#of Japan and overall looks with hostility to all other countries and is in that deeply nationalist because... It is.

[kyouka-supremacy]

/

[megaderping]

Nothing drives me up the wall more in the Persona 5 fandom than when people act like they'd be so much better than Akechi in his position. "Well, I would know better!" Bullshit. You don't know that. Japan's treatment of illegitimate children is so heinous that I don't think it's easy for westerners to comprehend. As I understand it, when you turn 15, you're thrown out of the system. Akechi was... how old when he approached Shido? Ah, yes, 15. Likely, he'd been cast out to fend for himself when Yaldabaoth gave him the power (with very malevolent intentions). Shido has his cleaner and his connections. Even if Akechi quit, he wouldn't be safe in the real world. Maybe in the Metaverse, but how long could he even feasibly stay there before needing to eat and sleep? There are safe areas, sure, but those are hardly accommodating, and people severely understate the impact Shido could've had on his mental health once he did join with him. Look at Yusuke and Haru, both of whom were abused and neglected by their parental figures. Both of whom had difficulty even acknowledging what was wrong. Haru continued to downplay her father's crimes and atrocities as well as his abuse of her, likely in part due to her grief and in part due to her wishes for what he could've been. Trauma and mental illness as well as a lack of support systems can break people and push them to make reckless choices because they believe there is nothing else they are good for. The Phantom Thieves were lucky enough to have each other, and that saved them from going down a dark path. Any one of them could have and, hell, if Yaldabaoth had chosen Yusuke or Haru, for instance, there's no way Madarame and Okumura wouldn't have taken advantage of that power and made them do heinous things. Just... god. I really hate the armchair "well, I'm smart enough to know better and I would take homelessness over ~murder~." It's easy to say that when you haven't suffered years of neglect and presumably abuse in a society that sees you as less than human due to circumstances outside your control (e.g. being an illegitimate child whose mother did sex work) in a country that is opposed to adoption overall and just... Argh. And this all started because I tried to point out that, hey, maybe calling Shuake toxic in a server for a fic that is one of the big Akechi and Shuake fics isn't the kindest thing, tried to explain things, and it just blew up. While also pushing for why their preferred ship is better and like... god. I hate that so much. ._. Fastest way to turn me off of a ship is when really hostile fans use their preferred pairing to tear down one that I really like. Just... blargh. What a way to start the day.

[banavalope]

It's been very interesting reading your responses to all the questions about that Japanese article. You speak really well and I've enjoyed reading your POV. I find the whole discourse kind of wild because I've been in fandom for 16+ years. I'm a multishipper and I've always had a 'ship and let live' kind of view to things. There are absolutely things I'm not comfortable with reading/seeing, but the back button and block function are wonderful tools. Plus with fanfiction having such multitudinous tagging options available it's easy to avoid things I don't like.

To me something enjoyed in a fictional space has little correlation to things enjoyed in IRL spaces, but I do have understanding for peoples' reservation when encountering certain topics and being unsure how the creator stands on those topics in a non-fictional space. I try very hard to see the best in people and assume people are good until proven otherwise [and yes this has bitten me in the ass before, but I will continue on].

I'm not quite sure where I was going with this, but yes, I wanted to say thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic. I've recently returned to Tumblr after a brief stint on Twitter and it's nice to see people talking openly and calmly about things C:

Thank you! As strange as it might be to say, I'm glad the initial anon sparked the discussion at all, because this is the kind of stuff that will gnaw at me pretty often. I've been around in fandoms for over 20 years and enjoy the community aspect, part of that experience has always been in discussing what we enjoy, don't enjoy, enthusiasms, takeaways, and the thrill in the variance of opinion it all has. I love when I have a difference in opinion with somebody in fandom because I want them to have that opportunity to talk about their headcanons. It's enthusiasm! I love creating and being part of collective enthusiasm! Pretty sure that's a shared sentiment by just about anybody.

But then I see the way fandom communities have become increasingly more hostile over time, especially to differences in opinion, and I have to wonder why that is. I've got some good guesses, but then I would have to write a book.

In the event people who haven't left yet are getting sick of this talk, I'm gonna put it under a read more lmao

One thing I've seen go nearly extinct in many areas of fandom has been the concept of agreeing AND disagreeing, both at the same time, with something. I haven't really paid any words to what I disagreed about with the initial article, mostly because I was already saying so much about all that other stuff lol, but like I didn't agree with everything that was said. I had questions of my own.

Overall, I thought it was a good critical look at how I should really just say "I hate pedophiles and other types of sexual abuse" in my tumblr about page, instead of using non-words like proship or anti. I hadn't ever considered how unhelpful it might be, to overseas fandom especially, using hyperniche american slang about something so important to convey.

An outside perspective looking in on my country in a way I could never replicate, afforded me the ability to think about how we can't be compared to Japanese fandom, the artist can take the perspective of a pro shipper to mean someone who's sensible (ship and let live, as you put it) because Japan has entirely different social norms to America. I can't agree with their take on that, but I agree with their take on that at the same time. I would love to know more about the history of japanese online fandom so I could compare and contrast it with my knowledge of american online fandom. I wonder what their biggest problems are with other fans, what their "toxic fan traits" are, if any.

It also got me to think about terms like "block and ignore" or "ship and let live", and how those are sentiments I agree with in core concept, but disagree with at face value. Maybe they've become too vague, like proship and anti. Maybe it's time to change the dialogue to say we should understand that when people fetishize children, the focus is entirely on the age of those characters, how actual predators won't age characters up or talk about aged up versions of characters if their interest in those characters is the fact they're canonically underaged; or establishing that if you as a minor are having issues with seeing something dangerous, when blocking and ignoring is not enough for you as a minor to feel safe, making fandom mentors aware of the dialogue you want to have can help us set a precedent.

I have no idea how many conversations it's going to take for fandom to get to a point where we start being more analytical, but one of these days it would be nice if we could stop painting the flags unanimously red.

[balkanradfem]

When we see a tree, we tend to think of it as a singular unit – just as we think of ourselves as individuals. But biologists have discovered that it’s not quite so simple. They have come to understand that trees depend on certain kinds of fungi in the soil: hair-thin structures called hyphae that interlace with cells in the roots of trees to form mycorrhiza. The fungi benefit by receiving someof the sugar that plants produce through photosynthesis (which it cannot otherwise make), while the trees benefit in turn by receiving elements like phosphorous and nitrogen that they cannot produce for themselves, and without which they cannot survive.

But this reciprocity is not confined to just two parties in this ancient relationship. Invisible fungal networks also connect the roots of different trees to one another, sometimes over great distances, forming an underground internet that allows them to communicate, and even to share energy, nutrients and medicine. The ecologist Robert Macfarlane explains how this works: A dying tree might divest itself of its resources to the benefit of the community, for example, or a young seedling in a heavily shaded understory might be supported with extra resources by its stronger neighbours. Even more remarkably, the network also allows plants to send one another warnings. A plant under attack from aphids can indicate to a nearby plant that it should raise its defensive response before the aphids reach it.

It has been known for some time that plants communicate above ground in comparable ways, by means of airborne hormones. But such warnings are more precise in terms of source and recipient when sent by means of the myco-net. 16 Trees co-operate. They communicate. They share. Not only among members of the same species, but across species barriers: Douglas firs and birches feed each other. And it’s not just trees; we now know that all plants – except for a handful of species – have this same relationship with mycorrhiza. Just as with our gut bacteria, these findings challenge how we think about the boundaries between species. Is a tree really an individual? Can it really be conceived as a separate unit? Or is it an aspect of a broader, multi-species organism?

There’s also something else going on here – something perhaps even more revolutionary. Dr Suzanne Simard, a professor in the department of forest & conservation at the University of British Columbia, has argued that mycorrhizal networks among plants operate like neural networks in humans and other animals; they function in remarkably similar ways, passing information between nodes. And just as the structure of neural networks enables cognition and intelligence in animals, mycorrhizal networks provide similar capacities to plants. Recent research shows that the network not only facilitates transmission, communication and co-operation – just like our neurons do – it also facilitates problem-solving, learning, memory and decision-making.

These words are not just metaphorical. The ecologist Monica Gagliano has published groundbreaking research on plant intelligence, showing that plants remember things that happen to them, and change their behaviour accordingly. In other words, they learn. In a recent interview with Forbes, she insisted: ‘My work is not about metaphors at all; when I talk about learning, I mean learning. When I talk about memory, I mean memory.’ Indeed, plants actively change their behaviour as they encounter new challenges and receive messages about the changing world around them. Plants sense: they see, hear, feel and smell, and they respond accordingly. If you’ve ever seen time-lapse footage of a vine growing up a tree, you’ll have an idea of what this looks like in action: that vine is no automaton – it’s sensing, moving, balancing, solving problems, trying to figure out how to navigate new terrain. The more we learn, the stranger (or perhaps more familiar?) it all becomes. Simard’s work shows that trees can recognise their own relatives through mycorrhizal networks. Older ‘mother’ trees can identify nearby saplings that came from their own seeds, and they use this information to decide how to allocate resources in times of stress. Simard also describes how trees seem to have ‘emotional’ responses to trauma in a way that’s not dissimilar to animals. After a machete whack or during an aphid attack, their serotonin levels change (yes, they have serotonin, along with a number of neurochemicals that are common in animal nervous systems), and they start pumping out emergency messages to their neighbours.

