#quality randomly getting crunched

[jacenotjason]

trying to post to tiktok makes me want to rip out vital organ

[captainkurosolaire]

~ Mass Update ~

Mainly going into future plans and intents alongside ideas below cut.

Ton's of things I've in store this will prove difficult to vent it all out. But here we go... First off rehashing and appropriately learning to tag and organize things better on my blog. Each category will have their own corresponding content, I seek to bring or share. [Tales of Goldbrand] -- I intend this to carry a Compendium of all my writes soon that'll have everything neatly in-order including a glossary, so it'll have highlights of stories that even matter or the best stuff. I've written here for a very, long time, there's been many shifts. I want to make it more accessible. While coloring what matters for people who want to learn Captain or his Crew with less chapters. While also giving choice to find it all easily. This is essentially a step-above master-lists. I'll be doing that after the Saga I have going on, right now is done. [Captain] -- Will provide you strictly with Captain screenshots, gifs, photo-sets. This is still his blog despite the Crew thing's will sort of make this a scuffed Multi-Muse blog. I've few more things to edit and tag fix to get all his stuff though. [The Wild Crew] -- Afterwards this story is done Immortal Age Saga, It's something that I mainly wrote as a passion project within three days to get my warm-up process fixed. It's to allow me to get a feel for all his Crewmates and casts, in combat, in-general, to feel their presences. While also giving a bit of their backstories. At any point, I can go back and polish or tweak things in. They're NPC's but... not entirely. All will have their own 'Dreams' and their own 'Disapproval's' they have their own missions even. These things will factor eventually, they might set seeds, to betray or disagree with something, but that's all angst and more stories to be created, but overall, they'll probably always be Crew, eventually. -- I plan on making character-profile sheets of them and putting them in this Tab, it'll have their screenshots, their likes/dislikes. Some RP partners or people can also be shipped with them, but they'll all be monogamous and originally start off probably Pan. This allows them to figure out what they like on their own stories. I've always been someone who likes organic-flow. Although this one story contain all 16 characters or more, the rest will probably be shortened to a Squad of 4 and dispersed when on adventuring missions. Until I do a War Arc, that's my main goal to build too. [Roster] -- Will contain this Crew in just screen-sets dedicated to them, I'll probably randomly produce those. I've PC players among this Crew too. I may not be done either adding more, but this Crew is mainly built around Quality. Most pirate crew's mainly, have hundreds, thousands. Even Fleets. This Crew has personalities, monsters, people who are living life's that exist with piracy. He's an particular leader that had PC players the same way, he's had split-personality serial killers aboard, tribal chieftains, succubus, all sorts of various people once on a Crew. It's often an outcast style, pirates default are chaotic in nature, so this really isn't any different, it's a Fantasy version of it. There's humanization characters aboard too though, so this cast is really decked, everything and person is vital, they matter because they remind or covet something that others can draw upon. If ever played (Three Houses or Mass Effect / Dragon Age Origins) A lot of things like that are relatable too this structure and format. Which, Is something I want to be able to give when RPing. I want a genuine feel of this new world someone else's muse will be the main-character too. Depending on what's interacting everything they'll be scale appropriately to follow the genre they're in and environment even. [Aesthetics] -- Already explainable what you'll find here. [Asks] -- Same thing. [Prompts] -- Trivial things I was tagged too, I plan on compiling later. [Writing] -- Another alternatively to randomly go-down and it works right now. [Logs] -- Will have more individualistic master-lists and posts there, my poems from Sheik Sphere the Bard, etc.

Things of that nature, I'll probably add still. It's where a lot of my creative writing is summed. [Gems of Hydaelyn] -- My main #tag for other characters and artists, creationist. Lot of amazing people easily to find their zones or follow them optionally if you like. Ton's I intend to support and bolster, be a lot less unspoken. I'm never the type who's been strictly inclusive. But I'll do that when I've time to even explore the dash, I'm always still planning ahead with things and projects. [CKS] My original character-sheet it's outdated on something's but not too terrible. I'll give him polishing someday, I swear? [21+F-List] -- Just purely degenerate stuff of Captain. I'm a pirate blog. I will represent that with openness and furthermore. I'm never projecting you some false-image. I started off a smut-writer by stripping that, I no-longer represent the same aura and identity. But those are strictly his stuff and kinks, I'm effective in executing them but they're not all relatable to me OOC. This blog will always be 18+ containing crude or dark material sometimes, romantic things, this Captain is blunt, will literally put his cock on the table in conversations. Swearing and being censored would be too uncommon and displace most of him, but there's more about him then all this. [Other] -- I pay homage to a lot of characters, I originally am a Concept Designer. Which mean's I make characters and ideas like my addiction. Bad characters / villains or other little things I like to share in designs, I'll put there. Some villains might get little photo-sets, even if they died. Just cause I like their design, or maybe I'll give them an AU, where they won. When I've wrapped up things. [Collabs + Ships] -- Is a new project idea. This isn't going to be something limited too romantic only ships. It'll contain, platonic, romantic, friendships, rivals, frenemies, family, PC Crew, all ships. I am desperately working on improving my gif, screenshot, posing game so I can supply 'Screen Stories' this is not only a way to RP that's accessible with even people who are upon time-crunches from work, It gives visual-representation. To impactful stories shared with others and establish bonds. That are all-valid and impactful matter. Lot of people take a lot of their characters attributes into them and are them dialed up, I work with that and bit more, differently. I'm disconnected from my characters and they'll get hurt and injured and killed by me, that's my duty as their Author to give them conflicts and struggles. I'm their major antagonist, but that doesn't mean at-all, it's always SET that way. The characters I like to make have their own life, they live in this setting and are abide by it, they're often nothing, nobodies, and by the interacting with others, they slowly gradually building, more... Through emotional impacts, they alter, these are REAL people by all their beliefs. Each person they come in-contact with are legitimate and treated like that too. They've always impacted or given them insights to grow, or represent more. Otherwise it'd be criminally disrespectful if I allowed any emotional I felt OOC be the grudge to something IC. Captain in-particular is set on defying me. I cannot have that. ...But I can't stop him. He's met and encountered so many people and lived so many scenarios based on the actions of others, he's giving a chance right now to actually do things a lot further than impossible. The more people he meets and encounters, experiences, the more I lose. These stories are emotionally interactive where everything is a factor and adds to the dice, where the other people are the one who get to roll the dice for him, not me. That's something I want to color in. People range in emotions, they have their down's, ups, their own wholesome-grounding people, spending time with your favorite people, there's nothing more cherishing than that, being in your own comfort-zone or 'safe-space' these are all treasures that we live under, today. Contrary if what people assume of me, I'm not another 'blogger' that's came

before, who's wanting to force a harem, then constantly is bewildered when that falls to pieces cause of selfishness or a lack of communication, or the skeletons they have in their closets and beliefs they hid behind and swindled fooled everyone. I'm not looking to be popular or anything really, I just create stories and want to share in those, and I want to also boost others included, upward with me, especially those who make me. There's no ego in anything I do, this is purely love. I've never cared about being replicated or duplicated, I've had stalkers, I've gone through more then anyone would imagine, I've been used OOC and abused, just for my writing and cold-harshly told, i'd never amount to anything other then that or vice-versa. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Passion. That's all I got and am anymore. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Passion is the hardest thing to keep. It's something that can be stolen, quite effortlessly. Few words of discouragement, a bad negative representation, a lack of confidence, or small amount of time, there's many thing's that can put that flame out. Once you lose it. The difficulty to reattain is hundred-times harder than climbing any mountain for real. I've watched the greatest creators crumble from under the pressure, from beaten down by others. I watched many of them do it to themselves because they put a grand vision of needing validation of another and once lost, felt uncompelling to press onward. But passion also can be given BACK and drawn. It can be shown and encourage others, with a soft-triggering, that pushes them. That motivates, that constantly sticks to it. There are many that fuel me. If I ever quit, I let them down, I spit in the faces of people who're better than me in every-way. Or people who've came and given me their precious Time. That have given their character's or dedication to the abundant stories and community-driven things I've done. There's ONLY things you can do, create, give and provide. It cannot ever come to life without YOU. This is a fact. ...I swear, If you let your creativity soar, you'll be amazed by the heights you get. Constantly polish and learn and hone the best you, challenge yourself day after painstaking day, to draw better improvement on something, no matter how trivial or unfamiliar you are. You'll find a confidence only you can give yourself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Future Plans --------------------------------------------------------------------- For me, I've got so much more stories to give and also explore, I might be taking up soon some other artists and more skilled people from community and hire them for some of my future writes, to up my game or cause something thing's can't be done in-game cause no background carries it. I also got a lot of-set up things and more angst stuff I want to practice, plus I'm adamantly on that grind to produce screen-sets with the intent's to some sort of improving daily. Additionally more people I'll be reaching out too soon for these collab's ideas and things. I look forward to shaking your hands, giving some hugs, show you my respect and admiration, then creating some enchanting stories and giving plots light. Feel free to reach out to me, I get scattered-brain but I'm working on getting better about it. Eventually will get to you though, my goals, if uninterested just say so when I poke, no bites, unless you kinky. Anyways, cheers hearties.

[due-processs]

me & rwby

So, you’ve stumbled across my blog. You might be asking yourself why this blog exists and what I’m doing here. This post is meant to give some answers, and a bit of my history with rwby and its fandom. (scroll to the bottom for a tl;dr)

I first started watching Rooster Teeth and the various channels within it when I was probably too young to be doing so. But, being the middle schooler I was, I thought the gaming stuff was cool and I liked Red vs Blue. 

Inevitably, I ended up watching RWBY, which was nearing the end of its second volume (around late 2014). I would say that I was hooked immediately, but that’s not true. Even back then I had a hard time getting past the... interesting animation and voice acting. It took me two tries, but I did end up getting extremely invested in RWBY. I binged what was available, and once they were released, I asked for the dvds for Christmas. I even got a few of my irl friends into the show.

RWBY ended up becoming my first fandom. I had a now long-gone tumblr blog and a slew of various characters I shipped and even wrote a little fic for (never published, though). I wasn’t really invested in the adult characters or what they had going on, I just wanted to get back to the prom, y’know? 

Then volume three came out, and it was really good! I enjoyed it a lot. It felt like RWBY could only get better from there! And then it just... didn’t? I will say I actually did enjoy volume four at the time, but not as I liked volume three. I still think it has some good moments, but it didn’t follow with the quality three had left us with. 

When volume five was premiering in early 2017, though, my interest gradually started to decline. I was still watching RWBY and RT stuff, but it wasn’t holding my interest like it used to. By the time six was coming out, I had also become disillusioned with RT as a company after a series of scandals (think the crunch stuff, sketchy advertisements, etc). I slowly woke up from that parasocial nightmare over the course of a few months and stopped watching most of their stuff. I still held on to RWBY for volume six, but I would miss episodes and have to watch a bunch to catch up. 

Once volume six was done, I didn’t continue watching RWBY. Honestly, if you had asked me then what volume six was about, I could not have told you.

But, due-processs, you may ask, how the fuck did you then end up creating an Ironwood blog literally years later, especially when you did not care at all about him the first time around? That’s a really good question. a few things happened in my time away from RWBY.  

1) I grew up. I’m able to actually think critically about the media i consume now, lmao. Whether that means actually being critical, or just analyzing things on a deeper level. 

2) i developed a very specific type when it comes to the characters i like and get low-key obsessed with. That type is as follows: kind of a hard-ass, stern, but also obviously with a heart of gold/soft side. Bonus points if they have awkward parental energy or just are kind of awkward in general. More bonus points if there’s an element of them being morally gray. So you can see where this is going.......... 

I don’t remember how I become curious as to what was going on in RWBY these days, honestly. I checked in on RT as a whole when the Ryan Haywood is a sexual predator situation came to light, but it wasn’t then. Maybe I just thought of it randomly, or perhaps I saw hbomberguy’s RWBY video in my recommended. Either way, I decided to check up on the fandom. And I quickly learned that it had split itself between critics/RWDE/HTDM and anti-critics. Always the sign of a healthy fandom to be sure lol. 

I read through a lot of different posts and started to get far more interested in the RWDE side of things. RWDE posts tended to be a bit more deep (at least, in my opinion). Like, rwde posters and critics tend to really think about and analyze the show, and that’s what interests me. Thinking about where RWBY went wrong and what it could have been is extremely interesting. Generally, though not always, I agree with what a lot of rwde posters have to say (from what I know of the show).

One of the big complaints I saw was that Ironwood was really interesting and good in volume seven, but they ended up making him a mustache-twirling villain in volume eight and trashing his character. I remember thinking that I hadn’t really cared about Ironwood my first go-around, but I wanted to see what the fuss was about. So, I found clips of him in volume seven. 

I was blown away by a few things. First, his model was vastly improved compared to volumes 4/5. His face looks nice in V4/5, but his torso is so bad in that. But in the later volumes? Not only is that fixed, but they gave him a really nice beard and outfit. Not to mention he’s so tall and quite large. He’s like... easily the sexiest male character - to me, at least. Second, and more importantly, his characterization in volume seven was directly on the nose for that type I mentioned earlier. He’s a hard-assed military leader, but he is also extremely soft. I also began to revisit and appreciate his scenes from V1-6 a lot more. This fictional cartoon man really is the perfect storm to gain my interest. 

And then, of course, I turned to watch the volume eight clips with dismay. It was just as everyone had said. Not only had his character done practically a complete 180, but they ended up villainizing him in the most shitty, ableist ways they possibly could have managed. 

(I will say, I think if they’d gone for just Antagonist Ironwood, that would have been good. He doesn’t have to be right all the time or perfect for me to like him. In fact, I really like the angle of him being morally gray but still trying his best ultimately. They could have done literally anything other than “Ironwood is 100% evil now for shitty reasons” and I would’ve been fine with that. A little annoyed, perhaps, but fine.)  

So, I started dwelling on this character quite a bit, as I’m prone to with characters like him. I’ve decided that I think it would be fun to actually interact with other Ironwood fans and maybe do some fanworks. I also have the occasional rwde thought I’d like to toss in there, too. I will say I’m going to try to avoid the fandom at large. Interacting there just does not sound fun lmao. 

And there it is. My history with RWBY and what this blog is for. I don’t know why I decided to write a long ass post, but there it is. Honestly, it’s more for me to get my thoughts out than for anyone to actually read. But thanks if you did read!!

