#since we talked about SPD recently

[wynterrolls]

HSR FAQ 𖡻 Speed

TLDR;

Speed breakpoints within 5 cycles (550 AV in MoC):

• 109, 112, 115, and 121 spd = +1 extra turn • 128, 134, and 143 spd = +2 extra turns • 146, 156, and 161 spd = +3 extra turns • 164, 172, and 178 spd = +4 extra turns • 182 spd to 200 spd = +5 extra turns • 200.1 spd = +6 extra turns

Choose how many extra turns you want for your DPS to take within 5 cycles. Then you decide what SPD value can you afford to get while still maintaining your desired crit ratio.

Once you've decided the SPD of your DPS, your buffer/debuffer/sustain could have:

SPD of buffer/debuffer/sustain = SPD of dps + 5 spd

** Scroll down below to read about the order priority for buffer/debuffer/sustain/DPS.

Long Text Below

To start off, the MOC requirements now needs 10 cycles max to clear. If we are going to consider that each floor has two halves, each side needs to be cleared within 5 cycles.

This means, when it comes to building your units, you need to consider building some speed into them so they could have extra turns within this 5 cycles.

I know there is this common concept that goes like this:

121 spd = low investment

134 spd = high investment

161 spd = desirable spd for supports

Ever questioned why the recommended speed has this gap in between 134 and 161 spd? Like, why is that a big difference? What do these numbers even mean?

These recommended speeds are actually from speed breakpoints that considers the fastest clear of MOC. This means, it only considers getting 2 turns in cycle 0 if you have 134 spd and getting 4 turns in cycle 1 if you have 161 spd. Those speed breakpoints are just for speedrunning MOC if you already have enough crit ratio for your DPS.

But, since we are going to consider balancing our build with enough required stats and enough speed for max 5 cycles, we are going to breakdown all possible speeds we could aim for and we'll know as well how many extra turns each unit will get if we have these specific speeds.

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For this, we'll be using this chart from u/Elhant42 from Reddit that showed the speed vs number of turns comparison for each cycles.

The highlighted cells showed the cycles in which we'll have double turns. This means that within 5 cycles, you'll see how many extra turns you'll get if you have a specific speed in your build.

From this chart, you could see that 134 spd is the minimum speed you'll need to have double turn in cycle 0, but overall, within 5 cycles, you'll only have 2 extra turns, which is also achievable with 128 spd.

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Here's another chart from u/Yamasir which shows the speed breakpoints that is commonly talked about by other HSR players.

** I only included until cycle 4 here because that is what we're aiming for - 5 cycles, if we are counting cycle 0 as the starting point.

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Additional chart I recently added (since I only saw this chart late already) is from Hunterkee. The spreadsheet linked below has available SPD vs Cycle charts for 3/5/6/8 cycles. But in this post, I’ll only consider from Cycle 0 to Cycle 4 in his chart.

** The charts showed the speed breakpoints down to its decimal places, but in-game we can’t see any decimals, hence I only wrote the values above in whole number. To know the exact decimal points of your speed, you could use this site: https://enka.network/?hsr

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From the chart, you could see the speed breakpoints that will give extra turns for each cycle. People only consider 121, 134, and 161 since those three speed values gives the most turns at cycle 0 and cycle 1, but there are other speed values we could look into that could be useful to us if we either have more or less than those commonly mentioned three speed values.

Notable speed points we should glean on are these values below. Within 5 cycles, if you have these specific speed values, wherein the starting point is at cycle 1, you'll have these certain cumulative turns:

109 spd = 6 turns, double turn @ cycle 5

112 spd = 6 turns, double turn @ cycle 4

115 spd = 6 turns, double turn @ cycle 3

121 spd = 6 turns, double turn @ cycle 2

128 spd = 7 turns, double turn @ cycle 2/5

134 spd = 7 turns, double turn @ cycle 1/4

143 spd = 7 turns, double turn @ cycle 1/3

146 spd = 8 turns, double turn @ cycle 1/3/5

156 spd = 8 turns, double turn @ cycle 1/3/4

161 spd = 8 turns, double turn @ cycle 1/2/4

164 spd = 9 turns, double turn @ cycle 1/2/4/5

172 spd = 9 turns, double turn @ cycle 1/2/3/5

178 spd = 9 turns, double turn @ cycle 1/2/3/4

182 spd = 10 turns, double turn @ cycle 1/2/3/4/5

200.1 spd = 11 turns, triple turn @ cycle 1, double turn @ cycle 2/3/4/5

At this point, you could already see how the 134 spd and 161 spd is just similar to 128 spd and 146 spd when it comes to number of turns within 5 cycles.

It goes to show how these two values are overused as advice to players and that other speed values weren't really that gleaned on despite having the same number of turns with these two speeds.

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— What SPD should I get for my DPS/Buffer/Debuffer/Sustain? —

This, my friend, is also my question before. Now, I'll say here what I learned.

The answer is -- it depends on how you want them to act within the cycle limit.

Normally, people would say to get 134 spd for your DPS. But, I would like to rephrase that answer.

Choose how many extra turns you want for your DPS to take within 5 cycles. Then you decide what SPD value can you afford to get while still maintaining your desired crit ratio.

The SPD values to choose from are these:

109, 112, 115, and 121 spd = +1 extra turn

128, 134, and 143 spd = +2 extra turns

146, 156, and 161 spd = +3 extra turns

164, 172, and 178 spd = +4 extra turns

182 spd to 200 spd = +5 extra turns

200.1 spd = +6 extra turns

Now that you have decided how much SPD you can afford to get for your DPS, the SPD of your buffer/debuffer/sustain would depend on the SPD of the DPS.

There's this theorycrafting term called "relative speed breakpoint", which means the allies' spd breakpoints would need to consider the give-and-take of SP economy in the team. Another is “turn relationships” which is about the SPD combos that are impactful/useful for DPS and supports. To learn more about these, you could check the sources below which links to the Reddit posts made by u/EtherealEch0.

But in this post, I'd rather make it simple instead because I'm lazy to do such menial minmaxing of SPD and RNG isn't really that cooperative anyways.

Once you've decided the SPD of your DPS, your buffer/debuffer/sustain could have:

SPD of buffer/debuffer/sustain = SPD of dps + 5 spd

That's it.

TBF, it doesn't really need to be 5 spd, but any number would do as long as the buffer/debuffer/sustain is faster than the DPS.

The reasoning behind it is that the three support roles should do their job first before the DPS action, because the buff on ally and debuff on enemies could greatly boost the dmg done by DPS on enemies.

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As for the order priority of your team members, they could go in these ways:

Sustain could be the fastest or the slowest in the team. Buffer/debuffer should be faster than DPS.

Sustain > Buffer/Debuffer > DPS Buffer/Debuffer > DPS > Sustain

Bronya is recommended to be a bit slower than your DPS so the DPS could have double turn with her skill.

Sustain > Debuffer > DPS > Bronya DPS > Debuffer > Bronya > Sustain

Sub-DPS could either be faster or slower than DPS depending on how the sub-dps kit works. Preferably, Sub-DPS have similar SPD with DPS.

Sustain > Buffer/Debuffer > Sub-DPS > DPS Buffer/Debuffer > Sub-DPS > DPS > Sustain Sustain > Buffer/Debuffer > DPS > Sub-DPS Buffer/Debuffer > DPS > Sub-DPS > Sustain

** Buffer & Debuffer are interchangeable depending on your team.

Sources

Speed spreadsheet: number of turns per 10 and 15 cycles by u/Elhant42

Extended Speed Breakpoint Chart by u/Yamasir

134 SPD is a social construct

Relative speed breakpoint by u/EtherealEch0

How Do Speed and Turn Order Work in Honkai: Star Rail?

SPD vs Cycle Sheet by Hunterkee

Speed

Turn relationships by u/EtherealEch0

Uploaded on Patch 1.5

➥ Back to my HSR masterlist.

Author’s Note:

Back then, when I’m drafting this post, I can’t find any reliable sources for the speed breakpoints (partly because I’m not really part of the TC community). After 3 months, now I could find some more info about it which expands on the topic itself.

Update Log

11/30/2023 - Uploaded this post

02/29/2024 – Added Hunterkee’s SPD vs Cycle Sheet; added more SPD values in the list

#honkai star rail #honkai star rail build #hsr #hsr build #honkai star rail builds #honkai star rail relic #hsr builds #hsr relic #honkai star rail guide #hsr guide #speed #spd #hsr spd #honkai star rail spd #hsr speed #honkai star rail speed #𓂀 speaks

[theculturedmarxist]

On 17 October, Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz invoked his constitutional privilege under Article 65 of the Grundgesetz to ‘determine the guidelines’ of his government’s policy. Chancellors do this rarely, if at all; the political wisdom is three strikes and you’re out. At stake was the lifespan of Germany’s last three nuclear power plants. As a result of Merkel’s post-Fukushima turn, intended to pull the Greens into a coalition with her party, these are scheduled by law to go out of service by the end of 2022. Afraid of nuclear accidents and nuclear waste, and also of their well-to-do middle-class voters, the Greens, now governing together with SPD and FDP, refused to give up their trophy. The FDP, on the other hand, demanded that given the current energy crisis, all three plants – accounting for about six percent of the domestic German electricity supply – be kept in operation as long as needed, meaning indefinitely. To end the fighting, Scholz issued an order to the ministries involved, formally declaring it government policy that the plants continue until mid-April next year, par ordre du mufti, as German political jargon puts it. Both parties knuckled under, saving the coalition for the time being.

The Greens – recently called ‘the most hypocritical, aloof, mendacious, incompetent and, measured by the damage they cause, the most dangerous party we currently have in the Bundestag’ by the indestructible Sahra Wagenknecht – are rather more afraid of nuclear power than nuclear arms. Anesthetized by the rapidly rising number of Green fellow-travellers in the media and mesmerized by fantasies of Biden delivering Putin to The Hague to stand trial in the international criminal court, the German public refuses to consider the damage nuclear escalation in Ukraine would cause, and what it would mean for the future of Europa and, for that matter, Germany (a place many German Greens do not consider particularly worth protecting anyway). With few exceptions, German political elites, as well as their agitprop mainstream press, know or pretend to know nothing about either the current state of nuclear arms technology or the role assigned to the German military in the nuclear strategy and tactics of the United States.

