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linkspooky · 4 years

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What do you think about Miwa Kasumi? Do you think that she will play a role in the future, and where would the story lead her? And what do you think about her relationship with Mechamaru? She will most likely be a background character, but I still have hopes about her having any significance in the story.

Miwa’s relationship with Mechamaru is actually one of my favorite ships in the series. MechaMiwa shows one of the central themes of the theories, the desire to get closer to other people, but also how difficult it is to be close in the end. Mecahmaru’s desire to be together with everyone is one of the strongest emotional moments,and it all started from Miwa’s nervous attempts to reach out to him. Miwa is a character written around this conflict, the desire to be closer, and the fear of being close.

1. Just in it for the Money

Miwa parallels two older jujutsu users in her technique. First she uses the same “new shadow style”, as this first class and she uses simple domain users which Mei Mei has incorporated as a part of her techniques by using her little brother Ui Ui.

She also parallels them both in the fact that she’s not in Jujutsu Sorcery for entirely altruistic motivations. The other New Shadow Style user avoids a hard fight or making any real effort to go after Gojou because he just wants to protect himself. Mei Mei is just in it for the money. She’ll take whatever the quickest route is to earning more money.

Miwa doesn’t care as much about what is right or wrong, and is more in it for personal advancement. Which is why despite the fact that Maki comments she’s a nice person, she goes along with the other Kyoto Kid’s plan to kill Yuji very easily.

Miwa’s biggest adult foil is Mei Mei. They are both Jujutsu Sorcerers who are entirely in it for the money, and their own personal advancement. They’re also both older sisters who incorporate simple domains as a part of their technique. However, there a is a strong difference between them. Mei Mei is someone who uses her own little brother for her own benefit. Ui Ui exists to make her happy, and part of their technique is Mei Mei asking him to die for her. She puts her own little brother at risk for the sake of her jujutsu technique. Miwa is someone who is working her hardest for the sake of her two older brothers.

They are both older sisters but Mei Mei uses her little brother for her own benefit, whereas Miwa overworks herself for her brother’s benefit. This resulting difference also changes their priorities as well.

Maki is stunned when someone like Miwa gets along with Mai. However, there’s an important difference between the Kyoto kids and the Tokyo Kids. The Kyoto kids are much closer as a unit and strive to get along as friends whereas most of the Tokyo Kids while getting along don’t really act like friends.

Maybe it’s our nature as a Jujutsu Sorcerer, but even if we’re friendly with each other there’s always this distance between us.

Being cooperative and working on a team is seen as a weakness in the Jujutsu world where individual strength is valued above all else. This is probably in part why Utahime who is much more adept at social things like routing out spies, or getting along with the higher ups is looked down upon as weak by Gojou.

This is a running theme in the Jujutsu World. People die at any time. Even children will die. Being a jujutsu sorcerer is a high risk occupation to the point where it’s almost not worth getting close to others because you’ll only guarantee yourself pain.

Being a Jujutsu Sorcerer isn’t a team sport. No matter how many allies you hvae around you, you’ll always die alone. That’s the prevailing attitude in the Jujutsu world so sorcerers as a whole avoid getting close to one another. The result is while Yuji, Megumi and Nobara all get along they can’t really confide in each other like friends and often keep secrets and lie to each other.

Yet, precisely because they’re human Jujutsu Sorcerers also have a desire to become closer. The Goodwill Event Arc is this interaction over and over again. The Kyoto team tries to get the Tokyo team to understand them, and the Tokyo team refuses empathy.

The Tokyo Team is individually stronger, but the Kyoto team have emotionally bonded on a closer level. It’s probably because of the differences between Gojou and Utahime as mentors and their differences in priorities. However, it goes farther than this.

Maki can’t even get along with Mai her own twin sister. She places her strength as a jujutsu sorcerer as higher priority than the only family member she’s ever liked.

Megumi is also the result of a person choosing strength over family. His father abandoned him, and he became the strongest human capable of killing several jujutsu sorcerers, but yet Toji was a complete failure otherwise as a person because he abandoned his son, his only connection to other people.

Gojou was the absolute strongest sorcerer in the world, but he couldn’t do anything to save his one and only best friend because he failed to understand him until it was too late. Companionship and getting along with other people is just as important as strength, because Jujutsu sorcerers are human, but Jujutsu Sorcerers tend to ignore this fact.

Avoiding closeness isn’t a sign of strength. Maki and Mai aren’t close because Maki is too strong and doesn’t need Mai, it’s because Maki’s too insecure and bad at communicating in order to face her sister. The reason that people have difficulty getting close to each other, is because it’s painful, especially when it’s inveitable you are going to lose those people.

Mechamaru and Miwa’s relationship is so unique and special because it shows this struggle to be closer to others so vividly. Everything Mechamaru did, was because Miwa was the first person to reach out to him and bridge the gap between him and other people.

The technique Miwa uses is even called “Domain for the Weak.” Miwa is a weak person, who is not able to go after such lofty ambitions as people like Maki, Nobara and Gojou. All she’s really trying to do is survive and protect ehrself, and yet she meant something so profound to Mechamaru.

Her simple action of just trying to get closer is not only something that Maki, and Gojou can’t do. Maki can’t get along with her own twin sister, Gojou never understood his one and only best friend. It also gave Mechamaru the hope that made him fight even harder to be with everyone. If Miwa had never gotten close, she would never have to face the pain of losing him. However, at the same time it’s because Miwa tries to get close that mechamaru who spent his whole life alone, hospitalized, and suffering terribly started to love his friends with all of his heart. He went from a spiteful child lashing out at the world, to somebody who would do anything to protect those friends.

Miwa’s character may go in an interesting direction now in her reaction to Mechamaru’s death. Will she choose to try to get closer to someone again, or will she take Mei Mei’s path and choose to obsessively focus over the individual pursuit of money so she never has to feel the pain of loss again?

#Anonymous #kasumi miwa #jujutsu kaisen #jjk meta #jujustu kaisen met #jujutsu kaisen theory #mechamaru #mekamaru #kokichi muta

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bookandcover · 3 years

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The Home Place, subtitled “Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature,” takes an unique look at the experiences of working in environmental science, birding, farming, and otherwise existing in eco-spaces as a person of color. This book was my sister’s selection for our family’s ongoing Anti-Racism Book Club. As a graduate student in earth and environmental science, she thinks and talks a lot about race and gender within her field, mentors younger female students in the field, and teaches undergraduates. Like her, I expected this book to lean into the challenges of representation in the field and to comment on the (under-discussed) positive relationship between people of color and the natural world. And while these broader topics were discussed, this was, first and foremost, a deeply personal memoir. J. Drew Lanham starts his story where his life started, explaining his personal and familial connection with the land—The Home Place, a specific farmstead in Edgefield County, South Carolina, where he was born and grew up. This personal connection and narrative is essential—Lanham’s love for nature is shaped in his formative years by the close connection his family has with the land they live on and farm. His later academic connections to the land—from his graduate research to his volunteer work collecting bird identification data to his writing and communication about scientific topics—all these stem from that childhood passion that runs deeper than interest or fascination: J. Drew Lanham understands the land on an instinctual level. He sees himself as a natural being, in tune with the deer, wild turkeys, and monarch butterflies, with the possums, foxes, and eastern red cedars.

The structure of the book (moving roughly chronologically through Lanham’s birth, upbringing, growth, and independent life) is shaped by its foundational idea: Lanham’s conviction that he is a product of the land that raised him, as are his family members, his siblings, his parents, his grand-parents, and his ancestors before them. Therefore, looking at and observing The Home Place naturally leads to the work of observing his own family and how he came to be who he is in the world. The Home Place is exactly this, both physical landscape and the people that exist in harmony with it. Over and over again, in both small and large ways, Lanham reinforces this central thesis—from the chapter on the spring that fed and sustained the Home Place, which was maintained by his father and could not continue after Daddy’s death, to the chapter on digging into his family’s history (figuratively and literary) as he traces the Lanhams’ connections to the land. J. Drew Lanham acknowledges that this central thesis is not necessarily obvious nor free from controversy. Many Black Americans’ experiences with the land exist within the legacy of slavery and stories of immense suffering on land that never belonged to them. But, for Lanham and for other Black Americans who grew up close to the land, surviving off it and also existing with it could develop a new narrative around Black identity and the natural landscape.

When I think of subsistence farming, I often think of the many challenges and set backs of the hardscrabble life. And while Lanham is not shy about sharing that his parents occasionally “argued about whether to buy hay for cows or groceries for us,” his book as a whole focuses on the feeling of abundance and of spiritual wealth he experienced growing up living off the land. He emphasizes that land itself is a source of wealth, in all its forms, and that fostering a close relationship with the land is a way forward that he perceives for Black Americans. He says “But the land, in spite of its history, still holds hope for making good on the promise we thought it could, especially if we reconnect to it. The reparations lie not in what someone will give us, but in what we already own. The landscape can grow crops for us as well as it does for others.” I thought this was a very interesting perspective that strives to redefine the Black/natural world narrative. This was one of several moments in the book where I really felt that Lanham was writing for a Black audience specifically. He does have a perspective that puts the impetus on each person to choose their relationship with the land, to be a responsible steward of the natural world, to educate themselves, to lean into their connections with the land and trust it.

I was somewhat startled by this as it felt that Lanham prioritized talking about what Black people can do to achieve the “Normal Rockwell painting life” his family led when a huge part of systemic poverty and racism (from my perspective) could not be Black people themselves. Many systems—education and pay rates, land ownership and inheritance, access to banking loans and credit—are broken and rely on all of us to engage with fixing them. No matter how strong you are, you cannot climb alone from beneath a bolder that is pining you down, a boulder you inherit, a boulder you have to carry every single day and in every situation simply because of the color of your skin in America. Perhaps Lanham intends, intentionally, to focus on what Black people can do, in spite of these broken systems, as acts of empowerment and self-determinism? I was surprised how individualistic this book felt at times, with very little focus on how systems of oppression could be dismantled. For example, his primary suggestion for how birding while black can become safer is to normalize this experience by invading the natural sciences with more and more people of color. “Get more people of color ‘out there,’” he writes. In sharing this recommendation for progress, he doesn’t acknowledge very directly how dangerous this act is or how difficult his recommendations are to follow for each person who must be a pioneer in the field. Of course he understands the risks and challenges, as he’s been the “odd bird” so many times in his own life, but perhaps he could have spoken as well to the ways others in leadership positions (regardless of race) could provide support for young people entering the natural sciences (from mentorships and training, to financial scholarships, to diversity workshops and conversations that increase awareness and inclusivity within the field). Saying this, I feel strange criticizing his way of talking about these topics, even if the criticism is simply asking for more (more beyond an individual’s responsibilities, more beyond Black people making changes by stepping in and fighting for their spaces), as Lanham’s approach leans on his lived experiences as a Black man, which I cannot relate to in several ways.

I can, however, relate to his experiences growing up with a close relationship to the land. Unlike my sister, my experiences rambling through the Maine woods, raising sheep and chickens, and hiking, swimming, and spending nearly every moment of my youthful summers out of doors, did not translate into a career in environmental science. However this doesn’t mean that I don’t think of my relationship with nature as close nor my personal and emotional experiences with nature as deeply spiritual and transformative. As a writer, as a teacher, I draw all the time on my understanding of nature and my love for it in order to connect with other human beings, to bring the beauty of ecosystems to life for them, to find common ground (an apt metaphor). I noted the sections of The Home Place where Lanham talked about his graduate research and discussed how sometimes the monotony of the work cut into his love for the natural and his appreciation of all the experiences that brought him here. This was a very relatable moment—for anyone who chooses a career based on passion, that passion needs to withstand the least glamorous moments of that job. At its most slow, most boring, and most frustrating, do you still love this thing? Do you still see its worth even when you hate it? For me, the natural world can be relegated to a place of spiritual purity, simply experienced and enjoyed, because I don’t study it. Yet, Lanham reconciles scientific study and simple appreciation nicely, describing how his passion grows with his concrete and scientific understanding, and how the spiritual and scientific dimensions of his experiences with nature both shape his love and commitment.

I loved that Lanham described how his foray into writing brought a new third dimension to his personal relationship with nature—looking back in order to capture in words, he was able to trace the significance of The Home Place—and the act of literary examination changed him: he cried tears of release as he shared his story with his writing workshop, the first time he truly mourned the loss of his father after thirty years. In one of my favorite lines in the book, Lanham says of his experience first sharing his work with his peers in a writing workshop: “They’d unwittingly given me permission to be someone I’d never been.” For him, this was someone emotional, someone who sheds tears in moments of deeply-felt sorrow and transcendent joy. That joy, often, comes when facing the natural world as it is, and so he applies his pen to responding to nature. His descriptions of the natural world are interwoven beautifully throughout the book and are, so clearly, the creations of a close observer. I related so deeply to these moments, and felt transported, as I read: “Now, as back then, fall is the time when nature speaks most clearly to me…Breathing is suddenly easier and the soaking sweat evaporates. You want to inhale deeply enough to take in every molecule wafting on the wind. The tired smallness of September’s deep green fades then flames into October’s vermilion sumacs and scarlet maples, lemon-yellow poplars and golden hickories.” This is both accessible and accurate writing. J. Drew Lanham knows his science, but he describes the world visually, as he perceives it, not as he measures it.

For me, these writing moments were more effective than the structure of the chapters, which started to feel a bit formulaic as the book progressed. Lanham frequently uses the natural world as metaphors and many of these metaphor are born of quite astute and surprising observations—the ecology of a church’s location growing the mindset of the congregation and the Tuskegee Airmen as a metaphor for flight that takes Black people beyond the contexts others expect for them (the Wild West is another space examined along similar lines of thinking). But Lanham tends to set his big metaphors up in the same way: beginning a chapter with the central concept (in its most analytical, literal, or universal iteration), following this up with personal anecdotes, and ending the chapter (like its own short, contained essay) with deeper reflection on how this metaphor operates. This chapter structure, although predictable, didn’t lose the joy of any one of these observations. Lanham writes some truly profound individual sentences. And believe him. His depth is genuine.

