#which is like totally acceptable in universe even if the show deviates more extremely from the agreed upon mythos established by the books

[commanderantilles]

finding myself intrigued with the tower of swallows and the lady of the lake, but like academically…. we r in the fucking danger zone y’all.

[linkspooky]

Pls... your top ten nisioisin characters... i love your lists...

I LOVE TO TALK ABOUT  HOW MUCH I LOVE MY FAVES. IF YOU EVER ASK WANT TO ASK ME WHO MY FAVES ARE FOR A SERIES FEEL FREE TO SEND ME AN ASK.

My favorite thing about Niosisin’s characters is how genuinely subversive they are. Not in the sense that he’s deconstructing tropes, but rather these are characters who would never get their story told in most other books, because they are not good, or righteous. Nisioisin breathes life into them, and allows those who cannot be forgiven, those who are deviant, those who have dropped out of society to still remain human. He tells their stories the same as everybody else, because their lives are just as fun. 

1. Even if I’m hated, Even if I’m Despised - Kumagawa Misogi 

He’s only my favorite character of all time so I’ve talked about him on this blog before, but let me find something new to say. Oh Kumagawa, how do I love thee, let me count the ways. Or maybe it’s Oh Kumagawa, how do I despise thee let me count the ways. 

Kumagawa’s character is so interesting because it’s written in antithesis of everything a shonen protagonist is. For Kumagawa, his determination just makes him fail worse and worse. His desire to be involved and help people always guarantees the worst result for the people he wants to call his friends. His empathy is extremely painful for him, and is a trait that drives him insane rather than making him a kind and loving person. 

A lot of time in manga empathy is like, a magic fix-it-all bandaid that basically makes the main character a saint by being able to emotionally relate to anybody. Kumagawa is the reality of that situation. He is empathic, and by relating so much to the humans around him he shows how ugly, and messy human emotions can really be. Recovery and saving others isn’t necessarily a beautiful thing, it’s complicated and sloppy. 

Kumagawa is a character where getting stronger won’t solve any of his problems. Which is what happens in a lot of shonen manga, rather than trying to emotionally mature the main character will just learn a new fighting technique and develop that way. Instead, Kumagawa winning fights means absolutely nothing. The only thing that can free him is to grow up as a person, and the fact that Kumagawa’s arc is given equal weight to both of the main characters shows how accepting of weirdoes and broken off beat characters Nisioisin is as an author. 

What I like about him is how genuinely broken he is, but not for monstrous reasons but for entirely human ones. It’s his genuine care for others that breaks him the most. He’s a character written to be insane, but also geniunely human. Kumagawa is not able to live properly, or even act like the main character like Zenkichi and Medaka are but he’s still able to find his own way to live. 

2. I don’t feel any reality from you people - Ajimu Najimi 

“Genius who is super good at everything, but is secretly sad and lonely on the inside” is a pretty common Nisioisin trope. It tends to be pretty hit and miss with me, but it also resulted in one of my favorite characters of all time. I tend to like these types of characters more when they’re allowed to be�� what’s the word… unlikable. When the story isn’t trying to go on about how cool they are.

The reason why I love Ajimu is because she is just like Kumagawa, a subversion of the character you expect her to be. The same way Kumagawa suverts Zenkichi in a way, Ajimu subverts Medaka. The same way that Medaka is all loving, Ajimu is indifferent to absolutely everything. The reason she’s able to be kind to everyone around her is because she genuinely doesn’t care about you. Her real personality when not being apathetic, is to just be downright nasty and look down on absolutely everything. 

She’s completely self absorbed because according to Ajimu she’s the only one who exists in the universe. She’s the only one she knows for sure is real. The opposite of Kumagawa, a character entirely lacking in empathy, not even thinking of herself as human in any sense of the word. Ajimu acts like she knows everything in the story like she’s reading off of the script, but that’s because she literally thinks that everything in this world is fiction and she’s literally breaking the fourth wall.

And my favorite part about Ajimu is that the story doesn’t glorify her meta fourth wall shenanigans. She’s not treated as someone who sees through everything in the end. She’s just pathetic, and suicidal, and dragging everybody else along into her trillion year long self pity party. She’s more of a human failure than someone who can’t possibly empathize with humans, and that’s why I love her. 

3. There ain’t no meaning, got it? - Ii (Boku) 

Ii-chan is the narrator of Nisioisin’s first ever series, Zaregoto (Lit. Nonsense). It’s not really until the second book you get a grasp of his character, but Strangulation Romanticist does such an excellent job of setting up who he is as a person. This is another one of Nisioisin’s character types (narrator who feels ennui, and really, really doesn’t want to be a person). 

What’s great about Iichan is that he is special in a way. Just like he’s described in the books, when he’s thrown into situations everything goes a little bit crazy. He always gets dragged into mysteries, and has people die around him even though he tries to stay as uninvolved with people as possible. He’s actually a great look at what a character constantly caught up in murder mysteries like the main character of a detective novel would actually act like. He has this deep rambling narration that sways between nihilism and existentialism that makes him a really unique character to read about.

But at the same time Iichan is also kind of a normal dude. And I don’t mean in the sense that he’s an everyman, or has no personality, but he kind of just feels like one. The great twist of No Longer Human is that Yozo isn’t some inhuman monster, he’s just kind of a normal guy who drowns out his misery by taking advantage of women. Like, it’s not all that uncommon. The same thing with Iichan, as poetic as he gets he’s kind of a very petty person and most of his flaws are very mundane ones. 

It’s basically very hard to care about other people in this world. Ii-chan doesn’t want to at all, he just wants to have all of his emotional needs fulfilled by the friend he both infantilizes and puts on a pedestal. He’s just super clingy about the one relationship he has in life, because he’s afraid of losing it, but he’s also afraid of being close to her. Ii-chan is just kind of a normal person reacting badly to trauma, but he presents himself as such a mystery that most people lose sight of that (in story). He’s kind of just petty and annoying, and that’s why I love him. 

4. No Longer Human - Hitoshiki Zerozaki

Zerozaki is Iichan’s greatest character foil. Basically the best way to describe it is Zerozaki is Mersault. The flip that is switched on for everyone that prevents them from killing someone when the idea crosses their mind is turned off for Zerozaki, and so he kills. He doesn’t enjoy it, he doesn’t have a particular reason to it, he just can’t overcome his impulse to kill. If Ii-chan is restrained, then Zerozaki never restrains any of his impulses at all and lives following only those. 

Once again this is another common Nisioisin character archetype “A murder, but they’re sad and lonely.” What I like about Hitoshiki is how much of a deviant he is to that archetype. 

He wants a friend and somebody who understands him, but at the same time he hates himself so he doesn’t want anybody too close. He lives in a family of murderers and he’s somehow the rebellious child of the family. He’s constantly running away and wandering from place to place. What makes Zerozaki interesting is how self aware he is about all of this too. He rambles his thoughts and will just be like “Yeah, so anyway that’s totally fucked up (LOL).” 

 5. Is your life dramatic - Kaiki Deishuu

Kaiki is a character who I admire for his philosophy above all else. He’s another one of those “deviant” characters like Kumagawa who would just be a villain to be defeated in any other narrative, but in this one he gets fully fleshed out as a character. 

What’s interesting about Kaiki is that he chooses exactly the way he lives. He decides to be a villain. Kaiki at some point sees through most of the lies of the people around them, and for how meaningless the things that you are told have value can be. He hates holding onto ideas like those.

But that doesn’t mean that Kaiki rejects everything. He doesn’t claim to see above society, or that he’s not a part of society. Rather, Kaiki just uses that awareness to realize he can give meaning to whatever he personally finds meaningful. Because it’s all meaningless anyway, as a human being he can create his own meaning. 

So his want of money is not just simple greed, it’s what he’s decided to live for. Kaiki is an adult who willingly chose to become a conman because he finds that’s his place in society. He just doesn’t trust himself enough to be kind despite feeling the same desire to save others, so he decided to lie to them and trick them instead. 

6. “I don’t know anything, you’re the one who knows” Oshino Ougi

Ougi is just interesting conceptually. They are literally Araragi’s own shadow, running away from him and given form and consciousness of their own. While Ougi themselves works as a common Jungian shadow archetype calling characters out for what they are repressing and also revealing the bare faced truth to them, which is why they are so heavily associated with mirrors, lights, and shadows. 

My favorite part about Ougi however is not their connection to Araragi. It’s when Ougi starts to become their own character. An oddity with consciousness that begins to deviate from what they were made for, because they were allowed to live on their own.

Ougi did not become a fave of mine until Zoku because that was when they started to self reflect and realize their own strange existence separate to Araragi. The conversation scene with Araragi is one of my favorite in the whole series because it shows how Ougi is just a genuine tease, and a very clever and insightful person. That’s who they are, outside of just being an oddity that exists to criticize others and call out flaws. They’re ridiculous, and a little strange, and they enjoy screwing with other’s heads and messing around a bit too much. But Ougi Oshino is Ougi Oshino. 

It’s just an interesting concept, to have to define who you are as a person when you were created out of all of the unwanted qualities, and insecurities of another person. 

7. Why are you touching me without permission, you weed - Yasuri Nanami

Nanami is another one of those “I’m a genius and I’m good at everything but I’m secretly sad” characters, and once again what I love about her is how unlikable she’s allowed to be. None of what Nanami is capable of comes off as cool for very long. She’s basically framed and treated as a horror movie monster, always speaking in the same monotone voice. The one story that shows her true nature in chapter four is literally, paced, framed, exactly like a slasher movie with characters being hunted down and killed one by one. 

Nanami’s just this horrible wretched existence that doesn’t even want to be alive. She basically acts like frankenstein’s monster, ie, the one in the book. She’s just this corpse that is barely even alive in the first place, constantly sick and in pain, and she’s also at war with herself. The part of her that wants to die and the part of her that’s lonely and wants to find some reason to live, or some connection in life are constantly at war with each other. 

And as horrifying as Nanami is she also feels like the most human of Niosisin’s, super-genius characters. She’s riddled with weaknesses and flaws. She lashes out when he’s in pain, she felt bad when her parents told her to die. You get the sense that Nanami’s super genius isn’t what drove her insane at all, it was just how everybody around her treated her as some thing that was not human. Isolation made her this way. She was conditioned to act this way not born inhuman. There are characters that Nisioisin writes that are genuine sociopaths (as in the trope of an unfeeling person unable to feel human emotions), but Nanami is not one of them and so when she starts acting with sociopathic-traits in her personality it makes her all the more painfully human because we see how she’s been driven slowly to act this way. 

7. *Yawns* Nezumi

Juuni Taisen is one of those death game stories where every character is defined by their one gimmick and written around their concept. In the original novel each character really only gets one chapter to be fleshed out as a character. I half suspect Nisioisin wrote it as a dare to himself on how much he could accomplish with one chapter.

The interesting part about Nezumi is his concept again. He can redo anything 100 times. You think this would make him amazing at anything in life because of his time loop ability, but physically having to live through all of those time loops exhausts him to the point that he’s too tired to do anything. You would think he could get anything he wanted out of life, but there are times he can ask a girl out one hundred times and get rejected one hundred different ways. 

Nezumi is interesting because of how quietly he lives. There’s nothing he really wants out of life, and nothing he wishes for, like a rat he just scurries and survives. 

9. I am currently being accused by everyone - Kakushidate Yakusuke

The same as Iichan and Kumagawa, Yakusuke is a guy who is just cursed by constant bad luck. What I like about Yakusuke is that he’s a full fleshed out character, instead of just an unlucky every dude protagonist.