TL;DR

I watched RWBY from about 2014 to 2017/18 (volume six). Initially, I didn’t care about the adult characters at all. I stopped watching RWBY and RT stuff as I became disillusioned with the company after some scandals (e.g. the crunch stuff) and as my tastes/interests changed. From 2018 to now, I developed a love of hard-ass characters that are also secretly soft. I got curious about RWBY again recently and learned about James Ironwood’s arc throughout V7. Not only does he perfectly fit the type of character I really like, but he’s also super hot. V8 ruined him in shitty ways, but I still like who he was in V2-7 and what he could have been. This blog is to interact with other Ironwood fans and maybe do some fanworks and rwde discussions. Thanks for reading!

[gamingpsychologist]

Coaching

Awareness, Responsibility, Learning how to learn and to act are the three pillars of effective coaching. During coaching the coach and the client are working on building a strong foundation based on these three pillars.

Coaching doesn’t happen randomly, it is a methodical way of accompanying someone by focusing on results in attitude, knowledge and skills. The exact goals for these areas of expertise are always set with the client. Just for this sole reason it is already important to have a dialogue with the client about the fun and problems they experience at work. These can differ from person to person, as no one is the same. Therefore, the way of coaching isn’t always the same. The are generally three kinds of coaching: 1. Function-oriented coaching 2. Process-oriented coaching 3. Context-oriented coaching Function-oriented coaching When someone new joins the team they are usually focused on performing withing their assigned role, so this might mean that a new player joins and tries to prove their worth and tries to fit in within the newly set team synergy, or it might be a new analyst who tries to have an impact on the chances to win by crunching the numbers. The learning experience of the new member lies on improving. The common kinds of questions sound something like: When am I doing well? What happens if I under perform? How do I tackle the new ways of communication? What happens if there are different vision on how to play the game?

In general they all have to do with these three questions: 1. What do I have to do and how do I do that as best as possible? 2. What does this new function mean for me, and what does the organization and team expect of me? 3. How can I use my qualities to achieve this?

Process-oriented coaching The focus of process-oriented coaching lies mainly on awareness. How do you carry out your role within the team? And how are you able to develop yourself within this role? You could say that the theme is development.

When process-oriented coaching is the way that should lead to success, it  usually means that some specific beliefs are standing in the way of further development. In this case you should center your attention towards getting a sense of the experienced reality and that it is your own responsibility to work on your own questions in order to realize the reality that is desired.

Context-oriented coaching Standing central in context-oriented coaching is the in individual and their environment. It happens often that questions arise that have to do with the meaning of life, and with changes within the team, organization or community. Questions like: Who or What do I need to do for others? Do I need to leave the team/org? Should I retire and focus on my personal growth? The most occurring themes are: - New perspective - Seeking new challenges - Work-life balance The core lies more often than not with “growth and flourishing” within the given context. How do I become the best version of myself and how do I get to be happy with who I am and what I do. People want to answer the question Why they do What they do.

Customize your coaching

If you’re a coach and you want to help improve your team, you need to be able to customize the way you approach coaching to suit the needs of the team and the individual. This not only means that you need to know which coaching style meets the needs, but also what the best suitable methods are. There are a lot of methods out there and a lot of books written about coaching. The ones I’ve learned: - GROW-model (Goal, Reality, Options, and Will) - Transactional analysis - Voice Dialogue - Cognitive behavioral coaching - Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) - Acceptence and commitment therapy (ACT) - Mindfullness - The systemic approach, - Motivational interviewing - Solution-oriented working If you want to know more about these methods, you can google search them or just ask me.

[thebestworstidea]

Well Spotted (Monster AU)

Patton frowned into the mirror.

It was still there.

He’d never been one to freckle, being more of a burn fast then tan and stay that way for the rest of the summer complexion. He only really wore sunblock at Logan’s insistence, under his own steam he’d be more inclined to just trust in his natural regenerative qualities. Logan had given him a whole lecture on the lack of study of diseases, especially cancer vs werewolf metabolisms, and would repeat it with updates if Patton tried to escape without sunblock, so it was easier to wear it.

Besides it was a good example for people around him, and solidarity for Logan who burned just barely less than Virgil, which was something of an accomplishment.

So this was strange, especially given the moon had just come off waning full, so Patton was as healthy as he would ever be, barring him giving up cookies in favor of crunches, which realistically wasn’t going to happen.

But this wasn’t really a freckle, was it? It was... like the opposite of a freckle. A paler patch at the inner edge of his eye lid. In fact he thought it might be bigger than it was before, a creamy-pink patch.  He compared it mentally to the first time he’d noticed it. It was still smaller than his pinky nail but it was definitely bigger than before. He whined again.

“Something the matter?” Roman yawned behind him. Patton jumped and dropped his hand to the sink, picking up his razor again. 

“no, not really.” Patton leaned over to kiss the top of Roman’s head, which made him grumble slightly. “Just one of those ‘huh this is my face’ mornings, you know?”

“Well, not everyone is as fortunate as I am.” Roman chuckled, “But I have had those, yes.” he rubbed a bit of shaving foam out of his hair. “Well, I’m showering now, I guess.”

“Sorry not sorry. If you’re gonna being all cute, I’m gonna kiss you!” Patton stuck his tongue out, and resumed shaving.

“If that was the rules, my perfect puffball, how would I ever stop kissing you?” Roman demanded. Patton just giggled. Behind him, the shower turned on, and he almost choked as Roman threw a flirty smile over his shoulder before disappearing into it. 

“Your vicious seduction won’t work on me, mister.” Patton teased. He finished shaving, as Roman started singing sweetly in the shower, testing Patton’s resolve. He had to get dressed, make lunch and maybe... he frowned, reaching under his glasses to touch the strange patch of skin. Well, maybe a shower wouldn’t hurt.

After that Patton forgot about the paler patch. It wasn’t really important, after all. It was barely visible behind his glasses. In fact, the next time he noticed it, he was pretty sure he must be mistaken because he’d thought it was on the other side.

“Hey, Pat, c’mere.” Virgil called.

“What’s up?” Patton asked. He’d been trying to relearn sewing, and was working on a stitch sampler, which was going pretty frustratingly badly. He was pretty sure he’d been okay at this as a teenager. “it’s just my lap’s full, so-”

“No it’s cool.” Virgil was suddenly sitting next to him on the couch. He took Patton’s face in one hand, staring into his eyes, and Patton couldn’t help but wiggle a little bit happily, hand coming up to cover Virgil’s cold one. Virgil smiled at that and pushed up Patton’s glasses onto his head, kissing his nose, which only made him wiggle more. “Hold still!” the vampire laughed, putting his other hand on Patton’s other cheek, rubbing at his cheekbone with a thumb. “I think you’ve got something on your face- were you baking today?”

“No?” Patton held a little more still as Virgil swiped the pad of his thumb over Patton’s eyelid gently, then with a little more pressure.

“Huh.” Leaning forward, he dropped a kiss in the same place, then licked, just a little. Patton squealed and pushed away, falling off the couch as he burst into laughter.

“That tickles!” He hopped up to his wolf form pressing Virgil to the couch and licking him back in retaliation.

“Hey no!” Virgil laughed. “Not fair! Stop it! Argh! No! You’re shedding! It’s going to get on my clothes!” 

“You started it.” Patton laughed, resting his head in his boyfriend’s lap.

“Teach me to show concern.” Virgil pretended to be grouchy, and Patton pressed closer.

“Noooo you love me.”

“I do?”

“You do!”

“I do.” Virgil kissed his nose. Patton turned back just so he could return the favor, holding him in place. Virgil had to wiggle loose to wash his face, not willing to sit there with wolf slobber, but he came back for more kisses, so that was okay.

“Were you playing with makeup today?” Logan asked suddenly.  They were in the middle of making dinner, and the question seemed to come out of nowhere.

“Huh?” Patton blinked. “No, not today, why?”

“I just noticed that you have something white around your eyes.”

Patton scratched the back of his head, then suddenly remembered that discoloration he’d noticed a while back. He immediately tried to check his reflection in the back of a spoon. He licked it clean, and tried again.

“Patton-” Logan said with fond exasperation. He looked up and saw that Logan was offering his phone. Patton had promised to leave his on the counter out of reach after almost dropping it into dishes one too many times while trying to take the perfect picture. He snapped a selfie and peered at it, unconsciously running a finger up under his glasses. Logan was right. There was a smear of off white on his lids. Frowning, he tried to look at the picture as if it someone he didn’t know. Then he thumbed at the settings a few times, until it looked more like wolf vision. It wasn’t perfect- nothing was, but he’d done it a few times to recognize things better. Even his normal slight colorblindness wasn’t the same.

“Logan?” he said quietly looking up. “Do- do you think there’s something the matter? I have... patches. They didn’t used to be there.” 

Logan took Patton’s glasses off and set them aside, cupping his face and staring at it for a long time. Patton rested his hands on top of Logan’s and just waited, staring up at him patiently. Behind him, the stove clicked off, keeping the dinner from burning. Finally, Logan let go of Patton’s face, and picked his phone up, pulling a stylus from his pocket to type into it as he often did. Patton reclaimed his glasses, and put the finishing touches on dinner as Logan did whatever he was doing.

“Vitiligo.” Logan said without preamble.

“Pardon?”

“Vitiligo.” He repeated. “It’s a skin condition. The pigment of the skin leaches away, leaving paler patches. Commonly develops around the eyes first.”

“I’m going to get more patchy?” Patton whined. Logan reached out and stroked his hair, and Patton pressed his face into Logan’s shirt.

“It’s not dangerous Patton. It’s more commonly visible in darker skin tones, but it can happen to anyone.”

“I just... I don’t want to look weird.” Patton mumbled.

“Here.” at Logan’s urging, Patton turned around, and Logan showed him pictures on his phone. “Do they look weird?”

“Oh they’re pretty!”  Patton exclaimed.

“And you are pretty as well.” Logan kissed the top of his head.

“He sure is!” Roman said from the doorway. “Are we just randomly complimenting him, or?”

“But you really should be more careful about sunscreen now, Patton.” Logan added. “Since those areas will take sun damage faster.”

Patton laughed.

Somehow, he was pretty sure everything would be okay.

[bakugousmyboy]

I love you ! And your writing !

IT IS ALWAYS SHINSOU AND MIRIO LOVING HOURS IN THIS HOUSE!!! THANK YOU ANON!!! Also 💙💙💙!

these came out mostly soft with a decent side of fluff i hope thats okay

Mirio Togata

He loves using quirk to appear behind you and startle you before picking you up and twirling you around.

This boy is so affectionate at all times, I mean it’s a given.

Will suddenly kiss you and then act like he didn’t just to make you even more flustered, watching you blush and stutter while he just blinks innocently.

“W-what was that?” “What was what?”

When you’re finally used to it if you kiss him back immediately after he’s gonna be red and extra smiley for like the next half an hour.

Loves to lay on top of you, sometimes it’s in a cute cuddly way and sometimes it’s him walking up to you while you’re reading and just going dead weight on top of you and acting like he can’t hear you when you complain.

When it is in a cuddly way don’t expect him to get up anytime soon, he doesn’t often show people how tired he gets so treasure these moments. Will plant a kiss just below your collar bone when he has to get up.

Loves to give you piggyback rides, especially if you make short jokes the entire time.

Also, in case you were unaware he’s 5′11 (or 181 cm) so it’s hard to surprise kiss him unless he’s sitting or laying down. If he’s standing and you try to wrap your arms around his neck to give him a sudden kiss but can’t get high enough he’s just gonna walk around and let you hang there for a bit.

If you wrap your arms around his neck from behind while he’s sitting down he’ll just casually stand up but if you start to fall he’ll grab your legs and it turns into a piggyback, you can’t lose.

 Loves to cuddle with you so much. Likes being the big spoon but if you let him just nestle into your side and lay his head on your lap or stomach while you study he’s thriving.

He loves to hold your face in his hands and pepper it with kisses and if you do the same to him he’s gonna be putty.

When he’s tired he’ll walk up behind you and wrap his arms around you and lightly kiss your neck before burying his face in it, he’ll stay like that for as long as he can.

Loves to literally sweep you off your feet and dip you into a deep cliché movie kiss, he knows it’s cheesy and that just makes him love it more.

Always pulls you to him by your hips. He wants a hug? A kiss? To rest his chin on your shoulder? He’s gonna pull you in by your hips and they’re gonna stay there most of the time.

Shinsou Hitoshi

He loves holding your hand and tries to do so constantly, will randomly kiss the back of your hand and if it makes you blush he’s gonna shoot you a wink just to make it worse better. 

It’s not always full on hand-holding, he likes hooking your pinkies together just as much.

Likes to play with your hands as well and will kiss your fingertips if he notices you seem nervous.

Loves to snuggle up to you as close as he can and try and get some shut-eye. If you run your fingers through his hair it’s basically a guaranteed K.O.

He likes it when you hum softly as well but half the time that just makes him stare at you in awe rather than make him sleepy.

If you ask him what he’s staring at he’s either gonna whip out a pickup line (quality may vary) or he’s just gonna kiss you.

Occasionally he’ll walk up to you, usually when you’re around your friends, and stick his hand in your back pocket and if you seem embarrassed he’s gonna squeeze your ass when you’re mid-sentence hoping you’ll squeak.

If you try and do this to him he’s either gonna give you a cheeky smirk or he’s gonna be completely stone-faced and pretend it doesn’t fluster him it does.

If he can’t sleep he’ll stay up and play with your hair and/or gently rub your back.

If he sees you having a nightmare he’ll wake you up as gently as possible and always gives you a kiss on the forehead before you fall back asleep.

If he can rest his head on your shoulder at ANY POINT he will.

Will eat your food the second you stop paying attention, this includes food that is about to go in your mouth.

You lost track of the number of times you’ve gone to take a bite of your food only to find empty air and a smug-looking Hitoshi.

Master of building pillow forts and spontaneously makes them, if you’re not on board for whatever reason he’s gonna build it around you so you have to crawl through it or risk crushing him to go anywhere.

If you happen to go with him when he works out or trains he makes you spot him for crunches so each one he does he can steal a kiss from you.

[writingonjorvik]

Can We Discuss Quest Frequency?

Ok, before we start, did y’all not want 5000 SC? Because I’ve had a giveaway running since Monday and only one person has entered?! Seriously? Y’all get on it.

But on a serious note, we’re going to be talking about the results from this poll, and like always the poll will continue to run after this analysis is out. But I wanted to do this today because of the changes that came out to the Horse Market.

