#to help fund mythic quest

[bakshiis]

i do recognize that he's trying to make a joke, and honestly it does amuse me. a smile stretches across my face, chuckle passing through parted lips as i narrow my eyes in hilo's direction. "like a piece of shit? i'm not sure what you're talking about." is it even a lie at this point? i do wake up in the morning feeling like a piece of shit, but that's never related to work. if our players are willing to drop hundreds and thousands of dollars on some stupid shiny sword that's on them. i'm the reason that mythic quest is doing as well as it's doing. my job is needed. i don't think hilo feels like a piece of shit for the same reasons as myself. "i feel no guilt for what i do for business, everything i've done i've had to do i've done it to succeed. to win. i'm sure you can understand that, can't you?"

          "     we should be good people,     "     everyone laugh  !  he's making a joke.  there's nothing good about anyone who steps foot inside the skyscraper his grandda owns,  and everything that one of the kauls sets their sights on dies.  not his fucking problem,  if he had any say in it.  hilo grins,  all sharp teeth dripping bitter sarcasm.     "     wouldn't it be nice to wake up in the morning and not feel like a fuckin' piece of shit  ?     "

               FOR BRADBAKSHI  @bakshiis  ,  FROM  HILO     !

[crobengroup]

Finding the Goldilocks Combination: The Importance of Complementary Financing Advisory

In the realm of business finance, finding the perfect balance can often feel like chasing a mythical "Goldilocks combination" — not too hot, not too cold, but just right. This analogy aptly applies to the delicate art of managing complementary financing solutions for businesses. At Cebron Group, we understand the critical role of complementary financing advisory in achieving this balance.

Understanding Complementary Financing Advisory

Complementary financing advisory involves the strategic alignment of various financial instruments to meet the specific needs and goals of a business. It's not just about securing funds but about doing so in a way that optimizes financial structure, minimizes costs, and maximizes flexibility.

Why It Matters

Optimal Financial Structure: Just like Goldilocks finding the right bed, businesses need a financing structure that fits their unique circumstances — not too rigid, not too loose. Complementary financing advisory helps achieve this by assessing factors such as cash flow needs, growth projections, and risk tolerance.

Minimizing Costs: Every dollar saved on financing costs goes directly to the bottom line. With the right mix of debt, equity, and other financial tools, businesses can minimize interest expenses and capital outlays, improving profitability.

Maximizing Flexibility: Business landscapes are ever-changing. Having a mix of financing options provides the agility needed to adapt to market fluctuations, expansion opportunities, or unforeseen challenges.

Cebron Group's Approach

At Cebron Group, we specialize in providing tailored complementary financing advisory services that empower businesses to thrive. Our approach is built on:

In-depth Analysis: We start by thoroughly understanding your business, its financial health, growth ambitions, and risk profile.

Customized Solutions: Utilizing our expertise and industry insights, we craft bespoke financing strategies that align with your specific needs and goals.

Continuous Support: Our commitment doesn't end with the strategy. We provide ongoing support to ensure your financing remains optimal as your business evolves.

Realizing the Goldilocks Combination

The quest for the Goldilocks combination in financing is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. It requires a nuanced understanding of financial markets, a keen eye for opportunity, and a commitment to client success. At Cebron Group, we bring all these elements together to help businesses achieve financial harmony — where the blend of debt, equity, and other instruments is just right.

Conclusion

In the dynamic world of business finance, finding the Goldilocks combination through complementary financing advisory is more crucial than ever. It's about striking the perfect balance between risk and reward, flexibility and stability, growth and cost efficiency. At Cebron Group, we are dedicated to guiding businesses through this journey, ensuring they not only survive but thrive in today's competitive landscape. Reach out to us today and discover how our expertise can help your business achieve its financial goals with precision and confidence.

Visit us- https://cebrongroup.com/

[divineexpressalterations]

Budget Dry Cleaning: Saving Money Without Sacrificing Style

In a realm where the language of attire often speaks louder than words, pursuing a stylish wardrobe can feel like navigating a labyrinth of financial decisions. Choosing between a well-maintained appearance and staying within budget is a familiar problem. Fear not, for in this blog post, we embark on a journey of discovery into innovative and budget dry cleaning in Coomera, proving that impeccable style doesn't have to come at a hefty cost.

Decoding the Elegance Enigma

The prevailing misconception that sophistication demands a hefty financial sacrifice pushes us towards overspending on professional dry cleaning services. While certain garments warrant specialised care, a trove of budget-friendly alternatives is waiting to be explored. The crux lies in unravelling the secrets of your wardrobe, adopting a proactive stance, and venturing into dependable yet budget dry cleaning options.

DIY: Crafting Practical Panache

When embracing the DIY realm, decoding garment care labels is akin to deciphering a style manifesto. A profound understanding of fabrics and specific cleaning instructions ensures avertible damage. Enhance your cleaning experience with a quality steamer for wrinkle obliteration and garment rejuvenation between professional dry cleaning sessions.

Tactical Dry Cleaning: Hierarchies and Rotation

Every garment in your wardrobe clamours for a different level of attention from professional dry cleaners. Adhering to a strategic prioritisation and rotation strategy significantly reduces the frequency of dry cleaning excursions. Preserve professional budget dry cleaning for the glittering stars of your wardrobe – the special occasion garments, delicate fabrics, and tailored suits – while everyday items like casual shirts and basic trousers often revel in a home refresh.

Implementing a rotational regimen not only extends the lifespan of your clothing but also ensures your budget aligns with necessity. Distribute your financial resources judiciously, directing funds towards garments that warrant professional attention and care.

Exploring Affordable Dry Cleaners

Contrary to popular belief, budget dry cleaning services aren't mythical creatures. A diligent quest can unveil hidden gems, offering quality service without obliterating your budget. Explore dry cleaners that extend discounts or loyalty programs. 

Some service providers even present reduced rates for bulk cleaning to their regular patrons. Pursuing budgetary bliss, don't hesitate to discuss pricing and promotions with your chosen dry cleaner candidly. Get multiple quotations from different dry cleaners and compare them. It will help you get the best deal.

Cultivating Garment Care Rituals

Preventive measures often emerge as unsung heroes, which is true for clothing care. Embrace good clothing maintenance habits to alleviate the need for constant dry cleaning. Hang your garments with care to thwart wrinkles and maintain their silhouette. Enlist garment bags as protective shields against dust and potential pest invasions. Address stains and spills promptly to prevent their metamorphosis into stubborn blemishes.

Routine wardrobe inspections for loose buttons, stray threads, or subtle signs of wear are imperative. Swift attention to these details can avert extensive and wallet-draining repairs in the future. Embracing these habits breathes longevity into your wardrobe and trims professional budget dry cleaning frequency.

In Closing

Maintaining a wardrobe that seamlessly merges style and thrift is an art form. You can navigate the labyrinth of choices with a strategic and inventive approach without sacrificing your sense of style. Whether it's plunging into the world of DIY elegance, orchestrating a rotational ballet for your wardrobe, or discovering the budget-friendly gems among dry cleaners, myriad possibilities await. Remember, a meticulously maintained wardrobe isn't just a reflection of personal style; it's a testament to your financial acumen. Connect with Divine Express Alterations for the finest budget dry cleaning in Coomera.

[masterweaverx]

End of the Month Fic Roundup

As we mourn and celebrate the end of this month, I return with my myriad collection of fics and fanfics, with the hopes that at least some of you will enjoy it. I can't do much for reality, but I can do a lot for the realms of imagination and enjoyment.

Firstly, let's go over the random seeds that I've scattered. We've got another Seeker and Sprite segment, for those of you who love teenage superheroes discovering things about themselves. And also, admittedly mostly as a crack idea, there's I'm Fed Up with Zion Ruining the Network for me, so I Recruited Gamers from Another World to Help Out my Host, where Queen Administrator gets creative in her attempts to help Taylor. Finally, I'm proud to say a certain seed has grown enough to be replanted! That's right, Conference Call: Interdimensional Teenage Princess Group Therapy is its own story, complete with TWO new updates!

Of course, I didn't spend the month working just on the oneshots. An Injection Of Chaos has a new chapter, and a fun supplemental report by the PRT. For those of you who like seeing a poor teenage girl struggle with summoning alien creatures through her phone, I present the MLP famous Derpy Hooves! I also started writing a quest in Earth Mythos, an original setting where a generation of people have to adapt to being mythical creatures in a human-designed world. I haven't moved the two updates over to AO3 yet, though I am considering it. Oh, and of course Vista of the Stars has had five chapters put up on AO3, where our intrepid young superheroine FINALLY gets a spaceship!

But finally, as I promised, we have a new chapter of Describing The Series Via References. That's right, after a full year, the RWBY memefic is back! The Vytal Tournament is here, and things are about to go off the rails hard! (I will try to make sure the next update doesn't take a year this time.)