I would be remiss in writing about my response to this book if I didn’t briefly address the chapter “Jawbone,” which troubled me deeply. For all of Lanham’s gentleness and nuanced appreciation of each living thing, he is still a hunter, and he describes a particular hunt—and the deer’s jawbone that he saves from this hunt—in this chapter. His interest in hunting is tied to a larger interest in land conservation and ecosystem management, as he explains it, and it seems that he tries to contrast his approach to hunting with those who hunt for trophies, or for the wrong reasons. But, the outcome is still the same. And he uses many of the tools—scents, blinds, and mating calls—that other hunters use to outwit their prey. He also tries to contrast his hunting with that of others’ by focusing on the deer’s jawbone he has collected. Rather than the trophy of a large set of antlers, he prizes the jawbone with evidence of the animal’s long lifespan and role in the ecosystem. The way he feels about this jawbone, however (elated, awed that this animal died at his hand and not someone else’s), seems to me not very different than the way trophy hunters feel about their prizes. Sure, he consumes the meat from the deer he kills, but it seems that hunting is not necessarily for his and his family’s survival, nor significant as an affordable food source available to them. I think I was most troubled by the concept of control and how that comes through in this chapter. It seems like hunting, for Lanham, seems to be rewarding in a kind of patriarchal, stewardship way in which the reward—while paired with thoughtful choices about which animals to kill and how to use the meat—is not sorrowful necessity, but some kind of pride (in the hunt, in the win, in the triumph). This chapter was all the more jarring following up on the youthful chapter where Lanham kills a sparrow with a bb gun and truly mourns the preciousness of a life lost. And while I also frown upon willful ignorance or dismissal of the source of one’s meat (or willful ignorance about the human and environmental impact from one’s vegetarian diet, as well!) I do think that the act of killing changes you as a person. Although I do not agree with Lanham on the topic of hunting, this is one section of the book, and human are complex, living contradictions. No one needs to hold perspectives and behave in ways that are perfectly consistent; no one ever does.

This book was a powerful testimony to how much we can—and, Lanham argues, we should—rely on nature. This book contains the particularity of the Black experience and seems to speak directly to a Black audience, as mentioned. But it also contains much that is universally applicable to our lives in the 21st Century, as we humans grow increasingly removed from nature and from the lifecycles of ecosystems and understanding how we are, inescapably, part of those. I love how Lanham observes at the very beginning of the book that, “to be wild is to be colorful, and in the claims of colorfulness there’s an embracing and a self-acceptance.�� Through this book, he celebrates his specific identity and his experience as a person of color, but he also taps into our shared humanity when he illuminates the rewards of living a wild life. He thoughtfully reveals himself through describing his ecosystem, and, in this, invites us to see ourselves in the same way, with our own ecosystems, Home Places, and reasons to live a natural life.

#The Home Place #environmentalism #environmental justice #bipoc voices #J. Drew Lanham #nature writing #important reading #anti-racism reading

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medical955 · 3 years

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The 5-Minute Rule for Medical

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Via Loss as well as Recuperation, a Positive side The health care industry begins 2021 forever-changed by COVID-19 and still trying to recoup and also locate its instructions. While health care leaders as well as specialists are recuperating from the significant losses of 2020, they will remain to deal with obstacles as the pandemic proceeds and also the recovery starts.

Changes in care delivery designs and also technology have actually accelerated, and also will certainly proceed to, as a result of the pandemic action and also recuperation. Possibly a silver cellular lining is that the healthcare sector, patients, as well as companies, would certainly remain to profit from these favorable advancements in treatment delivery as well as modern technology. Additional Reading Would you such as to discover even more regarding this topic? Here are some write-ups we suggest:.

The training course of technology-driven change has been diverted this year as a result of the effect of the coronavirus pandemic. While the most significant motorists of adjustment are still expert system (AI), the net of things (Io, T), and other 4th industrial change areas, their impact was felt in various ways than we might have expected at the start of the year.

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In 2020, every firm has actually needed to become a technology company as information and computer have actually come to be vital to everything we do. In 2021, every firm will certainly learn to end up being a health care company, too, as securing staff members as well as consumers comes to be a core need of working. This will consist of improved biosecurity steps from sanitization terminals to on-premises screening technology as well as quarantine procedures at locations where team are required on-site as well as can't function from home.

For some business, it will certainly still be safer for personnel to stay remote going right into 2021 and potentially throughout the year. Here, there will be various other difficulties, such as a requirement to sustain the mental health and wellness of employees as they manage house as well as work responsibilities. Without day-to-day face-to-face get in touch with, it will certainly be harder for supervisors to examine whether their teams are overworked or taking the right preventative measures to secure their wellness.

If it's feasible to get the exact same level of treatment at house as you would certainly from a visit to a doctor's surgical treatment or outpatient center, after that undoubtedly it makes sense to do so? Specifically for minor and also routine consultations, the number of virtual brows through have actually escalated throughout the pandemic and also is predicted by Forrester analysts to hit one billion by the end of 2020.

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In addition to reducing the risk of spreading out contamination, remote medication allows physician to squeeze more person examinations into their hectic timetables. This is an especially crucial consideration in highly booming nations such as China as well as India, where physicians remain in brief supply. An additional facet of this fad will certainly be the continuous development of robotic and also autonomous health care assistants efficient in operating in healthcare facilities or right in individuals's homes.

These also have psychological wellness ramifications - companion robots are being presented right into treatment homes in the UK; they were located to be effective at minimizing symptoms of isolation and social isolation. Genetics modifying allows us to affect details attributes that are acquired by new living cells, when brand-new healthy proteins are created by the division of existing cells.

The growth in the quantity of data collected on our health and wellness, from our communication with health solutions in addition to our very own gadgets and on-line activities, means providers have a progressively exact photo of where as well as when intervention may be required. The coronavirus pandemic has actually shown us that there is a willingness to share our individual information when the benefits to our wellness are clearly interacted.

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In spite of advanced scientific technology, the United States is hanging back in telehealth fostering. Repayment, guideline as well as also the definitions of telehealth and telemedicine are still being established; each state does it in a different way. These elements might be reducing fostering, however they're not stopping it. According to the American Medical Facility Organization, 76% of U.S.

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That's only going to grow as states start to integrate their approaches. It's clear that telehealth enhances gain access to for people who don't live near a health center or the expert they require. (This is especially important since even more country healthcare facilities and also centers are closing because of consolidation.) It additionally reduces expenses.

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petriichvrs · 4 years

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DAY SIX : one final word / a letter to noxtms.

dear : alyssa, amanda, atlas, bee, beth, birdie, blo, cherry, chris, daisy, dew, gabi, gia, hunter, j, la, lex, lucy, maeve, mozzie, nancy, plume, r, rosie, sam and last but never least, vicky.

here’s the thing. i try as much as possible to say how much i appreciate all of you having joined nox as often as i can, because i think as a person i have a tendency not to be entirely present of all the time, even while i seem it, and it’s important to me - as both admin and as someone who’s befriended what feels like everyone here - that you all know. the thing is, i’ve admined a lot of roleplays over the time i’ve been writing, some of them for longer than others, and i’ve met a bunch of you both in those groups and outside of them. i have a lot of experience, but i had never broken into the harry potter fandom ( in spite of it having formed such a key part of my childhood ) and i hadn’t realized that when i opened nox, i was going to discover such a community.

it’s really not me just saying it when i say that nox wouldn’t be NOXTMS without each and every one of you. i’m proud of the work i’ve put into the group and i accept however much i’m allowed to of the praise for it, but i’ve put maybe more into other groups and never had them feel the way that nox does. we’re all aware, obviously, it takes every writer in a group to make it something special, and i think that it’s every single one of you who has turned this group into my absolute favorite. there’s things in nox right now - like the marauders verse, but even just movie nights and a successful points system and little ic meetings - that i never could have done in another group because they just wouldn’t have worked, the combination wasn’t there, but i feel like... i struck gold with each of you, as members ? i feel like i got beyond LUCKY, and i have a tendency to over worry about nox, but you guys always make me feel a little bit safer in the knowledge that the group is okay, it’s doing good, and it’s everything i could have ever wanted.

i tried to find praise in other places for you all over the course of this meme, but i’m just going to go for one quick fire round. alyssa, you really are so fucking funny, and you created something really special with avalon and the king arthur myth thing she’s got going on. amanda, mary is the most thought out oc i’ve maybe ever seen and we might’ve had to wait a while for a ron, but he’s brilliant. atlas, you have a tendency to not see yourself the way you ought to, but heather and jo are two showstopping characters that we’re so lucky to have, and you yourself are a wonderful member who i’m so glad came back. bee, i’ve seen what you can do with harry elsewhere and i have you to thank for the fact nox even exists, really : you reminded me through your writing how much i love the world, and your takes on marietta and charlie are perfect. beth, lavender is such an unfairly hated character in canon, and she deserved someone like you picking her up and breathing fresh life into her, which you’re doing amazingly. birdie, for someone who likes to admit they haven’t done much in groups, you’ve really slotted yourself right in here, and i can’t pluck one character from your lineup - you do something admirable with all of them, and i really do hope you’ll RECONSIDER your stance on a fifth. blo... i love everything you do, i really always have, and your writing is a testament to just how talented you are, but i don’t know one person who puts as much continuous thought into their characters as you do, and it really shows.

cherry, i made a joke once about how if you could do something special with jughead jones i shouldn’t be shocked about what you can do with better source characters, but it’s not even a joke anymore... what you started with hermione you’re continuing with lucius and percy, and i love everything about them. chris, this is the second time you’ve joined nox as someone who doesn’t know much about it, but i’m so grateful you did it as my characters kid - i love when we get to play family dynamics most of all, and oriana is an absolute gem. daisy, chatting with you is a dream, and your mind is just... amazing - you do something with george that plays into my favorite sort of character tropes, and zephyrine is something so different and fun that i can’t wait to write with them too. dew, not just anyone would pick up gregory goyle and try and do something amazing with him, so i’ve been not-so-patiently waiting to toss everyone i’ve got at him since your intro. gabi, knox is one of my favorite ocs and for someone who only brought in an oc, to start with, you’ve managed to slot her in brilliantly. gia, what can i even say for you... as always you bring everything you have to the table, and i get to write not just connections that are genuinely FUN ( damien and niko, anybody? ) but also my favorite sort, which comprise of... family and friendships like molly / ginny & tonks / ginny with one of my favorite writers, yet again. hunter, i’m so glad i borderline peer pressured you into picking up pansy, because she’s been a joy to see in action, and a pretty great addition to your roster of characters - that already includes angelina and mason, two characters i love reading the replies of.

j, most astoria’s i’ve seen have gotten lost on the ‘draco’s dead wife’ thing and have forgotten to turn her into her own, unique character - the same can’t be said here, and astoria has fast become one of my favorite individual characters because you’re at her heart. la, i haven’t gotten to see enough of beatrix yet, but i think anyone who wants to play into an umbridge family is so brave and so talented, so i can’t wait to see and do more. lex... absolute love of my fuckin life ? not many people would join a group even though they don’t know much of the source material and absolutely immerse themself in it, but you’ve done this now... more than once- and each and every time, you manage to craft characters i really do ROOT for and love so much. please be fuckin nicer to yourself always, you’re so talented and i love you so much. lucy, gabrielle deserves to be given a character arc beyond ‘damsel in distress’, and so far, i’ve loved everything you’ve done with her. she’s a breath of fresh air on the dash and i think we’re lucky to have you ! maeve, LISTEN. LISTEN TO ME. I’M HOLDING YOUR FACE BETWEEN MY HANDS RIGHT NOW, BECAUSE THIS IS SO UNBELIEVABLY EMBARRASSING: YOU ARE SO TALENTED, YOU ARE SO IMPORTANT TO THE FUNDAMENTAL SOMETHING THAT MAKES UP WHAT NOX IS, YOU HAVE BROUGHT ME CHARACTERS I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW I NEEDED SO BADLY ( HELLO THEO N OLIVER ) AND I LOVE THEM SO MUCH, YOU’VE DONE SOMETHING SO WONDERFUL WITH EVERY PORTRAYAL AND YOUR AESTHETICS FOR DENNIS MADE ME CRY. mozzie, you are ALSO so fucking funny, and you are yet another writer that i feel.. so lucky has been drawn to nox - blaise and luna are fascinating characters in canon, sure, but you have done something so much BETTER with them here and i cannot stress that enough to you. nancy, selene is such a fun oc, and i really, really mean that. she’s something different to the status quo, and i feel blessed that i get to have as close a connection as i do with her.

plume, you yourself have been nothing short of the most lovely ooc presence, and i’m so glad that it’s someone like you who’s bringing parvati patil ( the noxtms variant ) to life, and so happy whenever i see her on the dash. r, i could go on for paragraphs on you alone - you were always one of my favorite writers in eq, and i was always so HOPEFUL you would finally cave and join nox. thank you for being here, and thank you for my daughter, thank you for my sister, thank you for these characters i love. rosie, you haven’t gotten a chance to even settle in yet, but that isn’t going to stop me from expressing how excited i am to have a bill weasley, finally, and to see what you do with him ! sam, the other love of my life... you don’t get enough CREDIT for just how brilliantly you’ve characterized viktor krum, especially, but you also don’t get enough for how you gave us the loveliest child of severus snape we could have ever asked for, and the hottest dowson i ever did see. you go through it far more than you should have to, but you’re such a talented writer and such a staunch friend who i feel lucky to have made. and vicky, once again : last in alphabetical order, but certainly not in my heart. did i expect in 2020 to bond with someone over buffy ? not even a little. but i really was so fuckin’ DELIGHTED to have something i could talk to you about cause you’re just... cool, vicky, you’re so so cool, and you’re so talented at seemingly... everything ? making gifs, being a pal, writing characters like dudley dursley but also somehow making alicia and penelope equally different and fascinating and cool ? have i said cool ? have i said it ENOUGH ?

i don’t want to be done, here, but i didn’t expect for this to take so many words, so i should probably wrap it up fairly snappily : thank you all so much for joining this group i love so much, and please know regardless of all else, i love everything you’re all DOING, and everything i see. i don’t say that enough, for certain, but i’m going to try and be better about it. beep beep, bitches : it’s my undying love and affection.

not to sound like severus snape but like. always,

rachel.