As post-Zeitenwende Germany increasingly declares itself ready to be the leading nation of Europe, its domestic politics becomes more than ever a matter of European interest. Most Germans conceive of nuclear warfare as an intercontinental battle between Russia (formerly the Soviet Union) and the United States, with ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads crossing the Atlantic or, as the case may be, the Pacific. Europe may or may not get hit, but since the world would anyway go under, there is no need really to think about any of this. Perhaps afraid of being accused of Wehrkraftzersetzung – subversion of military strength, punishable with the death penalty in the Second World War – none of the suddenly numerous German ‘defence experts’ seems willing to confirm that what Biden calls Armageddon is a future that may become a present only following a protracted phase of ‘tactical’ rather than ‘strategic’ nuclear warfare in Europe, and indeed on Ukrainian battlefields.

One weapon of choice here is an American nuclear bomb called B61, designed to be dropped from fighter planes on military concentrations on the ground. Although all of them have sworn to devote themselves ‘to the well-being of the German people [and] protect them from harm’, no member of the German government will talk about what kind of fallout the use of a B61 in Ukraine may produce; where the winds will likely carry it; how long the area around a nuked battlefield will remain uninhabitable; and how many disabled children will be born nearby and afar over how many years, all so the Crimean peninsula can remain or become again Ukrainian. What is clear is that compared to nuclear warfare, even of the localized kind, the 1986 nuclear accident in Chernobyl (which hastened the rise of the Greens in Germany) would appear utterly negligible in its effects. It is notable that the Greens have up to now refrained from calling for precautions to protect the population of Germany and Europe against nuclear contamination – assembling stocks of Geiger counters or iodine tablets, for example – which one might think would recommend itself after the experience with Covid-19. Keeping sleeping dogs asleep obviously takes precedence over public health or, for that matter, the protection of the environment.

Not that ‘the West’ is not preparing for nuclear war. In mid-October, NATO staged a military exercise called ‘Steadfast Noon’, described by the Frankfurter Allgemeine as an ‘annual nuclear arms drill’. The exercise involved sixty fighter planes from fourteen countries and took place over Belgium, the North Sea and the UK. ‘Facing Russian threats to use nuclear arms’, the FAZ explained, ‘the Alliance actively and providently released information about the exercise to avoid misunderstandings in Moscow, but also to demonstrate its operational readiness’. At the centre of the event were the five countries – Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Turkey (!) – that have a ‘nuclear participation agreement’ with the US, which provides for some of their fighter planes to carry American B61s to targets designated by the United States. Around one hundred B61s are allegedly stored in Europe, guarded by US troops. The German air force maintains a fleet of Tornado bombers devoted to ‘nuclear participation’. The planes are said to be outdated, however, and during the coalition negotiations it was a non-negotiable demand of the incoming foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, that the Tornados be replaced as soon as possible with thirty-five American F35 stealth bombers. These are now being ordered and will likely be delivered in about five years, at a price of 8 billion euros, to the dismay of the French who had hoped to be cut into the deal. Maintenance and repairs are estimated to cost two or three times that during the lifetime of the planes.

It is important to note precisely what ‘Steadfast Noon’ is about. Pilots learn to shoot down the enemy’s interceptor planes and, when close enough to the target, perform a complicated manoeuvre, the so-called ‘shoulder throw’. Approaching at a very low height, with one bomb each attached to their underside, planes suddenly reverse direction by flying a forward loop, releasing the bomb at the apex of their climb. The bomb thereby continues in the original direction of the plane, until it falls in a ballistic curve eradicating whatever it is supposed to eradicate at the end of its trajectory. At that time the plane will already be on its supersonic way home, having avoided the wave caused by the nuclear explosion. Ending on a feel-good note for its readers, the FAZ revealed that ‘strategic B-52 long-range bombers’ from the United States, ‘designed for nuclear missiles that can be dropped from great altitudes’, also participated in the exercise.

Those disposed to undertake a close reading of the public pronouncements of the governing coalition of the willing can recognize traces of debates going on behind the scenes, over how best to prevent the Great Unwashed getting in the way of what may be coming to them. On 21 September, one of the chief editors of FAZ, Berthold Kohler, a hardliner if there ever was one, noted that even among Western governments ‘the unthinkable is no longer considered impossible’. Rather than allowing themselves to be blackmailed, however, Western ‘statesmen’ have to muster ‘more courage… if the Ukrainians insist on liberating their entire country’, an insistence that we have no right to argue with. Any ‘arrangement with Russia at the expense of the Ukrainians’ would amount to ‘appeasement’ and ‘betray the West’s values and interests’, the two happily converging. To reassure those of his readers who would nevertheless rather live for their families than die for Sevastopol – and who had hitherto been told that the entity called ‘Putin’ is a genocidal madman entirely impervious to rational argument – Kohler reports that in Moscow there is sufficient fear of ‘the nuclear Armageddon in which Russia and its leaders would burn as well’ for the West to support to the hilt the Zelensky view of the Ukrainian national interest.

It was, however, only a few days later that one of Kohler’s staff writers, Nikolas Busse, plainly announced that ‘the nuclear risk is growing’, pointing out that ‘the Russian military has a big arsenal of smaller, so-called tactical nuclear arms suitable for the battlefield’. The White House, according to Busse, ‘has through direct channels warned Russia of severe consequences’ should it use them. Whether the American attempt ‘to raise Putin’s potential costs’ would have the desired effect was, however, uncertain. ‘Germany’, the article continues, ‘under the presumed protection of Biden’s strategy, has allowed itself an astonishingly frivolous debate over the delivery of battle tanks to Ukraine’, referring to tanks that would enable the Ukrainian army to enter Russian territory, overstepping what is apparently the Ukrainians’ assigned role in the American proxy war with Russia and likely provoking a nuclear response: ‘More than ever one should not expect the United States to risk its head for solo adventures (Alleingänge) of its allies. No American president will put the nuclear fate of his nation into European hands’ (unlike, one cannot avoid noting, European presidents putting their nations’ fate in American hands).

Busse’s article marked the outer limit of what the German political establishment was willing to let the more literate sections of German society know about debates with the country’s allies and what Germany may have to put up with if the war is allowed to continue. But that limit is changing rapidly. Hardly a week had gone by when Kohler, expressing the same doubts regarding the United States’ willingness to sacrifice New York for Berlin, explicitly called for Germany to acquire nuclear bombs of its own, something that has been completely and seemingly permanently outside the bounds of admissible political thought in Germany. While German nuclear capacity, according to Kohler, was to offer insurance against the unpredictability of American domestic politics and global strategy, it would also be a precondition of German leadership in Europe independent from France and closer in line with the worldview of Eastern European countries such as Poland.

Frankfurt, Goethe once noted of his hometown, ‘is full of oddities’. The same can be said today of Berlin, and indeed Germany as a whole. Bizarre things are happening, with public consideration of them tightly managed by an alliance of the centrist parties and the media, and supported to an amazing extent by self-imposed censorship in civil society. Before one’s eyes, an apparently democratically governed mid-sized regional power is being turned, and is actively turning itself, into a transatlantic dependency of the Great American War Machines, from NATO to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon to the NSA, and the CIA to the National Security Council. When on 26 September the two Nord Stream pipelines were hit by a massive underwater attack, the powers that be tried for a few days to convince the German public that the perpetrator could only have been ‘Putin’, intending to demonstrate to the Germans that there would be no return to the good old gas days. It soon became clear, however, that this strained the credulity of even the most credulous of German Untertanen. Why should what is called ‘Putin’ have voluntarily deprived himself of the possibility, small as it might be, of luring Germany back into energy dependency, as soon as the Germans became unable to pay the staggering price of American Liquid Natural Gas? And why would he not have blown up the pipelines in Russian rather than international waters, the latter more heavily policed than any other maritime landscape except, perhaps, the Persian Gulf? Why risk a squadron of Russian shock troops, which would undoubtedly have been sizeable, being caught red-handed, triggering a direct confrontation with several NATO member states under Article 5?

Lacking even a remotely credible ‘narrative’ – the new word in elevated jargon for a story manufactured for a purpose – the matter was effectively dropped, after no more than a week. Two days after the explosion, a lone reporter for a local newspaper based at the entry to the Baltic Sea observed the USS Kearsarge, an ‘amphibious assault ship’ capable of transporting up to 2,000 soldiers, exit the Baltic west-bound, accompanied by two landing boats; a photograph of two of the three mighty ships made its way onto the internet. Nobody in German politics or the national media took any notice, certainly not publicly. By mid-October, Sweden, currently applying for NATO membership, announced that it will keep the results of its investigation of the event to itself; the security rating of its findings was too high ‘to share with other states like Germany’. Shortly thereafter, Denmark also withdrew from the joint investigation.

As for Germany, on 7 October the government had to answer a question from a Die Linke Bundestag member on what it knew of the causes and perpetrators of the pipeline attacks. Beyond stating that it considered them ‘acts of sabotage’, the government claimed to have no information, adding that it would likely not have any in the future either. Moreover, ‘after careful consideration, the Federal Government has come to the conclusion that further information cannot be given for reasons of public interest’ (in German, aus Gründen des Staatswohls, literally: for reasons of the welfare of the state, a concept apparently modelled on another neologism, Tierwohl, animal welfare, which in recent German legalese refers to what breeders of chickens and pigs must allow their animals so that their farming practices can count as ‘sustainable’). This, the answer continues, was because ‘the requested information is subject to the restrictions of the “Third-Party-Rule”, which concerns the internal exchange of information by the intelligence services’ and therefore ‘affects secrecy interests that require protection in such a way that the Staatswohl outweighs the parliamentary right to information, so that the right of MPs to ask questions must exceptionally take second place to the secrecy interest of the Federal Government’. To this writer’s knowledge, there has been no mention whatsoever of this exchange in the Staatswohl-oriented media.

There have been further ominous events of this kind. In an accelerated procedure lasting only two days, the Bundestag, using language supplied by the Ministry of Justice held by the supposedly liberal FDP, amended Section 130 of the Criminal Code, which makes it a crime to ‘approve, deny or diminish (verharmlosen)’ the Holocaust. On 20 October, an hour before midnight, a new paragraph was passed, hidden in an omnibus bill dealing with the technicalities of creating central registers, which adds ‘war crimes’ (Kriegsverbrechen) to what must not be approved, denied or diminished. The coalition and the CDU/CSU voted for the amendment, Die Linke and AfD against. There was no public debate. According to the government, the amendment was needed for the transposition into German law of a European Union directive to fight racism. With two minor exceptions, the press failed to report on what is nothing other than a legal coup d’état. (Two weeks later the FAZ protested that using Section 130 for the purpose was disrespectful of the unique nature of the Holocaust.)