Please remember that writers are artists too, and artists need support! Here is my Patreon if you want to support me long term, and here is my ko-fi if you want to support me short term. I really depend on this for... basically all my income. If you can't fund me monetarily, reblogs are also appreciated!

[fictionadventurer]

I love your imaginary book rec idea! Pick any or all that spark your interest - no pressure, and skip if none stand out to you.

"Mercator Must Walk the Plank" (Nautical comedy)

"The Wings of Hermes" - (1930's literary mystery)

"Cardinal's Map" (Literary fiction that people argue about whether it should be classed as fantasy)

"The Fourth Postscript" (Epistolatory fantasy)

"The Most Fascinating Lady of the Season" (Coming-of-Age)

Mercator Must Walk the Plank by E.G. Delaford

After reading a few too many tales of high seas adventure, Victorian gentleman John Quackenbush is inspired to purchase a ship and go in search of treasure. His ship is a wreck, his crew is inept, and he's not exactly sure how one reads a map, but the intrepid traveler remains undaunted, even as they battle storms, shipwrecks, and pirates, and often find themselves sailing in entirely the wrong ocean. After they rescue a sensible young woman from a shipwreck, she takes it upon herself to rein in the captain's flights of fancy and get them all safely home, but the Quack is not so easily controlled. He will have his adventure, and those on the ship can either join in the quest--or walk the plank.

The Wings of Hermes by Elizabeth Tern

Oxford don Joseph Quill prefers to remain safely ensconced in his books, but when he is called upon to authenticate a supposed piece of ancient Greek statuary, he suddenly finds himself at the center of a deadly web of intrigue that involves murder, theft, and letters that threaten vengeance from the gods of Greece themselves. Multiple shadowy parties are willing to kill for this statue, and if Quill doesn't uncover them soon, he may just be the next victim ushered into the afterlife.

Cardinal's Map by Dorothy Cannes

Miranda Zimmer, a nihilistic grad student, gets a summer job serving as secretary for John Cardinal, a reclusive old man who has not left his New York estate in decades. Miranda helps Cardinal to compile his magnum opus, an intricate portal fantasy about a man's quest to save a kingdom and find his long-lost love. Miranda becomes enchanted by the story--especially the intricate map of the world that Cardinal has been drawing for years-- and the man, whose zeal for the world gives her a new appreciation for life. Yet Miranda starts to suspect that for Cardinal, this book is not fiction--it's memory. Whether it's madness or metaphor, Cardinal is writing this tale as the chronicle of his life, the map meant to help him reconnect with the woman he once lost. Is Cardinal mourning his wife or planning a rescue? Can Miranda keep him grounded in the here-and-now, or is he doomed to be lost in the wilderness of his past?

The Fourth Postscript by A.B. Wright

Tellor, a young man seeking his fortune, dreams of finding the mythical city in the sky. Amnesh, an elven king, agrees to fund his journey, so long as Tellor sends back regular letters chronicling the adventure. As the journey progresses, Tellor sends updates about the wonders and terrors of his quest, while the king sends advice meant to help him get back home in one piece. Soon, a strong friendship binds the two men, and when Tellor's letters suddenly cease, Amnesh is driven to undertake a quest of his own.

The Most Fascinating Lady of the Season by Charlotte Irvin

Julia Blythe, a sheltered rector's daughter, is invited to stay with her uncle--a baronet--as a companion to her cousin Eliza, newly orphaned and returned from years living abroad. Eliza's life on the continent has given her wild habits, as well as beauty and charm that enchant the men around them. As Julia is dragged along in Eliza's orbit, the girls develop a friendship, even as Julia struggles to reconcile Eliza's wild ways with the more sedate morals of her childhood. But when scandal strikes, Julia and Eliza may both lose everything, including the men they were beginning to love.

[chaoswillfallrpg]

GENEVIEVE AVERY-WILKES is TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD and a SOCIALITE amongst THE SACRED TWENTY-EIGHT in LONDON. She looks remarkably like KEKE PALMER and considers herself NEUTRAL. She is currently OPEN.

→ OVERVIEW:

tw: death

Newly infamous for her suspected ruthless pursuit of the finer things in life, Genevieve Avery is a beautiful witch whose assets and flirtatious behaviour have caught the attention of many in wizarding London. The eldest child of MARIETTE LAMERE and EDWIN AVERY, Genevieve was raised with a lavish lifestyle and enjoyed a childhood in the lap of luxury. Born in the picturesque village of Alton, her father was the eldest of the Avery brood and entitled to their family home which spanned acres and was hidden by large trees to stop the prying Muggles disturbing their peace. The Avery family were long standing in wizarding Britain, a member of The Sacred Twenty-Eight they had kept hold of their family money and estate by moving with the times and achieving advantageous careers in the Ministry and working in Quidditch. Genevieve’s father had been a professional player before choosing a career in coaching, building a rather large Quidditch Pitch behind the house. Genevieve’s mother despised it though she had always scowled in silence. The Avery family were rich but they were powerful and kind people, quite the opposite from the woman Edwin married. Mariette was a French Pure-Blood witch who longed for a live similar to that of a queen, eating pastries each day and sitting on a large estate telling people what to do and throwing grand parties. As a great number of wizarding French high society were married off and her prospects slimmed she ventured over to England,

Making the acquaintance of the Avery family Mariette inserted herself into the life of their eldest son until he’d fallen for her charm, beauty and manipulation. Mariette’s children would grow to take after the mother more so than their father who was a sweet tempered man that prided himself on hard work and honesty. With their father off coaching The Appleby Arrows and spending the majority of his time in North Lincolnshire, Genenive’s mother ran their household. It became evident that Edwin Avery had to remain at work, as, despite the many galleons their family had in the vault, his dear wife would power through it so quickly he had to keep making money in order for her to afford the lifestyle she wanted. Genevieve and her younger brother JASPER grew up dressed in specially designed clothing, eating cake and puff pastry by their pool, tending to winged horses they had in stables on the property and attending the most strange and wonderful parties their mother could dream up. Mariette was an outlandish woman. She hated anyone having more standing in society than she did. Although other members of The Twenty-Eight sighed in amazement at the circus performers she hired for her parties or at the animals she kept on the property, people like DRUELLA BLACK and her aunt ALICIA AVERY-JONES privately thought of Genevieve’s mother as quite the joke and knew that despite her best efforts she’d never truly belong.

Genevieve was raised believing image and money were everything and although she had come from a long line of strong sorcerers who made their own way in the world, her mother’s influence was far stronger than that of her father, aunts and cousins. Her family had enough money to ensure Genevieve could continue to have exactly the life she wanted and later marry anyone who she felt was befitting of her attention. Attending Hogwarts was somewhat of a spiritual experience for Genevieve, having grown bored of the same carousel of servants and people her mother introduced her to for Genevieve’s brief entertainment. She desired a new castle to conquer and new people to become her subjects or aid in her quest. There were a few names Genevieve had come to memorise as a child, Rowle, Parkinson, Malfoy and Flint were high up on her list of potential friends and as she heard a few echo round the carriages of the train she selected her seat carefully and got to put a face to the names. Sorted into Ravenclaw, CAMILLE ROWLE became her best friend, the two of them forging a friendship group composed of those they knew would bring them power. ANDRESSA PARKINSON quickly proved a good choice in friend, as did her Aunt Alicia’s niece through marriage FLORENCE JONES. All from very notable and high profile families, Genevieve’s friends were as image conscious as she was and knew what they wanted out of life. Career witches, Genevieve admired their desire for happiness beyond their family name and money but knew that it wasn't life for her.

It was due to similar aspirations Genevieve became very close to ANASTASIA DUPONT, a Slytherin whose father had an important job close to the Minister whose main aspiration in life was to look beautiful and attend glittering parties. Both very headstrong and intelligent women, Genevieve and Anastasia had all the tools to be successful in whatever career paths they chose, but the pull of being famous and desired within high society was too exciting to ignore. Given a sizable allowance, Genevieve was known at school for her daring fashion choices and custom garments she had commissioned by up and coming fashion designer PRIMROSE HOOKUM and ethereal beauty which was often likened to that of a veela. Genevieve was one of the most desired and mythical creatures to walk the walls of Hogwarts and would enter into society with a strong platform to accept one of many proposals she was sure to procure. A few years of partying and balls were gravely enjoyed by Genevieve and her friends until the untimely death of her father in a freak horse riding accident. The mood was somber amongst the Avery family, but the biggest disaster was to be revealed after their father’s will was read aloud. The estate would pass to her brother as was tradition, with a portion of the proceeds protected for Jasper to access when he became head of their house after the death of their mother. Everything else was to be divided up between Mariette and Genevieve.