Of course, none of this is to say that plant intelligence is exactly like that of animals. In fact, scientists warn that our urge to constantly compare the intelligence of some species with that of others is exactly the problem: it ends up blinding us to how other kinds of intelligence might work. Set out in search of a brain and you’ll never even notice the mycorrhiza that have been pulsing through the earth, evolving right under our feet, for 450 million years. This research is just taking off, and we have no idea where it might lead. But Simard is careful to point out that it’s not exactly new: If you listen to some of the early teachings of the Coast Salish and the Indigenous people along the western coast of North America, they knew [about these insights] already. It’s in the writings and in the oral history.

The idea of the mother tree has long been there. The fungal networks, the below-ground networks that keep the whole forest healthy and alive, that’s also there. That these plants interact and communicate with each other, that’s all there. They used to call the trees the tree people … Western science shut that down for a while and now we’re getting back to it.

Trees aren’t only connected with each other. They are also connected with us. Over the past few years, research into human–tree relationships has yielded some truly striking findings. A team of scientists in Japan conducted an experiment with hundreds of people around the country. They asked half of the participants to walk for fifteen minutes through a forest, and the other half to walk through an urban setting, and then they tested their emotional states. In every case, the forest walkers experienced significant mood improvements when compared to the urban walkers, plus a decline in tension, anxiety, anger, hostility, depression and fatigue. The benefits were immediate and effective. Trees also have an impact on our behaviour. Researchers have found that spending time around trees makes people more co-operative, kinder and more generous. It increases our sense of awe and wonder at the world, which in turn changes how we interact with others. It reduces aggression and incivility. Studies in Chicago, Baltimore and Vancouver have all discovered that neighbourhoods with higher tree cover have significantly fewer crimes, including assault, robbery and drug use – even when controlling for socioeconomic status and other confounding factors.

It’s almost as though being with trees makes us more human. We don’t know quite why this happens. Is it just that green environments are somehow more pleasant and calming? A study in Poland suggests that doesn’t explain it. They had people spend fifteen minutes standing in a wintertime urban forest: no leaves, no green, no shrubbery; just straight, bare trees. One might think such an environment would have minimal if any positive impact on people’s mood, but not so: participants standing in the bare forest reported significant improvements in their psychological and emotional states when compared to a control group that spent those fifteen minutes hanging out in an urban landscape. And it’s not just mood and behaviour. It turns out that trees have an impact on our physical health too – in concrete, material terms. Living near trees has been found to reduce cardiovascular risk. Walking in forests has been found to lower blood pressure, cortisol levels, pulse rates and other indicators of stress and anxiety.

Even more intriguingly, a team of scientists in China found that elderly patients with chronic health conditions demonstrated significant improvements in immune function after spending time in forests. We don’t know for sure, but this may have something to do with the chemical compounds that trees exhale into the air. The aromatic vapours released by cypress, for example, have been found to enhance the activity of a number of human immune cells, while reducing stress hormone levels. In an attempt to quantify the overall benefit of trees, scientists in Canada found that trees have a more powerful impact on our health and well-being than even large sums of money. Having just ten more trees on a city block decreases cardio-metabolic conditions in ways comparable to earning an extra $20,000. And it improves one’s sense of well-being as much as earning an extra $10,000, moving to a neighbourhood with $10,000 higher median income, or being seven years younger. These results are astonishing. There’s a real mystery here, which scientists still do not yet understand. But perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, we have co-evolved with trees for millions of years. We even share DNA with trees. After countless generations, we’ve come to depend on them for our health and happiness just as we depend on other humans. We are, in a very real sense, relatives.

- Jason Hickel,  Less is More

[hesloaded]

roleplay/fake. krp oc. n/sfw. tw: dark and mature themes. all profile information remains undisclosed unless plotted otherwise. faceclaim: ㅋㅏㅇㅣ written by rae.

code name: BULLET. birth name: 김 지 원 / kim jiwon. birthdate: 1994.12.21. birth place: seoul, south korea. korean age: 28. zodiac: sagittarius sun.

occupation: independent hitman, sniper. skillset: tactical shooting & combat (experienced with carbines, shot/handguns, sniper/rifles, machines under extreme circumstances. & hand-to-hand), boxing, krav maga, filipino stick/knife fighting. first aid.

weight: 76kg. height: 182cm. physique: fit. lean overall. languages: fluent korean, english. conversational japanese, mandarin, russian. religion: none. hails from a christian background. tattoos: example > arm sleeves, chest, back, and on his left hip to thigh. description of some pieces below;

nunc illas promite vires (now put forth that strength, in latin), in thick font, a vertical line on the left of his side, stops above the hipbone.

Buddha on the inner bicep of his left arm sleeve.

a gun on his right hip.

a large dagger on his left upper-wrist, the tip of it’s blade reaching for his middle finger.

‘i deeply belong to myself’, horizontally arcing down his left hipbone.

other mods: pierced ears, all basic holes and hooped silver rings. main earring holes are both gauged at 3mm, though he doesn’t wear them often anymore as he currently prefers earrings. sexual orientation: n/a.

Jiwon had been born with a well polished silver spoon in his mouth, which had remained wedged there until the day he’d personally witnessed his father’s murder. Their wealth had been abundant, but abundance did not always equal lawful, and Jiwon so happened to learn that the hard way. His father had been dabbling with the underworld for many years, and thus put him and his family’s life on the line since the very first contract he’d ever signed with the dons, the chiefs and the clans. After crossing certain boundaries of such dangerous people, as consequence, the father’s life had been taken away from him right in front of his only son, and the son had since been left in abandon while growing up with that gruesome memory, which never seemed to leave room for other nightmares in the night.

Quickly, the silver spoon grew rusted. Their family name had plummeted below the surface of the social class, and Jiwon had been forced into the other end of the spectrum without much time to grieve, or to adjust to his reality. They were suddenly dirt poor, as everything they once had was taken away from them upon the findings of his father’s illegal dwellings, and there was nothing they could say, or do about it. Jiwon, 15, and his younger sister, 7, getting by alongside their sickly mother on scraps and pity. Before they knew it, the hospital bills began to pile up in the drawers, court debt left behind by the father too much to handle, as well as basic expenses like food, education and rent.

At 17, Jiwon had voluntarily dropped out of school and decided he’d simply leave home, never to return again until he’d found a job that allowed him stable income. Enough cash to at least sustain his mother, and his younger sister. But there was also something else carried in the back of his mind, something poisonous that lead him astray along the way. He’d started with simple jobs in convenience stores, food delivery, the odd job here and there that could add at least an extra won for the month. But the greedier he got, the odder did the jobs as well. As if this was a sort of calling in his blood, he'd ended up at the edge of an industry where his late father had once been before. Maybe out of grief, and surely for revenge.

He knew he could never go back to the day after he had come across a certain individual he knows nothing of in present, who’d introduced him to a variety of "temp" jobs; mostly hands off at first, to prove he were trusty enough, before he’d graduated into the hands on part of the lifestyle where he’d learn how to fight, throw a knife, and shoot a gun. Professionally groomed by a veteran towards serious temporary positions and better money, by sparring until he were caked in bruises and blood, and shooting empty beer cans by the beach waves (trained in Jeju). And sooner than he'd thought, beer cans became human beings.

His initial aim was never to fall too deeply into dangerous affairs that had gotten his father killed in the first place, but there was something about it that was much too seductive to ignore, much too thrilling to escape- and so by the age of 19, Jiwon was engrossed. And he was really good.

He began working with the man who’d basically recruited him after seeing the talent and hunger for something dark in his eyes, and through him discovered some parts to the puzzle of what had lead his father to such a cruel fate some years ago. Then after reaching a certain point in his investigation and a number of paychecks (which he often sent home to his family rather than keeping all to himself), and with the (forced) help of a mysterious woman he’d met named Kim Yuna, Jiwon had disappeared. Gone to lay low (and train more/hone other skills) in Auckland, New Zealand, and had come back shortly after turning 22, to put his research and skillset into practice.

This is when he had come to surpass his father’s footsteps; solidified his place in the underworld, established as an independent hitman after finally reaching and murdering his father’s killer. Spilling the rage and thirst for blood that had slowly welled up inside him over the years. Known as Bullet, and despite his young age, wanted and feared simultaneously.

location: established in seoul, south korea; works worldwide. direct address: undisclosed. license: LvL 1, general korean license. drives a harley davidson motorcycle, his car a revamped vintage ford mustang. pets: none. takes care of stray cats in his neighborhood. relationship status: n/a. family: mother (alive), younger sister (alive), father (deceased). had severed ties with them and doesn’t talk about them.

hobbies: cooking. reading. sports (lifting, boxing). watching movies. gaming. optimist or pessimist?: neutral. introvert or extrovert?: introverted extrovert. "describe yourself": well-rounded. intelligent. versatile. worthy. surprising. creative. best-shot. "describe jiwon": precise. observant. intimidating. unpredictable. humorous. aggressive. cross. dreams/goals: learn how to properly wield a japanese sword, going drifting with his car in tokyo, sandboarding in the desert dunes, visiting the stray cats in italy.

— being an independent assassin would mean that his business exists sans any form of contract to whatever company or illegal organization at all. a lot of these do exist both in South Korea and overseas, but Jiwon is strict about steering very clear from all attempts of recruitment made his way. signing his life away with blood is something he never plans to do, unlike his father had.