#nox.task #how am i meant to claim like .. points for this #this feels like something i cant claim points for

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gear-project · 4 years

Text

The TRUTH

I suppose with everything that has happened, everyone wants to hear the Truth from me.

The Truth is, I was born and raised on the South Side of Milwaukee, in a mixed hotpot of cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Everything from Hispanic to Greek to Hmong to Afro-American to Polish to German, Canadian, and everything in-between.

I was raised by my parents not to categorize people by what they looked like, not to call them by any specific color or race or category or label. Not out of some twisted sense of disrespect for their ethnicity or background history, but as a means of treating everyone EQUALLY, as friends, neighbors, and family.

The South Side (my own "South Town") was where I met many friends of all types, some of whom have stayed my friends throughout the years fortunately. I even have family who married in to roots from Haiti and had kids.

I've even had close friends in college open up to me about being Gay, even had a Gay roommate, and I accepted all of them. Because People are PEOPLE. They're living beings, each with Souls of their own.

--But, I suppose that's not the Truth you're here for.

The truth is, back in 2000 or so when I first bought Guilty Gear X for the first time, I knew absolutely nothing about the series back then. All I heard were head-canons and rumors. People treated Ky Kiske like a gender-swapped girl, or they treated characters like Dizzy, Millia, and Jam like sex objects.

None of this misinformation matched what I found in the GGX Instruction Manual that was included with the PS2 disc I had bought. Nor did I question the accuracy of the manual's translation, or if the localization team behind the game manuals of GG1 and GGX (thanks to Atlus/Sega) had some kind of twisted "ulterior motive" when they presented the game's story to me. Nope. I just accepted every aspect of what was officially presented to me. They had no reason to lie, of course.

And, at the time, I had no idea expanded content like the Guilty Gear Bible even existed... because it was Japanese exclusive content, so of course I wouldn't know, not knowing the language at the time.

On the other hand, I came to grow frustrated with the game's fanbase community who loved to perpetuate their head-canons and "fan lies".

I swore to myself that I would get to the TRUTH behind Guilty Gear's story... as the honest, humble, naive gamer that I was. This was before I learned of Ed Chang's GameFAQs guides or anything else that had ever been written.

--But, I guess that's not the Truth you're looking for.

The truth is, around May 2012 when I first created my Blog, while I had some experience translating and consulting with friends on the accuracy of translation for the Night of Knives Drama CDs and working on a script for GG Judgement, I was never the first person to call myself "Lore Expert" or Lore Master", or anything of the sort.

It was other people who called me this, don't ask me why, they just did. I adopted the idea of being a "Lore Expert" mainly as a beacon to help anyone looking to know about Guilty Gear to find it... it wasn't out of some twisted means to brag about what I knew, or to say I'm a Know-it-All, or that I'm hording knowledge over others.

My sole intention was to share information on Guilty Gear. Nothing more, nothing less.

This was not out of some twisted desire to spin my own "narrative" on GG. Even with regard to obscure character backgrounds like that of Raven's, the story left a ton of hints to peripheral information that one only need look up on the internet to learn more about, like Raven's connection to the Original Crusades.

And even if you left out the peripheral tidbits, much less side story content, the overall narrative of GG remains unchanged. Even the recent Manga released by Sumeragi contains enough bare-bones information for anyone to pick up on the story. Whether you want to learn more, that's entirely up to you as a fan.

--But, I guess that's not the Truth you want to hear.

The truth is, I grew very TIRED of the abuse I had received from the community. Anonymous potshots on Twitter, reflexive insults with no willingness to communicate, "Kill Yourself" death threats, disassociations, and endless rumors about the "twisted villainous icon" of whom I supposedly was, constantly discrediting me.

No one knew who I really am, not as a person, not as an individual. Nor did they care about my feelings or true intentions.

As a result of my depression and anxiety from all this, I went completely off-grid for several days, nearly a week.

I needed time to re-evaluate myself, my motivations towards this game series, along with trying to come to terms with a fanbase that has somehow been gripped by endless fear, suspicion, blind hatred, and in particular, selfish SPITE.

People who consume and beg for roster characters without giving back to the community, while constantly demanding unreasonable perfection on the developers; people who criticize translations and translators without even trying to sympathize or understand how hard the work is themselves; people who have the talent but not the willingness to share their knowledge or content in other languages besides their native country; people who project their own agendas and perpetuate false rumors of others, heartless and hateful, setting traps for every good intention.

In truth, I cried myself to sleep over the anxiety and fear of having to face such a community ever again.

I lamented my fear, questioned myself, consulted with family and even God himself, and took some time away from one of the few things that I had once and still held very dear to me.

Perhaps because of the fact I had at least one person, a family member, a neighbor, in my corner to speak with... while I felt so miserable it would have broken me, I was given some pieces of wisdom:

"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." --Jesus, the Christ (John 15:18, the Bible)

"The Truth is only as big as those willing to believe in it." --Frau (07 Ghost Children)

"Death is not a choice. Death is giving up. I choose to live, slowly and painfully. At least for now." --"That Man" (Asuka R. Kreutz to Baiken)

----But, if, after all of this, if this wasn't the Truth you were looking for from me, then perhaps the truth you seek relates to how you perceive and interpret it.

My inbox is still open, and I will continue to discuss and analyze GG Lore (even with my limited knowledge) as a fan, as someone who has and will continue to love this game series... But I am still a living, vulnerable, Human Being.

If you cannot acknowledge that Truth or Respect it, do not expect me to acknowledge the "truth" as you "view" it.

To Regular Readers/Followers: I'm still on Hiatus, so give me some time to recover. Thanks for always supporting/understanding! You mean the world to me.

#FAQ #Thanks and I'm Sorry #GP is Tired #I am Sad

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drelleboag · 3 years

Text

“Who got the power”? Jese...that’s who!

So, it is confirmed, after 9 years of being a core part of the girl band Little Mix Jesy Nelson has left the building…and why? Because Jesy has had to endure unrelenting trolling and cyber bullying since appearing on the X Factor in 2011. Jesy has been targeted for the past 9 years about her looks, her body shape and her voice…all of which, in my humble opinion are odd things to target as I think Jesy is beautiful, has the figure that many women aspire to (even go “under the knife” to achieve) and an amazing singing voice. However, mine and many hundreds of thousands of voices upholding such a view has little effect on the negativity wrought by the lesser number of cruel online bullies who remain anonymous in order to spread their spiteful and incendiary “voice”.

Seven in 10 young people report experiencing cyberbullying and 26% report feeling suicidal, so clearly the psychological impact of cyberbullying impacts deeply, leading to serious mental health illness such as depression and anxiety, low self-esteem and loneliness. I remember watching Jesy’s speaking out about her experiences and the experiences of others in a documentary on BBC3 in 2019, and at the time wondering if it would relieve the venom that stalks her on social media platforms. Clearly the answer to that is a resounding “NO”, but how Jesy has navigated her own “story” since then is testament to her tenacity and resilience. So kudos to her fighting spirit and strength of character by saying in the most public way possible “enough is enough!” may she be a standard bearer for those who have to suffer at the hands of cowardly bullies who hide behind anonymised false identities whilst they vomit their vitriolic and often unsubstantiated “point of view”, provoking additional spewing of hatred and attacking from others simply “because they can”.

So why do cyberbullies and trolls do it? Well to answer that honestly, you would need to ask them…and we don’t really know who they are as they hardly step up and identify themselves…even Katy Hopkins, whose public and hateful outbursts have led to her famously being branded as the most hated Celebrity in Britain, has the Kahunas and honesty to be open about it – albeit as a means of increasing her fame and notoriety as the “villain” perhaps? Anyway, I digress…one of the key reasons that trolls troll and cyberbullies bully online is because they are anonymous. It has long been recognised that anonymity leads to deindividuation and subsequently all manner of negative behaviour…just think back to any and all crowd-based disturbance… it is individuals within the crowd that cause the most harm, act in the most violent, antisocial and even criminal ways, simply because they are anonymous, and their individual actions are less detectable. It is a small number (in the grand scheme of things) of individuals who start the ball rolling by trolling and cyberbullies continue in their wake once the poison has been injected into the comments on social media platforms. As with trolls, cyberbullies are anonymous and their actions are kept, albeit very close to the line, within the parameters of what is “legal”. In the UK cyberbullying is not, in itself a crime… shocking, but true. There are specific laws that might be breached by trolling someone online, such as the Malicious Communications Act (1988), the Protection from Harassment Act (1997) or the Communications Act (2003) to name but three…but how do you prosecute someone who is anonymous? and who ensures that their actions are as close to illegal as they can get, without (mostly) crossing that line? Basically… you can’t!

So why are celebrities such as Jesy being targeted? Is it jealousy? Or is it something else?

In answering this question, I can only voice my own view, one that I have talked about across the media for some time…it may be explained by the fact that we now pretty much all have social media and can “connect” with “@real….” Celebrity accounts across numerous platforms. Celebrities are now immediately accessible…we feed off of their comments and tweets, we see and review their photos as they live their lives in the public sphere…and as such, we feel a far stronger connection with our chosen celebs. For their part they send us “blanket statements” about how much they love us, how much they are thankful for our support of their latest album/movie/TV role/award…etc. But this is a precarious situation as now we can feel that we own our celebrity, that without us they are nothing that we gave them their status and that we can control their future success or failure. For celebrities such as Jesy in 2011 the feelings of ownership can be argued to be particularly important. The public had journeyed with Little Mix from being created on X Factor® (as each band member auditioned as a solo artist) through their auditions as a group, to the judges houses and finally voting for them to win. Social media accounts were created as part of their existence and platforms were regularly updated with news about their journey; this all added to establish a sense of ownership of the band’s successes (e.g., “if we don’t vote for them, they will be sent home this week”)…and the public developed a need to be connected to them 24-7, expected immediate responses to and likes of comments/tweets, feeling let down if responses are not quick enough, the activity of favourites were compared to fellow band members and the “who is your favourite?” question was raised (mine, btw was always Jese!). A comparator that has always made between females (and is now on the rise for males too) is about idealised (and outdated) looks, body shape/size…for example: too thin, too fat, too small, too big, too short, too tall, too White, too Black, too flat chested, too busty.

Anything that allows comparison (so basically anything at all), that favouritism of one person over another that then offers the opportunity for trolls to make their first insinuations and drip-feeding of poison onto the platform… someone responds to them… and it feeds their need to add more negativity, and so it begins…cyberbullies then see an opportunity to really dig in with some nastiness…again, by responding, their negativity and hatefulness grows… they positively thrive on the defence of their chosen target! They don’t care what you think of them, you don’t know who they are…they could be anyone for all you know! … and there is that anonymity again!

So, what, if anything can be done? What can targets of trolls and cyberbullies do? How can they protect themselves from experiencing the psychological harm that comes from persistent pervasive drip-feeding of poison about their looks, their body shape, their personality, their talents, or other personal attribute aimed at bringing about the maximum hurt?

Well take a leaf out of Jesy’s book…take back control

I have cobbled together some loose ideas that might help you work through the process of taking back control below, these are simply my thoughts about what you can do, but if they help then that is only a good thing:

1. Make it known that you are coming off of social media and do so straight away. You do not have to justify the decision, and do not wait around for the bullies to respond…just close your accounts.

2. Now identify what is causing you the most upset. Is it the words? are they tapping into your own insecurities? or is it the intention behind their words that is most upsetting? is it something else? …etc. If you don’t know, speak to close others (e.g., family and friends) and ask for their view.

3. Once identified, focus on what impact experiencing the cyberbullying and trolling is having on your mental health…and be honest with yourself…and speak to close others (e.g., family and friends) about how they feel it is impacting you, remember that they see you from the outside, from your behaviour and responding to them…not from the inside (as you do!). Don’t feel judged or guilty, it is simply about identifying what it is that you

4. Next, address the immediate issue about your mental health. If it is having a detrimental effect on your day-to-day life speak to your GP, take someone with you if you feel able to; having a second “voice” can often be helpful to identify issues that you might forget about, or that you haven’t identified; your GP needs as much information as possible to help you properly. If you are not impacted on a day-to-day basis, and/or once your mental health is on a stable footing, ask yourself whether you feel able to tackle this without professional help, or whether you should undertake some counselling? or whether you are willing to work with close others (family and friends)? and importantly are your close others able to (although they may desperately want to) support you properly? If no to the latter, seek out a counsellor or seek advice online or over the phone from one of the many mental health charities that exist (e.g., Mind, NHS mental health and wellbeing support, young minds) who will signpost you to appropriate support networks.

5. Recognise that working through the effects of your psychological and emotional trauma is not a quick process. It takes no time at all to knock someone down (for chronic attacks this is exaggerated) but it takes a long time for them to have the confidence to stand up again. Be invested in building up your resilience and confidence.

