ehasz himself supposedly said in a class at UC Berkeley; lol), Rayllum re-illustrates that arc with the cushiness of a clear, lovable path and the positive-interaction-to-death-threat ratio, audience faith, (love for small critters,) and longer friendship screentime of Kataang.

Rayllum shares all of the literary nuances of Zutara and the sweet lovability of Kataang. And then adds its own little sparks of healthiness.

It’s a ship built for everyone to fall in love with.

I honestly don’t care whether this winds up being a very strong friendship or a romantic relationship (though I’m inclined to believe from the narrative that it’s the latter), but no matter the direction the show takes, I love their relationship so much and have full faith it’ll be done right.

Let me know if I missed anything else! I know I might be missing the narrative importance and/or parallels others might see in Kataang because I’m a bit biased to Zutara as the poster of this multi-ship analysis (though I tried my best to counteract it for objectivity), so especially if you’re a Kataanger, let me know what you’ve noticed and I’ll be happy to add it in.

positive/non-warring reax only please :)

[basinweight37-blog]

What Are The Very Best Blinds For Large Windows?

Domestic Complete Cassette Outdoor Patio Awnings From Samson Awnings & Terrace Covers.

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Content

Shipment

Are Hillarys Blinds Expensive? That Depends Upon The Agent

Are Hillarys Blinds Expensive?

Made To Determine, Made Simple.

The 8 Best Outside Audio Speakers.

Exterior Garden Water-Proof Awning Canopy Patio Cover Uv Color Awning *.

Distribution

Which blinds are the easiest to clean?

We often get asked the question 'do curtains and blinds work together? ' The answer is, for the most part, 'yes' – when paired, the two can bring out a flexible décor and ensure adequate blocking of light and privacy control. However, there are some style guidelines to follow to get the look just right.

In terms of sound control, drapes are likewise far better than blinds. Comparable idea - spaces in between the blinds, unfortunately, permit audio to travel through quickly. Not only that, on windy days, blinds striking the windowsills can make a racket also. As opposed to natural silk, you can go for fake silk curtains to get that high-end, European style. Additionally, ready-made drapes that can be gotten off the shelf are far more budget friendly, yet they risk becoming uncomfortable on your windows.

Are Hillarys Blinds Expensive? That Depends On The Representative

This will certainly call for private motors in all home windows, with a price of $30 to $80 each. Are you on the quest for new blinds or curtains for your living-room? Discover our full collection of living room window dressings here.

The custom-designed material layering makes certain that lighter colours can still achieve the same light control as darker options. At Way of living Blinds, we have a large choice of colours available online. Browse through our Going To Bed White, Going To Bed Shocking Pink as well as Bedtime Black choices below today.

How much do blinds cost at Home Depot?

The Home Depot offers basic installation starting at $119 for up to 10 blinds, but also has custom options available starting at $250 per window. This guide outlines the average blinds installation cost for homeowners.

Are rolgordijnen ?

All you require is a handful of devices as well as a hr or more to get everything set up (relying on the amount of windows you're doing). Nevertheless, you may have an option to have a professional installer come out and do the work for you. If you plan on doing this, you'll require to spending plan a few hundred extra dollars to your total project price. Ask regarding purchasing in bulk if you're mounting blinds on a lot of windows. Some stores and also installers will certainly supply discounts on big acquisitions.

Made To Determine, Made Simple.

This prepares them to take care of the installment, despite the kind of home windows or blinds they will be dealing with. You might find that they have years of experience collaborating with blinds, whether on their own or with a firm. You may additionally need to permit extra time with the sort of windows you have or the blinds you have actually chosen. rolgordijnen are harder than others as well as might call for extra actions to prepare the surface area for the brand-new setup. Demand a quote from your installer so you can consider the price before you have scheduled the work if you aren't sure.

Can you cut day and night blinds to size?

A Day & Night blind can be cut to size, much like a roller blind, however, it is a difficult process to ensure that each layer of material is cut exactly the same, the roller mechanism is cut to the right size and you aren't left with any fraying or jagged edges.

We are a neighborhood floor covering and window therapy company that concentrates on the full line of Shaw flooring and Hunter Douglas window treatments.

We lie in Payments, Montana and happily offer the surrounding location.

They also provide you the best chance to locate stunning curtains and also blinds, assisting you to increase your home's kerb appeal while injecting your personal design into every single space.

We have cordless roller blinds made from power outage product that change standard cords with a spring-loaded mechanism. All you require to do to adjust the window insurance coverage is take down on the hem. Once again, these blinds resemble their roller blind equivalents in that they are available in a series of various colours and also patterns.

How much should I budget for blinds?

Basic options here amount to around $100 per window, with extravagant options costing $1,000 or more. Shutters. Shutters must be custom measured and installed, just like custom blinds and shades. Depending on the materials you use, they can cost as little as $20 per shutter, but the average is closer to $250 to $700.

Pure white blinds emanate a kind of classic colonial appeal, whilst wooden Venetian blinds are terrific for depicting that 'hotel' collection look in a home. Like many physical jobs, you'll wish to use the place where you need blinds to guide your search.

Exterior Garden Waterproof Awning Canopy Patio Area Cover Uv Shade Awning *.

How do I stop the sun from heating up my room?

Using drapes or curtains to cover windows during periods of direct sunlight will help keep the room cooler. Window treatments with a light-colored or reflective backing work best. Adjustable blinds allow you to control and direct sunlight into room. Completely closed, they provide a light and heat barrier.

Try to find an on the internet profile that lists certifications and training. A professional must have some general handyman training so they are able to install fittings easily. This likewise makes sure that they have the appropriate expertise to understand how to make the blinds degree, even when a home window frame is much less than even. For a fantastic installment, you can be happy with, look for someone that has the ideal experience and certifications.