It may not be long before the Federal Prosecutor starts legal proceedings against someone for comparing Russian war crimes in Ukraine to American war crimes in Iraq, thereby ‘diminishing’ the former (or the latter?). Similarly, the Federal Bureau for the Protection of the Constitution may soon begin to place ‘diminishers’ of ‘war crimes’ under observation, including surveillance of their telephone and email communication. Even more important for a country where almost everybody on the morning after the Machtübernahme greeted their neighbour with Heil Hitler rather than Guten Tag, will be what in the United States is called a ‘chilling effect’. Which journalist or academic having to feed a family or wishing to advance their career will risk being ‘observed’ by inland security as a potential ‘diminisher’ of Russian war crimes?

In other respects as well, the corridor of the sayable is rapidly, and frighteningly, narrowing. As with the destruction of the pipelines, the strongest taboos relate to the role of the United States, both in the history of the conflict and in the present. In admissible public speech, the Ukrainian war – which is expected to be termed ‘Putin’s war of aggression’ (Angriffskrieg) by all loyal citizens – becomes entirely de-contextualized: it has no history outside of the ‘narrative’ of a decade-long brooding of a mad dictator in the Kremlin over how to best wipe out the Ukrainian people, facilitated by the stupidity, combined with greed, of the Germans falling for his cheap gas. As this writer found out when an interview he had given to the online edition of a centre-right German weekly, Cicero, was cut without consultation, among what is not to be mentioned in polite German society are the American rejection of Gorbachev’s ‘Common European Home’, the subversion within the United States of Clinton’s project of a ‘Partnership for Peace’, and the rebuff as late as 2010 of Putin’s proposal of a European free trade zone ‘from Lisbon to Vladivostok’. Equally unmentionable is the fact that by the mid-1990s at the latest, the United States had decided that the border of post-communist Europe should be identical to the western border of post-communist Russia, which would also be the eastern border of NATO, to the west of which there were to be no restrictions whatsoever on the stationing of troops and weapons systems. The same holds for the extensive American strategic debates on ‘extending Russia’, as documented in publicly accessible working papers of the RAND Corporation.

More examples of the publicly unsayable include the historically unprecedented arms build-up on the part of the United States during the ‘war on terror’, accompanied by the unilateral termination of all remaining arms control agreements with the Soviet Union of old; the unrelenting American pressure on Germany to replace Russian natural gas with American liquid natural gas after the invention of fracking, culminating in the American decision long before the war to close down Nord stream 2, one way or other; the peace negotiations that preceded the war, including the Minsk agreements between Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, negotiated by among others the then German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, which fell apart under pressure from the Obama administration and its special envoy for US-Ukrainian relations, the then Vice President Joe Biden, coinciding with a radicalization of Ukrainian nationalism (today Steinmeier keeps publicly confessing and repenting for his past sins as a peacenik, in language that effectively bars him from considering any future European security regime which does not include regime change in Russia); and not least the connection between Biden’s European and South East Asian strategies, especially the American preparations for war with China.

A glimpse of the latter was provided when Admiral Michael Gilday, US Chief of Naval Operations, in a hearing before Congress on 20 October, let it be known that the United States had to be prepared ‘for a 2022 window or potentially a 2023 window’ for war over Taiwan with China. For all its obsession with the United States, the fact that it is common transatlantic knowledge that the Ukrainian war is at bottom a proxy war between the US and Russia completely escapes the official German public. Voices of the likes of Niall Ferguson or Jeffrey Sachs urgently warning against nuclear brinkmanship go unnoticed; the former in an article in Bloomberg, entitled ‘How Cold War II Could Turn into World War III’, an article that no Staatswohl-minded German publisher would have accepted.

In the Germany of today, any attempt to place the Ukrainian war in the context of the reorganization of the global state system after the end of the Soviet Union and the American project of a ‘New World Order’ (the elder Bush) is suspicious. Those who do run the risk of being branded as Putinversteher and invited on one of the daily talk shows on public television – for ‘false balance’ in the eyes of the militants – to face an armada of right-thinking neo-warriors shouting at them. Early in the war, on 28 April, Jürgen Habermas, court philosopher of the Greens, published a long article in Süddeutsche Zeitung, under the long title ‘Shrill tone, moral blackmail: On the battle of opinions between former pacifists, a shocked public and a cautious Chancellor following the attack on Ukraine’. In it, he took issue with the exalted moralism of the neo-bellicists among his followers, cautiously expressing support for what at the time appeared to be reluctance on the part of the Bundeskanzler for headlong involvement in the Ukrainian war. For this Habermas was fervently attacked from within what he must have thought was his camp, and has remained silent since.

Those who might have hoped for Habermas’ still potentially influential voice to help increasingly desperate efforts to prevent German policy becoming forever fixated on a Ukrainian Endsieg, cost what it may, are left with the leader of the SPD parliamentary party, Rolf Mützenich, a former university docent of international relations. Mützenich has become a hate figure of the new war coalition inside and outside the government, which tries to brand him as a relic from before the Zeitenwende when people still believed that peace might be possible without the military destruction of whatever evil empire may get in the way of the ‘West’. In a recent article on the thirtieth anniversary of Willy Brandt’s death, hidden away in a social-democratic newsletter, Mützenich warned of an impending ‘end of the nuclear taboo’ and argued that ‘diplomacy must not be limited by ideological rigour or moral teaching. We must recognize that men like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Viktor Orbán, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Mohammed bin Salman, Bashar al-Assad and the many others will be influencing the fortunes of their countries, their neighbourhoods and the world for longer than we would like’. It will be interesting to see how long his supporters, many of them young newly elected SPD MPs, will manage to keep him in his position.

What is nothing short of astonishing is how many hawks have come out of their nests in recent months in Germany. Some figure as ‘experts’ on Eastern Europe, international politics and the military, who believe it to be their Western duty to help the public deny the approaching reality of nuclear explosions on European territory; others are ordinary citizens who suddenly enjoy following tank battles on the internet and rooting for ‘our’ side. Some of the most warlike used to belong to the left, widely defined; today they are more or less aligned with the Green party and in this emblematically represented by Baerbock, now the foreign minister. A strange combination of Joan of Arc and Hillary Clinton, Baerbock is one of the many so-called ‘young global leaders’ cultivated by the World Economic Forum. What is most characteristic of her version of leftism is its affinity to the United States, by far the most violence-prone state in the contemporary world. To understand this, it may help to remember that those of her generation have never experienced war, and neither have their parents; indeed, it is safe to assume that its male members avoided the draft as conscientious objectors until it was suspended, not least under their electoral pressure. Moreover, no previous generation has grown up as much under the influence of American soft power, from pop music to movies and fashion to a succession of social movements and cultural fads, all of which were promptly and eagerly copied in Germany, filling the gap caused by the absence of any original cultural contribution from this remarkably epigonal age cohort (an absence that is euphemistically called cosmopolitanism).

Looking deeper, as one must, cultural Americanism, including its idealistic expansionism, promises a libertarian individualism which in Europe, unlike the United States, is felt to be incompatible with nationalism, the latter happening to be the anathema of the Green left. This leaves as the only remaining possibility for collective identification a generalized ‘Westernism’ misunderstood as a ‘values’-based universalism, which is in fact a scaled-up Americanism immune to contamination by the reality of American society. Westernism, abstracted from the particular needs, interests and commitments of everyday life, is inevitably moralistic; it can live only in Feindschaft with differently moral, and in its eyes therefore immoral, non-Westernism, which it cannot let live and ultimately must let die. Not least, by adopting Westernism, this kind of new left can for once hope to be not just on the right but also on the winning side, American military power promising them that this time, finally, they may not be fighting for a lost cause.

Moreover, Westernism amounts to the internationalization, under robust American leadership, of the culture wars being fought at home, inspired by role models in the United States (although there the war may be about to be lost at least domestically). In the Westernized mind, Putin and Xi, Trump and Truss, Bolsonaro and Meloni, Orbán and Kaczyński are all the same, all ‘fascists’. With historical meaning restored to the uprooted individualized life in late-capitalist anomie, there is once more a chance to fight and even die for, if nothing else, then for the common ‘values’ of humanity – an opportunity for heroism that seemed forever lost in the narrow horizons and the hedged parochialism enshrined in the complex institutions of postwar and postcolonial Western Europe. What makes such idealism even more attractive is that the fighting and dying can be delegated to proxies, people today, soon perhaps algorithms. For the time being, nothing more is asked of you than advocating your government sending heavy arms to the Ukrainians – whose ardent nationalism would until a few months ago have seemed nothing short of repulsive to Green cosmopolitans – while celebrating their willingness to put their lives on the line, for the cause not just of regaining Crimea for their country but also of Westernism itself.

Of course, in order to make ordinary people rally to the cause, effective ‘narratives’ must be devised to convince them that pacifism is either treason or a mental illness. People must also be made to believe that unlike what the defeatists say in order to undermine Western morale, nuclear war is not a threat: either the Russian madman will turn out to be not mad enough to follow up on his delusions, or if he doesn’t the damage will remain local, limited to a country whose people, as their president reassures us on television every night, are not afraid of dying for both their fatherland and, as von der Leyen puts it, for ‘the European family’ – which, when the time is ripe, will invite them in, all expenses paid.

Read on: Susan Watkins, ‘The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’, NLR 54.

#nuclear war #germany #russia #putin #nuclear weapons #nuclear power #green party #europe #ukraine conflict #world war 3 #cold war 2.0 #crimea #censorship

[butwhatifidothis]

Shortened Lifespan: Edelgard vs Lysithea

Now, technically, I’ve already made a post like this before, but I wanted it to be it’s own thing (brought about by a mutual tagging a post of mine and me wanting to go more into depth with it lol).

It’s been very widely accepted by the fandom that Edelgard and Lysithea both go through the expectation of living a shortened life due to the blood experiments done to them, with this partly being used as part of the defense/reasoning for Edelgard going to war instead of doing something more peaceful. She thinks she’s on a timer, like Lysithea, so she hard-starts change to work around her short-lived clock. Makes sense, on the surface. 

But like I’ve mentioned on here before, I personally just can’t buy it. Nothing besides the immediate connection of “Edelgard and Lysithea both went through experimentation” suggests that Edelgard has the same shortened lifespan that Lysithea is suffering through. 

More under the cut

One thing that immediately stands out, to me, are the differences between their stat spreads and growths (focusing on stats on this post). 

