#completely different technique than usually and it was a fun experiment

[dannyphannypack]

Writing ASL: Techniques to Write Signed Dialogue

Hey, guys! I've been reading a lot of DC Batfamily fanfiction lately, and in doing so I realized how little I see of ASL being represented in written text (love you, Cass!). I wanted to briefly talk about tactics to writing American Sign Language (ASL), and ways that these techniques can help improve your writing in more general contexts!

SOME THINGS BEFORE WE GET STARTED

I will be discussing everything in terms of ASL! If you have a character who uses Chinese Sign Language or even British Sign Language, the same rules will not necessarily apply! Don't be afraid to do some extra research on them.

Do not let this dissuade you from writing a character who signs ASL! This is by no means the end-all be-all to writing ASL dialogue, and I do not intend this post to insinuate that by writing ASL the same way you write English you are deeply offending the Deaf community. If this is something you're interested in though, I highly recommend experimenting with the way you write it! Above all, have fun with your writing.

Related to 2nd rule, but still very important: not everyone will agree that sign language should be treated/written any differently than English. This is a totally valid and understandable stance to take! I do not hope to invalidate this stance by making this post, but rather to introduce an interested audience to how ASL operates in the modern world, and how that can be translated into text.

ADDRESSING SOME MISCONCEPTIONS

ASL is the same as English, just with gestures instead of words.

Actually, no! There is a language that exists that is like that: it's called Signing Exact English, and it's an artificial language; i.e., it did not come about naturally. All languages came from a need to communicate with others, and ASL is no different! It is a language all on it's own, and there is no perfect 1:1 way to translate it to English, just as any spoken language.

2. But everyone who signs ASL knows how to read English, don't they?

No, actually! Because it's a completely different language, people who sign ASL and read English can be considered bilingual: they now know two languages. In fact, fingerspelling a word to a Deaf person in search for the correct sign does not usually work, and is far from the preferred method of conversing with Deaf people.

3. Because ASL does not use as many signs as we do words to articulate a point, it must be an inferior language.

Nope! ASL utilizes 5 complex parameters in order to conversate with others: hand shape, palm orientation, movement, location, and expression. English relies on words to get these points across: while we may say "He's very cute," ASL will sign, "He cute!" with repeated hand movement and an exaggerated facial expression to do what the "very" accomplishes in the English version: add emphasis. Using only ASL gloss can seem infantilizing because words are unable to portray what the other four parameters are doing in a signed sentence.

4. Being deaf is just a medical disability. There's nothing more to it.

Fun fact: there is a difference between being deaf and being Deaf. You just said the same thing twice? But I didn't! To be deaf with a lowercase 'd' is to be unable to hear, while being Deaf with an uppercase is to be heavily involved in the Deaf community and culture. Deaf people are often born deaf, or they become deaf at a young age. Because of this, they attend schools for the Deaf, where they are immersed in an entirely different culture from our own. While your family may mourn the loss of your grandfather's hearing, Deaf parents often celebrate discovering that their newborn is also deaf; they get to share and enjoy their unique culture with their loved one, which is a wonderful thing!

YOU MENTIONED ASL GLOSS. WHAT IS THAT?

ASL gloss is the written approximation of ASL, using English words as "labels" for each sign. ASL IS NOT A WRITTEN LANGUAGE, so this is not the correct way to write it (there is no correct way!): rather, it is a tool used most commonly in classrooms to help students remember signs, and to help with sentence structure.

IF THERE'S NO CORRECT WAY TO WRITE IN ASL, THEN HOW DO I DO IT?

A most astute observation! The short answer: it's up to you. There is no right or wrong way to do it. The longer answer? Researching the culture and history, understanding sign structure, and experimenting with description of the 5 parameters are all fun ways you can take your ASL dialogue to the next level. Here are 3 easy ways you can utilize immediately to make dialogue more similar to the way your character is signing:

Sign languages are never as wordy as spoken ones. Here's an example: "Sign languages are never wordy. Spoken? Wordy." Experiment with how much you can get rid of without the meaning of the sentence being lost (and without making ASL sound goo-goo-ga-ga-y; that is to say, infantilizing).

Emotion is your friend. ASL is a very emotive language! If we were to take that sentence and get rid of the unnecessary, we could get something like "ASL emotive!" The way we add emphasis is by increasing the hand motion, opening the mouth, and maybe even moving the eyebrows. It can be rather intuitive: if you mean to say very easy, you would sign EASY in a flippant manner; if you mean to say so handsome, you would sign handsome and open your mouth or fan your face as if you were hot. Think about a game of Charades: how do you move your mouth and eyebrows to "act out" the word? How are you moving your body as your teammates get closer? There are grammar rules you can certainly look up if you would like to be more technical, too, but this is a good place to start!

Practice describing gestures and action. ASL utilizes three dimensional space in a lot of fun and interesting ways. Even without knowing what a specific sign is, describing body language can be a big help in deciphering the "mood" of a sentence. Are they signing fluidly (calm) or sharply (angry)? Are their signs big (excited) or small (timid)? Are they signing rushedly (impatient) or slowly? Messily (sad) or pointedly (annoyed)? Consider what you can make come across without directly addressing it in dialogue! Something ese about ASL is that English speakers who are learning it tend to think the speakers a little nosy: they are more than able to pick up on the unsaid, and they aren't afraid to ask about it.

Above all, don't be afraid to ask questions, do research or accept advice! New languages can be big and scary things, but don't let that make you shy away. Again, there is nothing wrong with deciding to write ASL the same as you write your English. I've personally found that experimenting with ASL dialogue in stories has aided me in becoming more aware of how to describe everything, from sappy emotional moments to action-packed fighting scenes. Writing ASL has helped me think about new ways to improve my description in more everyday contexts, and I hope it can be a big help to you as well, both in learning about Deaf culture and in pursuing your future writing endeavors. :)

P.S: I am quite literally only dipping my toes into the language and culture. I cannot emphasize how important it is to do your own research if it's someting you're interested in!

P.P.S: I want to apologize for my earlier P.S! What I meant by “I am … dipping my toes into the language and culture” was in direct regards to the post; what I should have said is “this post is only dipping its toes into the language and culture.” While I am not Deaf myself, I am a sophomore in college minoring in ASL and Deaf Culture, and I am steadily losing my hearing. Of course, that does not make me an authority figure on the topic, which is why I strongly encourage you to do your own research, ask your own questions, and consult any Deaf friends, family, or online peers you may have.

#dc batman #batfamily #cassandra cain #ASL #american sign language #deaf #deaf culture #tayscreams #writing advice #writing

[oneatlatime]

The Headband

I don't care how dormant a volcano supposedly is. Living in the maw of one would absolutely freak me out.

Zuko out for his nightly constitutional lurking practice.

I want this snuggy cape.

No better disguise than a cloud 1.2 metres from the ground. That's where all clouds hand out. Cool puffins though.

Enemy puffins approve of new fluffy Sokka.

Did Sokka just dive headfirst into rock?

I do not like this angle. Looks like his head's on backwards.

This episode is three minutes in and already I'm loving the comic tone.

Wow Katara, with the enthusiasm you're showing for stealing those clothes, they must belong to pirates.

These are some top tier nonsense sound effects. Far too few of those in recent episodes.

Beat up Sokka quota fulfilled!

Toph has by far the best outfit. Love the gold accents.

We've had two seasons of blatantly blue Katara not being identified by the Fire Nation as a Water Tribe person. I think the necklace can stay.

His headband is an airbender arrow. So much for disguising himself.

I would love it if linguistic drift meant that Aang was going around tossing out slurs completely unaware.

WHAT is this face

"Just slob is fine." I ADORE characters that are so secure in themselves and in their belief in the decency of others that all attempts at ridicule slide off like water off a duck's back.

He does it again! "Wow. Are you a bully? This is so exciting! I've always wanted to meet a bully!"

Onji - get better taste in men. Why are you even dating this prick? Did you have any say in becoming his girlfriend? Blink twice if you need help.

These Fire Nation kids are all so mild. Contrast them with Zuko and they might as well be a different species.

What is Hide and Explode?

Sokka is showing a mastery of slapstick that I haven't seen since The Fortune Teller. Glad to have it back.

Is this the first time someone has recognised Zuko by his scar? About time.

Was it really necessary to beat up the guard? Seems a bit much. Zuko could have just asked nicely. That usually works for Iroh.

Speaking of: Iroh! Hi Iroh! Didn't think you'd still be alive.

Noodle Ozai. Did Aang get put in preschool by accident?

Those hippies should do a song about Secret Rivers.

Tired of spending three years talking to Zuko without making any progress, Iroh decides to attempt a new technique and deploys the silent treatment. It works just as well as three years of talking.

Colour me completely unsurprised that the Fire Nation has a pledge of Allegiance.

This school must have some gnarly punishments if questioning the teacher garners this reaction.

This man's head is alarming.

This man is also surprisingly nice for a fascist agent of the state bent on suppressing personal expression.

Movements? Aang you were showing her MOVEMENTS! GASP! FILTHY!

I love this fight. It's been a while (maybe back to season 1) since Aang's preferred fighting style was 'Nope'.

They haven't committed to the bit this hard since Bonzu Pippinpadalopsicopoulous, the Third!

It's funny how we spent two whole seasons haunted by nothing but threatening shadows of the Fire Lord, and then an episode after his face is finally revealed they turn him into part of the decor. He even gets a noodle version.

Play Spot the Firelord with this episode. I count four.

Sokka is having way too much fun with this.

Just going to sneak a reference to child labour in there. Gnarly punishments indeed.

Local Emos Experience Happiness for the First Time; Immediately Implode.

I'm sorry but Mai's cloak has such Santa vibes.

That is some serious side eye.

"You get to be normal all the time." Aang is pulling no punches today.

Where did they get this many candles? Actually, where did they get that many matches? They don't even have a Firebender on staff.

Poor kid is objectively correct. I guarantee your parents don't want you dancing in a cave. It will be good for you though! just don't lick the walls.

No wonder the Fire Nation got rid of dancing. Those moves are awful.

Zuko! "I brought you this food that I know you don't like because I need your help." Buddy. Why.

I could do without the heavy-handed Katara and Aang romance. Also, when exactly did Katara learn advanced gymnastics and choreograph a whole routine with Aang?

I hate this twerp so much!

That song the band is playing right as the adults bust in is better than the songs featured earlier in the dance montage.

I love this guy.

i know that the soundtrack probably went from diegetic to non-diegetic as soon as the chase started, but I love the idea that the school band provided theme music for searching for Aang.

Delightfully eerie. and also very Spartacus.

Actually with the guards starting to dance, it WAS the school band providing a soundtrack for the Aang hunt.

Is Momo at the reins?

How is this assassin good at keeping secrets and not being followed? He creaks and clanks.

Final Thoughts

I loved this. This type of episode is when Avatar is at its best: heaps of goof, a side helping of heart, subtle and not-so-subtle critiques organically incorporated, tonally contrasting storylines that combine to form a whole greater than its parts, and even one-note characters who are given depth.

Aang was in his element as a normal kid; Sokka was having a great time being super agent / team dad; poor Katara and Toph got like two lines each but still had fun with what they did get. Even Momo got some sight gags.

Aang is so personable. I think it's the combination of great social skills from a good peripatetic upbringing and being a peacetime child.

I think Zuko experienced every possible human emotion this episode. I loved seeing him snark with Mai (those two are way too good together), but his scenes with/revolving around Iroh were confusing and intense. Which is probably how Zuko would describe them too. Seems he's speedrunning his season 1 bad decisions arc.

I'm not fond of this new silent treatment approach from Iroh, but I have to admit that talking to Zuko didn't work for years, so what else is there to try?

I wasn't expecting a Footloose homage and a Spartacus reference in Avatar of all places. But it works. And it works if you don't catch the references too.

I am severely disappointed in Fire Nation fashion. I was expecting gloriously eye-searing red/gold/yellow outfits. I got black/tan/brown with dull red edging. It's probably a visual commentary on what imperialism does to its own people. And the price of dyes. But I was really looking forward to reds and golds! At least I have Toph's outfit.

I loved the liberal use of sound effects in the Gaang's plot. I love comic sound effects on their own, but they really enhanced the contast between Zuko and the Gaang's plots.

There was lots of heavy stuff under the surface this episode, what with the squashing of the self and the discrimination against colonials and the propaganda and the revisionist history and the assassin. But I feel like being silly today, so I'm not going to dig into it. That's one of the great things about this show. Not all, but many episodes are structured so that you can choose your level of engagement and consequent angst.

This episode was funny, and fun. A much-needed palette cleanser after the drudge of the season opener. The last time there was an episode this unapologetically silly was probably Avatar Day. In other words, it's been far too long. Definitely going on my rewatch list.

I really want Zuko's snuggy cape.

#atla #avatar: the last airbender #avatar the last airbender #the headband #all hail silly #long live silly

[mazeinthemiroh]

i’m deep in my feels rn haha could i request a soft little skz reaction where their s/o puts a lot of thought into learning about their interests and stuff? i want the skzers to feel special and appreciated cos they are :(

stray kids reactions to their s/o putting effort into their interests

genre: general

word count: 0.7k

warnings: none

pls like and reblog if you enjoy! feel free to request anything <3

bangchan

channie is a workaholic and so his interests lie with what he is working on at the moment. he would absolutely love it if you took an interest in his work, and will even run you through how to compose a song, write lyrics, produce, etc... he might even let you make a song with him on the side for fun! i mean, it's not impossible. he's made a whole song on one of his lives! so doing it with you should be easy, and really makes him happy.

lee know

minho has quite a few interests but the one that dominates his heart the most is, obviously, his cats. he can't help but speculate on different toys he should buy them and whether they need any supplements or different meals. he loves taking care of his babies ;-; so when you take an interest in his fluffy children, his heart simply melts. it's definitely important to him to that you get on well with his cats because he loves them so much <///3

changbin

binnie's main interest is working out. which, of course, is not for everyone. if you are the type of person who likes the gym just as much as he does, he would love to share his time at the gym with you! if you are not the type to usually go to the gym or don't regularly work out, but still try your hardest to get involved with that interest of his, changbin will be really flattered and make sure he will help you and make your gym experience worthwhile, since you're doing such a nice thing for him.

hyunjin

hyunjin would probably appreciate his s/o doing this the most. he likes feeling understood. but also, he spends a lot of time on his passions and interests, in particular, his art so they have become really important to him. they are a part of him. so the fact you want to get involved in what he loves? he's over the moon. he would love to teach you how to do certain techniques and even share his hobby with him.

han

han loves getting into new things to watch, especially anime! forget sleeping, he's bingeing the new episodes of what he's currently watching atm. he loves it when you get involved with the shows he's watching because it means he has someone to completely rant about the plotline or openly simp over a character with someone who knows what he's on about. it makes him feel like he has a voice and he can express how passionate he feels about a character being killed off in the third episode because wtf?? he needs someone to talk about this with!!!

felix

this gamer boy would LOVE it if you joined him playing video games. he's so invested in the storylines of certain video games and will get so excited when you ask him about it and genuinely take an interest. and he will happily tell you all the things he knows. he gives you advice on what each of the characters does and which is the best character in his correct humble opinion. will be super excited to play these video games with you and will really appreciate you being interested in what he loves.

seungmin

seungmin has been getting into more artsy stuff lately. he likes photography, for instance, and likes to get outside and look at the world through a different lens other than his own eyes. he would love it if you were to join him on a little photography date uwu. ALSOOOO reading dates are totally his thing. he loves burying his head in a good book, and having you taking an interest in his hobbies means that he can share these peaceful moments with you.

jeongin

jeongin is a fashion lover. we know how well he dresses and how his style is always on point. even if you are not so keen on passion but find ways to make his interest feel understood, he will love you even more. like sometimes you will get him an expensive item of clothing or maybe even suggest going clothes shopping with him. he likes it when you ask for advice too, so he can put his fashion knowledge and expertise to good use!