Various spaces in your house have different performances, and also therefore require various types of style. Here at Blinds Direct, we recognize that every space is specific, and every home owner is special. That's why we offer a massive variety of blinds as well as curtains that specify to every room in your house, such as living space blinds, with lots of choice to fit all preferences. It's important to take into consideration safety when purchasing blinds, specifically if they are because of be made use of in youngsters's rooms.

Blinds Direct Clearguard.

Despite whether it is a residence or an office, you will want to locate someone who runs in your area for the most convenient solution. This makes it less complicated for them to find out as well as examine your home windows before caring for the setup.

[thesinglesjukebox]

ARCA - @@@@@

[8.00]

The longest song we've ever covered on the Singles Jukebox - a masterclass in queer theory and theoretical physics...

Leah Isobel: Before the pandemic shut down every club in the city, I'd started going out dancing by myself. It's a self-care activity I'd been circling around for awhile, a ritual to force my mind to return to my body. When I'm dancing, I want music that keeps me moving; form matters less than continuance, and time doesn't move in the same way. "@@@@@" carries some of that disregard for temporal structure, and not just because it's a single that stretches over an hour. Arca presents it, at first, as a pirate radio broadcast, so she segues from one distinct idea to the next. But over the course of the piece, sections start to bleed into each other without as much space between - she changes its form both more frequently and more seamlessly, like she's sculpting with primordial ooze. The music moves from punishing industrial to club music to piano balladry and back, over and over and over. The challenge she presents the listener is like the one I present myself when I'm dancing: can I stay present and responsive to each new dynamic shift? Can I make my body and mind a coherent, functional system? Now that I'm spending so much time alone, this challenge feels more important than before. Arca embeds an answer directly in the track: "you can shake that pussy, bitch." [9]

Oliver Maier: On the cover of "@@@@@", Arca is draped over a crushed car. The wrecked vehicle suggests a gruesome accident, the freaky wiring suggests a calculated setup, Arca's corpselike diva pose suggests both at once. It's a solid visual metaphor for her music, split between manicured order and grinding chaos, as if any one of the movements (or "quantums") which comprise "@@@@@" could tear a hole in reality if it were allowed to go on for too long unsupervised. They're all jammed into the one track under a title implying continuous motion, signifiers unto signifiers, movement towards an uncertain destination; rather than linger on ideas, it spasms and recontorts itself, like a final boss entering a series of new, stronger phases. It's overwhelming and more than a little exhausting, but "@@@@@" also comprises some of the strongest material she's ever released. The emotional core developed over her self-titled album collapses back onto the freeform mania of her earlier work, and what emerges is Arca at her most cinematic. "Survivors" and "Amantes" warp in and out of focus like transmissions from a dying satellite. "Mujere" is surely the sound of intestines spilling out of a cyborg stomach. "Turner" is "BTSTU" in a blender. So grand is "@@@@@" that it seems to exert itself, burning through calories or fuel (or both) and churning out moments of brutal pathos: the weary trip-hop lurch of "Membrane", or the way that "Gaita" ends with a crawl up a major scale that shatters before it can be resolved (even "Form", the heavenly climax that follows, is a promise for the future rather than a conclusion). Not every moment is essential, and some will have already dismissed it as a glorified series of sketches, particularly with an album proper forthcoming. But in spite of its unwieldy size and shape, "@@@@@" succeeds through its commitment to its own Arca-ness; you meet it on its own terms and you reap the reward, which is to say, the privilege of hearing Alejandra Ghersi salvage scrap metal from another galaxy. Nearly a decade in and she's been in flux the whole time. Chances are this isn't even her final form. [9]

Joshua Copperman: Like contemporary SOPHIE, Arca shifts between cacophony and purely beauty, but there are only rare moments of balance. Quantum (as these songs are called) "Pacifier" nails. Sometimes, the songs just alternate between chaos and order, like how 3D images flicker between the left and right eyes to give the image depth. (Even if they're separate, ideally they merge together anyway.) I just wish I understood this more, particularly why it had to be a 62-minute track instead of a mixtape. These comparisons are amusingly different from Arca, but: On Spotify, They Might Be Giants' opus Fingertips is separated into different tracks just like the proper CD, though there are still recurring motifs and enough in common between the songs to justify a single track. There's just no unifying theme - even 45:33 is "running jams commissioned by Nike." Maybe that's the point. The Diddy laughs if "Recusion" were outright irritating, but the section right after at "Monstrua" is the best part of the whole single. If something isn't working, it's worth toughing out for the parts that do. [7]

Joshua Lu: Described by Arca as a "transmission broadcasted into this world from a speculative fictional universe," "@@@@@" is a body of work that defies contemporary categories. You could try to call it an album, with an adapted "tracklist" of 30 bits; you could call it a single to justify its inclusion on this website, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a single that's also over an hour long. You could compare it to those YouTube channels with 24/7 lofi hip-hop music, intended to be pleasant and firmly in the background of your life, because like those tracks, "@@@@@" is at times ambient and peaceful, not dissimilar to those white noise clips you'd play to help you fall asleep. Other times, though, it veers into more abrasive, disruptive, and pointlessly weird audio clips, actively fighting for your attention like an orchestral symphony intended to be your main source of entertainment. Words (not necessarily lyrics -- they're too fluid to be called them) sometimes flitter by, in English or Spanish, and further draw your intrigue, even when they're too faint and distorted to be discernible. Categories be damned, though -- it's best to consider "@@@@@" a journey, if not into the kind of bizarre world that Arca envisions, then at least into the mind of a talented producer operating without regard for definitions. [7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: "@@@@@" feels like the waves on a southern California beach in winter. It opens loud and disruptive, fake dj calls and glitch pops hitting like the crash on the sand, but quickly (relative to its length) switches to more subtly disconcerting moves. The trick is that Arca never lets you regain footing after the first blast-- the cold water washes over you again and again, breaking you just as you thought you understood its logic. And yet it's a baptism I'll come back to time and time again, always hoping for a closure that will elude me. It's the kind of song that can't help but be a puzzle, but it's a puzzle that I'll always try to solve. [9]