Here are Edelgard’s (note: Statues not applied - add five to the stats if you want the true max values):

They are extremely good, especially for a default armor unit.  Str and especially Mag are very high, average Dex and Spd (though notably good for an armor unit), good Def, amazing Charm. Her Luck and Res are the only things that are even kinda bad - it’d more accurate to say they’re below average, tho again, 47 Res on an armor unit is fairly high. In fact, of the units that lean towards armor, Edelgard has the highest Res, and even beats out some units that aren’t armor-leaning such as Claude and Felix. Even her seemingly low HP (for an armor) is mitigated by the fact that it’s still some of the highest for a female unit overall (the fifth highest, beat out by Petra, Rhea, Manuela, and Hilda)

What are Lysithea’s, in contrast? (blacked out everyone above her for easier reading):

...Uh. Yeah. In contrast to Edelgard’s far more even spread, Lysithea’s are skewed to fuck. The best Mag in the game and the second highest Dex (losing only to Claude’s 89), and some nice Spd, sure, but everything else takes an extremely large hit. 48 HP is the lowest in the game, pitiful Str and Def, and mediocre Luck, Res, and Charm. This girl is held together by toothpicks, Elmer’s glue, and God’s mercy.

So right off the bat, there’s a huge difference between the two of them in this regard, but I decided to go even further; just how off are Lysithea’s stats, actually? Some things make sense, like low Str and Def, so how different is she compared to others in her class type (magic users).

The magic users of the following factions have the Str stat underlined. First, BE:

BL:

GD:

CoS:

From what we can see, 30 Str isn’t actually out of the norm for a female magic user. The outliers are Rhea and Manuela with their Str in the low 50′s being not just the highest of the women, but of all the main magic users period, though part of that could be contributed to their age (vs Hanneman who is both older - in terms of physical age at least - and who does not focus on physical strength like someone like Gilbert) (Rhea being an older Nabatean could also attribute to this - notice Seteth’s stat spread which also has notably high Mag for a Wyvern Rider unit and Flayn’s, who is younger and who also had only recently woken from a centuries long sleep that she fell into after nearly dying, more odd spread). Following them for the women is Annette, who as we know lugs around a giant axe (Crusher’s weight is 11, making it heavier than most swords and bows and a good few lances - fun fact, it’s heavier than Areadbhar!) which likely lends to her having above average Str for her gender and unit type combination

Now, here’s the fun part: let’s look at the same unit’s Res stats

BE:

BL:

GD:

CoS:

Here’s where an interesting pattern shows up that’s fairly consistent: if a magic unit has bad Str, they have good/great Res to compensate, and vice versa. Annette’s above average Str (remember, for what she is) coincides with her bad Res, same as Manuela’s, and all the magic units with their ass Str have at least a respectable Res to go along with it. The only ones who break this rule are Rhea, due to her Str and Mag being fairly even with a lean towards magic (and also not being playable lol)... and Lysithea. Who has both a shit Str and shit Res stat. Even amongst her magical peers, Lysithea still stands out as particularly fragile and physically weak.

HOWEVER

Do note, for all of the above in terms of going over stats, that they aren’t necessarily the best indicator of anything in particular when it comes to a character; there is no version of me in the multiverse that will ever believe Manuela is stronger than Rhea or that Lorenz has the same amount of stamina as Dimitri, for example. But it is something to note when looking at Edelgard and Lysithea, due to them going through the same experiments and yet one is very clearly doing better in terms of damn near everything and the other very clearly lagging behind in damn near everything

Moving on, we have their Banes and Boons. Edelgard’s Boons are Axes, Swords, Heavy Armor, and Authority, with Banes in Faith and Bows. Of note, Edelgard will say in a Study Request that she believes it is her specifically having two Crests that allows her to be able to shrug on armor like it’s nothing, and her defaulting to an armor class with an axe as her default weapon makes her the literal heaviest she could theoretically be. On top of that, her Banes point to nothing about her physical health hindering her ability to do physically laborious feats.

Lysithea, on the other hand, has Boons in Faith, Reason, and Authority, with Banes in Swords, Lances, Axes, Heavy Armor, as well as Clearing Rubble as a Group Task activity. She has a budding talent in Swords - the lightest of the weapons she’s bad at and some of the lightest weapons in the game - that gives her access to a Combat Art that lets her use something other than Str to give Mt to her sword-based attack. Lysithea, in terms of Banes and Boons when compared to Edelgard (or anyone, really), is very clearly unable to do physically demanding things very well - it’s something she’s actively bad at doing and is a consistent fact about her that crops up in not just her stats and Banes and Boons, but also her supports. Edelgard’s situation is the same.

Edelgard has her supports with Ferdinand, as well as Ferdinand’s supports with Byleth, that showcase her being exceptionally good at combat in terms of physical fighting (as in, no magic, and having a talent in doing feats that would require a good amount of stamina). She beats Ferdinand in combat with one strike, and she is able to take on a Demonic Beast by herself while still fresh in the academy. There are no mentions of her being winded or tired from fighting, and she is more than once praised for her battle prowess.

Lysithea, meanwhile, has at least three supports (Byleth, Lorenz, Cyril) that indicate less than stellar stamina, health, and strength (she straight up faints in Byleth’s supports). While characters looking out for her health can maybe be somewhat attributed to her being one of the youngest students in the cast, the difference between and, say, Cyril, who’s even younger than her, is that she genuinely shows signs of ill health when she pushes herself too far, vs Cyril who is fine even with how much he works. When talking about her prowess in battle it is only ever in regards to her magical capabilities, not anything else, and she is seen constantly working on those capabilities.

And then lastly, there are their endings.

Edelgard has no endings that mention needing to be rid of her Crests - save one, which will be looked at in a bit. In particular, she has an ending with Hubert that indicates she lives on to her “later years,” which is usually attributed to a fairly old age. It is not, in this case, referring to Edelgard’s specific later years (for example, a person who lives to 30 can say their mid-twenties was the later years of their life), because it specifically says that she and Hubert live to their later years, which more likely points towards a longer life.

Lysithea in contrast has multiple endings that either has her and/or her lover actively looking for means to get rid of Lysithea’s Crests, or explicitly say that she dies young. There’s... not much more to add to that lmao

But! There is one ending with Edelgard that mentions her getting rid of her Crests, and it even says they restore her lost time! That’s proof positive, isn’t it?

Well, funnily enough, this is her ending with Lysithea that mentions this, and it... appears to be straight up incorrectly translated. As has been pointed out by others, the JPN ending doesn’t specifically mention restoring their lifespans, it simply says Edelgard and Lysithea “discovered a way to exchange the crest’s power for the restoration of a lost lifespan.” While, if we look at the surface level “Edelgard and Lysithea both had Crests implanted into them” similarity, it makes sense to attribute this restoration to the both of them, looking at everything else leans towards this statement mostly being for Lysithea. Which, given that this is the only ending - or really, the only place period - Edelgard has that even mentions her wanting to be rid of her Crest, let alone actively working towards it, it makes sense that this isn’t for her. 

Now, all of the above isn’t directly pointing towards anything - it’s a lot of speculation, since nothing about Edelgard herself having a short life is ever explicitly said in the game. But when looking at all of the differences between Lysithea and Edelgard, when looking at how badly Lysithea stacks against everyone else vs how amazing Edelgard stacks, at how often dying young is mentioned with Lysithea vs Edelgard, at how much Lysithea focuses on her lifespan vs Edelgard, I personally just can’t believe that they’re similarly afflicted with a shortened life. 

There’s almost nothing in the game to suggest that other than the one thing they have in common, which is the experiments themselves - if they do, then Edelgard simply doesn’t care as much about it as Lysithea, and/or it isn’t nearly to the extent of Lysithea, to the point where she feels no need to mention it anywhere. And this is the same character that brings up her ten dead siblings in the first support with the player character, so something as big as “oh yeah and I’m going to die relatively soon and young” feels like something she would similarly mention as something one should know about her, which she doesn’t. This seems, to me, to be just a popular fan theory that isn’t really all that supported in the game itself.

#Lysithea #Lysithea (fire emblem) #Edelgard #Edelgard (Fire Emblem) #exqueuese me princess #can this be considered meta? #to be 100% clear: this is my opinion based on what's in the game #all good if you don't agree!

[redsamuraiii]

Ultraman Fan Fic

An excerpt from a chapter of my fan fic draft novel which I’ve been writing since June during my spare time, bringing the lovable Ultraman characters from 1966 to 2020.

Chapter 3 Present Day Kyoto, Japan

It is a cold December night in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. The temple gardens are gently illuminated, the low light spinning a mysterious yarn across the silhouetted pines and chimerical bamboo groves. Just a few minutes away, the entertainment district of Gion is bustling with the energy of excitable tourists, drunken businessmen and attentive geisha. But here, up a narrow, sloping road on the eastern edge of the city, Shin Hayata have found stillness. He looks at the fallen leaves around him, thinking that a week from now, the branches of those tress will be bare and a month later, perhaps cloaked in white snow.

As he got lost in his thoughts to the night of the crash which he somehow survived, someone called out to him in a distant. A feminine voice calling out his name.

“Hayata…! Hayata!”

It’s his partner, Akiko Fuji, of the Science Patrol Division (SPD). Dressed in her orange suit uniform that is hugging her slim figure, wearing a white helmet covering her shoulder length wavy hair, with her youthful face visible through the transparent visor and her sparkling eyes reflecting her spirited nature, gazing his.

“HAYATA! I’ve been calling your name a dozen times!”

Hayata blushed, feeling embarrassed that he was caught off guard staring into nothingness while everyone around him are busy enjoying the festivities, talking, eating, drinking and laughing.

“You MUST try this shrimp tempura! It’s the best I’ve ever eaten since Nagasaki! It’s so warm and crispy! Everything about it is just about right! Oh! And don’t make me start on how deliciously spicy the sauce is!”

Hayata smiled, looking at her. That’s Fuji, for you. Always lively and full of spirits when it comes to food. He gazed at the small basket of tempura she was holding in one hand and the sauce cup in the other. He lifted his visor to smell the sweet aroma before grasping his hands on one of the tempura and gently sip it in the sauce before savoring it. And true enough, his facial expression betrays him.

“SEE! I TOLD YOU!”

She exclaimed excitedly like a five year old enjoying her first candy bar as Hayata watched and chuckled.

“You do have a knack for good food, Fuji! How in the world do you know there are such delights around here?”

She stopped eating halfway as if thinking about it.

“It’s my nose, you see! They can smell it all the way from Tokyo!”

