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rgbyshipper101 · 4 years

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Animaniacs Reboot Review Summary

I can’t really speak for Pinky and The Brain since I never watched them, but I’ll still give my take.

Also, it was stated that season 1 had “ups and downs” while season 2 was...perfect? Not sure if perfect was the right word but is exceedingly better. And PaTB shorts were good while not all Warner shorts were.

(I will say that I liked every odd number episode but every even number either had one good segment or none. So I guess that’s my take on the “ups and downs.”)

I would like to say that when you watch something, you gotta have neutral expectations. If you’re positive, you’ll see positives and if you’re negative you’ll see negatives. Rarely does it change. It’s not fair to judge something based on an improper mood.

I guess I have the advantage of not growing up with it. So no nostalgia for me.

Aesthetic

Visually speaking, it was really well done! Cell animation lasted until 2000 so they had to animate it digitally. But the Warners look fantastic! The yellow tint in their faces could be from their prototypes. Nice callback. Pinky and The Brain look the same. The humans though...off. But the animation was fluid and nice. It’a a little slower than the OG and stiff in some places but overall great. All the studios made them all consistent which is a plus from the original (Starbox and Cindy excluded).

Music

They did have a full orchestra. I don’t know if covid hindered its use or not. But it was still enjoyable. I think there were stock sound effects instead of musical ones. Nothing wrong with them but the musical sfx were unique.

Songs

I like “Catch Up,” “Reboot It,” and “To Be Like Us.” (Not sure the correct name.) But most of the others didn’t need to be there. Like the montage moments.

Humor

I did laugh. I was caught off guard a few times. They did add adult jokes in there. When it works, it works. But not completely.

Story

The themes chosen for the skits were fine. The execution for some were...to be desired. Especially the PaTB ones. When they ended, sometimes it didn’t feel like it did; it felt like the sequence stopped and Brain decided to leave.

Also it was more gross. They didn’t have to have so many butts especially on Pinky and Scratchy. Like what? And Wakko’s tail!!!

Characters

I don’t think I’ve seen Yakko be himself - gabby and annoyingly slick. He was like a third wheel at times. He actually took Wakko’s role a bit like eating stuff and being funny visually. He’s also bad at math and can’t swim apparently - something the OG showcased differently. I did like how they gave him a weakness - needs to talk and not be alone. It’s nice to see a different side to him. I do kind of like them showing him more as a parental figure. Key word figure. Maybe some more?

Wakko’s has Dot’s role - the cute one. Literally I’ve got screenshots of them being adorable and he’s the cutest. But overall, I guess between the three of them, he was the most in-character. He’s still an eating machine, although he doesn’t eat everything in sight while he’s not the focus.

Dot is center stage. She has Yakko’s role. And Yakko & Wakko are like her Wakko & Dot. She has wit and not cuteness. To be fair, I wanted her to be bumped up a notch or two. But not 11. And I never liked the “cute” factor because it made her kind of one-dimensional since that was all she talked about. But I’m trying to remember her having “wit” in the show. She was more of a spokesperson. She’s borderline bad side of feminism though. It has to be toned down more. Still there but subtle. What they can do is show men and women doing things equally so that she doesn’t have to mention it. Or just have had her mention it once and not all the time. I love her speaking out more than just staying in the background like she did in OG but she needs to be on the same wavelength as her brothers.

They can switch roles. Like they had Dot be the doctor and Yakko and Wakko as nurses. Show don’t tell. It needs to be progressive but not in your face.

It would’ve been best if all three had the same amount of screen time.

All three act like siblings but a little different. They attack each other more - not malicious. In OG, they just yelled at each other. In this one, they have been more physical. That would be fine but that’s not how they are. They show affection in a subtle fashion - which the reboot did. But never physical violence with each other.

From what I’ve seen, Pinky is generally the same. Good. Brain though...got angrier. He’s more harsh and a little evil. That FLOTUS episode didn’t put him in a good light. They are more...close from what I’ve heard. I think it’s sweet that Brain cares for Pinky (Future Brain) than that of him detesting him for ruining plans.

The voice talent was phenomenal. Regardless if they sound the same after 25 years, everybody still gave a fantastic delivery. Kinda wished they pitched Yakko, Wakko, and Dot’s voices like they did in OG, though. That was done to make them more zany.

I might review individual episodes.

I would give it 7/10

They have the spirit but not the magic that it originally had. The Warners aren’t really zany. They’re toned down. They need to focus more on their personalities and not living in the culture of 2020.

#animaniacs #animaniacs reboot #personal opinion #analysis #review #a!spoilers #season 1

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itscoolanimelove-blog · 4 years

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The Best Anime of 2020 (So Far)

It's a huge year for anime titles. 'Keep Your Hands off Eizouken!' were proper to long-time anime lovers and freshmen alike. Over the path of the past decade, simulcasting and online streaming offerings which include Netflix, Crunchyroll, Amazon Prime, and Hulu reshaped the character of the medium in each diffused and top notch approaches, transforming how anime lovers observed, shared, and celebrated the shows and films they loved. Japanese animation is a stronger medium now than at any other time in its life, and from the appears of what 2020 has to provide, matters are only going to get higher. Do see: Watch anime online free

Otaku and anime freshmen have lots to look ahead to this 12 months, with not most effective one but two new suggests from Masaaki Yuasa, the long-awaited release of studio Orange's Beastars inside the West, the exceedingly-anticipated most effective of Toonami's adaptation of Junji Ito's nightmarish Uzumaki, and a new CG installment inside the Ghost inside the Shell: Stand Alone Complex collection from Netflix. Not to say an entire host of returning fan-favorites with new seasons of Fire Force, Fruits Basket, The Promised Neverland, and the very last season Attack on Titan at the horizon. But till then, here are our favorites of the 12 months to date.

Want even MORE anime? Don't sleep on our favorites from last yr, and our favorites from the entire decade.

Darwin's sport NEXUS nine. Darwin's Game Release date: January three Director: Yoshinobu Tokumoto Animation manufacturing: Nexus If you have been to pass Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman's adrenaline-charged social thriller Nerve with the mystery-driven extremely-violence of Hiroya Oku's Gantz, it would in all likelihood look something like Darwin's Game. Based on artist "Ginko" and author Yuki Takahata's manga of the identical call, the anime centers on 17-12 months-old Kaname Sudo, who, after accepting an mysterious invite from a currently deceased friend, is thrust right into a lethal supernatural bloodsport regarded only as Darwin's Game. Pitted against a cadre of sociopaths and without a way to are trying to find assist from the out of doors global, Kaname have to depend upon his wits and could to continue to exist at the same time as trying to find a means to escape this dwelling nightmare. Produced by studio Nexus, the eleven-episode collection is penned entirely by way of series author Yuki Takahata, ensuing in an version that is a close to one-to-one suit with the source fabric. If you're seeking out a taut movement collection with critical mystery drama, Darwin's Game is a strong choice. Available on:Crunchyroll, Funimation

puppy anime GENO STUDIO 8. Pet Release date: January 6 Director: Takahiro Omori Animation production: Geno Studio Pet is a real mindscrew, in extra ways than one. Based on Ranjo Miyake's manga of the equal call, the series follows Tsukasa and Hitomi, empaths with the capacity to delve in the minds of others and manipulate their recollections and perceptions. Employed by way of a shadowy company acknowledged actually as "The Company," the pair are tasked with the usage of their capabilities to cover up crimes, assassinations, and dedicate all kinds of unsavory acts, more often than no longer at the expense of harmless lives and their own fractured psyches. The speak may be frustratingly obtuse at instances, with crucial terms like "peaks" and "valleys" thrown out of left area with little if any formal clarification, and the initial episodes can be a piece tough to follow with regard to what is being visible or perceived with the aid of whom at any given moment. Hang in there, though -- it's a story that progressively makes greater sense the longer it is going on and rewards the nearer you pay attention. And barring even that, it's nevertheless really worth a look ahead to the psychedelic visuals on my own. Think of it as a greater freakish take on Christopher Nolan's Inception by way of way of Philip K. Dick's Ubik. Available on:Amazon Prime

somali and the forest spirit SATELIGHT 7. Somali and the Forest Spirit Release date: January nine Director: Kenji Yasuda Animation manufacturing: Satelight If your tastes veer greater towards the whimsical fare of Studio Ghibli than explicitly movement-oriented titles, Somali and the Forest Spirit is a great choice. Set in a global of magic and sorcery populated by using spirits, goblins, and all styles of creatures, the collection follows the adventure of a wooded area-shielding golem and their companion, a precocious baby named Somali. Together, the two embark on a look for a domestic for Somali most of the last of the humans, a race of beings formerly thought to were persecuted and hunted to the edge of extinction ages ago. Think Alphonse and Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist, however as opposed to two brothers searching for the truth seeker's stone to repair their bodies, it is a father determine and their adoptive ward searching for safety and safety in a global of dangers at every flip. With great backgrounds, disarming humor, and a story with proper emotional pull, Somali and the Forest Spirit is a spirited myth of parenthood and love located inside the maximum unlikely of circumstances. Available on:Crunchyroll

in/spectre BRAIN'S BASE 6. In/Spectre Release date: January 11 Director: Keiji Gotoh Animation production: Brain’s Base Supernatural thriller collection are a dime a dozen in terms of anime, so it’s refreshing when one comes along that has as exciting a premise and character as In/Spectre. Based on Kyo Shirodaira’s novel collection, In/Spectre follows 15-12 months-antique Iwanaga Kotoko, a university pupil who four years prior to the collection’s start become anointed because the "Goddess of Wisdom" of the spirit global at the fee of her left leg and proper eye. Acting as an intermediary between the human and spirit world, Kotoko is tasked with fixing disputes and discrepancies among the 2. There’s just one problem: Kuro Sakuragawa, Kotoko’s speedy-made partner and boyfriend, is a noticeably fearsome entity with mysterious powers that strike worry within the spirits who Kotoko is charged with protecting. A serial mystery crossed with an abnormal-couple rom-com that sometimes pokes at the fourth wall, In/Spectre is a gorgeously animated series with a laugh twists, delightful characters, and engrossing cases that'll hold you hooked to the stop. Available on: Crunchyroll, HBO Max

tower of god CRUNCHYROLL five. Tower of God Release date: April 1 Director: Takashi Sano Animation production: Telecom Animation Film Tower of God has been one of the maximum talked-about new collection of 2020, and for precise reason. A collaboration among Crunchyroll and digital comedian publisher Webtoon, the series is an anime version of the online 'manhwa' (Korean for 'comic') via artist S.I.U. And the contemporary in Crunchyroll's recent push into producing its very own unique anime content material. The series follows Bam, an amnesiac adolescents who's mysteriously teleported into the eponymous Tower of God, a metaphysical structure that apparently encompasses the complete world and is designed to bestow mammoth powers upon the ones capable of reaching its heights. On his journey to attain the tower's peak in search of his loved friend Rachel, Bam should surround himself with allies in order to triumph over the Tower's deadly trials and even deadlier adversaries. A gorgeous fable-journey with wealthy characters, dense mythology, and delightful animation, Tower of God will satisfy all people hungry for a brand new shonen series to binge. Available on:Crunchyroll

kayuga-sama season 2 A-1 PICTURES 4. Kaguya-sama: Love is War (Season 2) Release date: April 11 Director: Mamoru Hatakeyama Animation production: A-1 Pictures Student council president Miyuki Shirogane and vice chairman Kaguya Shinomiya go back for every other season of machiavellian shenanigans and romantic hijinks! The first season of Kaguya-sama: Love is War become one in all last year’s standout new collection, a devious and hilarious twist on the conventional ‘will-they-gained’t-they’ components of excessive faculty rom-com anime. Season 2 has even extra within the way of lovestruck mishaps between Miyuki and Kaguya, as well as more time spotlighting vintage and new breakout favorites consisting of the Kaguya's hyper-capable assistant Ai Hayasaki and Miyuki’s icy cool sister Kei. And better, the second one season is just self-contained enough that viewers new to the collection should pop in to watch this one without lacking a beat. Kaguya-sama: Love is War is uproariously hilarious, stylistically inventive, and easily one of the great anime rom-coms to pop out this yr. Available on:Funimation

dorohedoro MAPPA three. Dorohedoro Release date: May 28 Director: Yuichiro Hayashi Animation production: MAPPA Based on Q Hayashida’s cult darkish fable sci-fi manga of the identical name, Dorohedoro is set inside the Hole, a harsh derelict city populated by humans and an ever-increasing number of unfortunate souls transformed into chimeric monstrosities with the aid of malicious sorcerers from another measurement. The series follows Caiman, an amnesiac bounty hunter and his great friend Nikaido as they scour the depths of the Hole searching for the sorcerer who cursed him with a lizard’s head. Oh yeah, he’s additionally were given a sentient human head in the back of his throat that pops up Xenomorph-fashion every time Caiman swallows his prey to search for the perpetrator. It best gets more bizarre from there. Packed to the brim with gnarly violence, leather-based-clad weirdos, pitch-black humor, and a number moments of mild-hearted levity, Dorohedoro is a darkish and wonderful hybrid-CG anime that mixes dystopian frame-horror and slice-of-life comedy to make for one of the maximum thrilling and precise new collection to come out in 2020. Available on:Netflix

beastars ORANGE 2. Beastars Release date: March thirteen Director: Shinichi Matsumi Animation production: Orange Set in a global of anthropomorphic animals, Beastars is the story of Legoshi, a benevolent if dour young lupine who crosses paths with Haru, an emotionally aloof and promiscuous dwarf rabbit, through serendipitous circumstances and starts to broaden complicated feelings for her. Legoshi's primal and emotional awakening is exacerbated through his status as a carnivore, forcing him to confront the terrifying query of whether or not what he feels for Haru is simply his instinctual urge to seek and kill, or some thing more. From a technical and creative viewpoint, everything about Beastars is masterful. From its without a doubt nuanced depiction of a society frayed among one of a kind competing castes of carnivores and herbivores, to its inspired feel of composition and lighting, Beastars is an absurd, terrifying, horny, and heartfelt anime that stands head and shoulders above the %. Available on: Netflix

hold your hands off eizouken SCIENCE SARU 1. Keep your Hands off Eizouken! Release date: January five Director: Masaaki Yuasa Animation manufacturing: Science Saru Based on Sumito Owara's manga series of the equal call, Keep Your Hands off Eizouken! Follows high schooler Midori and her pals Sayaka and Tsubame as they attempt to set up an anime club on their faculty's campus and convey their very own animated film. What follows is a wild odyssey of the highs and lows of attempting to break into animation, the type of comedic and disarmingly earnest portrayal of youthful ambition within the face of competition, and inexperience that reaffirms why you fell in love with anime within the first location.

Conclusion:

Brimming with meticulous nods to a number of the medium's best creators and a mischievously meta experience of creativity that'll have even the most stone-confronted of visitors grinning ear to ear, it's the kind of show you could simplest anticipate from the likes of Masaaki Yuasa (Devilman Crybaby, Ping Pong the Animation, and many others.) and the crew in the back of Science Saru. Top that with an infectiously trippy identify topic and score courtesy of rap duo chelmico and experimental manufacturer Oorutaichi and you've got one of the maximum memorable and hilarious anime of the 12 months.

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anythingobi · 5 years

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Me again! I loved the first one v much (thank you💕💕💕). Hope it's okay I'm requesting another prompt: quiobi with Obi-Wan playing with Qui-Gon's hair (which is obviously greying and Qui-Gon is self-conscious about it maybe?) Thank you very much😘💕💕💕

I was really happy to get another prompt from you, and I wanted to draw it but I ended up getting real fed up with Qui-Gon’s hair so I guess you’re just getting fic today. Thanks so much for the awesome prompt! (Oh, and thanks for commenting about the ship name!)

I went for a bit of a younger Obi in this than last time. He’s 18 and still a padawan.

“Quiet Bant,” Obi-Wan regarded the nearby passenger without looking away from his task, “I’m busy.”