#skz #stray kids #kpop #skz scenarios #skz imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids imagines #stray kids reactions #skz fluff #stray kids fluff #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #bangchan #bang chan #chan #seungmin #kim seungmin #jeongin #yang jeongin #hwang hyunjin #hyunjin #han jisung #han #lee know #lee minho #changbin #seo changbin #lee felix #felix #kpop fluff

[orkbutch]

Your kink posting has got me questioning 🤔 do you have head canon kinks for all the companions? ( or at least the hot girlies )

To a point yes, but they are still being formed. I do think there are certain characters that are just Less Kinky, not because their personality means they CAN'T be kinky but, idk... for balance, and because it seems less Likely. My thoughts on the companions so far: Shadowheart: Very kinky, true sadist / masochist (both equally). I think she'd enjoy a LOT of things, but the classics: bondage, impact, knives, wax play, degradation, worship, roleplay (especially religious, training and corruption themes), edging/denial, CNC... I also think that she would really enjoy rigging, if she ever got the time and setting to practice that. Perhaps she would adapt it from Sharran torture methods similar to Japanese rope techniques used in the Edo period to extract confessions. I think that she would enjoy the slow ritual of it, I think she would enjoy its elegance, and I think she'd enjoy how excruciating but euphoric it can be. Again, she'd be into many things, and very adept at turning most kinks into something she can engage with via the right dynamic and context. Lae'zel: Also very kinky in a completely different way; much more about the power dynamics than the methods. Biggest thing would probably be Primal. Possessive. Defs messy; BO, sweat, blood, tears, spit, piss probably lmao. Would love contests of strength, causing controlled damage to bodies and enduring pain. I think with more trust and affection established with someone, she would be able to enjoy another layer of play; immobilization, sensory-focused play, degradation/humiliation, fear play, care giving/receiving, overstimulation... still very much into possessiveness in play, but with an emotional element that made it even more intense.

Karlach: I think Karlach would do plenty of kink without being deeply invested in it; she wants a good time and is up to try anything once. An element of Karlach's character that I think is very relevant to her relationship to kink and sex in general is that Karlach basically Never feels physically vulnerable; she knows that she's usually the biggest, toughest badass in the room. I think that would make her very sexually adventurous because she simply wouldn't fear much. What she struggles with is intimacy, and her building emotional trust would be the most significant element of her relationship to kink. All that said; I imagine her favourite kinky fun would be rough fucking, manhandling, wrestling, skin-contact sensory-focused play, temperature play, leather (because its badass and feels good), and honestly?? Oonga Boonga caveman brain misogyny-tinged degradation. Just feels right for her. The simple pleasure of a little lover under her saying how big she is and how hard she goes and begging to be knocked up would absolutely send her. I just FEEL it

Gale: I don't have many well formed thoughts on Gale's kinks. I suspect he'd be into like... Tantric Embodied Karma Sutra stuff, with a lot of wizardy bells and whistles. Creating an experience of non-duality as a kink. Basically, that guy at the Crystal Rainforest Festival that is suspected of being a cult leader and has VERY good drugs for sale. The kind of kink he does, Gale probably does

Astarion: Hmmmmm. I can see him, over time, coming to a place of comfort with non-sexual kink as a way to engage with power difference (Astarion forming a healthy identity as a dominant would be really good for him I think) and experience grounding, safe sensations within his body. I think kinky sex would take longer, but submission would be extremely difficult and vulnerable for him; forming a responsible dominant identity could be quite healing for him. On the other hand, choosing to submit to a dominant that he actually trusted and who took care of him could also be very very healing, just... I think that would be difficult for him to do safely. It would take a great deal of time to get there.

Wyll: Probably a less kinky person, but man, I think he'd be a great pampered sub. Worshipping, being treated like a bit of a boy toy. Would love mutual possessiveness. That'd be hot frankly. But I'm still figuring his kink vibe out! I gotta play his romance.

Minthara: Freak. Proper freak. Terrifying freak. Snuff kink freak.

Halsin: Wholesome freak into surprisingly intense shit. Exhibitionism, primal, breeding, rough, biting. Wants a lot of stimulation in every way.

#bg3 #kinkposting #ask

[dovithedarklord]

Age of Monsters - Chapter Thirteen

Pairing: OFC x Simon "Ghost" Riley, OFC x König

Tags: Slow Burn, Slow Build, Enemies to Lovers, Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, POV First Person, Not Beta Read, Medical Inaccuracies, Military Inaccuracies, AFAB OC

Trigger Warning: The story will contain violance, blood and smut in detail. Please, keep that in mind!

⚠️MDNI⚠️

...................................

Author's Note

The small group goes on a trip and finds something completely different from what they expected.

Hello!

I'm back with Chapter 13! Now I have a couple of Trigger Warnings: Death, corpses (and their detailed description), blood, gore, and violence.

Have fun! :D

I.M.L. – Infected Mammal Lifeform I.H.L. – Infected Humanoid Lifeform

if you're interested you can find the story on AO3: Chapter Thirteen

..........................................

The wild, overgrown abundance of the forest glides by like blurred spots next to the car, and although I haven't had a positive experience with nature until now, for once it's not the potential danger behind the trees and bushes that occupies my mind the most. The wind blows in my face through the rolled-down window, and as the characteristic smell of wet plants fills my nose, the apparent calmness of the situation lulls me into a false sense of security. The orange zone is a bag full of risks in itself, but Alejandro's predictions seem to have come true so far, because not a single mutant bastard has attempted to divert our small team, which is moving unstoppably towards its destination. But the deeper we venture on the broken concrete road into the heart of the wilderness, the more convinced I am that this eerie peace and uneventfulness will eventually backfire. And it's true that I was always cautious, and I believed that it was better to be paranoid than to get my ass kicked, but the sinister suspicion that had nestled itself deep inside of me is much more than that. Because it makes me feel like we're heading toward certain chaos, even though our plan seems bulletproof and ridiculously simple. I've already seen how life can wreck a detailed, masterful concept, and I can't get rid of the thought that fucking karma would love to show me again what tricks it can do if it wants to surprise me.

And it seems that I'm not the only one who racks their brains on this ominous intuition, because my two companions traveling with me exude everything other than casual calmness. From the rear-view mirror of the car, I can clearly see the unflinching expression on MacTavish's face, and only the line of his jaw tensing for a moment tells me that he would like to get right into the thick of it and show off his unique interrogation techniques. And although Riley, sharing the back seat with me, has assumed his usual steely confidence, his dark eyes scan every square centimeter of the landscape that appears through the windshield with such intensity, as if he would expect something absolutely terrible to appear in every second. His fear is well-founded, because we could easily come into close physical contact with a mutant here, but I suspect he isn't distressed by the forest and the beasts hidden in it, but rather by the research institute resting on the mountainside. And probably the concerns I expressed during our little moment on the roof last night also helped him to become so tense now. I should be happy that my opinion has such a big influence on him, now that we have finally overcome the differences between the two of us, if possible permanently, but his grim aura only gives my nerves one more reason to strain towards snapping.

"Five minutes and we'll reach the gate." Alejandro's voice filters through the radio and I automatically turn my gaze to the vehicle in front of us, where he and his faithful right-hand man are travelling, leading the way through the maze of nature like the real hosts they are. He nobly undertook this task without allowing any objections, and although I originally had no desire to argue with him being our tour guide, but in the last hour that we have spent here in the jungle  behind god's back, I already know that we wouldn't have had a chance to reach our goal in any other line-up. Because even though the road, which has been damaged over the years and is full of potholes, indeed leads somewhere, it splits into side roads in such a confusing way that it is quite amazing. And this, as well as the fact that the environment exudes a progressively unfriendly atmosphere with each passing meter, only confirms the fact that Alviar is truly stirring up the kind of shit, that needs a dozen life-threatening and cunning diversions to cover its smell.

My two companions only acknowledge the information with a wordless nod, our driver is the one who mumbles a quick "Copy" and then fixes his eyes on our battered path with unbroken attention. And the fact that MacTavish, who is always up for a clever comment, is also silenced by the operation before us, could even be disturbing, if the seriousness that possessed him wouldn't be fully justified. Perhaps the rather complicated chain of developments and the promise of an increasingly worse outcome has entered into the mind of a man as well, therefore it's not surprising that he is buzzing with tense energy ready to jump into action, so that he can finally relieve the helpless tension that has accumulated in him until now. This pressure has been building up in him since our nice adventure in the city, and I have a feeling that he won't try to moderate his temper if he has even the smallest chance to unleash it on the modest person of the doc. And that bastard will undoubtedly deserve it if even one of my hypotheses is confirmed.

Suddenly, the car in front of us begins to slow down, and as we adjust to this, we reduce our already cautious speed, and I raise my curious eyes towards the gate slowly emerging through the windshield. And the closer we get, the clearer it becomes that the doc didn't leave the guarding of his threshold to chance, because although the wild greenery skillfully hides the line of the several-meter-high fence stretching between the trees, it would be impossible not to notice the behemoth made of solid metal that rises towards the sky at the end of the worn road. Although a venturous mutant would have no problem climbing over it based on its height alone, even though the whole shebang seems to be at least five meters high, the barbed wire on top of the monstrosity would certainly discourage the hungry beasts from being nosy. And when our vehiches halts at the end of our nice little journey, my nose is hit by the characteristic burnt metallic smell, which makes it quite obvious that my colleague really wanted to show off his sophistication with the first line of his defense, and he made sure to give a shocking experience to those who stray too close to the barrier infused with high-voltage that disappears between the trees. So fucking sly.

The movement coming from the vehicle in front of us disturbs me from my observations, and only a hand appears from behind the rolled-down window to firmly hold up the hologram of the verification document emerging from the communicator towards the camera cleverly hidden on the top of the gate. However, it seems that there may have been an error in the calculation, because when after a few minutes there is no reaction to the introduction, the car door bursts open with angry vehemence, and Alejandro jumps out, stomping closer with visible irritation to signal with his whole being that an important visitor has ventured to the doorstep of this godforsaken hole. He waves his hand towards the wretched camera with growing annoyence, but despite all his efforts and fervor, the gate remains closed with immovable calm, which makes my confusion grow stronger with ever-increasing enthusiasm. It's one thing that the doctor doesn't want to have unexpected and especially unwanted guests, but he must also know that if he doesn't work together with us, my Hunter friends have a couple of brutal ideas on how to convince him to be more cooperative. Not to mention that the head of an institution must be familiar with the intricate maze of the current regulations, especially if he wants to avoid them, so he must also know that if he doesn't let in our small team that came here because of the violation of said rules, then the law and fate will catch up with such force that he will never have a chance to get himself out from that sea of shit.

"What's the problem?" The masked Hunter sitting next to me finally gets bored with the wait, and calls out through the rolled-down window to the man who is slowly engaging in an elaborate pantomime show. And it's enough for me to take a quick glance at Riley to assess how every fiber of his being fills with the first wave of impatient temper, and how his body moves forward, like a big cat who at this very moment has lost its patience with its naughty little prey that constantly slips away. And there is no doubt that he also starts to lose his cool at the finishline, when in addition to all the infuriating details of the events so far, the unsuspecting fool now wants to stretch his self-restraint to infinity.

"Something is not right! The guards should've been here by now!" Comes the irritated reply from the unit's leader, and as he turns back, every single wrinkle of the ire on his face becomes visible. Based on the deep furrows gathering on his forehead, it becomes completely clear that although he harbors hostile feelings towards Alviar, and he is sure that the asshole wants to block our entry, he also knows that the doc is not so stupid as to oppose him so openly. Because by doing so, the good doctor would risk a much greater retort, and then he would have to say goodbye to his peaceful solitude, which he had been enjoying until now in the soft lap of undisturbed nature.

It seems that Riley doesn't need any more motivation to take action, because without any further explanation, he opens the door and gets out of our little vehicle to walk closer to his comrade with heavy steps. Every cell of his tall frame fills with the pulsation of his restrained fury, which inevitably makes my stomach flutter with excitement, for there is something unbelievably compelling about the way he charges forward with the unstoppable determination of a tank. He stops for just a moment next to Alejandro, who, although I can't hear the fierce words coming out of his mouth, I know that he is explaining in, presumably very colorful language, why this unfortunate turn of events is bad news for us. And this gives the masked Hunter enough reason to take the solution of the problem into his own hands, and I lean forward to follow what kind of tactics the man chooses to eliminate this obstacle that cannot be called small even the slightest.

When he arrives in front of the metal monstrosity, which towers above him with unbroken dignity, he lets his weapon attached to its sling fall beside him, and raises his hand in the air with such noble simplicity, as if he wasn't about to slam down on a solid steel door. When one of his huge fists strikes, the metal shakes wildly from the impact, and the peace of the forest is disturbed by a thunderous crash, causing the birds resting on the trees to fly out of the foliage in alarm. And although the gate doesn't yield from this terrible force, the deep indentation created at the contact of the two-winged entrance already provides enough grip for Riley's hands to worm their way into the gap. A shudder runs along my spine reflexively, causing the little hairs to rise up, and suddenly I don't feel like fighting the feeling that overwhelms me, when I realize that he is trying to pull open the walls of the gate with his bare hands. And my mind tries to scold my body, since in the midst of a vital mission it's not the time for these dubious feelings to appear, but I can't tear my eyes away from the sight. He grounds his booted legs to exert as much force as possible, and despite the looseness of his uniform, I can see how the material strains by the work of the bulging muscles on his arms and back, and goosebumps prickle on every inch of my body, because I can almost feel the angry vibrations of his power on my skin. With a deafening screech, the metal surrenders to the Hunter's attack, and as the heavy walls slowly but surely move, the empty concrete road becomes visible. And just as Riley forces a passage wide enough for a person to pass through, he steps away and turns back to us, looking pleased with his work.

"It's open now." He announces to our small group, raising his deep voice, and I can see even from a distance, as the red glow in his eyes slowly fades, when he once again hides all the destructive power of his little Hunter abilities. Based on his makeshift weapon made from a traffic sign in the previous mission, I had no doubt that he could enhance his physical strength when he activates his skills, but this is a feat I didn't know a human could do, no matter how superhuman they are. And the fact that it awakened that fucking warm tremble in me is another proof that my sanity has completely gone.

"Steamin’ Jesus..." MacTavish's utters his rather apt reaction, and the excitement mixed with admiration creeping into his voice tells me that even though it's not the first time he's seen his partner use similar effective methods, he's still sufficiently impressed by the masked man's wide repertoire of pure power. And although I share his amazement, I quickly realize that Riley has even more self-control than I thought, because, under the influence of my little provocations, he could have messed me up even worse than I had originally assumed. And the knowledge that up until now he has held the reins of his aggression with a steady hand whenever I have directed my sly little words at him or tried to shake him up with my cunning tactics, and I'm still alive, for some reason fills me with sick joy. Now I'm pretty sure I'm not right in the head.

It seems that everyone was enchanted for a moment by the show the masked man unexpectedly put on, because it takes a few stunned seconds before Alejandro at least pulls himself together, and when he does, only a broad, proud grin spreads across his face. It's clear that he also liked this impromptu performance, and this gives him the impetus to return to the mission and wave to his men, coaxing them out of the cars in Spanish. This is the point where MacTavish also decides that he has spent just enough time in our vehicle, and opens the door of the car to jump out of it with such enthusiasm, as if someone had shown a spring up in his ass.

"Come on, lassie, let's not make our guests wait!" He turns back to me, gesturing towards the worn gate, giving a clear signal that after the impressive entrance, it's time to surprise the doc with our pleasant company, if he tried to avoid it so enthusiastically. The glint that settles in the man's blue eyes promises violence, and the wicked curve of his mouth lets me know that my Scottish friend, who has been on pins and needles since the beginning of our journey, has already formulated at least dozens of ideas in his head to welcome Alviar properly. And there is no doubt that each of his ideas is full of delicacies, each more painful than the other, with which he can make my unknown colleague sing a song where the doc will spill even his mother's name just to end the fun. And who am I to deprive him of the fun?

With a quiet, amused sigh, I pull myself together, so that I, too, can peel myself out of the comfortable tranquility of the back seat and drag my pretty little ass out into the humid embrace of the forest. And the Hunter with the mohawk, after checking that I'm ready for the excitement ahead of us, sets off with urgent steps towards the damaged gate, driven by his renewed vigor, and I follow him with similar enthusiasm, so that we can gallop towards the small group in deep discussion.