6. Surround yourself with people who mean something to you; do not isolate yourself…we are social creatures and need to be with others. If you live alone, join a group and get involved in community activities, if you are religious get involved in your faiths’ community projects … I am sure that your volunteering will be most gratefully received (and I believe even permitted under tier 3 restrictions…but do check!). There are ways that you can be active and be sociable that do not involve going to the pub! Which by the way is totally out for anyone in tier 3 anyway!

7. Live your life free from the chains of those who brought you down!

Finally, always remember that you are you…and only you can be you…it is not for others to tell you who you are, and anyone who wants to do so is simply not worth your concern. Be stronger than them and remove yourself from the equation…take you back from them…and always have the lyrics from Little Mix themselves in 2017:

“Who got the power? I got the, I got the power I got the, I got the power I got the, I got the power Hold up!”

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: James Abrahart / Camille Purcell / Dano Omelio

Power lyrics © Bmg Gold Songs, 360 Music, Artist Publishing Group East, Robopop Musik, Sony/atv Music Publishing Allegro (uk), Jayded Ink Publishing

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kpop-pick-me-up · 5 years

Text

NCT OT21 profiles and background

It's a bit of a mess because it's mainly my notes and such, but I hope y'all enjoy and look forward to the story!

SM: one of the four main leading districts of mafias. They're made up of buisness men and political leaders who take money from mafias within their control and keeps quiet. Because they "bought" certain mafia groups after an incident in the early 2000s, they have final say in where and how the groups function. NCT and SM have a rocky relationship though. NCT doesn't believe important figures in Korea should be supporting mafias and everything they do, so they often lie and go on fake missions to appease them. In reality NCT as a whole is like the Robin hood of the mafias. Intercepting missions from other groups that affect civilians and innocents. They try to take down companies and people who use and mistreat people and society. So Taeyong's father's company, oil companies, other major cooperations, politicians, other mafia groups, and SM themselves.

WAYV:

A new specialized unit for Chinese affairs

NCT127: Based primarily in Seoul as an easy way to stay in the center of society and to keep an eye on other mafias. This unit handles most of the English Business with the US and Canada. Currently trying to make progress within European countries

NCT U:

Interchangeable mission specialized unit. Usually handles smaller missions in South korea, only occasionally leaves the country.

NCT DREAM: group of runaways who became mafia trainees. Mark got involved with the mafia first and then Haechan found out and tagged along. In this story they are already in training, however in the prequel it will start them off as runaways.

WAYV member profiles

Kun~

Rank and skills: underboss, combat, communications.

Description: trained under Taeyong for a while until SM created the WAYV unit. Became leader of WAYV. Is very collected and in control, much stricter than Taeyong but not mean. Very good in close and midrange combat, and oversees all deals and connections in Chinese affairs.

Win-win~

Rank and skills: Combat, second hand to WAYV boss, training.

Description: Win-win excels in all forms of combat. Long distance, mid range, and close hand to hand. He trained and worked the longest out of all WAYV members as he was apart of NCT 127 before SM placed him in WAYV. Trains new and pre existing members daily in combat and shooting ranges. Helps oversee combat tests and check ins with Johnny when he is staying in the base complex in South Korea. He may seem sweet, reserved and quiet, but is one of the most dangerous members when on their bad side. Can take down people twice his size in a matter of seconds. Is in a relationship with Yuta.

Ten:

Rank and skills: intelligence, smart with computers.

Description: Always stayed at home base as the eyes, ears and brains of the operations. Never left the bunker on a mission so he isn't a known member of the mafia. Has been a part of the mafia for quite some time and treats it like a day job. Is quite casual about it and seems to the naked eye to take his job lightly, but you'd be a fool to actually believe that. He is one of the best hackers in South Korea and can find any information he needs to find within the hour. With ways in and out of large corporations such as taeyong's father's security company and Doyoung's company he has unlimited access to anything he pleases. When not on missions he and other computer intelligence members just keep their eyes on their territories, making sure no one is causing trouble.

Xiojun~

Rank and skills: not an actual member but low-key is

Description: Goes to school with Hendery and helps on missions sometimes by covering for them and assisting them when they need somewhere to crash or hide after a mission. He knows about the mafia but chose himself not to be a part of it because he "doesn't want that life"......but he's always looking forward to the next time he can help and accepts almost too eagerly.

Hendery~

Rank and skills: New trainee, combat, communications intelligence- helps keep the groups communication with each other fluid and constant during missons.

Description: A new member to the mafia who got involved when he was doing I science project at a university involving radio waves, and was so good he accidentally intercepted transmission between two members on a long distance nearby drug deal. Newer to field work but trained well and has a solid base, and is a fast learner and quick on his feet. Works with Ten a lot since they're both newer to field work.

Yang Yang~

Rank and skills: undecided trainee

Description: Yang yang shows promise in many areas of the mafia. He is fluent in many languages so international affairs may be where he goes off to, but he is also good with computers and intelligence, and catches on to physical training quickly. A well rounded member that has yet to decide his place.

Lucas~

Rank and skills: COMBAT, security, spy.

Description: Lucas is young but loves what he does, even if he is a bit new to the job. He's quite hard to read and sporadic. He is very well trained in hand to hand combat and comes second to WinWin in it. He is another member that may take his work a little too lightly sometimes but when it comes down to it he is devoted and skilled. One of the few spys of NCT. Is an impeccable spy, Because he is so sporadic and versatile he can easily adapt to changes in surroundings and has naturally great social skills. Is one of the spies who can be places in both long and short term spy missions and keep up with all of his many aliases on a whim. One second he's _____, a online student studying sports, another he's a barista at a local starbucks as a boy with big dreams making his way up. Has a HUge crush on Jungwoo.

NCT 127/U/DREAM

Taeyong~

Rank and skills: leader

Description: is a great strong leader but not a dictator. Chooses others to make up a council when making decisions. Trusts others opinions. Quite a caring and loyal member, and Because of that he isn't afraid to kill if he must. Went into the buisness to spite his father's government security firm, with whom he works a day job at. This helps to ease suspicion from the government on some members, and gives insight to how close they are to catching mafia members. Is a very well rounded member and trained hard to be so.

Johnny:

Rank and skills: intelligence- sub unit weapons and supplies. Field work- background work to stay unnoticed, international affairs.

Description: creates, designs, and tests all their weapons and gear. Always styles field workers outfits and designs their new tools. Day job as an at home mechanic, dog walker, and pizza delivery boy. Currently taking courses in mechanics and clothing design. Mentors Mark and Jaemin on a regular basis.

Doyoung~

Rank and skills: domestic and international relations

Description: higher up in South Korean trading company, finds gateways and transmission routes for weapons, traded goods and drugs. Mainly at home work but if he goes out in the field he uses long distance preplaced weapons (explosives), can use a sniper but isn't the absolute best.

Yuta~

Rank and skills: intelligence: sub division- training and dectective work, sniper.

Description: works days job as police officer.

Often taken to border meetings, negotiations and other such jobs but as a "body guard" who is disguised. Sadly, she nce he works in the police department he can't be seen by rivals or else his cover is blown. Does negotiations and torture at the base house. It's notoriously known that those who see NCT's second hand interrogator don't live to tell the tale. Is the best with a sniper, is equal to WinWin. Teases him about it and often and asks him out on cheesy sniper practicing dates. He thinks it's cute and smooth but Lord help him, WinWin just goes with it because he loves him.

Jungwoo~

Rank and skills: Torture, communications and average combat.

Description: good with words, but low-key sadistic. Uses his bright charming atmosphere to decieve people and lure them into a false sense of security. Knows exactly how to manipulate a conversation to get the outcome he likes with internal and external factors depending on the human. Relys on Yuta, Taeil's observation skills to get the nitty gritty details about his targets.

Taeil~

Rank and skills: combat, observation, domestic relations

Description: as the oldest member he is well rounded in all subjects and knows his way around. He may seem a rather laissez-faire individual to those who don't know any better, but don't underestimate him. He's strong and good at what he does. He's good in hand to hand combat as well as close range weapons. Since he's been in this business for a while he knows his way around and has fine tuned his observe skills so that by the end of a single meeting he can learn a person's habits, body language, skills, and weaknesses just from watching them and putting them through little unnoticeable tests with factors he can control. I.e, how they react to slow internet, (tests their patience) do they play with their pen or are fidgety? (Usually means hand to hand combat or sniper, they either can't sit still and need to move and they fight the best like that, or being so in control in the moment a sniper is in their hands that its the only thing that grounds them) and so on so forth. Speaks for Doyoung or Yuta when they can't be seen during certain meetings.

Jaehyun~

Rank and skills: intelligence, spy.

Description: jaehyun is another well rounded member. However like Lucas, he works extremely well with people and has charms for days. He got involved with mafia way back when NCT first started when he was starting a new job at the city hall and overheard a conversation he shouldn't have. He is used as a chess piece in NCTs main goal. Jaehyun is slowly climbing the latter up the political system and is currently running to become a mayor/governor (idk what they have in SK but they got these now in this book lmao) and will eventually run for a higher position in the government.

Mark~

Rank and skills: new member, trains under Johnny, Taeyong, and Doyoung.

Description: Is newer to the mafia but almost has a designated rank as Johnny's right hand man, who works with international affairs and buisness. Goes on all sorts of missons to get accustomed to different situations and jobs, as Johnny and Taeyong hope to make all young new members well rounded, protected, strong and quick on their feet. Puts hard work I every job he's given even if it sometimes feels like it's too much.

Haechan~

Rank and skills: new member, trains under jungwoo, Taeil, Jaehyun, and Yuta.

Description: is a sly young member who shows great promise in communications. Works with older members to build a base in combat and to learn the ways of the best interrogators and communication ranks in the group. Is attached to Mark and other younger members as they are a close knit group.

Renjun~

Rank and skills: new member, trains under WinWin, and Ten.

Description: already has a natural talent in communications, but shines brightest when he's in the world of tech. Once his training is complete he will become a full time computer intelligence operative with Ten Johnny and Yuta.

Jeno~

Rank and skills: new member, trains under Taeil, Taeyong, Doyoung and WinWin.

Description: trains to be a field combat expert. Wants to know his way around both long distance and short range combat and ve the best he can be. Trains hard and never misses a lesson, this poor baby lives to help and pushes with all his might through the rigorous training.

Jaemin~

Rank and skills: new member, trains under Johnny.

Description: another member who will be based mainly at home. He wishes to keep some aspects of a normal life so he never does field work. Trains to be Johnny's right hand man when it comes to design, mechanics and tech. Loves to design new stuff and fix things (and to bug Jeno).

Chenle~

Rank and skills: new member, trains under Jaehyun, Yuta, Doyoung and WinWin

Description: wishes to become a master of long distance combat (explosives and snipers), and gain communications experience. Has many training sessions with Jisung, not that he's complaining.

Jisung~

Rank and skills: new member trains under Winwin, Ten, Taeyong, and Doyoung.

Description: is the youngest out of them all and still doesn't quite know where he wants to go and where his skills will be best placed. Currently just gets basic training in a bit of everything but shows promise in both tech and physical performance.

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desbianherstory · 5 years

Text

In a coffee shop in Mumbai I waited nervously to meet 'the community'. I had just moved back to the city after years abroad and begun the search for other lesbians. Already I had been warned by Sakshi, who had come to make contact with me and make sure that I was not a reporter, that levels of trust were low. This was not only because of the need for confidentiality but also because women from The Outside, she told me tactfully, tended to take up so much space; tended 'to assume that their priorities are ours'. We were sitting by the cash register. When the phone rang and the server asked for Sakshi, I was close enough to hear the voice on the other end, demanding: 'Well? Shall I come to meet her? Is she Us?'

When I first started working as a reporter at the Times of India, the breaches of trust I engaged in while trying to promote lesbian visibility were multiple and unthinking, unprepared as I was for the difficulties of being both Us and Not-Us. When the group in Mumbai began working towards the first nationwide retreat for 'women who love women' I helped organize it, participated in it and then wrote about it. It was a conflict on many levels: between organizing collectively and yet representing 'Us' as an individual; between what I knew readers needed to hear and what I didn't know that lesbians were unwilling to share.

I also had to think about Us and Not-Us on many levels when I began the work of compiling Facing the Mirror, a collection of writings by lesbians in India. As soon as word of the project spread, I started receiving letters from men, offering to write about lesbian fantasies, about threesomes, about wishing to be lesbians for a day, about their lesbian wives. I had never expected this.

Some Indian lesbians themselves objected to the Facing the Mirror project on political grounds. One told me that there was no purpose to putting the existence of Indian lesbians into words, since it would just cement and make public the divisions between lesbians and women at large - divisions which we should be working to erase.

'Militant lesbians aren't aware of the existing spaces,' she said. 'Think about the ladies' compartment of the trains, you see women together there all the time. They hold hands, and from their faces you know that it is bliss.'

I tried to persuade her to change her mind - after all, that very week there had been an article in a women's magazine talking about the scourge of lesbians in train compartments. Such single-sex spaces of safety were increasingly rare, increasingly threatened. But she merely shook her head, told me that both the verbalizing of same-sex desire and the violent reactions against that desire were marginal to the vast reality of an Indian tolerance.

'All this - it has nothing to do with India,' she said.

Us and Not-Us. these words took on a new valence for me after Deepa Mehta's film Fire came out in India, at the end of 1998, and was immediately attacked by the Hindu right for its depiction of lesbianism. Fire, a tale of two women married to two brothers, developing a relationship with each other in the congested streets of middle-class New Delhi, was not a film made for Indian audiences. The symbolism was pureed like baby food, the metaphors of fire (Sita's trial by fire from the Ramayana. the evil custom of bride-burning. home-fires and hearth-fires.) so deliberately labelled 'For Export Only'. The film had even less to offer Indian lesbians. In its portrayal of two married women falling painlessly in love, there was, as the lesbian writer VS pointed out, no attempt to take on the 'anarchic and threatening emotions that accompany sexual practices generally considered perverted, criminal and taboo'.