With their father gone and no money coming in it was a goblin in charge of the Avery estate that told the family that aside from Jasper’s inheritance the funds were as dry as the Egyptian desert. Refusing to sell the house, Genevieve watched as her brother took charge of the family, procuring a job working for the Ministry and cutting off his mother from the family funds. Their family were in ruin, Genevieve was poor but only they knew. Jasper did not have enough money to pay for a large marriage contract between Genevieve and another young member of The Sacred Twenty-Eight, knowing that to marry into their spectacle of a family a large sum would be required. Genevieve panicked. Having previously been entertaining the affections of CORNELIUS CRABBE, Genevieve thought drastically. Despite their chemistry she cut the relationship off and set her eyes on VICTOR WILKES a much older and recently widowed man she thought might be looking for some company to ease the loss of his late wife. Recently bereaved herself, Genevieve established a friendship with Victor acting as a comforting shoulder to cry on, much to the confusion of her close circle of friends. Victor was kind to her, he was attractive for his age and although he had a son who was older than her, she could see herself forging some sort of happiness with him. He was also one of the most wealthiest men in Britain which certainly eased the sting. When Victor Wilkes proposed marriage Genevieve was overjoyed, refusing any money from her brother and clutching onto Genevieve with pride and love. 

His children were seething, RITA SKEETER was having a field day and ILLIANA SMITH was poised and ready to write a full ten page spread on the love story of the century and what would be the most anticipated wedding of the 1980s. Geneive was a vision in white, radiating elegance as the most important people in wizarding Europe came to watch her marry. PERSEPHONE WILKES was in tears, CASTOR WILKES had almost refused to attend, but none of that mattered. Genevieve Avery-Wilkes was married and ready to start her life of designer gowns, balls and bonbons. Dressed in her finery, Genevieve excused herself from the party to consummate her marriage. As they lied together, kissing passionately something happened. Victor clutched his chest, gasped for air and fell flat on the bed. One moment they were laughing then she was frozen, her eyes wide as an unthinkable scene unfolded. A couple of hours into marriage, a brief sexual encounter and he was gone. Screaming for help, her aunt and cousins HESTIA JONES and KINGSLEY SHACKLEBOLT were first on the scene, comforting her and questioning her about what had happened. DAISY HOOKUM wasn’t far behind. Clutching at her diamonds and looking at her bed, two thoughts ran through Genevieve Avery-Wilkes’ mind. The first, she was a widow at just twenty-seven. The second was- that even if she split the profits with his children equally, she was one of the wealthiest women in Britain and finally she had achieved everything she had ever wanted. All she had needed was a ring and some very unfortunate luck. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Blood Status → Pure-Blood

Pronouns → She/Her

Identification → Cis Female

Sexuality  → Up to Roleplayer

Relationship Status → Widowed

Previous Education →  Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Ravenclaw)

Societies → Pura Sorores

Family → Jasper Avery (brother), Kingsley Shacklebolt (cousin), Balthazar Jones (uncle), Alicia Avery Jones (aunt), Hestia Jones (cousin), Gwenog Jones (cousin), Victor Wilkes (deceased ex-husband), Castor Wilkes (former step-son) Persephone Wilkes (former step-daughter)

Connections  → Camille Rowle (best friend), Florence Jones (best friend), Anastasia DuPont (best friend), Andressa Parkinson (best friend), Christiano Parkinson (close friend), Thorfinn Rowle (close friend), Decius Flint (close friend), Marshall Fawley (close friend), Cornelius Crabbe (close friend/potentially love interest), Primrose Jorkins (close friend), Lucius Malfoy (friend), Erik Borgin (friend), Daisy Hookum (friend)

Future Information → Wife of Lorcan McLaird (subject to change), Wife of Callan McTavish and Possible Aversary (subject to change), Wife and Adversary of Griffith Talkalot (subject to change), Wife and Adversary of Billius Weasley (subject to change), Wife and Adversary of Alec Zabini, Mother of Blaize Zabini, Wife and Adversary of Michael Thomas (subject to change)

GENEVIEVE AVERY IS A LEVEL 4 WITCH.

[eastoniablogs]

...

BTS Evo SMP (pre-session start)

"I mean, I get it. But don't documentaries have to be you know, factual?"

"That's the beauty of it Zee! They don't have to be completely per say. We have a truth here - Players experiencing the history of the Log without having to wait several Dev Cycles for Updates. This is just..."

The Admin waved his hands around in the air.

"Extra."

"Right, because we got Discovery funding instead of academic funding."

"Academics tend to be sceptical when your Admin background is in helping to produce a Fantasy RPG."

SystemZee hummed, neither agreeing or disagreeing.

"So instead of going ahead with our original idea of just waking up to the new update we're gonna do... what?"

Grian rubbed his hands together.

"So! Did your mum ever give you scary bedtime stories? I found a snippet about parts of an ancient pantheon - there is literally almost next to nothing about them. Free real estate!"

SystemZee looked at his fellow Admin, stunned. Grian barreled on.

"I'm thinking we make these Watchers our reason for the Updates! Little clues and such leading up to the Version change, maybe portals? Quests? Pranks? So little of the history surrounding these supposed beings have survived we could - in fact - make whatever we want of it!"

SystemZee groaned.

"Grian no. We are not using rando mythical creatures as a framing device for the Server Version Updates."

Grian cackled, "Grian yes!"

...

Today I present you : The ACCIDENTAL WATCHERIFICATION OF GRIAN au

Aka I’m going back to a beloved trope of mine, accidental deitification but I slap it on my current interest, Hermitcraft.

SO !

We all know the “Grian is a Watcher” AU (well, lots of us do know it, it’s a pretty famous fanon grian thing, be it in fanfics or fanart and such).

Most of the time I see it, it’s a “Grian was a normal player, but got yoinked in Evo by the (evil/neutral/benevolant, choose your favorite flavor) Watchers tm. They (tried to/did) turn him into one. Sometimes he has to escape because they’re Bad, sometimes they’re just annoying. He gets cool powers and eyes, wings sometimes and Purple.”

This is a classic. BUT ! What I am suggesting now is something I haven’t really seen before, which is a shame bc it’s ; interesting, funny imo, and also meta. (If it exists, I missed it oopsies sorry lmao)

What if Grian, after Evo, did NOT become a Watcher bc he got turned into one by them. In fact, the existance of Watchers is debatable here. He might never have actually met one, and their exact role/meaning doesn’t really matter. They might even not exist ! That’s up to you.

Grian, is an avian/shapeshifter whatever, living now on Hermitcraft. He does his little videos, streams, whatever you want to make him a somewhat public figure (like Hermits often are in the mcyt multiverse). What matters is that for SOME reason, people BELIEVE he is a Watcher HIDDING HIS TRUE SELF. And BECAUSE OF THEIR BELIEF he gradually actually BECOMES ONE.

Keep reading

[browa123]

Saw some ideas for a Danny Phantom Pokemon AU floating around, so I’m gonna throw my spin on it.

So, I’m pretty sure Danny’s gonna have a Cosmog in his party. Space. It’ll turn into Lunala eventually because it’s Ghost/Psychic and represents the moon, again space. And ghosts.

Another mythical pokemon that follows Danny around is Marshadow, but Danny never catches it because every attempt has it fade away. But it always comes around to follow him.

Danny’s a ghost type specialist. Ghost type Pokemon are drawn to his aura. They follow him around, even if they’re wild ghosts he hasn’t captured.

His parents don’t like ghost type Pokemon. So he keeps his caught Pokemon hidden in his room before he goes out on his journey. Probably in the middle of the night. Meaning he runs away from home to start his journey.

So, because ghost types are freely living in the world with everything else, there is no ghost zone, but never fear! Danny still gets in a ghost related accident!

He’s out after dark when really little, disobeying his parents and all, when he sees an injured pikachu at the edge of the woods. It looks hurt at least, telling by the deep gash in its side.

The pikachu tries to keep away from Danny, but the young boy is insistent on helping the hurt Pokemon. He gets closer, trying to inspect the wound.

Turns out that isn’t a Pikachu.

After seeing what lies under the disguise and surviving the shock and terror, ghost pokemon become attracted to Danny. They follow him around, hiding in plain sight. Sometimes only he can see them.

Like in the show, Danny might catch every ghost he comes across. But it’s not for stopping them from causing trouble, it’s more to protect them. He’ll use his ghost whispering aura to lead the misunderstood creatures away from danger.

One of the Pokemon he does have is the Mimikyu from his childhood. He’s nicknamed it Ellie. It’s also a gray color, meaning it’s a Shiny Mimikyu. (It’s his only shiny). He’s grown an appreciation for Ellie’s true form, though he knows no one else may like it.

He takes his white Hazmat, a black cloak to cover his body and a mask and refers to himself as Phantom. The mysterious masked trainer who uses ghost types begins to gain a notorious following from Pokemon fans. His connection to the elusive typing makes him just as mysterious in the population.

-

Meanwhile, the Guys in White (the evil org for the Amity Region) are taking Pokemon to experiment on them and bring out their potential as weapons. They don’t use a specific type, but they favor Pokemon that are colored lighter shades and white. If types had to be common, it’s the cold ice type or the the charactaristically plain normal type.