And as soon as we get closer, I have the opportunity to admire the communicator, which is still resting happily in Alejandro's hand, on which, instead of the faint blue hologram of his ID, something completely different is flashing with a bright yellow color. I don't need to know Spanish to recognize from the aggressively flashing text that we've managed to generate a neat little warning with our not-so-gentle knock. And based on this, it’s easy to assess that the institution's security system automatically signals the colony and thus probably the liquidation unit as well, if something or someone is reckless enough to venture in without authorization. Of course, this begs the question, if Alviar surrounds himself with such a line of defense to keep us out, shouldn't there be someone here to prevent us from continuing our little incursion?

"What's the matter?" MacTavish inquires, and he directs his eyes to the message flashing with increasing enthusiasm in the hands of the leader of the unit, where on the map a vivid red circle marks with definite outlines the exact location of the intrusion into the facility. And from the way the Scottish Hunter carefully peeks through the opened gap and scans the suspicious immobility waiting for us on the other side, it becomes quite obvious that I'm not the only one who finds the absence of the reception committee unusual.

"The security system is still active because we received the alarm about the intrusion." Rodolfo points to the hologram, and the deep furrows between his eyebrows reveal that there is no scenario in which this could be considered a good or lucky development. Because it might even make our job easier if we don't have to immediately fight with a couple of soldiers armed to the chin in order to get into the hospitable confines of the establishment, but silence and desolation are never a good sign if you expect to be welcomed. And we anticipated unfriendliness at least, if not outright resistance, but the fact that we are now greeted by none other but the big, stinking pile of nothing is more than strange. It's Alejandro who has enough of this hesitancy and, after pressing a few buttons, he makes the notification disappear to sink his communicator back into the deep recesses of his pocket, overcoming the unusual turn of events with the ease of a true leader, only to raise his dark eyes meaningfully at our small group and return to the execution of the mission, taking his weapon in his hand.

"We continue on foot! Don't let your guard down, we can expect that bastard to be up to something!" Alejandro gives out his orders and admonitions, and there is an undisguised hostility and anger in his tone, which leads me to conclude that, based on the events of the last few minutes, he has a strong suspicion that this won't be the only obstacle and interesting thing that we will encounter thanks to the doc. "After me!" He shouts, then pushes himself through the gap in the gate with purposeful movements, being the first to take on the noble task of checking out what awaits us on the other side. And when he has squeezed through, he points his weapon forward with lightning speed so that he can pump a bullet into anyone who feels like ambushing him. But, when the brave volunteer doesn't show up and nothing happens, he lowers the assault rifle and lets us know with just a wave that we are safe to proceed, and this gives enough motivation for his men to move behind each other in single file to follow their leader through the gaping crevice.

When the last soldier makes his way through the opening forced into the gate, my Scottish friend steps to the side, maintaining the principle of "ladies first", and with outstretched arms offers me the opportunity to be the first of our little trio to step onto the riddle-filled grounds of the facility. And I only raise one of my eyebrows and fix my eyes on the man, wondering when had he become such a gentleman, but finally accepting his sudden chivalry, I walk past him to slide through our entrance. When I cross the threshold, I'm greeted only by the emptiness, which for some reason seems even more peculiar now that I have the opportunity to take a closer look at the place. And as I divert my bright eyes, I see a small cabin resting peacefully next to the gate, where our cars waiting on the broken road greet me through a very well-functioning screen, and I immediately feel that something is very wrong. There is a single plastic bottle on the table, its wall thickly painted by the vapor of the water inside it, and I suspect that it must have been there for a long time if its contents could turn opalescent. That bottle must have been sitting in the stuffy booth for at least days, not an hour or two, to look like this. And I highly doubt that it's lying there forgotten only because of the carelessness of its owner.

But soon I'm jolted out of my contemplation, because I hear the two remaining Hunters arrive behind me, and as I break away from the strange view, I turn back and catch Riley, who, after MacTavish, is the last to press himself through the crack made by his busy hands. When he straightens up upon arrival, he checks the landscape shrouded in immobility around us with the momentum of his routine, to his eyes to then stop on the same small hole, the mystery of which I analyzed so enthusiastically not long ago. Despite the mask, it's easy to recognize the suspicious expression that appears on his face, although I only see thin but grim lines around the skin covered in black paint, as his eyes slowly narrow when he takes in the details of the scene left behind in a haste. And the fact that it also fills him with a sufficient amount of foreboding to dwell on it, only reinforces the whispering of the ominous voices in my head, warning that it's better to be careful, because this could be something other than just the doc trying to hide his ass.

"Let's go! The building is not far!" Alejandro calls out suddenly, drawing everyone's undivided attention to him again, motioning towards the road, which is hidden from prying eyes by lush green plants swaying lazily in the wind, as it meanders peacefully into the unknown. And in other cases, this sight could even be idyllic, but now it only awakens the unease that grows stronger in my skull with every passing minute. Because there is nothing normal in the fact that such a mysterious institution doesn't react to the intrusion of the official bodies into their harmonious little living space, which they have tried to protect with all their slyness until now. And I catch the worried furrows frozen on our leader's forehead and the dour downward curve of his mouth just in time, before he sets off followed by his loyal companion and his men, but even this fleeting moment is enough for me to deduce from his expression that we are walking into a party that I'm not sure we are prepared for.

"Let's not fall behind." Riley steps next to me, and although there is nothing in his voice apart from the usual deep hoarseness and his confidence, my keen senses quickly recognize the tension pulsing from him. It's no wonder that his mood is slowly becoming more and more gloomy, because anyone with a little sense knows how abnormal the suspicious smoothness of the mission so far is. But this is probably not the first time the masked man has encountered a mystery like this, because although he doesn't lose his caution, he quickly steels himself, and with only one last glance at me, he rushes forward with his friend close at his heels, so that they, too, could start sneaking carefully behind Alejandro's small team, picking up the pace dictated by the leading Hunter with the experience of the professionals. And I hesitate for just a moment to take one last peek at the cubicle frozen in unsettling silence, to then turn my back on the stillness that prevails in it, to catch up with my little buddies who are already moving forward with hasty steps. After all, no matter how fast the questions multiply in my brain, I won't find the answers here.

As soon as I reach them I fall in line with them, and for a minute I wonder what this extra precaution is for. Unquestionably, the doc doesn't like us, but I doubt he'd be so foolish as to try to attack four Hunters and six battle-hardened soldiers in the back. Not only because the sharp senses of the Hunters would recognize the danger lurking before they have the opportunity to strike, but also because it would strengthen our assumptions about his illegal activities more than any words could. After all, someone who has nothing to hide doesn't need to aggressively defend said nothing. But as my gaze wanders, taking in all the hidden little parts of the road ahead, I quickly understand that this thoughtfulness is not for Alviar's slyness. Much more to the bleak silence that follows us the deeper we drift into the recesses of the institute's territory. It's as if the gate we fought our way through was meant to keep out not only the wild beasts hiding in the wilderness, but to restrain the heavy atmosphere that settles here, which descends on us like a suffocating blanket. Although everything seems peaceful, not a single sound filters through except for the crunch of the debris drifting under our boots and the soft rustle of our clothes, and the whole thing feel as if we have entered into a fucking ghost town. An actively functioning institution buzzing with people shouldn't be so terribly quiet, especially when the boss here has tried so hard to keep visitors away.

And with every meter I walk, the grip of restlessness inside me grows harsher, causing my limbs to fill with tension, as if I should expect an ambush from behind every blade of grass or bush swaying comfortably in the warm breeze. The fact that instead we are surrounded by the same maddeningly lifeless calm stretches the sharpened attention of my nerves even more. It seems that the two Hunters marching in front of me are not much happier with the ease with which the mission has been progressing so far, because I only have to observe the muscles dancing on my Scottish friend's forearm, as he tightens his grip on the hilt of his weapon, or to take in the stiff line of the masked man's broad back to know, that I'm not the only one who is filled with concerns by the absence of the warm welcome we had anticipated. But when MacTavish, who has been diligently observing every square centimeter of the road, turns his head toward the uphill curve of our little path with the speed of a bloodhound that has caught a scent, I feel the nervous tug of foreboding in my stomach. Because even though I can only take a look at the man's profile as he looks meaningfully at Riley, who is walking in front of him, but from the way he pulls his mouth into a disgusted frown I quickly understand, that his super senses must have detected some unusual shit from the end of the footpath leading to our destination.

"Do ya feel it too, Ghost?" The Scottish Hunter mutters grimly, and there is no trace of the fun and relaxation that he managed to bring here with him until now. He doesn't explain what he found with the help of his sharpened perception, but the troubled arch of his furrowed brows is enough evidence that it may have something to do with our disturbingly smooth break-in.

"Yeah." The masked man answers curtly, and there is something inscrutable in his voice, which only crowns the dark look with which he stares ahead, as if he would already know something that no one else has figured out yet. As my gaze wanders to our two tour guides who are walking far ahead, I can see from the unsettled look they share that they also noticed the exciting little detail that made the aura of the two Hunters so terribly sinister. And even though my sharp little eyes run over the endless green blanket of vegetation stretching around us, the same tense peace greets me, but the voice in my brain assures me that I don't need to worry, and soon I too can experience what they managed to pick up on so quickly.

And although they don't share what they found so early on with the small team, the gloom emanating from the Hunters certainly lays the foundation for the watchful tension that eats itself into everyone's consciousness with the vileness of an infectious disease. And suddenly the whole group becomes a bundle of nerves, and perhaps with even more vigilance than before, they continue their troop along the wretched path, broken by the roots. The next few minutes pass with such torturous slowness, as if we had left the walls of the gate leading to the outside world at least a thousand years ago. When we finally reach the end of our trail, the building of the rather imposing research institution is revealed, which stands out at the end of the neglected courtyard with such unusual prominence, as if its creator had intended to attract attention rather than to hide from it. One would think that a private institution of this level would be able to afford to have someone keep it in order, but the area that extends to the building gives the impression that this noble task hasn't been fulfilled by anyone for a while now. And the hurriedly parked car resting untouched in the middle of everything doesn't help either. Based on its position, my guess is that whoever forgot this vehicle here, didn't intend to stay for more than a few minutes. But judging by the undisturbed layer of leaves sitting thickly on the top of the car, and the absence of any kind of wheel tracks, I can rightly conclude that the owner didn't leave the machine here for a short time, but it was probably left behind just long enough to raise a series of suspicious questions in my brain.

But this strangeness doesn't scare away the little squad, they wade forward with unceasing enthusiasm through the blanket of branches and leaves that cover the ground, and when I diligently follow them and sneak closer, then out of nowhere, like an unexpected surprise, a strange stomach-turning smell creeps into my nose, and I suddenly understand that there may be a serious reason why no one was bothered by the abandoned car. Because although I have never felt a stench like this in whole my life, every single one of my muscles is filled with sinister energy, and the instincts in my subconscious immediately convey the message to me that this can only belong to a source that I should better stay away from. And although a repulsed grimace swims to my face, still, like a puppet being pulled on a string, my legs carry me through the desolate field, and the crunch of sun-dried plants under the soles of my shoes reaches my ears as a dull noise, as I follow Riley striding with deliberate steps in front of me, who must have felt this exact delicacy together with his Scottish bosom friend before. The closer we get, the stronger the smell becomes, as if the building were spreading like a festering wound in the middle of the undisturbed calm, just waiting for someone to unravel its mystery. And morbid curiosity awakens in me, as I fix my eyes on the double-winged metal door leading inside, because although the warning voice in my skull tries to hold me back with tooth and nail from venturing too close, the unanswered riddles prove to be a much greater temptation.

However, with Alejandro in the lead, the group suddenly stops, as if trying to muster up the strength to finally cross the threshold of the godforsaken structure. And for some reason, I get the feeling that whatever is behind the elegantly crafted entrance, it must be serious, if the unit leader must find his composure to face it. If I take into consideration the multitude of ominous signs that have accumulated so far, which we have encountered in every step we took in the short journey that led us up here, then I realize that the man's sour mood could be quite well-founded. And based on my experience so far, my intuitions are rarely wrong.

"We're going in. On me." Alejandro gives out his instructions, and even though I haven't known him for a long time, yet in the the to-the-point command, I feel the unspoken harsh edge with which he prepares his men for the worst. And when he wraps one of his gloved hands on the metal bar running along the door and opens it with a decisive movement, all the troubled wrinkles and grim looks, as well as the strange, deserted emptiness that has accompanied our journey until now, gain meaning. Because, as soon as the golden light of the sun penetrates the darkness inside, I only catch the outline of the motionless bodies spread out in the large lobby for a minute, and my brain can immediately place what it was that held back the people from showing us their hospitality.

But I don't have much time to admire the interior of the institute wallowed up by darkness, because the force of the stench, which I had only mildly felt before, reaches me in a big wave, as it fills every corner of my nose. My stomach instinctively twists and shoves its rumbling contents up my throat as the repulsive smell of rotting flesh fills every single one of my senses like an inescapable slithery parasite. And as the nausea convulses my insides, I stagger in confusion, looking for support, because I feel my mouth suddenly fill with saliva with dangerous quickness by the nauseatingly sweet aroma. When my trembling hand finds the rough surface of the wall, and I finally don't have to fear that I will end the day sprawled on the ground from the dizziness entering my head, even before we could reach its peak, then my palm almost painfully clings to my mouth to try to hold back the stomach acid, that is slowly gnawing up my esophagus, before it can spill out of me. And I feel the tears start to sting my eyes when I gag violently, and I need every single nerve to convince myself not to give in to the stimulus that twists my stomach mercilessly.

Even my fast little body needs a few nerve-wracking minutes before I manage to force the contents of my upset stomach back into place while slowly breathing through my nose, and the vehemence of the onslaught of the penetrating smell of corpses eases a little. I'm suddenly disturbed from my deep concentration by a huge hand, which settles on the back of my neck, emerging from my shirt, with surprising tenderness, squeezing it gently, thus tearing me out of the exhausting work of banishing my sickness. And even despite the nausea terrorizing my body, I have the strength to be surprised, because the sight of Riley bending over me and pulling me into the protective cover of his burly figure, as if he wanted to spare my dignity, which was quite enthusiastically triggered by the surprise of my first authentic encounter with the reek of rotting remains. But perhaps what is even more unexpected is the scarf offered to me, which rests in his gloved hand with such self-evident casualness, as if this weren't the first time he had surprised me with such a selfless gesture.

"Wrap it around your face." He suggests, and although based on the hoarse edge hidden in his accent, his message sounds more like an instruction, but as my gaze intertwines with his, the restrained soft glint in the dark eyes seems quite real, with which he slowly searches through every pitiful part of my person clinging to the wall. And I get the feeling from this small thoughtfulness, which is completely foreign to him, that the peaceful little moment we spent last night on the roof truly helped him to finally soften up to me. But before I could start thinking about this at the most inconvenient time, I accept the material offered without any arguments or questions instead, to gather my composure and straighten myself up. As the comforting warmth of his palm leaves my neck, for a moment the feeling of absence hits me with a painful force, but I follow his advice and wrap my face up to the middle of my nose in the thick textile before my consciousness has time to process how ridiculously good the weight of his touch felt on my goosebump-flecked skin.

"Thank you." I squeeze the words out of myself, and I need all my will to bring determination back into my voice. Because even though at the first stray inhale, that hideous stench finally disappears from my nose, it's replaced by the man's characteristic scent, and this helps drive the nausea aways from my stomach with completely unreasonable speed, so that something entirely different moves in its place. And it's almost ridiculous how quickly my body manages to calm down from the sickness that has been tearing at me until now, as Riley's essence snakes into every cell of my being, in which I discover traces of the bitter smoke of tobacco and the spicy, salty aroma of his skin.