Nevertheless, lesbians watched with alarm as the attacks on the film gathered intensity. Even though the Censor Board had, to everyone's surprise, cleared the film without cuts, right-wing groups like the Shiv Sena and Rashtriya Seva Sangh were in no mood to accept that verdict. On 1 December, Pramod Navalkar, Minister of Culture for the state of Maharashtra and no stranger to controversy - he would often claim that he enjoyed driving around Mumbai wearing a long blonde wig 'just to see what kinds of men will try to chase a white woman' - told newspapers that lesbianism was 'a pseudo-feminist trend from the West and no part of Indian womanhood'. The next day movie theatres in Mumbai that were screening Fire were attacked by mobs of men and women from the Shiv Sena. Ticket windows were smashed, hoardings were torn down, and audiences beaten up. The day after that theatres in Delhi were targeted.

In the ensuing debate in the upper house of Parliament only detractors of the film could actually bring themselves to say the word 'lesbian'. 'Do we have lesbian culture in our families?' one Member of Parliament demanded, defending the attacks. 'The Mahabharat and the Ramayana don't contain any lesbianism,' agreed another. On the other hand, the MPs insisting that Fire should not have been attacked would do so only in the most general terms: it was as though lesbians were purely symbolic, unnamable markers of the director's right to creative freedom, of the audience's democratic rights to watch what it chose, or of the Shiv Sena mob's fascist intolerance.

So some lesbians in Delhi gathered on a tidal wave of despair, unable to believe that years of discreet organizing had culminated in such intense and unwelcome visibility. It was almost incredible that we should have come together at all for we were a dispersed, fragmented lot, rent by dissension over who 'we' were - a national lesbian conference had recently disintegrated over the issue of whether white women were welcome in a space designated Indian. Even more disturbingly, over the span of a very few years the community had divided itself neatly into lesbian archives, sexuality help-lines, education and outreach groups. The informal networks we had fostered in our homes splintered gradually by ideology, particularly disagreement over funding.

Some of us believed that funding would only help us, giving us the resources to reach beyond our largely middle-class, English-speaking circles. Others of us were apt to quote the staunch activist who maintained that a foreign donor supporting any radical effort was about as plausible as Oxfam nurturing the Quit India movement 50-odd years ago.

But, in spite of our histories of disagreement, lesbians in Delhi joined forces in the wake of the attacks on Fire. We worked with desperate energy to plan a protest rally, scheduled to take place within 48 hours of the Shiv Sena's violence, and reached out to all our old allies from secular groups and from the women's movement. To our dismay we encountered that same unwillingness to name the issue a lesbian one - again, it seemed, our concerns were to be subsumed in favour of the 'bigger picture'. The word 'lesbian' was not to be used in the press release, one women's group insisted. Instead, we needed to highlight our support for the film's theme of 'the hypocrisy and tyranny of the patriarchal family'. After all, we could not possibly expect groups at large to champion a 'narrow' concern like lesbianism.

We gave in and the protest went ahead. Hundreds of people showed up outside Regal Cinema - the theatre that had been ransacked by the mobs - holding candles, chanting, raising placards. But for the first time ever in India, lesbians were visible among the other groups marking the specific nature of their anger. In the sea of placards about human rights, secularism, women's autonomy, freedom of speech, was a sign painted in the colours of the national flag: 'Indian and Lesbian'. Who would have thought that staking that saucy claim to our share of national pride would result in such a furore? You are not Us, we were reminded at once, by a chorus of voices. The deputy editor of the national weekly magazine India Today expressed particular dismay that 'the militant gay movement, which has hitherto operated as website extensions of a disagreeable trend in the West, could now come out into the open and flaunt banners in Delhi suggesting that "lesbianism is part of our heritage".' He went on to announce: 'Thievery, deceit, murder and other... [criminal] offences have a long history. That doesn't elevate them to the level of heritage.'

But that same searing moment of visibility and defiance threw together a small group of activists - a varied lot, from trade unionists to professional blood donors, men and women, heterosexual, homosexual and other. What we had in common was a sense that we should take the energy of the protest forward in the form of a campaign for lesbian rights. Why the emphasis on lesbian rights? 'To articulate the troubled connections of lesbians in and with the women's movement,' we declared in our mandate. 'To talk about the social suppression of women's sexuality in general, and to address the aspects of lesbians' lives that make this struggle distinct from the gay men's movement.'

The Campaign for Lesbian Rights was a revelation for me. For the first time, lesbian issues were occupying public space - we met in the Indian Coffee House in the centre of Delhi, a hotbed of anti-establishment politics with a permanent Home Ministry spy, and we sipped six-rupee coffee and strategized aloud. We handed out thousands of leaflets on 'Myths and Realities about Lesbianism' in parts of Delhi that were commonly considered hostile to activists - industrial areas housing hundreds of factories, a Muslim university, outside the headquarters of Delhi Police. We attended public meetings organized by women's groups, human-rights groups, student groups. We wrote a street play, the familiar rhythms and gestures of that form inscribing the experiences of grassroots activists among us who had listened to women in villages all over rural North India talking about saheli-rishte - intimate bonds between women.

I relearned the lesson that a movement is accountable only to the people, and, to that end, that rejection is only the beginning of dialogue rather than the end. We fielded questions like 'What have lesbians done for society that we should support you?' and stood our ground and continued the conversation, our commitment spurred by the knowledge that, as a group opposed to external funding, our work depended on our ability to persuade fellow activists, fellow citizens, that they should contribute a rupee or two to our cause.

Progressive groups, who addressed all kinds of dispossession and oppression through the lens of human rights, would tell us that lesbian rights was no fit realm for them to enter because sexuality was about 'personal choice'. And so we walked a curious double line, saying: 'All choices involving consenting adults deserve respect, and in the face of compulsory heterosexuality, human rights means making that choice real', and 'Lesbianism is not necessarily a choice'. It's hard to describe what it meant to us, then, to receive a letter from the Human Rights Trust acknowledging our work as 'part and parcel of the broader human-rights movement'. It was the recognition that lesbians were part of a larger group of people, attacked and discriminated against in a panoply of ways, but with this in common - that we could give a name to the violations and to the rights we were seeking.

Most importantly, though, the Campaign reshaped what I thought of when I said 'we'. I have in front of me a citizens' report on the suicides of a lesbian couple in an Orissa village, brought out by aids Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan, one of the Campaign's constituent groups. Written by two heterosexual men, the report is titled, touchingly, For People Like Us.

—Ashwini Sukthankar is a Mumbai-based writer and activist. Her book Facing the Mirror: Lesbian writing from India was published in 1999 by Penguin India.

#Ashwini Sukthankar #fire #indian lesbians #history #writing #caleri

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chiropteran-hellfire · 5 years

Text

A Reply

Alright. I was not planning on originally doing this, simply because to respond to such pettiness I see as beneath me, but the line of tolerance no matter how far it may be to reach, still exists, and if one crosses it I will not be able to ignore such a gesture.

I have been sent ten messages of hateful provocation under a new empty blog to hide their identity, this is my answer to that person.

First thing's first, some context. I am otherkin, and I have a history within the community. About a month ago now Grey, the owner of the largest otherkin Discord chat, of which I was a moderator in for roughly two years, decided to not only abandon it; casting everyone within it into a state of confusion, but to also clearly state, "You can all go to hell." This was done while also assigning ownership to the dead account of a person whom I do not have kind memories of. I took this as not only a despicably irresponsible action to abandon a large scale community without properly assigning a new owner, but to make it as a personal final 'fuck you' to not only all of the members, but myself personally due to the choice of account she assigned it to.

Grey was not unaware of my history with that account/individual, and she was also not unaware of my BPD, something that if triggered will cause me to act irrationally and extravagantly. The result was uncontrollable on my part. My home had turned against me, so I turned against it in turn. I broke down many of the channels yet still fought myself to leave the ones that held the most important information - the otherkin and fictionkin channels. Were my actions the best thing to do? No. Were they personally unjustified? Well, that's the argument isn't it? One that's unfortunately tainted with having an Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder.

However, the result of this was that I was finally shown who would offer me understanding, listen to my side, and give me the time to not harass me at the first chance they got. My enemies and friends became clearer than ever to me. Not only this, but the resulting fall out has caused the community to break free from Grey's dying chat; a chat that was often neglected by it's owner. It has allowed the community to turn over a new page within our history books. One person described my actions as a mercy killing, for Grey locked it into a stagnant slow death, while I pushed everyone to make a move that was needed, but no one wanted to make.

I do not expect you to see it this way however, and you are free to see my actions as immoral, unjust and anything else you wish.

That all being said, no matter how much you might not agree with a person's actions, the answer is not to go and send that person continuous spite and try to prey on my mental issues to torment me with as a result. I never intentionally wanted to hurt anyone. You, on the other hand, do wish for such. This is why I am making this reply, because I know who you are Tama, and everyone needs to know just how cruel you really are.

No I'm afraid I can't take credit for such a thing, though after all you've now sent to me I rather wish I could. You are clearly in ignorance to the pain I was experiencing at the moment. What Grey did sent me so far over the edge it's honestly impossible to put into words in any way that'd give it the amount of meaning I'd wish to convey.

The amount of harassment I have received afterwards only shows I had not 'run away' in full, or I wouldn't have been able to receive these messages of abuse in the first place. Just like yours being sent to me now... weeks after the event. So here's your response, I'm not running away, lets continue.

You were doing well with your opener, but now we see your true colours don't we? One of an underhanded opponent who knows not how to make an actual argument, but resort to insults that may just rival that of a 6 year old's if I'm being generous.

I do worry for you though, are you implying there are 'real vampires' out there? Undead creatures that rise from the graves of humans possessing immortality and all manner of other abilities? I think you should see someone about such beliefs, one might start to think you're a little unhinged.

After I had received the first two messages, I informed my friends and one of them contacted you. Such a threatening action to your previously held notion of anonymity seemed to have knocked some sense into you as you start to talk more sensibly now. If only you could talk to me like this personally, maybe we could get somewhere, but you speak through the gritted teeth of hypocrisy.

You talk of owning up to one's actions while you hide behind a false identity. The irony would be laughable if not so pitiful. I am not the one hiding here, I am responding, I am wishing to speak with you properly. You however, are not.

I am honest. If you had simply come to me to ask my views I would have told you, but you decided not to do that, and to simply demean and berile me from behind a wall. Do come out when you're feeling braver.

I'm not running. My honour is that my actions are stained to my name, good or bad, I take it all as under my life's banner. What are you doing?

Many people turned on me, I have not 'gotten away with it' as you wish to phrase it. The result of my actions was cast unto me regardless. But you're quite right, people shouldn't have their actions not held to their name, which is why I'm holding yours to your name, now isn't it?

If you stoop much lower I'm afraid you will become subterranean. You also appear to be projecting.

How so? Do elaborate. If someone sees my actions as wrong I'd hope they would tell me forthright and I can help us both come to an understanding.

Letting all this bullying get to your head now are we? Yes, I will enjoy my small circle of friends, because that's honestly all I have left in life, the few people who take the time to understand me and not judge me without listening to me. I value each and every one of the people who have stuck with me thus far, because I understand I am not a usual personality, and I am at times hard to understand.

I require a level of patience that is beyond most people, and I recognise this, which is why I do not think ill of the vast majority who look at me unkindly. But those who go out of their way to make my already pathetic life even more painful, I have no remorse for. You are cruel, short sighted and disillusioned to believe you are doing a good deed through attacking another.

I have to protect myself. You prey on my paranoia to try and force me into a panicked state where I trust no one, and lose everything I have in life. You wish for my death, because I don't think you truly understand just how close I am to the edge, and how hard I try in life to cling on despite the cruelty of people like you. I have never gone out of my way to hurt anyone unless they push me to such a point I snap, which is very rare. I am mentally unwell, as you also clearly are, but I try my best to still always do the right thing amidst my turbulent mental seas. If I do something wrong, I hope people would take the time to treat me as an equal, and talk to me honestly about their emotions, as I will speak honestly of my own.

Tama, you deserve this response. Learn from it. Because even while you press knives into me I will not fall to the same level of insult that you have so easily that it has occurred weeks after the incident.

Get help, and either talk to me properly, or leave me alone.

#Text #Long Post #Otherkin Drama

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dorseygordon68-blog · 5 years

Text

Power Rangers Zeo (Heather Ray).