“You should be busy flying this ship,” Bant quipped back. “You’re the pilot of the group.” Obi-Wan let a huff escape his lips and undid the pleated hair in front of him, unsatisfied.

“You’re sixteen, Bant. You should know how to fly a ship.” He let his eyebrows knit together. “You really should wear your hair pulled back more, Master Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan added off-handedly. It really brings out your greys.” Bant huffed, and Qui-Gon let out an indignant noise and brought his hands back to feel at his own hair. Obi-Wan felt himself blushing as his master’s hands joined his own, and pushed down the childish urge to stick his tongue out at Bant when she shot him a taunting smirk.

“My what?” Qui-Gon interrupted, perturbed.

“Your grey hairs.” Obi-Wan stroked his hand through his master’s hair, gently easing the frizz from where the older man had mussed it. “They make you look distinguished.” He gathered up a small section at the bottom of Qui-Gon’s head, ignoring Bant’s knowing chuckle as they made a jump into hyperspace. He handed the majority of the hair before him to his master with the unspoken command to hold it out of the way, and began slowly and deliberately creating a dutch braid. The style would be difficult to recreate alone, since trying to work your own hair from the bottom up meant holding your arms at an awkward angle with no break, and also placed the majority of the hair not being used directly in the way.

“They make me look old, Obi-Wan.” His master sighed and leaned back against his legs. Obi-Wan ran his hands deliberately along the man’s scalp as he selected the next section of hair to add and was rewarded with a comfortable sigh.

“Nonsense,” Obi-Wan smirked. “You already looked old.” Qui-Gon reached back and smacked at Obi-Wan’s calf chidingly.

“You should be more respectful of your elders then, padawan.”

“You’re right, Master,” Obi-Wan nodded, his tone mockingly reverent as he added more hair to the dutch braid, working his way up the scalp as slowly as he thought he could get away with. “What would you have me do? Kneel at your feet? Cater to your every whim? Carry your frail old bones off the spacecraft?”

“Alright, I’m out of here. I’m sure Master Tahl has more work for me in the engine room than you two.” Bant stood from her seat, rolling her eyes very pointedly in Obi-Wan’s direction. “We should be set until it’s time to drop out of hyperspace. Try not to get into too much trouble.” She walked out of the room with a disapproving huff.

“She doesn’t want to hang around an old-timer like me,” Qui-Gon sighed, and Obi-Wan couldn’t help but smile at his mock dejection.

“I suppose I’ll just have to be enough company for the both of us,” Obi-Wan responded, finally reaching the crown of Qui-Gon’s head and stealing the top half of the hair to twist into an elegant but loose bun. The dutch braid stuck out prominently along the back of Qui-Gon’s head, but the harshness was offset by the looseness of the rest of the style. Obi-Wan quite liked the effect. “All done, by the way.” Obi-Wan leaned back himself, stretching languidly. “And you look quite dashing, if I do say so myself.” He watched intently as Master Qui-Gon reached up to feel his styled hair, fingers tracing the braid deftly. Obi-Wan could imagine several other uses for those fingers.

“Allow me to return the favor.” Qui-Gon turned abruptly, now on his knees in front of Obi-Wan—who was trying very hard not to blush.

“You’re welcome to, Master Jinn, after you Knight me and wait a few years for me to grow it out.” The comment earned him a chuckle before Qui-Gon was reaching up and undoing his padawan braid.

“You’re braid is a mess, Obi-Wan. It needs to be redone.” His Master smiled up at him as he deliberately undid the tight braiding, and Obi-Wan focused very intently on self control as he fought the urge to lean forward and kiss the man. This was a bonding moment, and it wouldn’t do good to sully it with impure thoughts. Soon though, Qui-Gon was leaning up closer in order to see the formation of the braid behind his ear as he worked, and Obi-Wan was briefly struck by their height difference. Even with Obi-Wan seated in a chair and Qui-Gon kneeling on the floor, the man was able to draw himself up face to face. It almost made Obi-Wan glad he’d never made it past 5’10.

“I always used to hate washing this patch of hair when I was a padawan.” Qui-Gon looked at him mischievously as his hand brushed along his ear and neck. “I was always worried it was going to fall out.”

“I hate undoing the braid,” Obi-Wan admitted. “I want it to be in all the time, as a symbol that I belong to you.”

“You don’t need a braid to know that you’re my padawan, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon chuckled and continued his braiding, stopping periodically to smooth out the hair in order to prevent frizz or flyaways.

“It feels nice, though.” Obi-Wan wanted to turn his head to look at his master, but knew better than to do so while the other was working. “Having a physical reminder, I mean. I know that just knowing I’m your padawan should be enough, but sometimes when I’m in doubt I can feel it and remember that you chose me.” Qui-Gon was almost to the end of the braid now. Once he had moved out of the area behind the ear it became quick work.

“I’m sorry that I don’t always express my appreciation for you, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon tied off the end of the braid with a small piece of leather. “You are all I could ask for and more.” He ran his hand thoughtfully over Obi-Wan’s braid before standing, and Obi-Wan found himself standing as well, fully aware that he was about to do something exceedingly stupid. He reached his hand up around Qui-Gon’s neck, thumb brushing slowly along the braid he had been permitted to put there. With a small tug, he angled his master’s face down so that he could push himself upwards to kiss him.

Much to Obi-Wan’s surprise, he wasn’t immediately pushed back and told off. Instead, he felt a hand slip around his waist and another reach reverently for his padawan braid as the kiss was returned. He let out a gasp that was equal parts surprise and pleasure at the development, and quickly found the gasp turning into a moan as Qui-Gon took it as an invitation to slip his tongue into his mouth. The arm around his waist tightened and pulled up, and he found himself being pressed flush against his master with his head tilted at a decidedly submissive angle as the kiss was deepened. He writhed slightly, smiling a bit to show his pleasure at the development and doing his best to egg the other man on as he moved invitingly against him. Perhaps if he just—

“And here I was, thinking you two were the picture of a perfect master-padawan team.” Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon split apart, startled as Master Tahl’s amused voice rang through the room. Obi-Wan searched his mind for any explanation at all for the elicit and decidedly immoral scene that Tahl had just walked in on, but she continued before he could settle on one. “Relax, I’m not going to turn you in to the Council or anything,” she waved her hand as she walked over to the controls. “I do however, need to double check the coordinates Bant input. Apparently the two perfectly capable pilots already in the cockpit were being unhelpful as well as obtuse. Now, which one of you is going to help the blind woman read these dials?”

“I will.” Obi-Wan shot forward immediately, giving his master a meaningful look as he moved to help check the navigation settings. They all looked fine to him and he felt a small, prideful smile touch him as he regarded Bant’s competence. Tahl clasped his shoulder amiably before leaning in close to him conspiratorially.

“I don’t care what you two do,” she stage whispered, loud enough for Qui-Gon to hear her as well. “Just don’t do it in the cockpit.”

#star wars fanart #obi wan kenobi #qui gon jinn #obiqui #quiobi #jinnobi #i actually proofread this one but i probably missed stuff #punkass-jedi #asks

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vasquezlewis0-blog · 5 years

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Receding Gum Remedies

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razieltwelve · 6 years

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Divine Interference Snippet

Here is a snippet from my newest collection of original short stories. The collection is called Divine Interference, and you can get it on Amazon here. It’s actually a sequel to a previous collection, Divine Assistance. Anyway, here is the snippet:

Heroic Destiny

As a young boy, Cassius had often indulged in dreams of heroism. He had dreamed of slaying dragons and wooing princesses, and he had imagined exploring distant, unknown lands and discovering priceless treasures. Life, however, had a depressing tendency to get in the way of dreams. When he was seven years old, his favourite hero – Gaius the Great – had been killed by a dragon while attempting to rescue a princess. The princess had eventually managed to escape when the dragon took a nap after eating a large contingent of soldiers, but there was nothing anybody could do for poor, brave Gaius. Incineration was not only extremely fatal but also extremely irreversible. Cassius had grieved for his hero before eventually moving on. It was what Gaius would have wanted. When Cassius was eight, he had paid close attention to the daring exploits of Flavius the Bold. The courageous explorer had departed for distant lands with a fleet of ten ships – and had been devoured by a sea serpent less than a week later.

To add to Cassius’s dismay, he’d found that his talents did not lay in swordplay, archery, or any other heroically inclined pursuits. Instead, he was incredibly skilled in the ancient and noble art of accurate financial accounting. It paid well – nobles and merchants were always on the lookout for good accountants – but it didn’t offer many opportunities for heroism. Indeed, his heroism was generally limited to badgering recalcitrant nobles and merchants for the necessary paperwork each week. Years of working in finance had also left him somewhat bereft of combat-related skills. If someone put a sword in his hands, then the only one in danger would be him since he was far more likely to accidentally stab himself than land a decent hit on his opponent.

To be fair, he didn’t have any major complaints about his life. He’d managed to make it to the age of thirty-five in close to perfect health, which was truly miraculous and commendable in a world where warfare, disease, and the occasional monster did a wonderful job of lowering the average person’s life expectancy. He also had a lovely wife and three lovely children. Heroes rarely lasted long, and he now had at least four excellent reasons to stay alive.

In his boyhood fantasies, he had called himself Cassius the Courageous, Slayer of Dragons and Wooer of Princesses. However, recent events had forced him to rethink that moniker. Something like Cassius the Unlucky or Cassius the Fortune-Challenged would have been more appropriate. Not long ago, a dragon had taken up residence in the hills not far from his hometown. As dragons were wont to do, the mighty beast had done a fantastic job of terrifying the townsfolk, eating their livestock, burning their crops, and just generally making a nuisance of himself – if the word nuisance could be used to describe one hundred and fifty feet of bronze scales that could fly as fast as the wind and breathe fire hot enough to melt solid rock.

Given the dire nature of their situation, the townsfolk had made numerous pleas to the local nobility who had furthered their concerns to the king after initial attempts to deal with the dragon had all failed in exceedingly fatal fashion. One of the local nobles, Lord Aurelian, who was renowned for his honour and courage, had even challenged the dragon to a duel. Alas, honour and courage were not especially effective against a dragon’s fire or a dragon’s teeth. The nobleman’s popularity had grown to immense heights after his heroic demise, but Cassius had a feeling that he would have preferred to retain his middling level of popularity if it meant not being set on fire and eaten in a little less than twenty seconds. Lord Aurelian’s son was now in charge, and the young man had opted for a more defensive strategy, which centred on appeasing the dragon with numerous cattle until a better solution could be found. Nobody liked giving the dragon food, least of all Lord Aurelian II, but his father’s fate was still fresh on everyone’s mind.

If only there was some way of scaring off the dragon, but the only thing dragons tended to be worried about were bigger dragons. And even if they could find a bigger dragon that was willing to help them, things could still go wrong. Several years ago, another kingdom had been under siege by a particularly ferocious female dragon. Using a veritable mountain of treasure, the kingdom’s rulers had bribed another dragon to drive her from their territory. Unfortunately, the dragon they had bribed had been a male dragon that had taken one look at the female dragon and decided that it was time to settle down and start a family. The kingdom had then been forced to deal with two dragons (with several more on the way). On the upside, the male dragon had at least had the decency to give the treasure back since he hadn’t actually driven the female dragon off.

It had taken weeks of frantic prayer to the kingdom’s patron gods and the Greater Gods before Young Death had turned up wondering why the kingdom’s cookie festival had been cancelled. The goddess had been duly informed of the cause – the rampaging dragons had threatened to set the festival ablaze and eat all of the cookie makers – and she had gone to have a quiet chat with the two mighty reptiles. Dragons were terrifying creatures, amongst the most powerful in the mortal world, but Young Death was the daughter of two Greater Gods, a being whose powers would one day be surpassed by only the Supreme Mother and Supreme Father. She was also someone who loved cookies very much, and the kingdom had promised to throw an even bigger cookie festival in her honour if she could save them from the dragons. Nobody knew exactly what she’d said or done, but the two dragons had left shortly after, vowing never to trouble the kingdom again.

Unfortunately for Cassius and his fellow townsfolk, their kingdom was not renowned for its cookies. Their king had also failed to find a solution. As an avowed pacifist, the king was a firm believer in only fighting defensive battles, which the kingdom’s treacherous terrain and harsh weather made exceptionally easy. More often than not, the terrain and the weather wiped out the kingdom’s enemies long before their soldiers had to do any fighting. Although prudent, this approach had not proven to be particularly popular with Annihilation, the Greater God who presided over destruction, devastation, and a great many other things, the most pertinent of which was dragons.

The kingdom’s clergy had prayed most earnestly and fervently to Annihilation, begging the Greater God to deal with the troublesome reptile. However, their prayers had been steadfastly ignored, and one especially pushy member of the clergy had been struck by lightning seven times after hurling a stream of invective at the Greater God. Witnesses had been sure that the first lightning bolt alone had been sufficient to kill the poor fellow. The following six had been all about making a point. Annihilation was not going to help them. If they wanted to get rid of the dragon, they’d have to do it themselves.

To make matters worse, the incredibly direct nature of Annihilation’s refusal to help meant that they likely wouldn’t be getting help from any of the other gods either. He was a Greater God, so the odds of any of his lesser peers going against his wishes were essentially nil, and only the Supreme Mother and Supreme Father clearly outranked him. Sure, the other Greater Gods might have been able to help, but they generally stayed out of each other’s business. In all honesty, if anyone were likely to get help it was the dragon. Life was the original creator of dragons, and she still stepped in to help them from time to time, usually by dispatching some of her more terrifying creations to help them. Only last week there had been rumours of a wounded dragon being saved by an army of mobras – fiendish creatures with the speed and agility of a mongoose and the deadly venom of a cobra.

In the time-honoured tradition of dragon-troubled kingdoms throughout history, the king had eventually decided to offer a fabulous reward to anyone who could defeat the creature. Heroes came from far and wide. One of them – Antony the Awesome – was one of Cassius’s favourites. Antony had slain no less than three gorgons, two hydras, and an entire band of roving Minotaur bandits. He was widely considered one of the premier heroes of the age, a man whose name was destined to go down in history as a hero of the highest quality. He was also, apparently, a bit arrogant, but Cassius was inclined to give him a little leeway. If a man could kill a hydra on his own, then who could blame him for walking into a tavern like he owned the place? Indeed, given how much money people paid to have hydras eliminated, the odds were good that Antony could buy any tavern he walked into.

Antony the Awesome and his associates had devised a cunning plan that would allow them to sneak up on the dragon while he slept and slay him. Admittedly, the first ten heroes had all tried something similar too, but Antony the Awesome was different. He was not going to get eaten because he was no mere hero. He was the greatest hero in decades, a true paragon of martial skill and warrior cunning. He was… awesome. Unfortunately for Antony, a stray crow had been his undoing. The bird had decided that the hero’s head would be a fantastic place to perch, and in a moment of irritation, Antony had swiped at the crow to shoo it away.

That had been a mistake.

Crows were animals that served Death. Harming one of them was thus generally considered an awful idea, and so it proved to be in this case. The crow had let loose a squawk of outrage, and the dragon had awakened to find Antony and his associates right in front of him. The following thirty seconds of carnage had been largely academic from the dragon’s point of view. When people were caught out in the open against a fire-breathing dragon, there really wasn’t much they could do except pray to the gods for a swift passing. The dragon had at least had the decency to let a few of them survive, mainly so they could tell everyone about how he had devoured Antony the Awesome. As for the crow, it had decided to make a nest in the remains of Antony’s helmet once the red-hot metal had cooled down. The dragon, although not very happy about having a crow building a nest in his lair, had wisely chosen to leave the bird alone. It seemed like a good idea given what had happened to the last person to annoy the bird.

The unrelenting failure by the heroes had eventually led to more drastic measures being taken. Lots had been drawn, and men were dispatched to try their hand at dealing with the dragon. As someone with a firm grasp of numbers and a great deal of common sense, Cassius thought the whole thing was beyond idiotic. What hope did normal men have against a dragon? The first seventeen men had all opted for some combination of trickery and stealth, and all of them had met similarly dire ends. Well, all of them but the fifteenth man. No one knew what he’d done to make the dragon so mad, but the beast hadn’t even deigned to eat him. Instead, all that had been left of the fellow was a large, smoking crater.