He’s a contract worker who is constantly shifting between jobs. Due to this fact he’s got like 1,000 skills that he gained on his various jobs. He’s not smart, but because he’s experienced so much of life he’s incredibly resourceful. Which is why he makes a perfect counterpart and foil to Okitegami.

Yakusuke’s everyday life is him constantly being accused and blamed, and falling from one bad situation to the next. But, he has so much experiences that it’s what draws Okitegami to him who can only ever experience one day at a time because her memories will reset at the end of the day. He’s exactly my type of man, a total failure at all walks of life.

10. This is your last chance, let me make you happy! - Kugi Kizutaka

He’s so low on the list because his story “Magical Girl Ritsuka” only has one chapter published in english, but he’s so interesting he instantly became a fave. He’s actually a concept i have been looking for for a long time, which is basically what I describe as “Reverse Junko Enoshima.” 

Basically someone as smart and manipulative as Junko Enoshima, who can make anybody into their toy, and predict things years in advance and control everything, but instead of using that power to send the world to despair, they use that power to give the world hope instead. Not out of any genuine good will or because they’re a good person, but because they’re obsessed with the idea of giving people happiness the same way Junko is with sending people to despair. 

Kugi is a lot like that. He’s a genius ten year old who sees everybody for their potential to be used, and looks down on absolutely everyone around him. He’s made contact with a magical girl, because he’s pretty clearly planning on using her to enslave the world to him, so he can force everybody to be happy. And it’s absolutely adorable. He’s just such a genuine terrible little person while at the same time wanting to make everyone happy. 

[artemissarrows]

Sweet Combat: Gender-bending, delightful, and queer-adjacent, but not actually queer 🥊🥊🥊

So aside from BTS, another K-pop/C-pop celebrity I love is Luhan, formerly of K-pop group EXO. (If you want to learn about why he left, I recommend the Contract Disputes episode of the podcast “Ask Me About Kpop,” I love digging into those details and such!) He’s now an independent artist/actor/general celebrity promoting in China.

Luhan stars alongside his real-life girlfriend Guan Xiaotong in Sweet Combat, a sweet rom-com centered around a school that trains women in MMA. Luhan’s character is the first male to attend and he ends up being trained by three seniors—including Guan who is the best fighter at the school--as a first-year. I really loved it and totally miss it now that I’ve binged through all of the episodes. Some mild spoilers, but nothing related to the last few episodes, and also this is a rom-com, it’s pretty easy to decipher who will end up with who after the first few episodes ^_^

This show has such a good heart, and celebrates gender diversity.

By and large, this show comes down on the right side of things: people should help each other, bullying is bad, manipulating people is bad, and celebrates chosen family. Luhan’s character is poor, has to take care of his two small siblings though he’s still only college-age himself, and has to work 2 jobs to support them while he’s in school. His friends all pitch in to help make sure he’s OK and his kids are OK when he has MMA practice and cook him food. It’s super sweet! We also see one character who starts off bullying Luhan begin to change for the better and understand that bullying people to hide your own insecurities isn’t the way to be truly strong.

It also does generally deviate from strict male/female gender norms, and appropriately punish characters who don’t approve of people crossing gender norms. That being said, it does all of those things within a decidedly heterosexual context, where actual queer relationships are seen as outside the bounds of “normal” society (ie, we don’t see any). If this were a real girls’ fighting school, I can guarantee you that there would be a LOT of queers there.

Fang Yu, the lead female character, was forced to be a boy before her brother was born by her grandfather. Grandpa’s also a sexist jerkwad, and we all see it.

Fang Yu comes from a wealthy family, and her parents died when she was very young (absent parents is definitely a theme here). Her family owns a big corporation, and her grandfather is extremely concerned with succession. To that end, he forced Fang Yu to wear boy’s clothes and to be a boy before her brother was born—and then made her switch back once her younger brother came into the family (Fang Zhou is one of my fave characters in the series!) When she came back to school as a girl, all of the other kids in school called her a monster, which deeply scarred her. She also recalls looking at girls’ clothes longingly and not being able to wear them.

This whole situation is super interesting to me, although I wish I knew more about the cultural context under which it operates. Grandpa is clearly so concerned with who’s going to take over the company, and it must be a boy—how could a girl be as good at business???? We really sympathize with Fang Yu and her desire to prove herself through her MMA. She’s better than most of the boys, and she knows it. It’s also an interesting twist on the enforcement of gender norms. Instead of forcing her to be ultra-girly or something like that, Grandpa forced her to be a boy—thereby show that he knows she can be good at business, but only through the performance of masculinity. Wow, dude’s got some issues.

There’s another rich kid and business partner of the Fang family who tries to woo Fang Yu, and he was one of the kids who called her a monster as a child, and still thinks she is one (he literally said so). I have to wonder if that’s connected to her prowess in MMA, which is less common as a pursuit for girls, stereotypically.

Luhan (uh, Ming Tian, I guess) exudes positive, non-heirarchical masculinity.

Luhan’s character is a really positive version of what masculinity can be, in strong juxtaposition to Fang Yu’s grandfather, who uses his power to abuse and bully others (bullying’s a strong theme here, which is cute). Luhan and his two little siblings’ parents are gone, but he is so tender toward the little ones and takes care of them so well. 

He’s perfectly content for three senior women to coach him in MMA. He’s also just a kind person who doesn’t want to hurt anyone, sees the best in others, and is extremely smart though people sometimes underestimate him. He turns into the senior women’s coaches as the show goes on, and excels in both his analytical approach to improving their skills, as well as that balance of supporting and pushing.

And he always considers Fang Yu his equal (if not his superior in martial arts!) and treats her as an equal co-partner in their relationship. He’s perfectly willing for his feelings to be squished on her behalf and I sometimes wished he would be more honest about his desires—although this *is* a rom-com so if everyone were honest about their feelings we’d have no more show. Anyway.

I find it so telling that folks were criticizing him for being too feminine after seeing the show trailers. Absolutely not, he’s an upstanding dude…..even if he occasionally wears his own Luhan Studio merch on the show, I can forgive him.

Fang Yu’s best friend is butch AF and she’s soooooo hot

Fang Yu’s best friend is Cheng Yanan, the head of the boxing club at their university and all-around badass. She’s also butch as hell, and everyone’s 100% accepting of it in the show. Literally no one says anything. This makes me incredibly happy! 

She’s not gay, though. There are straight butch women for sure—and her love interest is incredibly sweet and another character I really like—but that’s maybe a bit unrealistic. But there is a scene where a girl at her school writes her a love note after seeing her on a run which is played for laughs….but seriously, Yanan is the shit.

Ugh, stop.

Queer adjacent thing 1: absent parents and chosen families

This isn’t an exclusively queer things, but felt like it was getting close. There’s a distinct lack of two-parent families in this show—we actually don’t see any on screen at least. Everyone has at least one parent who is absent or deceased. Instead, the friends all rely on each other for support, childcare, and general camaraderie. It’s also a college age thing I suppose, but also feels like a queer thing. Queer young people learn to rely on one another when our families don’t accept us—or even if they do, we recognize and support members of our community.

Queer adjacent thing 2: Sun Hao buys a suit from a gay store

Sun Hao, the second male student in the MMA school after Luhan, accidentally buys a suit from a gay kink store—it’s very flamboyant and played for laughs. I’m a bit sad about that, but so it goes. Gender diversity is apparently OK but sexual diversity isn’t? Or also, it’s fine when women are butch because masculinity is better, but when men act femme they’re stepping down in the world so why would they do that. Sigh.

Hello, gay panic!

 Non-queer thing I also loved: Sun Hao and his mom

Sun Hao’s mom runs a noodle stall, and she and he have a really wonderful and close relationship—they talk all the time and support one another. It’s extra-cute and I love it.

My only gripes: anime-styling in live-action & copious Adidas product placement

This show is apparently based on a manhwa or Korean comic, and unfortunately it shows sometimes and not in a good way. The director can never decide whether to make the MMA realistic or whether its magical realism MMA/normal life + magic, and it switches back and forth between things that look very naturalistic and weird-looking SFX. There are also some characters who are a little too stereotypically anime-y (looking at you, Song Xiaomi!) But since these moments were occasional and not all the time, I could live with it.

Also they must have signed something that says that Luhan always has to wear something with the Adidas logo on it….because he literally always does. Okay, we get it.

But those are small potatoes. This show is great, go watch it for its cuteness, great character relationships, and enjoy that it’s reasonably progressive on gender stuff.

[jungnoir]

zeus’ place;

⇢ summary: “zeus’ place is a café invented for demigods, magical creatures, and humans alike to mingle and drink great coffee under a magical glamour that conceals the identities of anyone not fully human!” ⇢ hyunwoo happens to be the son of zeus on top of being a very popular barista at Zeus’ Place, but between daughters of Aphrodite and blue-skinned nymphs, he finds himself falling for a beautiful (and very flustering) human: you. 

⇢ relationship: son hyunwoo/reader.

⇢ genre: demigod!au, supernatural, romance, fluff.

⇢ words: 6.3k

⇢ warnings: hyunwoo is a bad flirt. a+ barista, though.

a/n: here is my part for the @mxwriters monsta x greek mythology collab!!! check out the other works here and stay tuned for the rest! :) this one-shot is partly inspired by the Percy Jackson universe and partly inspired by the otome game Astoria: Fate’s Kiss... yes, i know - also! check out this super cool moodboard @softckyun made for the story!!!

At first glance, you’d think him something unreal.

His presence commands a room’s attention even when he himself seeks no such thing, and it can’t be helped for passerbys to throw more than one glance his way. And yes, while he doesn’t blame them (their mortal minds know something is great about him, they just can’t exactly fathom a son of a god amongst them, let alone the son of the king of gods but I digress), it can get pretty freaking annoying.

Jinyoung heaves a heavy sigh after his next customer wades to the side along with the growing sea of humans that had already piled there, eyes practically in the shape of cartoon hearts while they look past him and toward the real vision: his coworker Hyunwoo, son of Zeus and probably the only reason the manager would have to start enforcing a rule for baristas to wear cardboard boxes over their heads.

“’m sorry,” Hyunwoo whispers to Jinyoung as he tends to the other register, managing to make a caramel macchiato and take the next person’s order with relative ease, “there’s a lot of mortals today.”

“No shit. I’m tired of you getting all the attention. Falling in love at a coffee shop should be a once in a lifetime thing, you know.” Jinyoung nudges the older boy with his elbow and prepares to take the next order, but manages another sly remark as the customer ahead decides on what they want, “With all the attention you get, I’d think you were Aphrodite’s kid.”

Hyunwoo makes a face at him, “It’s not falling in love if I don’t fall back.”

Which was true. While Hyunwoo did have extremely masculine features and a cute smile to go with it, his admirer to actual relationship ratio was probably a billion to zero. As far as Hyunwoo was concerned, all the googly eyes and flirty gestures added up to nothing for him if he didn’t get a tip in return. Was it harsh? Probably not for a college kid trying to help support a single mother in New York City.

While the other baristas and staff had thoroughly given Hyunwoo the “you’re lucky you could catch a date so easily” talk more times than he’d have particularly anticipated (or liked), he still couldn’t find it in him to care. Even when customers would scribble their numbers on napkins to hand to him, he’d politely put a line through it with his sharpie and toss it in the nearest trash bin when no one was looking. He wasn’t mean, he was just... not interested.

Besides, if some of the customers took off their rose-tinted glasses, they’d notice that Hyunwoo was actually good at his job, something he took pride in but rarely got credit for.

“You’re right. But you’ll see someone one day who’s a little easy on the eyes and we’ll see where it goes from there.” Jinyoung comments while counting money from a mermaid, her gills reflecting along her skin the vision of a highlighted pattern that no human could see.