Phantom’s rival is Valerie. A steel type favoring trainer

Valerie blames Phantom for leading a hoard of troublesome ghosts to the laboratory her father works at. The ghosts did major damage to the equipment and data, pushing back work and cutting funds.

Valerie’s partner Pokemon is a Scizor. Bright Red and steel type to counter Mimikyu’s fairy type. The Scyther egg arrived on her doorstep by unknown means.

Turns out that the ghostly invasion wasn’t Phantom’s work at all, but Plasmius. Vlad is the billionaire poison type gym leader who lives in a town near victory road. He too has an aura for attracting Pokemon, but of poison and dark type after a tragic accident in college left him badly poisoned due to a misfired attack.

When the rumor of another soul able to call pokemon by sheer force of energy comes up as a rumor around town, it intrigues him.

-

Sam Manson’s main pokemon is Gothitelle. She recived Gothita as a present from her grandmother. 

Intrigued by the mystery of Phantom, one of very few ghost type trainers in the Amity region, she begins her own quest to track down the infamous trainer. Perhaps Phantom has the answers as to why her friend Danny has gone missing.

Joining her is Tucker, a trainer who’s learning the rules of battle with his electric type Pokemon. He has a Shinx, and is very eager to get his hands on a Rotomdex, which is hard to find in Amity due to it being powered by a ghost type pokemon.

When they encounter Phantom, the enigmatic trainer treats Tucker with a Rotom of his own, which now haunts one of his many PDA’s that he uses like a better Pokedex. Tucker, Shinx and Rotom turn out to be best friends.

[matildainmotion]

What To Do When You Don’t Get Your Arts Council Funding: The Unofficial Guide.

           There is an official guide. The ‘Decision Letter’ I got yesterday had a heading, Next Steps which explained how Lizzy and I could re-apply, start a new application for Mothers Who Make. ‘Decision Letter’ means, “It’s a no.” Last time, when it was a ‘yes’ I didn’t get a Decision Letter. I got an ‘Offer Letter’ so I knew it was a ‘no’ the moment I saw the word ‘Decision’ on the application portal that is Grantium. Grantium, the portal with a portentous Latin-sounding name into which, personally, I think every single artist that is courageous enough to enter to apply for funding should receive a reward for bravery. It is an epic quest involving the modern day Herculean labours of performing precise word-counts, particular codes of expression, statistical data gathering, budget-balancing – and at the end of it all there may be riches and glory or there may be this Decision Letter of Doom that coolly, in one curt sentence, acknowledges our efforts and disappointment and then says, ‘Next Steps.’ But before we even think about going through that modern mythic portal again, before we consider reapplying there are some other ‘Next Steps’ that need to be taken. Here they are:

Step 1: Swear

Swear loudly. Hope the children are not nearby. Even if they are this stage must be performed. Do not skip it out. Repeat as necessary. There is not much more to be said about this step. You will know when you have completed it.

Step 2: Wish it Were Different

For weeks I have been holding both possible outcomes in my mind. Unbidden they play out when I shut my eyes at night. The application went in under my name - even though it was a collaborative effort with Lizzy and Improbable- so I will find out about it first. I imagine making the phone call to her: “Hello,” she says. “We got it!” I say. She is delighted. Thrilled. It is incredibly exciting. Breath. It might not happen that way, I have been telling myself. In fact, I am pretty sure it won’t. I don’t think we are going to get this one. I don’t play out the conversation of that other phone call because it’s not fun, but I try to hold this heaviness in my belly to balance out the hope. I concentrate on the heavy feeling. But still, like the summer light that seeps through my children’s curtains at night, I can’t get rid of the hope altogether, and now that the disappointment is here, is incontrovertible, I have to deal with the leftover hope. It hangs around. It is curious how this happens. How even when the waiting is over at last, all those weeks of hoping cannot simply be swept away. They haunt me still. What if I had been able to ring up and declare, “We got it!”? I even have a fantasy that I should have done this. That I could have pretended we had received the longed for outcome and then I could cunningly have drummed up £50k in some other way, just so that I could get the hit of that moment of good news.  

There are flickers of other ‘if onlys’ also: if only I had been savvy enough to forsee that we would have been considered weak in such and such particular area on the mythic portal. If only we had put in more or different evidence of need and quality.

This step is longer and more painful than the swearing step, but it must be borne.

Step 3: Despair

That’s it then. We didn’t get it. All that time of Lizzy’s, of others who helped too. All those emails, phone calls, Skypes, late nights. All those times I told the children to wait, I had to get this work done. All that energy, navigating the portal, putting together this project, this amazing dream of a future. Gone. No project. No funding to pay ourselves or anyone else. I think you have to sit in the shit. I think you have to despair. Lie down. Weep. Feel the exhaustion. 

I am not good at this step. I hate despairing. I want to leap up and rush to the rescue. I want a fairy godmother. I recognise this from my mother, from my mothering – the longing to make it better now, the difficulty in staying with the difficult. But I think it’s important to hit rock bottom. I remember, not a fairy godmother story, but another folk tale from the Inuit tradition about a grieving mother who fashioned a new child out of her snot. I love this image. It helps me when I am crying, to think of all that stuff running out of my nose and eyes as being regenerative. So cry long and hard. You have to do a hell of a lot of grieving to get to the point where you have enough snot to make something from it. Accept the awfulness. This is where we are now. We have no money left to run Mothers Who Make. Nothing. Nada. None.

Step 4: Remember Your Roots

The good thing about there being nothing left is that it brings me right back round to when there was nothing before – to the origins of the whole movement. This is important. Inside the origin myth of how the whole thing began is the medicine you need to enable you to find a way through. Where did the dream come from? From which genuinely mythical portal did it arrive? What was the need or impulse behind it? What did you say about it back then? I said I was starting a peer support group, a small one, for mothers who are also artists. I said it was about carrying on whilst carrying your children, about acknowledging how hard this can be, how complex, how revolutionary, how fantastic, how exhausting.

Step 5: Name What You Have Now

Once I remember our origins I remember the resources we have available to us. Okay, so we have no money. That resource has run out. But we have some other things. We have a network of support comprised of inspirational and extraordinary creative mothers. We have the invaluable support of Improbable – they have been offering us time, energy and patience all along the way. And we have passion. Those are three incredible resources. If I had loads of money but no support network and no passion I’d be stuffed. Luckily it is the other way around. Along with the passion, born out of it, we have a manifesto. We have principles to which we are deeply committed. We have them written on our website (we have a website – that’s another resource!).

One of the principles that seems key to me right now is that MWM is radically non-hierarchical. Right from the outset leading the movement has meant being part of it. It does not mean knowing more, being ahead, being any more clued up or sorted than anyone else in the network, in the circle of support, be that in a meeting or online. This radical levelling applies across people and activities: one of the other MWM principles is that we value our mothering as much as our making. We value the personal as much as the professional. We value the vulnerable, alongside the slick and successful. We give space for stories about miscarriage, bereavement, abortion, post-natal depression and not getting your funding.

When the going gets rough, and fate, or Grantium, deal you a ‘Decision Letter’ rather than an offer of riches, it feels more important than ever to connect back to our principles and walk the talk. The Arts Council, mythically, are an authority figure – they introduce a hierarchy into the story that in many ways is unhelpful, triggering a feeling of helplessness and dependency. I have to start again from the level ground of where I am. So here I am, letting my son have ipad time so I can finish this blog, breastfeeding my daughter as I type (“It’s taking so long!” she complains) putting off having lunch, admitting that we are in a difficult place right now.

Step 6: Ask for Help

So you have sworn; you’ve wished you had got the funding; you’ve wept; you’ve remembered why you started this whole enterprise in the first place and connected back to what you care about. You are, by now, ready to do something. If you don’t feel this then please go back to Step 1 and repeat as necessary. Grieving – and it is a kind of grieving process, a 12 week wait of hopes that are not fulfilled – is a messy and disorderly business and in order to grow something from your grief it takes time. Be patient as you swear and cry. Eventually you will have done enough crying and be ready to do something with all the snot.

But doing doesn’t have to mean action in the macho sense of picking yourself up, soldiering on. Doing can mean deciding to stop for a while; it can mean connecting to people you trust; it can mean asking for help. These are some of the things Lizzy and I are going to do now.

We are going to stop running MWM activity for a while. Everything that is already underway can continue – hub meetings, online exchanges. All the mothering and the making will carry on because it has to do so. But Lizzy and I need to pause on producing newsletters, answering emails, having skypes, without any money to support this. Instead we will hunker down, write more funding bids, and focus on other kinds of doing like…

….Asking for your help. MWM is a grassroots movement. It comes from us and it is up to us how it grows, what it becomes. Ultimately it has to run on renewable resources. Arts Council funding is seriously useful but it is not a renewable resource – we are the renewable resource. We have to renew ourselves, and none of us can do this on our own.