When he sees that I've managed to regain my presence again, and that the ash-gray color of my face has probably become several shades healthier, he gives me one last fleeting glance and wordlessly joins MacTavis, who is waiting in front of the entrance. And on the face of my Scottish friend, the curve of his lips pressed together with worry softens, as soon as he realizes that I will no longer pass out from the phenomenally nice gift that welcomed us in this miserable shithole. And my soul is completely warmed by the way, despite the not-so-bright developments so far, an encouraging half-smile appears on his stubble-framed mouth, before he disappears with his masked friend behind the open metal door, leaving me alone a little longer in my solitude. And after I finally regained control over my body, I realize that several questions that had tormented us so enthusiastically until now found a fairly simple answer. After all, why would the reception committee have rushed to meet us if every single one of its members was dead?

And from this, the confidence finds its way back into my limbs, and my feet guide me with a sense of purpose to the mouth of the building stinking of decay, and the demanding desire for knowledge igniting in my head helps to make my steps so urgent. I only hesitate for a minute, until I get used to the dull darkness that settles in after the blinding sunlight, and when my vision finally sharpens, I enter into the next scene of our investigation. My gaze glides over each and every piece of the unfolding murder, and as I cautiously wander in, the more details I manage to notice. Even though I have Riley's scarf over my face, even through the cloth the smell of death lingers in the dark foyer, which has soaked itself into every pore of the place as if the once luxurious room had turned into a gangrenous ulcer. Even before the chaos swept through here, the consequences of which we are now forced to tiptoe around, this could certainly have been a room imbued with professionalism, which would have impressed anyone who set eyes on it. Now, however, this decorative interior is disfigured by the decomposing bodies of the slain victims on the ground, around whom, mixed with dirt, the dry, dark brown stains of the liquids from their slaughtered flesh and decay have soaked into the floor's pale cream tiles. Only a female figure in a lab coat lying in the middle of the hall, dirty with coagulated blood, reveals that whoever broke in here didn't spare the unarmed researchers either. From the white of the documents spread around the remains of the woman's head, the small, torn pieces of flesh and bone fragments stand out unnaturally, bearing witness to the brutality with which the damn scums who wrecked this establishment were able to execute the staff who, even though were dealing with some illegal business, were perfectly defenseless.

"So that's why they kept quiet." Alejandro states glumily, muttering a Spanish swear word under his breath, fiercely scanning the walls, which in some places have been painted with abstract patterns by the dark drops of blood splattered on them, standing out from the pale blue plaster intended for comfort, like some grotesque frescoes. And the man's statement cleverly points out the now rather obvious reason, which can justify why Alviar and his employees turned away from their duties and the outside world in the last two weeks. There could have been a thousand and one reasons why the institution went into voluntary exile, but the fact that such a ruthless but rather simple explanation lies behind the events is not good news at all. In fact. It's downright disastrous. Because it means that whatever was hidden here was valuable enough that the senseless massacre of dozens of people was considered a fair price.

"From the condition of the corpses, their death may coincide with radio silence." Riley crouches down to one of the bodies covered in a dark uniform, around whose mouth opened to a silent scream, flies circle merrily, as if they had arrived at a real buffet reception. From the point of view of these bugs, this could be true, and based on the discovery of the masked Hunter, they have been enjoying this celebratory lunch spread with bloodshed for two weeks at least. And this complication that has arisen is the exact reason that makes it so dangerous for a private institution to stray far from the protective proximity of the colonies, because if such bad luck befalls the unsuspecting victims, the authorities will only be informed of the trouble when even its memory begins to fade.

"What the bloody hell happened here?" MacTavish asks the most important question, and his voice is filled with the hot edge of the raging fury inside him, and this is the poison that helps his facial muscles turn into a frown full of anger, and which echoes with a wild gleam in his slowly narrowing blue eyes. It's clear that although he wanted revenge on the doc for the adventure in which he got to watch his comrades being eaten alive by the wretched mutants, I don't think he had this kind of justice in his mind. And as he moves his gaze over the same female figure on whom I had previously lingered, his jaw clenches with such force that I can almost hear his teeth grind from afar.

"These are members of the security staff." Rodolfo points to another corpse wrapped in a black uniform with the barrel of his machine gun, whose ID card resting on its chest clearly testifies to the truth of the Hunter's claim. "But there are also researchers among the dead." He adds, gesturing with his hand towards one of the figures who once probably wore sterile clothes, whose body, frozen in an unnatural pose, had been mutilated beyond recognition by the dozens of bullets, which left gaping bloody holes on the battered textile. Whoever paid a friendly visit here didn't leave the success up to chance, did a fairly thorough job, and they didn't spare the ammo, if they could surely help the victims to the afterlife with it. The whole sad situation shows the kind of cruelty that only a real, calculating, and totally sadistic bastard can do. Because there was no need to kill these unsuspecting people in the midst of such merciless carnage, yet someone most certainly found pleasure in executing these mostly defenseless poor souls. And I only have to observe the direction of the corpses in which they are lying on the ground, with their backs staring up at the ceiling, and it becomes completely clear that most of them were killed during their desperate escape towards the exit. As if someone wanted to give them the false hope of survival, only to slaughter them a few hopeful meters before the finish line. And that's fucking cruel even for me.

"Someone has turned the place upside down bloody well. They made sure that no one was left who could spit out what had happened." My Scottish friend remarks darkly, and as his gaze continues to wander from victim to victim, the poison flowing from him in restrained waves becomes more and more menacing, which makes him look like a wild animal enraged to the extreme, just waiting to finally snap the neck of the one who provoked him. I suspect that this enthusiasm is shared by all the members of our small team, who stopped in the hall in shock, because the trash who did this, even with the greatest kindness, would deserve someone to make a seat cover from their flayed skin. I'm not a saint either, and I've caused a painful death for others, but even I'm not as psychopathic as to give someone such an inhumane and dishonorable end. Because these people were butchered like animals. For a purpose, no doubt, but mostly for fun. And it occurs to me again that this circumstance is another piece of evidence that points to the fact that there is some very disturbing connection between the dear doc and the I.H.L.s, which someone sniffed out much earlier than we did.

"Now it’s certain that Alviar was involved in something serious." I divert everyone's attention from the revealed horrors back to the original goal of our mission, and although the situation is becoming more and more complicated, it doesn't change the fact that we came here because of our new mutant friend. And current developments only slightly modify the questions to which we are looking for answers. Because now it's quite certain that the mystery of the mutant-riding I.H.L. comes from here, we just have to find out what could be so maddeningly interesting about it to make someone go through such a blood bath. "Whoever did this came for the same reason we did. We need to know what lured them here." I declare firmly, and as all eyes are fixed on me, I know from the seriousness hidden in them that everyone has come to this rather dire conclusion in light of the sad discoveries that awaited us. And I don't need to add the fact to my brief warning that whatever the perpetrators have found, they have a two-week head start on their side, and that's just enough for them to concoct and carry out the clever plan they stumbled here as a part of. Because this isn't the work of chance, someone wandered here for a good reason, and we have no idea why. We only know from the cruel reminders scattered around the hall that they are not afraid to resort to drastic solutions if it’s in their interest. Fuck.

But the heavy silence that settles over the group only lasts for a few seconds, and then it's Alejandro who takes control again, and his dark eyes sweep over the room with the thoroughness of a hawk searching for prey, before settling on the counter opposite the entrance. He seems to have found what he's been looking for, as he dashes across the chaos-filled stage and rushes to the small table that must be serving as a reception desk, as if he's stumbled upon some critical detail. When he arrives, he walks around the tasteful furniture with nimble steps, and then lifts the framed drawing resting on the wall with a few light movements. And when he lays the picture frame down on the surface of the polished wood, he only waves towards us with his hand, inviting us closer with a few quick Spanish words, so that we can admire together the work he snatched from the wall. And he doesn't even have to coax anyone to cooperate, because the soldiers scattered in different corners of the room set off without question at the command of their leader. My two companions break out from the further study of the traces of the massacre to rush closer, and I, following their example, carefully dodging the disintegrating remains stretching out on the ground, head towards the assembly. And when I stand between the Scottish man and his masked friend, I finally have a chance to look at the wonder that the other Hunter has discovered. And he got his hands on a really useful little thing, because behind the glass, the floor plan of the research institute unfolds with precise care, revealing all the exciting nooks and crannies hidden in the depths of the building.

"We're separating into groups up." Alejandro begins to outline his plan and points to a room which, based on the drawing, opens from the front hall and stretches to the entire length of the ground floor. And even though every classic horror movie that I watched secretly in the archives at school when I was a young teenager begins with this kind of trick, I don't panic now, because I have the right to assume that we will be in for a completely different kind of surprises than in those unique works of art. "Rudy and I check the security office to see if there are any traces left. The security system is still active, there must be something." The Hunter explains, and based on how his brows knot together, I know he's just hoping that they'll find something useful. Because, indeed, the security system didn't go kaput despite the chaos, but the rational little voice in my head warns that this could have been a very deliberate move on the part of the bastards who broke in. After all, after a bloodshed of such a caliber, there is no single-minded fool who wants to lead the righteous hands of the authorities to themself, and I highly doubt they forgot about the cameras that watch every corner of the building with prying eyes. It’s more likely that this inconvenience was circumvented by a sly trick.

"I check Alviar's office." MacTavish announces, tapping at the sizeable room on the first floor on the map, on which the precious name of the head of the institution is outlined in fine letters, announcing that the ridiculously large office has been placed in such a central position to serve his ego, even on this wretched paper. And I have a feeling that, as a poetic twist of fate, death probably caught him in that neat hole, and his deteriorating remains are now waiting to be found there. It's quite certain that they didn't let him live, because the one who came here didn't care about the doc's knowledge and influence, but the goods. And for that, it was probably much more beneficial if no one was left alive to hinder the process.

My bright eyes run inquisitively over the side-by-side sketches that reveal the floors of the building, and although all the inscriptions inform me in Spanish about the names of the structure's parts, I don't need to be a particular genius to recognize the heart of the research institute in a huge room that occupies an entire floor, well hidden from the world. Based on its size, it's also clear that they spared no expense when creating it, which wouldn't be a particularly unusual fact, but based on the increasingly complicated series of twists and turns so far, I can rightly conclude that it was some shady research that made it necessary to pack the basement full with tiny rooms, a gigantic laboratory, and that slightly suspicious chamber that isn't marked even on this ridiculously detailed map. It's as if the doctor didn't want to risk putting even the mildest-sounding name on it, just in case someone becomes involuntarily curious as to what they might have hidden there. Bingo, here we go.

"The central lab is in the basement. We might find there what we originally came for." I select the next destination, where the reason why we crossed the zones teeming with beasts and dragged ourselves all the way here can lie. And my thirst for knowledge is hungrily straining my consciousness, especially now that I know that we probably weren't the only ones who felt so terribly interested in what the doctor so enthusiastically hid from the world and curious eyes.

"We're goin’ to go down there." Riley declares firmly, clearly aiming at the two of us with this stray sentence, and I just turn to him curiously, as I tear my gaze away from the examination of the floor plan. And although I find it interesting that now he chooses my company instead of his bestie to hang out in the institution that has become a deserted haunted house, despite his emphasis that doesn't leave any room for arguing, I don't feel like rejecting his offer. Now I'm not afraid to admit even to myself that I'm much more glad that this rather dangerous man will follow me as my scary shadow, and hopefully protect me from what will most certainly lie in wait for us in the unknown. Although I doubt that bloodthirsty beasts would ambush us, one can never be too careful, and who would be better suited to effectively neutralize unexpected and quite life-threatening threats than him? And it's also dead certain that whatever awaits us down there, the Hunter will be the most dangerous thing I'll find myself in the same airspace with, in this cursed place turned into a graveyard.

"Be on alert." Alejandro gives us his last advice for the trip, moving his eyes meaningfully over the people gathered. And after everyone lets him know with a curt nod that they got the message, he pushes himself away from the counter without further hesitation, pats Rodolfo on the shoulder, and sets sail towards the showy door resting at the far end of the room, with some of the busy little soldiers behind him, who follow their leader towards new excitements like ducklings.

"Be careful, who knows what kind of boogeyman is down there!" MacTavish steps back, despite the suffocating atmosphere, trying to infuse us with some enthusiasm before we all head off toward our ominous destinations. But despite the tiny little half-smile on his face, the doubt in his eyes doesn't escape my attention, letting me know quite clearly that he feels anything but calm about our current action. Although he wears the mask of professionalism he has acquired over the years, he cannot hide from my searching eyes the grim tension that settles in his entire being, which makes his steps more hurried than necessary, as he turns his back on us and heads towards the glass door leading to the stairway. He understands as well that the disturbed state of the institution doesn't bode well, even if we find clues. Because even if we find answers, there will be some more important detail that someone else already got their vile hands on.

"Let's go." Riley gives the jump-start, and I take one last look at our map and nod in agreement, memorizing the small details that my brain calls my attention to check later. And when I also leave the place of our impromptu meeting at the counter, I take my gun from my belt and turn to the man, who, after making sure that I'm ready for our little adventure together, searches for the metal door leading to the basement and starts out towards it with firm steps. I quickly follow him, staying closely behind his tall figure, nobly letting him have the task of clearing the way in front of our pair. Fixing my eyes on his back, I almost instinctively pick up the pace with which he marches across the lobby, once again shrouded in stillness, as if my body would automatically switch to the cold sense of purpose that fills every fiber of his body as he leads us through the scattered sea of chaos and the dead. And the sudden harmony between us seems so natural that even my overworked brain doesn't stop to question why.

When we reach the entrance leading to our destination, the man only stops for a moment, just long enough to prepare for the attack, should a surprise await us on the other side. But as he pushes the metal in with one of his large palms, despite pointing the barrel of his rifle forward at lightning speed, nothing awaits us but the silent darkness, which calls us closer. This development doesn't surprise me, but it calls for a fair amount of caution, because the voices of suspicion lurking in my head tell me that although the quietness that greets us seems uninhabited and harmless, this feeling has already skillfully misled us upon our arrival.

"Stay behind me." The Hunter orders, looking down at me behind his back, but there is something quite soft hidden in his deep voice, which makes this small sentence far from seeming like an command, but more like a request with which he wants to ensure my physical safety. And with all my strength, I suppress the ferocious warmth in my stomach before it can bubble up unreasonably at the worst moment, because now we have to focus on the task, which, based on the man's wariness, could potentially hide more risks than the lifeless emptiness waiting for us behind the threshold with open arms shows.

With a quick nod, I signal that I have taken note of his brief wish, and as the red light in his eyes flares up, he wordlessly enters the dark room, and I remain obediently close to him. Accompanied by the dull light filtering in behind us, we venture inside, creeping with steady movements, and then after a few wandering meters, we find the steep stairs that, according to the floor plan, lead to the lab. The masked Hunter raises his weapon in front of him with unwavering enthusiasm and slowly moves to the steps covered in light tiles, scanning the pitch darkness in front of us with his smoldering eyes. Even I'm surprised by the unity with which we penetrate deeper and deeper into the narrow passageway leading underground, and the further we get down the stairs, the more the atmosphere around us turns into a sinister silence, where nothing else makes any noise but the soles of our boots creaking on the tiled surface. And I suspect that none of us becomes tense because of poor vision, because each of our clever little eyes quickly adapts to it in its own way. Rather, it's the steps leading to infinity that plant the first sparks of stress in my head, because after our welcome dotted with corpses, I don't expect anything good now either. And to an outside observer, it may be comical how two armed people stealthily sneak down a fucking staircase, but this uneventfulness cannot deceive the menacing foreboding that grips my stomach.

But as endless as it seemed, the steps suddenly run out, leading us to a short corridor, at the end of which another lonely door stands in our way. And as we stalk closer, it becomes clear that we are not the first to venture down here, because the control panel resting next to the entrance is destroyed beyond recognition, testifying that someone got the urge to sniff around down here before us. And this rightfully raises the unpleasant question of who and how could have found out that it's worth researching here. If the authorities of the colony didn't know what the doc was busying himself with, then it could be only an insider who became stupidly chatty, because the attack and the burglars' path seems too purposeful and organized for it to be just random looting. Someone let the cat out of the bag at the wrong time and in the wrong place, and the juicy info reached certain ears, whose owner wasn't afraid to get their hands dirty in order to get something valuable.