Hyunwoo decides he doesn’t want to answer, and instead focuses on finishing the next thing, topping off the hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. When he turns to call out the name of the recipient, he begins to take the next order... only to fall silent.

It takes Hyunwoo a total of five looks before he realizes that the person before him is, in fact, human, and not a ray of sunshine personified. Even if internally he still has his denial, your very human aura makes his mind blur with confusion.

Your cheeks are flushed from the cold weather outside, hair a windblown mess but nowhere as bad as to deviate from your natural beauty, the very thing that strikes him to think you’re not mortal. You aren’t without flaws, of course, but the simple look of you is far too enchanting to place on any other human he’d encounter in his day. It felt wrong to lump you in with your own kind, almost.

You were also seemingly oblivious to his surprise, an easygoing smile on your face as one hand worked to fix your hair and the other fished out your wallet from your messenger bag at your side, “Hi! Can I have a smoothie?”

Even your order makes him puzzled.

“In this weather?” Is the first thing he can get out, and he’s positive he looks like a fool with eyes bugging out of his head and mouth agape, a thing that happened often to him on a daily basis when anything particularly out of routine happened. To most, it was endearingly attractive, but he rather likened himself to a confused blowfish at best.

You watch as he looks you up and down, taking in your borderline summer clothes and lack of layers. Instead of taking offense to his inquiring tone and gaze (something he’d feared for all of three seconds), you release a breathy laugh that tinkles like Christmas bells, “Ah, yeah. I guess I’m a little warm blooded and craving something fruity.”

Well, it wasn’t like he could (or would) deny you what you wanted. After all, even if you did freeze from the inside out, at least you’d go out with a delicious blend of the best fruits delivered right from Olympus.

Getting your flavor and tallying up your total with uncharacteristically shaking hands, he takes your ten dollar bill and gives you a gold Olympus coin. The engraved face of his father stares back at him from the coin, dropping his eye down in a wink before he dropped said coin in your hand. But to you, it would just be seven dollars and twenty-two cents. The Olympians weren’t really too fond of having to take two types of currency when one of them was magical and conformative to whatever it needed to be, and no human would be the wiser.

You stare a little too long at your hand before quickly pocketing the money and taking your receipt, shooting Hyunwoo a tight-lipped smile and moving to the side.

Hyunwoo, much to his distress, finds that for the first time since he’d first trained to get the job here, he suddenly can’t remember how to make a smoothie. His hands fumble for the right cup, grabbing paper instead of plastic. He grabs the bag of chopped mangoes instead of chopped strawberries. He even nearly blends until your smoothie goes from delightfully thick and fluffy to nearly watery, but he stops himself just in time.

He hopes the flush on his face doesn’t show too much when he turns around to hand you your drink. “Here’s your...” his voice tapers off when he finds that where he left you is not where you currently were. Where you once stood is now occupied by someone else and you are nowhere to be seen.

He panics, wondering if he’d been overworking so hard that he was starting to see things and you weren’t even there to begin with (and that scares him, because demigod hallucinations were on a whole other level in comparison to human ones). It hadn’t been the first time he’d done so either which was even more nerve-wracking, when he sees you crouched on the floor next to a flustered dryad whose white tinted sheer dress had a growing brown stain running down the front. The cyclops he’d served a vanilla latte to was standing a few steps away from the two of you and looking extremely upset, an empty cup in hand. Clearly, something had happened to result in the dryad’s dress getting ruined, and she looked absolutely mortified.

“I shouldn’t have left my tree...” She mutters in a fluttery voice, looking just about ready to run away in embarrassment.

You, who really shouldn’t have heard that, only smiles and retrieves some napkins from a nearby booth to hand her.

“It was an accident. I was just... startled...” The cyclops explains, casting a worried glance your way, and yet you don’t bat an eyelash. You continue smiling, oblivious that you’re standing between two creatures of folklore that shouldn’t- no -don’t exist in your world.

The dryad looks dejected that her dress is stained, but she still bows her head at you while clutching the napkins to her stomach, “...it’s fine.”

He imagines what the dryad looks like to you; maybe a small, shy girl with a drenched tank top or something. The cyclops: a bumbling teenage boy with legs too long to coordinate sometimes perhaps?

Regardless of what you see, you’re shrugging off your worryingly thin hoodie and handing it to the girl, none too worried about what that would mean for you when you walked back out into that cold again in only some shorts and a tee shirt. You had no warm drink to keep your blood from freezing in your veins either. Now he was really puzzled. “Take this,” you say softly, “you must be freezing in just that.”

The dryad looks at you for a long time, shyness dissolving into confusion. “I’m... I’m sure you need it more than I do?” Her statement comes out like a question at your generosity.

“Nonsense. I work down the street, it’s a quick walk. I won’t freeze to death.” You hold it out even closer to the dryad until she finally relents and accepts it. She wraps your jacket around herself awkwardly, not quite used to wearing clothes that weren’t what dryads usually wore, and then bows to you again for good measure. You seem to think nothing of it.

Hyunwoo calls out your order number and you whip around, whisper something to the dryad and the cyclops before approaching the counter. “Sorry I held you up.” You say, taking the smoothie from his fingertips, and he so badly wants to switch it out for a boiling hot tea or something, anything but that despite the deeply satisfied look on your face when you take it.

“Are you sure you don’t want something warmer? You said it’s a quick walk to your job but it’s still pretty cold out-” “I’m fine! I swear, she needed that coat more than me.” You cut him off and start to back away, Hyunwoo’s expression surely showing his clear confusion about you dubious level of “fine”.

He watches you sprint away from the cafe in a rushed set of steps, mouth never departing from your straw until you’ve walked down the block and out of sight.

Sure enough, the cyclops makes his way over with his now empty drink and hands Hyunwoo a gold coin, of which Hyunwoo ignores in favor of taking the empty cup instead, “What happened there?”

The cyclops deflates a little and his eye rolls down to look at the counter instead of the son of Zeus, “I was just... walking, and they looked me right in the eye...”

As Hyunwoo wipes off the cup to prepare his drink again, he frowns, “The dryad looked you in the eye?”

The cyclops shakes his head, “No! The human. It was like they knew what I was.”

Hyunwoo freezes in preparing the drink, “That’s... I’m sure you were just imagining it. They’re completely human, they couldn’t possibly see your eye.”

The cyclops, looking a little dispirited, rubs his arms and shifts his weight from foot to foot, but doesn’t try to argue as Hyunwoo continues making the latte.

Yet, even Hyunwoo can’t help the nagging feeling he gets when he thinks about it again. It was strange how you acted after the whole ordeal, practically running away from him. He can tell even Jinyoung, who has taken over the counter in Hyunwoo’s stead, looks a little interested in what the cyclops avoiding either of their eyes has to say.

When he turns to hand him the drink, the cyclops suddenly gives Hyunwoo one last look, “Are you sure they were totally human?”

This time, Hyunwoo doesn’t feel as confident when he nods his head in an answer.

With how fast you’d ran the last time he saw you, Hyunwoo had very little hope he’d ever see you again. The customer with freakishly good tolerance for the cold who disappeared leaving more questions in their wake than Hyunwoo was comfortable thinking about. You weren’t a big thought in his mind, rather a splatter of thoughts. He would be reminded of you when sifting through the fruits in the fridge, or when a cool breeze would rush in behind an incoming customer. He’d remember you when a sliver of sunlight would blind his eyesight. If someone could tell him how to forget a complete stranger, he’d gladly take the advice.

He sits in the very back of Zeus’ place and mulls over his psychology homework with a disinterested eye; he’d much rather be working than doing this, but Jinyoung had been serious about not switching tasks for the night like he’d done before. Hyunwoo had always made sure Jinyoung got the hours Hyunwoo worked for him, but the younger believed if Hyunwoo was going to make any progress, he’d have to do his homework himself.

As if to mock him, Jinyoung comes by to needlessly scrub a nonexistent stain on Hyunwoo’s tabletop, “How’s it going, oh son of Zeus?”

Hyunwoo resists the urge to stick his tongue out at him, “How do you think?”

Jinyoung snorts and decides to drop that subject completely, “That new kid, Sanha, was it? He looks up to you quite a bit.”

At the mention of the giant seventeen year old, Hyunwoo smiles and pushes his homework to the side as Jinyoung drops into the seat across from him, “Funny how a cafe called Zeus’ place only has two kids of Zeus actually working in it.” “That’s cause your half brothers and sisters think they have better things to be doing like saving people from burning buildings and breaking trees in half.”

Hyunwoo’s glare says it all, “You’re really stuck on those stupid stereotypes.”

“Nah, I just like to tease you. I don’t mean any of it.” Jinyoung grins in reply, and then switches to a more serious expression, “So... I’ve noticed you’ve been kind of weird lately.”

Hyunwoo is just about ready to get offended before Jinyoung holds up his hands, “You’re seriously distracted. It’s like... in spurts. You’ll just look a little lost and contemplative and it’s kinda freaking me out. Are you okay?”

Despite being the younger of the two, Jinyoung sure had a gift for feeling like a big brother figure. Hyunwoo found himself opening up to Jinyoung so easily these days; it wasn’t an easy feat to hide how he felt from the boy.

“Do you... remember that person, the one who got mixed up in the cyclops and dryad incident, that came to the cafe a week ago?”

Jinyoung shakes his head at him, “Just barely?”

Hyunwoo’s shoulders fall, “Well... it sounds stupid, I know, but I haven’t been able to forget them. That cyclops sounded like he was truly sure they knew what he was, but that’s impossible right?”

Jinyoung stares at Hyunwoo for a bit, arms crossed along his chest. After a few moments of thinking, Jinyoung blew a heavy breath of air, “It’s not... impossible, per se.”

Well, this was a first.

From the first time Hyunwoo had been told his father, who he assumed was just some deadbeat on the other side of the country for the majority of his life, was the king of the gods, Hyunwoo had been discovering something new day after day. One thing he’d been told about though was that humans could only see what they were allowed to see, which was zip, usually. The world he was half a part of was only visible to him because of his father and nothing more. If his mother had known earlier that the man she fell for was Zeus of all beings, she might’ve rethought having a child with him. At least, at first.

She’d made it clear she didn’t regret having him for one second, just wished he could live a normal life like she wanted him to. And anyway, by this point, Hyunwoo was far too used to the abnormal to care about a “normal” life now.

“I’ve never heard of humans who could see past our facades. Not unless they were allowed to, but the glamours here are far too strong for there to even be a chance.” Hyunwoo frowns.

Jinyoung frowns back, “There are humans who can, but it’s very rare. Usually the mortal parent of a demigod has the Sight, but there are some gods that hide their true identity and those people never find out until the child is born. They’re allowed to know the truth about their child, but that’s maybe the extent if they didn’t have the Sight before. It’s a complicated thing. Even the gods don’t know how it originates or who it won’t and will touch.”

This was a whole new playing field. If you were a human with the Sight, you surely didn’t give it away. Either that, or you were used to being able to see his kind and all the others. Too bad he couldn’t see you again to ask.

“Don’t think too hard about it, Hyunwoo. There’s nothing to fear of a human with the Sight.” Jinyoung is nonchalant as ever, even going as far as to give Hyunwoo a small smile. “You can be one of the few who can say they met one they weren’t related to.”

Hyunwoo, on the verge of saying something more, is interrupted by a burst of cool wind brushing against his skin all of a sudden. A customer had arrived.

Jinyoung springs into action faster than Hyunwoo could see him get up, the younger already halfway across the shop and behind the register in time for the new customer to acknowledge him, “Welcome to Zeus’ place, how may I... oh. Hello.”

Hyunwoo’s eyes move from the homework before him to what had rendered Jinyoung surprised, only for his own mouth to drop open in awe at the person who’d entered.