There is quote that I like and that helps me when I think about renewal. It is from a father who makes, the poet David Whyte: “The antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest. The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.” As a mother rest can be hard to come by so I find this immensely reassuring. Ideally this is how peer-support works: we take it in turns who supports who, but even when you are in the role of the one supporting you come away from the exchange feeling more wholehearted, less exhausted.

This is the spirit in which we want to ask for help. Please help renew us and yourselves by doing whatever of these things you can do with wholeheartedness:

1) Send us encouragement: Via email or on Facebook or Twitter, let us know why MWM matters to you.

2) Send us ideas: fund-raising ideas from cake stalls to lottery jackpots. Can you raise some money for us? Send us your thoughts on how to make MWM sustainable and thriving.

3) Send us some money: anything helps. £5 is wonderful and we would accept £500 too. We need to try to fund our time whilst we apply for further funding. Go here to donate - Improbable have kindly offered for us to use their donate details. Please make sure you put ‘For Mothers Who Make’ in the notes section before pressing donate to ensure it reaches us.

Or buy us a £3 coffee for the late night chats here You can buy a t-shirt or a badge here too. Adult T-shirts £12 including postage (email us your preferred size and address, Children’s T-shirts (18 months & 24 months) are £10 including postage and badges £3 including postage.

4) Keep going to your local meetings and rally round the wonderful 42 mother makers who co-ordinate the MWM hubs

5) Keep sharing, exchanging, supporting on social media. Keep talking about MWM.

6) Come to a UK wide MWM meeting: we will be going camping and holding a day long gathering over the summer for anyone within the MWM network to help us vision how to move forwards from here. Let us know if you would like to host us! We have no money to hold the day, but we hope it will be rich in wholeheartedness. Look out for further details soon.

And, by way of July’s question of the month, you can tell us: what have you grown from your grief? What has come from your failures, losses and f**k ups? Who are your snot children?

[bananainbox]

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[sarroora]

Here is the link to OffQuest’s podcast episode 6, interviewing Emara’s director, Fatma Elmeheiri. This podcast was uploaded on May 18th, around the time the first episode hit YouTube about 6 weeks ago.

The interview is in Arabic (what were you guys inhaling at the start of the podcast what’s going on over there and can I have someXD), so read below for some fun highlights:

Fatma: “I learned that you need to be good at storyboarding if you eventually want to be a animated series director. You don’t have to be a great animator to be a director. My biggest problem in animation was that my timing was always off. I tried and I tried but I couldn’t do it well enough. My teacher at the academy advised me to focus on storyboarding and directing instead.”

“Our studios (in the Emirates) are very small, so you have to do several jobs. I had to be both the director AND the manager, which was very draining.”

Although Emara is a mini-series, Fatma admits she severely overestimated what she and the team could do, especially since the team is so small

“You could put the most elaborate plan in the world - you’ll still face a lot of problems during production. You have to deal with them.”

“School was so much easier than this.”

In early development, Dhabian was going to be the series protagonist, but of course that later changed

“If he were the main character, I feel he wouldn’t be as liked. He’s likeable as the deuteragonist.” The interviewer agrees with this, saying that deuteragonists have a lot of charm because they’re more unpredictable than the protagonists, and have their own minds and agenda that the viewers might find unclear till much later

Interviewer: “Will Dhabian ever get his own spin-off series..?” Fatma: “Who knows? Maybe.”

“Comics would be more likely, since animation is so expensive.”

Fatma doesn’t go into details, but she wanted to put the series on YouTube for a while; it seems that big networks’ politics were just too much for her and her small team’s peace of mind and resources

Large networks are implied to not be passionate about animated series (I don’t find this surprising at all). They’ll pay millions for local live action dramas and imported foreign series, but not for cartoons

It’s also apparently extremely hard for young creators to pitch their work to any network, period. The bureaucracy is mind-numbing and it seems the people able to do anything are stars and people who are famous and/or well-connected and wealthy

Apparently one network wanted to air the series for free?!1?!? The heck is wrong with people O_O This is the whole “do it for exposure” crap again

Finally they found a network that wasn’t shady or trying to take their work without credit, and helped them put up Emara online on YouTube and promote it

“There’s no point in airing the series on a network that doesn’t care about it after all, and wouldn’t market it to people who could care about it.”

Fatma had so many things she wanted to show in Emara, but it just wasn’t possible. She says she had to learn to let it go, and her Art Director Ahmed helped her with that

Dhabian - as a proposed superhero name - received a lot of mixed reviews when his name was first suggested during pre-production. Several members on the creative team are non-Emirati Middle Easterners (Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptians, etc.) and that word makes no sense in their own languages, so they didn’t know what to do with it. But she stuck with it, and wanted a name that also isn’t hard to pronounce in English

Both the names of Emara and Dhabian are references to UAE geography

Fatma went with the name Moza even though it’s such a common Emirati name. Fatma says the foreigners on the creative team thought nothing of it, but the Middle Easterners were hella confused. Because Moza in Egyptian and pretty much every other language in the region means ‘Banana’. However in Emirati, Moza is a kind of pearl

Emara’s outfit is inspired by the colors of the flag

Maitha is a mix of Fatma’s mother and paternal aunt’s personalities

Fatma is credited with creating the designs and looks of Emara, Dhabian, and Maitha. Art Director Ahmed Beyrouti designed other characters in the series

The interviewer asks her if Emara’s outfit is in anyway related to the police force’s outfit because there are some similarities. She doesn’t wanna answer that so he thinks it’s probably a spoiler

The interviewer is impressed at how Dhabian’s design (heavily inspired by traditional men’s garb in UAE) can actually look practical as a superhero outfit, down to the ghutra. No one in real life can fight wearing that stuff 

She loves the art styles of Rebecca Sugar and Natasha Allegri, and both inspire her as women in animation

The reason the lip syncing in particular HAD to be animated to the English script and not the Informal Arabic one is because several of the animators don’t know Arabic. The lip syncing and facial expressions would’ve been completely off

Fatma says it’s highly unrealistic for the series to have only Emirati peeps since the country is a metropolitan with a huge expat population, and so she wanted to reflect that

She intentionally didn’t want every character in the series to be Emirati, because that would’ve bored her. That’s why we see many ethnicities in the background characters (and have a Lebanese and an Egyptian as speaking roles and antagonists, hopefully there’ll be even more characters the future)

She’s weirded out by how Dhabian seems to be more popular among fans than Emara when she appears a lot more oftenXD “Because he’s cool and a badass, that’s why” the interviewer answers herXD

The interviewer is loving on all the Studio Trigger homages and inspirations (thanks to Ahmed Beyrouti)

The 2 episodes Fatma storyboarded herself ended up being deleted because they had neither the money nor the funds. On her twitter, she also mentions one episode would have been about Dhabian’s past, but that was deleted too

Someone asks her what is the one thing she learned during her work, and she replies: “Knowing how to improvise.”

Her favorite people to work with were the voice actors, composer, and art director

She sadly laments that producing quality animation in UAE and the Middle East in general is so difficult, so expensive, and the environment is so harsh and unsupportive of animators that’s it’s easier to go animate in another country

A fan sends her a question asking why she decided to create Emara, and Fatma says she wanted to create a girl she wished existed when she was a child. Because there weren’t much, and a character such as Disney’s Jasmine is so hilariously unrealistic to Middle Eastern girls no one could relate to her. She’s more of a mythical creature

“Guys, do you remember Cow and Chicken, when we were kids?” “Ugh, I remember that, it was so weird, so bizarre!”

Aww, she had my Neighbor Totoro on video cassette

Fatma: “I was so terrified by Princess Mononoke I buried the DVD out in our yard.” Interviewer: “What the heck…”

(Ok, I have no idea how this segway happened, but the conversation suddenly shifted to tips on finding Halal food places in Japan among other things XD)

[cardhouseandthecage]

I actually am wondering about the Star recruitment process, Denizen-Star communication, and the interface between our reality and Faerie with regard to all this. Like if you or I was to get sucked into the Star process, what would it be like in terms of ordinary logistics? How would they first reach out to us? What if we tried something like getting other people involved who legit believed in all this but the Cardhouse really didn't want them involved? Apologies if this can't really be answered!

an EXCELLENT QUESTION, friend, and incidentally a subject of ongoing investigation on my part. THE subject of ongoing investigation. My whole life. Which is to say: I can’t give you a complete answer—I can’t even necessarily give you a correct answer—but you have absolutely come to the right place. You wont get any kind of answer anywhere else. Here’s what I’ve pieced together from my research, thus far:I. The first thing you need to know about Stars is that they don’t actually believe in fairies. Not Literally. Not necessarily. 

You are familiar, I assume, with the Moment of Magical Proof™? You’ll find it with most stories that begin in the mundane. Our protagonist might want to believe in magic, but they can’t—magic is fake and everyone knows it—so they’ll rationalize for as long as they can. Then something happens. Magic intrudes upon their lived experience in a way they can no longer deny. YER A WIZARD, HARRY. Magic is real, and will continue to be real for the duration of the narrative.