And then Cassius’s turn had arrived.

As an intelligent man who enjoyed living, Cassius had already tried several different tactics in a bid to escape what was sure to be a horrible and fiery end. None of them – not even bribery of the town’s nobles and officials – had worked. So here he was in the lair of the dragon, hiding behind a rock because the dragon had seen him coming and had simply been too lazy to fly out to kill him. Instead, the creature had waited for him to get closer before trying to set him on fire. It was almost laughable. The dragon had gotten so used to killing would-be heroes that it no longer bothered to put on a show.

It was a testament to the sturdiness of the rock that it had withstood the dragon’s fire for so long. Unfortunately, it had begun to glow, which meant he didn’t have more than maybe a minute or two before it melted and he got incinerated. Cassius decided to use his final moments in the mortal world to pray since, at this point, the only way he was going to survive was through some divine interference.

“Oh, gods above,” Cassius began. “I could really use some help. I’ve always done my best to honour and obey you, and I’ve done my best to be a good father and a good husband. I don’t know if I’ve done enough to earn your help, but if I have, now would be the time.” He winced as the rock began to glow even more brightly and its edges began to melt. “So if one of you could maybe send some help that would be great.” He looked heavenward, but the rock continued to melt with nary a sign of divine intervention. “I mean… Death? Annihilation? Wayfarer? Guardian?” He rattled off the names of the Greater Gods, hoping for a sign. When nothing happened, he moved onto the other gods, the ones that served directly under them. “Ruin? Justice? Torment?”

As he continued to work his way through all of the gods he knew, there was a part of him that marvelled at the dragon’s lung capacity. Sure, the reptile was enormous, but he was amazed at how it had been able to breathe fire for so long without pausing to take another breath. It had to have been breathing fire continuously for almost three minutes now. Nothing living could withstand dragon fire for so long, and even his mighty rock was on the verge of destruction too.

It was then, as all hope seemed lost, that Cassius’s prayers were answered. Alas, his prayers were not answered by Death, Annihilation, or any of the other gods he’d mentioned. If they had been, he would have been perfectly fine. No dragon would have dared to defy one of them. As he would later realise, his situation had only marginally improved. Indeed, some would have argued it had only gotten worse.

But at the time, he didn’t know that. At the time, he was absolutely convinced that salvation was at hand. The gods had heard his prayers. He was saved. He would not end up as dragon food.

“Fear not, mortal, for I have arrived!”

Cassius peeked around his rock as the dragon stopped breathing fire long enough to glare balefully at the god who had appeared on top of the rock. The god certainly cut a heroic figure. His eyes were the endless blue of the summer sky, and his jaw was squarer than an anvil. His broad shoulders and powerful frame were covered in glittering crystalline armour. Every move he made oozed power and majesty, and on his back was a great sword so sharp that it appeared to be splitting the rays of sunlight that struck its edge. In fact, merely looking at it had given Cassius a paper cut. Unbelievable. Maybe he could borrow it.

“Thank you! Thank you!” Cassius fell to his knees in gratitude. “Please, aid me, oh great…” He trailed off. He didn’t recognise the god, but it would have been incredibly rude and disrespectful to use the wrong name. He’d have to go with something more general instead. “Oh great and merciful divine one!” There. That should be a reasonably respectful way to address an unknown god.

“Worry not, mortal.” The god struck a heroic pose and gazed far into the distance. Cassius had no idea what he was looking at, but it certainly looked impressive. When he smiled, the god’s teeth sparkled in a way that was almost blinding. “I am not well known amongst your kind since I only appear to those who are truly worthy. Know, mortal, that you kneel before… Discipulus, the God of Aspiring Heroes.”

The hope blossoming in his heart died a swift, cruel death. Oh, he might not have seen him before, but Cassius had heard about Discipulus. He was the same god that had helped Antony the Awesome devise his cunning plan, and he had supposedly been heavily involved in the debacles that led to the demises of Gaius the Great and Flavius the Bold. Admittedly, he wasn’t the one who’d swiped that crow, but being involved in the deaths of three heroes who had, until they’d met him, never known defeat was not exactly inspiring.

“Oh.”

#original fiction #divine interference #divine assistance #the divine assistance series

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family-counselling · 2 years

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All that glitters is not gold

One morning, we were on our way to attend a meeting at a far-off place. We entered a restaurant for breakfast. When we were having our breakfast, my friend noticed that the server who was serving us was exceedingly polite. He was repeatedly asking us with kindness if we wanted anything more. My friend, who was apparently moved by the kind gestures of the server, told me that even his wife never stood by him like this while serving him food. To him the server was definitely better.

What my friend had said was right. However, taking his statement at face value, we cannot come to the conclusion that the server was much better than my friend’s wife. One has to remember that all that glitters is not gold. Moved by the server’s actions, one should not speak ill of one’s wife or husband in the office. We should not engage in gossip and while away our time in the workplace uselessly passing unwanted remarks.

One has to remember that our subordinates generally flatter us to cull favours from us. They speak to us with their honeyed tongue in order to please us. Their words do not come out from the depth of their heart. They are empty and meaningless words aimed at fooling us.

When you are extremely busy at work, your wife may call you frequently on your mobile phone asking your whereabouts reminding you that you are to take her out in the evening as planned earlier. A co-worker may also find us busy at work and may go away feeling sorry about the interruption. However, these two interferences are different. The first one is born out of love. The wife has the right to nag her husband because she has nobody else to lean on. The co-worker will find different persons occupying the chair and the work will go on. The wife and the husband have no such options.

The example I want to cite may sound sickening. However, it is done with the good intention of driving home the point effectively. Those who are working in sex industry may treat their customers with great kindness. This they do to entice their clients. But a wife will never do this. One should not come to the conclusion that a sex worker is better. The Holy Bible says that love should be without hypocrisy. Understanding the difference between hypocrisy and genuine love will help us lead a peaceful life.

Most of the tablets are sugar coated. They are supposed to be swallowed. If one attempts to bite it and crush it in the mouth, one will have to taste the bitterness of the pill. When I am writing this, I get the daily newspaper which carries the news that a young woman had killed her second husband and had buried him at home. The root cause for such happenings is misplaced love. When one goes astray thinking of someone as a good speaker and a good friend, the consequences are disastrous. The wife and the husband are full of love even when they speak harsh words on occasions. They care for each other and their boundless love will prompt them to even lay down their lives if occasion so demands. The problem is with the failure to express their love for one another. The husband should understand that his wife’s intrusions are rooted in genuine love. This will help him lead a hassle free life.

To get this Happy Family Tips on your mobile, type ENG and WhatsApp to 93 42 80 71 51. And contact us if you need personal counselling.

Author: Rev.V.Stephen Muller Published by: Counselling Centre - CSI Tirunelveli Diocese

Kindly support Our Charity Project

www.AnbinIllam.Org

[A rehabilitation centre for mentally ill and desperate Men and Women]

#family #family counseling #husband and wife #relationship

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anartiststale · 6 years

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For Lack of a Better Title (Ch. 7) Born To Run

AO3

Here it finally is, the last part I posted before I ghosted.

It was a particularly chilly morning even for Snowdin, but Sans paid it no mind as he sat at his sentry station with his chin resting on his palm.

His mustard supply was running low, so he would need to make a stop at Grillby’s sometime soon.

He could do it on his walk home. He could also just teleport back and do it on the way to work the next day. The sea tea’s effects had worn off about an hour ago and he barely had the energy to keep his head up let alone drag himself across Snowdin.

If there was one thing keeping him awake it was his concern over his brother’s behaviour the previous night. He could tell Papyrus was making a serious effort to change, but he’d nearly lost his mind laughing over what? A broken cup?

He lived for jokes, and even he couldn’t find anything funny about it. Unless there was something flying way over his head, which wouldn’t be that surprising with his height.

He chuckled softly to himself. That was a joke Papyrus would’ve appreciated.

But even that wasn’t enough to distract him from the fatigue pressing down on his posture and pulling his eye sockets shut.

On an ordinary day, he wouldn’t have thought twice about dozing off at work, but this was different. For one, his usual naps were always light enough to allow him a decent reaction time if something were to actually happen. The tired he was feeling now was nothing short of an ache, and he was willing to bet that if he fell asleep now he wouldn’t be waking up any time soon.

Aside from his safety, however, there was the weight on his conscience as well, because as harsh and over-reactive as Papyrus could be, Sans also had his own share of faults. His slacking over the years had gone from involuntary to intentional after their first miserable years in Snowdin, so much so that Sans would go out of his way to piss his superiors off.

But it was different now. Papyrus was trying to improve himself, and Papyrus never half-assed a task. It only seemed fair that Sans make an effort too.

And that meant not falling ...

He jolted back awake and groaned, dragging his hands down his face. Thinking about staying awake wasn’t helping. In fact the act of sitting itself seemed to be working against him.

Sans slid slowly off his stool and moved to the open space behind his station to stretch. He pulled his arms above his head, relishing in the loud popping of his joints. Satisfied, he reached down to his toes. As far as he could anyway. He made it halfway before resigning to just hang limply.

It was a nice position though. If he swayed side to side, it was almost like being rocked. He let himself relax into the motion, drifting left, then right, then back and forth again …

The sensation of falling was all the warning he got before his body tumbled forward. The snow was soft enough to cushion his fall. As uncomfortable as the snow melting into his jacket was, he wanted so badly to curl up and give in to the exhaustion that was now clawing at his soul.

Tired was a feeling he’d gotten used to over the years, but this was something he hadn’t experienced in ages. The tears pricking the corners of his eyes were just barely holding back the frantic part of him that wanted nothing more than to break down and cry until he fell asleep. This must be how babies felt, he thought. Papyrus had certainly thrown his fair share of sleepy tantrums as a child.

He couldn’t let his thoughts drift, though. He had to get up.

He didn’t want to.

But he really needed to get up.

And he really, _really _did not want to.

Shut up, he told himself. In one brief surge of energy he pushed himself onto his knees, then crawled back over to his station and used the wall to hoist himself back up.

His soul was beginning to pulsate with the need to shut down and rest. As good as it’d made him feel, he was starting to regret accepting that tea from Papyrus. He knew it was meant as a kind gesture, but the lack of sleep it caused was making it increasingly difficult for Sans to do his job.

He finally struggled back into his seat, legs dangling a foot above the ground. At the very least, he thought, he could keep his head propped up on his forearms so that if he did lose this battle against sleep, he would fall and wake back up again.

In the meantime, he would close his eyes and just listen for a few minutes.

His breathing slowed to a crawl as his mind emptied itself of thought.

He wasn’t even aware he’d fallen asleep until he was startled awake by a fist slamming onto the table in front of him.

He nearly fell off of his stool from the jolt. It took his bleary mind a moment to focus on the pair of eyes glaring down at him. He couldn’t be sure in his post-sleep haze, but if he wasn’t mistaken, the glare seemed rather forced. He could barely comprehend the noises leaving Papyrus’s mouth, but if he concentrated hard enough, he could see the thinnest threads of concern laced in Papyrus’s expression.

He realized why when he glanced past his brother and saw Undyne glowering over his shoulder, watching Papyrus deliver his lecture with disgusted interest.

All the words about how lazy and insufferable Sans was held less of their usual vigor. Undyne was clearly oblivious, but having raised Papyrus, Sans could tell his soul wasn’t in his insults.

He could still feel tiredness creeping along the edge of his vision, but by then he was alert enough to play along. He pretended to be annoyed as Papyrus went on ranting. He even added a “Piss off, it’s your fault I didn’t get any sleep” for effect.

Too much effect, apparently, because something in Papyrus’s expressions shifted. For a split second, Sans saw genuine hurt flash in his eyes, but the moment passed instantly, overtaken by the pure, unbridled anger he was used to.

Papyrus grabbed Sans roughly by the front of his jacket, pulling him up against the counter. “What did you just say to me?” he growled.

Sans did not intend for Papyrus to take his retort seriously. That should’ve been a sign that he needed to tone the snide comments down, but a stubborn part of him was less than unwilling to grovel in front of Undyne.

In fact, if he was being completely honest, he partially blamed her for Papyrus’s exceedingly violent nature. The day he showed any vulnerability to her would be the day Papyrus ate food from Grillby’s of his own accord.

But he had to react, so he settled for a sneer and two middle fingers.

He regretted that immediately.

The backhand that followed came as more of a surprise than it should have.

Sans found himself on his side in the snow beneath his station, wide-eyed and clutching at his face.

He honestly hadn’t been expecting Papyrus to do that.

He almost laughed at the absurdity of it.

He didn’t see the mortification that passed over Papyrus’s face, missed the hesitation before Papyrus put on a snarl so as not to rouse any suspicion from Undyne. She still stood behind him, arms crossed and looking grim, her very presence looming over him like a shadow.

“Get back to work,” Papyrus snapped. “Don’t let me catch you slacking off again.”

They left Sans sitting on the ground, trying desperately to convince himself that that hit had been a part of the act, just his brother going above and beyond to convince Undyne, but ...

The sharp stinging in Sans’s cheek said otherwise, and the glower on Papyrus’s face had looked genuine.

Sans shoved himself up.

He kicked his sentry post, causing two empty bottles to fall over onto the ground.

He wanted to yell, wanted to scream, wanted to do anything but be there where even the desk he sat at was a reminder of his stupid, asshole, fucker of a boss.

Stars, when had he even started calling him that? Better yet, why had he agreed to call him that? Oh right, because he was weak and lazy and a pushover when it came to his brother, so what the hell did it matter if he was mistreated all the time, right?

He couldn’t keep thinking about this. He hadn’t felt this angry since ... he didn’t even know. He couldn’t think at all. The red in his vision was especially distracting.

A distorted glimpse of his reflection in one of the fallen bottles clued him in as to why. He immediately dampened the flare in his socket.

Maybe he was overreacting.

Or maybe not, because for years upon years he’d put up with his brother smacking him around to impress his fish-faced captain without any complaints. He knew - he’d acknowledged - that progress in their relationship would be slow, painstaking even, but for all the times he’d put up with Papyrus’s tantrums, not once had he ever retaliated.

That fact had never grated on him so much, but now it was the only thought cycling through his mind.

He was angry, and he every right to be.

He looked down at the bottles beneath his feet. Like hell he was about to stay at his post. He didn’t even care what Papyrus would do if he found him gone during his shift. He needed to get out of there.

So he went to the one place he knew Papyrus wouldn’t follow.

Undyne was staring expectantly at him.

They’d walked away from Sans’s post to finish their rounds, and even after ten minutes checking stations and getting reports, Papyrus still felt numb. Every part of him was screaming to return to his brother and apologize.

Of all the flaws he wanted to fix about himself, his flaring temper managed to get overshadowed among other issues. Only now, when Sans’s insubordination was enough to rile him up, did Papyrus remember just how explosive his temper could be.

Usually he prided himself on his duress under pressure, and usually, he could effectively control his emotions on the job. But for reasons beyond him, something about Sans brought out the worst in him.

A part of him still wanted to justify his actions with Sans’s comment. He knew it wasn’t true, knew Sans didn’t really hold his efforts to help last night against him. Neither of them had even thought ahead to the next day.

In fact, if Papyrus had realized sooner that he and Undyne would be making rounds that day, he would’ve had Sans stay home to rest.

Instead, he’d succumbed to the pressure Undyne’s presence put on him. He didn’t want to reprimand his brother for something he knew was out of Sans’s control, but he couldn’t not discipline him in front of his superior.

And even that was something of an excuse. There were plenty of significantly better reactions he could have had, but instead he chose to lash out impulsively.

“Papyrus.” Undyne stopped abruptly, barring an arm across his chest.

The world seemed to still alongside them, silent and empty until Undyne filled it with an unexpectedly gentle voice.