There you were once again, now appropriately dressed and looking rather warm in a persimmon trench coat and cream sweater. Most of your hair is hidden by the sheer thickness of the black scarf wrapped around your head until you pull it down to reveal your mouth, grinning at Hyunwoo and completely ignoring Jinyoung altogether, “Oh, I wasn’t expecting you to be here.”

Hyunwoo blinks, looks down at his spot, and then looks back at you. By the time he’s returned his gaze to your form, you’re already stepping into his personal bubble with hands shoved deep into your pockets. He startles some, cutely fumbling over his words, “Y-you expected me somewhere else?”

“Well, yeah! Behind the counter. Guess it didn’t really occur to me that you take shifts and all...” You awkwardly trail off, eyes looking elsewhere in embarrassment. Hyunwoo can hear Jinyoung mumbling something along the lines of “well hello to you too, then” as he leans on the counter and finds a spot to laze once again.

Hyunwoo isn’t really sure what to think; he’d been thinking about you this whole time, but only when he actually mentioned you out loud did you show up. On top of that, you came expecting him to be working. Had you been thinking about him too?

The flustered boy finally gathers his bearings when you take the seat Jinyoung had once been occupying, your lips upturned into a calm smile. How did you manage to always looks so at home with yourself no matter the situation? “I see you finally feel cold.” Hyunwoo says, pointing at your coat.

Your laugh makes his cheeks warm at the very sound, “Oh yeah! I don’t know what it was that day that made me completely impenetrable to the cold, but it has definitely worn off. I can’t leave the house without gloves and a scarf now. I actually saw this place on my way home from work and thought I should get something to warm me up... it’s awfully empty in the late evening hours here.”

Hyunwoo nods at you, “That’s why I come to study at this time... you know, if you want something warm, I could whip up something.”

You raise your hands up and shake your head, a bit cautious, “Oh no, I couldn’t. You’re studying!”

Hyunwoo just smirks and shoves his things to the side, “Don’t worry. I was having a hard time focusing on it anyway. I like working my hands more than my mind.” He hears you slide out of your seat behind him as he walks toward the counter, making eyes with Jinyoung who looks between the two of you before taking his cue to disappear. Hyunwoo heads over to the sink and briskly washes his hands, glancing over at you over his shoulder, “What are you in the mood for?”

“Chai latte? And maybe a muffin on the side. Chocolate.” You settle on the bar stool at the counter, crossing your arms over the wooden counter-top and watching Hyunwoo nod an affirmative, already getting to work like muscle memory.

You watch the barista in wonder, eyes seldom leaving his form as he did his thing. He was right about liking to work with his hands. It was almost second nature to him how he maneuvered around the small space, barely noticing how focused you were on him as he worked.

Several minutes passed until there was a steaming mug before you and a delectable looking chocolate muffin sitting beside it right after. The sight was absolutely documentation worthy, so you swipe out your phone and position it above the drink and muffin to snap a quick photo before looking back up at Hyunwoo, the boy looking a bit proud that you found his creation picture worthy. “This is amazing... Do you make coffee art often?”

Hyunwoo glances down at the detailed rose he’d made in the foam of your latte and blushes, “Sometimes... do you like it?”

Your reaction is instantaneous, “Hell yeah! I’ve never quite seen anything like this before. You’ve got a real talent, Hyunwoo.”

Hyunwoo’s eyes widen at the sound of your name passing through his lips, for a few reasons he wouldn’t exactly admit out loud, “Uh... you know my name?”

It seems it’s finally your turn to look embarrassed. You immediately bite your lip in response, looking literally anywhere else but at him, “I... I just remembered your name from... last time. Is that weird?”

“I won’t think so if you give me yours... just to be fair.” He says back, voice a  little softer now. The embarrassment you felt was quickly overshadowed by his reply, your fingers twiddling nervously as you made eye contact with him once more and tell him your name.

Your name... it was rather special. Just like you.

Of course, no matter how much of an inner cheese ball Hyunwoo really was, he could never say that out loud. Instead, he sticks with something simple, “I like it. Now we’re even.”

Again, Hyunwoo can hear Jinyoung muttering somewhere nearby about the two of you that neither of you can pick up on, but it doesn’t bother him one bit.

As you two fall into a surprisingly natural conversation, doubts that were currently swimming in Hyunwoo’s mind fade like the minutes going by. Everything you two talk about is incredibly ordinary; from the murky weather that had been haunting the city for the past week to how classes at uni were going for him, your conversation had never bordered anything questionable. He knew you were an office worker in the city, hired straight out of high school into a prestigious company you wouldn’t give the name of (”maybe I’ll tell you next time” said with a flustering wink) because you were just that smart, but you didn’t carry the same hurried aura of typical office workers he served often. What were usually curt and frazzled robots shuffling in through the place every morning, you contrasted them completely. With bright smiles and a laid back attitude, you never seemed close to being as stressed as all those other employees.

By the time it’s time to close, Hyunwoo finds he’s nowhere near through with his homework, but his mind is a lot clearer as both he and Jinyoung wave you away for the night. You promise to come by more often if Hyunwoo promises to keep making coffee the way he does, and then you’re off in a taxi and gone with the bustle of the city that never sleeps.

Of course, Jinyoung gets a bit of teasing in before he wishes the eldest a good night and offers to give him a ride home... that of which Hyunwoo denies in favor of a little fresh air instead. Jinyoung doesn’t bat an eyelash; Hades was his uncle after all, if anyone gave him trouble there would surely be literal hell to pay.

On his way home, Hyunwoo can feel a bit of childish excitement bubble up in him at the thought that he would soon be seeing you again. Hyunwoo had never been so enamored so quickly, and there was no blaming him as you were quite the charmer. Not only were you a charmer, you were also safe. Safely ordinary, safely average, safely human. There was nothing out of this world about you, at least not in the literal sense. Despite some of the comments about how tough it was for demigods to date humans, Hyunwoo was fairly certain he could have a chance with you. Besides, it wasn’t like he had to reveal his ancient Greek god ancestry on the first date. He could save that for later!

Oh... oh goodness, he was already fantasizing about a first date.

There isn’t a day on the job that Hyunwoo isn’t seeing you now, and he can’t help but perk up a little on shift whenever he hears the doors to the cafe open and invite in a new customer. At this point, Hyunwoo can’t even pretend that he’s not like an excited puppy awaiting the moment of the day you’d come in and ask for some new drink you’ve never tried before. You never let him get used to anything, always challenging his idea of exactly what kind of person you really are.

At this point, Jinyoung had a mountain of blackmail against Hyunwoo... if only Hyunwoo was in any way upset about it, it might have been great. He’d never seen someone’s head so in the clouds for someone they hadn’t even actually gone out with yet, and even he found himself cracking out just how adorable it was with the sight of him whenever he saw you. He would have felt worried if you weren’t so blatantly obvious that you felt exactly the same.

After having seen the smiles on Hyunwoo’s face become easier whenever you joked to him or how the demigod’s hands didn’t shake when he passed you your drink of the day, all Jinyoung was curious about now was when Hyunwoo was finally going to ask you out.

“I was thinking soon, okay?” Hyunwoo says with a small pout one rainy Friday morning, cleaning out a glass with his back parallel to the younger’s at the cash register. “It isn’t really date weather lately.” To punctuate Hyunwoo’s concern, an almost terrifyingly loud clap of thunder sounds outside and the rain that was falling so fearlessly turns torrential.

“It doesn’t have to be outside. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be anywhere else. It could be here after a shift or something. Just do it before your googly eyes get you in trouble.” Hyunwoo knows Jinyoung is referring to the slightly lovesick daze that had him stumbling over orders whenever you were actually in the shop. It was starting to show to other customers who had historically been interested in Hyunwoo, and the jealous stares did not cease whenever you entered the building. Not that either of you seemed particularly aware... or caring.

“I don’t have googly eyes!” Hyunwoo says, but can’t help a little laugh that passes his lips at the thought. He really does, even his mom said so, but he wouldn’t ever admit it.

Jinyoung just scoffs in answer, taking a customer’s order without difficulty while managing to keep up with Hyunwoo still, “That’s what someone with googly eyes would say.”

Hyunwoo sets the clean glass down and looks behind him to scold Jinyoung once and for all, even through a clearly amused smile on his face, when he realizes that something has changed about the atmosphere... you’re here!

He immediately spots you rushing in from the rain with a red umbrella dripping in the water of Olympus, your face scrunched up into a happily content expression when you get a little rain on your coat. You quickly close your umbrella and grip the wooden hook at the end when you spot Hyunwoo too, your eyes brightening and your hand flying up into an enthusiastic wave. Hyunwoo doesn’t hesitate to do the same, missing the whispered “googly” from Jinyoung as he quickly transitions into taking over Hyunwoo’s previous job. The amount of times He’d done so before just so the handsome boy could speak to you were too many to count that by now it was natural to do so whenever you entered.

The line that you stand in shortens too slowly for Hyunwoo’s taste, but soon you’re standing before him and grinning brightly, “Morning, Hyunwoo! How are you?”

“As good as I can be in this weather.” He says with a fake glum look and points out of the window, as if you weren’t well aware of how horrendous the rain was being today. “But I get off early today, so it’s alright. What about you?”

You let out a soft sigh, running a hand through your hair and momentarily stunning the demigod before you, “Well... my boss is being generous to me since my work is all pretty much done before the weekend, so he’s letting me out after lunch! I was wondering what I should do since I wasn’t prepared to have all that free time to myself, and all my friends have made plans already...”

Hyunwoo knows he should take your order since the line is starting to increase behind you, but he honestly couldn’t care less when he listening to you talk all day, “Oh yeah? There isn’t much to do in this rain, unfortunately.”

You hum, tapping your nails against the counter, “Not so! This is perfect date weather.”

Hyunwoo’s eyes enlarge and you watch with amusement, the boy flitting over all the sudden thoughts threatening to escape his head from his mouth in a mess of disorderly words, “Oh, uh... a date? A-anyone special in mind?”

Jinyoung gives up the facade of his pretending not to be eavesdropping when he snickers under his breath. Oh, he really was quite a dull one when it come to things like this.

You match Jinyoung’s snicker with your own, nodding an affirmative that has Hyunwoo growing a bit nervous with palms that start to clam up, “Yes, actually. He’s standing before me with the cutest “deer in headlights” look I’ve ever seen on someone before.��� At the same time, you drop your right eye down in a wink. Hyunwoo lets out a puff of air and suddenly feels awfully parched.

You don’t wait for him to answer even as he scrambles to regardless, fishing out a small notepad and pen, “It’s funny you asked... I was actually planning to ask you first...!” You smile at his embarrassed tone, scribbling down your number and sliding the piece of paper to him. The customers behind you are getting a bit restless now, so you tell him you’ll have a chocolate mocha latte and he scrambles to put your number deep down in his back pocket so he won’t have any chance of losing it, a rosy blush settling on his cheeks as he inputs your order.

Jinyoung works just as quickly to make said frap (or maybe Hyunwoo had taken longer to put in your order than usual thanks to how excited he was at the prospect of you asking him out on a date), having the cup set on the counter the minute Hyunwoo exchanges your cash for a gold Olympus coin. He hands you what he owes you and you pocket the money, taking a quick sip of your drink before sighing in delight, “Pretty good choice.”

Hyunwoo blinks at your blissful expression, attempting to keep from gnawing his lip to death, “S-so uh... where would you like to go? Movies, dinner...?” He asks, falling short at all the options you two might have in the rainy weather.

Taking another draw from your straw, you shrug your shoulder nonchalantly, “Oh, I was thinking a picnic at Central Park!”