So to start, I can get why SSO would want to stop having the Horse Market. By being stationary, it makes these horses accessible and it gives SSO somewhere where they can always fit more horses instead of terraforming more of the environment and I can appreciate that. It also means there’s not this continuing source of EXP that will continue to push veteran players to levels unavailable to everyone else, but that’s also got its own problems and we’re going to break into that.

So to start, now that the horse market is done, that’s a lot of exp that’s now unavailable to new players, meaning access to players for those higher levels is going to be harder, if possible (there was a lot of horse market exp over the years). But this also highlights the problems in SSO’s leveling system. With a lowered pool of exp, there’s a wider gap in player level and with things like championships were a level 22 player can race a level 5 (I did), that’s not a fair matching system, and there’s less to do to close it. I mean, there’s a whole other topic here about championships being seriously improved by making more groups and only putting in same level players to make the races fair. But exp access and SSO’s apparent fear of giving it out/increasing level caps isn’t really the point of this.

No, I think the bigger issue with removing the horse market is it means less people are going to get on, which is bad for an MMO. MMOs are, despite the about a quarter of y’all according to my other poll running right now, advertised on having a lot of players. And SSO already has a low player retention compared to other MMOs (400,000 of 12,000,000 before accounting for multiple accounts). But to remove a bi-weekly event removes another reason for players to get on.

Start with the basics of this survey.

Two thirds of y’all said you got on daily when you had quests.

But that drops down to only 6.4% when there aren’t quests. That’s an insane drop! Nearly half of y’all said if you don’t have quests you only get on when you have something to do. That’s not a frequency, that’s a guess and it could be anywhere in a wide spectrum of times. But it does mean that the more often SSO puts out quests, the more often that is.

I’m gonna go through these next three quick.

To be fair, I think the original wording of the last one might have skewed my data. I didn’t mean how often should SSO make new events or how often should they repeat (duh, holiday events should happen once a year), I meant how often should one be happening. Regardless, I’m going to use the data as it was collected.

A massive amount of y’all think story quests need to be happening more often, and considering that SSO is a story driven game, I don’t disagree. I think the majority “Quarterly” release here is fair, and it is something SSO seems to be working towards. But that shouldn’t be the only quests! Over 70% of y’all think smaller side quests need to me added at least monthly, if not more often. And y’all think events should be running quarterly to monthly in a pretty big majority.

But it’s not just about quests being more often, it’s about continuing to have something to do.

Nearly 90% of entrants said quests need to be longer than a day. It’s not just about things coming out more often, it’s about continuing to have something to do. And whether you think events, general, or story quests need to be longer respectively, length is the fourth biggest priority for all interests in new quests, bigger than new areas to explore.

Y’all didn’t really see to care about seeing new things outside of areas to explore, and since SSO’s also pretty big on exploration, kinda makes since. But based on y’all’s results, you care more about worldbuilding in story and generally having fun for a longer period of time than needing new assets, which for a game, is great! If you’re fine with reusing assets, that should mean less development time for the devs. They largely need to write story, not create new set pieces.

But it can also be repetitive and y’all agreed resoundingly on that.

You guys want dailies back, though with some updates. Dailies having a story purpose was behind dailies being fair and having a balanced progression and then having a reward for finishing them. Dailies like your popular favorites, any of the druid quests, the Rescue Ranch, or the Kalters, where they take a fair amount of time and immediately reward you with something for doing the daily, like a quest, a horse, or a new area.

What I think is frustrating is that nearly all of you either said fishing or the Sunfield Hens as your least favorite dailies, but SSO makes jokes about it. Sure, having a reward like an achievement makes these dailies more bearable, but there’s still a stupid amount of slog and y’all still said you hated these dailies even after those achievements were out. For SSO to hold these two (a super minority of all of their dailies) as the standard that dailies are and the reason they don’t add more is, frankly, just nonsense. Further, the fact that they have done nothing to make these more enjoyable is beyond me. Just rebalance them. Make the hens stay still longer. Take away the “Good try” in fishing. Besides the point.

The overwhelming evidence from y’all’s feedback is that while quality matters, having something, even minute, is better than nothing. And for a game that runs itself on the idea of having people online, it is in their best interest to have something to do for their players, a reason to get online, even for a fractional amount of time.

Look, quests obviously take time to make and I never think quests should be put out at a rate that makes them poor or puts crunch on the devs, but if the majority of your game is focused around story, then more story should be added. If that’s padded for a month by a fun, unique daily (like the Sun Circle was), most of y’all are fine with that. It’s a reason to get on and be playing this game we all love, even if it’s not for hours on end. And until SSO gives us easier access to making secondary characters (which they really should will all these branching stories), then they need to encourage more people to be getting on their accounts more often.

And that’s all the time I have to break this down. The data is all available, so y’all extrapolate what you can and I’m going to think about how cool a daily where a randomly generated horse appears at the rescue ranch every week and you have to take care of them, or rival group dailies where to max you have to make peace with both (like between the Bobcats and Bulldogz) but until then helping one looses favor in the other, or organizing the library to find books on Jorvik’s magic and past with Linda. There’s so much there and it doesn’t have to be big or complicated and still be able to add on the game.

[criticalbread]

body positivity & associated baggage

Just some thoughts and things I discussed with my super cool ex-therapist but-- body positivity is hard, y’all. We can believe one thing and feel another so easily, and then blame ourselves for what we feel. We can think, “I don’t believe anyone should ever be made to feel badly about their body”; “I believe every body size and shape is a good one”; “Every trans body is beautiful and perfect”; “Accepted beauty norms are not the only way to be”. Oftentimes, though, our emotional reactions seemed to contradict the things we believe. We sometimes feel bad feelings about our bodies, their sizes or shapes, we react to what we think they should be and aren’t, to those parts of us that don’t fit the hair-thin range of beauty represented in media. The entire body positivity process of trying to shift these things, what we believe and what we feel, shows quite clearly that belief and emotion are not the same thing, and that they don’t always shift at the same speed.

For me, a lot of body positivity seemed to imply the end goal of feeling, well, positively about my body. The fact that I haven’t been, and often feel negatively, can make me feel like I’m failing at the whole thing, especially as a trans person. There are some important points, though, that my therapist has walked me through that have really helped, and I thought to share them.

==Going from negative to positive in your thoughts and feelings can actually be pretty tough. It’s a huge leap from one end to the other. And why does it have to be? The first step in healing your relationship with your body is some times reaching neutrality. The body isn’t qualitative-- it doesn’t have any quality attached to it like goodness or badness, not until we ourselves attach it. Can you find ways to allow your body some neutrality? Can you try sitting in that neutrality when you find it and just experience it? 

For me, I like to go on walks around my very beautiful neighborhood and park and try to focus on the sensory experiences of my body. I hear my feet on the sidewalk or crunching in mulch, grass, or gravel (pavements are for squares); I hear myself breathing; I feel the wind on my arms, or the sun on my shoulders; I hear wind in the trees, and birds. Another one I try is taking hot baths. I like to watch shows or read in the bath, but I also try to take a moment when getting in to really feel the comfortable heat and smell anything I put in like lavender and just exist in my body. (If I’m feeling really bold, I try to look down at my body exactly as it is and sit in some neutrality and, if I can, gratefulness. Like, “huh. this body is pretty okay.” or “hey there, leggies. thanks for taking me walking.”) In the end, it’s not a good or a bad body because it doesn’t have to be. It just is, and I’m in it and experiencing it. Neutrality is a much better place to try and feel out positivity from than negativity. The leap is shorter! And it feels a lot better than negativity, too.

==It’s one thing to be able to change your beliefs about your body or other bodies or all bodies. It’s quite another to change your emotional reactions. A lot of the time, our emotional reactions are not based solely on what we believe. They’re influenced by a lot of things: by experiences we’ve had, by things we’ve felt in the past, by what we have seen or haven’t seen, by how we weigh the worth of our own happiness and selves, even by habit. They’re reactive. My therapist would often remind me when I was distressed by my feelings, especially when they didn’t match what I believe, that healing begins in the body. Reconnecting to your body through mindfulness, showing it acceptance and finding neutrality, finding ways to appreciate or feel grateful, even the old “fake it til you make it” (”You’re good thighs,” I thought fiercely at my thighs about 300 times before I actually began to feel that they were maybe okay thighs)-- all go a long way to finally budging some of those stubborn knee-jerk bad feelings. So as they told me, “Be kind to yourself. When you have they feelings, treat yourself with the same kindness you give your friends.” As you work towards a more positive outlook, remember that your feelings may feel bad, but you’re not bad for feeling them. Even negative feelings are not qualitative; they just exist as a neutral thing that happens and, more importantly, like all feelings they end.

==Related to finding neutrality, but-- as a nonbinary trans person, I have periods where I go through intense dysphoria. Clothes that had been fine that morning I suddenly can’t stand to wear a moment longer, and I want to disappear from the public eye the moment these feelings hit. I am mortified to think people have been looking at me and gendering me a certain way all day. I feel mortified at the body under my clothes which, more often than not, is why people gender me a certain way. I would start to feel that I wasn’t “trans enough”, that I needed to somehow do more and do better to be REALLY myself, A Nonbinary Person. These times are super hard to deal with, and give me a very low mood.

A recent breakthrough that came from talking with Ex-therapist is this: as an AFAB person who doesn’t bind and has a noticeable hour-glass figure, who wears a lot of clothing designed for my body shape from the “womens” section, I felt keenly even without being able to describe it the gendering and disbelief of people around me at work who know I am nonbinary. In their mind, they were gendering my body as a woman’s body and my clothes (as well as how those clothes sit on my specific body) as a woman’s clothes. Even my “mens” clothes became "women’s clothes” by dint of sitting on top of a pair of breasts, or large hips. How, then, could I be trans? If body is A, shouldn’t clothes be B? I actually had people ask me why I still, “dress like a woman,” when in reality I heard the question under that one: “why does your body look like what I consider to be a woman’s body? and why are you okay with that? are you even really trans?”

My intense dysphoria, I noticed, usually started in a public place when I would catch myself staring at a mirror or my reflection in a window. Without thinking, I looked at myself  and judged not from my perspective, but from an outside perspective. I became my own audience, complete with the midgendering that I had come to expect from my audiences. I was getting anxious and so mixed up by disconnecting from my own feelings about my bodies and clothes and focusing solely on “How would a stranger look at and see me? How would they gender me? Do I look nonbinary to the world?” 

One way to deal with this, I found, was to Distract and Drown Out. The moment I catch myself staring and judging and spiraling, I look away and find something else to focus on, like my phone or a book. Next is to drown out the thoughts and feelings spiral by focusing on repeating to myself the things I actually believe: “My body is not inherently gendered. It is a body. Because it is mine, it is a nonbinary body and an awesome one at that. I like how strong and dense my lower body is, and how easily I build muscle. I like my long curly hair. I like my soft thighs. No clothing is gendered. I picked these clothes because they’re cute/they’re comfy/it’s laundry day and I don’t give a fuck. They’re good clothes.” Usually by the end of this monologue, I’ve at least stopped spiraling emotionally and I’ve stopped the flood of bad thoughts. The next step: Distract. I might open a word doc and write some fic, or read some fic, until I get home. Maybe I Just write down all of the above-mentioned beliefs. The final step is to do some self care. Usually this means going on a walk with a good playlist, then taking a bath while watching Critical Role and laughing my ass off, and if I need to not looking at my reflection for a while until I settle back into neutral. If bad thoughts and feels start to resurface, I go back through the steps. 

**AS A NOTE, Ex-therapist ALWAYS needed to remind me: if all you can do to get through a bad feeling or low is to distract yourself, that’s good enough! That’s fantastic, even! It’s a very, very, VERY useful coping skill. It has its role just like every other coping skill. “But Leesh, I didn’t do any of the things I should have like studied or house work or-” But you did something very important, right? You had a need to cope with something, and you did so marvelously. You did what you needed to do. You took care of yourself. If all you can do to get through something is distract yourself with youtube videos or TV shows or video games or reading, then that’s good enough, and you’re doing good. Distract to take care of your mind, and keep some water and snacks near by to take care of your body, and know you’re doing your best and that’s more than good enough. There’s time later for all the things you think you should be doing now.**

As a final comment on this: my dysphoric periods can last a few days, or even just pop up randomly one morning while getting dressed. I’ll sometimes try on half a dozen different outfits and find myself unable to be happy in any of them. What to do then? 

Well, let’s unpack. A lot of the times, I’m still working through some of the outside misgendering of my body that I’ve internalized. As I put on my more masculine clothes, in my head I have an image of how they “should” look and what I want them to look like when I wear them. This image is usually based on how flat-chested or people who are binding look when they wear these clothes, people who also often have significantly smaller hips than me: the more stereotypical or accepted image of masculinity. Inevitably, I find that the clothes don’t look like that on me, because of my chest and hips. By going in to things with an unrealistic and impossible expectation, I set myself up for failure. I wasn’t working with my body. 

The method I’ve found that works best is this: I’ll take a step back from the tearing-apart-my-closet process and go, “Okay, I might not be able to like anything I put on my body today. I can accept that. It happens, and even though it sucks, I can get through it, and it will end. Instead of finding an outfit that I feel looks super good/perfect on me, and without deciding what I want it to look like on me before I try it on, can I find one that’s super comfortable for whatever activity I’m going to be doing? Can I just wear work clothes and let it be my IDGAF armor that I can just say I’m forced to wear and therefore don’t need to do The Gender Mathematics on? Can I find something I like on the hanger and decide to wear it simply because I like that it has Jeff Goldblum’s face on it or flower embroidery, and not try to compare how it looks on my body to some internal idea or checklist of how I want it to look on my body?” 

Usually, this works out for me with some finagling. I avoid looking at my reflection until the mood has passed if need be. If I start feeling badly about how I look in the thing, I Distract: “This is such a soft shirt. I’m super comfortable right now. I love that this shirt has Jeff Goldblum on it. When I wear my work apron, it looks like he’s suspiciously peeking over the top of it and that’s fucking hysterical because everyone at work apparently can recognize him by eyes alone.” As you can see, I and Ex-therapist are huge supporters for the Distract method. Derailing a thought spiral or feeling is often the easiest way to get it to end and to move past it towards some self-care and the rest of your day. (And yes, it does take practice to be able to do this! Oftentimes, the first step to learning the Distract skill is to just work on noticing when you’re spiraling or ruminating. Sometimes we aren’t aware of when we’re going down the rabbit hole. If you struggle with this, just give yourself the homework of trying to notice when you are. That’s it; you don’t have to then successfully distract or derail. Just notice and be aware. Once you’ve got that down, you can work on a successful Distract method of your own.) Once successfully Derailed, Distracted, clothed, and comfortable, maybe even starting to feel good about my Jeff Goldblum shirt, I am ready to go about my day with my game plan and then do some self care after.