"They got ahead of us here as well." I state quietly, highlighting what has now become painfully obvious to both of us. And I can only hope that they left a few small crumbs that could be of use to us, because otherwise we would have traveled here for nothing, and that would mean turning back to fucking square one. And something tells me that we can't afford to sit around waiting for Laswell to find another deep drawer from which she can conjure up another clue of dubious origin. We need the info now. And quickly.

"Let's see if they left anythin' behind." Riley suggests, and with a confident movement, opens the door leading to the lab, which squeals under the man's palm as it glides across the ground, probably fallen apart from the violent entrance of the previous enthusiastic wanderer, getting stuck in the flagstone protruding from the floor. And as the entry to the lab opens in front of us, we are welcomed by the same unflinching, nerve-wrackingly peaceful stillness that has accompanied us until now, and which has caused us nothing but unpleasant moments. And now I have ingrained it in my consciousness that this deceptively monotonous nothingness is synonymous with trouble and deeply buried, sneaky little mysteries.

The Hunter crosses the doorway of the lab first, and I follow him into the small room, which could have functioned as a kind of vestibule, based on the cabinets lined up against the wall and the control panel that rests unharmed in one of the narrow corners. From the monitors shrouded in lifeless darkness above the many buttons, only our dim figure and the Hunter's gaze burning in crimson are reflected, as if we were the ghosts that returned to haunt among the remains of murder and destruction. However, my attention is soon caught by the faint, greenish light flickering from one of the machines on the table, which is the only proof that whatever is being operated down here is still very much working, and is just waiting to be turned on by someone. And it seems that Riley also noticed this small detail, because after scanning through the area, he turns around and heads towards the multitude of gadgets.

"It still works."  Riley observes, and judging by his tone, he also finds it a little interesting that the intruders were willing to harm everything else, but they left this little corner so untouched and intact, as if it had performed some very insignificant task. Or on the contrary. They didn't touch it because those machines are responsible for something very damn important. And as the Hunter settles next to the control panel, he slips his gun onto its sling and starts to work with rutin movements, presumably to breathe life into the devices.

I let the man play with his newly found toys, and I divert my scrutinizing gaze to see if I can still find something that might be of interest to us. I head towards the new door opening from the small room, and at this point, I seriously start cursing the doc, who turned this wretched building into such a complicated maze. It's as if he wanted to hide more and more excitement for those interested behind each entrance, although I suspect that there is a much more practical reason behind why he wanted to make his humble abode so bombproof. And interest immediately flares up in my brain, which leads my pretty little body to the doorstep of the battered entrance, next to which a broken fingerprint reader panel lets me know that this thick steel plate is meant to hide something very important from the outside world. This fills me with demanding sparks of curiosity, which makes me sneak closer with soft steps like a cat spying on a small mouse, and then, straining against the large door, I open a gap for myself to venture into the hidden recesses of the foreign place. As soon as I cross the threshold, I arrive at a long corridor, on the sides of which glass walls reach up high, located at an unusually regular distance from each other, and they are easily recognized by my clever little eyes, as the flickering lights of the security cameras resting on the ceiling are refracted on their surface. And this is such a strange detail that my body moves almost by itself to creep closer to the glass closest to me, and the fact that all the security cameras stand guard facing the walls of the corridor doesn't escape my attention. Because it makes it quite clear that whatever lurks on the other side is important enough to require a dozen artificial eyes to watch over.

And in spite of my sharp eyes, when I get to the very first glass wall, even I can't make out what might be hiding behind it. That's why I slowly stalk closer, and every fiber of me slowly fills with an instinctive tension full of anticipation, which reminds me again of the horror movies that I secretly watched in the privacy of my room under the cover of the night. And although I wanted to seem like a tough girl, when I was waiting for the danger hiding in the terrible silence to appear on the screen, all my nerves were on edge in exact the same way as they are now. As if my body wanted to prepare me for something terrible to occur, and the restless tension gripping my stomach infuses me with stress well in advance, so that when the worst happens, I can take flight immediately. I hear the steady rhythm of my pulse pounding in my ears as I slowly stop just a step away from the wall. However, the unsettling emptiness that lies on the other side doesn't become more visible, and smoothing my palm on the cold, flat surface, I lean closer to narrow my eyes and try to peek in, but I find nothing but a pitch-black, uninhabited room.

And for a fleeting moment, a shapeless spot seems to move in the back of the room, but before I can make out what it is, the shadow takes over the task of greeting me, and a huge body crashes against the glass wall so unexpectedly that I don't have time to comprehend it. The scream that breaks out of me is instinctive, as I stumble back in alarm, and I feel my heart begin to thump in my chest, and I'm afraid it might burst out of my ribs at any moment. The hard metal of my pistol presses painfully into my palm, but my shocked body cannot force my hand to move, so I just stare with wide eyes at the mouth full of needle-sharp teeth slowly appearing in front of me, which is desperately trying to press its jaws against the smooth surface of the glass. And when a hand grabs my shoulder out of nowhere, I only shriek pathetically, helplessly obeying the hasty force that is pulling me behind the sturdy figure that steps in front of me. Although it takes a few fleeting seconds, I understand that Riley is the one who rushed to my rescue and dragged me behind him, and a shaky sigh leaves my lips as my body slowly calms down after the goddamn surprise. And when I have recollected my composure enough to assess the way the man is standing between the  I.M.L. on the other side of the glass and me, then the icy fingers closing around my stomach release their grasp, so that my belly can flutter with a completely different kind of sensation, as I take in how protectively he towers above me.

"You okay?" Comes the question from the Hunter, and his glowing red eyes look at me for a moment as he glances back, and I don't think I'm imagining the wrathful gleam in them. But when his shoulders slowly let go of the tension in them, as he lowers his gun, when he assesses that I have no major problems other than a heart attack, then I know that the aggression with which he stormed in here is much more for a mutant imprisoned in a dark hole than me. And the knowledge that I was able to instill worry in the soul of this gruff man suppresses the shame that scratches my insides, because I screamed to the world with the enthusiasm of a young schoolgirl, that I fell into an amateur mistake and allowed myself to be spooked.

"Yeah. I think." I breathe, and my voice sounds miserably weak even to my own ears, and with the power of the combined work of every single nerve fiber, I finally manage to pull myself together and drive away the last grain of terror that has settled in my body. "This asshole surprised me." I clear my throat, pointing my pistol towards the glass wall, where, upon seeing the two luscious snacks, the deformed creature, perhaps resembling a combination of a wolf and a bobcat, starts a desperate struggle with its huge paws, and strikes again and again with dull thuds on the probably unbreakable glass. At least the doc had enough sense not to be cheap on this, even if he didn't have two connecting brain cells to realize that it wasn't the best idea to throw live beasts where dozens of people spend their daily lives.

"What an I.M.L. is doin' here?" The masked man asks as he steps back from the cell to take a closer look at the captive beast. And from the fact that its grotesque body, swollen with muscles, looks more like an experiment made up of several predators than a well-definable late mammal, I can conclude that this monster can be at least a fourth-generation specimen. This swine wasn't created by the virus through a bite, but by a long line of reproduction between mutants, and it could have a very remarkable family tree if such a behemoth could have been put together by its deformed ancestors. Why did Alviar need such a dangerous bastard?

"It might have something to do with what Alviar was working with." I come to the logical conclusion, because I doubt that he wanted to admire the reproduction of mutants with this monster. He could have done that with the help of a dead individual which a Hunter had previously made safe by depriving the wretch of his life. But my colleague needed the test subject alive, and this raises a series of disturbing assumptions in my head, which immediately encourages me to dig deeper. I hurriedly move my eyes along the corridor, and when I see the double door at the end, it becomes quite obvious where our path leads next. "That's where the lab might be, maybe we'll find out what the hell is going on here." I direct the Hunter's attention to my discovery, and without any further prompting, he turns to spy on what my clever little eyes have come across.

"Then we'd better take a look at it." Riley gives his blessing to our next target, glancing down at me expectantly, and I take one last look at the mutant who presses its foaming mouth to the glass trying to overcome the obstacle in front of it in its frenzied hunger, and for a minute I almost feel sorry for the scum. But I quickly get rid of my sympathy, because I know that if this heavy-duty surface were not standing between us, then without further ado, it would taste the delicacy that has slipped here in my pretty person. However, one thing becomes quite obvious as I turn away to walk down the dim corridor with the Hunter following me closely on our journey like a watchful shadow. In the dozens of glass cages spread out next to us, impressively developed I.M.L.s found a lonely little home, who, following the hysteria of their little friend, bravely ventured out of the hidden corners of their cells to see with their own eyes what caused such an uproar. Although outwardly they all display a wide repertoire of deformities, and no two deformed beasts are the same, but every one of them strains against the glass walls in peak condition, with a tangible aggression in their milky white eyes, and it's probably their two weeks of fasting that makes them so wildly enthusiastic. Alviar collected a whole zoo of mutants for himself, which required the help of trained Hunters at best. And if Alejandro and his small team had no idea what was going on, he got help from someone else. However, tracking down and killing these bastards is by no means an easy task, but it's even more complicated to not be caught where the liquidation units of the colony conduct regular patrols. And this is just one more reason for the fact to be reinforced in my little head, which echoes, that this wouldn't have been possible without the cooperation of a much higher authority.

When we reach the entrance of the main lab, Riley steps in front of me with ease and pushes the double door with his foot with perhaps more momentum than necessary, then he enters with his assault rifle pointed forward in search of enemies. And even though I know that, being an experienced professional, he probably instinctively takes on the role, fearlessly throwing himself into the unknown to eliminate risks before they have a chance to cause harm, I can't suppress the tingle that stirs inside me. Because the delusional voice in my head tells me that in addition to the routine, maybe my charming person helped him become a protective tank. And the idea that I'm influencing the man's behavior sounds so tempting in my head that I allow this dangerous train of thought to start in my mind for a stray moment. Because maybe I want to be the reason why he scans the deserted room in front of us with such intense attention, promising a cruel death in his crimson eyes to anyone brave enough to try to strike him. And when he doesn't find a single courageous candidate in the void who would like to meet him, he just turns and walks to the wall next to the door, to after a short search, conjure blinding brightness in the room.

As the neon light flashes, I cover my eyes with my hand because the light burning my retinas blinds me for a moment, and it takes a few seconds before the white spots dancing behind my eyelids disappear, and my vision, accustomed to the darkness until now, adapt to the new conditions. And when I'm finally not in danger of going blind, I have the opportunity to admire the rampage left in the luxurious lab. The intruders didn't even try to remain unnoticed here either, and they were certainly looking for something quite important, because dozens of files are lying crumpled on the floor in front of the wide-open doors of the cabinets, and the large footprints on them reveal that whoever broke in didn't come for the documents. Shards of broken vials and flasks and the unknown liquids leaked out from them litter the spotless white surfaces on the tables that stretch throughout the lab, and drawers hang out of the furniture with hasty violence, as if someone had just enough patience to tear them open and mess up the documents resting in them. A wide array of modern equipment, the likes of which a mere mortal like me didn't have the chance to see up close within the walls of the colonies, rest somewhat unscathed in the middle of the vandalism, the only reminder that some really interesting work could have been going on in the research institution.

"They were clearly lookin' for somethin'." Riley remarks, breaking the sinister silence that has set in, as he strolls into the upheaval of the room with heavy steps, curiously separating a couple of smudged notes with his gloved hand, which are lying on one of the counters and stick to each other, soaked in the unknown spilled chemical. And the Hunter is not wrong indeed, because only those who want to find something can turn every fucking inch upside down, and the vile little voice in my head tells me that they probably succeeded.

"They probably found it." I answer gloomily, and the shards of glass strewn on the floor slide squealing under the soles of my boots, as I wander inside and carry my eyes around the lab searching for something that has at least remained a little more intact to be of use to us. And as my gaze settles on the computer resting in a hidden corner of the room, a small triumphant smile crosses my face, because it seems that fate will finally spare me and throw me a bone that might be enough to find another clue. "But maybe we have something left for us too." I grin, and with nimble steps, I set off towards my discovered prey in the crossfire of the man's intrigued gaze, with such haste as if the unfortunate electronic device were a mirage that could disappear at any moment in the cold glow of the neon lights.

And when I arrive, I start the machine in a hurry, praying to each and every entity for a few seconds and chanting mantras for it to work, and as the starting screen flashes, a relieved sigh breaks out of me, which had been stuck in my lungs until now due to stress. I hear a soft hum as the computer warms up, and as the desktop slowly loads, it occurs to me that after the labyrinth leading up to this place and the complicated security system, a device that is presumably loaded with research data is left stupidly unprotected, without even a password. Instead, I thank karma for finally deigning to smile at me, because, after the excitement of the last couple of hours, I probably would have smashed this shit to pieces if I had to engage in a long hacking attempt. And as soon as the monotonous blue background comes up, and dozens of folders cheerfully lined up next to each other appear on the screen, it becomes quite certain that we haven’t needlessly wasted our time by going on exploration in this godawful building. My hand hastily dives into my pocket, searching for my communicator, and after fishing it out, I quickly pull out the connector, and finding one of the many inputs on the computer case, I plug it into the machine. And when the small window showing the communicator's storage space pops up, I select everything I discover to copy, because it seems that I have found a real gold mine, which I will probably be able to study with a calmer nervous system within the peaceful walls of the unit's base. And while the little device is working, I immerse myself completely in decoding the sonorous Spanish names of the folders, and I only faintly perceive the sound of footsteps and then a door opening, because, in the middle of my little research, something quite interesting catches my attention, as my sharp little eyes settle on the on one of the yellow icons.

Because even with my poor language skills, I can decipher from the "I.H.L."  phrase in the title that something quite juicy may be lurking there. Without delay, I click on the folder, and dozens of files appear in the pop-up window, under each of which lies a seemingly unordered series of numbers and letters. And it doesn't take much logic to figure out that random numbers might mark dates, which makes me assume that I might have found the carefully arranged notes of an examination log. But, when I scroll further down and names appear, I'm overcome with confusion, because the uncomfortable question arises in me, that what could human names be doing among the carefully recorded documentation of observations. And because of this, I start opening the files with frenzied speed, and the more windows that appear, the more the puzzlement that settles inside me deepens, because to my disappointment, each and every document contains nothing interesting except the profile pictures and personal data. However, when I see a photo of a man wearing a uniform similar to the guards here, I freeze in shock in the midst of my busy search. For a moment, I fear that my eyes are playing a cruel game with me, but when, leaning closer, I identify with full confidence the eerily familiar tattoo that begins on the line of the guy's neck emerging from his clothes, then the realization hits me with such speed that my brain doesn't get a spark for a second. Because the exact same tattoo is staring back at me, this time from the unknown guard, as what I so cleverly discovered in Laswell's report on the capture of the F.H.L.. And the wild assumption that Alviar hid in the middle of fucking nowhere in order to breed a new kind of humanoid mutant with his own hands, makes my stomach drop nervously and causes terror to enter my every cell with an elemental force. But why?

"Woods! You need to see this!" Riley's shout tears me out from the thousands of ominous explanations swirling in his head, and I wake up from my shock startled, to turn to look for the source of his urgent, deep voice. And when I discover the silhouette of the man through the door opening from the other end of the lab, then, guided by the stress hormones creeping into my limbs, I turn my back on the dubious data and  the communicator which is still working diligently, to rush through the chaos of the lab, driven by the momentum of the nervousness moving into my body.