The demigod looks at you in confusion rivaling the look he’d given you the first day he’d met you, asking for that ice cold smoothie even though it was near freezing outside. “But... the rain-” “I’m sure if you put in a good word with your father, he’ll make it sunny all weekend.”

Hyunwoo’s jaw drops as you smile again, moving out of the way so the next customer can spout their order to him, though his eyes are still fixed on you as you begin to walk away, “Text me, okay? I’ll bring the snacks if you bring the frisbee!”

And with that you’re gone, red umbrella inflating and moving with the crowd of busy New Yorkers trying to get somewhere dry in a hurry. All of Hyunwoo’s confidence that you were just an ordinary person in ordinary New York flies out the window with all of his competence, and even Jinyoung is looking rather shocked as he watches you go from behind the son of Zeus, “Well,” the younger starts, arms folded across his chest and ignoring the upset customers with ease, “what are you wearing on your date?”

The ride up in the elevator feels oddly longer than usual, though you can’t exactly complain about an express elevator from earth to Olympus, could you?

The gold plated interior seems to shine more as you ascend further past the clouds, your eyes hooded in puppy love mania. It had taken all of your strength not to squeal the minute you saw that look on Hyunwoo’s face when you asked him out, the idea that you two would be going on a date soon making your heart flutter wildly. If Hyunwoo really didn’t put in a word with his dad, you sure would. You had waited far too long for this date to let a little rain ruin it for you.

As the doors open, you’re greeted with a warm breeze that immediately has you shrugging off your raincoat and stepping out into the lavish lobby of Olympus HQ. The creature at the front desk looks up from her work and smiles at you, all three of her mouths turned up in a kind greeting, “Morning, (Y/N)! Back from Zeus’ Place so soon?”

You set your drink down on her desk and toss your sweater over your arm, tugging at the neck of your blouse to allow you some cool breeze against your warm body. It wasn’t your fault you had to dress accordingly for your travels to earth even though Olympus was perpetually warm and sunny all the time, now was it? Thankfully, you kept a more breezy change of clothes in your office thanks to your new routine. “Ah, yeah. I finally asked him out, Alethea!”

The creature claps her hands together in happiness, “That’s great! When are you two going out?” “Today, hopefully after I get off lunch. We’re going to have a picnic in Central Park.” You feel yourself giggle as you gush to Alethea, the creature having known about your crush on Hyunwoo since the day you’d first encountered him. The smoothie incident had forever been burned in your mind as one of the most awkward things you could have done, but you did spend quite a bit of time surrounded by gods and monsters alike. Sometimes, you had to be reminded of where you originally came from and what was genuinely accepted down there.

Alethea shakes her head and chuckles, “Well, that’s good. Nilos left some work on your desk about the upcoming meeting of the gods. You just need to file a quick report on any strange happenings on earth. You know, the usual.”

You hum an affirmative, noting it was never a truly dull day in the life of Olympus’ earth correspondent, even when it came to paperwork. You take your drink and wave goodbye to Alethea, walking across the hall to enter your office. You set your drink down on your desk and drop your jacket over your chair, kicking off your shoes and letting yourself relax into the plush stuffing of your loveseat. Looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows across from where you sat was the warmly colored oasis of Olympus. Clouds of cotton candy pink and people of all shapes, sizes, and colors bustled about the city of the gods like every other ordinary day. You watch on with a warm smile, tucking your legs underneath you and pulling out your phone when you feel it vibrate in your back jean pocket.

On the screen reads an unknown number, but you don’t need a name to know exactly who it’s from.

(1) Unread Message(s)

received: 9:45 a.m., march 4th, 2018

212-672-7206: I talked to dad. Weatherman said the forecast from here on out is sunny skies.

[higglety]

Ok, so Power Rangers! :D

It was good and you should see it!  Full review below the cut because spoilers

Ok so it’s got pretty much exactly the plot you would expect out of a Power Rangers movie - five teens find the magic advanced alien science coins, become the Power Rangers, and battle Rita Repulsa to save the world.  Pretty simple stuff!  And that’s good - there’s no reason to make it any fancier or more complex, at least not in this first movie (apparently we’re going to be getting a few more).  We’ve got 

Red Ranger Jason, the leader who is played by Dacre Montgomery.  He was the star quarterback, but the movie opens by showing him throw away his promising football career by being a dumb teen and making stupid dumb teen choices (this will be a recurring theme).  We see him pulling a prank on a rival team with a friend, fleeing the police, and getting into a dramatic car accident resulting in a career-ending injury and legal repercussions.  Notably, his partner in dumb gets away, and Jason refuses to rat him out; accepting all of the blame and repercussions himself.  Jason’s poor choices have damaged is relationship with his father, who has lost faith in him.  

Pink Ranger Kimberly, played by Naomi Scott. She was a popular cheerleader, but we first see her being bullied and ostracized by former friends. We later discover that this is because she had done an incredibly mean-girl, extremely not-ok thing to another girl.  Her character arc involves her struggling with her guilt and working towards a redemption that she doesn’t completely believe that she deserves.  

Blue Ranger Billy, played by RJ Cyler.  We first see him when Jason meets him for the first time in detention.  He’s being bullied by the resident detention tough guy, and Jason steps in to get the bully to lay off.  It’s played as less “hero jock swoops in to protect the nerd” and more “teenage fuckup with zero fucks left to give finds that he does in fact have one single fuck left so come and get it asshole”.  Billy’s on the spectrum, which he mentions once(after he’s been on screen for several scenes) and never again.  That’s not to say he’s glossed over; to the contrary, he’s an integral part of the team.  The movie just never dwells on the fact that he’s Autistic; it never becomes a joke or a morality play.  This is a fact about who he is, nothing more and nothing less.  Billy’s father died relatively recently, and his character arc involves him working through his grief and becoming closer to his new found family.

Yellow Ranger Trini, played by Rebbeca Marie Gomez (stage name Becky G). We first meet her at the mine where the local disaffected youths hang out and be angsty teens.  (Our five are there because of Plot Reasons, of course.)  Trini’s family has moved around about a zillion times, so she is always the New Girl.  She’s given up on getting close to her peers or attempting to form friendships long ago, but now her self-preservation tactic is turning into isolation and is becoming painful as well.  She’s pulling away from her family, too - we can infer that they were once close, but she feels she needs to hide her sexuality (she likes girls); her parents (particularly her mother) know that she’s hiding things from them and their response is to be even more overbearing and intrusive, which is making her pull back more in a vicious feedback loop.  The isolation and repression is making her act out in any way she can, resulting in risky, daredevil behavior.  Even before they find the magic coins, she climbs higher and runs faster than any of the others.  Trini’s character arc is about ending her isolation and allowing herself to be vulnerable to others; accepting her new found family and letting them see her.

and Black Ranger Zack, played by Ludi Lin.  We first meet Zack in the mine; he hides out there when cutting classes and whenever he doesn’t want to go home.  At first Zack just seems like a cool slacker, but later we find out that his mother is very sick.  Zack does everything he can for her, but he’s terrified that she’s going to die, and sometimes he needs to run away from everything to deal.  Zack’s character arc is about bravery and emotional fortitude.  His bravery and willingness to be vulnerable to his team is what allows them to be vulnerable in turn.

I think the thing I love the most about this movie is that yes it’s a goofy kitchy  action movie, but it backs all that fun cheese up with real emotional substance.  In order for the Rangers to morph and achieve their full powers, they have to be able to connect to the morphing grid AND to each other.  They have to do this by being open to each other and connecting on a real, intimate level.  I’m a sucker for the found family and teams-becoming-family tropes, and this movie is that in spades.  

The first third of the movie sets up who these kids and introduces their powers - which, by the way, the discovering-their-powers sequence was one of the best examples of that concept I’ve ever seen.  There was a real youthful exuberance, and the fact that they were all learning together meant there was tons of egging each other on and trying things out and one upping each other and a bit of fun peer pressure (resulting in some foreshadowing).  I could practically feel the adrenaline rush.  

The middle of the movie is the training sequence - they physically train, but that’s largely window dressing for the emotional work they’re doing.  They’re trying to build friendships, but they’re still questioning who they are and who they are to each other.  The emotional climax happens when Zack invites them all to camp out with him out at the mine; and then when they’re all sitting around the campfire, opens up about his mom.  This prompts sharing from the others, and they start to gel as friends beyond the team.  That night is the catalyst that allows them to advance towards actually morphing and becoming the Power Rangers by the end.

The final act is all about them finally being able to morph and take on Rita Repulsa, who has been doing villainy this whole time.   At this point, because the movie has done the legwork to lay the emotional foundations, we can really lean into the cheese for the payoff.  This is when they finally morph, this is when they do that jump-into-battle superhero land-and-pose thing, this is when “MAKE MY MONSTER GROOOOOOOOW” this is when the Zords come out to play, this is when they form the Megazord (which, by the way, they’ve never trained for and there is an appropriate learning curve).  It all works, and it’s fun!  There’s no real suspense because come on, we all know how this is going to go down.  It’s pure indulgent catharsis, and it’s great.  

So that’s my impression of the movie, in broad strokes.  There’s more little stuff that I appreciate  - for example, there’s no forced obligatory romantic subplot.  Apparently they were going to go into Jason/Kimberly, but it got nixed because the test audiences found it distracting and unnecessary.  I can only say yay, because I think trying to develop a romantic relationship between them would have detracted from the core of the movie, which was focusing on the overall team dynamics.  Plus they couldn’t have done a particularly good job developing a romantic relationship because those two characters have like, five seconds of romantic chemistry total.  There’s something there to work with and I think they could develop it further in future movies, but there’s roughly the same level of romantic chemistry between Jason and Zack, and Billy and Jason, and Trini and Zack.  There’s not nothing there, but there’s also not enough to build a relationship in the in-universe time allotted, and certainly not with all of the distraction of forming a solid friend group and defeating an evil alien determined to destroy all life on earth.  They made the right call cutting it, and I hope other films follow their lead.  

I think part of why I loved the movie is that I wasn’t huge into Power Rangers as a kid, but I do have nostalgic memories of it.  I caught a few episodes here and there, and would “play power rangers” at recess (basically, run around with other kids shouting “I’M THE YELLOW RANGER”).  If you’re the type of superfan who LOVES the Power Rangers and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the shows and hates deviations from canon, you might have some issues with this movie.  I don’t know; I don’t know how far the deviated, although I’m sure it’s not an insignificant amount.  Try seeing this as an AU, or a really high-budget fanfiction, and give it a shot!  If you’ve always hated Power Rangers because of the cheese and, I don’t know, you hate fun?  Well, you might not like this movie, because as I mentioned, it really leans into that cheese.  I see that as a positive, personally, but that’s why there’s chocolate and vanilla.  