Nortey Dowuona: Lick me Dadd! [10]

Alfred Soto: Yeah, no -- I'm not reviewing an hour-long track. I'll review at most ten minutes of tactically deployed squelches, synth drops, and vocals sampled from many a fever dream. [5]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[tothedarkdarkseas]

For fanfic writer ask meme: E, J, K, M, P(for any fic or all your fics), R, T, X, and Y. (If that's too many questions, then you can split the answer into multiple posts. Also, no need to answer if you already answered these questions before.)

Thank you so much! I’ll put these below a cut just to account for the length, and I pray Tumblr works like it’s supposed to this evening! I appreciate you having an interest!

E: What character do you identify with most?  Is there a certain fic of yours that captures these qualities particularly well?

I really do not identify with Gorillaz characters and thank god for it, or most characters I tend to prefer! Haha, I know that might sound a bit strange, but I can think of very few characters I’d call “my favorite” that I also felt were a reflection of myself in a major way. Of course that isn’t implying that representation isn’t important, but just speaking for my own personal relationship to media– I live with myself all the time, I like people who live very different lives! Having said that, of the characters I write (all two, possibly three of ‘em) I’d say I identify with some of Stu’s worst qualities over anything else: being unambitious but craving reward, self-centered yet lacking in a concrete sense of self, dumb about mostly everything, overcompensating (to be fair, this is Murdoc as well) and so on. Despite picking fun at him I definitely have an affection for an unlikable guy like Stu, I do have sympathy for being sorta pathetic because I feel like I can access that.

J:  What’s your favorite fanfic trope?  Have you written it?

Hmm! That’s hard to say! At the risk of being an absolute knob, I don’t tend to be a fan of tropes, or at least what I think is meant here by “fanfic tropes” like uhh… the heat goes out and we have to share a bed, or that kind of thing? Is that what this means, the sort of repeated setups for fics? There’s of course a place for everything so I’ve got no real beef with more innocuous stuff, but I wouldn’t say I ever pick to read something because it’s got a “classic” trope. I’m definitely rife with tropes in the broader sense though, I’m rife with things I like and clearly just repeat, haha. I do not smoke pot, but I have a real affinity for characters who do, and this is evidenced by having like… half my stories feature that, haha. If a scene where two characters creep up to being intimate via sharing a joint/bowl/bong counts, that’s definitely a trope I’ve done and would probably do again.

K:  Do you have a guilty pleasures in fic (reading or writing)?

Does the above count? I’d certainly call myself self-indulgent, haha, I like what I like and I don’t stray very far from it. I think unsatisfying or incompatible intimacy is really interesting and I honestly never get tired of reading or writing that. (Er, as much as I “don’t get tired” of writing anything, which is not saying much as I’m very bad and undisciplined.)

M: What’s the weirdest AU scenario you’ve ever come up with?  Did it turn into a story?

The only AU I’ve written is Coffin Dancer, which is a story set in the early 1900s about Murdoc being a reanimated corpse and Stu being a gravedigger who buries/exhumes him. Sexy, I know, nothing hotter than… long paragraphs about digging. I think the occult element makes that one a bit weirder than anything else I’ve come up with. I’ve kind of entertained other AU ideas but they tend to be a lot more mundane, to be frank I just really like the characters as they are and I don’t want to change their dynamic too much. As a joke I once suggested something about a riverboat casino (Stu working there, Murdoc trying to pull a money laundering scam via currency exchange, potentially convincing Stu to go in on the scam with him) and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still think about it sometimes and question how to make it work, haha. I think it might be fun to do an AU again, but I think there’s just too much of a gap between what I’d want to do or be capable of doing, and what people actually want to read.

P:  Where did you find the most inspiration for your story < insert title >?

Oh gosh, this makes it sound so important and I feel like the biggest jag going to pretend I’ve made anything that great or with particularly impressive roots, haha. A couple came from prompts, so that’s a fairly straightforward answer.

I first began planning Coffin Dancer because I was playing Graveyard Keeper on Steam at the time, haha. If you load up this game, you’ll quickly see there is next to no plot and it is simply a crafting sim. I just sorta… liked the setting, I guess? It is the 1900s and it does follow a graveyard keeper! Following that, I decided it would be a story about Murdoc’s skin turning from tan to green as it does in canon, but giving it a bit of a morbid tint, as opposed to the vague canon handwaves of Murdoc being “immortal” with no clear explanation of what that means.

Ampersands was mostly inspired by me being a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and thinking it’d be fun to show a dynamic similar to Angelus/Drusilla/Spike, but heavily reworked to fit our characters. The first scene I imagined was the shoelace-tying one which has some resemblance to a shot of Angelus knelt at Spike’s feet while still mocking him, and that ended up being the very last scene I wrote (and probably one of the weaker ones.)

On Oysters and Black Water was actually the story that required the least research from me, as I already had an interest in oyster filtration and oyster reef restoration. By no means am I an expert nor is this story a genuinely educated look at this process (I am Genuinely Educated on zero things) but I definitely knew when planning a PB story that I wanted oysters to be used for a filtration system on the island, just as a little nod to something I find neat!

R: Which writers (fanfic or otherwise) do you consider the biggest influence on you and your writing?