The other night I sat with my family members around the table reminiscing and also telling old stories. We worked with our golf swing with equipment that measured our power in watts, and also took advantage of the complete line of Kinesis makers (their unique resistance cables allow for better series of activity). Power is depicted here as a shaping pressure, capable of generating its very own authenticity - whether it be possessed by mine proprietors, absentee companies, local elites, or even union bosses. The functional power cleaner provides a performance of a commercial equipment that utilizes 3.0 kilowatts induction motor with its 3 axial-piston brass pumps that helps generates an astonishing 2300 PSI stress power blasting 10 liters per minute water circulation. Microsoft billionaire Expense Gates has actually stated there is a 10% chance kite power can be the magic remedy" for international renewable energy demands. Additionally it has some filler which is unusual since this flick is hardly 80 mins which most likely offers you a respectable concept of how little possible the story has in this flick to be any kind of good. The fundamental structure was integrated in a workshop outside the city and then lifted right into the Colosseum by a giant crane. In http://verde-dieta.info/prolesan-pure-recenzii-pret-cum-functioneaza-recenzii-unde-sa-cumparati/ acquired rival chain LA Health and fitness as well as struck up a collaboration with Olympian Sir Chris Hoy, that is a special adviser as well as brand ambassador" to Pure Health club. Stories of the trip over and how thrilled he was to discover everything on the big ship (a seafarer, making the most of his inquisitiveness, convinced him to lift some papers pushing deck, to see what was below ...). Stories of working as a journeyman footwear technician in cities and communities across upstate New york city as well as Ohio (in one store, the foreman placed my grandfather and his turret in the front window so passers-by would quit to view exactly how quick as well as well he did his job). On the one hand, it consists of passages that John S. Wright could have written, as when it emphatically mentions, Chicago is currently facing the momentous truth that fifty years for this reason, when the children of to-day are at the elevation of their power as well as influence, this city will be bigger than London: that is, bigger than any existing city." On the various other hand, it declines the concept that the city's success can or should be assessed in terms of numbers alone, or that the future would certainly care for itself. Starting with our original list of about 51 health clubs (assembled from our round-up of the very best gyms of 2013, publicly available statistics, as well as other expert lists), we asked you to elect your favorites - likewise enabling write-in ballots to make up any type of health clubs that weren't pointed out on the initial listing. As soon as and also they don't have to all be on the same team either, you do not have to strike a fitness center alone; multiple individuals can attack a fitness center at. EPA established that the combination of utilizing of smokestack controls as well as contamination credit histories from shifting generation amongst plants makes up a well-demonstrated system of discharge reduction, one that is commonly utilized by the power industry both to meet inner targets and also prior government and also state guidelines. Freely based upon real occasions, Funny of Power had its North American launching at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. The platform lift can be found in a huge range of different models, each one with various attributes that make it far better fit for a details sort of job. Les plates-formes Power Plate ® constituent une parfaite alternate put les personnes actives qui n'ont pas beaucoup de temps à consacrer à un entraînement trois fois the same level semaine, voire plus. Control is a crucial element of the lift system and because of this they commonly provide power assisted drive. Some health clubs only enable teens to workout in the assigned youth facility area, while other gyms permit teens the exact same freedom to make use of the equipment as the adults. The originator of this franchise business identified that there was a huge market for a gym such as Curves and undoubtedly has taken advantage of a found diamond. You might be missing out if you are guilty of wrapping up your health club session as well as avoiding out on a cool down or stretch. Keltner's research suggests that women are not immune from this mystery, which claims that the very qualities that help us look for power-like beauty, compassion, or humbleness -are the ones that having power could harm. The power in an organization lies with supervisors and managers who have actually been enabled within the business framework, to make sure that the company could operate effectively. However nonverbally presenting power during the interaction - now that's an additional thing with different prescriptions and also end results. By the end of March, president Peter Roberts believes Pure Gym will have surpassed the 103 total of UK gyms run by Virgin Energetic, the present primary driver. This stair lift has a lifting ability of 300 lb or 136 kg. A flip-up swivel seat that secures placement and also constant stress buttons are various other functions of this straight stair lift. While a lot of exclusive health clubs serve teenagers and grownups, a couple of select health clubs just enable teens. Picked this for ideas to supplement my barbell-based routine, for when I can not get to the health club, and to help my wife with suggestions to do in your home & health club. His afternoon training sessions at the gym have actually permitted more youthful fighters to work along with a master, as well as interested onlookers to see. Teaching your staff members all facets of power device training as well as security could minimize the opportunities of injury and also maintain your workforce effective as well as risk-free. The fitness center consists of weights, cardiovascular tools, security balls, machines and also resistance bands. Mirrors on all walls do not simply mimic the look of many health clubs - they actually make the room look bigger. A new wave of thinking of power exposes that it is offered to us by others as opposed to got. There are few better exercises for targeting full-body power compared to the medicine-ball bang. Most of the gyms need their participants to abide by the laws to be able to go into and utilize the facilities. No, in spite of prominent notions and the common urban legends, Pfeffer competes that the path to power is substantially various than the prominent concepts we were raised to believe. If you see that you are obtaining squeezed in order to spend for your fitness center Sydney subscription then you are bound to pull out after a few days. It is just a partial settlement to know that the paradox also implies that political hopefuls such as Donald Trump - angry, manipulative harasses - are less likely to acquire power to start with. If you are presently not making use of any kind of sort of eco-friendly power and intend to conserve electricity, you could still decrease your costs by disconnecting unutilized home appliances. Greetings Diona", he claimed pleasantly, as he came level with her, making her once more so aware of his figure as he looked down upon her. After years of lack of exercise, Ashley returned as the Yellow Space Ranger to help the Galaxy Rangers battle the Psycho Rangers. Individuals who pledged to stroll were 3 times more likely to show up vs. those just saying they would stroll. From scenting too excellent to filling out a large dimension water bottle when there is a line of people behind you, read on to see if you're guilty of any one of these 16 health club pet dog peeves. The Gym stated the variety of inexpensive health clubs across the country had enhanced to 319 this year from 58 in 2011. That said, the plot brings me to my 2nd problem - one which maintains Absolute Power from being a 5-star book. The health club also contains 450 items of cardio workout tools as well as dumbbells and makers. Yes, you heard me. We're paying triple numbers a month and also struggling atop lunar looking equipment in order to replicate easy youth searches like jumping rope, hula hooping and also playing tag. After the Power Rangers involve her rescue, she goes back to being the principal of Reefside High and is disclosed to have actually been a close personal good friend of Anton Mercer. Raise takes us on an enlightening scenic tour through time, starting with the ancient Greeks, who made a cult of the body-- words gym derives from the Greek word for naked"-- as well as following Roman legions, middle ages knights, Persian pahlevans, as well as eighteenth-century German gymnasts.

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teratoscope · 5 years

Note

The unforseen result of hybridization between natural and modified life down on earth

Meta-catYou light your headlamp and dozensof eyes shine back at you in the dark.It turns out a whole colony of catsfluffing up into threat posture makes a noise, even before the unearthlywarning growl rises in one voice from the clowder. That’s not the sound thatworries you, though.The sound that worries you are allthe other preparatory sounds. A hiss becomes a burblebecomes the sound of something corrosive dribbling on the concrete floor. Asmall plume of fire spits into the air. Somewhere in back you hear theunmistakable sound of a chaingun spinning up, and the clank of iron-shod paws.

HD 1 MV 240’ AC 13 AT claw x2 (d4), bite (d6) Special savage, feline anatomy, melting pot

Savage—like any feline, when it’s good andpissed and gets a firm position, a meta-cat can and will rake the shit out ofyou. If all of a meta-cat’s attacks hit a single target, reroll its damage diceand add the result to the original total.

Feline anatomy—meta-cats treat damage from fallsas though they were 20’ shorter, have natural darkvision, and can fit through any space large enough for theirhead.

Melting pot—no two meta-cats are alike, due totheir explosive reproductive tendencies paired with the intense Darwinian pressures of the Contact War and theirexposure to a cornucopia of human and alien mutagens, nanotech contaminants,and retroviral plagues. Below is a list of possible meta-cat variations;particularly badass meta-cats may have multiple deviations.

1d20 ways this cat is fucked up

1. Enormous,sedentary, weirdly gelatinous. 1/3 MV, +3 HD, paws deal d8 bludgeoning damage.Reduce damage from kinetic, sonic, and cold attacks by 1. Always acts last.

2. Evendead-on, looks like you’re seeing it from the corner of your eye. Weighs thesame as an adult tiger, casts no shadow. Claws deal d4+1 damage, bite upgradedto d10, ranged attacks against it are at disadvantage, and always has a 1 in 6chance of showing up on your side of any door you shut on it.

3. Looksnormal, has a transmitter array nano-grafted to its central nervous system.Anything it sees, the Repton network sees. Has Repton security permissions; ifit scent-marks you so will you, at least until you bathe again.

4. Partialuplift descended from leftover Project Myrmidon proof-of-concept. Transgenicmodifications allow it to roughly approximate human speech and tool use. SpeaksEarthlang patois, can jury-rig and salvage competently.

5. Clawsand bite are envenomed—on any hit that beats AC by 4 or more, deals 1 point ofConstitution damage.

6. Battlearmor grafted over synthetic musculature. Vocoder installed in chest shoutsgrainily synthesized agitprop and/or pleas for painkillers and immune boostersin Herlog-ban and algorithmically translated Earthlang. AC 17, upgrade allattack damage one die size, can forgo melee attacks for a 60’ cone,d8-imploding kinetic flechette volley that takes a full round to reload.

7. Everyonesees a different color morph. Once you look at it you physically cannot look away until it breaks line ofsight.

8. Canuse its whole action to spit fire in a 240’ line for 3d4 damage (Dex check forhalf). Each time it uses this there’s a 1 in 20 chance the volatile secretionsmeet too soon and the cat explodes in a 30’ radius for 1d10 fire damageinstead.

9. Hairless,web-footed, and coated in a thick layer of mucus. 120’ swim speed, can operate underwater without needing to surface for afull exploration turn..

10. Glows in the dark, shedding weakpurplish light in a 30’ radius. Anyone who keeps one within arm’s length for 8hours a day erases 1 Rad, has advantage on all Con checks to resist radiationdamage, and takes 1 less Rad from all sources.

11. Cutting edge genemodded luxurybreed gone feral. Exotic colors, hypoallergenic, extreme ectomorphic body plan,bizarre ears. +1 HD. Deeply embedded conditioning sends them into seizures ifthey feel aggression towards a human. Food animals for some indigenes, lifelonghunting partners for others.

12. Honeypot. Looks adorable. Fur andfluids carry a nanoagent that putrefies flesh on contact, dealing 1d8 exoticdamage/round until the effected areas are sterilized or amputated. As itsabilities render it impossible to practically feed itself, its gut andintestines have been replaced with a bacterial stack that synthesizes nutrientsthrough respiratory processes; these are valuable to biotech specialists andcalorie-desperate populations, as the organ can be salvaged and sustainedrelatively easily. Look at the bones!

13. Shaggy, huskily-built breed.Carries 2d3 thumbnail-sized mutualist insects descended from flea stock thatdefend their carrier on command by launching themselves like bullets. 300’range, 1d8 kinetic damage, and they find purchase in a flesh wound on a hitthat beats AC by 4 or better, dealing 1d6 bite damage each round until they areremoved with a successful Wis check or their host calls them back. Will pastethemselves against armor plating, however. Some particularly strange indigeneskeep one or two trained specimens and their entourage.

14. Overclocked. Hairless, steaming,perpetually underfed. Ages visibly if you watch closely. +1 to all damage rolls;can double MV and act at the top of initiative at the cost of 1 hp. Dead stupidand monstrously territorial from the psychological wear and tear of constantestrus.

15. Gecko-like foot pads. Gains a 180’ climb speed.

16. Magnetite facial organ. Perfecthoming abilities. Anticipates inclement weather with nigh-perfect accuracy.

17. You can see the cat; you know it’s there and what it’s doing. However, youcannot describe the cat. Talkingabout the cat with adjectives (in or out of character) deals 1d3 Wisdom damage.

18. An ordinary-looking black cat withmismatched eyes. Once you have seen it you are also aware of a white tiger. The white tiger is not there, but you are aware of itnonetheless. If you harm the cat, signs of the tiger follow you everywhere. Youfeel its hot, wet breath on your neck at dinner, or the weight of a paw on yourchest when you try to sleep. It hides in crowd scenes in your comics, makingeye contact; you see its stripes take shape momentarily in the static on atelevision screen. You can tell that it hungers. It needs fresh, raw meat. Youhave to leave a freshly-killed body out in the open once a month, or you willtake 1d12 psychic damage each day that will not heal or end until you satisfy thetiger.

19. A cat-shaped distortion in the air,like it’s made of heat haze or warped glass. Takes a Wisdom check to spot. Utterlyoblivious to the world around it. Matter parts around its body, and so when itmoves through things it leaves a cat-shaped exit wound. Energy weapon effectswash over it. Does not appear to need food or water, or else gets by onsustenance that exists out of phase with the world we know and is even lessvisible.

20. Roiling, malignant cat-mass. Lumpthe whole cat colony into a single creature with all of the individual members’attacks, abilities, and hit dice.

With asmall handful of exceptions, Forward Escape was not conceived of as a retreatwhere you brought your pets along. When the Freestars went up, they left behinda vast population of dogs, pigeons, rats, horses, cattle, assorted birds andreptiles, and wild but human-adjacent species to fill the vacuum.

Of course,ecological catastrophe and alien invasion meant that this didn’t work out sohot for a lot of them. Domestic cats had always existed in a strange sort oflimbo in the ecosystems carved out by humanity—welcome nowhere in the naturalorder of things, always in demand and yet also always in surplus. The specieswas a bottle full of chaos, barely sealed, often leaking, and just waiting tobe upended on the planet’s nice rug.

Now there’shardly any such thing as an “ordinary” cat left in the world anymore. TheEnluss treat them like raw materials or the canvases on which they build theirthesis statements. The Herlog-ban turn them into war-toys to be disposed ofwhen they lose their novelty. Depending on which brain’s calling the shots at themoment the Reptons turn them into food or spies. Occulters adore them but have a funny way of showing it.

In spiteof this, they hang on. Arguably they thrive.

In part,this is because meta-cats, in spite of their wildly divergent phenotypes,abilities, and origins, practice a certain degree of solidarity. No matter howfar you bend them out of shape, they’re still cats and they still do theircommunal cat-pile thing.

So you mayrun into a meta-cat colony of Occulter existential weapons, metabolicallyovercharged tweaker-cats, and trapsmithing, foul-mouthed macroencephaliticuplifts with awful little hands, who all answer to a power-armored cybercatwith an oxycontin addiction. And in its own anarchic, hissing, spitting way, thatcommunity mostly holds together.

God onlyknows what they’ll be like in another couple of generations.