All in all, I loved this movie!  It brought back and amplified every good feeling I’ve ever had about Power Rangers.  I went into the theater thinking “oh yeah, Power Rangers.  That was that thing I kind of liked when I was a kid.”  I came out going “YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH POWER RANGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and ready to run around the school yard shouting “I’M THE YELLOW RANGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

[programsbos]

Earth's life

Earth's life

the moon The moon is a large Earth-like satellite, with a quarter of the diameter of the planet. The moon is the largest satellite in the solar system, in relation to the size of its planet, and the orbits around other planets are called moons after the Earth's moon. The gravity between the planet and the moon results in a tidal phenomenon on Earth. This same effect on the moon led to a tidal block: the period of its rotation is the same as it takes to orbit the Earth. As a result, it always faces the planet with only one face. As the moon orbits the Earth, the sun illuminates different parts of its face, resulting in different lunar phases. The luminous part of the moon is separated from the dark part by the solar line between the illuminating part and the dark part. Due to the tidal interactions that occur on Earth's surface, the Moon is about 38 millimeters away from the Sun a year. Over millions of years, these simple changes - in addition to increasing the length of the day on the planet by 23 milliseconds a year - will bring about dramatic changes. For example, during the Devonian Period (about 410 million years ago) there were 400 days a year and each day lasted 21.8 hours. (32) The Moon significantly affects the evolution of life on Earth by helping to moderate the planet's climate. Both ancient biology studies and computer simulations show that the tilt of the Earth's axis and its stability in this situation is caused by tidal interactions with the moon. Some theorists believe that without this constancy in the Earth's axis versus the torque caused by the Sun and other planets on the eclipse at the equator, the axis's rotation may be randomly unstable - leading to massive changes of the planet over millions of years. Like Mars. If the Earth's axis of rotation comes close to the surface of the Sun's apparent circle of circles, it can lead to very harsh weather due to the very large seasonal variations that will occur. Scientists studying planets and celestial bodies who have studied the impact of this on the planet have predicted that this could lead to the death of all large-scale animals and the destruction of plant life. But this is still a subject of controversy, and it may be decided by future studies of Mars - a planet with a period of rotation and inclination of its axis like the planet, but not followed by a large moon, and its core is not liquid. Observing the moon from the planet, it is far enough to appear in the form of a disc with a clear shape like the sun. It is worth noting that the angular size (or stereoscopic angle) of these two objects is identical because, although the diameter of the sun about 400 times larger than the diameter of the moon, it is also about 400 times the distance from the Earth that the distance from the moon from the Earth. This allows a total eclipse and annular eclipse to occur on the Earth's surface. The theory of the impact of the impact of the giant body of the most accepted theories that explain the emergence of the moon. According to this theory, the moon was formed as a result of the collision of a primitive planet the size of Mars called the "Thea" planet Earth in its early stages. This (among other assumptions) explains the relative lack of iron and volatile elements on the moon, as well as the fact that the moon's composition is almost identical to that of the Earth's crust. Earth's life A planet that is fit for life is called habitable even if it does not. The Earth provides the basic conditions necessary for the presence of water and a suitable environment in which organic molecules can accumulate and the energy needed to support and promote food metabolism. Several factors contribute to the conditions necessary to establish life on the planet.These factors include the distance of the planet from the sun, its movement in its orbit, its instability, its rate of rotation, its deviation from it, its geological history, its permanent atmosphere and its protective magnetic field. biosphere Life forms on the planet are sometimes said to represent the biosphere. In general, it is believed that the biosphere began to develop about 3.5 billion years ago. The planet is the only place in the universe where life exists. Even more, some scientists believe that places suitable for life such as Earth are rare in the universe. The biosphere is divided into a number of biotic environments in which a large number of similar plants and animals live. Factors separating vital environments include the latitude circle and the height of land from sea level. Terrestrial biota in the Arctic, Antarctic or Highlands is free of any animal or plant life, while the largest variety of life forms at the equator. Exploitation of land and natural resources The Earth provides the resources necessary for man to use it to achieve useful goals. Some of these resources are non-renewable, such as mineral fuels, and are not recoverable in a short period of time. Large quantities of fossil fuel deposits were obtained from the Earth's crust consisting of coal, oil, natural gas and methane compounds. Humans used these deposits to produce energy as a raw material for chemical reactions. Mineral raw materials are also formed in the Earth's crust through the process of the formation of earth ore or minerals from the erosion of its layers and the movements of geotechnical plates. These materials are rich sources of many minerals and other useful elements. The Earth's biosphere provides many vital products for humans, including but not limited to: food, wood, drugs, medicines, oxygen, and the re-exploitation of many organic waste and residues. The land-based ecosystem depends on the presence of soil surface and clean water, while the ocean ecosystem relies on dissolved nutrients that have been swept away from land. Humans live on land through the use of raw building materials in the construction of housing shelters. In 1993  Human land use rates are as follows: Use drawdowns for percentage land Agricultural lands 13.13% Permanent crops 4.71% Permanent pastures 26% Forest 32% Urban areas 1.5% Other uses 30% In 1993, the area of ​​irrigated land was estimated at 2,481,250 km². Natural and environmental hazards Large areas of the Earth are exposed to extreme weather conditions such as cyclones, tropical storms and tropical cyclones. Many places are also affected by earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, troughs, snowstorms, floods, droughts and other natural disasters. In addition, many human-populated areas are exposed to many types of human-induced pollution such as air and water pollution, acid rain, toxic substances and the disappearance of plant life (due to many reasons, including overgrazing, deforestation, desertification), disappearance of wildlife and extinction. Some animal species, soil erosion, lack of some useful elements, depletion of soil and the emergence of alien organisms. Scientists agree that there is a close link between human activities and global warming due to increased carbon dioxide emissions from factories and from the increasing emissions of hydrocarbons. Earth's population of about 6 billion now has about 500 million cars and buses, all of which emit carbon dioxide and other harmful gases, all of which increase and accumulate these gases in the atmosphere. This is expected to lead to dramatic changes on Earth such as rising temperatures, melting glaciers and melting Antarctica, which will lead to an increase in water levels in the oceans and seas which means that countless islands and all lowlands such as the Netherlands will be doomed. Drowning. Severe temperature changes increase the intensity of hurricanes and hurricanes, and increase the amount of destruction they generate in return. Human Geography The study of cartography and geography is among the sciences that have been dedicated throughout history to describe the earth. Surveys (locating and spacing between them) and navigation (locating and orientating objects) appeared alongside these two flags - providing accurate information. The world population in November 2008 was about 6.740 billion people. Indicators show that the global population density will reach 7 billion in 2013, and in 2050 this number will rise to 9.2 billion. Most of this population growth is expected to be in developing countries. Population density varies from one place to another globally, but increases significantly in Asia. By 2020, it is expected that about 60% of the world's population will live in cities rather than in the countryside. Three-quarters of the Earth's surface is covered by the oceans. In addition, half of the land will be either a desert (14%), and the remainder will be heights and mountains (27%) or inappropriate terrain for humans to live on. The northernmost of the human colonies is the city of Alert on the island of Alzmir in Nunavat, Canada (at 82 ° and 28 minutes longitude), the southernmost of which is the Antarctic Amundsen Scott Station (90 ° S). Sovereign States occupy all land on the planet, except for some parts of Antarctica. In 2014, there were 206 independent sovereign States, including one hundred and ninety-three United Nations Member States, occupying land. Historically, the earth has not been ruled by a single government in control of the entire world, despite numerous conflicts between nations for world domination, but all these attempts have failed. The United Nations is a global organization working to resolve conflicts between states and thus avoid armed conflicts. However, it is not considered a global government. Although the United Nations offers a means of enforcing international law and although there is sometimes unanimous approval by its members for military intervention, it is essentially a forum for international diplomacy. The first man to orbit the Earth was Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961. In 2004, 400 people toured outer space and returned to the Earth's orbit, 12 of them on the moon. Persons who live in space for a long time are employees of the International Space Station, and the crew of the space station, which consists of three people, is replaced every six months. The longest man's journey to outer space was in 1970 when the crew of the Apollo 13, a three-person crew, traveled 400,171 kilometers away from Earth's surface. In human culture The English name "Earth" is derived from the word "erda" which is of Anglo-Saxon origin, which means the soil or surface on which we walk. The word was then distorted to "eorthe" in ancient English, until it reached "erthe" in medieval English. The planet's astronomical symbol is two intersecting lines around it. The Arabic word currently used to describe the planet Earth is used in the Arabic language since at least the fourth century AD, and is mentioned in the Koran about 444 times. The land was often elevated to worship or sanctification and made gods. In many cultures, mother gods, also called Mother Earth, were portrayed as the goddess of fertility. Creation myths in many religions recall the story of the creation of the earth by a group of supernatural gods. Many religious groups emphasize, in Christian doctrine or Islam, The various interpretations of how the earth is created in the Scriptures are a reality and should be considered in line with the discoveries of modern science or replaced by traditional scientific interpretations of the earth's origin, origin and evolution. Scientific and other religious communities oppose such interpretations. One of the most prominent examples of this controversy over the genesis of creation. The earth was once thought to be flat, But this belief was altered and replaced by the belief in the spherical Earth because of observations of scientists and orbiting the Earth. Man's perception of the Earth has changed considerably after he invaded outer space and made many trips around it. This is reflected in the increasing environmental movement on the extent of human influence on the planet. In this context, the establishment of a World Earth Day aimed at raising awareness and concern for the environment of the planet.

General from Blogger https://ift.tt/2NY0XcW via IFTTT

[gedankenkollekte]

All said with that. (+ text in the next blog entry).

Translation of a text I found back some weeks ago, originally in German:

The Clichéd Lying Stories on (Stepping out of] Wrong Legal Sex Assignment [as also the stereotypical genitalistic violence justifying lie of a “wrong body that has to be changed”]

(Demanded by German courts, the media, the authorities, physicians, universities and employers, promoted and all other prohibited and unrecognized) Because it is not necessary to admit that it is e.g. Girls, and women who are being done bad  and cruel injustice from birth on, by trying to force them into a wrong sex ("you have a ..., so you are a boy who only feels like a girl") - The myth of "transition". What has caused this myth? - Adult people, the vast majority of them, actually believe that one is something different, changes internally and sexually when one's own body changes! - One blocks the possibilities to these fetishized (in the marxian sense) physical changes also and provides the possibility to claim under extremely harsh conditions, at the same time creates a social climate, in which a tolerable life than what one is before claiming this physical Changes in the normal case can not lead, unless one is extremely durable, characteristically or unpretentious. - How to create this social climate of hostility, rejection and condemnation? - By invoking the majority of the time and again by means of articles of time, texts, and supposedly "scientific-objective" articles and writings, a man with a penis would always be a man and a body with such a genital automatically a "(biological) male body". If you repeat it all the time, you all believe it, and you will go against all “men who say that they are women”, even though their bodies are deviating from these artificially violated norms with raw violence, prejudices and many sanctions. Even people who are able to see through this system or through affection or the understanding of democratic values ​​understand that there are women who are born with ... and yet are always women who are born as women and whose bodies are naturally also feminine, Will not have enough influence and courage to defend the women and men, who are thus socially heavily stressed, by openly accepting and defending their dignity and equality, since they are not themselves concerned and they are not able to feel close to these people. Even the most enlightened people feel the wrongly attributed people far away because of their special social position, and can not explain their situation and the reactions and frustrations, which in themselves are very easy to explain through the exclusion comprehend. This also results in an additional mystification of misassigned people and their handmade oppression. - The belief in the correctness of the genitalistic image of the world (penis = man / vagina = woman) is also increased by the fact that most wrongly assigned people have no other choice but to adapt to the physical stereotypes of their own sex Tolerable life in the normal case otherwise, as a result of the above-mentioned general conditions is not possible at all!

same mechanism, same people, same mentalities

And instead of recognizing that the need to adapt to physical stereotypes does not prove the correctness of genitalistic sex images, but only the increase of social coercion and discrimination by stoking prejudices and stereotypes, the logic that is usually the most conflicting behavior of wrongly attributed people and their tendency to surrender to the pressure of stereotypical adaptive constraints is misinterpreted as an even clearer demonstration of the correctness of the genitalist world picture and the “transition” myth. A vicious circle. Other effects: - Unification and radicalization of the possibilities and "ways" of wrong assigned people: Sugar and Whip - Either one is given to the growing pressure to adapt to society (always sexy, always emphasizing that one is a woman, nevertheless can be called TS or earlier / partial male, beeing polite even towards harassing and/or sexually offending behavior because other behavior  is branded as a "man of the behavior"  and will be taken as a justification for even more discrimination, so one sits always between a rock and a hard place one way or the other, not only there, ...) Or you partly / completely cease to meet these requirements, but risks thereby an exclusion, also because one must then listen that other incorrectly assigned themselves "much better adjust" and thus much more believable appear * gewg * - more competition, less cohesion (one would like to adjust as best as it can, for which one dissociates oneself from the others, presents this as worse, "unfrettable", etc., in order to be able to describe itself closer to the "normal feminine" In former times it was less important to do so).