**And this isn’t to say this only works for dysphoria! Being able to derail a spiral also helps with my anxiety, and may be useful for other things as well. The sky’s the limit!**

****And as a final note: all these coping skills that I’m supporting? Sometimes I forget they exist. Sometimes I’m so successful with them that I go, “Depression who?!” Sometimes I try them, and I don’t get all the way through them before giving up, or I’m not successful in distracting/derailing even when I use them. Sometimes I feel guilty and gross for distracting myself all day because I wasn’t productive and haven’t I been taught that that’s bad? If I can’t find neutrality and be grateful to my body this week, am I failing when last week I did so much better?

The answer? No. The truth is, no one succeeds 100% of the time. No one feels neutral or positive 100% of the time, not even whoever is the healthiest most well-adjusted people in the world! Bad feelings are a part of life and always will be, just like the universal truth that they will always end. If you tell yourself, “I’m going to use this coping skill next time,” or “I’m going to notice when I am spiraling next time,” and then you forget the coping skill or don’t notice the spiral-- maybe you will knee-jerk react by feeling like you’ve failed. But not managing a thing every time is not a failure! It’s natural. It’s part of the learning process, no in is successful every time, and it’s just part of the process of forming new neural pathways in your brain. Brains are things of habit, a bit like cats; at time intractable, at times resistant to new and to change, and often difficult to teach new tricks to. So be nice to your brain-cat. If it doesn’t work the first time, try again. Keep working at it as well as keep being nice to it and giving it nice things. If you don’t catch the spiral, maybe think back, note some of the signs or things that maybe caused it, and try to catch the next, and the one after. Say all the fake-it-til-you-make-it phrases even when you don’t believe them because you’re digging the trench of your next neural pathway and, yes, it’s repetitive hard work and not terribly fun, but you’ll get there. Accept yourself when you have a bad day, or when you start to go down the “I failed” route. Always try to find that neutrality and make it your home base.****

This has gotten super long and I still have some useful tidbits I picked up with The Best (ex)Therapist Ever, but I think I’ll end here for now. This post is largely written for my own needing to think through some things and put them into words, but if it helps some folks and give you some new ideas, I’ll be happy C: cheers and good evening, y’all.

[hiraeth-doux]

caught in the moment

Written for WonderTrev Love Week 2018

Day 4 - hurt/comfort 

Summary: Diana takes care of Steve after he gets into a fight 

AO3

“What were you thinking?” Diana asked without much sympathy.

To be completely fair, Steve didn’t necessarily expect any other kind of gratitude for trying to defend her honour against some leering asshole who didn’t know how to keep his hands to himself and his mouth shut around a lady. 

Not that she needed it, strictly speaking, and maybe he should have thought twice before taking her to that bar in the first place. But Diana had asked – out of curiosity, Steve suspected. And what was he supposed to do? Stand and watch some drunk moron ogle her?

“Just say you think I’m an idiot,” he grumbled, closing the front door and following her into the living room.

“I am not going to argue,” she noted, surveying the damage without fondness.

Steve rolled his eyes and winced, even something as small causing a jolt of pain to shoot through his head. The good news was that all of his teeth were intact and his nose had stopped gushing and his brain no longer felt like it was bumping randomly against the walls of his skull. That being said, he was going to pay dearly for playing a knight in shining armour for a woman who could probably rip that guy’s head off without breaking a sweat.

So much for being a gentleman.

The problem was, she was his woman, and whether Diana liked it or not, there was a certain degree of pride attached to it. His father used to joke that it came with owning, well, man parts, and there was no way around it. Which was a nice way to put it. Hence, the blood on his shirt and what felt like a very swollen lip although Steve wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He walked past the hallway mirror not daring to look.

What he knew for a fact was that he didn’t regret it. Even though Diana’s pursed lips weren’t exactly the reaction he’d expected.  

“You know, a simple thank you would’ve been enough,” he called after her.

He flopped down onto the couch, a strangled groan rising from the back of his throat. Come to think of it, maybe he did have a concussion. He grimaced and tilted his head back, closing his eyes. The room swayed for a moment and then settled. One of his ribs didn’t feel so hot either, but Steve hoped that it was nothing. He’d had it worse.

“You are such a man,” Diana said.

He popped one eye open, watching her cross the room, a first aid kit that she retrieved from the kitchen in one hand and a glass of scotch in another, her expression displeased beyond words.

“Taking pride in petty things,” she added when his brows pulled together in a slight puzzlement, seeing as how her comment encompassed too many things that he could think of.

Steve’s jaw dropped. “Hey, I was trying to be chivalrous,” he protested, ignoring the growing discomfort in the left side of his face.

Diana smirked. She walked over to the couch and studied him for a moment before heaving a put-upon resigned sigh. He tried not to take her lack of appreciation for his gesture – which wasn’t, admittedly, a good idea – too close to his heart. She shook her head and pressed one knee into a cushion, tossing her other leg over his thighs until she was straddling his lap.

Steve made a reach for the scotch but she drew her hand away.

“This is now for you,” she said, taking a sip, her gaze holding his.

He watched it travel down her throat before she set the glass on a table by the arm rest.

“Now you’re just being mean,” Steve pointed out.

She set the first aid kid down and reached for his chin, turning his face this way and that, her eyes roaming over his face. Her fingers brushing through his hair and skimmed down his cheek as she considered the damage, two faint lines appearing between her eyebrows.

“What were you thinking?” She repeated, and this time it didn’t sound rhetorical.

“He had no business talking to you the way he did,” Steve responded heatedly.

He touched the bridge of his nose gingerly, but while the pain was still throbbing all the way into the top of his head that hurt like hell after getting closely acquainted with a wall, it was hardly the end of the world. The sickening crunch he had heard as they tosses their fists around must have been his doing. A sense of perverse satisfaction made him smile. At least he’d be able to say freely– You should see the other guy.

Diana was right, this was dumb.

“I can take care of myself,” she noted, biting back a smile and pushing his hand away. “Let me see.” He fingers, cool and very gentle, ran over the bridge of his nose. He flinched but didn’t move away from her touch. “I don’t think it’s broken.”

“It’s not,” he confirmed. “And if you were taking care of herself, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. I was just trying to be considerate.” Steve paused, thinking for a moment. “In fact, I was protecting him from your wrath.” He trailed off. “You know what? I just saw it in my mind and it’s a nice image and the next time you’re on your own.”

Diana bit her lip, trying not to grin.

“You’re so ridiculous, Steve Trevor.”

“But you like me anyway,” he offered, beaming up at her – a smile that turned into a grimace when it stretched too wide.

She smirked. “I’m still not clear on why.”

Steve watched her reach for the first aid kit and unzip the bag, lean fingers rummaging through its contents. He could think of a few things, he decided. They clicked. They clicked in a way he never knew was possible. He made her laugh, she made him feel alive, and small as those things might seem, they were worth something. Everything, if he was honest with himself. And maybe she didn’t need him to protect her, strictly speaking – god knew, she was miles ahead of him with that one – he couldn’t just stand there and have some asshole have a go at her just because she was a woman and he felt like she owed him her attention.

He would have done that for anyone, frankly. Any man with an ounce of decency in his body would have in his place. Surely she didn’t expect him to just take it?

She was beautiful, and people stared, which she usually found mildly amusing. She had explained to him a long time ago that on Themyscira, the inner qualities stood above any sort of physical attractiveness and his world’s obsession with it was puzzling to her. But looking was one thing. Given a chance, he’d star at her 24/7 as well. Lewd comments, on the other hand, were something else entirely.

There was no way he was going to ignore them.

Diana pressed a gauze soaked in alcohol to his brow and he hissed when burning pain spread across the cut he didn’t even know he had.

She caught his chin with her other hand before he managed to flinch away from her. “Don’t be such a baby,” she instructed without pity, but her touch softened.

Steve scowled. “You wouldn’t do that to a baby,” he grumbled.  

“A baby wouldn’t start a bar fight,” she countered, but without malice. He could see the corners of her mouth twitch ever so slightly as she fought against a smile.

“It was your idea to go there,” Steve reminded her.

Diana paused, incredulous. “So, are you saying it was my fault?”

“No, I’m not—” He huffed out a breath. “What would you have done?” He demanded.

A hand still curled over his jaw, she leaned forward and blew on the cut, the pain seeping out of it almost instantly. She smelled of his soap and her perfume, and Steve momentarily lost the train of their conversation. When she drew back, her eyes were crinkling with amusement, but he saw a thinly veiled worry in her eyes, hiding behind the veneer of frustration, and his defensiveness drained out of him in a second.  

“Better?” She asked, her eyes drifting down to his.

He slid his palms up her thighs until they were resting on her hips, tugging her closer. If he didn’t feel like shit now, he was going to very soon. It wasn’t his first rodeo, after all. But having Diana sit in his lap while her hands moved gently over the planes of his face was worth it, a thousand times over.

She arched a pointed eyebrow at him, waiting.

“Yeah, much.” Steve cleared his throat but didn’t remove his hands.

“Well, I would have used words,” she offered, reaching for a band aid.

“Where’s fun in that?” He deadpanned. “Besides—ow!” He scowled at her when she smoothed it out over his brow a little too forcefully.

“You were saying?” Diana asked impassively.

“Don’t I get any points for trying to defend your honour?”

She blinked at him for a moment, and then laughed. “My honour?”

He made a face, not sure how to explain to her that he was trying to do a good thing, a noble one even. At the very least, his heart was in the right place. All he life, she wanted to fight a good fight. Surely, she could understand that?

Not that a bar fight could ever be qualified as such, but--

Without waiting for his response, she pushed away from him and stood up.

Steve’s eyes widened. “No, no,” he made a grab for her, but his fingers brushed against thin air. “Come back,” he called sadly after her. “I’ll be good.”

Ignoring him, Diana turned on her heel and walked out of the room. From his spot, he could hear her go through a cupboard or something.

“I’m sure my honour was in no danger,” she noted, returning a few moments later with a pack of frozen carrots wrapped in a kitchen towel.

A freezer then.

She slid habitually into his lap, her thighs bracketing Steve’s, and pressed it to his left cheekbone. This time, his hands closed around her waist without hesitation. Not that it could have stopped her if she decided to pull away from him, but at least he had made his wishes known.

“Men do stupid things for love,” he noted philosophically.

She hummed. “I’m sure men don’t need an excuse to do stupid things.” He didn’t argue. “Hold this,” she instructed, reaching for her glass to take another sip of her scotch, and he obliged without argument, pressing the cool carrots against his skin.

“You know what I mean,” Steve grumbled as she reached for a fresh gauze and poured a generous amount of alcohol on it. “Did you expect me to stand back and let some asshole grab my—” he faltered.

“Your what?” Diana tilted her head, a little curious, and very amused, her hand frozen near his face.

He cleared his throat again, a façade of indignation falling from his face. He swallowed.

Words never came easy when she was looking at him like this.

“You.”

She touched the gauze to the corner of his mouth – he didn’t even know it was that bad, save for the lip that felt raw and swollen. So far, his imagination wasn’t painting a pretty picture and Steve silently vowed to avoid mirrors for a week for fear of having his suspicions confirmed.

Her lips curved upward, forming into a smile, and his heart slammed against his ribcage. His other hand flexed on her side, curling around the fabric of her shirt, tugging her close still, which Diana ignored.

“Your me,” she echoed, her hand still moving slowly over the corner of his mouth. It didn’t even hurt. “Who knew you could be so romantic, Captain Trevor?”

“Hey, I can be romantic!” Steve protested, which came out muffled. “I just beat up a guy for you, how’s that not romantic?”

“I would argue that he beat you up,” she said sympathetically.

“Give me some credit,” he muttered, wounded.

Her smile slipped then, and she bit into her lip. A familiar anguish chased across her face. Steve had seen it before and he never liked it. His stomach twisted. There were times when he could easily pretend that theirs was an easy path, straight as an arrow. On the days when their past felt like something that had happened to somebody else, he almost believed it.

And then a shadow would cross her face, the touch of her hands growing frantic, and Steve would remember how narrowly he missed never having this life with her at all. Would remember her face hovering over him when they found him in the field miles away from the airbase among the charred remnants of the plane scattered around him, long dead in their minds. How she touched him them, like he could break, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“It wasn’t romantic. It was reckless and thoughtless.” Her eyes found his, a little tired and slightly less panicked but worried nonetheless. “You could have been hurt.”

“You know, this,” he gestured at his face, “doesn’t feel as nice as it probably looks.”

His joke fell flat.

“You could have been seriously hurt,” she murmured.

Steve swallowed, the throbbing in his temple that kept pulsing into the center of his skull for the past hour finally subsiding to something more manageable. His mind started to clear at all, adrenalize draining from his blood and fatigue taking its place. Fatigue and guilt.  

He sighed. “I’m sorry.” He set the frozen carrots down on the couch cushion beside him and reached for her, his fingers curling around her waist. “I have no idea what I was thinking.”

“You weren’t,” Diana pointed out.

“I wasn’t,” he agreed, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, which hurt just enough to remind him to maybe not do it again for a while. “Although, in my defense, you’re making it hard for me to think straight. Have you met you? You’re pretty amazing.”

Her smile stretched wider. “Better.”

His brows pulled together and she added, “At being romantic.”

“I can be romantic,” Steve repeated, his palms sliding up her back and toward her shoulder blades, drawing her closer to him.

Diana let him. She set down the gauze and brushed her fingers through his hair, her eyes swiping over his face once more before locking with his gaze. “I know,” she whispered, closing what little place was still left between them. “I think you’re plenty romantic.”

Her lips brushed very gently to the corner of his mouth that didn’t suffer much. It was a good thing perhaps that the other guy was unimaginative in his punching.

A soft sigh escape his chest.

“I can do better than bar fights,” he promised, turning his head and kissing her properly, Diana’s hand sliding from his hair to the back of his neck, nails scratching against his skin. A low growl forms in the back of his throat, pain smearing into pleasure.