This really puts me at risk of sounding knobbish, so to start with: I’m not really a writer. Fanfiction writer is already not the most impressive title, but even that I feel is a little generous for me. I’ve written things, but I struggle far too much and have too little dedication to pretend it’s something I feel “cut from the same cloth” as these folks to do. The writers I admire have “influenced” me in the sense that I’ve wished I could write that way, and I’ve probably/definitely ripped them off.

Some will find this laughable, but I’m a fan of Joey Comeau’s writing style. I’ve enjoyed every book he’s published, in particular the short novels Malagash and Lockpick Pornography, and especially his… err, non-novel collection of cover letters Overqualified. (I think I’ve read Overqualified more than anything else on my bookshelf, but this is saying very very little as you can sit down and read it in about 30 minutes.) The darkly comedic way he presents these ideas, how he’ll expand on these very offbeat details and veer so far from the topic, then take sudden sharp turns into something uncomfortable is just enjoyable to me.

Also somewhat cliched now, but Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn is a beautiful book to me. Beagle’s writing style is ideal for the fantasy setting, the poetry in his prose does not tip over the “purple” line for me (but I’ve always been unclear where the line is, obviously) and I’d really… feel like I’d accomplished something if I could say anything half as powerful as this book.

Shirley Jackson, (famously) the author of The Lottery and (less famously) We Have Always Lived in the Castle springs to mind as well. The latter in particular has a gothic tone, an at times strange sentence structure and an unreliable POV, which probably influenced Coffin Dancer stylistically and everything else I’ve done in perspective/structure.

But as far as influences, nothing more directly influenced me than @elapsed-spiral‘s writing and characterization. Old drum I’ve beat before, but it’s simply the truth. I would not have tried to write fanfiction again (after… many, many years) if I hadn’t found Danni’s stories and felt that excitement of reading something truly special. Now, it’s important to note that Danni is British so they’ll come out in hives if I praise them too much, but sincerely nothing in recent years has made me feel a “passion” for reading or writing like Yearz did. The oneshots Fairy Vale and Beside the Sea also deserve special mention for just being goddamn phenomenally good character studies. “Influence on your writing” could be misleading, in the sense that Danni’s biggest strengths (namely Being Funny, Being Realistic and Knowing What You Are Talking About) are among my biggest weaknesses, and I don’t feel that stylistically we’re all that similar; on the flipside though, I think so much of my “improvement” is really owed to Danni, aaaand I don’t think you’d ever look at something I’ve written and miss the fact that it’s ripping off Yearz in one way or another.

T: Any fanfic tropes you can’t stand?

Ahaha, alright, this jogs my memory and I do remember stepping on eggshells to answer this before! I mentioned above that I’m just not a big fan of tropes in general, but that means nothing as I don’t… have good taste. I never have. Famously bad taste over here. I don’t have any interest in raining on anyone’s fun or policing fan content, but I think we’re all perfectly fine just co-existing without feeling obligated to anything. More than anything else, in Gorillaz specifically I’d say there are some portrayals of their relationship that I find a little dodgy and I tend to avoid, but I recognize full well that many people may feel the same way about me! I also just like the characters to be compelling and to be themselves, whatever your version of them is. Of course my characterization is bonkers and mostly made-up and I have no expectation that someone else’s should resemble mine, but even if we have different ideas, I don’t like to feel you can slot them out and anyone else in? Which is why standard tropes like “coffeeshop” or “fake dating” don’t tend to be my favorite. Oh, I’m also a fuddy-duddy and I don’t love the nicknames, haha.

X: How would you categorize your fanfic reading?  Are you a voracious reader?  Do you carefully pick and choose?  Something in between?

I’m not a very big reader these days! I’d like to offer you a good excuse here, but I’m just picky, truth be told.

Y: What are your thoughts on your personal satisfaction with something you’ve written vs. the popularity of your stories?  Do you tend to be most satisfied with your most popular stories?  

In total honesty, it takes all of about a month to become completely unsatisfied with anything I’ve written. That’s not like, a plea for sympathy, it’s just being objective. I write comparatively little and comparatively slow, so whatever growth that may happen is still pretty limited and it’s a little disheartening, even if it’s also my own fault for having poor discipline. I would not call any of my stories “good,” at best “good for what they are.” There are definitely some I wished did better, I wished with a stupid amount of sincerity would hit some magical validating number that would Suddenly Mean It Was Good… but after a little distance, I can always understand why they wouldn’t.

Hoooowever, some are undeniably worse than others. Based on both hits and kudos, my most popular story is my first one (I Couldn’t Feel, So I Would Touch) and this is truly baffling as it’s garbage. I mean, with no exaggeration I just think this is bad writing through and through, it’s truly just the worst thing I’ve written over the age of 20. I hoped I’d get this question purely because of this, haha, I feel such shame every time I see this story at the top of my statistics page. If we consider that to be the “most popular,” no, I do not tend to be most satisfied with the most popular story. We could define that differently though; for example, I think the story that got the most notes here and I received spectacular fanart on (a thing I just… can’t believe can happen, how nice is that?) was Oysters, and at a time I did consider that my favorite, I was incredibly proud of it when I posted, and even if I’ve grown exhausted by my overwriting too much to read it again I do still rate it pretty favorably compared to the others. So it depends on what constitutes popular! But if we’re just talking hits and kudos, sadly my stats page puts some of the worst stuff at the top.

[dokidokidirkstrider]

Key Elements That Must Be in Your Sunscreen

Secure Yourself From The Sun's Harmful Rays

Memorial Day is 2 weeks away. Did you understand that "Don't Fry Day" is the Friday before? Yep, today was designated by the National Council on Skin Cancer Cells Prevention due to the fact that Memorial Day is frequently the very first day of the warm weather condition season where individuals obtain a dreadful sunburn-- a shed that causes permanent skin damages that remains for your entire lifetime.