— the underworld's presence also lingers within certain hotels, bars, offices and theatres; as well as underground establishments like boxing ranges and clubs of all natures. simply because people like him are everywhere, though only few of them could ever compete.

— his associates range broadly from Triad bosses to ballerinas, and everything else in between. police chiefs, escorts, seasoned veterans, boxers, racers, butchers, hotel managers. all associates of his, and the below surface's, of course.

— he values taking care of himself very highly, as it contributes to his work at times it matters. when he'd first gotten into working within the industry as a rookie, he could be often found doing small missions like escorting, as he'd been recognized to be visually appealing, and taught to wield it as though he were holding a sharp blade.

— he'd lived and trained in a secluded countryside farm in Jeju island for nearly four years, before packings his bags and disappearing to Auckland in the midst of night.

— owns too many pairs of sneakers, belts, button ups and turtlenecks. he's an expressive dresser; usually loves wearing pieces that stand out or glitter. his closets consist mainly of blacks, reds and whites, some greys, blues, purples, and plaid. when it comes to accessories, he will try it all but prefers simple rings and thick necklaces. finally, his cologne selection ranges broadly of fresh, pine and woody scents.

— surprisingly loves babies and kids. might or might not suffer from perpetual baby fever.

— believes in consequential punishment, global warming, ghosts or spirits, and aliens. the usual.

— not very keen on haircuts. enjoys dyeing his hair. sometimes find his many tattoos burdensome as he regularly has to cover up for the casual public (though he doesn’t try much anymore, really).

— he absolutely despises being lied to, have his skills doubted, being suspected, accused unjustly and seeing entitled pride in other people. it might sound obvious, but it’s all particular triggers for anger and hostility in him.

— can’t keep promises. a bit lackluster when it comes to romance. prefers relationships without titles, and sometimes emotions. but when he does fall, he falls hard enough to break bones.

— he wants to look into going to live in japan for a while in the future, to study kenjutsu, and acquiring a japanese katana of his own.

— he has a habit of getting new tattoos whenever he’s out of the country. or when he’s stressed—he refuses to destress with smoking.

— despite his job and the occasional requirement to travel overseas to rigorous tasks and obscure locations, or stay in Seoul apartments; living off scrap for months in both predicaments, he’s still a homebody. Appreciates when he can return home and sleep with a corn-chip in his mouth.

— his home is prepared for any kind of assault at any hour of the day, carrying hidden weapons hiding in plain sight.

— collects silencers/suppressors simply because he enjoys using them on his firearms.

[newstfionline]

Saturday, March 20, 2021

More than 40% of people reported depression and anxiety symptoms since start of pandemic, survey finds (Yahoo News) When COVID-19 was first reported in the United States, many were optimistic that it would come and go quickly enough. But after a few weeks, reality set in and took a toll, not only on our physical selves but on our collective mental health as well. Over the past year, a lot of people have struggled with feelings of isolation, anxiety, depression and despair due to the global pandemic. Many have lost loved ones, missed funerals and births and other milestones, and dealt with emotions that some may not have even experienced before. What has been the overall mental health impact on our nation’s people in the past year? According to a recent survey by Yahoo/YouGov, 35 percent of adults in the U.S. report that their mental health has worsened since the start of the pandemic. And an even larger percentage (44 percent) report an increase in depression in the past year, with 48 percent stating that their anxiety symptoms also increased. “The mental health impacts of COVID-19 are just beginning to be understood fully,” says Catherine Burns, a Vermont-based psychologist and clinical supervisor for COVID Support Vermont. “As time passes, we are developing a clearer picture that increasingly highlights experiences of stress, anxiety and depression across the globe.”

Polluted waters around the world (Reuters) About 4 billion people experience severe water shortages for at least one month a year and around 1.6 billion people—almost a quarter of the world’s population—have problems accessing a clean, safe water supply, according to the United Nations. While the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals call for water and sanitation for all by 2030, the world body says water scarcity is increasing and more than half the world’s population will be living in water-stressed regions by 2050. In the run-up to the UN’s World Water Day on March 22, Reuters photographers used drones to capture dramatic pictures and video of polluted waterways around the world. In one image, a discarded sofa lies beached in the Tiete river, in Brazil’s biggest city Sao Paulo, into which hundreds of tonnes of untreated sewage and waste are tipped each day. Others show domestic waste clogging the Citarum river in Bandung, Indonesia, and sewage flowing into the Euphrates in Najaf, Iraq.

Gunmen kill 13 police in daytime ambush in central Mexico (Reuters) Gunmen killed at least 13 Mexican police in an ambush a short distance outside the capital on Thursday, local authorities said, in one of the worst mass slayings of security forces to rock the country in recent years. Photos of the grisly scene circulated on social media showing a bullet-riddled police car and an unmarked truck, along with officers’ bodies scattered out along the street or still inside the car. The convoy of security personnel was attacked in broad daylight by suspected gang members in the Llano Grande area in the municipality of Coatepec Harinas as it patrolled the area, said Rodrigo Martinez-Celis, security minister for the State of Mexico. The area is southwest of Mexico City and about 40 miles (64 km) south of the city of Toluca, the capital of the populous State of Mexico, which surrounds much of the capital.

British Airways considers selling its headquarters after homeworking switch (Reuters) British Airways said it was considering selling its headquarters building because of a switch to homeworking during the pandemic means it may no longer need so much office space. The shift to homeworking over the last year has already prompted some of Britain’s biggest companies to make changes to their office footprints. Banking giant Lloyds said it would cut office space by 20% within three years, with HSBC aiming for a 40% reduction.

Locked-down Spaniards seethe with envy as Germans flock to Mallorca (Reuters) Tens of thousands of Germans are planning last-minute Easter getaways to Spain’s sun-kissed islands, leaving many Spaniards, who are not allowed to do the same because of a travel ban, upset. “It makes absolutely no sense that in Spain we can’t move between regions but any foreigner can come in ... and spread infection,” said Emilio Rivas, 23, who lives in Madrid. The young tax assessor wanted to get out of town for the holidays but must instead stay home because Spain banned travel between regions over Easter to avoid a repeat of a spike in contagion seen after an easing in restrictions over Christmas. But tourists from European countries with higher infection rates like France or Germany can fly in for a holiday as long as they have a negative covid test result—something even top health official Fernando Simon described as “incongruous.”

Paris goes into lockdown as COVID-19 variant rampages (Reuters) France imposed a month-long lockdown on Paris and parts of the north after a faltering vaccine rollout and spread of highly contagious coronavirus variants forced President Emmanuel Macron to shift course. Since late January, when he defied the calls of scientists and some in his government to lock the country down, Macron has said he would do whatever it took to keep the euro zone’s second largest economy as open as possible. However, this week he ran out of options just as France and other European countries briefly suspended use of the AstraZenca vaccine. His prime minister, Jean Castex, said France was in the grip of a third wave, with the virulent variant first detected in Britain now accounting for some 75% of cases. Intensive care wards are under severe strain, notably in Paris where the incidence rate surpasses 400 infections in every 100,000 inhabitants.

US-Russia ties nosedive after Biden-Putin tit-for-tat (AP) U.S.-Russia ties nosedived on Thursday after Russian leader Vladimir Putin shot back at President Joe Biden’s description of him as a killer. In taking a tough stance on Russia, Biden has said the days of the U.S. “rolling over” to Putin are done. Also Wednesday, U.S. intelligence released a report finding that Putin authorized influence operations to help Trump’s re-election bid. Later that day, Putin recalled his ambassador to the U.S. and on Thursday he pointed at the U.S. history of slavery and slaughtering Native Americans and the atomic bombing of Japan in World War II. Responding to that, the White House said Biden would continue to look to work with Putin on areas of mutual concern but stressed that he was “not going to hold back” when he has concerns about Putin’s actions. Putin had been asked about Biden’s comment during a video call marking the anniversary of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, and he responded along the lines of “it-takes-one-to-know-one,” saying his counterpart’s words reflected the United States’ own problems. At the same time, he offered to have a phone call with Biden to discuss issues of mutual interest.

Myanmar security forces kill eight as Indonesia calls for end to violence (Reuters) Myanmar security forces shot dead eight opponents of a Feb. 1 coup on Friday, a funeral services provider said, as Indonesia sought an end to the violence and urged that democracy be restored, in an unusually blunt call from a neighbour. Ousted lawmakers explored whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) can investigate crimes against humanity since the coup, while authorities arrested two more journalists, including a BBC reporter, media said.

Lebanese are gripped by worry as economic meltdown speeds up (AP) Shops closing, companies going bankrupt and pharmacies with shelves emptying—in Lebanon these days, fistfights erupt in supermarkets as shoppers scramble to get to subsidized powdered milk, rice and cooking oil. Like almost every other Lebanese, Nisrine Taha’s life has been turned upside down in the past year under the weight of the country’s crushing economic crisis. Anxiety for the future is eating at her. Five months ago, she was laid off from her job at the real estate company where she had worked for years. Her daughter, who is 21, cannot find work, forcing the family to rely on her husband’s monthly salary which has lost 90% of its value because of the collapse of the national currency. The family hasn’t been able to pay rent for seven months, and Taha worries their landlord’s patience won’t last forever. As the price of meat and chicken soared beyond their means, they changed their diet. Taha’s family is among hundreds of thousands of lower income and middle class Lebanese who have been plunged into sudden poverty by the crisis that started in late 2019—a culmination of decades of corruption by a greedy political class that pillaged nearly every sector of the economy. More than half the population now lives in poverty, according to the World Bank, while an intractable political crisis heralds further collapse.