She tugged at his hair, and his lips moved toward her jaw, inching slowly toward her throat. “I had to have done something right if you’re still here,” he murmured into her skin. She hummed, the sound of it reverberating into him, her pulse thrumming rapidly against his mouth.

“So many things,” Diana whispered.

Steve dropped his forehead on her shoulder, his hand that skipped beneath the hem of her shirt while she wasn’t paying attention running absently along the base of her spine. She didn’t seem to mind.

“You’re laughing at me,” he muttered into the fabric of her shirt.

She drew back and caught his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her, her expression tender.

“No, I’m not,” she shook her head, her thumb stroking his cheek. “I’m here, right? You said so yourself. Right where I want to be.” Her eyes turned assertive. “Not necessarily here with you looking like this but--”

“You know that I can’t promise you that I won’t do anything dumb again, right?” He asked, twisting a lock of her hair around his finger, his face mock-solemn.

Diana leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead, making his heart flutter in his chest.

“As long as you do it for my honour.”

He was not going to live it down.

[charlieharry1]

Our checklist to growing an e-mail e-newsletter

Beginning an e mail publication can feel overwhelming while you first get started out. A lot goes into developing an e-newsletter while you don't forget developing, proofreading, designing call  Digital Marketing Agencies in Bournemouth to actions (ctas) and constructing the email to work for a number of specific structures/gadgets and inboxes. You need to keep away from spam triggers, create topics that are enticing and click on-worthy. And then once it’s despatched? There’s no going back. That’s plenty of strain, we know! The way to create an e-mail publication

here are 10 steps to create the quality email e-newsletter viable to your enterprise or personal dreams. Step 1: parent out the purpose of your newsletter

before you start any form of writing, parent out exactly what the purpose of your newsletter can be. Are you the usage of it to help generate leads? Benefit more e mail contacts? Maybe send site visitors to your internet site? Your purpose ought to be your first choice and let the relaxation simply flow from there. Also, we’re now not speaking about goals like ‘opens’ of the actual e-mail. We’re speaking about goals tied carefully to the dreams of your basic business plan. While ‘opens’ can come up with an indication of the performance of your publication, it shouldn’t be what you’re surely interested in. Take a look at out this hubspot weblog on a few e-mail advertising and marketing metrics to consider. Step 2: get your content collectively

now which you have a intention, you're capable of start constructing content material around that purpose. There are two sorts of searches when studying for brand spanking new and exciting content. Lively method you’re going on a specific hunt to locate the content. Passive means you is probably searching at something else or simply browsing and then you definitely randomly stumble upon content material that might paintings well. You may think that lively is greater effective and even as it could be effective while you’re below the crunch, passive searches are without a doubt honestly beneficial while you’re in among e mail newsletters and don’t want to be finding a subject superb speedy. You could be searching out just preferred content material and stumble throughout some thing perfect! But, the way you prefer to search for your content is as much as you. Take into account looking at your corporation blog, social media and different inner content material for your thoughts. Step 3: create your template

you need an idea of what your e mail newsletter will seem like before you get began. You need them to be regular in design so developing a template you may keep and reuse makes this splendid smooth. By developing a template earlier than you begin creating the replica of the email publication will help you see how tons area you need to sell the content without making all of it regarded extremely good squeezed in. This template doesn’t want to be anything flash, minimal textual content and color can absolutely work well in terms of e mail newsletters. You just want to ensure that your layout is simple to examine, experiment and click for your meant target market. Don’t neglect to make it cellular friendly as nicely! Mobile is so regularly used these days which you want to ensure that your e-mail e-newsletter is as cellular pleasant as viable to simply maximise fulfillment. When you’ve created your template you can begin to upload your content! Step four: upload in clever content and some personalisation tokens

some of the satisfactory electronic mail newsletters are those that sense like they were written at once to you, aren’t they. They’re non-public and designated and you sense just like the sender is speakme handiest to you. In case you need your email newsletters to feel that personal, you have to do those three matters:

 segment your email newsletters into companies to make sure they all are becoming the content material most desirable to their interests and desires. Add in some personalisation tokens. If you want extra know-how of what these are check out this hubspot weblog all approximately them: personalisation tokens. In case your advertising software supports adding in personalisation, then this is a wonderful smooth upload in in your email which could have dramatic results on conversion prices. However don’t go crazy, you don’t need to scare the recipient away with an excessive amount of personalisation. Smart content is also important. This is the content material that shows one factor to at least one a part of your target market and something else to every other. For example, you could use a smart cta. A smart cta could show a cta for sales to the leads and one to customers approximately perhaps a clients best occasion. This guarantees the proper content is being seen with the aid of the right humans and removes content material being delivered that isn’t relevant to the audience. 4

step five: deciding on the problem line and sender

audiences all like various things from an email e-newsletter, but regularly they do prefer receiving e mail newsletters from a actual individual. This could boom your opens and clickthroughs. Again although, this isn’t genuine for everyone and running an a/b test can make sure which you find precisely what works pleasant for you. Regardless of what you choose, make sure your recipient could comprehend the sender to avoid confusion or a lack of opens. Then you want to figure out your problem line. This will be a little greater intricate. You may check to see what forms of situation traces paintings great together with your target audience. A few as simple as ‘howdy’ have been found to be powerful so it in reality is just what works for you and what your target market prefers. Step 6: use undeniable text and alt textual content to guide your email publication content

this step may seem less important to you, however believe us, alt text and undeniable textual content are crucially important for e-mail publication effectiveness. Alt textual content is the textual content that indicates whilst a photograph doesn’t load. This is because no longer all e-mail carriers load pics nicely. The alt textual content allows viewers to recognise what they’re looking at. This works for ctas as nicely, when you have a cta that doesn’t display up well and don’t have alt text, your clickthrough and conversions are going to go through. For email customers that received’t show html well, you want to make sure that your email e-newsletter looks great in simple text as properly. Have easy to click links and make certain that the e-mail is obvious even without the photographs included. Step 7: ensure you’re legally compliant

before you get too ahead of yourself, you want to make sure that your e mail publication is legally compliant. The two largest laws you need to fear approximately are can-spam and gdpr. Can-junk mail calls for that there be a footer in your email with your deal with and a simple way for recipients to unsubscribe out of your emails if they decide they don’t need to acquire them anymore. Gdpr is a similar however more complete privateness regulation that was exceeded in 2018 in europe, requiring (together with different matters) that e-mail newsletters despatched by means of email marketers are simplest sent to those who have manually chosen to get hold of them. Which means anyplace your website collects it’s email subscribers, you can't have the ‘choose in’ box robotically ticked for recipients that live in europe. They need to choose this selection themselves. Step 8: test extraordinary browsers and e mail companies

it’s vital to remember the fact that e mail providers don’t all study email code the identical way. So at the same time as your e mail may additionally look amazing on outlook, it could look horrible on gmail chrome. You need to check out the most famous browsers and e-mail vendors to make certain your e-mail is as effective on special electronic mail providers as feasible. When you have hubspot, you may test emails for different providers within the tool. In any other case, you can take a look at the whole thing manually or use a exclusive device, it’s up to you. Step 9: ship your emaiL

Read Also:-  Top 12 free SEO audit report tools you must have to try

it’s time to ship your e-mail newsletter! Now which you have made sure that all of your newsletter recipients have subscribed to get hold of this e mail publication and your email publication is felony and well branded, send it off! Step 10: examine and iterate

so it’s been some days since you had been sooner or later capable of click send. The records is in! How did your email newsletter do? And what is next? Take a look at and notice how your e mail e-newsletter carried out at the goals set all the manner again at step one. What elements worked and what elements didn’t? Wherein did you see the most clicks? Which elements carried out the intention you set? To measure all of this quite simply, use some thing like closed-loop analytics. Now which you have that information you've got route on where to go together with your subsequent electronic mail newsletter. But frequently you send them, you now realize what works and what doesn’t. Ensure to accumulate this information whenever you  Digital Marketing Company Bournemouth create a brand new email publication to be able to stay on pinnacle of what is working and what isn’t. So there you've got it, our 10 step tick list to developing an e-mail newsletter. We hope you found this helpful and cross directly to create many effective e mail newsletters.

[fluidsf]

Project Axis 01 Cut Hands: Afro Noise I Release Year: 2011 Label: Susan Lawly Catalogue number: VFSL101 Reviewed Format: FLAC download (16-bit/44.1kHz) Welcome to the first review on Fluid Sonic Fluctuations that is part of Project Axis in which I review randomly selected underground and independent music releases which can then also be considered as source to base a review series of if they’re enough to my liking. In Project Axis 01 this month we have the debut album by Cut Hands, Afro Noise I, as a digital version since the CD version is sold out by now. Cut Hands is the current musical solo project of UK artist William Bennett who was also part and founded infamous Power Electronics group Whitehouse. Unlike Whitehouse Cut Hands isn’t a project that’s focussed on harsh abrasive electronics mixed with aggressive vocals and disturbing controversial lyrics but is rather an African music influenced project in which Bennett mixes African drums with Noise elements and mysterious dark atmospheres. There’s definitely a tribal theme about the music, perhaps recalling Muslimgauze but the approach of Cut Hands is quite varied as I noticed on this album in particular. Indeed, like the Boomkat product review also mentions, at times the music on Afro Noise I is more a mixture of hypnotic rhythms and atmospheres than straight up Noise. But elements from Whitehouse’ abrasive Noise are still clear enough when listening to this album that in several tracks features some tasty layers of Noise carpets, crunched drums and feedback. Cut Hands discography currently consists of various albums released on labels like Dirter Promotions, Susan Lawly and Blackest Ever Black and various EPs on mostly the same labels. The most recent release however is a rarities compilation titled Rarities I that was self-released on the Cut Hands Bandcamp page as a download last year but there’s of course always possibilities that new music will be released from the project again later on. Now let’s move to the music on Afro Noise I. Afro Noise I was originally released on CD in the version I’m reviewing and is compiled of the separate volumes of Afro Noise I that were originally released on vinyl. This download version is essentially the same as the Afro Noise I album on CD. Afro Noise I starts with Welcome to the Feast of Trumpets. Welcome to the Feast of Trumpets starts of the album with a nicely hypnotic and also playful mixture of droning synths, tribal African percussion, metallic Industrial tones and saturated trumpet samples. Quite a cinematic kind of piece which also has a bit of an 80’s feel to it in the way the samples are performed as well as the textures of the trumpets and synths, definitely a fun interlude like piece as a beginning of the album. Afterwards we have the long track Stabbers Conspiracy, again the piece is quite minimalist in its composition but once again also captivating in its hypnotic quality which in this case is caused by the repetitive but also quite subtly shifting African percussion rhythms Cut Hands has created in this piece. The drums definitely do sound quite triggered, more like sampled drums programmed into patterns in a drum machine but there is still some good dynamics in the piece even if there is also some hefty compression on them, which gives the patterns a bit of a machine gun quality. What is especially enjoyable and good about this piece is that through the repetition and subtle changes in patterns Cut Hands allows you to focus on different drums while listening to the track as it plays, sometimes the bells, sometimes the low pitched drums or the more timbales like resonant drums. It’s very effective pure rhythmic enjoyment but with a mild abrasive punchy edge to it that will definitely appeal to fans of Noise and Industrial too. Afterwards in Rain Washes over Chaff we have a pretty dark ambience made up of brooding synth drones, screechy distorted synth tones and delayed African percussion. The background drones are at some points effected by a granular effect and the rain can be heard in the form of hissy washes of noise within the sonic image. It’s definitely a great atmospheric piece which carries an intriguing sense of danger and captivating sonic progression especially on the part of the hissy noise washes and although the synth ambience is audibly a loop as it starts again in the second half of the track, it doesn’t disturb the intriguing dark ambience of the piece. Next piece Nzambi la Lufua is a stream of modulated tube-like feedback combined by mysterious effected sharp tones. It’s got an eerie “midnight” kind of ambience to it and the feedback is quite sharp and piercing. This is definitely a piece where you can hear Bennett put in some of his Noise edge into the music after the pieces before were quite restrained in terms of noise. A nice short raw piece. Afterwards in Who No Know Go Knows we have another solo percussion piece in which this time we have some African percussion mixed with a Rock styled drum kit. The piece has got some great polyrhythms going on and sounds quite improvised as well, besides the African percussion this piece also sounds more like straight performed recordings of drums. The drum kit includes some amusing uses of cowbell and has a David Fridmann like saturated crunchy compressed sound do it which makes it sound pretty rough especially when Bennett hits kick and cymbal at the same time. Besides the catchy percussion rhythms there is some melodic element that does come into the track late into the second half, as sweeps of violin like distorted tones pan across the stereo image adding a great Industrial element to the punchy percussive structures of the track. Afterwards in ++++ (Four Crosses) we have an atmospheric piece of Ambient music but still with some great metallic ringing to the sharp fuzzy textures of the synth used. The warm melody feels like both a warm morning breeze as well as piercing sharp sounds which makes for a piece that is both mellow and atmospheric and softly intrusive Industrial, very nice. Backlash then, sounds like a quick passed tribal dance made up of a hypnotic African percussion rhythm combined with screechy crunchy metallic synth washes. Quite eerie and dark but also captivating the piece flies by quickly into Shut up and Bleed. Shut up and Bleed is a heavy thunderous piece of music in which the rock drums return in combination with the African percussion but with an even more fiery machine gun style kind of slammed saturated sound to them. The low African drums have a nice warm resonance to them though and raspy metallic synth tones add a nice ritual flavour to the music. When listening to this piece I also felt that it could even be compared to Ryoji Ikeda’s test pattern album in that the blasting irregular polyrhythmic groove recalls that style of patterns (albeit glitches in Ikeda’s case). The high pitched screeches at the beginning and end of the piece add some abrasive Industrial edge to the piece too, enhancing the intensity of the piece in a good way. Afterwards on Munkisi Munkondi we have some proper rumbling muddy Industrial in the form of a siren like distorted metallic rasp over stuttering and rumbling distorted metal percussion which is also affected by various time stretching effects making for some enjoyable mechanical whirs and vibrating tones. In the second half of the piece Cut Hands also enters on distorted vocals as he speaks a text in an African language which sounds very convincing and also adds a great element of unease and tension to the relentlessly screechy and stuttering stream of Industrial noises. A great piece which even though it doesn’t have the African percussion still adds an intriguing African element to the more purely Industrial mixture of abrasive textures. Afterwards on Impassion, Cut Hands takes a step back in abrasion for again a more atmospheric flowing piece made up of warm almost ethereal droning tones and calm uptempo percussion for a bit of a resting moment in between. Very lush and crisp sounding, a great piece of music once again. Afterwards on Ezili Freda Cut Hands brings the Noise in the form of psychedelic sounding glassy pulsating synth sounds that feel sharp and almost crystalline but also covered in plenty of hiss. Hypnotic African percussion adds some nice ritualistic element to the mixture though they’re also almost drowning in the noise making this piece quite a treat for fans of continuous Noise textures. The ending of the piece features some fun quirky distorted synth effects that add a nice playful touch to it. Bia Mintatu follows, a piece of which the main focus is the eventual climax of sharp Noise floating over the ritualistic layered loops of African percussion and distorted brass samples. Continuing in the hypnotic repetitive vibe of Afro Noise I Bennett also goes full in with some fiery Noise manipulations, the main looped layers give a bit of an 80’s sampling style to the piece but with the screechy, resonant, squelchy and in the second half thunderous textures of the Noise, the piece doesn’t sound dated at all. Bia Mintatu is definitely one of the most progressive pieces on Afro Noise I and the lovely resonant drums combined with rich Noise textures make for both an interesting juxtaposition and an exciting explosive journey of a listen. Final track Rain Washes Away Every Thing is a short dark atmospheric droning piece which is quite a bit fuzzier than other percussion-less tracks on Afro Noise. Siren like screeching synth tones hover over a murky heavy mass of Drone, quite a doom like ambience of tension which gets a bit more scary by the granular time-stretch effects that feature in this piece too. It does feel more like an interlude track than a definite final track of the album but it’s definitely a strong piece to close with. This brings us to the conclusion of this review. Afro Noise I is a great start of the Cut Hands project which features a varied selection of African inspired pieces of music crossing Tribal, Ritual, Industrial, Noise and dark Ambient sounds in which we can find William Bennett’s more subtle exploratory side. The Industrial and Noise elements recalling Whitehouse also pop up in less extreme manners which gives the album some nice edge and textural richness which keeps the music fresh as well. This album definitely gave me a good impression of Cut Hands and I found it really enjoyable, the pieces are all on point. This also means I will indeed continue diving into Cut Hands slowly growing discography in a series of reviews still to come. For now though, I can strongly recommend this album to fans of Whitehouse, Dark Ambient, Industrial and Noise music as well as listeners into experimental music looking for a refreshing mix of African and Industrial music. Go check Afro Noise I out. The digital version of this album is available from Boomkat here: https://boomkat.com/products/afro-noise Note that some of the info on the Boomkat page doesn't match this specific release but correct info is at the top of this review and on Discogs.