Hayata had to laugh at that as he takes another bite.

“It’s a pity, the others are not here!”

She said as she continue munching the tempura and licking her fingers.

“If they were, I’d imagined Ide and Arashi will be squabbling over it instead of eating it.”

This time it was Fuji who laughed out loud, imagining her team members squabbling over shrimp tempura.

“Captain Muramatsu will probably steal it from them quietly while they’re squabbling over it.”

She said, laughing as she wipes away a sauce stuck on her right lips.

Suddenly, they stopped laughing as their voices were drowned by the noises surrounding them.

Fuji changed her tone of her voice as she glanced at Hayata with more seriousness now.

“Are you, okay?”

Hayata raised his eyebrows wondering where did that come from and smiled reassuringly at her.

“Never been better!”

“Oh, come on, Hayata! I saw your looks earlier, it’s like you’re caught somewhere in time!”

Hayata nodded not denying it as he continue looking around him at the people enjoying the festival.

“Just thinking what happened here five years ago and how fast we got over it.”

Fuji followed his gaze to the people around them.

“I guess it’s in our nature to be able to adapt.”

They leaned their backs against their parked patrol car as they continued eating tempura.

“You still think about that night?”

She inquired.

“Sometimes. Wondering why it happened. You?”

“I’m past wondering why it happened. I’m just wondering what will happen next.”

Hayata nodded as he considers her statement. Ever since Baltan appeared, several other aliens started appearing as well. It is not clear if Baltan is the one to lead them here or Baltan’s discovery of Earth brought the attention of these other extra-terresterial creatures here. One thing for certain, they will never be short of visitors and even though many seems to be adjusting well to this new life of normalcy, Hayata, still feels uncomfortable living in this new era, knowing fully well there are extra-terresterial beings living among them and not knowing whether they are harmless or dangerous, further adds up to his anxieties.

Baltan was last spotted at Lake Biwa, just north of Kyoto in Shiga Prefecture and recently there are rumors of its sightings in the lake. So the Captain has dispatched Hayata and Fuji to investigate and report any discoveries to determine if the rest of the team are needed to assist as they are constantly on alert for any other alien incursion elsewhere across the country. It is for this reason that the SPD has their own VTOL and STOL jets for fast travels but the weather forecast of an impending winter blizzard prompts Hayata and Fuji to travel on their six-seater all-weather-all-terrain patrol jeep instead.

Part of Hayata misses flying but part of him is relieved that he has an excuse not to fly as deep down he is still traumatized by that crash where he was certain that he would died. The darkness of the night illuminated by the explosion of his right wing and his inability to eject from his jet due to some technical issue as it plummeted down to the dark ocean beneath the colossal creature hovering over him like a demonic creature from a child’s nightmare. Again, his thoughts was disrupted by the jeep’s radio buzzing, indicating an incoming transmission from headquarters. Few seconds later, the gentle sound of Captain Muramatsu can be heard.

“Hayata. Fuji. Are you there?”

“I’ll get it.”

Fuji said as she shoved the tempura and sauce to Hayata who is struggling with his hands full.

“Yes, Captain. Fuji here.”

“Ah, Fuji. I’m afraid we have a new case developing.”

Fuji exchanged knowing looks with Hayata at this as he placed the food on the hood of the car and brushes off his hands to go closer to Fuji.

“Captain, Hayata here. What’s happening?”

“Hayata. It seems that there are reports of a Yuki Onna, just north of your current location.”

Fuji seems perplexed, not by the mere fact of a Yokai from a Japanese folklore actually coming to life but the question as to what does it got to do with the SPD? It seems of late that they’ve been investigating more paranormal cases than those of extra-terrestrials beings. Even the number of alien attacks have been decreasing, which makes the people more comfortable and complacent. People no longer regard the SPD with much seriousness like they used to during the early years of alien incursions but treat them as some “ghost hunting” team that always get called upon every time something unexplained comes up that the local enforcement are not willing to spend their time and manpower on, much less, the military. Not that she’s complaining but still. Judging by the looks of Hayata, she could tell he’s pretty much thinking along the same line as her as he listen intently to the Captain’s orders.

“It’s at Kunizakai Kogen Snow Park. It’s a small ski hill located in Takashima City in the northern area of Shiga Prefecture, just north-west of Kyoto, across Lake Biwa.”

Hayata took out his tablet to study the map and get a bearing of their current location as Fuji looks on curiously at his side. He looks at his digital watch making a mental calculation of their journey.

“80km. About an hour drive from here or so. Right.”

“Hm. Since you’re both are near, I’m sending you two. It could be another false alarm but it could also have a connection with Baltan that disappeared at Lake Biwa five years ago. Could be coincidental or could be linked, which is why I want you to investigate it immediately. Report back if you discover any anomalies. Ide and Arashi are on stand-by if you need assistance.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

“Hm. Take care. Muramatsu out.”

“Well, there it is.”

“Hayata, look! It’s snowing!”

“Already? I didn’t expect a snow till three weeks from now at least.”

“Oh, it’s so beautiful!”

Fuji’s pure heart never fails to amaze and amuse him.

“We just learned about a Yuki Onna, and you’re more fascinated by snow?”

“Don’t make me throw a snowball at you, Hayata!”

Hayata chuckled as he gets into the driver’s seat as Fuji takes the remaining tempura left behind on the car hood with her. She stood at the car door left ajar for a minute as she marvels at the snowflakes falling down gracefully from the white sky. She takes one last breath of fresh air as she steps into the car to sit beside Hayata, who ignites the car’s engine and hits the pedal to move off through the crowded streets of Gion.

#ultra series #ultraman 1966 #ultraman #ultraman fan fic #my fan fic #tsuburaya productions #shin hayata #akiko fuji #science patrol #alien baltan #yuki onna #yokai #japan #kyoto #gion #lake biwa #shiga prefecture #toshio muramatsu

[megareviews]

Octopath Traveler Combat Review

Hello whoever’s reading this, I’m here to talk about Octopath Traveler’s combat system, and how it sucks. Now you might be wondering, why am I writing about this now, isn’t that game kind of old at this point? Yes, it is, but I only “finished” playing recently since I was working off of a borrowed copy and it’s more the level of disappointment I felt while playing it has stuck with me much more than many other games I’ve played. Since I want to go into game design and development, I thought that it would be good practice to do a deep dive on game mechanics, and it’s easier to write about something that I have strong feelings about to start with. While I have many issues with Octopath, the combat system is what the player is dealing with the most (which in itself is an issue), so the fact that it was lackluster dropped the enjoyability of the game more than if it were better balanced with story and exploration. I’ll try to hit everything that I had a gripe with, from minor things I personally would want changed, to what I view as major flaws that lower the enjoyment for everyone. I will be talking about the post-game boss, because a lot of my issues come into focus during it, so spoiler warning.

For reference, I’ll be talking about the game the way I played it, so I’ll give my main character loadouts in relation to the final boss. Team 1: Hunter Therion, Cleric Alfyn, Sorceror Cyrus, and Thief Olberic; Team 2: Warlord H’annit, Scholar Ophelia, Apothecary Primrose, and Runelord Tressa.

Now the big overarching problem with this game is its simplicity. Making a game simple can be a good thing, and definitely makes it more accessible, but there are a plethora of sub issues that I will be going into throughout this caused by how oversimplified many systems are in this game. For starters there is the lack of skill diversity, as in, there just isn’t very much that characters and enemies do over the course of the game. The offensive skills have 12 possible damage types, 6 weapons (Phys) and 6 elemental (Elem) and there’s only really 4 different ways these are implemented: single hit, multi hit, wide (hits all enemies) hit, and wide multi hit. Multi hits are generally just better due to the break system and damage limits, and wide hits are better the more enemies there are. Those of you good with numbers might have already multiplied those to get 48 ways of hitting an enemy, and I’ll add two, since the Merchant has an single hit untyped skill and the Starseer has a wide untyped skill, for a grand total of 50 that I can remember. Looking at that number I actually don’t know if that looks like a lot for somebody who hasn’t played the game, but the damage types only really matter in the break mechanic of the game and which stat is used for calculating damage. No particular type of damage is better for damage or accuracy skill wise, and the elem skills will do the exact same thing no matter which element is used since they’re only based on the user’s Mag stat. Phys attacks are a bit different since each one is affected by the weapon the user has equipped for that type, but they’re generally all +Str and then +Mag / +Acc / +Crit / +Spd / +Eva. Some Phys skills also have side effects that help differentiate between them, but the basic attacks are the same when the weapons are similar.

Since I brought it up, let’s talk about the two main mechanics of combat that this game has, the break and boost systems. Overall, these systems are pretty good on their own, and most of my issues are rather small here. First up is the break system: hit the opponent with their weaknesses a number of times, and they lose any remaining moves they have this turn, any they would take on the next turn, and all attacks against them deal more damage, though on the turn after the next, they are guaranteed to move first. This is where most of the fun of the game is, figuring out the enemy’s weaknesses, as they are hidden when you first encounter an enemy, only revealed when the weakness is hit, or with the Analyze skill, and then timing the breaks to be the most beneficial to your team. Many enemies belonged to groups with similar weaknesses, so it’s interesting to learn like winged creatures are generally weak to wind and / or spear attacks. The main problem I have with the break system is that once an enemy is broken, all damage types have the same effectiveness. Before being broken, an enemy that is weak to fire will take extra damage than if it’s hit with an ice attack, but while broken these attacks will do the same damage. Any accuracy bonuses don’t matter, since you can’t miss an attack on a broken enemy and speed bonuses only really matter if the order in which skills are cast is important, which there are some cases, usually with buffing allies. Then a bit smaller is how the weakness bar is always ordered, so some damage types are more useful to figure out all of the weaknesses. For example, if a weakness to staves is the leftmost weakness to be found, the player knows that there are no other physical weaknesses and to just start trying elemental ones. There were also some interesting extra mechanics that were only used a few times, such as shuffling weaknesses after a break, or, one mechanic used exactly once in phase 1 of the final boss, rotating through weaknesses when being attacked.