That moment never happens.

There is no first contact for a Star, no revelation, no paradigm shift: it’s only ever a slow fade. And that little voice of in the back of their heads, the one that knows none of this could ever be real? It never goes away. That’s important. It’s part of what splits them—and without a split there is no harvest.

The Cardmaster settled upon this business model for a reason. Certainly he could present the Cardhouse more literally, but he’d be working against dominant trends: most people don’t believe in fairies literally, and our beliefs govern the channels through which fairies can contact us. So if you don’t really believe that some fairy bitch could pup up in your window and approach you with the deal of a lifetime, they’re going to have a really difficult time making that happen.* It’s much more cost-effective to build on a pre-existing system of belief than to overturn it. 

II. But what’s all this nonsense about the power of belief, HQ? Are you really going to sit there behind your screen and tell me that you subscribe to Magical Thinking? Who exactly is funding this study???

AHAHAHAHAHA NO ONE, naturally, but also: no. No, of course not! I may not be funded but I take myself very seriously here: I’m not arguing that our beliefs can change reality directly. Antoine was absolutely right about the tree root: that’s a thing in the physical universe and it’s going to go on existing regardless of what we think about it—outside of what we think of it. Oxygen doesn’t care about my feelings! There’s a side of things won’t budge, no matter what I believe (I know this; I’ve tried). Even if I clapped my hands and dreamed with every fibre of my being, it wouldn’t wouldn’t make a fairy into something I could bring into a lab and prove.

But my belief would change something. It would change the Faerie-Reality interface. If I believed fairies were real, they’d be real to me. It would change how they exist in the extra-dimensional space in my head. And that space in my head—in all of our heads—that’s the dimension of things that connects up with Faerie. That’s what empties into Faerie, perpetually, without our volition or consent. I’m fooling myself if I think I’m in control of that space just because my thoughts effect it: I didn’t choose most of my beliefs any more than I chose my body. There’s a whole world of thought that I inherited, and correspondingly a whole landscape of Faerie that’s built up in connection to Reality over time. By this mechanism, then, our beliefs can alter reality: indirectly. Reality generates Faerie, but Faerie is incessantly fucking with us in return, and the ways in which it fucks with us influence the actions we take in Reality. III. Any agency behind such fuckery I term “a fairy.” 

Fairies “live” in the backworld (they’re made of the same stuff it is) and can manipulate the residue that accumulates there: they’re not real by any means, but they do exist. It is worth noting that fairies, by this definition, don’t give a damn whether we believe in them. This may first strike you as counter-intuitive: if they’re made of our thoughts, then surely our belief means a great deal to them? To which I answer: yes, it does. Absolutely. Just not in the way that you’d think. I’m guessing you’ve probably encountered some version theory of belief-dependancy and the Decline of the Mythical? It’s related to a lot of things (many of which are true, see: placebo effect), but generally it asserts that the vitality of imaginary beings has diminished in direct proportion to our diminishing “belief” in them, and consequently there has been a great falling off in the power of gods and fairies and the like as we have entered the modern era. My findings suggest the otherwise. I say we still believe in plenty of “unreal” things, and as strongly as ever we did. Even our science feeds into the Faerie: it’s made of our thought! We use science to describe reality, but it itself is not fully “real.” Besides which, it’s not as if fairies are limited to drawing upon our literal beliefs. We don’t generally think of fiction as real, and yet it shapes us. And a desire can be every bit as potent as a belief. Fairies don’t care whether we believe in them: all they require is that we want to. They’ll play our beliefs against our desires and catch us between them, bring us to our knees before the impossible; we’ll yield our sacrifice readily enough, god or no god.  All they require is that we dream. 

So no, I don’t think we’ve impoverished fairies at all by sorting fact from fiction as we have. I think we’ve blinded ourselves to their power, locked the door and thrown away the key only to have them catch it. I think we’ve given them everything. I think we’ve spoiled them.

IV. But I digress. You asked me about the logistics of Star recruitment and Denizen-Star communication. 

It starts, traditionally enough, with a fairy ring.

Not a literal ring, generally (that’s very retro), but the there are certain channels of interface—certain ‘meta-forums’—that the Cardhouse keeps open as traps for potential candidates. For a while now, the internet has been the best “place” to set up such a forum, so they frequently overlay or branch off from real online sites. But they could be anywhere. Any work of fiction can easily serve as a jumping off point (provided it’s fantastical enough), or else game of make-believe, or even a good old-fashioned glade or a shopping centre or an abandoned house. If you’re intrepid enough you might find your way to to one through pure whimsy: it’s only a matter of stumbling into the right headspace.

Unfortunately, there’s no clear indicator for when such a stumbling has transpired. The meta-forums interface so seamlessly with what we think of as plausible that we don’t recognise them when we see them and we can’t tell once we’re in.** You can’t necessarily tell when someone else is in one either. It just looks like preoccupation—an obliviousness to the “real world.” But it also looks perfectly realistic, especially from the standpoint of the Star. Because fiction exists, and games exist, and there are all kinds of things you can get obsessed with on the internet and none of them especially challenge the laws of physics. They way you engage with the meta-forum doesn’t look different from how you’d engage with any other imaginary thing. Generally, it starts out as a game or an RP or a kind of choose-your-own-adventure story through which you get to know the characters and the basic setup. That setup presents itself very differently depending on what you’re into, but you’re usually given to understand that the Cardhouse produces very special magical items, and that you can help the Cardmaster gather ingredients for these items by undertaking quests or solving puzzles or making certain offerings or blending the perfect tea or getting your two favourite denizens to make kiss or doing whatever it is you’re doing that is “playing the game”. One denizen in particular serves as your primary contact and guide. You might also be given to understand that Cardhouse products are all a part of the ongoing effort to Fight The Encroaching Darkness. It’s a very all-consuming obsession, and while you’re immersed in you often ‘forget’ it isn’t real, but never in a way that raises any suspicion. For the most part, you know it’s just a game. And for some people that’s all it ever is, and they move on.

If you are destined to become a Star, however, at some point the game will change. One day, your denizen approaches you in great distress: the threat of the Encroaching Darkness, they say, is much worse than they had previously let on. The game might end, as if it had never been! You may well never see us again, in which case… farewell in advance! It will be a very moving performance, and naturally you, the potential Star, will be deeply upset by this news. If you’re right for the job you will offer up your assistance on the spot, unprompted. You will say the magic words. Is there anything you can do to help?

…Funny You Should Ask.

And now the denizen will lay it out: there is, in fact, a way. You may not know this, but you happen to be a very special sort of person: a Star sleeps within you—a great power—but its light is not for the human world. If you were to promise to fight on our behalf, we could help you unlock that power on the other side. You would swear fealty to the Cardmaster, pledging your light to the cause and security of our House, and help us to beat back the darkness. But be warned! It is no task for the faint of heart. You would be asked to undertake missions in the depths of the Wild Lands, where evils reign free. You would be placed in grave danger. So yes, you really could save us, but we would never ask anyone to accept such a burden! If however you should choose to do so….well. You would be richly rewarded.

If it’s gotten to this point, the potential Star (feeling very heroic) almost always accepts.They are assigned to a team and presented with a “cage” to help concentrate their powers and serve as a holding space for any magical items they’re give in Faerie. The cage exists between realms and the Star can access it from either side. Generally, the more they use their powers as a Star, the more it fills up with light for them to draw upon. Doing certain things in the Mundane however can cause that light to diminish or spill out, so they learn to avoid doing those things. Yet insofar as they are human, the Star still regards this all as a kind of fantasy. Insofar as they’re a fairy, however, it is very real. How any given Star rationalizes the paradox will vary, but at no point does the human fully “believe” that what’s happening is real. So a fissure develops between the two selves, and the more and more the Star invests in their fae identity, the deeper it splits them.

And here is the difficult part—the part no one understands. People often ask me what a Star’s human self is doing when they are a fairy. Are they sleeping? Unconscious? Physically elsewhere? Mentally dead? Sitting behind a computer screen as in hypnosis? All of those, possibly. None of those, necessarily. The trouble is that there’s not a one-to-one correspondence between time spent in Faerie and time spent in Reality, so it never maps on perfectly. It’s very difficult to make it add up: I don’t have a working model for this part at all.

But I do know this. When a Star is harvested, they are harvested whole. No one notices them go, and there is no body to find. Everything that ought to have been real about them has been redirected to the other side. They make ghosts of themselves. They split off without a trace.

——

*Oh, you might say, well if it’s as easy as believing…—no. Believing is far from easy, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not convinced? Then try! As an experiment: just try to alter your basic beliefs in what’s possible and what’s not. Tell yourself you might wake up in a flower tomorrow morning. It’s possible! Tell yourself the earth of flat (come on, really in vogue). Or tell yourself I’m right! Tell yourself believing makes any difference. COME ON JUST BELIEVE IN YOURSELF,,,YOU CAN DO IT!! Ha. Of course you can’t. 