“I’m not even going to begin to try and understand your relationship with your brother, but ... if it’s affecting your work, and you need some time off to resolve ... look, if something’s going on ...”

Papyrus could see what she was getting at, but he wasn’t very eager to ask for time off. That would mean no outlet during the day, giving him plenty of time to dwell on his inability to fix himself.

And besides, there was no way he was giving his captain any ammunition for even a remote potential future accusation against his work ethic.

He politely declined the offer. She nodded, looking like she had more to say, but they both knew it wouldn’t be a very productive conversation if she continued, so she dropped the subject.

The rest of their route was smooth but uneventful. They picked up reports, got first-hand status checks on the goings on of Snowdin. Papyrus tried his best not to check out for most of it, but Undyne seemed to notice his mental absence.

At the end of the day she dismissed him from their usual sparring session, claiming that she had too much paperwork to catch up on.

Papyrus was left to his own thoughts on his trek back home through waterfall. The closer he got to home, the more anxious he grew, and the stronger his guilt became.

His mind decided to take an unusual train. Instead of jumping to accusations, he was playing out ... scenarios. Scenarios that made his soul twist, where he was going to his brother and doing something that would have been unthinkable before: simply apologizing. He wasn’t even sure if he knew how to properly apologize. His emotional vomit to Sans didn’t count - that had been more or less accidental, a split second reaction made out of panic.

Now, he needed to do it voluntarily, and he had no idea how to say two simple words.

His incapability was beginning to annoy him. He didn’t even realize he was muttering aloud to himself until he heard his own voice echoed back at him.

He pivoted to face the sound, conjuring a weapon on instinct.

“It’s not like I’m not trying,” an echo flower whispered up at him.

It sounded ... pathetic. He sounded pathetic. What was he doing, sulking through the caves of Waterfall and complaining to himself? He should be at home, making amends, or at the very least explaining himself.

He let his weapon dissolve.

_It’s not like I’m not trying. _

Listen to him, complaining about his own pitiful self as if it would do any good. It certainly wouldn’t change the fact that he didn’t by any standard deserve the word “great” in his title. “Terrible” on the other hand might as well be a word made just for him.

It’s not like I’m not –

“Shut up.”

Shut up shut up shut up shut –

“STOP.”

A snicker farther down the path wasn’t completely hidden by the chorus of echo flowers that had taken up an overwhelming melody of shouts. Papyrus swept a frustrated wave of bone attacks across the expanse ahead of him.

He only succeeded in wiping out a patch of grass, making the noise echoing off the walls of the cavern unbearably loud.

He stalked forward, searching for the source of the laugh. He scraped a hole through the palm of one of his gloves when he couldn’t find one.

He spent a minute pacing around, burning a path into the cave floor until he echo flowers’ blaring reduced itself to a soft whisper and the cavern was once again near silent. Even then he continued back and forth for a long stretch of time before he headed to the area’s namesake.

The waterfall was loud enough that he couldn’t think, enough to force his mind to relax and focus on one thing at a time. He needed to get home, first and foremost. If Sans was there, he’d apologize. If he wasn’t, he’d wait. Either way he’d fix things now, before it became a problem too big to handle.

It was a plan, and it was simple.

He could do simple.

As he continued back, he tried to occupy his mind with trivial things: training tomorrow, cooking techniques, organizing his closet again.

Just as he passed the delineation point between Waterfall and Snowdin, more laughter caught his attention. He paused and shifted around to find the source, ready for a fight if need be.

He stopped short of an attack when he saw that he was not in fact being mocked. Where he was expecting to find a jeering monster hiding between tree trunks, he saw instead children.

He scoffed to himself, ready to turn away, when a flash of red caught his attention, compelling him to study the kids closer. They were both of the same species, but one was clearly older, wearing a bright red jacket that he was tempted to go over and warn them about. Being young and defenseless, they might as well have been holding up a flashing sign inviting attacks.

But he already knew approaching them wouldn’t do any good. There wasn’t a monster in Snowdin who didn’t know who he was, and if full-grown adults veered from his path, children were sure to bolt on sight.

As if on cue, the older one turned and spotted him. The smile melted off of their face, replaced with dread. Without taking taking their eyes off him – Papyrus silently commended them for it – they ushered the younger monster to their feet and retreat farther into the woods, not turning to run until they’d put a substantial distance between them.

Papyrus made his way to the clearing the children were playing in. He told himself he was only curious, considering not many children were out and about in the middle of the day, and in such a public place no less. He may or may not have been walking slower than normal just to stall the time.

As he approached two indeterminable lumps of snow, he realized that they weren’t so indeterminable after all.

They were snowmen.

The amount of memories that came flooding into his mind was almost laughable. It had been ages since he’d last played in the snow, a time that had faded into the back of his memory, but those had been some of the best times of his childhood.

He had a fleeting desire to kneel down and continue the kids’ work, to feel the familiar cool texture of snow molding in his hands and see the clear progress of a perfectly formed structure coming together. He remembered the familiar scent of the scarf Sans would give him when they went out, hear the intoxicating sound of his genuine laughter ...

The small smile tugging at the corners of his jaw vanished.

They’d lost all of that because of him, hadn’t they. His gross turn in behavior had forced Sans away, and now his distance was only driving them further apart.

He couldn’t let that keep happening.

He knew it.

He _felt _it.

This new resolve filled him with something he couldn’t quite place, but it was like all the confidence he had in battle and cooking combined and multiplied by a million.

He felt determined, and he was going to seize the opportunity to do something, to take that first real step toward reconciliation that he should’ve taken long ago.

The remainder of the walk home was suddenly easier. He paid no mind to anyone around him, making a beeline to their house. His hands was shaking by the time he got to the door, so much that it took him a good minute just to get the key into the lock. When it opened, he stepped inside. A quick glance around for clothing items on the floor confirmed that Sans wasn’t home yet, so he went through his ritual of removing his gloves and boots by the door before heading to his room to take off his armor.

Normal, familiar tasks to ground his racing mind.

He couldn’t ever recall feeling this nervous before. For as long as he could remember, he had always been confident in his ability, or at the very least proud enough to convince himself that he was more than capable.

Now there was so much room for doubt and error. He was seeing for perhaps the first time a possibility of things not going how he wanted them to, and above all else it scared him. For once, he was going to need more than just confidence to get himself successful results.

By the time he get back downstairs, Sans still wasn’t home. Papyrus had no idea if that wasn’t normal or not. In fact he couldn’t seem to focus his attention on any thought that wasn’t his short, sweet plan.

Stand up and apologize as soon as Sans walked in the door.

Papyrus was still seated on the couch, running a phalange up and down the scar over his eye, when Sans finally walked through the door. Stumbled, rather, but Papyrus was too concerned with not losing his nerve to pay it much attention.

Hoisting himself up took more effort than it should have. His bones felt leaden, his mouth cottony. He told himself it was now or never. “Sans, I need to –”

“Fuck off.”

Of all the possible outcomes, he wasn’t expecting this.

“Knew you ... couldn’t change,” Sans slurred. Papyrus finally noticed how his brother’s eye lights seemed to be having trouble focusing on him. Sans almost pitched forward when he tried to take a step forward.

In retrospect, Papyrus couldn’t even say he was surprised that he lost his temper. Something about seeing that his brother felt the need to go and drink himself stupid because of him had his mind reeling back to his old thought processes, where he was finding any and every way to blame Sans for his own misfortune.

“I can always count on you to get wasted instead of doing your job,” he bit out, narrowing his eye sockets in revulsion.

Sans scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah? Well I can always count on you to be an asshole.”

“At least I’m an asshole with standards!”

“That’s not what you said last time you fucked me!”

It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back before all hell seemed to break loose in their living room. “You insolent little –”

He lunged at Sans, who dodged easily, teleporting across the room as soon as Papyrus’s clawed hand came shooting out. His aim was slightly amiss, his inebriated mind unable to focus very well, and Sans ended up crashing into the staircase.

Papyrus took the opportunity to get him off guard, but Sans was quicker than he anticipated and he ended up in the same position as his brother a few moments earlier as Sans teleports away. This time he stumbled across the living room and tripped over a stray shoe.

He was fast, but not fast enough. Before he could recover enough to teleport again, Papyrus was pinning him down, one gloved hand cinching the vertebrae in his neck.

“Oh Papyrus, choke me harder,” he mocked.

Papyrus was seriously tempted to.

But almost immediately his palm pressed into something sharp. His first thought was that something on Sans’ neck is broken, which was enough to make withdraw his hand immediately.

He realized soon after that it wasn’t a broken bone.

It was metal.

Pointed but not sharp enough to cut.

“You ... kept this?” He reached down slowly, hesitantly fingering the soft leather of the collar that was hidden partially beneath his brother’s jacket.

How had he never noticed? It was a pretty obvious accessory, unless Sans had been keeping it concealed intentionally, in which case he still figured he should have noticed because he was the one that gave it to Sans in the first place. They also lived together, and ate together, and sometimes even slept together, and still somehow he’d never noticed.

Sans didn’t reply, and Papyrus couldn’t bring himself to look away from the collar and up at Sans’s face.

The anger was subsiding, the guilt settling back in. He really wanted to apologize, he did.

Seeing the collar, something of a gag gift he’d given Sans ages ago, was like concrete evidence that he needed to appreciate his brother significantly more than he did.

He should apologize, he really should.

It’d be so simple to just say those two words.

But the more_ I’m sorry_ bounced around in his head, he came no closer to forcing his jaw to move.

Sans shifted below him, reminding him that he still had him pinned down.

He removed himself carefully, settling back into a kneel a few inches from Sans. He wanted to at least offer a hand to help Sans up, but he was unable to make his body comply.

He wanted to reach out and steady Sans when he began to sway, no doubt the result of his intoxication.

He wanted so badly to explain himself and find a way to make it up.

Instead, he asked what Sans wants for dinner.

“Like it matters,” was the mumbled response he received.

They might never be able to move on, he realized. He was so stuck in his stubbornly static, and the trust in their relationship was beyond repair. There was no way to undo their tumultuous past, and they couldn’t just pretend it never happened.

But Papyrus couldn’t for the life of him confront it, so he kept his mind carefully blank so at the very least he wasn’t thinking about it.

Neither of them moved.

One of them sighed, but he couldn’t tell if it was himself or Sans.

“I’m not that hungry,” came Sans’s final reply.

The phrase rattled around Papyrus’s head like the echo flowers in waterfall, repeating and repeating until the words no longer held any meaning. They managed to linger more than any insult he’d ever received, any injury he’d ever sustained.

He may or may not have said “okay.” He thought he was headed toward the kitchen, but instead of a pot handle he found a doorknob in his hand. Instead of the heat of a stove, he felt the chill from the wind.

Instead of confronting, he was avoiding.

Instead of standing his ground, he was running.

#FLOABT #fellcest #underfell fontcest #underfell papyrus #underfell sans #type drabble write

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auskultu · 7 years

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Honest Dissent vs Ugly Disorder

uncredited writer, Life, 10 November 1967

Dissent, largely over the war in Vietnam, is talking in harsh tones on American campuses and American streets these days. Like the war itself, the targets of abuse are widening. Suppose the President of the U.S. were to make a public speech in, say, the Yale Bowl or the Los Angeles Coliseum. Could he safely do it without worrying about the shambles it might turn into, with rowdy hecklers chanting, "Hey, hey, L.B.J., how many kids did you kill today?”

It would only be a fringe at work— but it is at the fringes where the trouble comes. No Vietnam war protests in this country have yet, it is true, proved unmanageable. So far, only the issue of race has produced something resembling revolution (or more properly, civil war) in the U.S. No Vietnam demonstrations have remotely approached the scale of Watts, Detroit, Newark.

But sporadically, the protest is beginning to take on an ugly, intolerant, occasionally even sadistic quality. A Navy recruiter is trapped in his car, a hapless Dow Chemical representative held prisoner seven hours in a Harvard room. The 35,000 marchers on the Pentagon were mainly sincere young demonstrators who had traveled long miles to oppose what many considered an evil foreign policy. Among them were the best—the young woman who by excruciating coordination managed to move from the Lincoln Memorial to the Pentagon on aluminum braces—hut also the hoodlums who spat on the troops, threw rocks through Pentagon windows, daubed the walls with lavatory obscenities.

The political engagement of the present generation is vastly preferable to the non-involvement of the Eisenhower generation. And no one over 30 (the watershed, apparently, in these matters) should underestimate the quality of participation that the Pentagon march represented for most of those who were there. But with the spread of Vietnam dissent, calls are increasingly being made for more direct action. From the Washington demonstration came the slogan by its organizers: "From Dissent to Resistance.” What is being advocated? A healthy confrontation or something more disruptive?

Some surprising voices are currently being heard in support of wide permissiveness in the form of dissent. The escalation of the war, they argue, must be met with the escalation of protest. Dr. Robert McAfee Brown, professor of religion at Stanford, advocates civil disobedience and condones draft evasion. (Last week, however, he cautioned that the practice of civil disobedience should be "exceedingly restrained,” and he backed "the privilege of free expression” for a CIA representative.)

The liberal Catholic weekly Commonweal in identifying with Dr. Brown and others who have taken the same course, adds its own note of despair: "The escalation of dissent ... is a natural consequence both of the failure of the peace movement to achieve ends through ordinary political techniques and of frustration that comes from being ignored or, on occasions when notice is taken, of being sneered at.” Commonweal explains that its appeal "is not a call to anarchy or bloodletting. . . . The resistance envisioned is a passive disobedience in the tradition of Thoreau.”

But in their own way, however moderate in tone, both these statements testify to a disillusionment with debate. And here is w here the present danger lies. Defiance must not replace open discussion. The line must clearly be drawn between legitimate protest and behavior which approaches a U.S. version of Red Guardism.

Basically, the question that is posed to dissenters is whether they remain committed to the democratic system or whether they are, in effect, copping out. For University of Chicago Historian Daniel Boorstin, debate is "orderly exploration of a common problem,” and there is a fundamental distinction between dissent and disagreement. "People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have a quarrel. People may disagree but may count themselves in the majority, but a person who dissents is by definition in a minority. A liberal society thrives on disagreement but is killed by dissension. Disagreement is the life blood of democracy, dissension is its cancer.”

The avenues of disagreement with Administration policy are far from blocked. Actually, the Vietnam conflict marks a political development in some ways unprecedented in American history. It is not only under searching debate; opposition in many areas of the country is almost fashionable. As the Washington correspondent Richard Rover remarks: "It seems in downright bad taste to invoke patriotism.” In Cambridge, Mass, and San Francisco, continuation of the war is being challenged in municipal voting. The San Francisco proposition, asking for a vote on "immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam so that the Vietnamese people can settle their own problems,” was put on the ballot by 22,000 signatures on a petition, removed by the city attorney, reinstated by the California supreme court.

There is plenty of legal freedom around. The dissenters whose tactics recall sit-down strikes of the ’30s sometimes forget that the Supreme Court then ruled that peaceful picketing was deserving of First Amendment protection as free speech, but stopped short of extending protection to physical interposition. Says Dean Louis Poliak of the Yale Law School: "When it comes to surrounding the Dow man or spitting in the face of an MP, I don’t see how you could possibly suppose that was constitutionally protected activity.” In Poliak’s view, the new protesters seem to have given up on the idea of acting legally at all. "They are simply saying, I’m operating on a different set of premises which take me above and beyond the Constitution or any form of secular authority. ...’ If we were living in Nazi Germany or present-day South Africa, that kind of disobedience might be justifiable on the ground that the whole legal structure was unreformedly corrupt from within, and that there was no political mechanism by which you would win another election and change things. I don’t think that describes the U.S. by a long shot.”

More likely than a court test is the street test; there are sufficient signs already that the excesses of violent dissent are being met with incomprehension if not outright hostility. California’s Governor Reagan, who made a campaign issue out of the Berkeley student riots, seems inclined to consider the militant protesters treacherous. Right-wing columnist William Buckley Jr. would jail Dr. Robert McAfee Brown as a test of the law. In the South and Southwest, the new dissent, as a Life correspondent reports, tends to be regarded "as disloyal, disruptive, disrespectful, damned near criminal.” On national tours, Alabama’s Dixie hawk George Wallace gets appreciative laughs when he says: "The other day Dean Rusk said the Vietnam protests had Communist elements in it. Well, the cab drivers of my state knew that five years ago.”