Did you understand that getting 5 or more sunburns can increase your danger of obtaining melanoma, one of the most lethal kind of skin cancer cells?

Yep, unfortunate job-security for skin specialists. Don't let that be you or the people

you like. Get your sunlight protection" equipment" in order now, consisting of the ideal sunscreen. I'm a medical skin specialist who has actually practiced for over thirty years. I have actually seen who gets skin cancer cells, what sun-protection method works-- and also which have allow my patients down. I have actually discovered exactly how to assist my diverse group of patients to practice great sunlight defense in a manner that fits their way of life, values as well as budget plan. No matter exactly how severe their sun direct exposure is or exactly how sensitive their skin is to UV or intolerant it is to products, it's feasible to take pleasure in warm summertime climate without a tan or a shed. My patients have actually confirmed it is possible.

My suggestions right here are based on what clients have shown me throughout my career.

First, get going with your sunlight defense method currently. Do not wait up until the last minute. You require your strategy prepared as well as proven before the summertime sunlight gets extreme as well as your outside play plans are in full swing.

As a practicing dermatologist, here's what I suggest for sun block and sun security:

Use Only The Best Sun block.

Your sun block needs to provide an SPF 30, at minimum, as well as be identified "Broad Range." You will check out that SPF 15 suffices. I recommend 30, and you will certainly see why later on.

Did you recognize that not all sun blocks are proficient at blocking all the harmful rays? This is especially real for the UV ray called UVA. In the past, sun blocks supplied almost no UVA security, making this a source of debate and also complication. Here is the tale:

UVB is the extreme summertime mid-day ray that swiftly melts your skin. SPF initially was a procedure of how well UVB was blocked. You might stay outdoors in the sunlight much longer without burning-- as well as obtain whole lots and also whole lots more UVA than you would certainly have otherwise. You believed you were secure since you did not shed. Little did people know that the UVA was loading their skin with lots of postponed damage that appears later in life.

Bottom line, you MUST see "Broad Spectrum" noted on the tag.

You Should Put On Enough Sun Block to Obtain Sufficient Security.

Researches have shown for many years that individuals practically never ever do. There are a lot of reasons. Beginning with an SPF 30, as well as you have extra defense. But it possibly ends up being even more like an SPF 15 if you are not using and reapplying "as guided." Just beware, and also pay attention to how much you use. As well as beware to reapply product on all your revealed skin-- as well as begin with SPF 30!

Here is the story:

SPFs are checked and ranked at about 1 oz. (a shot glass), the quantity covering the average-adult human body. That's 2 mg./ cm2 of surface; that number is possibly useless to you virtually. The factor is, the typical adult is around 1.8 (female) to 2 meters settled of skin surface, 1 shot glass if you are in a swimming suit.

However, just how much sunscreen do you need to relate to your face during the typical day when you are not using a swimming suit?

Based upon "the Wallace Regulation of nines for body surface," your head is 9% of that; the "anterior head" (head and neck) is 4.5%. Every person's composition differs, however this is about the portion of area of your face as well as neck, minus your hair on that front half of your "head."

I have actually estimated this throughout the years at about 4% of your total body surface area, if you are simply putting day-to-day sun block on the front of your head and also neck, indicating your face as well as sides/front of your neck in the early morning. Hence, 4% of your 1 oz. required-application-dose, based on 1 oz. being 6 tsp., the mathematics pertains to 1/4 tsp. per face/neck/ears depending upon how much of your "head as well as neck" your hair covers.

Generally, I use less than a tsp. for my face/neck/ears/ behind my ears as well as the rear of my neck above my collar line, as well as it functions. This is what I have taught my people over the years, as well as it normally helps them, also.

The bright side is that you can evaluate your outcomes.

Are you obtaining a tan?

If so, you require to make use of even more of your item. Once again, every product has a various consistency so you may require to assess up or down based on sun tanning or darkening of freckles. Just examine this before you prepare intensive UV-exposure-- you need to understand that your technique is area on!

Put On Sun Block Each Day on Subjected Skin.

UV-rays are sly, and also unless you live in a deep dark cave, you require sunscreen each day. UVA comes via home window glass, and both UV rays jump off reflective surfaces like concrete, rocks and structures. UV damage accumulates. The body can fix a few of the damages, however not all. Even UV direct exposure below the degree to create a shed will certainly build up damages. The damages leads to creases, skin thinning, sun spot freckling, as well as skin cancer cells.

What sunlight screen ingredients offer the best broad range security?

You will see some complicated as well as contradictory details on the web right now regarding sunscreens. I've checked out a lot of it, and even I'm puzzled-- artificial insemination versus in vivo versus ex vivo testing, physical sunscreens checked in differing sizes, representation versus absorption versus scatter systems, absorption with the entire UVA-spectrum, picture security or filter combinations-- it continues. Essentially, you require a really great chemist to make an item that is tested on humans, and after that, put it to the test in real life.

I am NOT a skin care chemist. I have actually been in the privileged position to do full skin-exams for three decades and observe exactly how my clients have put sunscreen to the examination. I can inform you what has taken great treatment of my individual's skin based on these years of observation. I'm additionally truly fair-skinned as well as spend as much time outdoors in extreme sunlight direct exposure setups as I potentially can.

Here is what I find out about UV-filters (sunscreen active ingredients):.

Mineral Zinc Oxide

This is my top option. It is what I put on everyday as well as have for years. It is what a lot of my clients choose, as well. Mineral zinc oxide protects with mineral bits. The smaller sized they are, the a lot more invisible they can be on skin. Innovation has advanced and the micro-fine dimension (non-nano) is now likewise unnoticeable.