- More pressure and control / normalization by other misassigned and additional hierarchies within the misassigned (Appearance, legal status, social standing / career, etc.) (...) Why can people who always knew what they are and often fought as a child against all oppositions, and even asserted that they had been something else, and that they had a gender image bound to them by physical stereotypes forced body modification process suddenly changed their gender as if by an invisible hand ?

Why do not they simply say as before that they are what they always were? Why do they give the pressure and the "confession", the transition myth, the self-denial with irreparable consequences for their credibility, what they are, after ??? Does a child really believe that one can not be that with such a body? Why are many people who later persuade themselves and say that at most they felt "as a woman," but not that they had always been a woman?

Regulatory constraints, media usage, and legal handling and regulation have a strong influence on the vast majority of people, so that a gendered self-knowledge, determination, and social and public acceptance is not conceivable. Therefore, it is necessary to counter the bourgeois and nation-wide aggression, harassment, and destruction of the possibility of self-determined sexual development beyond genital rasters, an independent, anti-militant and militant counterculture that can show how destructive, fascist, and mendacious the genitalistic praxis of (wrong) sex assignment at birth is. Just a few thoughts.

For me there was only a bit of artificial shit, "sign this, please sign up here, get examined naked by a sexual offender working as a “psychologist for transsexual cases” (why else should one do this job by the way? To help????), get naked even if I am not even a doctor and tell me about your childhood, sex life, experiences,sexual wishes and do not say that this procedure and the sterilization constraint are unfair, otherwise I have to write you a negative expertise ", which dragged me down, afterwards many people were nicer to me because of  physical changes, but I am just the same woman as before, only more suspicious and more vicious because I had to experience so many human abysses before, especially through the authorities and bureaus and all this legal humiliation and torture (including the legal force of sterilisation!!!) experienced there.

There was no fucking “transition” - there was just a forced process of legal name (and sex-entry-) change and this was the worst traumatising nightmare ever experienced.

And that annoys me, this assertion that I "became a woman" and that differently and at other times than other women, is the total bullshit, which people believe, because they are told these stereotypical fairy tales everywhere and as a generalising rule that is a lie to cover brutal institutionalised repression coming up with originally Third Reich-body mutiliation and humiliating observation praxis demanded by law, which other women do not have to go through to be accepted as a woman.

This social obsessive imagination of a "transition from male to female", a myth created by the media, the law and lobbyistic institution involved in the forced legal process to correct the name and sex entry is the biggest crap, it is not true among many and prevents people from ever imagining how terrible the childhood and youth was really, that one could force to something, a behavior Etc. was forced. Which one hated and had nothing to do with one itself and the other humans so not correctly seen and perceived, nor itself. 

All this is made invisible by the lie of an alleged "transition", which is even worse than the torture before!

It is done and claimed that you were once male and could have identified with it and then somehow "decided to become a woman", the whole terror and the human contempt, which have really run before will be mocked and instead The whole as a free democratic "decision-making process," which would have been possible at any time. 

You were punished at school, people were fired against you, your family has scolded you, beaten and / or offended, and even worse, and that was the case and your life was suddenly 300% shameful, some even want that you vanish forever, no matter how.

The behavior, for which you are doubly scolded, laughed out and pushed out of society, if you have survived until the end of your "treatment", the so - called "male behavior" was overwhelmed by violence Day, of all, what should a child, a teenager do if she is constantly condemned, punished, beaten, isolated, if she behaves as it is her essence and she can best do it ??? This is pure cruelty and destruction of the whole life from birth. I can not imagine anything more inhumane and disgusting. I would rather have tortured myself to death with so much pain than to have to endure such a treatment and a lasting psychological rape by society.

[pressography-blog1]

Sports Making a bet Is Starting to Appearance a lot More Like Wall Road

New Post has been published on https://pressography.org/sports-making-a-bet-is-starting-to-appearance-a-lot-more-like-wall-road/

Sports Making a bet Is Starting to Appearance a lot More Like Wall Road

Your March Insanity workplace pool is just like the Charles Schwab of Sports activities Making a bet. Beyond the ones hastily chosen brackets, there’s an entire cottage industry of Sports activities Making a bet that’s increasingly such as Wall Avenue.

In 2016, overall Sports activities wagers in Nevada had been $four.five billion, consistent with the Nevada Gaming Manage Board. With that a whole lot at stake, gamblers are turning to More state-of-the-art equipment that involves complex information analysis to attain higher odds, real-time wagering in the course of video games, fund managers who pool bets and danger management practices. The end result is something corresponding to day trading. Here’s how:

1. Robotic oracle

Gamblers can find a plethora of assets online guiding them to the first-rate Sports alternatives. IntelligentBettingTips.Com is one service that gives suggestions based totally on a prediction version similar to “collective intelligence” used by the huge banks. Collective intelligence targets to acquire reviews from a collection of human beings, hoping it’ll lead to a consensus that’s higher than a single individual’s guess.

IBT gives predictions, alternatives, and hints for the university, expert and worldwide leagues via combining input from enterprise experts for each game blended with sentiment facts extracted from social media. “We then take those records sources and use our personal algorithms to run diverse eventualities to discover profitable tendencies and styles,” stated Kael Mansfield, leader executive officer at IBT. Currently, the website online has Greater than 11,000 paying contributors, Mansfield stated.

2. High-frequency Having a bet

Whilst you think of Sports activities Betting, you probably envision humans making calls earlier than the begin of a particular game or match. However bets made in the course of live video games are on the upward thrust: In 2016, 20 percentage of all bets at William Hill %’s Nevada places have been made “in-play,” marking a 33 percent growth from the preceding year, consistent with Michael Grodsky, the agency’s vice president of advertising.

That’s in flip using the demand for real-time records. The facts can be disseminated faster than a television broadcast, which comes in with a multi-2nd transmission postpone. “Extremely rapid and correct statistics provide sophisticated gamblers with a cloth advantage over someone working on a 5 to 10-second put off through a tv feed,” said Ryan Rodenberg, an accomplice professor of forensic Sports law analytics at Florida State University. “The brink is most first-rate in the stay, in-recreation wagering wherein odds and prices can differ wildly upon the incidence of an specially important event like an overdue-recreation 3 pointer in basketball or key third-down conversion in American football.”

The practice is referred to as “courtsiding,” and the benefit actual time data give to bettors may be as compared with a trader acting on information of an acquisition seconds earlier than his or her competition. Courtsiding can give a gambler a face on even the bookmaker.

three. A laugh(d) managers

Some professional bettors have begun to take on the role of fund supervisor, pooling together cash from backers seeking out higher returns. Legalized in 2015, entity Betting lets in someone or organization of humans to installation a fund in Nevada supplying Sports Betting as an investment possibility.

Contrarian Investments LLC is one example. Proprietor Chris Connelly said he has each home and foreign investors. just like the not unusual Wall Street approach of searching out arbitrage in overrated or undervalued stocks, Connelly said he uses a laptop model to look for overrated playing spreads and bets against them. “In preference to making an investment within the stock marketplace and taking a certain inventory, I’m investing on Sports activities spreads of athletic groups,” Connelly stated. “So I awareness on football and basketball, university and seasoned.”

Contrarian Investments LLC fund is under $500,000, However Connelly stated he anticipates breaking the $1 million mark through subsequent football season. He’ll have lots of opposition because the exercise becomes More famous.

4. Watchdogs

A developing and increasingly complex marketplace can foster cheating. Many bookies are counting on era and consultants to try to ensure a truthful marketplace.

Whilst not quite the Securities and Change Commission, there are corporations that screen for fraud in gambling. Genius Sports organization Ltd. Works with Sports leagues and gambling operators around the world, monitoring suspicious hobby in the worldwide Having a bet markets. Genius Sports looks at reams of records for deviations from everyday industry moves by using tracking masses of sportsbooks and monitoring social media, said Christopher Dougan, a business enterprise spokesman.

“We provide the identical machine as a High-tech algorithm and reporting structures for Sports around the arena, including English Most excellent League, to track any uncommon pastime inside the worldwide Betting markets that might imply something unusual going on,” he said.

The way to Get started With Sports activities Making a bet Sports activities Betting is really setting a bet on a carrying event. You are Making a bet that your team, horse, canine, or driving force will win. In the event that they do win, so do you! If they lose, you lose your guess quantity. Sports Having a bet takes location all over the international, although within the USA this sort of Having a bet isn’t as exceptionally accepted as it is in Europe.

online Sports activities Betting might be the great alternative for folks that are exciting in trying it for the primary time. When you have by no means tried online Sports Making a bet, You are lacking so much A laugh and excitement, and it is able to all show up within the relaxed surroundings of your property! The artwork of Sports Having a bet can seem perplexing at the beginning, However once you are acquainted with some of the jargon this is used to give an explanation for the standards and common sense at the back of every form of guess, it is all much simpler to understand.

One of the pleasant ways that allows you to experience this engaging way to wager on your favourite racing and sporting events is to get acquainted with on-line Sports activities Having a bet. But, so one can excellent take benefit of all that Sports Betting has to provide, you need to realize a little Greater about it.

Sports activities Having a bet – The percentages

How does online Sports activities Making a bet paintings? You need to begin with the aid of studying The percentages for the sporting occasion You’re most interested in setting a guess upon. While the use of on-line Sports Having a bet, you could discover those odds inside the diverse online Sports books utilized by Internet game enthusiasts everywhere. You should open an account with an online Sportsbook before you could area your wager, However this is straightforward to do.

Once you have selected in which you will do your Sports Having a bet, you need to decide how you will place your wager. There are many different approaches that allows you to bet your selected amount of cash, But first, permit’s speak approximately the spread and the way it may have an effect on the amount you wager.

Sports Having a bet – The unfold

The unfold is a point gain in Sports Having a bet, that is typically given to the crew that is usually anticipated to lose a selected carrying event. If you decide that you’ll bet on the team that is predicted to win, they may should win via More than the spread quantity and cowl the unfold before You’re taken into consideration to have selected correctly. In case you choose the crew that is predicted to lose, that crew will need to lose by much less than the spread number so as in your select to be considered correct. If by way of threat the team wins through the number of factors that were chosen as the unfold, the game is known as a push.

No person who engages in Sports activities Making a bet wins a component if a sport is called as a push, However you do get the quantity of your original bet back. The factor spread is executed so that it will make the all of the bits pop out even for the Sports activities ebook, and is typically done for Sports such as basketball or soccer.

Sports Betting – The bet

If you had been to guess towards the spread, maximum probably you’ll region a form of bet known as an 11-10, or spread bet. via Having a bet $eleven, you win $10 in case your team’s score covers the unfold. That is any other way that the online Sports ebook makes its cash.

An over-below bet is likewise an eleven-10 wager. With this type of bet, the whole rating of the 2 groups that performed can be either over or beneath the full score that became indexed earlier than the sport changed into performed. Making a bet at the rating being over is referred to as ‘Betting on the ball’. Having a bet on the rating being below is known as ‘Having a bet on the clock’.