Simplistic views on one side are apt to be matched by simplistic views on the other. Much of the current academic attitude is based on the assumption that dissent, and even disorder, need not answer to reason hut is healthy per se. There are some welcome signs of distinctions now being made between what is honest argument and acceptable opposition and what is unacceptable disorder.

#dissent #protests #Vietnam war #antiwar #hawks #doves #1967 #1960s #sixties #60s

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ourmarcojohnson-blog · 5 years

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Steroids for Weight Loss

What steroid is useful for weight reduction? Clenbuterol is a trademark alternative to Clenbuterol, its inspiration is to devour fat, and it is sans ephedrine and can empower women to improve slim mass, Clenbuterol goes about as a thermogenic that improves cardiovascular execution which is critical for those uncommon getting ready days.

Would steroids have the option to be used for weight decrease? You may accept that steroids are valuable for helping you to create muscle during a structured cycle. Regardless, the savvy thing about steroids if you have to danger calling them 'wise' – is that they do can devour gut fat.

In all honesty, steroids are every now and again utilized during cutting cycles to help guarantee thin mass and augmentation fat devour (by lessening set away muscle versus fat) – leaving you looking fit, cut and portrayed.

Furthermore, would it be fitting for you to stack them? Well… with the right combo, you can turbocharge your fat incident and achieve a tore body in as small as 30 days.

NOTE: women should NEVER stack steroids. Not aside from in the event that they have to make facial hair, progressively significant voices, and experience going uncovered (in light of its high androgenic effects). The best weight decrease steroids for females are Anvarol, Winsol, and Clenbuterol, regardless of the way that these ought to at present be used without any other person during cutting.

Points of interest in using steroids for weight decrease

The theory behind this isn't absurd. Surely, anabolic steroids are basically used to empower you to grow more muscle. In any case, this is simply cultivated by extending the proportion of fat your body devours. Likewise, the less muscle versus fat you have, the lighter you will be – bingo.

In any case, this isn't the principal advantage you can association from using steroids to move those bounty pounds:

Steroids can help the closeness of red platelets in your body, ensuring your organs get extra oxygen and enhancements. This mix can improve your essentialness and stamina just as your quality. Likewise, this is noteworthy, as the more weight you can lift, the more calories you'll expend. Furthermore, the more calories you expend, the more weight you'll lose.

A couple of steroids can lift water weight decrease – which is faultless in case you experience the evil impacts of water support.

Steroids can extend your rate of absorption, engaging a higher rate of fat disaster.

A couple of steroids engage midriff fat hardship – something even non-practice focus goers/standard Joe's will love – as no one needs a feeble stomach.

By and by, you may accept that the best advertisers for this sort of weight decrease are athletes who are endeavoring to cut. Likewise, it's genuine – the manner in which that these steroids can verify the muscles you've acquired during structure infers you can undeniably go into a calorie lacking, expend fat and leave with the fit, shake hard abs. Be that as it may, they are not using any and all means the main individuals who can benefit…

In all honesty, steroids could apparently help anyone with getting in shape.

Genuinely, not all calorie counters should amass muscle while shedding pounds. Regardless, where this extra thin build goes is inside and out up to you.

There is an inspiration driving why you see such a noteworthy number of weight lifters with thick upper arms and stick slight legs! They have contributed so much vitality constructing their arms, nonetheless, they've skipped/dismissed their leg days. Also, this nonattendance of action shows up! Specifically, within the sight of appalling twiglet legs that look unequipped for passing on their bodies. Regardless, it shouldn't be this way…

Dependent upon your body type and exercise schedule, with the right steroid combo, it is possible to control the appointment of this muscle, go without getting weight lifter type muscles – and achieve a physically meager, thin packaging that isn't exorbitantly constructed. Significantly more basically, do it right and you can benefit by a ton of fat/weight decrease in simply weeks.

How Does Steroids Help You Lose Weight?

Steroids without a doubt can be used to get fit as a fiddle, yet there is authentically not alone affirmation for prosperity.

For the starters, steroids improve your activity aptitudes through which the certifiable weight decrease happens.

Usually, it would take you 7-8 months to devour 12 pounds of weight under an extreme eating routine course of action, yet with steroids, you can lose as much as 20 pounds inside 2-3 months.

By then come various pieces of weight decrease, reduced cortisol level which steroids do by improving the level of testosterone in your body.

Cortisol is a hormone which is identified with weight eating and makes you consume an unnecessary proportion of sustenance.

Right when the level of Testosterone in your body raises the normal fat devouring system goes on and it destroys the cortisol level which prevents you from over the top eating.

Cutting steroids like Clenbuterol and Anavar are known to cause the going with effects which result in brisk weight decrease.

Improved BMI (Basic Metabolic Rate)

The decrease in Water Retention

Addition Fat Burning Hormone

Best Fat Burner Stack

For men, the usage of any of the steroid referenced above can incite an effective weight decrease.

Cutting Stack for Weight Loss Regardless, if you have to quicken the method, you can combine all these 4 steroids for the most outrageous results, and moreover, set yourself up for the unsafe outcomes.

Best weight decrease stack for women should be Clenbuterol and Anavar in light of the way that Testosterone isn't recommended for female use. As a woman, you would favor not to develop a man like features which may be unsafe and dangerous for your life purposes.

Clen and Anavar are the primary two anabolic steroids, which considered increasingly secure for female use.

What Are The Best Steroids to Lose Belly Fat? If you have to slash down the paunch fats, guarantee you manage the Cortisol level, which is generally accountable for the stomach fat.

Considering decreasing the Cortisol level, Anavar, Clenbuterol, and Winstrol are renowned to reduce the Cortisol level and from this time forward improve the stomach region appearance by discouraging the fat conglomeration.

Exactly when there is no Cortisol in your body, 99% conceivable outcomes that you will eat lesser than anticipated and consequently devour the remainder of the calories put away in your gut with the help of steroids.

Side effects of Steroid for Weight Loss

One of the huge downsides to each anabolic steroid is that they are notorious for causing indications. Surrendered Anavar and Winstrol aren't the most exceedingly dreadful miscreants out there, yet given an enormous segment of the open door they can at present reason essential horrible reactions.

I have to give up you the heads, so take a gander at the steroids for weight decrease side effects:

• Acne

• Hair hardship

• Abnormal body hair advancement

• Joint torment (Winstrol)

• Increases terrible cholesterol

• Decreases incredible cholesterol

• Harsh on the liver (hepatotoxic)

• Holds back a normal age of testosterone

Regardless, that isn't all.

What you have to review about Clenbuterol is that is definitely not an anabolic steroid. This infers its responses are a completely surprising ball game.

Clenbuterol can facilitate any of the going with disagreeable reactions:

• Disturbed rest/Insomnia

• Excessive sweating

• Headaches

• Shaky hands/tremors

• Muscle issues

• Nausea

• "Wired" sensation

• Anxiety

• Erratic heartbeat

• High circulatory strain

• Suppresses taurine and electrolytes

"Is injectable Winstrol better for the liver?"

Any sensible individual would concur ordinarily steroids in the injectable structure are not typically destructive to the liver. In any case, this isn't the circumstance for Winstrol.

The blends for the two sorts of Winstrol are made a similar way. This infers whether you neck it or juice it the prescription is going to give your liver some distress.

What Are Fat Burning Foods? Allow me to make one thing straight before us initiation.

There are no fat expending sustenances that will engage you to lose fat alone. Reality.

There's a regularly acknowledged legend that sustenance, for instance, celery are 'negative calorie sustenance', for instance, the body uses more essentialness handling them than is truly contained inside the vegetables themselves.

Disastrously, no sustenance has these properties.

Here's a reality:

Eat up a bigger number of calories than you use, and you will put on weight.

It genuinely is that essential.

The key is to watch the eating routine and get some action.

Seek after this and you will get increasingly fit.

Regardless, tune in:

In case you select the best fat devouring sustenance, you are supercharging weight decrease! Really!

These marvels of nature empower the body to devour, methodology and frustrate fat; while others truly make you feel full snappier so you are not striking the icebox!

How Do Fat Burning Foods Work?

With everything taken into account, fat devouring sustenance for individuals to work in three central ways:

Lift Metabolism

Your body looks like a vehicle engine. For it to work it needs fuel.

Examining this article, it's just sitting over. In any case, boosting assimilation is proportional to crushing your foot down hard on the gas pedal!

Some fat devouring sustenances increase the BMR (basal metabolic rate) which means your body is working in additional time – it needs more fuel.

It finds this is your fat stores!

This prompts more calories being scorched and you looking phenomenal.

Cover Appetite

There's nothing more horrendous than endeavoring to watch the eating schedule, be that as it may, bearing the desolation of being greedy between meals.

Numerous fats devouring sustenance are longing for suppressants, they engage the body to feel satisfied for additional.

This suggests no all the more following goodies and including purposeless calories!

Addition Lipolysis and Decrease Lipogenesis

Fat devouring sustenance tape

Lipolysis portrays the limit of the body to separate fat stores.3

Get this:

There are some wonderful ordinary fat eliminators which addition the rate of lipolysis, inferring that the body is in the perfect fat shedding state!

There's extra:

Lipogenesis is the way where the body structures fat. The best fat expending sustenances can ruin this technique, which means less fat is made.

A blend of these two makes for a certified fat-destroying machine!

So now we should look at the best fat expending sustenance and refreshments.

What Are the 10 Best Fat Burning Foods?

This is what you are here for!

We should not waste any extra time and get down to the veritable business! I've gathered a summary of fat devouring sustenance!

1 Cayenne Pepper

Fat expending sustenances cayenne

This sustenance is awesome as it might be used in every way that really matters any dinner!

Likewise, trust me, this present one's a real fat eliminator!

Studies have exhibited that cayenne pepper raises the internal temperature of the body (thermogenic), which subsequently raises BMR meaning you expend fat.

In any case, there's extra:

Cayenne pepper is a really astounding craving suppressant. Sprinkle on your dishes and you won't be lured to eat again until your next supper! 4

This genuinely is one of the sustenances that expends fat rapidly.

2 Grapefruit

A staple of any eating routine!

For a long time, grapefruit was recommended as a conventional start to the day as a result of its disease anticipation specialist properties and low-calorie check.

Regardless, contemplates have since shown that it advances weight decrease!

Grapefruit contains naringenin, a flavonoid with incredibly momentous properties.

Tune in up:

Research has exhibited that naringenin diminishes insulin affectability and reduces fat creation – which means notwithstanding the way that you are less disposed to get a donut to support sugar desires, yet the body will be stifled from making progressively silly pounds! 5

3 Cinnamon

Fat devouring sustenances cinnamon

Like cayenne, another fat expending sustenance that can be added to by and large dinners!

For example, it's uncommon on oat, a get-up-and-go for meat or even just flew into that morning coffee!

Cinnamon bolsters BMR, sending your processing into overdrive and devouring fat.

4 Tuna

This fish is phenomenal in two guideline ways.

To begin with, it's a magnificent wellspring of protein.

Identified with your action plan, this protein will lift muscle advancement. We are not taking mass like degrees here, nonetheless, you will basically look molded and tight!

Besides, fish is high in omega-3 acids. These unsaturated fats have been shown up in starters to lessen paunch fat!

So pounds drop and all that is left is tight fit muscle!

5 Green Tea

Fat devouring sustenance green tea

A real fat devouring superfood!

Notwithstanding the way that it tastes uncommon and is stacked with malignancy counteractive action specialists, nonetheless, green tea has furthermore dependably been showed up in primers to shed the fat! 8

Make green tea your drink of choice for the span of the day, and it will:

Lift BMR – devouring those fat cells.

Addition fat oxidation – fat cells discrete and can without quite a bit of a stretch be shed.

Smother hunger – the sensitive caffeine effect infers you remain fulfilled!

6 Chocolate

Really, you read that right!

Chocolate can empower you to get fit as a fiddle!

Regardless, be wary:

Pick diminish chocolate with a cocoa substance of 70 – 80%.

It's a wonderful wellspring of polyphenols which augmentation metabolic rate and devour fat!

In like manner, it's as astounding as a hankering suppressant, that surveys have demonstrated basically smelling it makes you feel full!

7 Coconut Oil

Fat expending sustenance coconut

It's ended up being logically chic to use coconut oil in cooking, and as it ought to be!

This oil is high in medium-chain triacylglycerols which contain numerous fewer calories than various fats.

Ideally, the oil should be obliged when wanting to get fit as a fiddle, anyway, you need a couple of treats, isn't that so?

Get this:

Starters have exhibited that coconut oil certainly improves weight decrease appeared differently in relation to the past top pick, olive oil.

8 Almonds

Notwithstanding eating craving smothering sustenance as recorded above, in spite of all that you may get an astounding nibble attack that won't leave!

In case that is the circumstance, snack on almonds! These surprising nuts make you feel more full for additional, deflect ingestion of specific fats and have been exhibited in starters to lessen weight!

9 Oysters

Not just a Spanish fly!

Mollusks contain staggeringly a lot of zinc.

It has seemed huge people have low degrees of zinc. Not solely can zinc satisfy the craving anyway it decreases the sugar requiring effects of insulin?

10 Garlic

Fat expending sustenance garlic

One of my favored fixings! Likewise, a standout amongst other fat for expending vegetables!

Regularly, it adds incomprehensible flavor to your dishes, yet furthermore, it's surprising fat devouring sustenance.

A progressing report showed that garlic can work to both expend fat and balance new fat gathering!