Fear and Hostility Simmer as Ethiopia’s Military Keeps Hold on Tigray (NYT) When Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, began a sweeping military operation in the restive region of Tigray on Nov. 4, he cast his goal in narrow terms: to capture the leadership of the region’s ruling party. The party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, had brazenly defied his authority for months, and then attacked a federal military base. But four months on, the operation has degenerated into a bitter civil conflict marked by accounts of egregious rights violations—massacres, sexual violence, ethnic cleansing, and fears that starvation is being used a war tactic—that have set off alarm across the world. In Mekelle, the region’s biggest city, many Tigrayans say they feel that they, not their leaders, are the true targets of Mr. Abiy’s military campaign. Hospitals are filled with casualties from the fighting that rages in the countryside, many of them terrified civilians arriving with grievous wounds. Schools house some of the 71,000 people who fled to the city, often bringing accounts of horrific abuses at the hands of pro-government forces. A palpable current of fear and resentment courses through the streets, where hostilities between residents and patrolling government soldiers often erupt into violence.

Goldman Sachs analysts say they work 95-hour weeks and endure ‘inhumane’ treatment (CNN Business) A workplace survey from a group of junior analysts at Goldman Sachs is about to make you feel a lot better about your job. About a dozen first-year analysts say they are working more than 95 hours a week on average, sleeping just five hours a night and enduring workplace abuse. The majority of them say their mental health has deteriorated significantly since they started working at the investment bank. “There was a point where I was not eating, showering or doing anything else other than working from morning until after midnight,” one analyst says in the report. The survey comes from a self-selected group of 13 first-year analysts who presented their findings to management in February, a spokesperson for the bank said. Few people entering the cutthroat world of Wall Street banking would expect a tidy nine-to-five. But the analysts in the survey are essentially pleading with their employer to cap their weekly work hours at 80.

[dtomassiglobalcinema]

Introduction to the World of Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa is one of the most influential and well-known Japanese filmmakers and overall filmmaker in the world. Akira Kurosawa was born in 1910 and lived until his death in 1998. His filmography started with Uma in 1941 and ended Madadayo in 1993. He began his journey in filmmaking in 1936 after failing with a career as a painter. He worked in film as an assistant director and scriptwriter as well as acted. He began directing in 1941 with his film Uma but made a huge break with his film Rashomon in 1951.

Akira Kurosawa at the time was only well known in Japan and hadn’t broke out into the international or western scene yet. That all changed in 1951 with Kurosawa’s film Rashomon. From the New York Times “When Mr. Kurosawa's ''Rashomon'' reached Western audiences in 1951, little was known outside Japan about the country's cinema. That changed overnight with ''Rashomon,'' a compelling study of ambiguity and deception that provides four contradictory accounts of a medieval rape and murder recalled by a bandit, a noblewoman, the ghost of her slain husband and a woodcutter.”. As you can tell Rashomon had quite a wild plot that combined Japanese culture with Western storytelling this is what made Kurosawa stand out from the rest of the pack. Kurosawa would continue to make more films and shortly after Rashomon just 3 years later would make the critically acclaimed film Seven Samurai in 1954

(Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa (1951)

Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa is one of the most influential films in history. It places #30 on IMDB’s top 100 list of all time, and #6 on the top 250 narrative featured films list on letterboxd. Seven Samurai is a film about seven samurais protecting a village from bandits trying to raid the village. Simple enough right. Through famous film critic Roger Ebert, we can see why Seven Samurai made such a huge impact. The film looks into Japanese samurai culture. The village is used to be hostile to the Samurai and don’t pay them much to protect the protect the whole village, but when they need their help the most, they are there the fill in. The film also posts an incredible length of 3 hours and 27 minutes, but appears to not be an issue. From Ebert he states “The movie is long (207 minutes), with an intermission, and yet it moves quickly because the storytelling is so clear, there are so many sharply defined characters, and the action scenes have a thrilling sweep.”. Seven Samurai is one of the major films that made his name stick with many other directors as one of the greatest of all time.

Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)

For these upcoming blog posts we need to watch and write about two films in our topics. I knew instantly just based on the critical acclaim that Seven Samurai would be one of them. I wanted to save Seven Samurai until the end though since many regards it as his best film yet. It was hard to choose what to pick for my other choice. You have so many amazing films by him “High and Low”, “Ikiru”, “Rashomon”. Ultimately by reading over the plot I ended up choosing Ikiru a film about a man with cancer looking for the meaning of life. I cannot wait to indulge myself into the fantastic cinematic world of Akira Kurosawa and witness some of the best filmmaking in history.

 Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa, 1952))

Sources:

Ebert, Roger. “The Seven Samurai Movie Review (1954): Roger Ebert.” Movie Review (1954) | Roger Ebert, 19 Aug. 2001, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-seven-samurai-1954.

Lyman, Rick. “Akira Kurosawa, Film Director, Is Dead at 88.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 Sept. 1998, www.nytimes.com/1998/09/07/movies/akira-kurosawa-film-director-is-dead-at-88.html.

[very-grownup]

Can you believe a kraken STILL hasn’t eaten Nitori over summer vacation?

I'm going to talk about Free! Dive to the Future now that three episodes have aired.

I have not seen any of the films produced between the end of Eternal Summer and the start of this third series. They are not available on English streaming services and I'm going to be real with you: in 2018 there is so much media to consume that is legally and easily available, I'm disinclined to figure out how to obtain fansubbed anime in this the year of our lord 2018.

I loved Iwatobi Swim Club and Eternal Summer. They were well done, tight, self-contained coming of age series, one about a character overcoming an angry and isolating adolescence, one about a character learning to overcome the inertia of fear that often grips young adults when they're confronted with the inevitable change of going from adolescence to adulthood, of having to make a choice. The first two series were masterfully directed by Hiroko Utsumi and a breath of fresh air: a show helmed by a woman, for young women, and not based on an otome game or another property centered on the relationship between the male characters and a female avatar.

Hiroko Utsumi did not direct any of the film entries in the series and is not directing Dive to the Future (she's directing the incredible Banana Fish anime) and I admit, when I read Utsumi was no longer involve the series, I became skeptical about its direction and quality.

Now that I can actually watch an entry in the series made without Utsumi, I don't have to be skeptical. The kindest thing I can say about Dive to the Future is that it's obviously floundering for direction. But this is the internet, so I can also go into a far more thorough and much less kind discussion of missteps, questionable choices, and things that are actually not good.

There's one problem that stands out for me, because a lot of the others can be bracketed with expectations of what sort of show Dive to the Future is trying to be, but this one part, a small fraction of the runtime of the three episodes, undoes, or at least undermines, something the first two series did in the characterization of one of the only girls in the series. Gou, the younger sister of protagonist Rin and manager of Iwatobi High School's swim club. Gou has no romantic interest in any of the boys on the team, unlike the female manager in (shounen) sports series. Gou isn't interested in swimming, either; this isn't a substitute or displacement because there is no girls' swim team. Gou initially becomes involved in Nagisa's desire to start a swim club in their high school as a tool to reconnect with and help her distant, unhappy brother.

Gou continues managing the swim club because she unabashedly enjoys looking at muscular dudes. Again, she isn't interested in dating any of these boys. She just enjoys being able to look at these living swimsuit pinup boys. She's a teenage girl vocalizing an aspect of her sexuality and keeping it for herself. She loves muscles. They're hot. While the narrative is about the boys, Gou's presence acknowledges that a lot of girls in the audience are watching this for very simple, non-narrative reasons.

And that's okay.

In media targeted at women, especially young women, the acknowledgement of sexual desires as a component of a romantic relationship is still relatively new after centuries of women's feelings being portrayed as chaste. In a post-Twilight world, media is starting to allow that maybe girls are as sexually attracted to that boy they're crushing on as it's given that boys are to girls.

Gou's characterization says: it's normal to be attracted to boys, even if you aren't interested in dating right now. It's a quite, understated bit of characterization and representation, but it's appreciated. Gou's presence really cements the sense in the first two series that this is something being made by a woman for other young women.

Dive to the Future introduces a Japan-obsessed Russian swim coach who is fixated on Rin and wants to work with him, and only him, in Sydney, Australia. He's an authority figure who is overly focused on an eighteen-year-old boy who is in a foreign country, away from his friends and family. Although this may, understandably, raise some concern and discomfort, Free! is not the kind of series that is going to be dealing with something as serious as authority figures taking advantage of young athletes sexually. This character is just a joke, a goofy, out-of-touch adult who thinks he's cool and is also slightly camp. He's very obsessed with muscles.

In episode three this is brought up again, as Kirishima, a wandering swimming hobo, tries to bribe the coach, Mikhail, into taking him on, offering up various sexually exciting photobooks and magazines featuring muscular young men. Cut to Gou back in Japan, trying to convince her new kouhai of the importance of the same photobook. An equivalency is drawn. Coach Mikhail and Gou are the same, their interests are the same, they provoke the same reaction. A comical obsession, a gag, an out-of-touch character who can't read the room. A teenage girl's interest in the bodies of teenage boys is the same as a grown man's interest in those same bodies.