When I step into the unknown room, the cool air that resides there hits me, and I quickly realize that I must have stumbled into that chamber, which was hidden in sinister anonymity on the floor plan. Both walls of the room are covered with a shiny metal surface up to the ceiling, and its continuity is interrupted by a multitude of square doors with handles on them, which gives me the feeling that I have fallen into the middle of a morgue. And when I find Riley standing in front of one of the open doors, I already know that I wasn't wrong, because in front of him on a long metal tray is a naked body lying as lifeless as a grotesque wax figure. And as I take a few cautious steps closer and more and more details are revealed to me, I realize that the unnatural paleness that runs along the unknown human form is much more familiar than I feel comfortable admitting. I stand next to my masked companion in silent astonishment, and with ever-increasing shock, I measure the almost translucent skin, under which, even in the state of rigor mortis, the muscles that used to swell with strength stretch clearly. But it worries me much more when I discover that I'm not looking at the corpse of a deceased Hunter preserved in an amazing condition, because although it's not nearly as deformed as many of its friends, it would be impossible to mistake the sharp teeth in the mouth opened in an eternal roar, or the worldless white eyes, which are characteristic of only one species according to our current knowledge. And my brain gets short-circuited for a minute, as I realize that the humanoid mutant, that we have just come across and the like of which I have never seen before, is a more advanced lifeform than our mutant-riding friend we met in the city, even solely based on its physical characteristics. When I break away from the unsettling sight to look around the room again, I realize that judging by the dozens of doors, this newcomer is probably not the only one hiding within the institution's walls.

And as my gaze connects with the Riley's, I discover the same dark foreboding in the now chocolate-colored eyes, which also sit in my skull like a slimy parasite. Alviar tried to play god, and whatever he used to create these monstrosities, whoever turned the institution into a slaughterhouse, in order to find it, took it and is long gone. Fuck.

#call of duty #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #simon riley #cod #cod ghost #johnny soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick #captain price #john price #john soap mctavish #captain john price #john mactavish #simon riley ghost #ghost simon riley #simon riley x reader #ghost call of duty #cod mw ghost #ghost cod #cod modern warfare #cod mwii #cod mw2 #guideverse #alternate universe #johnny mactavish #kate laswell #alejandro vargas #rodolfo parra #kyle garrick #cod 141

[flyingpurplepeopleprogrammer]

"You're being hypnotised wrong" and other things that really grind my gears:

So this isn't news. Everyone has written this, but I want to write it, too: hypnosis is collaborative.

When you're playing with someone - hypnotised or hypnotising - you're working together, and if something didn't happen quite the way you wanted it to - well, that's something to work with your partner in figuring out.

Happy accidents happen, and unexpected hypnosis is often - at least for me and mine - fun hypnosis. But that's not universal or guaranteed. Fortunately, it's not usually too hard to tease out the hypnotic experience we want with a but of - you guessed it! - communication.

Are you a hypnotist and your subject responded to a suggestion completely differently to what you intended? Ask them about what they experienced. Try to explain what you had in mind and see if they would use different words to describe the same thing. Stuff like that.

Did your subject find this or that style of induction boring, difficult, or distracting? You can try a different approach, of course, but it can also be rewarding to explore what they found unhelpful and see if you can't adapt your technique to suit. Neither solution is inherently better than the other, and you can try whatever you and your partner think might be fun. Why not both?

But if you're trying to get hypnotised and your partner tells you that you're being hypnotised wrong or that you're bad at being hypnotised, yeet them.

If your partner gives you a suggestion and grumps at you for not understanding it or acting the way they expected you to, yeet them.

If you're told that the reason you aren't feeling the way you want to feel is because you aren't a good subject, - you guessed it! - yeet them.

Because seriously, the problem is not you.

#dump your useless fucking hypnotist #still smashing that communicate button #skill issue #yeah I know self-hypnosis can be a solo adventure but I didn't really think I needed to point that out #mine #hypnosis

[addictedtostorytelling]

Still loving the newest addition to the Happy Accidents series & your last chapter got me thinking about a potential scene I would love to hear from your perspective (or maybe you’ve already written it & I’ve just got to be patient…)

In the last chapter you mentioned Sara’s PTSD & Grissom was so sweet. Particularly this part “She knows why he is worried: Over the years, he has learned to associate nerviness in her with periods when her mental health is poor. She isn’t usually quick to startle, but during the times when her PTSD is bad—around anniversaries—she can be. She gets so in her own head that anything happening outside has the potential to shock.”

It got me thinking about how in this alternate universe, Sara would be about 6-7 months pregnant when the anniversary of her abduction came & I would love to read her thoughts on that & how Grissom helps her deal with it. Does it cause her to reflect on how different her life looks now than a year ago? Does she think about all the reasons she didn’t give up in the desert? Does she feel the baby kick & is brought out of her thoughts, grateful for how her life looks?

And if you’ve already written a scene like this…I’ll sit over here (im)patiently waiting.

hi, @chelsshearman!

good to hear from you again! i'm so glad to know you're enjoying the story so far.

i've taken a while to come up with an answer to your (very thoughtful) question, and though i can't show any prose from that part of the story just yet without revealing some major accidentsverse spoilers, i can offer you a more pared down answer after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

note: in order to avoid major accidentsverse spoilers, i purposefully use ambiguous language surrounding sara's pregnancy in this answer.

__

sara knows from experience: trauma doesn't adhere to a strict calendar.

sometimes exact anniversaries are bad, but other times the days and weeks surrounding are when the cptsd symptoms really hit.

november has historically been a crapshoot for her, any day—not just the exact anniversary of her father's murder—liable to be a bad one, the whole month something of a slog.

though she is hopeful: now that her wedding anniversary falls mid-month, maybe she'll have better associations going forward.

she is well-aware of this temporal idiosyncrasy in her brain, and so is her therapist, which is why he starts counseling with her in mid-april about what to anticipate come may, for what will be the first anniversary of her abduction by natalie davis.

admittedly, she is, at this point, distracted. not only is there a lot going on in her life pregnancy-wise, but things are busier than ever at work. by now, she is no longer in the field and has instead become the de facto "point person" for her teammates at the lab, which, contrary to what she had expected, has somehow upped her caseload. still, she tries her best to complete her therapy assignments with what few spare hours she has. is diligent about going in for sessions. practices all of the self-care techniques her therapist recommends. stays on top of taking her meds. makes sure to look after herself as well as she can.

—and especially because grissom is so obviously worried about her.

not only does he admit as much outright, sans prompting, but he also is so careful with her. he had already been wonderfully attentive, but now she hardly even has to think she might want something before he appears to offer it. she swears to god: the man is telepathic. also, far too sweet.

thankfully, as the calendar turns over into may, there are some fun, new pregnancy developments to help to take her mind off the impending anniversary: grissom is finally able to feel kicking. (for a long time, she had felt fetal movements internally, but they hadn't been detectable in any external way.) also, a first instance of fetal hiccups, which is just about the weirdest, coolest sensation she has ever experienced.

that said, about two weeks before the big anniversary™, she does start experiencing some "trauma residuals" from her abduction. she's not having flashbacks or nightmares or full-on panic attacks, per se; she just feels off. spacey. emotionally unbalanced. like everything in her head has just been shifted two inches to the left of where it should be.

she keeps expecting to have some kind of big breakdown at some point, but the catharsis doesn't ever come.

and, honestly, the lack of punctuation is what bothers her more than anything.

she confides in grissom: she's scared. she tried to get out ahead of her trauma by "doing all the right things," but she is still being affected, not in any obvious, dramatic way but enough so that her trauma is inarguably impacting her behavior. coworkers keep asking her if she’s okay. looking like they don’t fully believe her when she says she is. she can’t help but be concerned: what if the same thing happens a few years on from now? the last thing in the world she would ever want to do to her child(ren) is make them feel like mommy's sad or upset for no reason.

so she and grissom talk the issue through: they both agree that trauma is a fickle thing—particularly as trauma reactions can't always be pinned down to one day or easily predicted in terms of how they'll manifest. show great variance in intensity, duration, form, etc. also can't be totally prevented, even if one tries to account for them as much as possible. chances are, she will be dealing with after effects—from her childhood, from her abduction—for the rest of her life.

sara explains: logically, she knows all of these things. but she still doesn't want their child(ren) to suffer for having a traumatized parent. she has experience that way with her own mother. remembers how helpless she felt when she was little, watching her mother struggle; how much she internalized her mother's sadness and anger. though as an adult, she (mostly) knows better now, back then, she wondered if she caused or exacerbated her mother’s misery and questioned why she wasn't enough to make her mother happier.

here, grissom digs in: "and did your mother ever answer those questions for you?"

her silence tells him no.

grissom offers his postulate: the truth might have helped—not by making sara’s mother “magically better” but by allowing sara, even as a child, to contextualize the situation and understand her mother's mental health conditions existed independent of anything having to do with her. just hearing, in no uncertain terms, that her mother wasn’t sad for any reason having to do with her may have alleviated some of her misplaced guilt.

sara agrees: they should be honest with their child(ren) and explain things at a level they can understand.

but she still worries: it will be a long time yet before they can have those kinds of honest conversations. what will happen in the meanwhile? babies pick up on their caretakers' cues and moods, after all. she doesn’t want to do damage by exuding sadness or fear in their child(ren)’s presence.

grissom reassures her: in all the time they've been together, even during periods when her mental health has been at its poorest ("even in november"), he has always felt loved by and safe with her. he has not been oblivious to her sadness and fear. but he also has never felt that those reactions in her negated her affections. he suspects their child(ren) will feel the same.

still, she makes him promise: if she ever gets to the point where she can't be a good caretaker of their child(ren), he'll intervene. "that was part of the problem," she explains, "with my parents. no matter how miserable things got, no one said anything or did anything about it. no one asked for help. we all just sat there with it."

grissom agrees: they'll ask for help if they need it. offer help when they see it's needed, even if it hasn't been asked for. and neither one of them will give up.

the promise does make sara feel somewhat better.

—though, of course, it doesn’t fully alleviate her cptsd symptoms.

may proves to be a hard month, not only because of the trauma but for other reasons, too.

[insert major accidentsverse spoilers here]

but it also is not without happy moments—sometimes impossibly happy, like the first time they see a footprint, clearly discernible for what it is, show through the skin of her belly—and, most importantly, never without love.

she reflects: one year ago, she was alone in a desert, sure she was going to die. now, she is never alone, and she has never been surer of what she has to live for. lying in bed with grissom, his hand over the footprint protruding slightly below her navel, she feels a kind of peace she could never have imagined she would feel, just one year on from that day. she knows: what happened to her will stay with her for the rest of her life—will sometimes rear up in unaccountable ways—but it won’t be what defines her. won’t be the main throughline in her story. she’s writing that one herself, here, now. and she loves where her story is headed.   

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

#answered #chelsshearman #accidentsverse #csiverse #my fic #**

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Hey Sea, I hope you're doing all right! Because of some personal family issues I haven't caught up to many things fandom & pop culture wise until now. Style's "transformation", in terms of both personality and career choices, becoming even worse after FL was predictable in my honest opinion. I think someone that empty simply does not deserve many words to describe him so I will not even bother. I must say though there is one thing that I simply cannot not help but mention and that is the Danny

2/3 Zuko Halloween makeover. I do not think Harry needs larries anymore for a sustainable career, and if he does, he has way easier techniques and less impersonal ones to do that. This one was definitely personal towards louis. Now we don’t know what really happened between them, they're just two strangers for us, at the end of the day. However it’s very clear they meant something for each other, even if just on friendly terms.

3/3 For him to what? Taunt Louis? Or make him pay attention to him? Desperate. Pathetic. Desperate! Quite creepy. Ridiculous. And yes, hilarious too. Except that I am not laughing with Harry, I am laughing at him. It gives me pleasure that Louis seems, at least from our perspective, to not give him any attention. Is that petty? Oh well! Anyways that's all I wanted to say, stay safe everyone!

-

Hi anon!

I agree with your interpretation and general read. I think that Larries trying to make this into a romantic gesture, and Harries trying to play this off as just Harry dressing up as a popular musical theater character, really underestimate One Direction’s, and specifically Louis Tomlinson’s, effect on Harry Styles’ psychology.

I’m not going to pretend to understand it, either. But the fact is that whatever impact Louis had on Harry is profoundly lasting, and it drives him to do some absolutely insane things.

The curious thing is that Harry has been surrounded by grown men trying to shape him into a rock ‘n roll messiah for more than 12 years. They’ve isolated him, sheltered him from all sorts of criticism, enabled him to get massively wealthy and sell out stadiums, given him Vogue covers and Met galas and allowed him to share the stage with legends. They’ve given Harry the opportunity to meet the wealthy and famous and to have experiences he (and the rest of 1D) couldn’t possibly imagine when they were starting out.

They’ve isolated Harry from peers for years, made him live the life of a 40-year-old businessman before he even turned 30. His closest friends are people with contacts, connections, companies, power— middle-aged or old men. There are no organic friendships in sight.

Yet Harry remembers about Danny Zuko! And wore the Harryween cosplay out of some kind of psychological compulsion!

Usually Harry cosplays for clout, so this was different— cosplaying in lieu of actual communication. He wanted attention, and specifically, attention from Louis.

But why? Was Harry bragging about his playground, Madison Square Garden?

It’s a very Kanye-Kim-Taylor spat-for-PR thing to do. Very on brand for Hardashian Styles. But also completely, pathetically unhinged.

The other thing I’ll add is that — my personal observation only — Harry might be business savvy, but he does not know how to cultivate longterm personal relationships. It’s always about quarterly earnings reports and not trust, compassion, empathy, and really, human love. Nothing is ever done without strings attached— Harry Styles is only about strings. There aren’t any romantic relationships longer than 2 years, ones without a professional agenda.

It’s a very empty emotional life. Harry’s face looks empty. His Instagram page feels frigid, isolating, posed, lonely. Whatever this means with regards to Danny Zuko— almost turning a fun high school moment into a garish pop culture caricature— is also incredibly sad.

[gothhabiba]

How do you approach sourcing recipes from cultures that aren't your own/food you didn't grow up eating or learning to make? Do you adapt your own version from a multitude of others' recipes, etc?

it always starts with something I want to eat myself (by stumbling across the name of the dish online or wanting to use a specific ingredient I have or thinking to myself "I wonder what some popular foods in [region] are"

and then, yeah, I look at a multitude of other recipes--this can be tricky because a lot of recipe blogs take shortcuts or make substitutions without disclosing because they make assumptions about what you'll have access to / what you'll be willing to source / how long you're willing to spend. some recipe blogs are also literally completely wrong about what they're telling you to use because they're made by some woman named Tiffany or something who didn't do much research herself (I keep coming back to the one time I saw someone call for... Indian black cardamom.... instead of Ethiopian false cardamom... because she legit did not know the difference and was confused by the shared name)

I look out for recipes shared by people from that region and try to get a sense for what's commonly used, what the 'idea' behind the dish and the cooking method is (for example, what order are aromatics and vegetables and oil and spices added in? how will this affect what flavors wind up in the final dish? is this order common across dishes in this region, or does it change from dish to dish or person to person?). youtube helps a lot with this, as does g*ogle translate--I try to look at a diversity of recipes written in one or two languages used in the region. this can have the same problem with people making 'quick' versions (modern people are busy!) but usually gives me a sense for what substitutions, if any, English-language recipes are making (based on their assumptions about what's available where you are). if necessary, I narrow the region / version of the dish down further so that I'm not jumbling up ingredients across different regions more than I have to. cooking forums help a lot--places where people aren't necessarily posting full recipes, but giving little tips about technique &c. (this is where I learned of the importance of cracking coconut cream, for example)

all of this is something I do myself, for fun--have a night after a few days or weeks of research and sourcing ingredients where I make three to four dishes from a certain region (so what dishes are commonly eaten together, the idea behind what types of dish make up a meal (e.g. in a Japanese setto menu, a USian idea of meat + starchy side + vegetable side + bread) will also come into play). not only do I get to experience foods that I might not otherwise (especially given that vegetable and meat dishes often use different flavour profiles, so just the vegetarian meals from a region wouldn't always be representative), but it's extremely useful to me as a vegan cook / baker to be well-versed in a wide variety of different ingredients and techniques so that I have a lot to draw on when attempting to adapt recipes.

I only post the results of all of this if 1. I've narrowed in on a recipe by making the dish a few times; and 2. I feel I have something to add (e.g. I've synthesised a few things that I didn't see come together in any one recipe, specified measurements and times that had been imprecise, included ingredients or information that I hadn't seen in English-language recipes, or made something vegan that usually isn't).