Then we get to the boost system, which complements the break system very well, with only minor annoyances. It makes the player decide between spending power against an unbroken opponent to break them faster, save up to deal massive damage to an opponent once they break, or how frequently turns need to be spent to cast buffs or debuffs. One issue that I have here is that magic users get the short end of the stick again, as basic attacks are the only moves (besides Bewildering Dance, the RNG move) that boosting will cause more instances of the move to occur. Boosting three times on somebody that will basic attack an enemy can cause them to lose 4 shields, while doing the same on a fire skill will just cause it to do more damage, which is objectively better to do when the enemy is broken. This usually isn’t an issue, as the BP can be spent on status effects and healing which will always be helpful, so besides Cyrus (laugh at him, he’s a nerd) there’s always something to spend BP on, thought your personal playstyle might dictate otherwise. Something that’s more personally annoying is how the limit is 5 BP max per character, since the most you can use is 3 per turn. What would be really nice and satisfying would be to break an opponent, have everybody spend 3 BP for full boosted whatever on the break turn, and then have everybody spend another 3 BP on fully boosted whatever else on the second break turn.

Next is another facet of the simple problem, is that there is significantly less character variability than the game wants you to think, and that’s not much in the first place. There are only 96 total skills for player characters, as there are 12 jobs with 8 skills each, and each character has their default job and may also equip a secondary job, letting each character go into battle with 16 skills, ignoring the path actions that grant others conditionally. The 8 base jobs can be simplified into 2 categories, DPS and Utility, 3 if you want to split the utilities into physical and elemental which I see as reasonable, or if you want to stretch it and split the 2 DPSs in the same way. I’ll stick with 3 since I can show how to best simplify them this way, watch. DPS: multiple damage type skills; Phys Utility: one weapon type set of skills, one single target elem skill, and a couple (de)buffs; Elem Utility: a single target elem skill, a wide elem skill, and a bunch of buffs. The advanced classes are even simpler, three of them being every attack type in either weapons or elements and then the remaining one being a bunch of buffs with one multi element skill so that every element had 5 related skills. I’m debating going into each individual job, but there are two that I will be getting into later for sure, Thief and Starseer, for opposite reasons.

Related to the lack of damage types and skills, is a lack of feeling of progression throughout the game. You gain access to 66% of the skills you will ever have by the end of the first quarter of the game, and the last 33% you won’t get until about the last quarter of the game. While the beginning of the a game it makes sense to give the players a bunch of tools rapidly, especially given the whole theme of versatility of the 8 different starting characters the game is based around, skills just scale up with the player’s stats, given through levels and equipment, otherwise they stay the same. While the middle half of the game can be used to mix and match secondary jobs on characters, it’s all just variations on the familiar. While this lack of progression just makes the game a bit boring until you start finding the advanced jobs, the actual issue is how SP scales through the game. The game ends up getting significantly easier as you progress further into the game since the SP costs become a smaller percentage of each character’s SP pools, and most forms of SP regeneration are percentage based, so characters get back SP easier too. For example, I had Ophelia with Second Wind (which I will get to in detail later) and a bunch of SP equipment, which by mid-game meant she could cast most spells and heal back more SP than they cost, and late-game everything was free outside of revive, which took two turns to fully heal. This is contrast to the beginning of the game, where a single skill cast could deplete a character’s entire SP pool, especially the physical jobs, as they usually came with smaller SP pools in the first place.

But where the runaway scaling is the worst, is actually on the thief job. Thief is a physical utility class, so it comes with dagger skills, the mandatory single hit fire skill, phys str and def debuffs, and some slightly more interesting abilities that falloff as the game goes on and you don’t need items or SP as much. All three dagger skills have special qualities, the divine skill uses the characters spd in the damage calculation, but HP Thief and Steal SP are the really broken ones. They both function the same way, hit twice with the dagger, then recover some percentage of the damage dealt to the stat in the name, 50% to HP or 5% to SP. The cost is also the same for each, 6 SP. There seemed to be a bit of a decrease in accuracy for each compared to just basic attacking with a dagger, so early on it was a bit of a risk to use it on enemies, especially if they were unbroken and not weak to daggers, as you would be losing SP to gain 30 health, or getting two dagger hits without boosting. But then, once the total damage of both hits reached 120, or even if you wanted to be safer, the damage of either hit, you start having a move that is free to use and hits more times than a basic attack without using BP, while also being able to heal yourself in a pinch. Now, the max damage you can deal in one hit without the Surpassing Power is 9,999, and you can very clearly see that a thief becomes an invincible slaughterer, as one can either heal themself for 9,999 HP, which is the max, or 999 SP, which is also the max, per turn. Now this might take a bit of set up, such as decreasing the enemy’s physical defense, which I remember mentioning is an ability that the thief job has, or increasing the thief’s physical strength, and there are a few ways to do that, but what I’m saying is it’s pretty much just all lined up for you to do way too easily with next to no drawbacks.

I’ve mentioned two support skills by now, so I should probably talk about them and the issues that they have. There’s 4 for every job, so 48 total, and each character has 4 slots that they can have support skills assigned to with no job related restrictions. This theoretically is about 200000 combinations, but since many support skills don’t synergize well with either the other ones or with the character or just are worse than others, there’s actually a lot less. The first way the options are culled are through support skills that are basically required. First on that list of required ones is that everybody needs Saving Grace, full stop. It changes the equipped character’s max HP from what is listed to 9,999, though if their HP is above their listed max, they can’t be healed any further until they have returned to a normal HP level. This gets very important for many late game bosses, and I feel like every paragraph is opening another two or more topics to go to, as most character’s 2k~3k isn’t enough. After that is some form of SP assistance, as the support skills are the ones with all the fancy %SP recovery. There’s 4 options to choose from: % max heal, heal % basic attack damage done, halve all SP costs, and heal % damage taken. Your magic casters will generally get the % max heal, since they have large mana pools to take advantage of that, and your DPSs will have the basic damage one, with much smaller mana pools and higher physical attack damage. Anyone with the Thief class can skip this, since as I’ve said, they will never run out of mana anyways. The % damage taken isn’t particularly useful as it’s such a small percentage and much less reliable than the others given it’s based on the enemy’s actions and targeting rather than yours. The Halve SP costs skill is situational, as some classes have higher SP costs, but losing the ability to actually regenerate SP makes the longer (and usually harder) fights more dangerous as you still run the risk of running out of mana. I used it on Tressa, since I played her as a caster and her mana pool is a bit lower than the other main casters, plus her Rest ability allows her to regain SP on her own. Third is either of the stat buff skills, once again the choice is based on how the character will be dealing damage. There’s Physical Prowess for Phys attack and defense or Elemental Edge for Elem attack and defense, and instead of being a stat boost like other similar skills from base jobs is that they permanently grant the combat buff to those stats, which means you don’t need to spend time casting the skills that do that AND that they can’t be dispelled by the enemy. What you do with the last slot (or two for thieves) is more open and is going to be where you can have ideas about different builds.

For me though, that last slot went to Surpassing Power on most characters, because by late game, most of my characters were hitting the damage limit pretty easily. Now the damage limit is just the fact that no single attack can deal more than 9,999 damage, because the developers said so. The support skill Surpassing Power, similar to Saving Grace, ignores that, and instead makes the max 99,999, though have fun trying to reach that before your character’s stats max out. Octopath unfortunately has a lot of these kind of arbitrary limits which only seem to exist to highlight an ability that can get around it, like purple treasure chests and Therion’s job ability. By the time I got to the post game boss 5 of my characters were consistently hitting the damage limit, and due to the sometimes absurd amounts of health that opponents had, Surpassing Power just made most of those fights so much faster.

Now a bit of time talking about enemies, because the difficulty scaling of the game is pretty boring, once again due to how simple the game is. This is really an issue among a lot of this type of RPG, since the game is just a numbers game and bigger numbers = harder fights. There’s two points specifically that make Octopath particularly bad with this, the lack of weaknesses on player characters, and enemy health. Since the player characters don’t have any weaknesses like enemies do, you really don’t have to pay attention to what specifically the opponent is doing, at most you can pay attention to whether you are taking physical or elemental damage, but the types are completely irrelevant. There’s a slight exception since there are accessories that reduce specific types of elemental damage, but as far as I could tell it was just better to use accessories that gave stat bonuses. Some enemies had abilities that could inflict status ailments, or had secondary abilities similar to player skills, but they were so few and far between that once again it doesn’t really contribute much. The other issue is with enemy’s health, in that they generally have way too much and causes the game to become so much slower. Fighting basic enemies is almost never a danger to your team assuming you are properly equipped, but the fights can still drag on for 5~10 minutes just whittling down their health. This even applies to fighting enemies that are much lower level than your own team, mostly due to the defensive bonuses that an enemy that hasn’t been broken has. This culminates to a final boss with about 700,000 HP, ignoring all the summons that it has and that it can’t take damage while the summons exist. Again remember that the maximum damage per hit is 9,999 in most cases and 99,999 in the other (which I’ve never gotten close to even with max offensive stats). Then also add in that you probably won’t be anywhere near that first max damage unless the boss is broken too, and you can see why the fights just take so long.

Ok, time to talk about the other job that particularly stood out to me, the Starseer. It’s a healing support job mostly focused around manipulating the party’s BP. Or at least the good skills it has are focused around BP. The divine skill is a wide untyped elemental attack dealing damage based around the whole team’s BP stock, and one of its utility skills also increases damage when the user uses BP, which you have to for divine skills. Another skill it has increases the BP gain of an ally to two per turn, rather than one. Unfortunately we’re already starting to get into the ok skill territory, as due to the way BP is gained, it is only useful for about half of the duration. After a character uses BP, they don’t gain any for the next turn, and since the max is 5 BP, there can only ever be two turns in a row where you benefit from this, and depending on support skills, the maximum benefit a character can get from this ability is an additional 4 – 6 BP. Now there is a Merchant skill that can give another character 4 BP instantly for the exact same cost. The rest of the skills range from decent but situational to worse versions of other job skills, and remember, Starseer is a secret job, meaning you don’t start with access to it, all the abilities are relatively expensive, and you have to fight a boss to unlock it. Continuing to a decent but situational skill is one that can target either enemies or allies, and prevents all stat buffs from being able to be applied to an enemy or prevents all stat debuffs from being able to be applied to an ally. If you know the enemy is a type to be able to apply either, this can be helpful if you can time it properly. The other skills of the job are mostly more expensive and / or worse versions of skills that other jobs have. From dealing multiple types of damage (worse than just 1 in 95% of cases) to healing over time (enemy’s damage considerably outpaces the healing it provides) to a counter that doesn’t prevent the damage like its counterpart, pretty much every active skill they have is disappointing.