#fat burning steroids for women #rapid weight loss steroids #best steroid for fat loss #steroids for women weight loss #anavar for women weight loss

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soto-translates · 7 years

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Saiyuki Ibun: Report Cards

Translating the Saiyuki Ibun character report cards from here:http://nitroblog.exblog.jp/22526276/

Saiyuki Ibun Report Cards Sanzo Priest succession candidates Group 1 (total: 11 people)

Mt. Byakuyou, Taisou Temple, representing all responsible parties Sensuu, Shousouzu*

HOUMEI　峯明 Born 8/29; age 22 Height: 175 cm / 5’9” Weight: 65 kg / 143 lbs

Academics: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★ 3 Gifted in memorization; extremely quick-witted. However, doesn’t remember anything he has no interest in. Physical: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★ 3 Lightness of body, execution of skills, and physical abilities are definitely not low. However, frequently skips drills whenever he has a mind to. Buddhist Skills: ★★★★★★★★★★ 10 Can instantly complete large skills without the need to intone mantras; has a comparatively rare genius. Behavior: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆★ 1 Daydreams, skips drills. Demeanor seems soft at first glance, but is only pretending to be polite; is far too bold. Understanding: ☆☆☆☆★★★★★★ 6 Appears to have a single strong thought. Seems to be calculating, but is possibly a natural idiot. Notes: His easy-going nature is hard to pin down. Foundation is strong and therefore does not bend in his thinking. Brilliant in everything, but behaves far too freely. Most problematic pupil on record. ※ Birth and background are largely unknown. Requires investigation. Total Score: 23 / 50 pts

TOUDAI　桃醍

Born 1/1; age 29 Height: 210 cm / 6’11” Weight: 121 kg / 267 lbs

Academics: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Foundation is solid; attendance is excellent. Still in the midst of studies as devotion to Buddhism came late. Physical: ☆★★★★★★★★★ 9 Extremely excellent power and spirit. However, physique is too large and is not flexible. Buddhist Skills: ☆☆☆☆★★★★★★ 6 Diligently practices fundamental Buddhist skills but, perhaps because he is conscious of his shortcomings, relies on physical abilities. Behavior: ★★★★★★★★★★ 10 Very excellent. Swiftly judges conditions; able to read the truth of the matter. Also, heavily trusted by his peers. Understanding: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Recognizes others’ personalities; possesses desired ability to be both hard and soft; however, is a man of strict morals. Notes: Lacks experience as a Buddhist monk, but works hard and has already achieved excellence. Has labored since he was young; is a natural leader who combines common sense, morals, and decorum. His lover’s suicide prompted his devotion to Buddhism; suffers from insomnia, unable to shed the emotional wounds from this incident. Total Score: 41 / 50 pts (excellent)

GENKAI　玄灰 Born 3/2; around 30 years old? Height: 90 cm / 2’11” Weight: 28 kg / 62 lbs

Academics: ☆☆☆☆★★★★★★ 6 Likes books and has extensive knowledge due to having seen both sides of the world, but Buddhist learning is still weak. Physical: ☆☆☆☆★★★★★★ 6 Body sense is extremely good; speed and execution of skills is excellent. However, physique is small and lacks power. Buddhist Skills: ☆★★★★★★★★★ 9 Mantra recall and chanting is unrivaled; skills are powerful. Has talent for concentration. Behavior: ☆☆☆★★★★★★★ 7 Dislikes fighting and is taciturn, but is often the origin of trouble due to being a youkai. Understanding: ☆☆☆☆★★★★★★ 6 Understands the world too well due to past experiences; it feels like he has gone beyond resignation and given up. Notes: Has the power to see the future and has never been wrong. Appears far younger than his true age and his usual behavior is close to that of a child, but internally has mature thoughts and decision-making capabilities. Extremely taciturn, perhaps because he is aware of the weight of his words as a seer. Total Score: 34 / 50 pts

DOUTAKU　道卓 Born 10/17; age 30 Height 186 cm / 6’1” Weight: 85 kg / 187 lbs

Academics: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Excellent recall. However, is not motivated to expand his knowledge on his own. Physical: ☆★★★★★★★★★ 9 Has a trained and lean body; excels in skills requiring power. Imaginative in actual combat. Buddhist Skills: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Mastered all basics; skills are reasonably powerful. Good at attacking. Behavior: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Rough behavior usually stands out, but surprisingly values propriety and is punctual. Heavily trusted by those around him. Understanding: ☆☆☆★★★★★★★ 7 Extremely virtuous but places too much priority on boosting up other people. Lacking something in a decisive ego. Notes: In opposition to his rough behavior, he is a model apprentice monk and is trusted by not only his contemporaries but by his elders as well. Values his experiences and handles everything cleverly, but sometimes does not wish to improve. Appears that aiming to become the next Sanzo was not his own wish. Total Score: 40 / 50 pts (excellent)

SEIRAN　青藍 Born 2/14; age 28 Height: 179 cm / 5’10” Weight: 74 kg / 163 lbs

Academics: ★★★★★★★★★★ 10 Extremely brilliant and above reproach. Has covered even scriptures from other sects, and never boasts. Physical: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Excellent. Able to make calm decisions, but isn’t always able to apply them. Spirit is strong; staying power is excellent. Buddhist Skills: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Excellent and exemplary. However, like the physical abilities, isn’t always able to apply Buddhist skills. Has no individualism. Behavior: ★★★★★★★★★★ 10 Extremely serious and exemplary. Values the canon above all, able to make calm decisions. Understanding: ☆☆☆☆★★★★★★ 6 Has charged himself with always making the “correct decision”; hard-headedness stands out. Notes: Raised and trained by Sousui Sanzo. Brilliant and exemplary in everything, but is a neat freak who is too harsh on both others and himself. Thus his interaction with others (other than Doutaku) is weak. Prideful, but able to evaluate himself calmly. Total Score: 42 / 50 (excellent)

JYOUAN　蝶庵 Born: 9/28; age 24 Height: 173 cm / 5’8” Weight: 62 kg / 137 lbs

Academics: ☆☆☆☆★★★★★★ 6 Average. Diligent in his own way but his habit of gazing into a mirror during lectures is unnecessary. Physical: ☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★★ 4 Avoids getting injured to an extreme extent; lacks aggressiveness in exercises. Comparatively violent, for all that. Buddhist Skills: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Buddhist power stands out; skills are reliably effective. Forte is original and unique skills. Behavior: ☆☆☆☆★★★★★★ 6 Appears confident in his own aesthetics but his actions are coarse and shabby. Submissive towards lecturers. Understanding: ☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★★ 4 Problems are his looking down on others and the vulgarities he voices. However, has a straight-forward nature and doesn’t lie to himself. Notes: Doesn’t hide his greed, perhaps because he was born in an area ravaged by war and experienced a childhood plagued by hunger. However, impressed by the image of the previous Sanzo who saved his village, he is serious in his stance aiming to be the next Sanzo. Increasingly hates to lose; a considerably hard worker. Total Score: 28 / 50 pts

GANPUKU　丸福 Born: 5/13; age 22 Height: 165 cm / 5’5” Weight: 76 kg / 168 lbs

Academics: ☆☆☆★★★★★★★ 7 Buddhist studies are a bit below average, but is exceedingly bright in only language, math, and economics. Physical: ☆☆☆★★★★★★★ 7 Rather stout and short in stature, but quite muscular. Powerful and surprisingly agile. Buddhist Skills: ☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★★ 4 Not very skilled. He himself admits he concentrates more on counting money than on the mantras. Behavior: ☆☆☆☆★★★★★★ 6 Faults are his tendency to simply go along with others and to steal food without permission. Understanding: ☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★★ 4 Doesn’t sugar-coat his words and only has eyes for food and money, but is a likable mood-maker. Notes: Parents are peddlers from the Western continent; he himself has the physical traits and accent of a foreigner. Because of this, both parents and child experienced discrimination, and it seems he wishes to overcome his complexes and to remove prejudice by achieving the status of highest-ranking monk. Total Score: 28 / 50 pts

RYUUZEN　隆善 Born: 7/24; age 29 Height: 180 cm / 5’11” Weight: 65 kg / 143 lbs

Academics: ★★★★★★★★★★ 10 Broad intelligence that spans many qualifications. Known as the “walking dictionary” and “talking manual”. Physical: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆★ 1 Has no staying power or ability to act suddenly; severely lacking in body movement sense. Buddhist Skills: ☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★★ 4 Ability to concentrate is strong; diligently applies himself. However, tends to lose concentration in sudden situations. Behavior: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Values the canon and cooperation, but is the silent type. Awfully weak against accidents. Understanding: ☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★★ 4 Prideful; not good at recognizing others’ abilities. Thus is not very trusted by others. Notes: Called a “child prodigy”; self-identifies as having acquired numerous qualifications. As such has challenged himself with the exams to succeed the highest-ranking monk, Priest Sanzo. Fundamentally a hard worker, but his faults are seriously dwelling on small or prideful matters, and also his tendency to show off. Total Score: 27 / 50 pts

SHOUUN　抄雲 Born: 12/12; age 24 Height: 170 cm / 5’7” Weight: 66 kg / 146 lbs

Academics: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★ 3 It’s apparent that he is earnestly trying, but it is also plain that he is not good at studying. Physical: ☆☆☆★★★★★★★ 7 Small stature, but has staying power and guts. Not learning the katas and devolving into a brawl-like style is a problem. Buddhist Skills: ☆☆☆☆★★★★★★ 6 Memorization of mantras is exceedingly slow, but execution of memorized skills is reliably swift; success rate is fairly high. Behavior: ☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★★ 4 Attempts to value the morals of an apprentice monk and the canon, but cannot hide his naturally rough behavior. Understanding: ☆☆☆☆☆★★★★★ 5 Tends to jump to conclusions based on feelings, but is fundamentally a man who thinks of his peers and hates duplicity. Notes: Applied to succeed Sanzo in order to rebuild the old mountain temple where he was raised. Before leaving his home he rebelled against his parents, became a delinquent and dirtied his hands with wrong doings, but reformed himself after his father’s passing. Three convictions of theft and injury. Currently is still rough around the edges, but is very serious in his training. Total Score: 25 / 50 pts

GICHOU　義兆 Born: 4/10; age 34 Height: 178 cm / 5’10” Weight: 75 kg / 165 lbs

Academics: ☆☆☆☆☆★★★★★ 5 Studies seriously but tends to spin in place. Achieves neither good nor bad grades. Physical: ☆☆☆★★★★★★★ 7 Physical power is above average and reflexes are on the high side. However, tends to favor moves from the pro wrestling he is interested in. Buddhist Skills: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★ 3 Lacks concentration. Perhaps he simply fails to properly complete his skills, but often executes unnecessary or useless techniques. Behavior: ☆☆☆☆★★★★★★ 6 Tries to fulfill the duties of an apprentice monk very seriously, but has no composure and is uselessly noisy. Understanding: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆★★★ 3 His passion is fine, but tends to force his enthusiasm on others and is generally unable to read the atmosphere. Notes: Has a wife and young daughter, but they separated before he became a monk. While he stands out as being a subpar monk, he does have natural “strong luck” and time after time has easily escaped dangerous situations using only this luck. Very positive and strong-spirited, but easily moved to tears. Total Score: 24 / 50 pts

SOUJIN　宗迅 Born 6/4; age 61 Height: 175 cm / 5’9” Weight: 78 kg / 172 lbs

Academics: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Devoted himself to Buddhism when he was near 60 years old, but is diligent and originally quite learned. Well-informed in various trivial matters. Physical: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Lacks agility but has stability in his legs and hips; has as much strength and staying power as the younger monks. Buddhist Skills: ☆☆☆★★★★★★★ 7 High level of concentration; acceptably manages an average level. Specializes in defensive rather than offensive maneuvers. Behavior: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Perhaps because of his age, lacks zeal and aggressiveness, but is skilled at stepping back from a situation before making a decision. Understanding: ☆☆★★★★★★★★ 8 Lends his support from the sides without standing out; makes use of his rich life experiences and is relied on by his peers. Notes: Taison Temple’s eldest apprentice monk, but has a well-trained body in opposition to his gentle bearing and age. Has had various types of jobs until now (too many to believe); rich in knowledge and experience; is flexible, good-natured, and composed. Wife passed away several years ago. Total Score: 39 / 50 pts

*Sensuu（線秀）= Monk’s name. I went with the most likely pronunciation, since pronunciation wasn’t written. If anyone knows for sure, please let me know! Shousouzu（少僧都）= One of the rankings of monks. I couldn’t find an English equivalent. Again, if anyone knows, please let me know!

#saiyuki #saiyuki ibun #translation

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chroniclesofarkrux · 7 years

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Floxes

For those who might happen upon this from Snowysaur’s post, I highly recommend reading the [Introduction] first to fill you in with some of the terms I use here. It’s fairly short compared to my other posts. I tend to use more and more terms with the more posts I write, so my recommendation (if you’re interested in reading more) would be to read the posts in the order I created them.

(This is a long post, so I’ve opted to use a read-more thingy to keep it neat. And plan to add it to some other posts now that I know how to make it!) (And to address the long period of time since the last post, I’ve been hard at work with Full Burn, the next book in the Dragon Drive series. SO MUCH STUFF GOES ON AND I’M EXCITED.)

Since I already covered Floxes to a point in my [Monsters] post, I’ll be leading off with that. I will make a note of when I stop for those who just came from there, so you can simply scroll past to the new content.

{Floxes are a very common, intelligent Monster that resemble bipedal dragons with fur instead of scales. A preference to fly rather than walk leads to the false assumption all Floxes waddle; ground-bound Floxes can walk and run as steadily as any other bipedal species. They can range from a mere foot in length, to close to six feet tall. Capable of human speech, and in fact have their own language, society, and culture, but a close proximity to humans over time added some human customs and familiarity. Personalities among them vary widely, but they tend to be very family-oriented, going as far as to forgo last names so marriages only bring groups together. A very social species, and have no misgivings with invading the personal space of someone they trust, and vice versa. As such, some elect to keep some as pets. There are debates on the derogatory nature of such an act, but the Floxes themselves don’t complain so long as they’re treated kindly.

The ability for a Flox to use Ux is at a baseline greater than a human’s, as every Flox, including Sereph Floxes, can use Air Ux with their wings to aid in flight, as well as “float” by expelling it from their wings. In addition to this innate Type, Floxes also have the potential to use other Types, two more being the most common. Floxes still can only have use of Air Ux, but such cases leave the Flox in particular with extreme flight capabilities. Floxes also have their own Pseudo Type, tied to their flight ability. While exceedingly weak on its own, Floxes with increased Air capabilities still have the potential to induce Changing in humans they encounter.}

[NEW CONTENT]

In this new section, I’ll be diving more into the differences between the genders of Flox and trends in appearance, their customs, and significant anecdotes. (Shoutout to @snowysaur for doing the refs for me! Lots of cute stuff over there!)

This is an example of a male Flox. They have less muscle mass and density than their female counterparts, but are more agile fliers and shed/grow a “winter coat” when local temperatures reach sufficient lows. This coat is thicker than a female’s all-around coat, but the female’s coat is a better insulator. Thanks to a male’s capacity to better manifest their Ux outside their bodies, they tend to have more options in combat versus just raw strength.

This is a female Flox; note the wider hips and thick chest fur. These two factors are key in identifying gender and makes mistaking gender difficult. She is more muscular than a male Flox and is pound-for-pound stronger, and is capable of lifting one and a half times that of a male at matching weight. The key to this strength is utilizing Ux in her muscles, rather than the wings where male Flox have specialized it for speedy flight. A female Flox is purpose-built for caring for her young, the fur on her chest allowing them to nurse even in the harsh cold where the species originated. Floxes give birth to live young, with one child being the norm, but twins and “litters” are still fairly common thanks to high fertility compared to other species, increasing with the size of the Flox. A Flox child reaches full development rapidly, starting off very small and growing larger the longer it is carried, ultimately leading to larger Floxes when they reach an adult stage. This is what leads to the large variation between sizes, and their fertility ultimately being the limiter on how large or small that range is. Small Floxes rarely have more than one child at a time, and large Floxes frequently have multiple unless environmental factors limit that capacity. A well-known way for a Flox to increase fertility despite their size is to consume dragon fruit, the unique scent and flavor eliciting an immediate sexual stimulation and leading to it inevitably becoming a controlled substance where large Flox populations exist due to abuse of the fruit from Flox and humans alike.

The two genders still share a number of aspects that influence their appearance, despite the numerous differences genetics offers them. Fur markings range from nothing to extremely complex designs, with no clear indication as to what influences them. These markings follow the same trends their fur, mane, webbing, and eyes follow: an indication of the Ux Types of the individual in question. To utilize the two above, let’s start with the male. His yellow and silver are indications of his ability to use Lighting and Metal, and while the webbing (and inner ears) are darker, it doesn’t remove from this. However, there are still instances like with the female, who appears to have three or even four different Types, but only the orange is indicative of her Types. (Nova, and the second is unknown.) These five color aspects (webbing, mane/hair, fur, fur markings, and eyes) can vary widely, but a Flox always has one of their colors a mark of the Ux they can utilize, even if it’s very weak. But as with any species that has appearances based on Ux, there isn’t a strict standard of one color per Type. Red can indicate Fire, Sun, and Nova. This will be explored in more detail when I explain Ux Types in a more advanced light.

The original customs of Floxes have been diluted from a close relationship with humans, as mentioned above, but utilize human customs in a Floxish manner versus complete mimicry. “Floxish” is the name humans have given the Floxes’ language, which has a unique dialect between humans and Monsters due to different hearing ranges altering the syntax. For a Flox, it’s normal to be more interactive with those in their community, including hugging strangers and other physical actions to indicate affection, or more violent ones to indicate distrust. Visiting communities where humans are rare can lead to being mobbed by curious children and adults alike, but they have implemented fragrances or sashes to indicate a discomfort with such actions to better accommodate visitor’s preferences. A notable community that doesn’t follow these tenets of behavior; Yitkin. “Yitkin” is Floxish for “grey-haired” and was named after Tommori Felkin, who organized a starving Flox community into a mining and foundry city, despite his young age at the time. These Floxes were oftentimes at the largest end of the Floxes’ sizes, and boasted pitch black fur despite living in a desert wasteland. Due to Tommori’s close influence and that of humans as the city developed, the Floxish part of their culture faded to something more strictly inter-Flox. As isolated populations rose after the incidents of the Great War and those surrounding the Dragon Drive, Flox culture flourished and could hold sharper distinction from human culture.