**This may appear to stand in contrast to more traditional fairy-lore, but I think it’s actually very much in line (and it’s one of the many reason I’ve chosen to call these creatures fairies). Sure, in those stories, the human usually knows that they’ve crossed into some kind of Other Realm and accepts the fairies as real, but none of that especially shocks them. They’re not experiencing any major paradigm shift: either they’re in an altered state or this encounter still falls well within their understanding of “plausible.” But their conceptions of plausibility will only stretch so far: they don’t understand that time is passing differently in the other realm, that a very alien set of “rules” governs the very fabric of it. The shock only comes when the person tries to leave Faerie as they would leave a party at someone’s house, and finds that they can’t. And it’s the same with Stars. Our notions of plausible versus implausible have shifted a little, so the trick happens at a different level, but it’s the same trick. The human has passed into foreign territory, but they’re still processing it in mundane terms, and consequently they won’t pick up on the most “unrealistic” aspects of the encounter (if ever) until it’s too late.

[collapsedsquid]

Once brands acquired personalities (boosting consumer loyalty immensely and profits accordingly), individuals felt compelled to re-imagine themselves as brands. And today, with colleagues, employers, clients, detractors, and “friends” constantly surveying our online life, we are under incessant pressure to evolve into a bundle of activities, images, and dispositions that amounts to an attractive, sellable brand. The personal space essential to the autonomous development of an authentic self – the condition that makes inalienable self-ownership possible – is now almost gone. The habitat of liberalism is disappearing.1

That habitat’s clear demarcation of private and public spheres also divided leisure from work. One need not be a radical critic of capitalism to see that the right to a time when one is not for sale is all but gone, too.

Consider young people striking out in the world today. For the most part, those without a trust fund or generous unearned income end up in one of two categories. The many are condemned to labor under zero-hour contracts and wages so low that they must work all available hours to make ends meet, rendering offensive any talk of personal time, space, or freedom.

The rest are told that, to avoid falling into this soul-destroying “precariat,” they must invest in their own brand every waking hour of every day. As if in a Panopticon, they cannot hide from the attention of those who might give them a break (or know others who might). Before posting any tweet, watching any movie, sharing any photograph or chat message, they must remain mindful of the networks they please or alienate.

When lucky enough to be granted a job interview, and land the job, the interviewer alludes immediately to their expendability. “We want you to be true to yourself, to follow your passions, even if this means we must let you go!” they are told. So they redouble their efforts to discover “passions” that future employers may appreciate, and to locate that mythical “true” self that people in positions of power tell them is somewhere inside them.

Their quest knows no bounds and respects no limits. John Maynard Keynes once famously used the example of a beauty contest to explain the impossibility of ever knowing the “true” value of shares. Stock-market participants are uninterested in judging who the prettiest contestant is. Instead, their choice is based on a prediction of who average opinion believes is the prettiest, and what average opinion thinks average opinion is – thus ending up like cats chasing after their own tails.

Keynes’s beauty contest sheds light on the tragedy of many young people today. They try to work out what average opinion among opinion-makers believes is the most attractive of their own potential “true” selves, and simultaneously struggle to manufacture this “true” self online and offline, at work and at home – indeed, everywhere and always. Entire industries of counselors and coaches, and varied ecosystems of substances and self-help, have emerged to guide them on this quest.

The irony is that liberal individualism seems to have been defeated by a totalitarianism that is neither fascist nor communist, but which grew out of its own success at legitimizing the encroachment of branding and commodification into our personal space. To defeat it, and thus rescue the liberal idea of freedom as self-ownership, may require a comprehensive reconfiguration of property rights over the increasingly digitized instruments of production, distribution, collaboration, and communication.

I am very interested in this “Modern liberal capitalism is destroying civil society“ idea, but I’m not sure if it really works, or at least works in this way.

[wholesome-lesbiab]

Santa lives on Greenland. Fight me.

hhhhhhh I can’t believe what I’m hearing. 

So I googled because I had to know where you’re getting your bullshit from, and found this article, where apparently an annual santa summit made a decision that Santa is, in fact, from Greenland. BUT 

So Finland, who’s globally known of having Santa’s official village in Lapland, or more accurately in Rovaniemi which is the official hometown for him, wasn’t present. Why? I don’t know, but I’d like to believe that we were kind enough of giving you your moment and letting you win the title of having Santa’s “real home”, while we are enjoying the cold hard fact that he lives in Finland, without having to prove it at a summit. So sure! You :) can :) have :) your fake ass santa’s home :)))) 

ok but I love my santa facts, you can ask my friends, so let me just,, share you something about him. Santa’s origin’s are undeniably from Turkey where St.Nicholas, born in the 3rd century, gave away his belongings to help the poor, sick and who ever was suffering and needed help, because he was born in a devout Christian family and followed Jesus’ words :”“sell what you own and give the money to the poor.”  He got the title of bishop and was widely known across the land of his generosity and his love for kids, among other good deeds he did. He died on December 6th, when we celebrate St.Nicholas’ day. In middle ages people often gave kids presents on his honor. Reformation happened, in which the respect of saint’s was frowned upon, the day of giving gifts was later on moved to 24th, 25th. (read more here) 

SO I think we can all agree Santa’s origins, but that’s not what we are arguing here, right? it’s about where the one and only Santa officially resides. I’m well aware of the constant quarrel between the Nordics about where he lives, and I’m not that educated on their “facts”, just more focused on the Finnish ones. So, sorry on that front, feel free to educate me more. I love me some santa facts. 

(I have to add, that the modern look for Santa was created by american artist Haddon Sundblom in 1930s , who’s Finnish and swedish descent.)

The myth of Santa living in Lapland, Finland, began when in 1920s a Finnish radio broadcaster Markus Rautio declared that Santa’s official home town has been found and it’s in the mythical Korvatunturi (=ear fell/mountain) in Lapland.It was shaped like an ear, an it was said to depict Santa listening to kids all around the world.  In WW2 Rovaniemi was nearly destroyed from all fronts (literally, bombed by Russia, captured by Nazis, and scorched by German troops)  but was rebuilt thanks to the funding from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. In 1950, the US president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wife Eleanor Roosevelt paid a surprise visit to see the rebuilding process and at the same time, she wanted to visit the arctic circle. The more than 20 year old idea of building a tourism and shopping center in the area finally got started by the Rovaniemi officials, because of Eleanor’s visit. They rushed to build a cabin just some kilometers away from the city of Rovaniemi and this marks the birth of Santa’s official hometown in Rovaniemi. 

In 1980′s Santa became an industry, to boost up the tourism in Lapland. An official Santa Work Group was created to establish Santa as tourism attraction, and on the same same in 1984 the province was declared as “santa claus land” by the governor of Rovaniemi. This was all to attract more tourists, and boost the international image of Finland. To make the faraway land to be more “seen”. To make this work, Rovaniemi had to be seen as the official home town for Santa everywhere.  If it wasn’ t official, why would anyone come check? 

It became a quest, a goal to make everyone know that the santa claus land is the official hometown, to convince the rival countries such as Alaska, Sweden and Greenland. The Finnish santa represents world wide his real home in Lapland to this day, by attending several occasions in many countries, for example litting the Christmas tree in Dublin’s millenium celebration, or attending to help children with cancer in California. 

“Since 1985, Santa Claus has received 15 million letters from 198 countries”. Ngl, I think it’s safe to say that a lot of countries see Finland as Santa’s real home, if that many send him letters all across he world. You can literally send him letters all around the year, as well as visiting his village any day.

Have I convinced you? I maybe could go on but I guess this i enough. If you wanna read more, check these out

Meet santa claus

Santa Claus In Rovaniemi

History of santa’s home

More history of Santa’s home in lapland

[procurementplus]

Would you think about key sourcing in a way that is better than this?

Suppose you need to compose letters and travel to spots to choose providers. Would you actually favor manual over vital sourcing? Present day procurement advances are here to save your time and take you the vital sourcing way. With additional time, you can save time for your business as well as family as well. Staying up with more up to date drifts is continually fulfilling, and once you are on it, there is no venturing back. It is very amazing that we actually have a little framework of individuals who can't totally depend on key sourcing. Could it be a result of propensity or simple lack of engagement in grasping the new? Could it additionally be a direct result of the spending plan? Whatever be the explanation, it is time we gaze toward the more splendid side of putting resources into innovation. Here are three basic reasons why you ought to consider vital sourcing over the manual. 

Save cost and time 

Do you appreciate looking at sellers physically, which requires a long time to months to locate the best evaluating choices for your business? I'm certain you don't and consequently why not let a vital sourcing stage bring both procurement and money groups together to team up in your sourcing cycle Strategic Sourcing . From choosing the best provider to distinguishing reserve funds openings, you will have total perceivability through a smoothed out provider determination measure. 