It's gross.

The most charitable reading still sees Gou's healthy, normalized if quirkily expressed attraction being reduced to a gag, robbing the character of the understated, positivie representation of adolescent sexuality she offered originally. It's unneccessary and unkind to girls in the audience like Gou.

The idea of the carnivorous woman who knows what she wants, sexually, is not equivalent to an older man in a position of authority viewing the vulnerable individuals around him as a source of voyeuristic pleasure.

After unburdening myself of the surprising level of anger resulting from a single scene, nearly blink-and-you'll-miss-it length, the other problems with Dive in to Future seem less important, but they all concern larger elements of the program. It's just that they're problems of something not being done very well, not the problem of the reveal of a potential hostile or contemptuous attitude toward a part of the audience.

Nevertheless.

Dive in to Future doesn't know what it wants to be. I stand by my assertion that Iwatobi Swim Club and Eternal Summer were never sports anime. They were coming of age journeys for two different characters who had different problems to work through. They were, quite simply, never structured to be a series like Slam Dunk, Prince of Tennis, Kuroko's Basketball, Haikyuu, insert-your-preferred-shounen-sports-series-here. The focus isn't on a team, it's on a group of characters, four of whom are going to the same school and are in the same club. At the end of Eternal Summer, Haru, Rin, and Makoto, three of the five core characters, are going to be graduating, moving on to the next stage of their life, Rin in Australia, Haru and Makoto in Tokyo. That transition, those three characters growing up and away from their younger friends, is a major component of the story told in Eternal Summer, culminating in a teary happiness. It's sad they won't be friends in the same way, but it's natural, inevitable, and full of potential excitement for the new things these changes will bring.

There are a lot of directions that could have been chosen in doing a third season. Staying in Iwatobi, focusing on the changing, growing swim club. Going to Tokyo with Haru and Makoto, building upon those themes of change and growth as two codependent childhood friends find their own, separate paths. Going to Sydney with Rin, a protagonist returning with new eyes and confidence to a place where the festering anger and unhappiness that burdened him in Iwatobi Swim Club originated. You could follow any of those threads and double down, focusing on one of them, on turning the series into an actual sports series with a large cast and rival teams and tournaments and competitions. You could continue telling the story of these specific friendships, five boys in three different places, figuring out how their friendship can evolve and continue in some form.

Dive to the Future seems to be trying to do all of those simultaneously, not wanting to commit to a particular focus because it would mean sidelining some of the characters. It's about Rin in Australia but it's also about Haru and Makoto in university and also Haru's university swim team and maybe actual swimming competitions for that university swim team with maybe a rival university of evil swimmers but also the club back in Iwatobi and after three episodes I couldn't tell you which of all those the series is actually going to be about. Maybe Haru's university swimming life will more clearly come forward. But it could easily go on like this, a jumbled series of characters and incidents without any underlying thematic glue bringing things together. There are solid individual scenes scattered through these episodes (Rin's morning routine in Sydney from the third episode stands out for me) but as someone who loved the first two series, the overall impression is ... that it's fine.

Dive to the Future also sees the introduction of characters from the films, specifically the prequel film made after Eternal Summer. The first episode of Dive to the Future feels like they dumped all these new characters into the mix at once, a sensation I'm sure is exacerbated by my not having seen the movies. There are also new characters in Iwatobi so the swim club can continue. There are boys swimming with Rin in Australia who have names, probably. More characters on Haru's university swim team. The previously mentioned evil university. All the characters from the first two series.

It's so many characters, all at once, with little regard for their significance.

For comparison, Rei is introduced in the third episode of the first series, after we've had a chance to become familiar with the characters who have a history together.

The unfocused narrative and the glut of characters go hand-in-hand, an ouroboros of problems.

Finally, another disappointing undercutting of what's come before: in this mess of characters and plot threads, a lot of screen time does seem to be devoted to characters being concerned about childhood friendships that were lost as kids moved to other parts of Japan and other countries. There's an obsession and guilt over it, instead of recognizing it as a natural thing that happens. The desire to reconnect with those people is also guilt propelled and it feels like a retread of the attempt to reconnect with the angry, distant Rin from the first series and a complete memory wipe of the lessons of growing up Makoto and Haru specifically learned in Eternal Summer. There's a worrying sense that with Dive to the Future, despite the name, is going to see characters who aren't allowed to grow and learn and move forward and change, but instead just go through variations on the same beats in an increasingly bland animated purgatory.

The final product is fine, I suppose, but fine may as well be failure when the previous product managed to achieve excellence.

[weepingengineerpuppy]

Skin Packaging Market Research Methodology, Structure, Forecast to 2027

Market Overview

Skin packaging is gaining more popularity because it is useful to protect the product from various hostile conditions such as mechanical hazards, humidity, temperature, and others. The sectors related to food items, retail, industrial goods, and others are increasing the demand for skin packaging, leading to growing the Skin Packaging market Size. Among all these sectors, the food industry has the domination for skin packaging with different categories such as bakery, fruits, vegetables, fresh meats, and ready to eat products.

Hence, the major factors that are driving the growth of this marker are space-saving packaging, cost-efficiency, and increasing demand for packaged foods. Along with that, the capability to increase the shelf life of the product and the stringent regulations regarding packaging waste are expected to enhance the Skin Packaging Market Growth as it requires less resource for packaging of the product.

During the forecast period of 2017 to 2023, the LDPE is registered to dominate the global Skin Packaging market by generating a higher market share. The LDPE material segment is increasing its demand due to the increasing popularity of plastic-based packaging across all major end-users and the excessive lightweight nature of the LDPE. Overall, the Skin Packaging Market Trends is driving its growth due to the increase in global consumption of meat products, rapid urbanization in emerging economies, expansion of the food and packaging industry, and increasing trend of packed food.

Segmental Overview

The Skin Packaging market Trends are classified based on the application and material. According to the material segment, the global market is divided into LDPE, paper & paperboard, PVC, and others. During the forecast period of 2017 to 2023, the LDPE is registered to dominate the global market by generating a higher Skin Packaging market Share. The LDPE material segment is increasing its demand due to the increasing popularity of plastic-based packaging across all major end-users and the excessive lightweight nature of the LDPE.

According to the application segment, the global market is classified into Cheese, Meat, Poultry, and others. In 2016, meat as a food product had registered to higher the market growth, and further, it is registered to be the fastest-growing application in the forecast period. The meat application segment is enhancing the Skin Packaging market Growth due to the increasing consumption of mutton, beef, pork, and veal across the regions.

Get Free Sample PDF@ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1965

Regional Overview

According to regional classification, the global Skin Packaging market is offering various products and services across the regions. These regions are Asia-Pacific, Europe, South America, North America, and the rest of the world. With a number of local, regional, and multinational providers, the Skin Packaging Industry is extremely exploded. Among all these regions, the Asia Pacific region has dominance over the global market due to the increasingly effective work of the local players across the region and emerging economies of the countries like India, China, and Japan. According to the Skin Packaging Industry’s report, Asia-Pacific countries are sharing 35%-40% growth of the global market. Along with that, North America and Europe are taking the second higher position to generate the higher market value.

Industry News

The global COVID pandemic has affected the global Skin Packaging market Size as many of the regions imposed lockdown. The global market’s supplies, transportations, productivity, and others had been impacted the market very severely for a certain period of time. However, various techniques and strategies have been adopted by the key market players to boost up the market growth by generating more Skin Packaging market Share. Hence, the global market is able to successfully stop all the losses in the present scenario. Further, the global market is looking to generate more market revenue for the global market in the forecast period.

Get Complete Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/skin-packaging-market-1965

[willag42]

Yuri!!! On Ice Fanfic Recs with Reviews  ["J” Authors]

Note: Doing some major reformating of the YOI fanfic rec pages. The pages that include my reviews are now having the posts separated alphabetically by author (see below). I am also creating separate page(s) that allow filtering the fanfics by category. It's a work in progress, but I'm having fun with it.

This page includes my YOI fanfic recs (with reviews) for authors whose names begin with "J".

Note: For any authors whom I don't know the gender, I refer to them with they/them. If any authors wish to correct me, please do so.

AUTHORS REC PAGES: #0-9 -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z

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Refer to this masterlist for all of my YOI fanfic recs.

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Jenrose (@jenroses)

Jenrose is really passionate about LGBTQIA politics, diplomacy, and real-world issues, which is apparent in their writing. It's really refreshing and interesting to read stories focused on these details. Something else really refreshing is their writing style, which is spartan yet adequately descriptive and to the point. It forces the readers to use their imagination more.

Translations on Ice (Series, 10 works)

Lost in Translations Rating: Explicit -- Words: 10.3k -- Status: Complete -- Summary: Victor Nikiforov was the best jumper in the world, well-used to leaping blind and landing clean in ways no one could match. Falling was for other people. Stumbling was not acceptable. It had been a long time since the wind had been knocked out of him so thoroughly. (The start of "what comes after" the canon series.)

Translations Over Distance Rating: Gen -- Words: 10.9k -- Status: Complete -- Summary: Yuuri really wants to surprise Victor for his birthday, but there's a bit of a scheduling issue.

Translations: Initiations Rating: Explicit -- Words: 8.2k -- Status: Complete -- Summary: Someone REALLY wanted Yuuri back in Japan after the gala performance at the Russian Nationals.