[viarota]

The Spiritual Significance of Relationship

This lecture deals with relationships and their tremendous significance from the spiritual point of view--that of individual growth and unification. First, I would like to point out that on the human level of manifestation individual units of consciousness do exist, which sometimes harmonize, but very often conflict with one another, creating friction and crisis. Yet behind this level of manifestation there are no fragmented units of consciousness. There is only one consciousness, of which every single created entity is but a different expression. When one comes into one’s own, one experiences this truth, without, however, losing a sense of individuality. This can be felt very distinctly when you deal with your own inner disharmonies, my friends. For there, too exactly the same principle applies.

Unequal Development of Parts of Consciousness

In your present state, a part of your innermost being is developed and governs your thinking, feeling, willing and acting. There are other parts, still in a lower state of development, which also govern and influence your thinking, feeling, willing and acting. Thus you find yourself divided, and this always creates tension, pain, anxiety, as well as inner and outer difficulties. Some aspects of your personality are in truth, others, in error and distortion. The resulting confusion causes grave disturbances. What you usually do is push one side out of the way and identify with the other. Yet the denial of a part of you cannot bring unification. On the contrary it widens the split. What must be done is to bring out the deviating, conflicting side and face it--face the entire ambivalence. Only then do you find the ultimate reality of your unified self. As you know, unification and peace emerge to the degree you recognize, accept and understand the nature of the inner conflict.

Exactly the same law applies to the unity or dissension between outwardly separate and different entities. They, too, are one, beyond the level of appearance. The dissension is caused not by actual differences among units of consciousness, but, just as in the individual, by differences in the development of the manifesting universal consciousness.

Even though the principle of unification is exactly the same within and among individuals, it cannot be applied to another human being unless it has been applied to one’s inner self. If the divergent parts of your self are not approached according to this truth, and your ambivalence is not faced, accepted and understood, the process of unification cannot be put into practice with another person. This is a very important face, which explains the great emphasis on first approaching the self. Only then can relationship be cultivated in a meaningful and effective way.

Elements of Dissention and Unification

Relationship represents the greatest challenge for the individual, for it is only in relationship to others that unresolved problems still existing within the individual psyche are affected and activated. Many individuals withdraw from interaction with others, so they can maintain the illusion that the problems arise from the other person because one feels disturbance only in his or her presence, and not when by oneself.

However, the less contact is cultivated, the more acute the longing for contact becomes. This, then, is a different kind of pain--the pain of loneliness and frustration. But contact makes it difficult to maintain the illusion for any length of time that the inner self is faultless and harmonious. It requires mental aberration to claim for too long that one’s problems in relationship are caused only by others and not by oneself. This is why relationships are simultaneously a fulfillment, a challenge, and a gauge to one’s inner state. The friction that arisis out of relating with others can be a sharp instrument of purification and self-recognition if one is inclined to see it.

By withdrawing from this challenge and sacrificing the fulfillment of intimate contact, many inner problems are never called into play. The illusion of inner peace and unity that comes from avoidance of relating has even led to concepts that spiritual growth is furthered by isolation. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This statement must not be confused with the notion that intervals of seclusion are necessary for inner concentration and self-confrontation. But these periods should always alternate with contact--and the more intimate such contact is, the more expresses spiritual maturity.

Contact and lack of contact with others can be observed in various stages. There are many degrees of contact between the crass extremes of total outer and inner isolation, at one end, and the deepest, most intimate relatedness at the other. There are those who have obtained a certain superficial ability to relate but who still withdraw from a more meaningful, open, unmasked mutual revealing. I might say that the average present-day human being fluctuates somewhere between the two extremes.

Fulfillment as Yardstick for Personal Development

It is also possible to measure one’s personal sense of fulfillment by the depth of relatedness and intimate contact, by the strength of feelings one permits oneself to experience, and by the willingness to give and receive. Frustration indicates an absence of contact, which in turn, is a precise indicator that the self withdraws from the challenge of relationship, thereby sacrificing personal fulfillment, pleasure, love and joy. When you want to share only on the basis of receiving according to your own terms, and you are secretly unwilling to share, your longings must remain unfulfilled. People would be well advised to consider their unfulfilled longings from this point of view, rather than indulging in the usual assumption that one is unlucky and unfairly put upon by life.

One’s contentment and fulfillment in relationship is a much neglected yardstick for one’s own development. Relationship with others is a mirror of one’s own state and thus a direct help to one’s purification. Conversely, only by thorough self-honesty and self-facing can relationships by sustained, can feelings expand and contact blossom in long-relationships. So you can see, my friends, that relationship represent a tremendously important aspect of human growth.

The power and significance of relationship often pose severe problems for those who are still in the throes of their own inner conflicts.The unfulfilled longing becomes unbearably painful when isolation is chosen due to the difficulty of contact. This can be resolved only when you seriously settle down to seek the cause for this conflict within the self, without using the defense of annihilating guilt and self-blame, which of course eliminates any possibility of really getting at the core of the conflict. This search, together with the inner willingness to change, must be cultivated in order to escape the painful dilemma in which both available alternatives--isolation and contact--are unbearable.

It is important to remember that withdrawal can be very subtle and maybe outwardly unnoticable, manifesting only in a certain guardedness and distorted self-protection. Outer good fellowship does not necessarily imply a capacity and willingness for inner closeness. For many, closeness is too taxing. On the surface, this seems related to how difficult others are, but actually the difficulty lies in the self, regardless of how imperfect others may also be. 

Who is Responsible for the Relationship?

When people whose spiritual development is on different levels are involved with one another, it is always the more highly developed person who is responsible for the relationship. Specifically, that person is responsible for searching the depths of the interaction which creates any friction and disharmony between the parties.

The less developed person is not as capable of such a search, being still in a state of blaming the other and depending on the other’s doing “right” in order to avoid unpleasantness or frustration. Also, the less developed person is always caught up in the fundamental error of duality. From his or her perspective any friction is seen in terms of “only one of us is right. A zero-sum game. A problem in the other automatically seems to whitewash this person, although in reality his or her own negative involvement may be infinitely more weighty than the other person’s.

The spiritually more developed person is capable of realistic, non-dualistic perception. That the complexity of every instant of life is not a zero-sum situation. That person may see that either one of you may have a deep problem, but that does not eliminate the importance of the possibly much lesser problem of the other one. The more developed one will always be willing and able to search for his or her own involvement whenever he or she is negatively affected, no matter how blatantly at fault the other person may be. A person of spiritual and emotional immaturity and crudeness will always put the bulk of the blame on the other. All this applies to any kind of relationship: mates, parents and children, friendships, or business contacts.

The tendency to make yourself emotionally dependent on others--the overcoming of which is such an important aspect of the growth process--largely comes from wanting to absolve yourself from blame or extract yourself from difficulty when establishing and maintaining a relationship. It seems so much easier to shift most of the burden onto others. But what a price to pay! Doing this renders you helpless indeed and brings about isolation, or unending pain and friction with others. It is only when you truly begin to assume self-responsibility by looking at your own problem in the relationship and show a willingness to change that freedom is established and relationships become fruitful and joyous.

If the more highly developed person refuses to undertake the appropriate spiritual duty to assume responsibility for the relationship and look for the core of the dissension within, he or she will never really understand the mutual interaction, how one problem affects the other. The relationship must then deteriorate, leaving both parties confused and less able to cope with the self and others. On the other hand, if the spiritually developed person accepts this responsibility, he or she will also help the other in a subtle way. If he or she can desist from the temptation to constantly belabor the obvious sour points of the other and look within, he or she will raise his or her own development considerably and spread peace and joy. The poison of friction will soon be eliminated.It will also become possible to find other partners for a truly mutual growth process.

When two equals relate, both carry the full responsibility for the relationship. This is indeed a beautiful venture, a deeply satisfying state of mutuality. The slightest flaw in a mood will be recognized for its inner meaning and thus the growth of process is kept up. Both will recognize their co-creation of this momentary flaw--be it an actual friction or a momentary deadness of feeling. The inner reality of the interaction will become increasingly more significant. This will largely prevent injury to the relationship.

Let me emphasize here that when I speak of being responsible for the less developed person, I do not mean that another human being can ever carry the burden for the actual difficulties of others. This can never be. What I mean is that difficulties of interaction in a relationship are usually not explored in depth by the individual whose spiritual development is more primitive. He or she will render others responsible for his or her unhappiness and disharmony in a given interaction and is not able, or willing, to see the whole issue. Thus that person is not in a position to eliminate the disharmony. Only those who assume responsibility for finding the inner disturbance and mutual effect can do so. Hence the spiritually more primitive personal always depends on the spiritually more evolved one.

A relationship between individuals in which the destructiveness of the less developed one makes growth, harmony, and good feelings impossible, or in which the contact is overwhelmingly negative, should be severed. As a rule, the more highly developed person should assume the initiative. If he or she does not, this indicates some unrecognized weakness and fear that needs to be faced. If a relationship is dissolved on this ground, namely, that it is more destructive and pain-producing than constructive and harmonious, it should be done when the inner problems and mutual interactions are fully recognized by the one who takes the initiative to dissolve an old tie. This will prevent him or her from forming a new relationship with similar underlying currents and interactions. It also means that the decision to sever the connection has been made because of growth, rather than as a result of spite, fear or escape.

Destructive Interactions

To explore the underlying interaction and the various effects of a relationship where both people’s difficulties are laid bare and accepted is by no means easy. But nothing can be more beautiful and rewarding. Anyone who comes into the state of enlightenment where this is possible will no longer fear any kind of interaction. Difficulties and fears arise to the exact degree that you still project on others your own problems in relating and still render others responsible for anything that goes against your liking. This can take many subtle forms. You may constantly concentrate on the fault of others, because at first glance such concentration appears justified to you. You may subtly overemphasize one side of an interaction, or exclude another. Such distortions indicate projection and denial of self-responsibility for the difficulties in relating. This denial fosters dependency on the perfection of the other party, which in turn creates fear and hostility for feeling let down when the other person does not measure up to the perfect standard.

My dear friends, no matter what wrong the other person does, if you are disturbed, there must be something in you that you overlook. When I say disturbed, I mean this in a particular sense. I do not speak of clear-cut anger that expresses itself guiltlessly and does not leave a trace of inner confusion and pain. I mean the kind of disturbance that comes out of conflict and breeds further conflict. A favorite tendency among people is to say, “You are doing it to me.” The game of making others guilty is so pervasive that you hardly even notice it. One human being blames the other, one country blames the other, one group blames the other. This is a constant process at humanity’s present level of development. It is indeed one of the most harmful and illusory processes imaginable.

People derive pleasure from doing this, although the pain that ensues and the insoluble conflicts that follow are infinitely disproportionate to the puny, momentary pleasure. Those who play this game truly harm themselves and others, and I strongly recommend that you begin to be aware of your blind involvement in this guilt-shifting game.

But how about the “victim”? How is that person to cope? As a victim, your first problem is that you are not even aware of what is happening. Most of the time, the victimization happens in a subtle, emotional and unarticulated fashion. The silent, covert blame is being launched without a spoken word. It is expressed indirectly in many ways. Now, obviously, the first necessity is concise, articulate awareness, for otherwise you will unconsciously respond in equally destructive falsely self-defensive ways. Then neither person really knows the intricate levels of action, reaction, and interaction until the threads become so enmeshed that it seems impossible to disentangle them. Many a relationship has faltered due to such unconscious interaction.

The launching of blame spreads poison, fear and at least as much guilt as one tries to project. The recipients of this blame and guilt may react in many different ways, according to their own problems and unresolved conflicts. As long as the reaction is blind and the projection of guilt unconscious, the counterreaction must also be neurotic and destructive. Only conscious perception can prohibit this. Only then will you be able to refuse a burden that is being placed on you. Only then can you articulate and pinpoint it.

How to Reach for Fulfillment and Pleasure

...