#faq #Anonymous

[a-reader-and-a-writer]

Can I get a sleep headcanon for Bob and a hobby headcanon for Coyote!🤭🥰

Thanks for the ask, Sam!!! I am always up for HCs and these were a lot of fun! 🥰

Bob Sleep Headcannon:

Bob usually only sleeps for three or four hours a night, however, he takes frequent short naps throughout the day. He didn’t plan on this schedule, he just sort of fell into it while in college and it stuck. At Top Gun, he uses the extra time at night to read or study (much to the dismay of roommate Phoenix, who prefers the room pitch black) and then takes little 20-30 minute catnaps while the other teams are flying or during lunch. The other Daggers soon become used to finding him curled up on the couch in the rec room or laying with his head on his desk before training starts and just leaving him alone. Though they are all still amazing at how he always snaps awake with no problem at a moment’s notice and is completely alert.

When he is actually asleep in his bed, Bob likes to sleep in a pair of loose sweatpants and an old t-shirt. Then he cocoons himself under the blankets and curls up into a small ball. When Phoenix teased him one time for sleeping like that, he just shrugged and said it makes him feel safe and cozy. What’s wrong with that?

Coyote Hobby Headcannon:

Coyote is an avid poker player. His granddad taught him and his sister to play when they were little kids and he instantly fell in love with the game. Once he got older, he began to study different strategies and techniques and soon became an expert. He began joining amateur games on the weekends while at the Naval Academy to make some extra money and cleaned up. While Hangman has an uncanny ability to win at most things they compete in (darts, pool, foot races, flight training, etc), Hangman has never managed to beat Coyote at poker. He might win a few hands now and then, but at the end of the night, Coyote always walks away the big winner. 

Coyote grew up having huge potluck dinners every Sunday with his entire extended family and he always helped his mom in the kitchen. While this started his love affair with cooking, he hates baking. Baking requires precise measurements and following instructions to the letter, and he gets enough of that in his job. But with cooking, he has the freedom to change things up, add something special that he didn’t the last time, experiment with different ingredients or flavors, and just being able to take risks. His food is always the first to go when the Daggers have parties or get-togethers, and there has been more than one instance where fists were almost thrown over the last serving of one of his dishes. 

Headcannon Meme

#thanks! #friend ask #ask game #headcannon meme #hc #hcs #robert bob floyd #bob #javy coyote machado #coyote

[celeste-moonflower]

Entry 3: Playing around with Procreate

I have always been a Photoshop person to create digital paintings, I still prefer it over the other softwares. My favorite aspect of it is the blending process. The way that the tools worked is similar to mixing colors irl, where you get the hues that are in-between the colors you’re mixing, creating new ones. The other thing is some of the brushes are designed in order to detect the angle of the pen tip and so the brush would rotate or tilt accordingly, making it able to mimic a traditional drawing tool like a pencil or a charcoal stick. In my relatively short experience with Procreate, I struggled to get the colors to blend to my liking. I absolutely hated that my only two options were either smudge the colors together or to alternate the opacity of the colors to give the ‘illusion’ of mixed hues, which they’re technically not. Adjusting the settings of the brushes felt like a solving a puzzle, it was hard to keep track of what I did or didn’t modify, and the differences in the settings were undetectable. So for the most part, I used Procreate for rough sketches only and finished the rest on Fresco.

Adobe Fresco is the equivalent of Photoshop but made specifically to be used on a tablet. It functions very similarly to how Photoshop brushes usually do. I would dare say that the smart brushes on Fresco are even better than the og software, they’re phenomenal and very fun to play around with. But sadly, recently it’s been glitching on me and those features are no longer working (it could be due to a number of factors, it could need a system update or something else. I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of it) However, something about Procreate that seemed appealing to me. For a starter, it’s a one-time purchase app, no monthly/yearly subscription shenanigans, which is always a bonus. But also, perhaps it’s the plethora of great art pieces that I see people make by using it. Some of the brush sets, blending techniques, line-works look absolutely impeccable, which piques a curious itch in my brain that makes me want to explore this app more. It can’t be this much of a lost-cause to work with, right?

Today, I changed the pressure and smoothing settings for the pencil. I saw a blog focusing on the different variations of the pressure curves to suit your own preference, and I tweaked around until I feel like I got it to work in a manner that feels more comfortable for me. It was relatively simple, I just adjusted the physical pressure I need to use to get the maximum opacity of the strokes to about 25%. This is kinda rich coming from a heavy-handed bastard like myself lol. But with this adjustment, I am consciously using less pressure which makes sketching feel like a breeze honestly.

So I made this sketch fully aware that nothing about it makes sense, not the anatomy, nor the colors, or pretty much anything. But what I like about it is that it didn’t strain my hand, the ‘loosness’ of the sketch actually felt quick and loose, something I really appreciate. I think I’ll have more fun using Procreate after those small adjustments. My next target to tackle is definitely gonna be the brushes. but in the meantime, the current ones that I got are definitely gonna feel different now that the pressure settings are set to something completely new :)

Cece M.

090324 : 0230

💙

#procreate #sketch

[20dollarlolita]

dollar-chan's pattern school: picking a pattern and reading the envelope

So I'm trying to get my weird little pattern school idea floating, but I am going to be posting all the tutorials on this blog so that none of that info is secret and only allowed to people who want to learn on another platform. I'm a big fan of providing information for free.

So, in this school idea, the first project is to make something from a commercial pattern, and to choose something that doesn't require specific body measurements. This way, you can focus on learning to read patterns and it doesn't really matter too much if it's a bit smaller or larger than you originally intended. There's a whole lot of flexibility in this project. The important thing is just learning to pick a pattern, get some fabric, cut it out, and assemble it using the pattern markings and pattern instructions. If you already know how to do that, you can proceed to complete that step without even reading this.

Picking a pattern:

There's a lot of ways to make items you would use in a lolita wardrobe. Some ideas:

Basic tote bags (relevant Lolibrary search) are easy to make and are a great first project to make from a pattern. Brands put out tote bags that are relatively easy to simulate by using good fabric choices. Lined tote bags are a very nice project because it teaches the basics of bagging out a lining. You also can pick those fun quilting fabrics that you can't use for main lolita pieces.

Decor and craft items are fun and you can shoehorn them into this with "lifestyle lolita" as your theme.

If you have fabrics or ideas you want to test out, you can try out some combinations on doll-scale before moving on to a full-scale project. This also lets you practice with print scale and that gives you a huge leg up when you start moving into lolita for humans. Note, though, that there's a lot of experienced sewers who make clothes for 18" dolls, so make sure you pick a pattern marked as an easy one.

Aprons (lolibrary search) are a thing you can use in lolita. Gathered aprons have a similar construction to lolita dresses and so they're really good for learning other techniques you'd later apply to other garments. You get experience picking and working with prints on the same scale as you'd be working with future garments. However, since aprons aren't fully fitted garments, if you're off by 3-5 inches, no one will ever know.

Buying your pattern:

If you've never bought a pattern in a store before, they're usually kept in some impossible-to-search cabinets. Somewhere around there should be a big catalog with all the patterns. Look through the book, find one you like, and remember the number of the pattern. Then, you go to the cabinets and look up that pattern. It's super easy, but I've worked in a craft store for long enough to know that it's not universal knowledge.

Reading the envelope:

Most patterns that you buy will be able to make multiple variations of the same pattern, called views. The front of the envelope will have pictures of the views. They're sometimes photos, and sometimes fashion illustrations, but they'll tell you what the pieces should look like finished.

The back of the envelope will have technical illustrations, sometimes of the front and the back of the views, and sometimes just of the back. These are simple line arts designed to show you the construction details. More about different kinds of fashion illustration here.

It will also have the suggested fabrics, and the information about how much fabric to buy for each view. If I want to make the view D bag, I go to the section of the table marked D, and know that it's how much of the fabrics I need. Let's get an easier-to-read envelope over here because I've photographed that one three times and it's still ugly:

Yes, I've committed to using Comic Sans there.

On some envelopes, there will be a text description of the garment. This will occasionally give you useful information, and as you read more patterns you'll find things like the words "no closures" that just set off a flag. This is a thing that's sort of fallen out of fashion and a lot of patterns don't do this anymore, so don't worry if you can't find it.

Then, there will be suggested fabrics. This will give you a lot of important information, like if the pattern is designed to be made out of light or heavyweight fabrics, if the fabrics should stretch, and if the pattern needs to go in a specific direction. Sometimes, you will see things like "unsuitable for stripes, plaids, or obvious diagonals" and you'll know not to use those patterns.

Then, the fabric needs for each view will be listed. In this case, there are two listings. One is labeled 45" and one is labeled 60". When you pick your fabric, you will look at the bolt end, and it will tell you how wide that fabric is. If your fabric is 45" wide, you'll get the width listed as 45", and if it's 60", you'll get the width for 60". A lot of the time, you'll find fabric that is 44 or 43 or 59 inches, and you can almost always just round up. This number isn't always super obvious on the bold and it might just be "43in" listed in a long line of numbers, but in the USA it's a legal requirement to have this info available to the consumer, so it's there.

Sometimes, there will be different options for "with nap" and "without nap". If your fabric is directional, and looks different when you turn the print upside-down, you need to use a yardage marked "with nap" or "with or without nap".

If your fabric has stripes or plaids in it, or a pattern you want to match, you might want to get some extra fabric, so that you have some wiggle room to place the pieces where you want. Sometimes, the pattern layouts are very cramped and you need extra yardage if you want to deviate from them.

Some patterns need multiple fabrics. For example, you might need a main fabric, a contrast, a lining, interfacing, and trim. Each should be listed separately.

The last part is notions. These are pretty much all the things that aren't fabric that you'll need: buttons, tapes and braids, thread, safety eyes, sometimes something utterly bizarre like "approximately one hundred to three hundred pre-tied 2" ribbon bows". Don't forget about the notions section. Ask me how I know.

There will also be finished dimensions of the project on it. This is useful sometimes, especially with craft projects and bags, because it's hard to judge those things. If you're making a garment, there will also be body measurements somewhere on the envelope. When you're checking what size you should make, go off the body measurement and not the finished garment measurements.

So anyway, now you can go to the fabric store, pick a pattern, and then you can go nuts picking your fabric.

One last note: a)not every fabric store is sorted the way that the pattern envelope lists fabric. Just because the envelope says you can use challis or moire faille doesn't mean the people cutting the fabric have any idea what or where those fabrics are. It's actually not part of their job to know every single fabric that has ever been mentioned on a pattern envelope in the past 60 years so don't get condescending when no one had here of yumissima and b) if you're being rude to the fabric store employees you are getting expelled from pattern school.

And that's lesson 1 part 1, how to know how much fabric you need!

And now you get the great, great open world of which fabric to pick! That's why we're doing a craft project before we do a full garment.

I'm getting the discord up and running but I need to learn how roles work before it's open to all. Special thanks to the people testing it for me. Give me a couple of hours and we'll go public with the link.

As for how the discord is planning on working, each project is listed as a "step," so when you complete your tote bag/apron/perfect replica of kuma kumya but she's neon orange/sewing machine organizer, you get to post it as completed and move onto the next step. I promise to film a video of me throwing confetti at my webcam for the first 15 people to complete a step. Proably. Confetti is messy.

I just want to make sure I can, you know, not fuck everything up before I have a discord with like 40 people on it. Thanks for the patience there. I promise I won't be teasing with without allowing access for too long.

#dollar-chan's pattern school

[tokiro07]

I think I got what you mean with what you said once that negator powers worked better. Doing it with epithet does turn out pretty boring in comparison.

Ouch, and I thought I did a pretty good job...

But honestly, the real problem isn't that Epithets are a boring power system, far from it! It's that the concept of "interpretation" is used in a completely different way in EE than UU (oh look at that, they're both dual vowel titles)

Epithets are a single word that the user can interpret the definition of to determine how it's used; Dumb can mean stupid or quiet, so Molly can create techniques that make a target stupid or quiet. There are no inherent rules to how an Epithet is used, they're created by the users in real time

Rules, on the other hand, are, as the name implies, established rulesets or laws with inherent uses. Undead negates death to keep the user alive, Unluck negates luck to make something bad happen to someone the user touches, Unrepair negates attempts to heal damage dealt by the user, etc. The situations that they're used in and the activation requirements are clear-cut from the beginning, but the user can interpret how to maneuver within those requirements and situations. One user might only be able to heal directly fatal wounds because a cut isn't anything to worry about, whereas someone else might be able to heal non-healable damage like dislocated joints because being unable to fight might lead to their death. Fuuko originally interprets bad luck as being damaging or fatal, but eventually realizes that it can also mean just plain inconvenience, like when she dropped a stage light to blind Void

Rules are boundaries that the user can fill in while Epithets are cores that the user can build upon. This is why translating one to the other is very difficult; Epithets are much more varied in their usage, making it harder to put them within the boundaries of Rules, and conversely making it harder to build around a Rule to create an Epithet. There is no Rule that would inherently negate both intelligence and sound, and to maintain the integrity of the Rules, you can't use a word with too broad of an interpretation

Billy illustrates this really well: I went with Equivalent for him because I wanted to recreate the concept of him using others' abilities, and to that end could have also used Fair, Balanced, Reciprocate, Mirror, Mimic, etc. Fair would be the most on the nose to Unfair, but it can also mean a festival, which doesn't in any way tie into Billy's abilities. Balance can also mean equivalent weight, Reciprocate is usually used for feelings, Mirror could be used for reflective glass, Mimic can be used for behavior or creatures in disguise as other creatures or objects, etc.

To preserve the original Rules, I had to use the most stringent, inflexible and definitive words I could think of for their original concept, which is very sadly counter-intuitive to what makes Epithets fun in the first place. If I'd made Andy's Epithet Zombie, that would open the door to summoning zombies or zombifying a target, which is way more fun than simply saying that Andy is an immortal. That would have increased the scope beyond Undead though, which would have defeated the purpose of the project, seeing how the abilities of one power system translate to another

In terms of illustrating and highlighting the differences between Epithets and Rules, I think that this set worked perfectly, but unfortunately I see that it's created the unintended consequence of painting Epithets as lesser than Rules

When I originally did the Epithet Negators set, I explained that I wasn't considering how to tailor the EE cast's stories to mirror the tragedies that Negators always undergo. If I'd wanted to, I could have come up with completely original Rules for the cast to do so, such as say...giving Molly Unsplash to prevent anyone from putting out the fire that killed her mother. It would certainly be a fun thought experiment, but it wasn't the one I wanted to conduct; I wanted to see if I could craft the same outcome with different materials, not use the same materials to create a new outcome

I wholeheartedly encourage anyone who wants to play in this space to do so. If you want to give Fuuko "Hex" as an Epithet so that she can create bad luck while also giving her abilities surrounding like...the number 6 (like her six-shooter, perhaps?), go for it! I want everyone to be able to have fun exploring in this world, just like I do!

What I don't want is for anyone to use UU as a way to deride or put down any other series. Epithet Erased has one of the most fun power systems I've ever seen, just like Undead Unluck! I hate the idea that me playing with dolls could lead to anyone thinking that either is greater or lesser than the other

#undead unluck #fouryearsandananime #epithet ereased #fandom negators #power systems #uu spoilers

[christopher5418183]

Week 10

This whole course we have been learning how to create physical sketches, physical sketch models and digital models. This has provided many different opportunities to learn new skills and improve on old skills that can be used for future course as well as during full time work. 

The first few week of the course, we learnt how to use engineering tools to create a variety of different types of sketches such as orthogonal, auxiliary and perspective sketches. I have quite a bit of experience sketching orthographic views in high school so relearning how to do them was not that hard. However, I definitely think I have improved from my high school days as I have learnt how to format my page better, add additional relevant information to the title block and used fineliners with different line weights to create a crisp sketch. Auxiliary views took a bit of time to wrap my head around, but once I understood its purpose and how it was drawn, it was quite easy to sketch. These first few weeks for the first assessment were relatively fun and interesting. Next time I will try to improve on my speed since the drawings did take some time but also would like to make less mistakes when I create the sketch such as misplaced lines and measurements. This can be remedied through continuing the practice doing more and more sketches.