Translations: Elongations Rating: Explicit -- Words: 36.6k -- Status: WIP -- Summary: Yuuri and Victor come back to Japan to a flurry of media and sponsorship offers, in time for the Japan on Ice exhibition.

Translations: Terminations and Transitions Rating: Explicit -- Words: 54.0k -- Status: Complete -- Summary: Moving is always a little strange. Moving to a possibly hostile country while training hard and preparing for a wedding in less than three weeks? Might not be the best idea they've ever had, but it's better than the alternatives.

Transition: Puberty Rating: Teen -- Words: 15.5k -- Status: Complete -- Summary: Yuri Plisetsky hits puberty. Puberty hits back.

Transition: The Leap Rating: Teen -- Words: 41.9k -- Status: Complete -- Summary: Our crew goes to Ostrava for the European Championships. Nothing quite goes as planned.

Transitions: Landings Rating: Mature -- Words: 10.4k -- Status: Ongoing -- Summary: After the European Championships, the whole crew returns to Japan to prepare for 4CC and for Yuri to have surgery.

Transition: Coming Out Rating: Gen -- Words: 6.0k -- Status: Complete -- Summary: It's January of 2018, our crew is in New York for publicity, and the Olympic team list for Russia just came out. Victor's name isn't on it, despite a decisive win at Russian Nationals. If there's anything that pisses Yuri Plisetsky off more than losing, it's not having a chance to beat his rivals on the ice. And if there's anything worse than his mentor retiring, it's his mentor being snubbed by the Russian Figure Skating Federation. He's spent too much time fighting to get back on his feet to take this lying down.

Transition: Questioning Rating: Explicit -- Words: 21.1k -- Status: Complete -- Summary: Mila has been struggling with the move to Hasetsu. Sara has been struggling with her brother. Things come to a head after 2018 Worlds. ❤❤❤❤❤  Words: 204.3k Status: Work In Progress Relationship: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov Tags: (Mostly) Canon compliant; Except homophobia exists; Post season 1; LGBTQ+ advocacy ❤❤❤❤❤  Review: The series focuses a lot on Yuuri and Victor navigating their relationship within the current political climate in regards to homosexuality. Situations dealt with include performing their pairs exhibition skate at the Russian Nationals, the resulting storm that follows, the many sponsorship deals that follows as a result (for pro-homosexuality despite that not being their intent), figuring out where and when to get married considering their skating season and the political climate, and figuring out where they can live without having to deal with violence but still be able to effectively train. It’s a really, really well-done series, and I’m so happy to see these topics get handled. There’s an appropriate amount of sappiness, romance, and sex between Yuuri and Victor as well, and lots of love and support from their friends, family, and coaches. My personal favorite stories would probably have to be: Translations Over Distance, which deals with Yuuri trying to surprise Victor for his birthday at Nationals; Translations: Initiations, which has a lot of sweet romantic lovemaking on a plane for Victor’s birthday; and, Translations: Terminations and Transitions, which deals with Victor and Yuuri moving to Russia, planning for a wedding, getting married, and then determining if Russia is still the place they want to live. You are greatly missing out if you haven’t read this series, so go do so!

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jinlian (@jinlian)

jinlian has written several Victuuri oneshots, all filled with sweet, warm devotion. They tease each other, they cook early morning breakfasts for each other, they discuss tattoos, they work through miscommunication issues with open honesty. My favorite fic of hers, take me higher, is the angstiest it gets, with some sad Victor backstory and miscommunication hurdles that get worked through, and by the end they're closer for it. If you need a little pick-me-up, definitely check out her fics.

take me higher

Rating: Teen Words: 13.8k Status: Complete Relationship: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov Tags: Canon compliant; Post-season 1; Victor backstory ❤❤❤❤❤  Summary: Victor stares at Yuuri. He wonders if he looks as confused as he feels; and he already looks at least a bit of a mess with his hair mussed from how he’d carefully styled it, his costume twisted and his jacket unzipped. Yuuri stares back. They’re both trying to find something in each other’s faces, searching and asking without words until one of them provides the answer. “What,” Victor finally demands, “does winning have to do with our getting married?” ❤❤❤❤❤  Review: "We’ll get married after he wins gold." What if Victor's intention behind the phrase was different than Yuuri's interpretation? I really appreciate jinlian's more melancholic, less idealistic interpretation of what occurred at the end of the series. Her Victor is continuing to skate only due of Yuuri's request - he's tired and ready to move on to the next transition in his life (coaching and marriage). There is a carry-over of miscommunication from the series between Vcitor and Yuuri that they eventually resolve. The scenes between the two of them when they finally clear the air are really beautiful and heartwarming in their honesty and affection. I love stories that have moments when the two have open heart-to-hearts, and this story delivers some of the best. I also really appreciate her writing a Victor who's ready to move on to the next chapter of his life. The sudden desire to return to competitive skating felt a little out of left field during the last two episodes of the anime, opposite of what felt like episodes 1-10 were building up to (Victor gaining purpose and inspiration through coaching Yuuri and having his life and love revolve around that). I don't think it's an unrealistic way to take his character arc, but the rest of the series did a poor job of foreshadowing that outcome - enough that it makes me question whether Victor actually wants to return to the ice or if he's just doing it for Yuuri. This story goes with that interpretation. Overall, a really heartfelt fix-the-miscommunication fic.

[yesterdanereviews]

Junior G-Men of the Air (1942)

Film review #415

Directors: Lewis D. Collins, Ray Taylor

SYNOPSIS: “Ace” Holden and his friends hang out at his Father’s airstrip, hoping to enter the local air race while Ace’s younger brother Eddie is inventing a new plane engine. Ace and his friends witness a bank robbery, and when they refuse to cooperate with the local G-man, they try and find the robbers, not realising that they belong to the “Order of the Black Dragonfly” a foreign organisation that is attempting to sabotage American industry and pave the way for an invasion. Ace and his friends join up with the junior G-men in order to combat this threat to themselves and their country...

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Junior G-men of the Air is a 1942 film serial composed of twelve chapters, and the third to feature the young group of actors The Dead End Kids and The Little Tough Guys, although none of the serials are connected or have the same characters. This time, the kids are help to salvage junk at the airfield owned by the Father of one of the boys, Ace. While out collecting junk in their truck, they witness a robbery on a bank by a gang who steal their truck to make their getaway. Ace manages to get a strange broach of one of the men, but when the local G-man, Don Ames asks for the kids cooperation, they refuse due to their distrust of law enforcement. It turns out the robbers belong to a group known as the “Order of the Black Dragonfly,” a fifth column gang of saboteurs looking to destabilise American society to pave the way for a foreign invasion. As the serial progresses and Ace’s younger brother Eddie is kidnapped, the kids join up with the junior G-men, led by Jerry Markham, to find the gang and put a stop to them. The film’s plot is quite similar to Junior G-men, the first serial featuring the group of young actors, but while that one had a setting on land, and Sea Raiders focused on the sea, this one is centred around the air and aeroplanes, although there’s not too much action in the air. At least each of them have something unique about them. Other than that there’s not too much special about the story, but as with its predecessors, having the leads be these young, unruly boys rather than the typical all-american hero offers something a little different to the vast majority of serials.

The characters of the young actors are quite similar to the ones they played in the previous serials, but I suppose they are hired to play those specific roles. The leader of the gang, Ace, is the usual agitator and instigator, although he appears a bit more tidy than the previous serials for reasons I’ll get into below. At least his name isn’t Billy this time as well. Huntz Hall as “Bolts” plays his usual idiots sidekick routine without any real surprises, and “Stick” and “Greaseball” play mostly supporting roles, but they do have more lines and action than in the previous serials. While the kids are still troublemakers and somewhat hostile to any person of the law, they are less abrasive and unlikable than they were in previous serials, which again I’ll get into below. Other characters including “Double Face” Gordon add some variety to the line-up, while Don Ames as the G-man provide the more typical straight-laced law enforcement hero. Once again there’s no real female characters aside from a minor secretarial role, as it’s clear the serial is aimed at young boys of a more rebellious nature. The villains are classed as saboteurs, destroying America from within, and are obviously meant to be representing Japan. As is usual for these serials, The Japanese characters are all played by white Americans in make-up to “look” Japanese, which is not a good look to say the least, and a practice which sadly persevered for years in the film industry. Other than that, there’s nothing too remarkable about them.

Let’s get into the main aim of this serial: it is a giant propaganda piece for young Americans to serve their country in any way possible. By the time of the serials release, the U.S. had officially entered the Second World war after the attack on Pearl Harbour, and Anti-Japanese sentiment as overwhelming. A lot of these serial have secret Japanese societies of saboteurs fuelling this sentiment, as well as convincing the public to suspicious of everything around them. That the rough antics of the lead kids and their hostility to law enforcement is toned down in this serial compared to the previous ones is probably due to delivering this message that everyone must help their country in any way they can, in fact there’s multiple scenes that explicitly deliver this line. The final chapter of the serial is one big battle where the army storms the farm where the villains have set up a base, making it look like a battlefield and displaying the glorious victory of American troops. At the end everyone remarks about how vigilant they must be against enemies from within who threaten to destroy the American way of life, when they get new that Pearl Harbour has been attacked and they must now get ready for war and remain more vigilant than before. A lot of wartime serials push this messaging, but this serial is definitely more blatant about it than others I’ve seen. Maybe because it’s aimed at the younger rebellious generation that might be more reluctant to get behind their country. nevertheless, this makes for a much more interesting finale than you get in most serials, with the large scale battle making for an interesting payoff, even if it feels like mostly stock-footage not involving most of the main cast.