I ran out of steam on that last paragraph, and stopped writing this for about 3 months, so I’ll just get one last point in. There are actually a lot of mechanics in the game that are kind of complicated, but since this game is about oversimplification, much of the most important nuance that the game actually has is hidden from the player. There are a ton of little bits of information that would make decision making in the game so much easier, but because the game refuses to display them, there’s a lot of guesswork. In some cases, this hidden information is obfuscating mechanics that subvert player expectations, so what they thought was an easy decision should actually be harder. The following is a non-comprehensive list of some of the worst offenders of hiding information in my opinion. The stat nuts, which raise character stats permanently, give different amounts of their stat depending on which character eats it. Moves that hit a random amount of times ignore all bonuses and penalties to accuracy and evasion. Items that reduce damage or recover HP/SP don’t say by how much, or whether it is percentage or a flat number. Healing skills scale with the caster’s elemental defense. What makes these and similar mechanics the most annoying is that there are some skills that do list exact numbers or percentages for their effects, so it is inconsistent too.

I will end this now and hopefully I covered everything I meant to. A lot of this was thought up while mowing the lawn or laying in bed trying to get to sleep so if something was lost in the recesses of my mind that’s unfortunate. I hope whoever made it all the way down here enjoyed reading, or at least thought it was interesting, and feel free to reach out to me if you’d like to hear more.

#Octopath Traveler #game mechanics

[tokupedia]

Japan World Heroes II Day One Part 3: Double Reds and Hollywood Kaiju Men

Unfortunately, most of my photos of the Double Red panel were either blurry or unable to be loaded and had to be deleted as corrupted files. They suffered the same fate as the time I encountered the beautiful Cadillac Sixteen concept car at the Pittsburgh Auto Show years ago, a digital memory slain by flawed tech. 

I still remember it sitting majestically on a black marble pedestal with soft running water surrounding it, its massive V16 1,000 HP engine purring like a panthress. All the while envious of the guy who got to drive it up to its elegant stone display. But as they say online: pics or it didn’t happen. (even if it did). Sorry, just went on a tangent. Back onto it...

Nevertheless, it was a lighter panel in details than the others from having two guests at the same time (Mr. Sainei and Mr. McLaren). Mr. McLaren (Jack aka SPD Red), stated he was surprised by how DekaPink would take baths when watching a few episodes of Dekaranger in preparation for his role, something like that would never work in the USA. Both of them talked about Koichi Sakamoto briefly and how influential he is on both sides of the Pacific in toku media. They then did a discussion of the Japanese dub of Power Rangers SPD. Mr. Sainei said that he admired Mr. McLaren’s dreadlocks, which was a non existent hairstyle among the Japanese until SPD came along according to him and has since gained small popularity among eastern Sentai fans (that certainly explains Leo in Zyuohger). 

Mr. Sainei says he has the dub of SPD to thank for how Ban is portrayed post-series, as he made his character more calm and mature after doing Jack’s dub voice and finding it was also more reserved and calm than Ban was. Ban’s character is meant to be an upstanding police officer first and a superhero second, using the law to uphold the peace and act on instinct. He also confirmed that any Deka vs. Sentai films are alternate realities that do not fit the Dekaranger or Super Sentai show canon. 

Mr. Sainei said he first got into Super Sentai with Changeman as a child, though he admitted he wanted to grow up to be a pro wrestler when he was a kid. 

Mr. McLaren initially turned down the role of Jack twice so he could star on an ABC show called The Date. The network hated the show and it was doomed from the start, so finally Mr. McLaren accepted the role of a Red Ranger in a Disney backed Power Rangers show. 

Mr. Sainei revealed that to this day in Japanese fan polls, Dekaranger is second only to Shinkenger in terms of popular Heisei Super Sentai shows. This is why the show gets spinoffs long past its original airing such as the Space Squad movies. He also confirmed there are no new Space Squad projects planned at this time or ever unless Toei says otherwise in the future. Mr. McLaren said his agent hasn’t contacted him about the Battle for the Grid video game when asked if he would be in it and if he hasn’t heard of it, he isn’t in it. Mr. McLaren ended the panel by saying that Power Rangers was challenging to work on as you had to build a relationship with the cast over a year and Ryuji Sainei agreed that is the hardest part, especially when starting out.

We got to see Ryuji do his DekaRed morph, but Mr. McLaren left as he had to get back to Hollywood for work.

Up next were the suit stars of the recent Godzilla: King of the Monsters film. I am ashamed to admit I faded in and out during this one from hunger (mmmm...In-N-Out). 

T.J. Storm was so much of a G-Fan that it resonated from the room. Despite the film’s critical failure, he knows true Godzilla fans loved it from talking to them and that is all that matters to him as he doesn’t care what others think. And he joked that Godzilla loves to take long naps until he’s needed (can’t say I blame the King, he’s almost 70.) 

T.J also said that he doesn’t do his role “professionally”, you are basically a man trying to be a kid again and pretending to be a city crushing dinosaur for fun, that is why he loves his job. He, Richard Dorton, Alan Maxson, and Jason Liles then briefly demonstrated what its like to do motion capture without the suits, with the normally sweet and friendly Mr. Storm getting into character and letting out a terrifying growl and roar.

T.J. also revealed what I posted earlier about his roles and a bit more, he was Rocket Racoon! Apparently he stopped working for Marvel when they refused to credit him for their projects. He and the others are loyal to Legendary Godzilla for their director of the recent film, who demanded the studio give his mo-cap workers credit and they did eventually get it. So happy endings there. They are also working for Netflix, because again, they are actually credited for their work and treated fairly. 

T.J. then told the audience he is an advocate for mo-cap suit actors such as himself and the great Andy Serkis and stuntmen to be recognized at the Oscars, as elites often ignore their efforts for arthouse films in an era where superhero films and action movies are keeping Hollywood afloat financially in terms of the market share of cinema. I asked Mr. Storm how it felt to be part of a 65 year legacy and to follow in the footsteps of people like Haruo Nakajima.

He said he was humbled by it, and he feels he can never fully fill in Nakajima-san’s shoes, but he will always do his best for the fans. He has been a Godzilla and kaiju fan since he was 4 years old when his father took him to the movies to see Godzilla vs Hedorah (Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster), so becoming a thing from his childhood means the world to him. 

Sent my mother home after that when she asked for an Uber taxi as she was bored and hungry. I was a bit peckish myself, but endured for the next panel.

#godzilla #t.j. storm #dekaranger #power rangers spd #super sentai #power rangers #motion capture #japan world heroes #convention #tokusatsu #dekared #spd red ranger #kaiju

[starry-sky-1]

Jungkook's little adventure

Spinoff of this lovely series by @lil-meow-meow-goes-rawr who let me do this!!!! Lotso love to her and kookie who I couldn't resist writing uwu.

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“JK, JK wake up” Seokjin sighed as he shook the human bundle of blankets for the umpteenth time. The little Hatsune Miku figurine alarm clock on the bedside table chimed a dainty 8:30 am as the bundle in question groaned and shriveled into a tighter ball.

Seokjin stood, arms akimbo, and pursed his lips. “Yah! Jungkook-ah you have to wake up or did you forget its your turn to bring the groceries today? Its your free day so I understand you were up playing Overwatch till 3 am but breakfast is getting cold. I made hash browns with eggs benedict and that bread you’re fond of.We even have Banana Milk.”

Hearing about banana milk, the bundle rumbled and sat up, a head popping out of its recesses like a bunny, puffy doe eyes that were closed, revealed a mop of fluffy hair, sticking up in all directions as Jungkook let out a cute yawn before rolling on the other side and getting up, stubbing his toe in the process.

The shock of pain, made him wince and his eyes flew open, clutching the now sensitive toe in his hand.

“Ow, Ow, OW”

The elder had an amused smile on his face as he watched the entire scene unfold.

“Sometimes I wonder how you’re related to me Jungkook-ah, a graceful, beautiful human like me, sculpted by the finest, who ladies die over, and then there’s you.”

“Way to boost my confidence, hyung” He muttered and grasped his spectacles, promptly putting them on. “I’ll meet you down in 15 minutes.”

Seokjin nodded and moved to the door, kicking a one piece themed sweatpants pair that was lying on the floor for god knows how long and shut the door behind him.

Jungkook stretched, cracking his bones and made his way over to the ensuite bathroom, both brothers had their rooms connected , in a small apartment unit above the bar.

He made his way down to see Seokjin on a call, recently they had been getting quite a number of assignments. The aloof bartender was a former secret service agent and one of the finest in the nation. He knew and dealt with secrets, disillusioned by bureaucracy and corruption, leaving after finishing one of the most difficult assignments ever with him as the only survivor.

“Yes Yoongi I’ll be more than happy to babysit the squirt as you and Hoseok plummet yourself into another dangerous mission, I mean wasn’t Mist enough for you?”

Ahh Mist, that brought back some memories, quite the adventure.

Jungkook scarfed the meal on the table, marvelling at his hyung’s cooking, the meals he cooked could make him a celebrity chef and yet here he was, dealing with dangerous stuff.

“To each his own I guess” he muttered and rinsed his plate, putting it in the right place before moving to the coatstand, his trusty hooded jacket would be perfect for the crisp nip in the air. He shuffled his shoes on and went down, deciding to explore the city a bit before he would fetch groceries and then munch on snacks as he played Overwatch again, he had a score to settle with NoobMaster96.

Patting his pockets, he checked his phone, keys and wallet before making his way downtown. October would be here soon and the parks would be full of leaves in various shades of reds, oranges.He loved those.

The public park was near the older market with a lot of old shops who sold stuff the traditional way, he found the square market to be too boisterous, the stores too fancy with their automatic doors, self checkouts, the crowd too predictable. He would rather source his seaweed chips and ramyun packets from the old lady who would almost always mistake him for her grandson and give him a mangatteok whenever he dropped by.

Speaking of ramyun, he was running low on his nutrition source with cans of energy drink, that’s how he survived those gruesome matches and lived to tell the tale.

He was just rounding the corner near the store, when a police car caught his attention, the small group of people gathering near it obstructed his view from what was happening. He slipped his hood on and slipped into the gathering with practiced ease and noticed his old lady angrily ranting off to two policemen who he knew very well.

Jimin had on a strained smile as he tried to ease the temper of the lady while Taehyung stood flabbergasted, asking questions to an old man who answered them. He turned on his heel and looked at the crowd when his eyes landed at an all too familiar face. Jungkook ducked, having been caught by Tae who flashed him his signature boxy grin and walked towards him, swiftly pulling him out causing Jungkook to squawk.

“Well, well, well if it isn’t my favourite Dongsaeng” he said.

“I’m the only dongsaeng you know from school, hyung” Jungkook pouted as Tae ruffled his hair, causing his cowlick to stand once again which he had spent a lot of time setting.