It obstructs UVB and UVA. It's protection decreases off at the end of the UVA range so I like to see a lot of zinc oxide in an item.

I've advised 5% or even more for many years and I like to see much more, ideally.

My Sheer Strength Matte as well as Spray products consist of 16.2 and 12% specifically. That is cutting edge for security that is invisible. Suntegrity 5 in 1 BB Lotion includes 20%. Raw Components Eco Tin High Efficiency consists of 23%.

118" > Zinc oxide is distinctly photostable, implying it does

not break down as it secures your skin. You still need reapplication in extreme UV-exposure setups since you will rub off product throughout normal tasks. Non-mineral filters that are fairly good UV-filters Several of these are readily available in the UNITED STATE as well as some are not. Please note that I am not a substantial fan of new" natural "filters. I like to see them work-- or not-- or cause breakouts-- or otherwise on" other individuals "prior to I advise them. I also such as the poisoning issue to get a great think and also test in real life settings. Mexoryl (Ecamsule): SX (water-soluble) and also XL (oil-soluble)

Both are patented by L'Oréal and special to their brands. These soak up UV, the molecule "gets excited" as well as releases thermal power (heat) on the outside of the skin. Ecamsule misses out on several of the UVB spectrum so it must be combined with other sunscreens (UV filters) that cover that.

It is a good UVA-blocker as well as not as breakable as earlier chemical UV filters such as avobenzone. Its visibility is stated to be difficult in a total product formulation due to the fact that it is an acid. Usual UV filters seen with it consist of avobenzone, octocrylene, titanium dioxide, and others. The U.S. and Canada enable the SX kind. Canada enables the XL form, and also the FDA is assessing its security. A few of my clients have actually used Mexoryl items, and also my scientific observation is that they operate in that I do not see sunlight burning, tanning or dimming of sunlight freckles.

Tinosorb S and also M

These are likewise large particles that may not enter skin. They are patented by BASF as well as have wide UV-protection. They do not break down with UV-exposure and can aid other UV-filters stay a lot more stable such as avobenzone (Tinosorb S) as well as octinoxate (Tinosorb M). Tinosorb M also reflects and scatters UV as well as is sort of like a particle sun block, though it is not a mineral UV-filter. Evidently, it does disappoint estrogenic impacts in vitro (test tubes). It is not accepted by the FDA yet, however it is offered in Europe.

These later 2 are fairly new but they have some favorable qualities. They are big particles and so probably do not penetrate into the skin. This is essential as some sun blocks are absorbed into the body as well as can trigger troubles, like hormone disturbance. They can likewise hurt or trigger skin allergic reactions. Mexoryl as well as Tinosorb obstruct UVA very well, as well as I am hopeful. They are fairly brand-new, however, and so post marketing adverse experiences are still a "wait as well as watch" in my point of view.

The lower line on which sunscreen filters I like:.

Zinc oxide, hands down.

I have actually had countless clients use it for several years. It has stood the examination of time for sun securing my individual's skin. It's risk-free. Zinc oxide is likewise an active ingredient utilized in skin look after lots of other applications for a truly very long time-- bear in mind diaper rash as well as zinc oxide?! It has an outstanding security record. It is non-irritating for also one of the most delicate skin. It can be formulated to be unseen yet still obstruct UV well. Yes, say goodbye to light white tinting, or white clown makeup search your skin. Search for micro-fine zinc when having unseen security is very important for you. You can likewise get good security from nano-size zinc, however my preference is micro-fine zinc oxide. The non-nano products will certainly not be unnoticeable. They still use impressive security. Many natural formulas utilize larger fragments in high-performance bases. It has the most effective coral reef security account, particularly the larger-particle-size natural formulas like Raw Components. Putting on sun defense swim tee shirts and also applying a natural formula zinc oxide sun block to the little surface of subjected skin is wise reef stewardship, in my viewpoint.

Final Tips on Sun Block:

Sunlight evasion, not sunscreen is suggested for babies 6 months old or much less. Apply sun block before you head out so it can dry out and bind much better to your skin. This will certainly aid it do better for you. Reapply it if you have actually massaged it off your skin like by changing your garments or in frisky tasks like sports. Reapply it after water get in touch with like swimming or sweating regardless of how much time it's gotten on. Do not spray sunscreen on your face. Frankly, don't spray it without scrubing it in on other areas as well. Sprays leave droplets, as well as by definition, you can anticipate skin locations in between beads or they would not be beads! Don't neglect your lip security. I do not recommend chemical sunscreens on the lips nor do I advise nano-zinc on the lips. Don't count on sun block alone. Wear sun-protective clothes as well as seek the color. Sunscreen is created to secure subjected skin-- let that be as little of an area as possible since you have excellent sun-protective garments to use during extreme UV-exposure.

Click on this link to see what I put on. Visit this site for my preferred sunlight umbrella. Go here for my truly fantastic as well as well valued sunlight hats.

Want effective however not excessively obvious sunlight security? Take a look at our summer season sun security.

Referrals

:

Antony R. Youthful, PhD, Ultraviolet radiation and the skin: Photobiology and sunscreen photoprotection, Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, March 2017 Volume 76, Concern 3, Supplement 1, Pages S100-- S109

Steven Q. Wang, Haoming Xu, Joseph W. Stanfield, Uli Osterwalder, Bernd Herzog, Comparison of ultraviolet A light security standards in the United States as well as European Union through in vitro dimensions of commercially available sunscreens, Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. 2017; Vol. 77, Problem 1: 42-47

Mark A. Mitchnick, MD, David Fairhurst, PhD, Sheldon R. Pinnell, MD, Microfine zinc oxide (Z-Cote) as a photostable UVA/UVB sunblock representative, Provided partially as a poster at the 55th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology, San Francisco, Calif, March 21-26, 1997. (J Am Acad Dermatol 1999; 40:85 -90.)