Another important note with Flox biology, to return to dragon fruit’s aphrodisiac-al effects, is that of other foods, particularly fragrant fruits, bringing about a specific reaction. This is due in part to a lack of sweet and fragrant foods in their original habitat and coincidences with their natural pheromones. While dragon fruit is the substance with the most apparent effect, other fruits have been known to cause serious harm and death due to Floxes’ unique metabolism. Some on the known list of poisons include many fruits that would normally allow a human to replenish and utilize more Ux than they previously could. Ux in the fruit itself also plays a significant part in these reactions, compounded in the more potent reactions.

A final note for this exceedingly large post is that Sereph Floxes share a lot of physiological traits with Floxes, as they are an evolutionary offshoot of Floxes created from a mutation related to the development of twins. As listing the specifics of these similarities would be pointless considering I plan to do an individual post on them, I’ll leave you with the knowledge that Flox/Sereph hybrids can exist, and can be fertile, but their appearance take after Floxes primarily, rather than a Sereph’s more human appearance.

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mikeanderson2847-blog · 5 years

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An ideal Sardinian town is selling homes

The commonplace aphorism that "if something is farfetched, it likely is" undeniably applies explicitly to outstanding houses in stunning territories, available at exceedingly low expenses.

So the buyer's drive to be cautious might be totally actuated by the news that a town on the Mediterranean idyll of Sardinia has homes accessible to be bought at the arrangement cost of €1 (88p).

Ollolai, which lies almost at the point of convergence of the Italian island, a winding 110-mile drive north of the capital Cagliari, is the minor spot on the guide being alluded to.

It starting at now winds up in the midst of a little land tornado after its city lobby pioneer put out an interest to find new owners for a heap of void properties.

They go with delightful points of view on the incorporating Sardinian wide open, and can be gotten without the standard property-getting worries over coordinating a home credit and overseeing chains of various buyers engaging with their own special blueprints.

The unpreventable catch?

The new owners need to agree to present a reasonable additional total - inclined to be about £20,000 - to the update of their arrangement des-res, which is likely going to have fallen into a state of feebleness following a long time of being left uninhabited. Work would moreover ought to be done to a period scale - inside the accompanying three years.

Arbau says that, paying little respect to the extra cost, productive purchasers will get something astonishing.

"They are lovely old structures made with Sardinia's common diminish stone shake that creates on mountain zeniths and shores," he says.

The arrangement is a bit of a course of action to restore a town which has seen its people levels make a plunge the most recent 50 years. Over the latest 50 years, its head-count has contracted from 2,250 to around 1,300, as youths have been bedeviled away to businesses in various bits of the island, or on the territory - and have not been superseded by new occupants.

The unfilled houses were once guaranteed by shepherds, farmers and various local people, anyway have been standing dormant for a significant long time - a visual depiction of Ollolai's sentiments of fear that, with the exception of if its masses example is convoluted, it will finish up being an apparition town in the coming decades.

Arbau has been one of the cerebrums behind pulling in would-be tenants from elsewhere, and was dynamic in influencing the breaking down structures' present owners to put them accessible by stamping them over to the area masters.

Such a course of action, Arbau says, is essential to Ollolai's continued with nearness.

"We need to bring our grandmas' homes over from the grave," he told CNN.

"We boast old causes. My crusade is to ensure our stand-out shows from falling into vacancy."

"Pride in our past is our quality. We've by and large been extraordinary people and won't empower our town to fail miserably."

Ollolai has authoritatively sold three of the houses, and got enquiries about a further 100, proposing you may ought to be energetic if you have to abuse the offer.

Without a doubt, contributed people may well consider a cost of £20,000.87 a gigantically appealing indicate pay for an Italian home - paying little mind to whether Ollolai's territory does not make it the most clear of settings for a spot in the sun.

Sardinia pulls in a ton of tourists in the pre-summer, yet the larger part are pulled in to the shorelines and waterfront towns of an island which, as the second greatest in the Mediterranean (smaller just than Sicily), boasts 1,149 miles shoreline.

Not that you can see the sea from Ollolai. It lies in any occasion 45 miles from the water, dependent upon which road you take - high up in the tough inside, in the harsh zone known as Barbagia.

Visitors can regardless foresee an intriguing air, and culinary satisfactions, for instance, porceddu (sear piglet).

Despite whether the setting of the town's unused cabin stock in the overall shop window will have the perfect reenergising effect remains to be seen - yet the thought isn't phenomenal, and clearly not in Italy.

Starting late, a couple of other minimal Italian towns have played practically identical cards.

Gangi, in northern Sicily, put 100 surrendered homes accessible in 2015 - while Carrega Ligure in Piedmont, and Lecce nei Marsi in Abruzzo, moreover exposed tumbledown houses at apparent sticker costs.

"I have to keep the recorded concentration from crumbling to pieces," Gianluca de Angelis, the city director of Lecce nei Marsi explained.

"There are no open resources for help, and I'd like energetic couples to return."

The town remains an appealing prospect for sharp clients - it sits just 80 miles east of Rome.

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jeromechill1 · 7 years

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Evidence-based health practice: a fairytale or reality?

This blog, written by Leonard Goh, was the winner of Cochrane Malaysia and Penang Medical College’s recent evidence-based medicine blog writing competition. Leonard has written an insightful and informative piece to answer the question: ‘Evidence-based health practice: a fairytale or reality’.

Details of the other winners are here – many congratulations to you all.

The philosophy of EBM has its origins in the 19th century, though it was only relatively recently in 1991 that Gordon Guyatt first coined the term in his editorial, espousing the importance of a clinician’s ability to critically review literature and synthesize the new findings into his practice [1]. His comments sparked off the EBM movement in a medical fraternity that was increasingly unsatisfied with basing clinical practice on anecdotal testimonials, leading to the worldwide incorporation of EBM classes into both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, as well as workshops for already-practicing clinicians.

It has to date percolated into the public arena, to the point where it is not uncommon to hear patients asking, “so what is the evidence for this treatment you are proposing?”

EBM was formally defined as “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients” in a 1996 article [2], and subsequently revised in 2000 to mean “a systematic approach to clinical problem solving which allows the integration of the best available research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values” [3]. The revision attempted to reflect equal emphases on the clinician’s individual clinical competency and cultural competency, addressing the common criticism of its prior definition that it was “cookbook medicine” that negated individual clinical expertise and the choice of patients.

There is a constant struggle to balance clinical decisions in accordance with the three ideals, especially if current best evidence contradicts individual experience and patient choice. But the main issue with EBM is, in my opinion, the validity and applicability of research results to the real world. Research conclusions are drawn completely from statistical analysis, yet a vast majority of clinicians lack a proper in-depth understanding of statistics to come to a correct conclusion.

Take the p-value for instance. It is commonly understood that results are statistically significant if the corresponding p-value is below 0.05, and statistically insignificant if the p-value is above 0.05. However, this dichotomy is simply not true.

The p-value threshold of 0.05 is an arbitrarily defined convention that was first proposed by RA Fisher in 1925 and has since been used for convenience sake. Furthermore, p-value significance should in fact be seen as a continuum; results with a p-value of 0.049 is not markedly more significant that one with a p-value of 0.051, yet we proclaim the former a significant finding and disregard the latter. This invariably leads to faulty reporting of study conclusions [4].

Digging deeper into the principles of p-value, it becomes apparent that there is a subtle difference between our commonly conceived notion of it and its exact meaning that can elude even the most astute of clinicians – the p-value does not comment on the truth of a null hypothesis, but rather is about the compatibility of the research data with the hypothesis. To remedy this, the American Statistical Association published a statement on statistical significance and p-values [5], but we can be sure it will take a significant (pun unintended) amount of time before these deeply entrenched misunderstandings are rectified.

This insufficient understanding of statistics means that research studies are vulnerable to statistical manipulation, whether unintentional or otherwise. Indeed, Stephen Ziliak and Deidre McCloskey, authors of the book The Cult of Statistical Significance, estimate that between 80% and 90% of journal articles have serious flaws in their usage of statistics; even papers published by the New England Journal of Medicine were not spared.

On top of that, huge numbers of papers published every day, making it a Herculean task to determine what constitutes “current best evidence” – it takes time to do a literature search, identify papers, and evaluate them, time which our clinicians simply do not have. Even if correct methodologies are in place, there is concern that claimed research findings may possibly be merely accurate measurements of the prevailing bias [6].

Adding insult to injury is the presence of predatory open access journals in the publishing industry. Neuroskeptic, an anonymous neuroscientist-blogger, illustrated this by submitting a Star Wars-themed spoof manuscript that was absolutely devoid of scientific rigor to nine journals, of which the American Journal of Medical and Biological Research accepted, and the International Journal of Molecular Biology: Open Access, Austin Journal of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and American Research Journal of Biosciences published [7].

While the Neuroskeptic’s intent was not to make a statement regarding the brokenness of scientific publishing but rather to remind us that some journals falsely claim to be peer-reviewed, this concomitantly highlights the very real probability of better-concealed, intellectually-dishonest papers masquerading as legitimate science, impeding efforts to uphold an evidence-based health practice.

Is evidence-based medicine then an unrealisable fairytale?

To conclude as such would perhaps be exceedingly harsh. Yes, our practice of evidence based medicine is flawed, as pointed out in the preceding paragraphs. That, however, is not to suggest that we should cease striving to improve upon it. Evidence based medicine represents our best hope in ascertaining that we provide our patients with the best available treatment options, and we should persevere in our endeavours to further actualise this fairytale into reality.

But should this be our utmost priority?

In today’s world, where our medical profession is increasingly governed by statistics and algorithms, it is easy to mistake evidence based medicine as a panacea. We would however do well to remember that as much as it is a science, medicine is also an art. It is crucial that we do not lose sight of our raison d’être – to cure sometimes, relieve often, and comfort always.

References

Guyatt GH. Evidence-based medicine. ACP J Club [Internet]. 1991 [cited 2017 Sept 25]:A-16. Available from: http://www.acpjc.org/Content/114/2/issue/ACPJC-1991-114-2-A16.htm

Komatsu RS. Evidence based medicine is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients [Abstract]. Sao Paulo Med J [Internet]. 1996 [cited 2017 Sept 25];114(3):1190-1. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9181752

Sackett DL, Straus SE, Richardson WS, Rosenberg W, Haynes RB. Evidence-based medicine: how to practice and teach EBM. 2nd London: Churchill-Livingstone, 2000

Hackshaw A, Kirkwood A. Interpreting and reporting clinical trials with results of borderline significance. BMJ [Internet]. 2011 [cited 2017 Sept 25];343:d3340. Available from: http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d3340

Wasserstein RL, Lazar NA. The ASA’s statement on p-values: context, process, and purpose. Am Stat [Internet]. 2016 [cited 2017 Sept 25];70(2):129-33. Available from: http://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00031305.2016.1154108

Ioannidis JPA. Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med [Internet]. 2005 [cited 2017 Sept 25];2(8):e124. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

Predatory journals hit by ‘Star Wars’ sting [Internet]. 2017 [cited 2017 Sept 25]. Available from: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2017/07/22/predatory-journals-star-wars-sting/#.WcfXB8gjE2z

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silviajburke · 7 years

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Fire And Fury Time

This post Fire And Fury Time appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

One of Bloomberg’s Wall Street cheerleaders let loose of a deep secret yesterday. When the S&P 500 reversed sharply from its intraday all-time high in response to the Donald’s “fire and fury” demarche, Mark Cudmore explained why the index has probably topped out for the summer:

Not to overplay the value of seasonal patterns, but there’s an intuitive reason why August is by far the worst month for the S&P 500 over the last 20 years — people don’t like fighting the market from the Hamptons.

Say it isn’t so!

The titans of Wall Street are supposed to be doing god’s work pushing the stock averages ever higher, not sipping on a “Hot Skinny Wench” of silver tequila, agave, jalapeno and citrus at their favorite Hamptons watering hole.

Then again, Mr. Cudmore may have been on to something. The casino has become so addicted to central bank liquidity and buying the dip that the only thing which can interrupt the relentless climb of stock prices, apparently, is beach time in the second half of August.

To be clear, we aren’t arguing for a Korea Panic. We just don’t buy CNN’s breathless alarmism about the Donald’s statement or think that nuclear armageddon on the Korean peninsula is about to break-out any time soon. In fact, we are downright suspicious about the “leak” which apparently triggered yesterday’s contretemps.

It seems that just in the nick of time to keep the North Korean nuke “threat” at full boil, the intelligence community (IC) favored the CIA’s house organ, the Washington Post, with a strategically leaked answer to the obvious point. Kim Jong-un’s recent ICBM test doesn’t put Los Angeles in imminent danger. That’s because North Korea hasn’t yet miniaturized its clunky 1950’s vintage A-bombs so that they fit in the cone of a missile.

Well, contrary to common knowledge among experts, suddenly it has.

North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power. The IC [intelligence community] assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles,” the assessment states, in an excerpt read to The Washington Post. Two U.S. officials familiar with the assessment verified its broad conclusions.

Forgive the cynicism and history reference, but we are tempted to ask: Does Colin Powell concur with the “assessment” of these two anonymous officials?

Are those cited even real spooks, or just some fat guys in the basement of a house in Langley, VA?

When the former national security advisor went off half-cocked based on faulty “intelligence” about Saddam’s WMDs, of course, he did it at the UN in full dress diplomatic language.

By contrast, the Donald was alone with his Twitter account at his Bedminster golf club, where he channeled Mr. Kim’s very own vernacular:

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with the fire and the fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said they will be met with the fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Thank you.”

The point is not merely that the Donald’s bluster was inopportune, unscripted, exceedingly dangerous and shockingly blunt. That part of it was made completely “inoperative” within hours by his Secretary of State, who took the Trumpian kettle off the stove and doused it in an ice tub:

Separately, in an attempt at de-escalation, Sec. State Rex Tillerson also stepped in to calm the mood, when speaking to reporters this morning, he says he doesn’t believe there is “any imminent threat” from North Korea, and says that they should “have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days.” As the AP adds, he downplayed speculation that the US was moving closer to a military option.

In an amusing twist, Tillerson tried to justify Trump’s bombastic threats, saying that “Trump is sending a message to North Korea in language Kim Jong Un would understand.”

What the markets are ignoring is not that Trump’s impulsive tweets might start a catastrophic war, but that the reality is he has already been sunk by the Deep State and its allies.

There is no way that a Secretary of State would gut the words of a President in the manner of Tillerson’s repost from Guam if the President were speaking for the machinery of state.

Wall Street is not remotely prepared for the upcoming breakdown of fiscal governance and the Washington kabuki dance which will lead up to the Donald’s last ride on the White House helicopter. The straws are already in the wind and by next Groundhog Day the broken furniture will be piled high in front of the Oval Office door.

It can be taken as virtually a given that there will be no FY 2018 budget resolution and that after repeated showdowns and shutdowns during October-November. There will be nothing more than short-term patches on the debt ceiling and continuing resolutions for next year’s $1.2 trillion worth of appropriations bills.

That means legislative food fights over these short-term patches and expedients will become the permanent business of Washington, not the rebirth of pro-growth policies fantasized by Wall Street.

The myth that the so-called GOP majority is capable of passing a sweeping tax cut stimulus, or even any tax bill at all, will be dead by February. As a procedural matter, there is no possibility of a tax bill from the US Senate.

If a GOP consensus on a 10-year budget plan – including the cuts that would be needed to pay for making America’s war machine “great again” along with border construction, veterans and even a modest tax cut – actually existed, an FY 2018 budget resolution would have passed weeks ago.