Overall, Junior G-men of the Air is a decent enough serial with plenty of action to keep younger viewers entertained. The overwhelming sense of wartime propaganda that fills some of the scenes is a bit much (although there’s definitely worse), and the frankly racist depiction of Japanese people as sneaky and devious is badly outdated, which was sadly not uncommon in film for a significant period of time. It doesn’t offer much that the previous two serials featuring the young actors doesn’t, but like the other two, at least does something a little different to most serials.

[overgosh]

Hey, my friend Mad is trying to write up an oc/fanfic on a character from Japan (no it's not a long lost Shimada clan member) and he doesn't know a lot about the country in Overwatch's current time frame. Do you think you can dig up anything and share what you can?

Ooh! Good question. There isn’t anything incredibly specific on Japan. I recall during last year’s Blizzcon there was a question about what was happening in Ireland, and Michael Chu had a generally vague answer that was to the effect of “The Omnic Crisis affected some places more than others”. I don’t remember if he called anything out specifically, though. I don’t currently have the time to scrub through interviews for any nuggets, but here are some things from me to you!

I think taking all of the scattered clues from around the game (for any subject, really!) is the ticket here. The rest is speculation - personally, I love the puzzle of imagining how the “near but still very sci-fi future” has affected various places.

For instance, here’s the city skyline in Hanamura.

Past the oasis that is the Shimada castle, you’ve got a very populous urban Tokyo that’s mainly skyrises and features a lot of high-speed monorails. Compared to a picture of Mt. Fuji now, it looks like the overall design was made to give the impression of a boom in population and infrastructure (although, it may be equally as likely that a beautiful landmark like Mt. Fuji just had to be on the skyline for this level, so make choices however you want!)

The next thing to consider is the general canon of Overwatch concerning technological advances. It’s always described as an optimistic future (albeit with a good chunk of criminal empires, the explosion of a lot of Australia, etc) and has that “hard sci-fi” feel. With the bustling city, the affluent Shimadas, holographic arcade inside of Hanamura and whatever the Shimada Spirit Dragons are, it seems like urban Japan (or at least 1% Japan) is doing pretty well for itself.

Other events surrounding Japan - and the world in general! - are important. I feel as though specifically the Shimada clan would have greatly benefited from the Omnic Crisis, given their dealings. In voice lines, their “empire” seems to be widely known, so they likely had a huge effect on Japan. However, with Hanzo leaving the clan, it’s implied (at least by Widowmaker in their interaction) that it has weakened significantly. That’ll affect a good number of things! Other crime families trying to rise up? A clamp down on crime? Who knows!

 As a whole, looking at how the Omnic Crisis affected various parts of the world in different ways is pretty much fully up to interpretation right now - so, I guess just ask yourself a few questions and make it up from there! What kind of hostilities did the urban areas see? Have rural areas bounced back - were they as deeply affected, and do they have the same financial support that the more populated areas do? Et cetera.

Also, there is an omnium in the East China Sea that spits out a giant omnic (see: kaiju) every few years, which is paramount to D.Va’s story. It’s specifically described as attacking Korea, but with its equal proximity to Japan it may be interesting to develop how that relationship and situation may play out! Considering the technological advancements required from a robot war and a continuing assault by an enormous evil sea robot, I think it’s safe to say there’s a good deal of innovation in the Overwatch future.

I hope this helps! This is a simple overview and more of a starting point for worldbuilding, but we don’t have too many specifics yet so that’s key! Good luck on the fic!! I’m interested in reading it when it’s out! :D

[cutegirlsaremyfavorite]

so with the recent threats from north korea and hostile responses from trump, ive been watching videos about north korea just to know what theyre like. theres a museum inn NK called the museum of US war crimes. the way that they portray americans are uhh... savages. iirc theres a piece where theres an american that is literally sucking the blood our of a north korean. they portray us as the worst people in the world, downright animals, nothing short of monsters.

and on how people portray others, i thought back to how americans think of the nuclear bombs on japan. in america, were taught that it was necessary to end the war, that the japanese deserved it, that americans are heroes because of it, and that it was an overall good thing. and of course americans eat that narrative up, people love to view themselves as best as possible. i can look up any video relating to the effects of the nuclear bomb and its pretty much guaranteed that there will be an overwhelming amount of people who agree with that. a lot of americans dont understand so many of the horrors of the war and the negative effects of their actions. many of them go as far as refuse considering their actions and instead hide under “oh japan did this”. so many of them arent willing to talk about it or expand their understanding of it. they just want to hide under this rock of little perspective.

im not saying that japan didnt do anything wrong, they definitely did. but so did americans and every other country in the war. personally, i think that wars are stupid and the militarization of japan was a mistake. but i would say that the nuclear bombs were overkill. especially considering that they were the only 2 nuclear bombs ever used offensively and its now considered a war crime, one of the bombs was on residential and only killing maybe 100 combatants which is again a war crime and irradiating a large portion of japan, and they used 2 as if 1 wasnt enough. 2 bombs that were so strong that scientists at the time were worried it would ignite the atmosphere on fire.

and i look at many americans now who truly believe we can solve all of our problems with nukes. i cant count how many people say we should just nuke our problems away. americans arent taught the horrors of that weapon and many of them heavily underestimate its effects. americans are too busy portraying themselves are heroes to understand that theyre suggesting more war crimes. some of the things that ive seen them say were downright disgusting, no better than how north koreans portray americans. its very disheartening.

[agent-7-at-your-service]

Preview: Future Plot: Syer’s Rebellion - Chapter 1

((Sandra and Pyrrhus belongs to me

Camille belongs to @inklingleesquidly

Nebula belongs to @agenttwo and @myzzy

Marina and Wish belong to @inklingleesquidly @agenttwo and @myzzy; designs are made by @teamuntyblue  / @ryan-sign-guy

Vix belongs to @teamuntyblue / @ryan-sign-guy

Beaker Jr belongs to @askvincent / @asktheseastars and @scrushling

Emerald and Sapphire belong to @son-of-joy and @twelvetailedkitsune ))

When the Shinkiro arrived in San Francisco, one inkling recognizes the Neo Squid Sisters and later thousands gather. A producer and security from Hollywood were prepared to escort them and their friends to a 5-star hotel where a suite was waiting for them.  And it turns out that this producer is a friend of Felix Dahlia, the Neo Squid Sister's producer from Inkopolis. This producer introduced herself as Carolyn Bivalves, and she was her on behalf of Dahlia to put together a live concert for the fans in both the United States and Inkopolis, Japan.

The producer has already got a stage and equipment ready for their first concert in the United States. Nebula and Camille already have a video camera full of recorded videos from their voyage in the Pacific to show off to their fans. (It just needed some editing.) Sandra asked the producer if she can help out since she wants to play a guitar on stage; the producer agreed to it under some conditions, and she followed them quickly.

For now, everyone had a week to explore San Francisco. Pyrrhus, Beaker Jr and Vix going to the lobby to try out the food. Marina and Wish were planning out their tour around the city. Camille and Nebula, were at the roof to talk with their producer.

Sandra took this time to return to the Shinkiro to do some errands: restore the guitar she found on Jade's Island, practice it in within a week, and master it with the Squid Sister songs. And thanks to a visit to a workshop the next day, she had managed to restore the old broken guitar so that she can practice and memorize the music note of the songs.

When the time came, tickets were booked. Front row passes were given to Vix, Wish, Marina, and Beaker Jr. Camille and Nebula were getting ready for their concert with Pyrrhus wishing Camille good luck. Sandra was half-confident and half-concerned of her skills in playing a guitar when she prepared.

Fort Mason, San Francisco - California, United States - 7:00PM

A former US Army post is rented out by the request of the city mayor for a concert. But it isn't just any concert; it's the concert for the Neo Squid Sister's American Tour. Everyone all over the United States did not expect the girls to come to their country to perform. Now thousands of fans in the US finally get a chance to see their favorite musical squids on the stage and sing to them. Backstage, Sandra, Camille, and Nebula were hanging out with their friends before they're escorted to front row seats.

Sandra and the Crew were all in steampunk attire to fit in with the public. The tailor had to make a few modifications: he made sure Wish's clothes were light protected due to her hypersensitivity to sunlight; he had to make Marina's attire unflattering and instead go with long sleeves, worker's jeans and worker's boots; For Camille, she wanted her attire to match a racers -- instead, it mirrors that of a plane pilot. Overall, they wore clothing that's more closer to the Victorian Era rather than the 18 the century; still, it fits with the public. Pyrrhus was the only one that remained in his usual attire for several reasons.

Sandra wore a light mint green button shirt, a bleached leather collar and gloves, a beige corset,  a brown bustle skirt with leather belt, black inkling shorts, brown worker's boots, and her usual round violet glasses. On her head is a pair of goggles with green lens. The only piece of clothing that everyone in her party throught didn't fit her was a top hat with white pointed dog ears.

Once Beaker Jr. Vix, Marina, and Wish were off, only Pyrrhus was there with Sandra and the Neo Squid Sisters. Soon there was a familiar voice.