For the next assessment we learnt how to do create perspective sketches, free hand sketches and digital rendering. Perspective drawings were definitely much harder than learning auxiliary sketches but I slowly got the hang of it. It was challenging to figure out how to draw some of the detailed areas of different objects accurately. But the more perspective sketches I did, the easier it became and the quicker I could do them. We also learnt how to free hand sketched different designs of a perfume bottle and use many drawing techniques to create something realistic. I was never really good at drawing and the decent drawings I create take me a long time. However some of these drawing techniques were able to assist me to make cleaner sketches. However I struggled quite a bit when creating a perspective sketch for the perfume bottle since there was so much more detail compared to the previous perspective sketches I made. It took a while but in the end I was satisfied with my result. Digital rendering was quite intimidating to me because I have virtually never used photoshop before. Because of this, I chose bottles that looked similar in size and didn’t have super complex shapes. In the end I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Overall this assessment was definitely a step up for me but I think I was able to manage relatively well. I enjoyed the perspective sketching but not so much the freehand sketches and digital renders.

For the final few weeks we learnt to create physical models and use a 3 dimensional modelling program to create models and clean up digital scans. Creating the physical model wasn’t too hard. Because I love creating craft at home and have had 5 years of experience in wood working at school, I didn’t find it too difficult to create a foam model. The only setback was that I had very little experience with foam so I was definitely a lot more cautious than usual and took a lot more time and care. This was worth it because I’m quite pleased with my end result. However, when I began using 3ds max it was quite a roller coaster. I have little to no experience using autodesk apps and 3ds max was a completely new experience. I followed the videos for tutorials and it took a bit of time to understand but was not super difficult. But when I tried making my own model in the program, I was not sure where to start. I found it hard to think of what functions I should use to make any object. I eventually figure out how to do it but it definitely wasn’t the best model and quite a painful experience. We then learnt how to prepare a 3d scan in rhino and 3ds max so that it can later be 3d printed. Considering my last encounter with 3ds max I was quite intimidated but in the end I didn’t find it that difficult. It was honestly quite interesting how we could modify a scan of a physical model digitally and then create digital iterations to be later 3d printed so we could have physical iterations. After that we learnt how to put it into the 3d printing software to be printed at any time. These final few weeks I found were equally as challenging as the previous three. This assessment had its ups and downs but overall was helpful for future projects.

All in all, this course has definitely been helpful and useful. Not everything was that enjoyable but most things were definitely informative and helpful. It was definitely useful to look at my peer’s work to share our knowledge and advise with each other to improve on both our strengths and weaknesses. I look for to be using these skills I’ve picked up sometime in the future.

[anderssoneskesen40]

You are going to never know everything that it requires as a perfect father or mother but you could continue to keep attempting. Parenting can be a "learn as you go" type of practical experience. It provides on-the-job instruction and each and every time can be something different. This short article may help you by means of among those days.

Have you been aggravated by a messy playroom day after day? Make cleaning a game title and get your young ones to sign up for in. Sing a track or dance about while you clean. Challenge everybody to get at the very least 5 toys and games. This will motivate your children to help and then make clearing up a little more fun for all those. It's smart to maintain normal mealtime and bed time routines for your kids when you are traveling. Children, infants specifically, discover planing a trip to be quite nerve-racking and disconcerting. Whenever you place them in their appropriate bedtime workouts and mealtimes, you may help them adjust easier to the various conditions they may be in. This will likely make them happy so that you can unwind and acquire the rest you will need and they require as well. Each mother or father requires an occasional break for their youngsters. Even when you are only capable of getting apart for a a few hours, request a trusted family member or friend to look at your kids for you personally. If moms and dads are incapable of have serious amounts of unwind, they may turn out to be remarkably stressed, that is not best for any individual in the household. When you have young children in your house and you will have a fireplace, be sure to get a fire place or hearth gate. Thousands of kids are hurt each year from fire place incidents. These injuries might have quickly been averted when the parent had taken protection precautions and gated off the fire place. Probably the most important techniques for all mothers and fathers to keep in mind is patience. Youngsters are extremely illogical according to the phase of growth and this is often really difficult for many parents to deal with. At times, they will use a tantrum for no genuine purpose and you will need to find a way to just ride it out. Interact with your older kids to make sure your house is harmless for the child or child. When teenagers appreciate much more independence within the household, they could not understand why their small games or artwork items are risky with their more youthful sibling. Clarify the risks and require them in order to keep your home risk-free for everyone. If you have to take advantage of the restroom, as well as your newborn is annoyed at getting put into their provider, turn on the toilet lover and basin. Both these noises imitate the noise of your pulse rate, which your infant was constantly soothed by from the uterus. This technique must provide you with a couple of peaceful minutes to manage your self. Supplying business and obvious guidelines might help once you have issues getting a youngster to listen to you. Requesting your child to perform anything usually becomes poorer results than when you strongly let them know to complete one thing. As an example, a frequent issue that lots of moms and dads have is becoming their children to remember to brush their pearly whites at nighttime. Inquiring the child to brush their the teeth is just not gonna be as effective as letting them know it is actually time and energy to clean their tooth. If your little one has difficulty settling down for mattress, try out white-noise. You can use a devoted white-noise machine, a fm radio tuned to static, or perhaps applications through your ipod or cellular phone to generate relaxing background sound. Enjoying a calming track or Compact disk on loop also can place your kids to get to sleep. If you are educating self-discipline in your young children, teach them the results of the steps. They do not recognize consequences at a early age and want to start seeing them. A good example could be, "if you do not bring your toys in from outside they may get robbed or wrecked through the weather". When you have a infant in the home, try to sleep at night when your infant sleeps. Infant infants have insane sleep plans. They will be up every 2 to 3 several hours during the night. When they're up, you're up. In the event you don't find some good sleep whenever they will you should never be in a position to work through the day. Enable the food wait around and get several z's whenever your newborn does. One way to instruct your children is to set up an excellent illustration your self. Should you be shelling out lots of time venturing out, watching television, or playing video games try to display one example by hanging out watching documentaries or reading through guides. They would like to be precisely like you, and may turn out choice instructional things. Improving your raising a child strategies can be difficult except if you have access to practical assistance. Utilizing the ideas from this article can assist you enhance your parenting abilities and to create confidence within your parenting style. It is really an significant challenge for someone to perform. It is actually possible!

#ull #konsultasi psikologi jogja #psikolog j

[daimonclub]

Improve your English with AI

Learn and improve your English with AI Improve your English with AI, a guide to web resources and apps that use Artificial Intelligence to manage the language in every field, from translation, to grammar correction, texts paraphrases and summaries, and chat bots than can answer to any question or debate on a certain topic, and therefore can be very useful and helpful to learn or improve a language. What's more you can use your computer, tablet or smartphone without the annoyances of paying or creating any account. One of the primary advantages of using AI apps to learn English is the flexibility they offer. Many people lead busy lives and don't have the time to attend traditional language classes. With AI apps, you can learn at your own pace and on your own schedule. This means you can fit learning English into your busy schedule, whether that means studying during your commute, in between meetings, your spare time or in the evenings. Another advantage of using AI apps is the personalized learning experience they offer. AI algorithms are designed to adapt to your individual learning style and preferences, which means you can focus on the areas of English you need to improve the most. For example, if you struggle with grammar, an AI app can give you targeted exercises and feedback to help you improve in that area. AI apps can also provide you with instant feedback on your progress, which is another advantage. When you complete a lesson or exercise, the app can immediately assess your performance and give you feedback on areas where you did well and where you need improvement. This can help you stay motivated and on track with your English learning goals. Furthermore, AI apps often use interactive and engaging learning techniques, such as gamification and conversational simulations, which can make learning English more fun and engaging. By using these techniques, AI apps can help you stay motivated and engaged in your language learning journey. Finally, using AI apps to learn English can be more cost-effective than traditional language classes. Many AI apps offer a range of pricing plans, including free options, which means you can access high-quality English language learning resources without breaking the bank.

Different field of AI application In conclusion, learning or improving your English language skills using AI apps offers many advantages, including flexibility, personalized learning, instant feedback, interactive and engaging learning techniques, and cost-effectiveness. If you're looking to learn or improve your English, using AI apps is a great way to get started! Consider that an AI language model, can process and analyze large amounts of information quickly and efficiently and can answer to almost any questions in just a few seconds in a precise and concise way, interacting with the physical person using a natural language, that is called NLP, Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that enables machines to understand the human language. Its goal is to build systems that can make sense of text and automatically perform tasks like translation, spell check, or topic classification. In this article I have inserted information about specific websites that can give you links to any available AI resources, then there are the usual traditional tools like translators and dictionaries that can help students of English in several way, such as offering Smart Thesaurus, Game and quizzes, new words of the day and tips, in order to stimulate the learners to improve both the spelling and the pronunciation. Finally there are the new grammar coaches apps which provides personalized feedback on grammar and usage based on the student's writing or questions. To all this you may find text-to-speech software, chat bot that can answer to your questions, explaining the rules and the usage of the language. Very important thing to point out is that many of these websites don't need a registration or an account to function properly, and you can do all these things just using your most loved browser. At the end of the post you will find some links to our own pages that can give you more useful links and resources in order to find free books online or more AI software.

Improve your English with AI https://theresanaiforthat.com There’s An AI For That | AI Database. Comprehensive database of AIs available for every task. Find the best AI for your task. There is a timeline that is updated every month with new applications available, an alphabetical index, and there is also a community for exchanging information. https://www.futuretools.io  FutureTools Collects & Organizes All The Best AI Tools So YOU Too Can Become Superhuman! Find The Exact AI Tool For Your Needs. AI Detection Aggregators Avatar Chat Copywriting Finance For Fun Gaming Generative Art Generative Code Generative Video Image Improvement Image Scanning Inspiration Marketing Motion Capture Music Podcasting. https://www.futurepedia.io  Futurpedia. The largest ai tools directory, updated daily. Browse 700+ AI tools in 40+ categories like copywriting, image generation and video editing. Search and filter the tools by categories, pricing and features. https://andisearch.com Andi is search for the next generation using generative AI. Instead of just links, Andi gives you answers – like chatting with a smart friend and can also create a summary of the website you are going to visit. It’s a smart search assistant. The more detailed your question, the better it can help. It’s an AI search engine that gives you links, information and answers to your questions. It is free and anonymous to use. https://www.perplexity.ai  Perlexity Open Search. Perplexity AI unlocks the power of knowledge with information discovery and sharing. It is an answer engine that aims to deliver accurate answers to questions using large language models. The new AI-powered chat tool that works like a powerful search engine and can show you the source of your search. https://translate.google.com  Google Translate is a multilingual neural machine translation service developed by Google to translate text, documents and websites from one language into another. It offers a website interface, a mobile app for Android and iOS, and an API that helps developers build browser extensions and software applications.

AI resources to improve your English https://www.bing.com/translator Microsoft Translator is a multilingual machine translation cloud service provided by Microsoft. Microsoft Translator is a part of Microsoft Cognitive Services and integrated across multiple consumer, developer, and enterprise products; including Bing, Microsoft Office, SharePoint, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Lync, Yammer, Skype Translator, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Translator apps for Windows, Windows Phone, iPhone and Apple Watch, and Android phone and Android Wear. https://chat.openai.com/chat  ChatGPT is an AI-powered language model developed by OpenAI, capable of generating human-like text based on context and past conversations. But of course not only that, it can generate software code, and much more, such as create texts, art, music, and even video. It has been acquired by Microsoft, and integrated in Bing, Excel and Teams Premium. Here you can read the best prompts for ChatGPT in order to get the most out of it. https://www.dictionary.com/ Dictionary.com is the world's leading online source for definitions, word origins, and a whole lot more. From Word of the Day to the stories behind today's slang, Dictionary.com unlocks the secrets of the English language for millions of people. Games & activities. Flex your word muscles and improve your language and writing skills with a bit of fun.Word Lists & Flashcards. All the learning tools you need to level up your knowledge for studying and test preparation. Learn more with the stories we've written about our words, the origins of our language, and the nuances that make English complicated and so unique. In Dictionary.com's modern language section, we're constantly documenting the meanings of slang, emoji, and new words as soon as you all start saying them. https://quillbot.com  Paraphrasing Tool - QuillBot AI AI-powered paraphrasing tool helps students and professionals rewrite, edit, and change the tone of their text to improve clarity and comprehension. Another useful service is the possibility to summarize texts. https://books.google.com/talktobooks  Not a traditional search, it is a creativity tool to explore ideas and discover books by getting quotes that respond to your queries. You can also try Google Trends, it is a website by Google that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages. The website uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over time. https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/ Text to speech with AI Powered natural sounding voices. Supports PDF, office documents, ebooks, webpages, Convert text to audio files. https://text-speech.net Voice generating program What is Text to Speech Converter? These tool helps you to easily convert your written text into speech or voice. You can hear the audio recitation of the text instantly. Whether a single character or big paragraph you will be able to listen to it. The text to voice tool uses a speech synthesizing technique in which the text is at first converted into its phonetic form. Our database already has the human audio for all the phonetics or you can simply say transcriptions. Matching phonetics and their sounds are adjoined. Therefore, as a result, you can hear the transcripted voice.

AI apps to improve your English https://www.grammar-gpt.com  The GPTGrammar Fixer with ChatGPT Technology is an ultimate writing companion that provides users with an AI-powered tool to help them improve grammar in their writing. The tool uses OpenAI technology to detect and suggest corrections for grammar mistakes, allowing users to quickly and efficiently edit their writing for accuracy and clarity. https://wikipediagpt.streamlit.app/ wikipediaGPT allows you to talk to version of chatGPT that has access to all of Wikipedia! It's actually based on "Simple English Wikipedia" with some limitations due to financial constraits. For instance I asked "What are the ten most used words in English?" and this was the answer " According to the Oxford English Corpus, which is a collection of texts in English, the top ten most commonly used words in English are: "the", "be", "to", "of", "and", "a", "in", "that", "have", and "I". These words are known as function words, which are words that have a grammatical purpose in a sentence rather than carrying meaning. https://opinionate.io/ Opinionate.io is an AI-powered tool that allows users to debate a chosen topic and have the AI select the winner. It also allows users to generate a controversial topic and have the AI debate it. Very useful for self-improvement. As a matter of fact the debate technique can be a highly effective way to learn a language because it provides opportunities for students to practice using the language in a structured and engaging context. In a real context the debate technique can be very useful because it can encourage critical thinking skills and promote active listening skills; furthermore it can help to build confidence and provide good opportunities for authentic language use, improving communication skills in a meaningful way. Keep well in mind that AI grammar coaches and paraphrasing tools can also be useful resources for learners who want to improve their language skills and write in a more correct way. Here are some of the reasons why: Providing immediate feedback: AI grammar coaches can analyze text and provide immediate feedback on grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure. This can help learners identify their mistakes and correct them quickly, which can be especially helpful for those who are self-studying. Improving writing skills: By using AI grammar coaches and paraphrasing tools, learners can improve their writing skills over time. With consistent use, learners can start to internalize the rules of grammar and sentence structure, which can lead to more accurate and effective communication. Saving time: Paraphrasing tools can help learners save time by automatically rephrasing text in a more concise and accurate way. This can be especially helpful for those who need to write in a hurry or who struggle with finding the right words.

Gumroad services Customization: Many AI grammar coaches and paraphrasing tools allow users to customize their settings based on their language level and specific learning goals. This can help learners focus on the areas where they need the most help and receive personalized feedback. However, it's important to remember that AI grammar coaches and paraphrasing tools are not perfect and may make mistakes or suggest changes that don't fit the context of the text. As such, learners should always use their own judgment when accepting or rejecting suggested changes, and should not rely solely on these tools to improve their language skills. You may find still more interesting material for your culture and your entertainment visiting the following pages: AI guide to web resources Web software guide links AI Best tools and software Blog links and resources English culture guide map Best quotes and aphorisms on AI Best prompts to use with ChatGPT The most interesting articles to read Lots of free books to download Our blog best video quotes 100 best quotes and aphorisms Great and famous philosophy quotes Our blog best visual quotes Essays with quotes Quotes by authors Quotes by arguments Thoughts and reflections News and events Read the full article

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