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andreassenstaal0-blog · 5 years

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nymandnunez45-blog · 5 years

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What to Look For in a Divorce Lawyer - How to Select Wisely

With the changes in loved ones law in excess of the final 30 years, such as the adoption of equitable distribution in spot of the previous widespread-legislation principles, the adoption of rules guarding military spouses, and the adoption of support guidelines and various regional principles promulgated inside of the different circuits, the area of separation and divorce has turn into considerably way too difficult and specialized for an individual who does not regularly take care of these kinds of situations. It distresses us when consumers arrive to us with improperly drafted separation agreements, and/or decrees which other inexperienced lawyers have managed. Just as it is greater to win at demo than to have a excellent appeal problem, it is considerably greater to have the appropriate lawyer, a single who will get it right the first time, than to have to pay an individual to correct troubles stemming from problems manufactured in the 1st location. Occasionally the errors are extremely expensive and can not be set as demonstrated in the collection of articles I wrote for The Family members Legislation Information, a peer evaluation publication of the Virginia State Bar, Segment of Loved ones Legislation, entitled "Pricey Mistakes in Multi-Point out Army Divorce Or a Military Wife's Tale of Woe," which are released in the Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 issues of the publication. The series of articles outlines the authorized authorities, approach and procedural factors we employed to effectively protect a armed forces retiree, who was a veteran of the Vietnam War. His ex-wife was trying to get half of his armed forces retired spend and spousal assistance below in Virginia, in spite of obtaining divorced him six many years earlier in Hawaii. Whilst we are always content to accomplish a effective outcome for our consumers, we felt sorry for the ex-spouse, who experienced obtained bad legal suggestions from hr legal professional in the original divorce motion in Hawaii, guidance that direct to bad selections which the Virginia Court docket located to bind her completely. In ruling for us in the scenario, the choose instructed the ex-wife that as an alternative of suing her ex-spouse, show need to go after the lawyer in Hawaii who represented her in the divorce. So, how do you go about discovering a great divorce attorney? Listed here are a few suggestions: Recommendation #one-Inquire a Law firm If you know a lawyer, ask him/her for a referral to a good divorce attorney. He or she will most likely know a person or numerous someones who dedicate a significant portion of the follow of legislation to separation and divorce and associated problems. 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Keep in mind the previous saying, "a jack of all trades and master of none"? Wouldn't you fairly have someone who requires the time to emphasis at least a important quantity of time to loved ones regulation, than an individual who maybe devotes 3% of his/her apply to family law issues? Keep in mind not everyone advertises in the Yellow Web pages or haw a site or internet existence.. For instance, there are far more telephone listings than there are legal professional advertisements in the Yellow Webpages. Suggestion # 3-VIRGINIA Lawyer REFERRAL Service The Virginia Law firm Referral Service is operated by the Virginia State Bar. Attorneys need to inquire to get on the record and need to concur to a set price for an original consultation. A lawyer can be listed below any category he/she asks for. The names are on a rotating list and provided to shoppers who speak to the support. Yet again, not all attorneys are outlined. We are not detailed with the referral service. 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The longer you have been working towards a specific location of the legislation, the far more you know. There is an aged adage that claims a good attorney knows the legislation and a great attorney knows the choose! What is the variation amongst a excellent law firm and a fantastic law firm? Encounter. B. Knowledge Making an attempt Situations. Has he/she reached any demo successes for his/her clients? Can the attorney stage to circumstance outcomes or consumer testimonial reflecting his/her capabilities? C. Are they prepared to settle when suitable to do so? Trial attorneys often experience from a employed gun mentality. They like the thrill of trying situations and may possibly not consider other choices, such as mediation or arbitration to achieve a resolution. Most great divorce lawyers do not adopt this technique, but see demo as a final resort, when other choices have unsuccessful to precipitate a fair resolution of the concerns. As opposed to other places of the law, family law usually entails ongoing interactions and consequently needs a diverse standpoint. I not too long ago read through an article by a private injury legal professional, who was creating on how to pick a private harm lawyer. He explained not to select a lawyer who settles a lot of circumstances. When it arrives to separation and divorce, I think it is critical to try out to get to an settlement, if you can. Likely to courtroom about family members legislation until you have to is like making use of a sledge hammer on a flea dilemma you could get rid of a couple of fleas, but you wreak a good deal of injury to the structure of the house, also. When folks settle their very own situations exterior of courtroom, they can be a great deal much more creative than the courtroom would be in fashioning a remedy that is fair to each parties. Occasionally, arrangement is just not feasible. When that is the circumstance, you want an seasoned able divorce attorney who can advocate for your situation in court and has a established monitor report of success. D. Respect in the authorized local community. What are other legal professionals stating about this law firm? Has the attorney lectured or taught? Has he/she taught other legal professionals? E. Publications. Has he/she created everything that has been recognized for publication in lawful journals? This is an additional sign of respect for the attorney and for his/her skills and expertise. Has he/she prepared or revealed anything created to teach the general public as to their rights duties and tasks under the regulation? F. Affiliations and memberships. What specialist affiliations does the legal professional have? Is he/she a member of the Household Law Part of the Virginia State Bar Association? How to get divorced of the Virginia Trial Lawyers? A fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Attorneys? G. Does the lawyer limit the variety of cases he/she undertakes? We don't just take every scenario that phone calls in or walks through the door. We limit the variety of cases that we undertake to take care of at a offered position in time so that we an target on undertaking the best occupation for those consumers. H. Romantic relationship problems. one. How was the phone answered when you referred to as for an appointment? 2. How have been you greeted when you entered the workplace? Were you presented refreshments? 3. Did the legal professional and staff hear to you? Are you positive? Could you explain to they had been listening? 4. Have been you interrupted during your time with the attorney? five. Does the attorney use composed agreements location out the parameters of the representation and the monetary preparations? six. A single of the most important factors of picking a law firm is the partnership factor: you need to have to be capable to operate successfully and easily with your attorney. The romantic relationship demands intimacy and trust. Do you come to feel cozy with the attorney? seven. Have been you launched to personnel? 8. How lengthy does the attorney retain data files on closed instances? What happens to the shut file? How is it disposed of? What steps does the legal professional get to safeguard your confidential info? I. Why does he/she practice divorce regulation? Pals and colleagues think I am nuts to devote so considerably time to separation and divorce legislation. They could be correct, I just may be a tiny mad. But like the tune suggests, "it just may be a lunatic you're looking for." When interviewing a potential divorce law firm be certain to request him/her why they decide on to exercise family regulation. Does the lawyer have a life expertise that makes it possible for him/her to advocate for divorce customers with real passion? Is that enthusiasm something that is mirrored in client testimonies? J. Cost. In contrast to personal harm follow, the very best divorce lawyers do not provide "cost-free" consultations. You will notice that expense is final on the list. In our expertise, the best divorce legal professionals are generally not the most inexpensive. In the prolonged operate, what is it worth to you to keep or purchase your fair share of the property that have been accumulated more than the training course of your married life? What is it really worth to you to insure that you keep your reasonable share of time with your youngsters? Some factors are worth preventing for and well worth the price tag that you have to pay. If your attorney does not commit a significant part of his/her apply to family law issues, has never attempted a contested divorce, has by no means tried out a contested custody circumstance or who has in no way tried an equitable distribution scenario, or drafted a experienced domestic relations get dividing a pension, or who has no expertise in military divorce and has never ever drafted a navy retired pay out order, you may possibly want to choose an additional attorney for your separation and divorce. Legal professional Virginia Dante Perry is actively engaged in the general exercise of law with an emphasis on household regulation and trials for more than thirty many years. More than individuals several years she has attempted to depict herself and her clientele with honesty and integrity. Atty. Perry requires a "no nonsense" strategy. She does not guarantee what she cannot deliver, but tries to supply more than she promises. She says what she will do and she does what she says. Element of her vision is to teach individuals as to their legal rights, duties and responsibilities below the law. Atty. Perry is a people particular person. She enjoys conference and conversing with folks, advising them, informing them and aiding them to solve their difficulties. She has customers who have been with her given that the 1970's. She has a popularity for currently being thorough and methodical in dealing with household regulation matters and for getting a "straight shooter."

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scifigeneration · 6 years

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Scientists are using DNA to study ocean life and reveal the hidden diversity of zooplankton

by Ann Bucklin

Copepod with eggs (blue). Copepods are typically just a few millimeters long, but are important food sources for small fish. NOAA

Marine zooplankton are tiny animals, roughly the size of insects you might see on a summer day, that drift with ocean currents. Many of them are lovely, but except for scientists who study them, few people are aware that they are among the most numerous – and important – animals on Earth.

My research focuses on marine zooplankton, which I think of as “charismatic microfauna.” These minute organisms are key players in open ocean food webs and critical as they are the preferred food for many fish. Many species are thought to be found throughout the global ocean.

More than 7,000 species of zooplankton have been described, but we do not know how many total species exist. Since they are important food sources for larger fish, and respond rapidly to environmental shifts and climate change, knowing more about zooplankton is key for understanding the health of ocean ecosystems.

My laboratory has gained new insights into zooplankton diversity using inexpensive and easy-to-use DNA sequencing. These approaches are providing new tools to identify species. According to some estimates, there could be as many as 70,000 unknown and overlooked zooplankton species yet to be discovered.

The Norwegian research vessel GO Sars arriving in Reykjavik, Iceland, on a plankton sampling trip. Ann Bucklin (UConn), CC BY-ND

Key links in ocean ecosystems

The open ocean is the largest habitat by volume on Earth. Because marine zooplankton are so numerous and diverse, they help to create complex food webs with multiple pathways of who-eats-whom. But changes in environmental conditions, including global warming, can disrupt these systems by altering zooplankton diversity and distribution.

Currently, key zooplankton species are shifting poleward in search of cooler waters in a warming ocean. This is causing major disturbances to ocean ecosystems. For example, the cod fishery in the North Sea crashed after the zooplankton species that was the fish’s preferred prey was replaced by another closely related copepod species that moved north in response to global warming.

Events like this show that zooplankton can play critical roles in ocean ecosystems, even though scientists know very little about them, and may not appreciate the importance of a given species until it is gone.

Many factors make it challenging to measure marine zooplankton diversity. First, collecting samples from the deep sea is hard work. Research vessels operate around the clock, with scientists on board usually working two six-hour watches each day. We sample zooplankton using electronically operated, highly complex net systems.

Sampling deep sea zooplankton using a MOCNESS Multiple Opening Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System. Peter H. Wiebe, CC BY-ND

When the net is recovered, the samples contain many different species and the animals are usually still alive. They are carefully moved into trays for observation and species identification. In spite of the demanding schedule and hard work, I have loved going to sea and have been on many cruises, including stunning explorations of the polar regions of the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans.

For my research, samples collected at sea are quickly preserved for genetic analysis, which is usually done back in the lab. This is painstaking work. Zooplankton as a group are taxonomically complex, meaning that they include many difficult-to-identify and rare species. Also, many important marine organisms, including fishes, lack diagnostic characteristics in their immature (larval) stages.

Identifying zooplankton species with genetic markers

To understand, assess and manage marine ecosystems, it is critical to have information about the diversity of species that make them up. But acquiring this information using traditional methods is tedious, expensive and slow.

The job falls to expert morphological taxonomists, who may spend years learning to recognize subtle characteristics that mark differences between species. Since there are 7,000 described species of zooplankton spanning 15 phyla and more than 30 different groups, this work can involve large teams.

But molecular methods are providing important new insights. My laboratory group uses different molecular approaches to study population ecology, population genetics, species diversity and other questions about marine zooplankton.

One efficient approach is to use DNA barcodes – short sequences of DNA – to identify and distinguish species. To do this, we sequence the DNA from a genetic region that is known to occur in all zooplankton, but varies markedly from species to species.

DNA barcoding entails identifying the species by microscopic examination, taking a photograph of the specimen (ideally while alive), and sequencing the COI barcode gene region. Ann Bucklin, CC BY-ND

My laboratory has determined DNA barcodes for many zooplankton species. We use a portion of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene, which is the most commonly sequenced gene region for analysis of species diversity among marine animals. The growing barcode database has been likened to a Rosetta Stone for species identification of global zooplankton. COI sequences for thousands of species of marine animals are now available. They create an invaluable reference library that can be used as a basis for next-gen environmental sequencing, also known as metabarcoding.

Using metabarcoding speeds up our work because we can sequence DNA from zooplankton samples without identifying individual specimens. This “high-throughput” DNA sequencing yields millions of sequences, or metabarcodes, that represent the target gene region for the entire sample. The resulting sequences can be identified by matching to a database of sequences for known zooplankton species.

Using metabarcoding to analyze zooplankton diversity routinely and reliably poses many challenges. However, a growing community of researchers is working to build reference databases that link DNA barcodes to species names for zooplankton collected anywhere and everywhere throughout the global ocean.

Schematic representation of the processes of DNA barcoding, left, and metabarcoding, right. Colored circles represent extracted genomic DNA, which is composed of the genome of one individual (barcoding) or of multiple copies of the genomes of all the species composing the samples (metabarcoding). Corell and Rodriguez-Ezpeleta, 2014., CC BY-ND

A global effort

Scientists expect that DNA barcoding and metabarcoding will significantly revise global estimates of zooplankton diversity. But we can only realize the remarkable promise of these approaches through global-scale conversation, cooperation and collaboration.

Several international collaborative efforts have paved the way. They include the 2004-2010 Census of Marine Zooplankton, which identified thousands of species and described hundreds of new species previously unknown to science. I am a member of the Working Group on Integrated Morphological and Molecular Taxonomy, which is carrying this work forward. Deeper insights into zooplankton biodiversity will provide a foundation for future research, monitoring and management of the largest habitat on Earth – the open ocean.

Ann Bucklin is a Professor of Marine Sciences at the University of Connecticut.