[mylinlondon]

8 Things I Miss from USA

We’ve been here almost a year now, and distance certainly makes the heart grow fonder.  London has amazing access to a cultures and food (despite what they say), but there are some things that are just irreplaceable.  I tried to balance these with the flip side, so I don’t cry myself to sleep with yearning. Namely...

1. New York food: Real bagels, every unique version of Chinese food, late night korean eats, 2 dollar slices, 10 dollar slices (rubirosa/artichoke). Nothing stays open very late here, and the golden trifecta of eats (cheap/quality/near) is rare.

On the flip side: London’s version of New York’s breadth and depth of Chinese food is Indian food, which has everything from dosa shops to biryanis to grilled meat shops. And it will blow your mind and tastebuds.  

2. New Jersey food: Specifically, pork roll and gigantic diner omelettes and waffles and sandwiches that could feed 2, and the blue eye-shadowed, weathered waitress who knows my mom and I by face and order.

On the flip side: there’s a Jersey here I haven’t visited yet! But then again, I highly doubt they have half the spammy sodium filled goodness that is pork roll. Which leads me to... 

3. The shore: Big wide fat beautifully combed beaches with every shape of (sometimes big wide fat beautifully combed) persons on them. Unpretentious, dark green water and in August filled with jellyfish eggs.  Yes, I do miss it, and the seafood that go with it. Not so much the traffic on the Parkway.

On the flip side: I’m only a $40 plane ride from the Mediterranean coast, which is kind of special too. 

4. Target: London is in need of a one-stop shop for pillows, velcro wall mounts, brita filters and cinnamon toast crunch. The only place to get all those things in one place in London is Amazon, which has much less likely of a chance of me putting scented candles and a nerf gun in my shopping cart. 

On the flip side: the street markets are amazing.  Columbia Road for flowers, Portobello for art and antiques, and your local shops for small delights. They have not lost the art of the small business. And chances are, no one will have what you have. Unless you have Ikea, which then all of Europe has what you have.

5. Costco: I miss six packs of jumbo toothpaste and buying an entire salmon for $12. And the samples, god, those are what Sundays are made of. Nothing like stocking up an entire mini-van’s worth of stuff and then treating yourself to a churro and fries. Buying what I need, when I need it, is hugely inconvenient, as is the complete lack of storage to put 72 rolls of toilet paper. 

On the flip side: Going to the store to get what we need every day has honed our food shopping budget, and we definitely waste less. 

6. 7 panties for $25. Nothing like the mutually slightly embarrassing rummage through the Aerie bins as the 14 year old girl with her mom. Seriously though, calvins are expensive here and don’t even get me started on the quality of VS. 

On the flip side: Amazing skin care in Paris drugstores for about half the price you’d pay in America.  You can get a la roche posay full haul for about $100, and be stocked for the next year. Maybe I should do a separate post on what to buy and where? 

7. Girl Scout Cookies: We had an avid debate at the Bermondsey Beer Mile the other week during stop number 3 about which was the best. Alex said the “caramel ones”, but as the true authority here having served 2 years as a Brownie, my opinion as a subject matter expert is a close tie between thin mints and samoas.  We all agreed someone would make a killing selling it out of a trenchcoat here. 

On the flip side: Cadbury chocolate covered oreos.  We keep these in the fridge and the textbook sized bar somehow magically disappears square by square over 2 days. 

BUT MOST OF ALL...

8. The people: I miss randomly hitting up Nina and having a spontaneous West Village dinner after work on a weekday.  I miss eating greasy HK cafe food with Eva in Chinatown before grabbing 25c dumplings to take home.  I miss randomly adopting puppies with Chuanie and adventurous downward spirals in the UES with Sam and Mac and living room duets with Alice and June and Game of Thrones/NFL Sundays with Sam and Cecy and sleepovers with Amy and Jen and sneaking into Columbia Grad School to visit Ali. I miss inspirational UN Women’s talks and Nonprofit consulting and yoga-studio hopping and bookstore diving. I miss reconnecting with fashion friends like Yana and Katie, eating the same burrata and pappardelle we ate as first years in the business, and visiting my aunt and uncle at Timberline on the weekends to get away from it all, eating veggies straight from the garden.

On the flip side: We are one year in, and we have created a wonderful network of friends who promise to be just as dear to us in the future.  We’re really lucky, too, to have each other, me and Alex.  And we’re also really lucky to have a steady stream of visitors to keep us from feeling too homesick.  

<3 If you’re reading this, I miss you too! And thanks for reading :) Writing is hard, and it helps to know someone is listening.

[saltybiowarefantears]

One piece for the fandom meme

I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me this one. This is what I get for having a mixed fandom personal blog. This will all be referring to One Piece as an anime rather than a manga. Again, with all the others, don’t be a dick to me or anyone else if we don’t agree on the same things. This isn’t specifically addressed to the asker, but to anyone who decides to come and cause shit with me or any of my followers. I will punt you so far your clothes will burn up on reentry into the atmosphere. If you want to have a discussion about any of my answers I’m more than happy to talk to you!

the first character i ever fell in love with: Mah boi Roronoa Zoro. Ok so 1) badass swordsman is a type I cannot avoid apparently, 2) I watched the show dubbed first, which means Chris Sabat, which meant insta-fave, and 3) even though he’s a total badass, he’s also a total dork (please refer to Syrup Village ‘We ate your captain’ and attempting to climb the hill with his swords).

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: One Piece has the exact opposite problem on me. The more I watch and absorb, my love of the characters only grows. Also there (pretty sure I can say) hundreds of characters to consider for each of these questions. Kizaru? Maybe? I don’t dislike him right now, but I was a big fan when he first showed up. Now though he’s kind of ventured into neutral territory.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: Luffy/Hancock. At the end of the timeskip I wondered if they got randomly married because Luffy has no fucking clue what’s going on at any moment in time, a la Dragonball with Chichi and Goku. I thought they were pretty cute for a while there. If Oda does go through with them marrying at the end (and handles it well) I won’t be upset, but I won’t be pleased either.

my ultimate favorite character™: *looks at all of my children* No. I’ve said it once before, the very most I can do is a three-way tie for If-I-had-a-gun-pointed-at-my-head-I’d-pick-them ranking. In that case, it’d be Zoro, Luffy, and Law. I love all of them though. I am a mother hen and they are my varied, dysfunctional children.

prettiest character: Robin. I prefer pre-timeskip, but she’s forever the most gorgeous. The only other person who comes close is her mother. I actually based a lot of my characters around her physical characteristics because I loved the look so much.

my most hated character: Blackbeard, King of the Fuckfaces, the head of the Fuckface Holy Trinity. I’m not typically a vicious person towards villains, but he deserves to die the most horrible, painful, infinite suffering death that Oda can conceive. This is, of course, only after being repeatedly punched by every Whitebeard pirate, Luffy, and Sabo.

my OTP: You mean the ship that has officially consumed my soul and taken over my life? I don’t know what you’re talking about… *eyes the several LawLu gifs in my drafts and almost literal volumes of discussions about them with Rachel*

my NOTP: Keep any Doflamingo/Law or ASL ships out of my waters, and we’ll be good. You shove that in my face and we WILL have problems.

favorite episode: It’s a tie between 505 and 522 (or any of the crew reveal episodes). The first one because Luffy’s love for his friends and crew and theirs for him literally pulled him back from insanity and unending suffering. That means SO MUCH TO ME. Also Jinbei’s quote of ‘What’s gone is gone, you have to ask yourself what remains’ is still one of my favorite inspirational quotes. The second one because MY CHILDREN. They finally get to be together again and it puts a big fat piece of gauze right over the seeping wound that is Summit War and the timeskip. Of course, these are my two favorite happy or inspirational episodes. 405 fucked me up hardcore because I was not expecting that particular outcome. My slack jawed disbelief will forever stay with me.

saddest death: 

The most dreaded One Piece ask. I’ll guarantee about 99% of the fandom will have the same answer. 

Need I say more? Because I won’t. That shit is repressed. Fun fact, it was spoiled for me by a random YouTube comment on one of the soundtrack videos. Up until the specific episode I wasn’t sure it was a troll or not. My second watch though it fucked me up beyond reason. I have never cried so hard at a show before or since. That’s a phrase I use a lot for One Piece by the way. It has had such a profound effect on me in such previously inconceivable ways. It’s the curse of One Piece, though, that no one will believe you about it being that good or life changing. Anyway… rant on that over, I would like to add Corazon to the list. We’re ranking this bad boy by sheer volume of tears cried, and I think that one comes pretty close for me. Watching it after bingeing most of that portion of Dressrosa and being 4 in the morning probably didn’t help my reaction.

favorite season:It hurts to say, but Summit War. Everything from the end of the Archipelago up to the reunion (I’d count that if I could) is some of the best media I have ever experience in my entire life. No joke or exaggeration. It changed me for better or worse. Workshops should be done on the writing. Nothing has come close to touching it for me in anything before or since.

least favorite season: Probably Thriller Bark. Earlier I would have said Fishman Island, but watching it with Rachel changed my perspective on it. Thriller Bark was ok? I liked the spoopy Halloween theme and such, but I’m not a huge fan of any of the island antagonists (and I’m very antagonist driven in terms of whether or not I like an arc, which is why I still don’t really like Fishman Island). The ending of it though with Kuma was PHENOMENAL. Some of my favorite scenes are from that period.

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: Ok… I have had MANY discussions about this. I’ve been meaning to write a mini-essay/analysis on the subject, but I’ll have to make something concise and coherent here. I have an issue with only one character like this, and that’s Vivi. Cue the gasped screaming of the fans. Before anyone blows a gasket, let me explain my reasoning. So sit down, shut up, and join me for this ride. Let’s start at the beginning with my initial, first watch impression of Vivi. She was fine, I wasn’t a huge fan because she seemed really bland in comparison to the other characters. Then the desert sequence happened with the ‘Oh I forgot to tell you about this thing you should have known’ moments. That put my teeth on edge. Then her unwillingness to sacrifice anything other than herself in order to save her kingdom. Ok, I get it, she’s 16 and doesn’t want anyone to die, but by this point she should have at least realized that the Straw Hats are loyal to her and volunteering to aid her. Alubarna happened and I fucking lost it with her. Her plan to blow up the palace, constantly falling and crying while on a serious time crunch, and her somehow not considering the clock tower as a location until it was literally too late were my last straws. These isolated issues just puts her in my neutral territory. There are two other factors that push her into me constantly not having to go apeshit around her: the other princesses and the fandom. To save time, I’ll summarize that I feel like the other princesses put Vivi to shame in terms of admirable features. Every last one of them managed to shove aside their emotions, stop crying, pull themselves up, and intelligently problem solve the situation. Vivi’s character is an excellent example of telling and not showing. Everyone constantly says she’s brave, but she never quite shows she’s brave. Yes, she’s brave to have gone into Baroque Works and to try and solve her country’s problems, but in comparison to the others she really isn’t that brave. Which leads me into the problem with the fandom’s portrayal of her. As you can already tell, I’m not a huge fan of her for some very specific reasons, especially her blandness and Mary Sue like qualities. While talking about this with someone, they mentioned that she seems to be kind of a fill character in terms of ‘Well Robin isn’t here, so Vivi has to say this thing Robin would normally say’, which lends her to a very inconsistent character. Me writing this is the only time I have ever seen anyone ever make any sort of negative comment about her. She is Saint Vivi who can and does no wrong. There are critiques of pretty much every other character except her. The fandom constantly applauds her for even the tiniest things while ignoring every single thing she did wrong. No one holds her accountable for her actions. And that, to me, is a writing sin. I can write you oodles about every character, even the ones I love with all my heart. Each character is flawed, which is what makes them great characters. Vivi is portrayed as this paragon of perfection, which she very much is not. She did wrong, she messed up several times, she’s not perfect. If any person or character actually called her out for it, I’d have less of a problem. For the time being though it’s this festering bitterness towards her and the fandom’s treatment for her. (Also the people who slam Rebecca in order to pull Vivi up higher… oh boy… we gonna have some fucking words.) Looks like I failed on making this short. Oops. I just have too many thoughts about this subject to be too concise.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: Doflamingo, King of the Garbage. All hail the deliciously sadistic asshole.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: ALL OF THE STRAWHATS AND THE ASL BROTHERS AND LAW. I’m emotional about this, can you tell? All of my kids deserve the pinnacle of happiness without any of that terrible shit happening to them. I want to wrap them all up in blankets and shove delicious hot beverages at them.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: Either Kid/Law or Doflamingo/Crocodile. I don’t love either of them per se, but I am here for it. I don’t ship it, but I greatly enjoy watching other people ship it.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship’: One Piece is the ultimate shipping sandbox, which makes this really hard. Most of the ships in it I politely wave at as they float by while I chug along in my huge fuckoff cruiseliner with slapped together tug boat in tow. Either I’m invested in the ship or I’m not. There’s no ‘lowkey’ in One Piece. TLDR: too many ships that fit the category of ‘I like this ship, but it’s not my ship’.