More Balaji D. Physical sunscreens: On the return path, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, Vol. 73, No. 2, March-April, 2007, pp. 80-85

Threes G Smijs, Titanium dioxide as well as zinc oxide nanoparticles in sunscreens: focus on their safety and security and efficiency, Nanotechnol Sci Appl. 2011; 4: 95-- 112.

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[forestwater87]

A big box o’Gwenvid AU ideas: A is for "Aww” and “Angst” and “AAAH”

This post is fucking rad as balls, and I started thinking of fun AU ideas . . . until I remembered that I already have approximately 2 billion WIPs already and don’t necessarily know if any of these have legs as actual fics. But it was fun to think about, so here we are! This is the first of . . . presumably 26 of these? Who knows, but this post we have:

Accidental Marriage AU

In which Campbell convinces incredibly wealthy investors known for their focus on “family values” that the Camp is a sweet family business run by a husband-and-wife team of counselors. The problem, of course, is that it isn’t sweet and its head counselors aren’t married. Campbell only has enough booze to fix one of those situations. 

He’ll figure the rest out in the morning. He thinks better with a hangover, anyway.

(Yes I think this one would be awesome in Campbell’s POV. You cannot change my mind on this.)

Actor AU

Okay, real talk this would just be @whiskyarts​‘s gameshow AU. Because I kinda love the idea of Jerk!David who just pretends to be a sweetheart for the cameras. Except I would cover it with my filthy Gwenvid hands and make it shippy in that antagonistic-hatemance-eventually-turns-into-something-resembling-feelings. There would be lots of angst and snark and sparkly clothes and I would love it and probably no one else would.

Alien AU

An Interplanetary Anthropologist, Gwen, manages to land a position on the Campbell after years of education and networking and plain old hard work. She is an employee of the most impressive warship in the galaxy -- sure, it’s gone to seed a little bit in the last few decades, but it still has its shine if you look at it sideways and squint a little -- and more importantly, it’s work experience! Paid work experience . . . as a janitor.

When the Campbell picks up a POW that the ship’s commander plans to (illegally) sell to the highest bidder, Gwen decides to treat it as an opportunity to build a real-life case study on one of the universe’s rarer life forms while it’s within arm’s reach. But the more she learns about the strange, sunny alien who was his platoon’s only survivor, the more uncomfortable she is with letting him disappear into her captain’s nefarious dealings and -- 

Oh fuck, this is The Shape of Water, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve never seen The Shape of Water but I’m pretty sure that’s what this is. Fuck. Goddamn it. Fuck.

Amnesia AU

David takes a rogue bus to the . . . well, everything -- something that’s more or less routine by now -- and hits his head hard enough to knock him out for almost a full day. When he wakes up, he’s the same cheerful David the camp is used to . . . except for three strange new things:

He doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing -- doesn’t, in fact, remember anything after some vague memories of childhood.

He’s completely terrified of the forest, and especially of Spooky Island.

He has no idea who Cameron Campbell is, but he’s quite positive he hates him.

Android AU

Actually @ciphernetics​ and I put this idea together a little while ago! Basically Camp Campbell has a state-of-the-art off-brand helper android named David, who is a perfect camp counselor, childcare provider, and comes equipped with the finest Forest Survival software Cameron Campbell could find for free online in half an hour.

Gwen, the new (requisite human) hire, hasn’t ever really interacted with androids, and doesn’t especially want to now. David is used to the distrust, even outright hostility -- very few of the campers seem to like him, and he knows that his presence can be unsettling to humans, and look, it isn’t a D:BH AU okay? It just looks like one, and acts like one. And is one.

Angel/Demon AU

Um the perfect Angel/Demon AU literally already exists, but they only wrote one chapter back in 2017 and never updated, and that makes me absurdly sad. Regardless, David being very bad at being a demon and Gwen being very bad at being an angel is the ideal setup for this kind of AU, in my humble opinion. 

However, David being an angel trying to reform his fallen ABFEL (angel buddy for eternal life!), who probably became a demon over something stupid and probably horny, also sounds extremely cute. They’re still friends, even though that is against literally all of the rules, and they secretly meet and hang out. David is convinced he can bring her around, and Gwen insists that she hates having him hanging off her nonexistent wings all the time. 

Honestly, probably neither of those things are true. Gwen wasn’t cut out for heaven -- and probably, neither is David.

Apocalypse AU

Cameron Campbell was probably doing something dangerously stupid in the hopes it could make him money. That, or the Quartermaster was doing something dangerous for reasons only he could ever understand. Hell, maybe that’s what that weird Daniel guy’s cult was trying to do. Whoever was doing what, they ripped a hole in their dimension at the bottom of Lake Lilac, and all sorts of awful things start creeping through.

There were signs, of course -- that weird fish-monster certainly didn’t come in through customs -- but an inopportune explosion, or wayward firework, or the rumblings of Sleepy Peak Peak, or something ripped a hole in the fabric of reality big enough for Lovecraftian monsters to start crawling through. There’s no stopping it. Really, there’s no chance of even fighting it. 

The second the rift opens, the story becomes one of just trying to stay out from under the Elder Gods’ feet.

Arranged Marriage AU

I think the easiest way to make this one work is by making either David or Gwen Campbell’s actual biological child -- maybe an heir, albeit to a highly illegal fortune and a mountain of credit card debt. But Campbell gets in trouble, the kind of trouble where he’s gambled everything and the only collateral he has left is a kid he got saddled with because their mother had better lawyers. A kid he’s been more than happy to put to work for the last 20-something years, who happens to have caught the eye of a ludicrously wealthy magnate -- not for her own sake (though Campbell would’ve been open to that too) -- but for her child, one she loves more than anything and keeps carefully shut away until the Right Person comes along.