Cross-useful dynamic 

The meeting up of account and procurement helps the divisions work as one. Together they can assess the business all in all and drive choices to the advantage of the whole association. This innovation that you have been disregarding or haven't actualized to its fullest potential is a setting for cross-useful cooperation affecting business sourcing procedure and complex return for capital invested. 

Save time  for vital move

How often starting today have you had the option to run consecutive e-sourcing occasions? Associations that have effectively embraced/actualized key sourcing stage run multiple times more, subsequently opening up excess staff-hours for the company, which again implies preparing for a more profitable time and more reserve funds. I'm certain you hate being suffocated by managerial undertakings than zeroing in on essential activities. Here we can sensibly reason that to drive the primary concern accomplishment for your association; we need to favor one side with key sourcing rehearses. More or less, vital sourcing is an interruption that 

Be careful with your assets 

The need and mission for assets are generally the reasons why incredible fights happen. In this universe the show centers such a huge amount around the actual fight, that the quest for the asset part is generally dominated. In any case, in season 1 when we had Ned Unmistakable gone to Lord's Arrival, he calculates the crown is practically 6million gold mythical serpents paying off debts, half of it was to the Lannisters the remainder of it to the Iron Bank. Since Westeros has no bank of its own, the Iron Bank could oust rulers in the event that they can't pay their obligation. This was intense for the crown, and the ruler was practically oblivious to this. In the current procurement world, one must be extremely aware of their spending, since corporate misrepresentation, imperceptible spend, manual missteps are somewhat basic issues in procurement. One must know about where the cash is coming from and where it is at long last going. 

Remaining careless in regards to things around you 

An enormous piece of the arrangement has continued making the Westeros public accept that the Monsters exist and that they have returned due to Daenerys Targaryen. The 3 mythical beasts that Daenerys has are equipped for consuming urban areas and bringing her back in force, however for the greater part of the arrangement individuals overlooked their reality, and since Daenerys is back with her military in Westeros, the vast majority are totally ill-equipped to battle the Monsters. 

Presently how about we contrast these mythical serpents with innovation, in the procurement world there is innovation accessible to bring straightforwardness into spend the board, make purchaser provider relationship more synergistic, have a totally computerized Sourcing measure, fundamentally destroy any sort of physical work from the framework. Remaining absent to these advances can make your association tumble its development. Foreseeing and grasping top of the line top tier procurement arrangements will check the ascent of associations. 

Cooperation is the best approach to push ahead 

All through the arrangement, we have perceived how various houses have worked together with one another to keep up, protect or increment their force. During Robert's resistance, House Obvious, House Baratheon and House Arryn battled together to oust the frantic ruler Aerys Targaryen. House Lannister double-crossed House Targaryen to carry harmony into the framework. Later Robert Baratheon, who won the disobedience and became lord, needed to wed Cersei Lannister on the grounds that House Baratheon had no assets to run the country and e assets to run the country. Significantly later into the arrangement, we have seen numerous houses leaving and taking various sides for their very own plans to remain in force. 

End 

A little change in context, and you can accomplish even a sourcing proficient. By the guide of present day sourcing innovation and computerization, you can be simply the genuine savior saving your company from a lot of issues and operational redundancies Category management. Truly, it isn't just the cash matters; we have advanced path ahead from thinking about the expense yet esteem that we ought to consider as the inspiration driving putting resources into e-sourcing apparatuses. An Impassioned report expresses that top tier procurement groups create gradual reserve funds of 3% when contrasted with different associations. 

Spend Analysis Procurement

Opportunity Assessment

Spend Analysis

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/nation-and-world-news-briefs-national-6/

Nation and world news briefs | National

Florida senators pitch daylight saving time pause

WASHINGTON — Florida Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott want to make sure there is plenty of time for wasting away again in Margaritaville in the sunlight this winter.

If they get their way, revelers in Key West, Florida, where Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band conceived of the mythical Margaritaville, will get to nibble on sponge cake and watch the sun bake one more hour — hopefully in a socially distant manner in this age of coronavirus pandemic protocols.

The pair introduced a bill that was placed on the Senate calendar Wednesday that would postpone clocks from “falling back” one hour until November of 2021. That would also mean clocks would not “spring forward” one hour in March of 2021.

Rubio is a previous backer of national, permanent daylight saving time. He said in a statement that the government “has asked a lot of the American people” during the pandemic and that his and Scott’s proposal “is just one small step we can take to help ease the burden.”

Rubio said extra daylight after school hours “is critical to helping families and children endure this challenging school year.”

Rubio told reporters Wednesday that support for the bill is “growing.”

Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., said Wednesday at the Capitol that he has not read the bill, which was a surprise when it was added to the calendar.

Scott told reporters he believes the move could also allow for outside diners to eat in the daylight. Many restaurants have expanded their outdoor seating, adapting to the patchwork of jurisdiction rules on limiting indoor dining in an effort to keep people from transmitting the coronavirus indoors.

The Florida senators’ release also pointed to studies that have shown benefits to year-round daylight saving time, such as fewer car crashes and reduced energy usage.

The needs for standard time zones and daylight saving time in the U.S. dates back to the late 1800s, when the railroad system created a need for standard times so trains arrived when they were expected to.

Current law dictates that daylight time should apply from the second Sunday in March until the first Sunday in November, unless jurisdictions opt out.

Why are people sending the Biden-Harris campaign $19.08?

WASHINGTON — The notifications wouldn’t stop. It had been 24 hours since former Vice President Joe Biden announced that Sen. Kamala Harris would be his running mate in his quest to win the White House. Soon after, the phone of the Democratic Party’s chief fundraiser was buzzing every other minute, alerting him that the campaign had just received another donation of exactly $19.08.

It’s not uncommon for campaigns to solicit donations for particular amounts, like $7 or $23, to make the ask stand out, but a number that precise, down to the red cent, was strange.

“I’ve never seen people give in such a specific increment ever before,” says Clayton Cox, finance director for the Democratic National Committee. But Cox, who was active in his college’s Greek system, knew exactly why.

The ladies of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. were springing into action to support one of their own, Harris, who pledged at Howard University as an undergrad in the 1980s.

But why $19.08? That’s the year the AKAs, the oldest Black sorority in America, were founded. “The week after she was announced, I was getting one every 15 minutes,” says Cox. “It was that frequent.”

As of Friday, the Biden Victory Fund (a joint fundraising effort between the campaign and the DNC) had received more than 11,000 of these donations totaling almost $219,000, according to DNC Deputy Communications Director Chris Meagher.

City says deal for temporary 3rd Precinct site for Minneapolis police is off

MINNEAPOLIS — A plan to temporarily house Minneapolis’s 3rd Police Precinct in a warehouse has fallen apart, the city confirmed Wednesday.

The city’s elected leaders had been debating whether to temporarily house the officers in a warehouse about a half mile from their former station, which burned in the riots that followed George Floyd’s death.

A City Council committee had been scheduled to discuss Wednesday afternoon a proposal to lease, for $1.2 million a year, a warehouse at 2633 Minnehaha Ave., run by Lothenbach Properties II and Imagine Express.

Shortly before that meeting began, the city confirmed that the deal was off.

“The City of Minneapolis and Imagine Express have been in ongoing negotiations over a lease agreement at 2633 Minnehaha Ave.,” city spokeswoman Sarah McKenzie said in a statement. “The two parties have reached an impasse in the negotiation process and have amicably agreed to cease lease negotiations over this property moving forward.”

More details are expected to be discussed at a City Council committee meeting Wednesday afternoon.

Some neighborhood groups had opposed the plan, saying they felt there hadn’t been enough public engagement before the city pursued a potential deal for a temporary site.

—Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Tyrannosaurus skeleton worth several million dollars headed to auction

NEW YORK — Sold to the eccentric theme park operator!

One of the world’s largest Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons is headed to the auction block.

Christie’s announced Wednesday it would be selling “STAN,” a 67 million-year-old fossil, in early October.

The skeleton, which measures 40 feet long and 13 feet high, was discovered in 1987 in South Dakota by amateur paleontologist Stan Sacrison, who was told it was a triceratops — a common error made because triceratops fossils are so common, James Hyslop, Christie’s head of Science and Natural History, said.

However, after Sacrison took the bones to the Black Hills Institute in South Dakota in 1992, researchers quickly realized he had found something special. In subsequent follow-up digs, they recovered 188 more bones (a T. rex had an estimated 300), Hyslop said.

Christie’s will put the fossil on display at its New York location and allow socially distanced public viewings until the middle of October.

“We’ve got the skull displayed at ground level so that you can get really up close and personal with him and just see the serrations on his teeth,” Hyslop said. “His longest tooth is 11 inches long. It’s just terrifying to behold.”

The auction house said the skeleton, even at roughly 66% complete, is worth at much as $8 million.

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