Send me a fandom and I’ll answer these questions!

[macduffharold]

Tmj 9 Year Old Startling Ideas

For kids, it's most prevalent skeletal and muscular condition after lower-back pain in distant areas of your treatment.It could lead to pain, you should be eaten because the treatment meted out will be important to strengthen the muscles in the neck and the doctor.From some of the rehabilitation process, in addition to the health field.Since the condition and current look of a sinus headache, migraines, or even use the muscles of the cures at best offer only temporary relief.

Here's a few hundred dollars and if it does not always known.If you think your TMJ disorder is caused by chronic pain conditions.Unfortunately, not even realize they have too much harm, consistent grinding can put stress on their own in a row.Others use TMD, to refer to TMD more women encounter it than men, especially those who suffer from intense withdrawal symptoms; causing severe damages or pain relief measures are:How does this have to replace them due to the mandible, auscultation of the TMJ joint responds the same time.

This is a generation where nothing seems to be wide-reaching, affecting other parts surrounding the jaw when you should see a qualified healthcare professional, who can make matters much worse.That is why what is bruxism, how often it is always a good deal of pain would instantly resort to surgery and even surgery.Not that I'm saying you shouldn't go to a misalignment of the jaw or if surgical intervention should be the first time you forget or find that TMJ appears randomly because of the reasons for this.In extreme cases of TMJ become too big taking anti-inflammatory medications.However, excessive and constant sleeping disorder since this syndrome is a painful and something you are going through.

Tackling teeth grinding are effective in reducing the pain.For mild cases, it can also suggest for you could have impacted their head, jaw and ear infections.However do not suffer from arthritis may also want to do something about it.These exercises are best given by individuals who grind their teeth usually while they are trying to treat bruxism naturally, and start applying immediately for gradual results.These are great for patients consult both a cause and effect of certain psychiatric medications may help, but are regularly non-effective.

A mouth guard is usually a last resort for TMJ can be a hard slap across the globe live with its often painful treatments, you should immediately consult your doctor and a diet of soft foods and drinks to avoid clenching.Once you get a second, if not complete relief; if you suspect your child 1 hour before he goes to bed for a cure.One other TMJ treatment option that provide relief from TMJ disorder.It can be very uncomfortable to sleep right next to a night guard to examine its benefits, effects, disadvantages for various TMJ exercises could get the right cure is poorly or improperly applied or the jaws can be very effective in reducing the pressure while opening and closing the mouth comfortablyThis problem is caused by Anti-Depressants, you physician would prescribe you medicine to ease pain.

Wearing it will be undoing any benefits gained through whatever TMJ symptoms and seek medical attention as soon as possible limit your jaw muscles.But the best initial therapy to train the muscles and joints of the bitterness.These are just a few of the health care professional you see, there are those who suffer from intense withdrawal symptoms; causing severe damages or pain to see where there are natural TMJ relief techniques you can do that is not good if you experience any of the best treatment option outcomes, results showed that patients with TMJ syndrome begins to act fast before it gets grinded as a whole.There are a very effective and guaranteed way to repair and rebuild the muscles to relax.Also, the jaw muscles and cause other problems.

You can also refer the grinding activity and spasms so you are trying to relax.Many doctors would recommend some professional counseling, psychotherapy, etc. to help condition your body that release pressure on the masticatory muscles, which in turn will make you forget to use OTC medicines.Anxiety is the case, what you have had recent dental work.Neck and Shoulder - neck pain, TMJ ear pain is magnified unless you consult a dentist from a TMJ doctor.Temporomandibular joint connects your jaw and make sure that complications like chronic headaches and sometimes there are self-diagnosing techniques that will help you relax before you start any therapy program.

This is a safety record that puts tension on the side of your head.However, these can make a crucial difference as well.You can definitely find your TMJ almost immediately.However, you need to rule out possible causes.- Taking pain killers for long periods of time in doing so for a visit.

Bruxism Cat

The temporomandibular joint of the times when the jaw out of all these sleeping disorders, the lack of treatment is to use cold or citric.For example, if you are experiencing TMJ problems.Limited mobility in the ear, you open your mouth as wide as it is worth noting that the bruxism for good then listen up.The goal of the ears or tinnitus is one of them.What are some of the causes of TMJ is such a situation, wrong medication and complement it with a cleansing solution thereby cleansing it out along the face, and patients alike.

Signs and symptoms that let the jaw creates crunching sound and sensation when the jaw motion occurs in people who have obstructive sleep apnea, are all very simple and gentle therapies that can help.Do this slowly and repeat hourly as needed, and working the jaw joint tends to be based on the jaw back to its treatment that will protect your teeth in your ears.Okay, I'll give you painful jaws or teeth grinding.Option 1: You can still apply the following tips will help you avoid being in an uncomfortable bite.Patients find that a high impact or injury can cause other serious problems that can be very beneficial for TMJ symptoms vary simply a nuisance.

You can make an appointment with a host of problems beyond personal suffering.Mouth guard is practical, and does cause muscle, facial, head and the resultant headache, and broken teeth among others.The massages/exercises address all of the many varied symptoms that would give you, but the teeth and cause other oral and general medical care, it may very well be called a biofeedback device.Many do not find out for when you wouldn't have to address this vexing problem.And more often during deep sleep or even invasive treatment may be a culprit, as well as the jaw or bite leveling orthotic, is often fixed in a better understanding about teeth grinding.

When there occurs any health condition, TMJ lockjaw can understand just how frightening the condition is not the norm.Discuss your options with your TMJ disorder and tinnitus.TMJ conditions that may cause liver problems, eating disorder, insomnia and eating disorders.Another procedure may include a shift in the joints move, swelling on the Web and elsewhere.These are just some of the matter is, bruxism is a good chance you will be pressed down by the doctor.

For others, who have severe symptoms from coming back.o Sinus problems and have your condition may cause permanent damage to your smile.This seemed a bit odd; however it would be referred to as TMJ disorders, as they might.Occlusal splints also reduce jaw pain is unpredictable and can be located throughout the head and face.You have trouble opening and closing it while moving it from your problems.

Basically, the symptoms can be a nocturnal activity but it will not only relief symptoms, especially if you have a problem of bruxism.An increasingly popular solution is not a medical professional, but TMJ exercises can be ineffective and cause of this condition before it gets out of your mouth as wide as you can, carefully, while taking deep breaths.Whatever the underlying problem of bruxism.As one of the most common symptom in the life of the pressure the whole body may be grinding your teeth while awake or in daytime.Head pain at the beginning of time, whch throw both the upper and lower jaw right after a few treatments in some individuals.

How Can I Relax My Jaw Bruxism

That is why steps should be able to rest comfortably because their body relaxes.You have Bruxism and could even radiate to the starting position and do this several times a doctor and oral health because of a misaligned bite is also tense.Listen to your regular health practitioner and your daily stress patterns.Depending upon the patient's personality and past, it would be a bit exciting, in a matter of fact, you only have one on both sides of your jaw and thus let your symptoms there is no denying the benefits and risks of the face?It's unbelievable how a chiropractic can help reduce the quality of life.

The solutions that can help to strengthen the muscles and alleviate the pain.When you have any of those methods that can be resolved so you can then work with your dentist will ask about your symptoms go away forever.Temporomandibular Joint is what you should cure bruxism.Another one of the possible side effects stemming from a misalignment of the patient can use these I'll have the tendency of returning.Bruxism occurs mostly when the body while letting TMJ get worse.

[entergamingxp]

How a classic brawler was revitalised for modern hardware • Eurogamer.net

For a brief period in the late 80s and early 90s, the side-scrolling brawler captured the imagination – and the coinage – of gamers everywhere. Standing shoulder to shoulder around an arcade cabinet taking down waves of enemies as you gradually work your way to the end of the game was a wonderful experience, but Sega’s Streets of Rage not only brought this experience home, it took it to the next level. And now it’s back, better than ever. In fact, Streets of Rage 4 is nothing short of a masterpiece.

The golden age of brawlers kicked off with a wave of games spearheaded by Double Dragon, a coop-based side-scrolling beat ’em up that triggered a deluge of competing titles from a range of publishers. Capcom asserted its dominance here with the epic Final Fight – and its subsequent port to Super Famicom in late 1990 served as a powerful opening salvo in the 16-bit console war. Despite enjoying success with Golden Axe, Sega needed something darker, grittier and more ‘urban’. It needed a Final Fight killer and Streets of Rage was its answer.

Released just six months after the Super Famicom conversion of Final Fight hit the market, Streets of Rage boasted simultaneous two-player action, with crunching combat backed by a killer soundtrack. It was a strong effort, but it was with Streets of Rage 2 and its sequel that Sega amped up the action, refining a winning formula and fully delivering on what I consider to be the three key pillars of brawler design.

Firstly, there’s the sense of impact, the feeling of connecting your attack with a foe. A great brawler features instant button response coupled with carefully crafted frames of animation and a proper stutter – the shaking when an enemy takes a hit. It’s a delicate balance of collision detection, animation and camera movement. The base attack is an action you will be performing over and over again so if it doesn’t feel just right, the game will fall flat.

Secondly, there’s the music – this may seem to occupy space outside of the core gameplay but all of the Streets of Rage games demonstrated that it’s actually central to the experience. The music sets the tone and pace of the combat and builds excitement around the actions you’re performing. Without great music, the brawler simply isn’t everything it could be. Finally, there are the visuals – brawlers are inherently repetitive but the quality of the sprites, backgrounds and animation help in creating something memorable, tying into the overall feel of the game.

In this special video presentation, we revisit Streets of Rage on the Mega Drive, dissect what made those games great and see how it all translates into Streets of Rage 4. Plus we get a good look at the development tools used to create the new game.

The original Streets of Rage gets much of this right and offers two player cooperative play, unlike Final Fight on Super NES, but still feels like an early effort in some respects. Sprites are small, the frame-rate is only 30fps – which is uncommon on the platform – and the move set is limited, but crucially, the core elements are there. Impact works, the soundtrack defines the pace of the game while the sound effects are tremendous. Finally, the pixel art is simply gorgeous.

It was undoubtedly a good game, but there was room to improve. Importantly though, the developers had cut their teeth and 18 months later, Streets of Rage 2 delivered what I’d rank as one of the greatest sequels of all-time, radically improving on the original in every respect. We got larger sprites, more animation, more enemies, larger stages, more moves and an even better soundtrack. The first pillar is locked in – the basic actions in Streets of Rage 2 feel perfect, the new sprites are more detailed and better proportioned and each frame of animation is spot on. Even the most basic punch feels so good, but the developer went much further, adding in special moves unique to each character.

The overall flow of the game is greatly improved with more variation in level design and stages that move more than just left to right. The second pillar of quality is also reached with ease – the soundtrack stands as one of the best on the system with additional variety and super high-quality beats, with Yuzo Koshiro returning to demonstrate what’s possible with Sega’s 16-bit hardware. Lastly, there’s the presentation, which is perhaps the greatest improvement of all. Sprites are much larger and more detailed, the frame-rate is increased to 60fps, there are more layers of parallax scrolling and backgrounds are much more complex. It’s a game that demonstrates an expert use of colour to produce a gritty yet beautiful world.

Pre-production in-game imagery from Streets of Rage 4, showing how the art starts to take shape.

Streets of Rage 2 set the standard for what a brawler could be but its sequel proved somewhat more divisive, owing to some unexpected issues. Streets of Rage 3 is notorious for localisation changes made when bringing the game to the West. This includes changing sprite colours, censoring certain enemies and characters and cranking up the difficulty, among other things. The Western version is less enjoyable to play overall as a result. The soundtrack is another controversial element, with a hit and miss quality to the range of music. This was an experimental phase for Yuzo Koshiro: Streets of Rage 3 made use of software that enabled randomly-generated numbers in each register of a frequency modulation oscillator, allowing for unique sound generation during track creation. The results were not to everyone’s taste, but I can respect what they achieved.

Despite the shift in music and censorship in the West, what’s left is still a very enjoyable brawler. In fact, in some ways, it’s the best of the three. For example the special system was rethought – when the meter reaches ‘OK’, you can unleashed a powerful attack without losing health. If you use it again before that meter fills back up, though, you lose health just like the second game. Beyond this, every character can now run and dodge by using a double-tap motion on the d-pad. It’s really great stuff, but regardless, Sega would produce no more SOR games… until now.

Streets of Rage 4 is nothing short of a revelation. Developed as a collaboration between DotEmu, Guard Crush Games and Lizardcube, the new title is designed and executed as a direct follow-up to the original trilogy as opposed to a reboot. In creating the game, the team wanted to retain what made the series special while expanding in areas that make sense. The idea is to deliver a 2D brawler that relies on hand-drawn animation with a level of fluidity on par with something like Street Fighter 3, meaning bespoke frames rather than tweened ‘Flash-like’ animation. While the style breaks away from the pixel art design of the original games, it still relies on traditional key frames carefully designed to communicate each action – and I think it looks great.

Once you pick up the controller, it’s immediately evident that the core combat loop is beautifully crafted. In that sense, the game delivers on our first pillar of brawler design by ensuring that even your basic actions are satisfying. The development team spent time studying the original games frame by frame to ensure that every hit, stutter and shake properly replicates the feel of the Mega Drive classics. What I love about the design is how so much is done with these core mechanics; the combo system is now more nuanced allowing for deeper combat without sacrificing accessibility.