The talking heads on TV have suggested that there is no reason to sweat a delay on the tax bill. The general sentiment amongst pundits is that the market is a discounting mechanism and that an eventual cut in the corporate tax rate will permanently raise cash flows and stock prices. Yes, and if dogs could whistle, the world would be a chorus!

At the end of the day, all roads lead back to the Gipper and the giant one-of-a-kind tax cut accident of July 1981. When fully effective in the late 1980s, the Reagan tax cut knocked down Federal revenues by a staggering $1.1 trillion per year in today’s sized economy. But it was all paid for by massive increases in the public debt. That increase was made possible because of a clean national balance sheet in 1980, and by subsequent “tax grabs” in which upwards of 40% of the revenue loss from the tax bidding war of 1981 was recouped.

Those recoupment bills of 1982-1984 and the subsequent bipartisan revenue neutral tax reform of 1986 hang heavily, if unnoticed, over the present tax bill debate. Namely, they removed most of the politically achievable loopholes from the tax code. What is left is a hardcore of “incentives” and “fairness” measures that have weathered 30 years of political challenge.

In short, there are no “payfors” that amount to a hill of beans on the revenue neutral tax bill front. There is no conceivable increase in the national debt ceiling that could enable a Reagan-style deficit-financed tax cut. That fact is that even the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that the built-in “current policy” deficit over the next decade will total upwards of $12 trillion before a single dime of new tax cut is added on top.

The chart below, in fact, explains where Trump is starting relative to the Gipper, and why he will end there, as well.

The only thing that can save Trump’s presidency is a successful GOP tax bill. But the clock is running out and the legislative and policy barriers are nearly insurmountable.

The Donald’s single greatest applause line during the campaign, outside of denouncing bad trade deals, was his full throated attack on ObamaCare. But when faced with an emergency continuing resolution (CR) containing an ObamaCare bailout, Trump will be in no position to challenge the Congress.

He will be forced to sign, amid swirling intra-GOP recriminations, a bill that will mark the end of his improbable sojourn in the Oval Office.

With no tax bill and a humiliating defeat on ObamaCare, the GOP will face the prospect of harsh elections in November 2018. That will be especially true because by then Robert Mueller’s squad of legal assassins will have made mincemeat of the Trump family and anyone who supported him in the early days (such as Paul Manafort, General Flynn and Jeff Sessions).

At that point, the GOP’s only hope will be to offer up a scapegoat. As with Nixon, it will do so once the polls show that removal of the Donald has become a condition of survival.

Then the Fire and Fury will really begin.

Regards, David Stockman for The Daily Reckoning

The post Fire And Fury Time appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

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s0022034asfilm · 7 years

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N. Evaluation

What were the aims of your artefact?

In my brief, I stated that I would be “…creating a thriller based in only one location like one of my films, ‘Comes a Bright Day’”. By analysing the hold the film had on the audience, despite a small amount of locations used, I was able to gain the insight on how to achieve this in my own piece. Also, it would concentrate on the themes of man vs. himself and man vs. society. The brief also refers to a limit of how long the short can be. This been around 2 minutes. At first, I was worried the time boundaries would make it exceedingly difficult to convey both of my themes (this been the focal of my TA so extremely important to my short film). During the planning stage, I spent awhile undertaking the appropriate measures to make sure the themes of my films wouldn’t feel incomplete and lost.

It was an objective of mine to create a narrative heavy piece with an enigma code. This was because I felt this would be comparable to my TA films and also would be the best way to achieve thriller conventions. Moreover, I hoped to specifically identify narrative techniques that both of my TA films used.

From my TA, I wanted to also expand my knowledge about specific filming and editing techniques whilst understanding why these techniques were chosen. It was certainly important to find out how this all correlated to my chosen themes. The films intriguing use of low angles and awkward long takes helped drive my idea forward. And before I began planning, filming, and editing my film, it was apparent to me that I wanted to craft something with a powerful dialogue backed up with the gripping angles and camera movements which made my TA films so engaging.

What codes and conventions identified in the TA were used in your film?

Cinematography:

Micro features were a big part of my TA and therefore influenced my short film. In terms of cinematography, I was influenced by the lighting. The low-key shadow cast upon the protagonists face in ‘Just Jim’ left the audience feeling tense and awkward as it highlights the characters facial expressions. This technique was mimicked in my TA and influenced the final shot of my film. This technique is also a convention of the thriller genre. Iconography from a thriller would include shadows and harsh lights cast across faces giving reasoning to its use in my short film. Below are two stills to emphasis this. The first is from ‘Just Jim’ and the second is from my film:

A part of cinematography is the framing. The thriller genre was an ambassador for using a canted angle in my short. Like one of my TA films ‘Just Jim’, my film incorporates a canted angle to show disorientation within the scene. Movement of the angle is used with the intention of leaving the viewer uneasy. In addition, ‘Just Jim’ cleverly incorporated use of the canted angle by using parallel editing between two scenes to show them tilting away from each other. In other words, it shows the audience how Jim is losing his self-identity and is pushing himself from everyone. Such thought was given to this framing choice. This is why my short also uses the framing style throughout. Evidence follows:

Mise-en-scene:

Facial expressions are a big part of mise-en-scene. They help the narrative show deep emotions which gives the protagonist more depth which in turn engages the audience. Once more, this is typical to the thriller genre of both ‘Just Jim’ and ‘Comes a Bright Day’ where examples can be found. These mid-shots linger over the protagonist with no dialogue but lets the facial expressions do the work.

In addition, an important element of mise-en-scene considered in my own short film was the costume. Sam (the protagonist in ‘Comes a Bright Day’) can be seen above wearing a simple dark suit. Similarly, the protagonist of my own short film wears dark clothing also as a reflection upon his mental state and the outcast role society has placed on him. Notably, the imaginary friend is wearing a slightly lighter version of the bottle green the protagonist wears. This emphasises the, yet to be achieved, potential the protagonist has of coming out of the shadow society, and also himself, has placed on the protagonist. Not only is this a link to the themes of Man vs. Himself and Man vs. Society but it also shows how I’ve been working within the same genre of my TA films (as thrillers have costumes which are darker by nature).

Sound:

The use of sound in the film ‘Comes a Bright Day’ helps build up to the event that sees an antagonist hold a gun to another character’s head. The soundtrack choice starts off slow and quiet before building up in both speed and volume. The same can be said for the scene where Jim, in the film ‘Just Jim’, comes to the realisation that the false hero is actually the antagonist to which the soundtrack reflects this sudden realisation. I have taken both these accounts of soundtrack use for my short film. Moments before the protagonist reveals to the audience that the character sat in front of him is in his head, the soundtrack begins to play slowly building up, creating tension, during this dramatic reveal. Below are stills of when the soundtracks start:

The scores themselves are all linked to the thriller genre. They all feature higher pitched string instruments pioneered by Hitchcock (known for his thrillers).

Editing:

Both my TA films use parallel editing so the audience can gain a feel of what’s happening better on screen. If you like, to see the ‘bigger picture’ from multiple locations that help form one plot line. One of the biggest self-critiques of my short film was a lack of location. I believe that my film ended up being the narrative heavy film I envisioned. But lack of ambition, in regards to location, ultimately meant I couldn’t myself use this technique in my film.

The TA films I studied both used cut reverse shots to help keep the audience focused on the back and forth conversation. The cutting type itself is very common in films. I would argue that it has become a convention of drama. Especially ones with intense narratives. Therefore, use of this is particularly important for narrative heavy films such as my own and my TA films. Below are stills from my short showing the exchange between my two characters with this editing technique:

How were the planning materials used in the construction of the artefact?

The most useful piece of planning was my Initial Ideas post. This is because it encouraged me to write down my ideas and develop them further to what I might have done. It allowed my characters to have more depth which in turn gave me a clear vision on how I wanted my short film to turn out. I spent lots of my time on this post tweaking and fine tuning my ideas until eventually I was confident I had an idea that was a reflection on my TA films (along with being an idea I felt stood well by itself)

Although not helpful in post-production stages of my film, the shooting schedule was extremely important to gathering footage. Due to the actors’ availability (one in particular), I wouldn’t have been able to ask the day before I wanted to film. The shooting schedule meant that I could plan ahead a few weeks in advance to ensure my actors could find the corresponding times with me. It also meant that I could know when I needed to reserve equipment to avoid disappointment on filming dates.

When considering the amount of overall planning I did, I would say I am fairly satisfied with how much I did due to the final outcome of my short film. Having said that, I do believe that I could’ve planned more effectively in regards to my screen tests. I didn’t spend as much time as I possibly should have looking for actors. I was satisfied with the ones I ended up with but I wouldn’t have hurt having screen tests for a few others to give myself more of a choice.

The first day of shooting left me realising flaws in both my script and framing. I hadn’t included the framing in the script as my plan was to shoot the entire short from multiple different angles and positions so that in post-production I could then decide what worked best and what didn’t. However, this backfired as, after the first shooting date, I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to gather all the footage from all the different angles. And so, I reviewed this prior to the next shooting days scheduled by deciding all the framing and angles before shooting. They were included on the script.

On one of the filming days, I forgot to ask my actors to wear the same clothing as the previous shooting time. This meant that I couldn’t mix and match footage from each of the days and had to settle with the footage from just one filming day. This meant a lot of time and effort concluded in me having to bin the footage. To make things even harder in post-production, one of my actors stopped the microphone recording on one of the takes. This take ended up in my final film meaning that I couldn’t use any of the recorded audio as it would create a massive inconsistency if I had all my shots with crystal clear audio excluding one in the middle. I was left to choose between bad footage and good sound or good footage and bad sound. Hence why I made the choice to leave the good audio out.

In the above still, you can see a fading out character behind the protagonist’s head. When I envisioned the reveal of one of the on-screen characters actually being in the head of the protagonist, this sliding shot wouldn’t show the character fading but would vanish as soon as the camera has passed the protagonists head. The positioning of the camera was off and so during post production, the head wasn’t covering the disappearing character meaning I had to settle for this fade. The outcome of this was surprisingly good and I am satisfied with this. Other options included cutting away and then cutting back however I felt this worked well.

The short film research task allowed me to see how other directors had gone about creating films of a thriller conventions. The screenshot below shows an extract of information from the short film research task post. Along with my TA film ‘Just Jim’, this helped influence the lighting in my short film as seen in the screenshot proceeding my research task. It helped me to implement low-key lighting, in particular, as it is important to meeting the conventions of the genre I have worked within. Furthermore, I was always worried if my tracking shot (third screenshot below) would look out of place in a thriller. My research proved to me how this wasn’t the case allowing me to include one. Lastly, this helped me discover my own score as most of these other short films used a score and credited a copy-right free website I too went on to use. Without them, I would have certainly struggled to produce my short to the standards I set out to meet.

My genre research helped me learn more about the genre conventions and how to apply them into my own thriller. I was able to spot conventions during my short film research and so I hope that I too have made it so these conventions can be seen in my short. A few of the conventions I met are: dark lighting, unpredictable narrative, disoriented angles, and an eerie score. Importantly, it helped me realise the importance of meeting the conventions within my genre. This is mainly so the audience wouldn’t be left dissatisfied by a film claiming to be a thriller but didn’t meet the typical understanding of what they believe to be a thriller (the conventions). Below are screenshots including the use of a disoriented angle and dark lighting (both influenced by my research into genre.

How successful was the artefact in achieving the aims?

For my TA, I set out to understand how themes were portrayed in the films ‘Just Jim’ and ‘Comes a Bright Day’. These themes being man vs. himself and man vs. society. I believe that I was able to understand how the micro features helped show these themes however, didn’t fully learn about film theory enough. I would definitely spend more time considering film theory about theme if I was to do this again. Therefore, this means that my TA wasn’t as helpful as it could have been towards the making of my films. However, I still was helpful thanks to the thorough research about the themes correlation to the micro features.

My short film was created with the intention to create a narrative heavy thriller using an enigma code. I felt that, thanks to my TA, I knew whilst planning the things I would need to do to achieve this aim (such as particular macro concept. I believe that I did achieve the overall aim. Granted, things didn’t go as I originally envisioned however, I did create a high-tension thriller which I intended to create.

The below is evidence of audience feedback collected after the first edit of my short was shown to my peers. Below each screenshot, I have reviewed and discussed how the feedback helped me develop my short from first edit to final edit.

I am pleased that this person felt the story line was good and easy to follow. The initial idea was developed over time and I am happy to see that it successfully developed into an easy to follow story line despite my initial doubts.

I agreed that the audio changed from time to time. Because of this, I changed the volume of certain clips within Final Pro with the hopes of balancing it out when exporting the file. For the final draft, I believe the audio problem was somewhat resolved. Yes, the audio was balanced and at the same level. However, the sound was distorted at times so the suggestion of a voiceover held some weight. I toyed with the idea but I felt that it wouldn’t have been achievable because of a few things. 1) All my footage showed a conversation. This was too valuable to the plot and idea for me to go over this with a voiceover. And, 2) I was restricted with the time I had and so wouldn’t have been able to develop a script and the recording necessary in time.

It had been my intention for the absence of sound to make the non-diegetic sound stand out to the audience creating suspense. I am happy that this audience member spotted this and appreciated it. By saying this, it shows how my short was recognised as the thriller I intended it to be. Meaning I managed to stay true to the genre of my TA films.

Again, it was a sound issue spotted but this time refering to my score sound levels. I left this level the same actually and used it as the prime level I should base my other volume levels at. I then changed the levels of the speech so it wasn’t washed out by my non-diegetic score.

I fell in love with my TA films because of their varied shot types. It is pleasing that this peer believed my film to have achieved the same.

To bolden the fact she isn’t real from the start ignores conventions of a thriller I was trying to meet. Although thankful for this suggestion, I believe that this wouldn’t have worked as I wanted to stay within the codes and conventions of my genre. It may help people understand the film better but, I have audience feedback that relieves me by saying that it was understandable.

When watching a film, it’s hard to notice the editing. I am glad that this peer pointed out how impressed they were with the editing. Hopefully, this was because they believed it to be seamless and wasn’t in the way of the plot.

The issue I would have adding more angles and cuts is that the whole short is just one person talking at someone. Therefore, I couldn’t cut back and forth between both the people without it feeling natural. I believe that next time I create a short, I would involve more movement and dialogue so that I get the chance to create a film with varied angles and shots.

With the plot twist been the main selling point of the short, I am glad this peer enjoyed it and saw its effectiveness. The score choice was also praised and am pleased by this as I had many sounds to choose from making it great that the right choice was made.

In my final cut, I added a cut away scene at the hospital that is brief but relevant. My film was originally just shy of the minimum so this was certainly a welcome addition.

I am extremely thankful for all the above feedback (and all the others I would have room to include). Without them, I wouldn’t have gained the confidence boost to drive myself into making the appropriate changes so I could produce a short I was happy with. Anything that was said negatively wasn’t at all offensive but was constructive and honest. These points were extremely vital to me and my short film.

If I was to start again, I definitely would make sure I corrected my sliding shot. I wasn’t able to due to time restrictions. The reason it wasn’t right was I set up my framing but then changed the positioning of my actors. This made the framing obsolete. I know now that it is important to make sure focusing a shot and framing is all done right before the record button is clicked. Another way in which this could be fixed is if I had double checked via the view finder to make sure I was getting the frame settings I had planned for.

Another thing I would do differently is have made sure I had access to a high-quality audio source. The built-in microphone of the camera was okay however wasn’t really to the high enough standard I wanted. Originally, I planned to use audio off an external mic but the record button was clicked twice by me and my actors unknowingly. Meaning I had ended up with only seconds of audio.

One last thing I would consider doing differently would be spending more time on deciding the title of my film. I haven’t found the name that, for me, suits my film. And so, I just decided to go with one in the spur of the moment due to a need to upload it. The issue I had is I wasn’t wanting a title that gave away the plot. However, I felt without the title saying anything, it meant that the audience could potentially misinterpret what was happening on screen. ‘Imaginary Friend’ gave away too much of the plot and big reveal. ‘Companion’ (the one I went with) didn’t give the audience anything to go off which has its pros and cons as discussed.

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