His kid isn’t necessarily the right person, but for the first time in his life Cameron Campbell has a genuine treasure on his hands.

And, like all the fake treasures he’s passed off over the years, he just has to find a way to shine them up and make him a fortune.

Artist AU

Gwen is a starving artist living in a rat-infested hovel in the city, scraping by on a series of uninspired landscapes she paints on postcards and the goodwill of friends, family, and significant others. One day, a bright young man bounces up to her “studio” (it’s a cardboard box outside the park) and tells her excitedly that he’s been looking for her for weeks; he thinks her postcards are the most beautiful things he’s ever seen, and he would like to know if she’d be interested in moving down to a cabin by the lake. He runs a summer camp, he explains, and he knows they’d all be honored if she would teach them art lessons -- and of course paint in her spare time! The views are indescribable, and he’s sure she’ll have no shortage of inspiration.

She weighs the cost of what little artistic dignity she has remaining against room, board, and a steady paycheck for three months, and takes the job immediately.

Art Student AU

Put them in an art college -- maybe condense the ages so that the campers are like, younger students? -- and have Gwen as the Serious Art Student who cares a lot about theory and form and doing things right, and she’s constantly irritated by her classmate David, who sits at the same table as her and has declared them art buddies, and is convinced that the point of art is just to have fun and do your best! Maybe force them to do a group project together and really see them clash.

(Alternatively, there is the infinitely more shameless route of one being an art student and the other being a newd model for figure drawing. I am obviously much too classy to ever insinuate such a thing, but if someone was really looking for a way to write smuht . . . it’s sitting right there. On a table. nekkid. I HAVE TO CHANGE THE SPELLING TO MAKE THIS GO IN THE TAGS ARE YOU KIDDING ME)

Athlete AU

There are 4 major ways this one can go, I feel like:

Basically HSM: Gwen is a small part in her school’s musical (techie, maybe, or the orchestra) and lanky jock David -- which is the most hilarious phrase ever but he’s probably a runner or tennis player, something light on muscles and heavy on speed and springiness -- who’s well-mannered and cheerful but not the brightest, is put into the show as an extra-credit way to bump up his GPA so he can keep sporting his sports, and it turns out he’s both very good at and super enthusiastic about it.

A little like HSM, but as grown-ups: Gwen is the head of the drama/art department, which has just faced heavy cuts to support the superstar sports program, and she furiously storms over to the head coach’s office to let him know exactly what she thinks about him and his stupid meathead jocks. Of course, when the man who opens the door is a sweetheart beanpole with big eyes who already knows her name, she finds it hard to keep up her righteous indignation. And when it turns out that he was completely ignorant of the hit her department took from the budget cuts (or maybe not ignorant, just terminally oblivious) and is almost as upset as she is to hear about it, she’s forced to reconsider everything she’d assumed about Coach Greenwood; maybe he’s not the enemy after all, but someone with whom she can formulate a new battle plan.

Reporter/Famous Athlete AU: Either Gwen is a professional sportsball person and David is the shy, bumbling photographer eager to prove himself, or she’s the plucky, intrepid reporter and David is a good-natured professional athlete who she’s determined to interview.

Teammates AU: Professional or amateur sports team, and they’re just trying to scrape their way out of the bottom of the league without killing each other. 

Author AU

There are a lot of potential interpretations of this AU, but my personal favorite is Gwen as a novelist with two distinctly differing careers: as G. E. Santos, the high-concept writer whose books are critical darlings in the maybe 3 publications that care about such things but whose sales can’t quite crack the triple digits; and as Annabelle Elizabeth, whose steamy erotica regularly tops the bestseller lists and is reviled by all of G. E.’s colleagues as “populist genre trash.” 

The only person alive who knows about her Jekyll-and-Hyde author personas (besides her older sister Audree, who plays the part of charismatic and sensual Annabelle flawlessly) is her editor, David. He’s an odd choice, as her colleagues in both fields have pointed out -- reading her romance novels with his pen in one hand and the other covering his eyes, peeking through his fingers to write tremulous notes in the margins; stumbling through her ponderous literary works with a dictionary in his lap and his tongue between his teeth, poring through them like he’s learning a new language -- but he’s the only person Gwen will allow to touch her writing. 

Maybe it’s because he always seems like her biggest fan. Maybe it’s because she’s known him since they were at a summer camp together years ago. Maybe it’s because he believes in her in a way no one else does -- in a way she absolutely doesn’t believe in herself.

David is, for reasons she’s not entirely sure how to explain even to herself, the only person she trusts.

Avian (Bird People) AU

Centuries ago, it was said, avians were a rarity, an aberrant mutation to be locked up and intently studied but never trusted. Some people thought they were antichrists, a sign of the end times, when all normal humans would be destroyed and only the strange bird-people would remain.

In a way, maybe they were. Because when the earth’s crust ripped open and flooded the planet with magma and boiling water miles deep, avians were the only ones who could take to the sky.

Not all of them, certainly. In fact, most were locked up in detention centers and laboratories when the Swamp formed, and were unable to escape in time. Considering the people who could get to high enough elevations to escape the deluge, there were decades afterwards where the decimated human population outnumbered the avian one. Those were periods of tension, outright war and tentative alliances -- even romances, the kinds of great love stories that dragged both avian and human populations a few generations along when one or both of them should’ve died out.

That was over two hundred years ago, however. Now the Swamp is a murky expanse of scalding water and the boiled remains of civilization transformed into unrecognizable muck, with islands of “land” cobbled out of what remains. This is where the avians live, now. And humans don’t live anywhere, not anymore.

At least . . . that was what they thought.