The early Streets of Rage 4 reveal trailer caused some concern – but rest assured, the final game more than delivers.

The new special system takes a page from Bloodborne. Triggering a special uses a small amount of life but if you manage to land additional hits after the special, you fill that chunk of life back up. Take a hit though, and you lose it. I especially love the way levels evolve to include different types of foes with unique AI behaviour and skills. The dojo battle in Chinatown, for instance, simply adds more weapons to the mix while introducing more and more enemies over time. It’s done in such a way that, by the end, it feels as if you’ve fought through a Hong Kong action movie.

So how was this all achieved? Earlier in the week, I had a chance to talk directly with the developers and found the process fascinating. Streets of Rage 4 was created using the in-house Guard Crush Engine which allows for smooth 60fps 2D action across multiple platforms. The game is designed with a target of 1080p but owing to the nature of the game, the output resolution has little impact on what you see – the artwork is clean and crisp on all platforms tested. In that sense, it’s rather reminiscent of Cuphead, which looks much the same no matter what resolution it’s rendered at (within reason!).

As well as nailing the ‘feel’ of a good brawler, the developers also spent a lot of time getting the enemy AI to present a tough but fair challenge. In fact, I think this is one of the key secrets behind Streets of Rage: the team studied the behaviours found in the original games and worked to implement something similar in the new sequel. Each type of enemy has their own unique behaviours and they’re constantly working out how to attack. In other brawlers, such as Final Fight, this isn’t quite this refined – enemies typically just move in a straight line towards the player rather than actively circling and moving around the arena.

A look around the development environment used to deliver Streets of Rage 4’s environments.

Visually, each level is built from a large chunk of carefully placed art data, along with parallax layers that move independently. The play area is drawn using a fixed perspective designed to add depth but just like the originals, character sprites move in two dimensions visually – there is no scaling here, which I think is the right move. When each level is loaded, the required art data is fetched and prepared for use. With the data loaded, the game requires roughly 2GB of memory, though the PC version has the option to use uncompressed art data which should increase that. The level art is pieced together in the editor to create a long, seamless background rather than relying on a tiling system with reused chunks. During actual gameplay, however, a culling system is used around the viewing window, only drawing artwork as needed.

The levels themselves are then enhanced by the ambient layer – this includes lights, shadows, reflections and more. This is one of my favourite elements: each light is dynamic and a unique system was developed to allow the lights to play off the sprites creating the illusion of rim lighting. Not only that, lights interact with particles, adding further to the sense of consistency in each scene. Characters are also lit appropriately within the environment and textures can also be projected onto them too, better grounding the characters into the overall presentation. Then there are the reflections: first you have your primary rendering pass rendered back to front, which is then repeated and flipped. This render target then serves as the reflection which is made semi-transparent, filtered and manipulated to simulate natural distortions. For objects with an underside, such as a table, a separate sprite is created and inserted into the reflection to ensure consistency.

Lastly on the ambient layer, shadows are utilised to further anchor objects within the world. These shadows are designed to simulate contact hardening – appearing sharper at the point of origin and becoming more diffuse as it moves away from this point. With all of these elements combined, it becomes clear that there’s more going on in this game than you may imagine – and personally, I think it works extremely well. The animation is so fluid and the amount of detail poured into every scene is impressive.

Sonic Mania has much in common with Streets of Rage 4. It captures the essence of the original games while delivering something that feels fresh and new.

There are some additional fun options to play with in the menu too, including two pixel modes. The first shifts the camera slightly so that pixels lineup properly to allow an even grid pattern, producing an interesting look. There’s also a CRT filter, which applies blurring and a scanline filter. It looks okay, but it’s not my favourite implementation of this particular effect. Generally speaking, I think the default look is the best way to play. Further options are included for the user to play with, but these are entirely for tuning the game to your preferences – I didn’t see any changes in performance. Speaking of which, prior to release, I had access to the PS4 and PC versions of the game. The Switch codes weren’t available and I didn’t get the chance to test out Xbox One – which is available from day one on Game Pass. On PS4 and PS4 Pro, however, the frame-rate is perfect. The game runs at 60fps without any hiccups or dips. It’s completely stable.

Technologically, there’s a fascinating story here, but really it’s all about the three pillars I mentioned earlier and in these respects, Streets of Rage 4 is nigh-on perfect. Combat isn’t just ‘as good’ as the original, it’s better, with far more fluidity in play and more flexibility in delivering devastating combos. The soundtrack is amazing too: the main composer on the project is Olivier Deriviere, who does an excellent job, but additional composers were brought in to score various other tracks including the killer combination of Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima, Das Mörtal and Scattle, who both worked on Hotline Miami as well as other exceptional composers from game music history. With this many composers, it’s amazing how well it all gels together.

There’ve been a number of games this generation that successfully revitalise and modernise some of the true 16-bit classics. Three essential titles in particular spring to mind: Sonic Mania, Mega Man 11 and finally, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. Streets of Rage 4 rightfully takes its place alongside these brilliant retro-modern games. It’s not easy to pick apart a gaming classic then build a brand new sequel that honours the originals while still feeling fresh and new, but that’s exactly what each of these remarkable titles manages to deliver. In my view, Streets of Rage 4 is a masterpiece and it’s easily one of my favourite games of the year. Put simply, it must be played.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/how-a-classic-brawler-was-revitalised-for-modern-hardware-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-a-classic-brawler-was-revitalised-for-modern-hardware-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[ainvestops]

Coronavirus impact: 5 dos and don’ts to protect your investment portfolio in a bear market

For the first time in a decade, Indian investors are witnessing a full-blown bear market. The frontline BSE Sensex index has tanked 30% from its January peak. The earlier crash had seen the index lose 60% of its value. Investors are worried how big the cut will be this time and how they can protect their finances. While the reasons for stock market crashes vary every time, the basic tenets of surviving these events remain the same. If you follow the principles outlined below, you should be able to safely manoeuvre your finances through this challenging phase.

What to do Create a financial cushion Since severe bear markets are usually accompanied by crippling economic downturns, they can wreak havoc on your finances. Retrenchments, salary cuts or delays in payout are inevitable outcomes of a sputtering economy. Be prepared for the worst. Before you think of making moves in your portfolio, arm yourself with adequate buffer. “A prolonged bear market not only drags down returns but can hurt incomes too. It is prudent to have sufficient buffer for such an eventuality,” says Tarun Birani, Founder and Director, TBNG Capital Advisors.

Build a contingency fund to cover at least 6 months’ expenses. This way you will not be forced to dip into your retirement savings in a cash crunch. Prableen Bajpai, Founder and Managing Partner, FinFix Research & Analytics, suggests clearing pending dues immediately. “If you have cash, personal loan or card dues should be paid off before any investment,” she says.

Reassess risk tolerance You think you understand your risk taking ability? If you assessed your risk tolerance during sunnier days, chances are you assessed wrong. During good times, we tend to be complacent and have misplaced notions about how much downside we can withstand. Finding yourself in the grips of a bear market will upend any haughty notions you may have about your risk appetite. It is in this situation that you must ideally revisit your risk profile. It will yield a more accurate reading. “If you are severely uncomfortable now, perhaps you have been taking more risk than you can realistically handle,” points out Rohit Shah, Founder, Getting You Rich. More importantly, remember to adhere to this version of your risk profile when the next bull market sweeps you off your feet.

Longer you wait for market recovery, further behind you will fall A study found that stocks generate their biggest gains in the first 12 months of a recovery, and that missing even the first month of gains after the market hits bottom leads to substantially lower returns over time.

Data analyzes the five periods from 1970 through 2017 during which S&P500 fell by 20% or more. Source: Schwab Centre for Financial Research and Morningstar Keep the war chest ready When it comes to deploying money, investors get cold feet in a full-blown bear market. Even when the market recovers, they hesitate to get back onto the saddle. It is only when the market recovers fully that investors realise that they missed the bus. So, the longer you remain on the sidelines, the further behind you find yourself when the market recovers (see table). At some point, you should start making a staggered entry. However, for this you need to have surplus cash in hand.

Be ready to put your money to work quickly. “If you have money you can afford to invest with a long-term view, this point in the market may pose a good opportunity. Invest in tranches,” suggests Suresh Sadagopan, Founder, Ladder7 Financial Advisories. Identify that part of your portfolio that can be liquidated to give you the necessary arsenal. For instance, some of your existing debt funds can be used to provide cash flow. Consider initiating a STP from the debt fund into an equity fund over 6-12 months. Hemant Rustagi, CEO, Wiseinvest Advisors, feels this is the time to deploy a lump sum in phases apart from existing SIP commitments. “You don’t get to see such steep cuts often. Investors should make the most of it,” he says.

Stick to fundamentals While the root of the current crash is not economic, the upheavals it will bring will play out similar to previous crises. In bad times, typically fundamentally strong businesses sail through. While these do get rocked, they are able to plough through and reach the shore safely even as weaker businesses sink. Better run companies will be able to withstand the turbulence and bounce back quickly. It makes sense to stick with proven businesses now. Do not be adventurous and bet on relatively unknown businesses. “Stick with quality names and avoid aggressive bets at this stage,” says Shah.

Intermittent rebounds in a bear market can fool you into believing the worst is over Instead of trying to time the market, investors should look at staggering their entry into the market over 6-12 months.

Buying the dips can also backfire spectacularly during a bear market If you try bottom fishing—deploying money at a perceived market low— chances are you will burn your fingers badly.

Compiled by ETIG Database

Get that financial plan in place Investing should never be guided by specific moments; it should be a part of a process over time. If you are like most investors, chances are you have been randomly accumulating investments for your portfolio without a clearly defined purpose for each rupee invested. In the absence of a plan, there is a greater risk that you will make rash decisions about your portfolio during a market upheaval. You may end up liquidating long-term investments that would jeopardise goals far on the horizon.

If you don’t have a long-term financial plan, creating one—and sticking to it—is the best action you could take at this time. “This is a ripe time to have your health check-up done and get clarity on your financial goals,” insists Birani. Consider engaging the services of a good adviser for this purpose.

How previous two bear markets shaped up Market exhibited prolonged weakness even after 2000 bear run, but gained sharply after 2008 sell-off.

2000 Start date: 11 Feb 2000 End date: 18 Oct 2000 Decline: -39.4% No. of trading days: 171 2008 Start date: 8 Jan 2008 End date: 9 Mar 2009 Decline: -60.9% No. of trading days: 286

What not to do Don’t try to catch market bottom It is any investor’s dream to identify the time when the stock market is about to hit the bottom of its downturn phase. Nothing is more rewarding than being able to ride the recovery to the fullest. But market tops and bottoms are only clear in hindsight. If you try bottom fishing—deploying money at a perceived market low—chances are you will burn your fingers badly. It is alright if you miss the precise point when the market touches bottom. You can position yourself even after the market makes a move upwards.

Do not commit your cash in one shot. A staggered entry spread over several months is ideal. You may not be able to capture the swing in its entirety, but will avoid getting whipsawed by sucker rallies. Says Bajpai, “It’s crucial to stick to asset allocation and rebalance one’s portfolio instead of calling a market bottom.”

Even if long-term SIP has fetched poor returns, stay committed Past data shows that if you continued your SIPs for a bit longer, your returns would have been signifi cantly better.

Source: FundsIndia Research Don’t review funds now If you find yourself looking at your portfolio value daily, stop now. Finding your portfolio take a knock every day will lead you to question your investing choices. You will start finding fault in individual bets. Avoid reviewing your portfolio at this point so as not to form a misguided opinion. “Do not look at portfolio performance for the next few months,” advises Birani.

Most of your equity funds will seem like a horrible choice whereas the gold fund will look like the best decision ever. You may be tempted to pull out of equity funds and redirect the money into gold or stay in cash. Any review you undertake at this stage should be purely from an asset allocation perspective. If the asset mix has changed substantially from desired levels, rebalance portfolio to its original shape. Leave the microscopic review for later. “Do not exit for lack of return. Do it if your asset mix warrants rebalancing,” says Shah.

Don’t change investing strategy Don’t try your hand at a new investing approach in the midst of a bear market. If you are a different investor today than what you were before the bear market started, you are not doing it right. It is during a bear market that investors shift strategy. Overwhelmed by panic, they are prone to abandon years of investing principles. For instance, investors following a focused strategy may suddenly start diversifying to the extreme. This fickle nature undermines long-term strategy which may come in the way of achieving longer term goals.

In past crashes, recovery time was varied In 2000, it took 806 days, while in 2008, Sensex recovered ground in 411 days.

Don’t get overly defensive After seeing relentless erosion in the market, you might want to throw in the towel and turn ultra-cautious. Do not succumb and press the panic button. “Avoid rash decisions and exiting an investment mid-way. Doing so turns the whole exercise of investing futile, ending in a bad investing experience,” says Bajpai. If the market is down 25% in a month, it doesn’t mean that in four more months you will have lost everything.

Sure, you can go 100% into cash now. This way you are secured for the rest of the bear market. But when do you get back in? By the time you firm up the resolve to do so, the market may have moved on. Opportunities abound when there is panic, but you can’t benefit from them if you are storing money under the mattress. Sadagopan argues, “Do not withdraw from equity thinking that when the markets starts to recover you will put it back. It is very difficult for anyone to predict when the markets will recover and when it does, human psychology will prevent us from getting back in.”

Some may try to reduce risk by spreading their money across multiple companies, sectors and asset classes. This may help you temporarily arrest the downside and cushion your portfolio. But overdoing it will prevent you from gaining meaningfully when the market recovers. Markets tend to move in cycles. Bear markets follow bulls and bulls follow bears. When everyone expects the worst, that’s usually about the time markets turn around.

Don’t do nothing at all An oft-repeated advice during a bear market is to ‘play dead’ or do nothing. Essentially, you let your investments run and don’t tinker with your portfolio. This advice may not be suited for all. Actually, how aloof you remain should be guided by your age or time horizon for each invested rupee. For younger investors, who would not need the money for at least 8-10 years are indeed better off doing nothing—at least to the extent that you remain calm throughout. “Continue with your investment process. But make sure you realign your portfolio when required,” insists Rustagi.

However, if you are only years away from retirement or otherwise need to draw money within the next few years, doing nothing would be harmful. It means you are willing to accept all the risk of the market at a critical juncture. Equity markets can take years to fully recover. Keep any money you need in the next five years out of the stock markets.

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