This article was originally published on The Conversation, a content partner of Sci Fi Generation.

#science!#earth science #science #genetics #dna

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homestuckhiveswap · 6 years

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The Third Anniversary of RPGStuck: a community examination

by /u/DrewLinky, previous article here.

Hello again everyone! Today's a very special day: it's the third anniversary of RPGStuck, a burgeoning community dedicated to roleplay and tabletop gaming, as its name suggests. For the occasion I decided to write another article. Enjoy!

INTRODUCTION

Anyone who has more than a cursory familiarity with Homestuck is probably also aware that it has spawned innumerable fanworks in a truly stunning variety of mediums; the community’s works of art in a litany of styles are unending, and the music community is burgeoning to this day. It seems as if there is no end to the ways that people will take inspiration from the webcomic and craft their own way of celebrating it.

One of the more unique and interesting ways in which this has been done may be found in a community that is now called RPGStuck. For those that may be unfamiliar: RPG is an acronym for “role-playing game”, a genre of games where, as the name implies, players take on the role of fictional characters. This may be done in numerous ways, but one of the more classic forms of RPGs come in the form of tabletop games, such as Dungeons and Dragons.

Indeed, RPGStuck is based around just such an idea. They have taken core concepts of Homestuck and transmuted it such that it is viable as a tabletop game. I recently got in contact with members of the RPGStuck community who helped develop and guide the project over its lifetime: user 12yz12ab has even written an entire document dedicated to its history, which may be found here.

Those interested in the full and in-depth details will want to look at the related document; otherwise I’ve decided to describe their history in a way that is more accessible to people who may not be familiar with Homestuck or tabletop gaming in general, or are simply looking for a less involved read. As it is, the story of RPGStuck begins three years ago today, on the 14th of March in 2015.

RPGStuck’s community logo, designed by /u/12yz12ab.

BEGINNINGS

Homestuck itself was in the midst of yet another pause, with the fandom in general waiting for the next batch of updates. People were growing restless, which was typical for pauses at that point. With more conventional means of entertaining themselves beginning to grow stale, one user named AnionCation made a post on the Homestuck subreddit on the 9th of March, 2015 to see if anyone would be interested in a roleplaying game based around Homestuck.

The response was great, perhaps even greater than expected: 72 replies to the thread were made, and soon after people began discussing how this should be organized. As with any ambitious project there were responses geared towards the decidedly negative: doubts were cast as to the viability of this project, especially over the ability of people in charge to govern such an unwieldy project. Important to understand is that RPGs typically have an upper limit of players that can be sustained before it begins to suffer problems, and the number of people interested was more than any campaign can reasonably handle.

AnionCation continued unwaveringly, however, and she outlined a system in which the entire story, or “campaign”, would have different sections played by different groups of people, or “sessions”. This idea and the latter term are both in keeping with a storytelling convention in Homestuck itself and served as a rather clever way to handle the disproportionately large numbers of people that wanted to engage in the campaign.

Some days of discussion trying to tweak this overall system were had, and people attempted to fill in knowledge gaps in others who were at that point unfamiliar with the overall idea of roleplaying games: it was determined that the roleplay would be conducted on Reddit itself, through a play-by-post system.

A helpful post that served as an introduction to roleplaying was created, and a friend of AnionCation named Andres-gamer “introduced a rudimentary system loosely based off of Dungeons and Dragons to use for the new roleplay”. The name of the community was conceptualized on the 12th, and then two days later on the 14th they officially began playing, which is by common consensus the true anniversary of RPGStuck.

THE FIRST YEAR

CAMPAIGN ONE

The first day was actually referred to as “Day 0”: in roleplaying games it’s often necessary to start off campaigns by conceptualizing your character and establishing it in a world with the other characters that will be played. “Day 1” then was when the “game” in earnest began: the initial driving event—an apocalypse—and a larger in-game universe referred to as SABATH would serve as the forces that set things in motion for each session.

Naturally, the system did not work at first. “People were regularly forgotten about and dropped to be picked up again later.” Just starting the game had its difficulties, and even once players were more established it did not get any easier. This confusion led to some people permanently leaving the project, a mark of how rough and unpolished RPGStuck was in its infancy.

Yet, despite these difficulties most people involved persevered. A user known as ATTheorytime, or AT, came up with an idea for introducing more players as other, ancillary characters such as non-player characters (NPCs) in order to help smooth the process out some.

While this particular idea was never incorporated, a similar one involving managers for the game manifested: there was apparently a shortage of people willing to be facilitators, or “dungeon masters” (DMs), and AT’s suggestion helped to mitigate this problem. With the influx of new DMs that had no experience running RPGStuck at that point, it was decided that it was time to begin another campaign in order to help address these organizational problems.

CAMPAIGN TWO

The first campaign in its entirety came to be referred to as C1. This naming convention stuck for all later campaigns, and thus RPGStuck embarked on C2, which was begun on Homestuck’s 6th anniversary on the 13th of April, 2015 and ran concurrently with C1. The new campaign also started off roughly but ultimately was proven worthwhile, being enormously helpful both to those new to playing it and to those managing it.

A commissioned picture of some of the characters that survived C1. From left to right: Nick, Rukshu, Zach, Alex, Lyra, Kara, Faerzen and Faerzen, Jonah, and Tarane.

Managing these campaigns involved some small hierarchy: as previously mentioned, a dungeon master facilitated each individual session, and these DMs were collectively supervised by AnionCation and AT. At some point a Skype group was created so that DMs could discuss matters together, and then all of the players created their own chat.

While initially watched over, this group chat was eventually abandoned by mods and left to run itself, which proved ultimately to be a disaster, and a new chat was formed on Skype to hold everyone. In an amusing aside, a user named DouchemasterMcChest was banned from this new chat and returned in spite to the original, turning the forgotten Skype group into a “cesspool”. This became an in-joke in RPGStuck known as the “Bane Plane”. As might be expected, over time the Bane Plane was abandoned and now no longer exists.

As for C2, the system was still fraught with problems. The chat and other features made things run more smoothly for players in general, but the administration still encountered challenges like sudden DM departures, which threw an entire session off kilter and required an immediate replacement. At this point, a new person from C2 named Nanakishi, or Becks, brought up the idea of hosting community events.

These events would manifest as both in-character and out-of-character parties or socials; as the names imply, in-character (IC) means the event was carried out while people were assuming the mantles of their characters, and out-of-character (OOC) means the events were held with people assuming their real identities.

THE COMMUNITY STRENGTHENS

At this point the community was still relatively small but everyone was close to each other, which is more or less typical of roleplaying groups. Outside of RPGStuck itself, community members often participated in other games such as Town of Salem or Board Game Online. This continued for a month or so, and then Becks came into contact with /r/Homestuck’s own moderator /u/aberrantArtificer—a player and DM in C1—and another user named Jumbuck, also known as Zion. Together, they began conceiving of ideas that would drastically expand the dimensions of the gameplay for RPGStuck.

The arbitrary and somewhat chaotic manner in which C1 and C2 were started is due in no small part to the absence of a lot of gameplay mechanics: having few rules allowed for sessions to be more free-form, but codifying mechanics would help smooth gameplay out and make it easier for players to know what to do in a given situation. To rectify this, and in keeping with tabletop gaming in general, the team started putting together some vital documents: a Player’s Handbook was assembled in order to make it easier for players and DMs alike to reference clearly established rules, which would in turn make gameplay more steady for all involved. Additional documents such as a database of enemies players could fight and a guide to DMing were also created.

Art concept for an Ice Sentinel monster, drawn by /u/tangledThespian. This monster was later incorporated into the game.

A Grist Scarab drawn by the same person, also included in the game. This serves as an example of how the community’s involvement has actively shaped the game as it’s developed over the years.

CAMPAIGN THREE

With the increase in organization, it was decided to launch yet another campaign: in July of 2015, AT and user PissyDuck formally announced signups for C3. With C1 and C2 being so rough and still in progress, many viewed this as unfavorable. Even with this, established players and many new players alike decided to participate. In total, 76 characters—some players using more than one—were created for this campaign.

C3 was larger than its predecessors and thus necessitated different handling. C1 and C2 were each based around a core plot that each individual session contributed to in some way, but C3 was the first campaign where sessions had completely independent plots, which allowed DMs to handle their sessions with more creative license than before. “One user was even inspired to create a session on a separate subreddit for a few of his friends in real life.” For a couple of months, the mood of the community seemed only to rise.

Throughout this process, the administrators were constantly involved with managing the community in both proactive and reactive ways. Anion, Becks, and AT were typically hands-on with how they dealt with players or even with community demands in general. At some point in September, a census was conducted on the RPGStuck subreddit, which showed that many people wanted more events outside of the game sessions themselves.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that RPGStuck had been using IRC throughout its history for various purposes. It was common for people to roleplay there in more casual or non-canon settings for fun, allowing people to continue playing as their character without being constrained by rules. Fights between characters were organized, and this activity led to a variety of creative ideas outside of the scope of RPGStuck itself.

Events for the rest of the year proceeded in much the same fashion. At some point in late October 2015, one of the groups still playing in C1 started pushing rapidly towards the endgame (although it would be another year still before the campaign was actually finished). A plethora of side projects were initiated, including a second version of the rules for the game known as “2e” being developed. Further details of these events and projects may be found in the previously linked document by 12yz12ab.

Before anyone knew it, the first anniversary of RPGStuck arrived. A small celebration was held, but then on April 24th of 2016 AnionCation stepped down from being the head of RPGStuck. Although she retained the honorary position of headmod of the subreddit, Becks was officially handed the reins. For a couple of months, things assumed a quiet calm.

THE SECOND YEAR

CAMPAIGN FOUR

On the 28th of June, things were shaken up drastically: C4 was officially announced alongside the induction of the completed 2e ruleset. For some time up to this point, the other campaigns had been stagnating, and the announcement was accompanied by the biggest burst of activity RPGStuck had ever seen.

C4 was run by Becks and aberrantArtificer: it was organized where players were sorted manually into groups with other people. Organizers also took into account the preferences of the players involved, so that people with similar interests were grouped together. After a month’s worth of preparation, on the 26th of July sessions for C4 were officially announced. Gameplay began in August with over 100 players, the largest campaign to date.

C1 was still around at this point—it had been decided that C4 would not commence until it was finished, but delays and other problems conspired such that C4 began even without the conclusion of C1. It was thus that 12yz12ab stepped in to try and coax C1 to its end, although it still took an impressive amount of time. The campaign dragged to its end over the course of four months and then on the 23rd of November 2016 the first campaign of RPGStuck was finally ended, complete with a finale written by 12yz12ab and aberrantArtificer.

For a few months, the other three campaigns proceeded as normal. Then some time into 2017, talk about beginning C5 was cropping up in the community. The discussion involved the possibility of letting C5 be run entirely by the community, but from the outset it seemed to be a misguided idea: “The chat was open access and was a vitriolic mess for much of the beginning, further hammering in the point that a completely community-driven campaign was out of the question.” C5 was tabled indefinitely, but the flurry of activity served as an indication to the administrators that expanding RPGStuck’s scope as a community was necessary.

An illustrated storybook created by /u/tangledThespian for the independent session known as Ancestorstuck, which formed as an offshoot from C4. Such works showcase the incredible creativity and talent that went into these games.

So many people were involved at this point, and many of them so active, that people began to openly organize their own sessions. This process took off in earnest in the first half of 2017, and even aside from independent sessions a variety of projects were begun. One such example was by a user named Mathmatt878, called Whose Turn is it Anyways? as a parody on the improvisational comedy show Whose Line is it Anyway?, which served as a discussion post with a different prompt or topic from week to week. Projects like this one only served to attract more and more people as time went by, until it became clear to all involved that the community now had enough energy to keep itself going indefinitely.

THE THIRD YEAR

BEYOND CAMPAIGNS

The second anniversary of RPGStuck was met with even more community games and events for people to participate in, and the sense of togetherness deepened for all involved. Around this time, new sessions run independently shifted from being the exception to being the rule, and officially announced campaigns became gradually less prominent. The Player’s Handbook was fleshed out even more in preparation for a new version to be released, and still more side projects were completed: a user named TWRedditaccount created a program that allowed people to quickly and easily create sprite art for their characters, and a user named spinydoughnut33 released an RPGStuck album entitled The Lands of Chronostuck, a first for the community.

Amazingly, RPGStuck has only continued to grow in size, sometimes by leaps and bounds. The second anniversary to now involves so many distinct events that it feels impossible to list them all in a thorough fashion, including more talk about C5; due to people utilizing sessions of their own so often now it is surmised that C5 might never happen, although the possibility is still in the air. 12yz12ab comments: “we promised ourselves that it'll happen after one of two major events people are waiting for happen, but neither of those are going to happen anytime soon either”. A mysterious promise to be sure, but a tantalizing one.

LEGACY

Aside from this, there has also been a general shift from Skype to Discord for chatting with other people (which has an homage to the #bane_plane, now their dedicated shitposting channel). Their official Player’s Handbook had a number of expansions that massively deepened gameplay, all of which may be found in the Related Materials in appendix A under RPGStuck. Projects like Whose Turn is it Anyway? are still in production, alongside other more recent creations such as a series of podcasts. The administration even holds a census to better understand the people in the community.

At this point RPGStuck boasts an active subreddit with over 550 subscribers and its own Discord server. Those interested in hearing the rest of the last year’s events and learning more about RPGStuck would do well to read 12yz12ab’s document, or better still to go and talk with the community members themselves. They show absolutely no signs of slowing down anytime soon, and they stand as a shining example of the potential that the Homestuck fandom has to offer.

Picture of a mix of characters from C1 and C2 enjoying RPGStuck Game Night, drawn by /u/irydium.

#homestuck #rpgstuck #hiveswap #reddit #sburb #article

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