"Camille? Nebula?" It was Emerald's voice.

Soon Emerald and Sapphire appear out of some cardboard boxes. The sharkling agent, Suzy, jumps down and lands next to Sandra. Sandra steps away, startled as if she hasn't seen a Sharkling before.

"Emerald!" Nebula addressed.

"Sapphy!" Camille addressed.

Camille, Nebula, Emerald, and Sapphire run up to each other and have a group hug.

"What are you two doing here?" It was the first time Emerald asked on they let go.

"Ask Sandy," Camille points her thumb toward Sandra.

"I kinda dragged them along to help me find my family here in America," Sandra answered, "But we have others that joined in! Beaker Jr.! Vix! Marina and Wish! Camille's old boyfriend--"

Camille covers Sandra's mouth. "She meant Pyrrhus! She was drink sea water at one point during the voyage."

Emerald, Sapphire, and Suzy looked at Pyrrhus. He hesitated and sheepishly waved to them hello. Sapphire steps closer.

"But..... we kind of our more than friends," Camille admitted, "But it's not like that!"

Sapphire stares in Pyrrhus, and Pyrrhus closed his eyes and smiled. However, there was already a hostile vibe between them. Both replied with the same welcoming tone: "Nice to meet you."

Camille rolls her eyes, knowing this may lead to a rivalry over her. This is why I don't get into relationships, she thought to herself.

[kaosnokamisama]

Stop praising FFVI for its lazy and unispired visuals.

I know this will most probably get me a LOT of backlash given the huge amount of fans the game seems to have generated in a short time, but I’m really pissed at how much people seem to praise the visual design of Final Fantasy XV.

Let me be clear here, I’m not talking at all about the gameplay or the mechanics or anything in that direction. What I can’t stand is the visual design of the thing... I think it is lazy, unispired and, most of all, it is as far away from the concept of “fantasy” as it gets.

I understand the story and everything calls for certain familarity in order to immerse the players in the setting and let them identify with the characters, but Final  Fantasy has always been a game about freaking FANTASY! It is supposed to offer us the wonders of places unknown, exotic cultures, threatenig enemies and misterious artifacts... not the same shitty cars we see when we look outside the window and some fucking Coleman camping gear we can buy ourselves. Product placement is probably the worst sin on a first look, since it really has no place in a fantastic game set in an immaginary world. Nevertheless, I think the overall design is even a worse offender than the product placement. As I said before, it is utterly uninspired. People ar Squenix were not even trying... AT ALL!

When you have the opportunity to design a world, a freaking WORLD, from skratch, you don’t make it look like a half-assed version of our own. Why do some people wear fantasy armor, while oters look like they picked up their clothes from a japanese boy-band store? Why do people weild FF-esque over-the-top swords filled with barroque detail, while they drive cars that ARE designed in our world? It makes no sense from a cultural perspective; it takes away any coherence and it serves no purpose other than facilitate product pacement and make designing the whole thing as easy as possible. This is a rant, so I rant and say it is SHIT, it looks like SHIT and I won’t take that back.

Where exactly is the fantasy in a US 60′s dinner with pinball machines and people dressed in Urban Outfitters fashion? I guess they probably even take our own coins...

And please, don’t even try to come up with a couterargument in the line of “it’s supposed to be a more contemporary world than the ones in previous FF games”. It’s obvious that some games in the franchise were supposed to transmit a feeling of “old-times”, “mediaevalesque” and even futuristic stuff; some of them were even brave enough as to mix thing up and came up with some wonderfully complex visual designs filled with charm and personality (I’m looking at you FFXII, you beautyful beast). When you want to make up a world that’s supposed to be “contemporary” but different from ours, you put in some effort; you start asking yourself “how would culture X go on solving the everyday problems we have solved”; you start by setting up the mindset of your world’s cultures and people. We eat food, they probably do too... so, how do they solve the issue of bringing it from the plate to the mouth? Why should theier cuttlery look like ours? Why should they coock in the same way we do? Why should they even use the same ingredients? Heck... why wouls they have cars with 4 wheels and a steering wheel on une side of the whole thing at all? Not even in our world the side we drive in is standard!!!! Road signs exactly as ours? PLEASE!!!! This looks seriously like a gae that was supposed to be something else untill they remembered they had to make it “fantastic”; so they sprinkled some salvages cliches from the history of the franchise here and there. People liked big swords... let’s put some here; they also liked armored soldiers, let’s have them again; also, spiky hair everywhere!

Apparently “fantasy” does not include the possibility of inventing an alternative road-sign system. You know, tiltet yellow squares for annimal-hazzards is a universal thing along the multiverse. Oh, wait, the sign is on the opposite side of the road... that must be the part where the immagination of the designers kicked in full-power!

If you want a good example of how you design a believable contemporary world that feels familiar, but otherworldly at the same time, take a look at “Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honeamise”, the brilliant animated film that kickstarted studio Gainax‘s existence back in 1987. It’s the story of two nations caught up in stagnated war and how, in the middle of this hostility, people long to manage to fly to space for the first time... a paralel to our own world in SO MANY ways, but told through a immaginary world with its own nations, each one with different cultures, visual sensibilities, languages, etc. It feels like a world in what would be our 50′s or 60′, but completely alien. There are familiar things all over, but they don’t have to look like ours. They have coins, but they aren’t round disks, but slim cilinders. THey have cars and trams and trains, but they don’t necessarily look like ours or even work exaclty like ours! Their clothes are different, because not even every culture in our freaking planet dresses the same. Even stuff that physics require to be more or less in a certain way is designed to reflect the cultural sensibilities of the people who made them. Rockets have to be long and pointy and the modular design is objectively a good solution to the problems of making them spaceworthy... but why should they look exactly like the ones made by the US, or the ones made by the USSR? Maybe people would paint them or decorate them in ways consistent with their superstitions, traditions or religious beliefs. Why sould shirts and coats have collars like the ones we fancy in our XXI century? Why even have everyone wear pants? Even nowadays in our world there are many places where people regularly wear different stuff (SE Asia or the Arab countries, to name just a few). Asking those questions and comming up with believable designs based on your characters’ world and not in what your audience or players will most likely want to consume for themselves is what sets appart the awesome visual designs of Honeamise and the lazy shit that’s FFXV.

This is what good visual worldbuilding for a realistic-fantastic setting looks like. It takes you back to a modern 1960′ city, with a hint of Japan, but in a way that tells you “this peope have gone through their own aethetic history”. Every detail, from buildings to costume and tableware is meant to feel like it belongs to a world familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

I just would whish people would be more critic of this and stop praising the game for what is not only not praiseworthy, but incredibly shitty; something that goes against decades of work by people who had real vision and put real effort in making the franchise as beloved as it still is.

[weepingengineerpuppy]

Skin Packaging Market to drive the Highest CAGR Growth by 2027

Market Overview

Skin packaging is gaining more popularity because it is useful to protect the product from various hostile conditions such as mechanical hazards, humidity, temperature, and others. The sectors related to food items, retail, industrial goods, and others are increasing the demand for skin packaging, leading to growing the Skin Packaging market Size. Among all these sectors, the food industry has the domination for skin packaging with different categories such as bakery, fruits, vegetables, fresh meats, and ready to eat products.

Hence, the major factors that are driving the growth of this marker are space-saving packaging, cost-efficiency, and increasing demand for packaged foods. Along with that, the capability to increase the shelf life of the product and the stringent regulations regarding packaging waste are expected to enhance the Skin Packaging Market Growth as it requires less resource for packaging of the product.

During the forecast period of 2017 to 2023, the LDPE is registered to dominate the global Skin Packaging market by generating a higher market share. The LDPE material segment is increasing its demand due to the increasing popularity of plastic-based packaging across all major end-users and the excessive lightweight nature of the LDPE. Overall, the Skin Packaging Market Trends is driving its growth due to the increase in global consumption of meat products, rapid urbanization in emerging economies, expansion of the food and packaging industry, and increasing trend of packed food.

Segmental Overview

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According to the application segment, the global market is classified into Cheese, Meat, Poultry, and others. In 2016, meat as a food product had registered to higher the market growth, and further, it is registered to be the fastest-growing application in the forecast period. The meat application segment is enhancing the Skin Packaging market Growth due to the increasing consumption of mutton, beef, pork, and veal across the regions.

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Regional Overview

According to regional classification, the global Skin Packaging market is offering various products and services across the regions. These regions are Asia-Pacific, Europe, South America, North America, and the rest of the world. With a number of local, regional, and multinational providers, the Skin Packaging Industry is extremely exploded. Among all these regions, the Asia Pacific region has dominance over the global market due to the increasingly effective work of the local players across the region and emerging economies of the countries like India, China, and Japan. According to the Skin Packaging Industry’s report, Asia-Pacific countries are sharing 35%-40% growth of the global market. Along with that, North America and Europe are taking the second higher position to generate the higher market value.

Industry News

The global COVID pandemic has affected the global Skin Packaging market Size as many of the regions imposed lockdown. The global market’s supplies, transportations, productivity, and others had been impacted the market very severely for a certain period of time. However, various techniques and strategies have been adopted by the key market players to boost up the market growth by generating more Skin Packaging market Share. Hence, the global market is able to successfully stop all the losses in the present scenario. Further, the global market is looking to generate more market revenue for the global market in the forecast period.

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