Jimin noticed Jungkook and pinched his cheek, smiling his infamous eye smile “Still as grumpy as ever.”

“And you’re still as short as ever.”

Jimin’s smile dropped while Tae guffawed and slapped him on the back. Jimin kicked Tae’s shin and then smacked Jungkook’s neck causing the younger to cry out in indignance.

“Yah! Is this how you talk to your hyung after everything we’ve done for you, brat?”

Jungkook gave him a mischievous smirk and rolled his shoulders.

The crowd had begun to disperse and it was then he turned to look at his allies slash friends and asked them what was with the crowd?

Tae looked at him and sighed, “Recently there have been a lot of petty theft incidents here by individuals dressed in all black with helmets or masks and riding gloves. They snatch handbags, briefcases, anything that they can land their hands on. Moreover we can’t ID them as they have blurred their motorcycle number plates and move on a very common design, the physical build is also more or less the same so we can’t say if it’s a single person or a group.”

Suddenly his eyes shone and his grin came back, Jungkook knew that look all too well.

“No Hyung, I am not helping you in this case again, I have to defeat NoobMaster96” He whined.

“Consider it payment for helping your eccentric psychopath friend and his cute ward. Oho she’s too adorable for her own good.”

Jimin added “The coverup alone took us so much time, we hardly slept for a month and it almost cost us our current titles. I NEVER want to work on the desk again” He said with a shudder.

Jungkook nibbled on his lower lip, On one hand he knew he was obligated to help Hoseok hyung and Yana, who he considered his own little sister, on the other hand he still had to game…….

“Fineeeeee” he replied, huffing.

“I knew if there was anyone who could help us, it would be our dear little Kookie” Tae chimed and Jimin smiled as well, highfiving his partner.

“But I need the details you have, the police files and access to the traffic security cameras”

“Consider it done”

“And I want 5 packets of chili ramyeon and nori chips as thanks”

“Whaaaa”

“Don’t question him, Jimin, and done.”

Jungkook moved to their car and Tae fetched a brown paper bag with the words confidential written on it.

“Now lets move to someplace less public and discuss with fewer ears” Jimin suggested and both nodded and followed him to a cafe owned by an ex policeman.

The little bell chimed as they entered and the owner flashed the 2 detectives a toothy smile as he continued to wipe a mug in his hand. They moved to the little private cabin which he held for “special” customers and took a seat. Jimin and Tae knew it was soundproof on the inside meaning no noise from the cabin would go out but they could hear everything on the outside clearly.

Jungkook spread the files on the table and quickly went over them, clicking a few pictures of evidence on his phone, whose camera he had upgraded to give better resolutions. Taking pictures of the suspects from the traffic cameras, he placed them back into the folder.

“I’ve sent you a link that would help you get into the mainframe. I hope you know the drill. Do NOT leave any evidence of your presence, you know SPD’s IT team is getting better at tracking illegal hacking or data hostage attempts.”

The younger only rolled his eyes when there was a knock on the door. Jimin tapped in confirmation and the owner came in, placing two cups of cappucinos for the boys and a hot chocolate for him, closing the door on his way out.

They discussed more details as they took their respective drinks and Tae told him he’d told the owner to bring hot chocolate for him since he knew that Jungkook couldn’t stand the strong taste at all.

Jungkook remembered he had to get groceries and once finished, Tae and Jimin helped him fetch stuff from the aisles at the next door mart and told him they’d drop him off before going back to the station to “work”. He whined when they did not get his snacks telling him that would be his reward if he could give them the missing link to the case and close it.

Clutching the full bags, Jungkook managed to balance them as he slid his key in and went inside. The lights were off which meant Seokjin was out and should be back soon to prepare for opening the bar.

He deposited them on the kitchen counter, placing the perishables in the fridge and moved to his room, opening his laptop as he decided to copy the data from his phone. Maybe Namjoon hyung could give him an insight on this? Ahh no he’s busy so he mustn’t be bothered.

Jin returned and noticed that Jungkook was home a little earlier than usual. The boy would never drop in before 8 pm, just in time for dinner on his days off. So it was surprising to see him back so soon.

He knocked on his door “JK, did you have lunch?” the boy didn’t respond. Jin knocked louder this time. Jungkook fumbled with his headphones and peeped from the door.

“Yes?”

“I asked if you had eaten lunch yet?”

“I had a cup of hot chocolate”

“Yah! That doesn’t count as lunch! I’m making fried rice, come down in 10, irrespective of what you’re working on” Jin said, motioning to the laptop and the wires attached to his phone.

Jungkook swiftly nodded and closed the door, resuming the transfer of data as he waited. He checked his phone for messages, finding none. Of course who would message him, he smiled ruefully before checking progress of the tapes downloading in his system.

As soon as there was a single minute left to 3:10 pm, he went down in the kitchen, just in time to see Jin plating 2 servings, his being smaller than what he had poured for the younger one.

The smell was heavenly and before he knew it, the plate was wiped clean. Jungkook rose to put them in the washer but Jin shook his head.

“You have homework, right kiddo? Don’t worry hyung will handle it”

Jungkook smiled at him brightly before running upstairs, almost tripping on his feet before he plopped himself on his table again, working on a short code that would narrow his search to the bikes of the model, the perpetrators used. It would limit his view time to 5 hours. Something he was sure he could manage. He carefully scanned the now shortened footage and noticed that the perpetrators would always, exclusively be downtown. It was as if they knew their chances of escaping were better there. He also noticed how they seemed to know where to go, irrespective of whether they were on foot or bike. The alleys where the cameras could not record their further movement. Also not a sliver of skin was exposed so nothing could be said about their build, complexion or looks, even gender. All the footage looked the same.

He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing his glasses up, there was no clue, how could he help Jimin and Tae, when suddenly one of the bikes went too close to the pole. Jungkook narrowed his eyes and played the footage again. On the back of the bike was an imperceptible symbol, which he enlarged and screenshot.

One thing that he understood was that the perpetrator(s) had a good idea of the alleys, secondly they knew how to conceal their identity well so it would be physically impossible to identify them, thirdly they chose their victims randomly and finally another bike had yellow paint on its tires, from the footage of a day ago, the one with the old woman whose bag was stolen.

Jungkook knew that there was renovation going on in the eastern part which meant that atleast one of them had entered via Incheon.

He zoomed the footage as he spotted a man push the woman and snatched her bag in broad daylight as he sped off, the old woman screaming at him, which caused the few shopkeepers around to come out. Jungkook noticed that this bike was devoid of the same symbol but had another one in the same design.

He searched them and discovered 2 numbers, in a snake font, 13 and 55.

Weird!

He quickly overlooked the dates of the events and discovered that the dates were in fact a sequence! Running them through the algorithm detector he found that they were Fibonacci numbers and the

snake fonts actually represented their positioning on the cartesian plane.

He had heard Hoseok talk about a gang in town, slowly acquiring power through meticulous attacks, they hadn’t done anything severe, but their attacks were random enough to confuse the police. To make matters worse nobody knew of their arrival or departure, they chose less populated areas to target and left no evidence behind.

Putting the dates in sequence, Jungkook knew when the next attack would take place, coincidentally it was a free day for him as well. It wouldn’t hurt to give a little tip off to the detectives.

The only problem was how to confirm his suspicions, what if he was wrong? He couldn’t afford to let down another of the residents at downtown or undermine what was at stake for Tae and Jimin. He knew the pattern of such gangs all too well, it would slowly evolve to bigger crimes including shootouts and murders once they’d amassed enough power and terrorised the locals. It was an ugly spiral in the Criminal Underworld.

It was almost 11 pm by the time he had finished. Shoot! Just on time his stomach rumbled as well. He hadn’t had anything since lunch. He padded downstairs, knowing Jin would be at the bar but he’d chew his head off the next day for ignoring dinner. There was a plate of samgyeopsal with rice and clear soup, left for him. Jungkook felt a rush of affection for his step brother rise in his heart, who took care of him more like a parent than a sibling, never once questioning when he was dumped at his door out of nowhere and readily gave him a roof to live in and made sure all his needs were fulfilled.

He sat and ate dinner in silence and cleaned the kitchen up before wiping the table. Jin rarely let him in the bar, being fiercely protective of the younger one, wanting him to live as normally as possible.

He shut the lights and formulated a plan in his head. Oh he couldn’t wait to see it all unfold.

The D day had Jungkook nervous as hell, Tae had bombarded him with questions all week about his progress but Jungkook said it was difficult with lack of data but nonetheless sent him the designs on the 2 bikes just to not rouse his suspicions too much. They had thankfully bought the little lie and were busy running for matches through their databases.

He waited at the eastern end on his bike which he had borrowed from Yoongi, the sleek model was very flexible for driving in narrower lanes or taking sharp turns. The only condition was that he had to hack into some company’s financial statements, an easy job.

Hiding in the alleyway, he waited until it was just a few people out on the streets. If his calculations were correct, there would be an incident any time now. His notice turned to one of the shops in his direct line of vision, A girl with curly hair, sunkissed skin exit the cafe where had been the last week.

She had long, pretty legs clad in a pair of skinfit jeans and a white blouse tied in a knot above the highwaist as she put her slingbag around her and moved. He spotted movement on the peripheral of his vision.

Bingo! There were 2 people on the bike this time, heading straight for the woman who now had her headphones on, moving to whatever beat it played. Jungkook revved his own and gave chase right as one of them broke the bag from its sling and ran, clutching it tightly.

She screamed and gave chase, but wasn’t as fast enough as the person. Jungkook knew he’d take the alley with limited access to the traffic camera and his friend would be there, taking a quick shortcut he locked the bike and hid in the thick shadows knowing the person would be there anytime soon, as his friend waited at the other end.

The person came in, huffing as the outfit proved too much for the weather. Jungkook pounced on them, taking them down in a tangle of limbs as he subdued them. Their partner long gone when they realised that the ally had been subdued. He took the helmet off to reveal a young man with a nasty scar across his eye.This wasn’t an injury, no it was a deliberate slash. Quickly he found some spare plastic ties near the dumpbox and tied the man down. He dragged him over to the main footpath and saw the girl jogging up to him.She was even prettier up close and he blushed a bit. He dialed Tae and said

“Hyung, I have a certain present for you, come down quick” as he gave him his coordinates.

Taehyung cursed and kicked the table as his partner raised an eyebrow in question.

“That damn brat” was all he said before nudging Jimin into the car, speeding off.

Jungkook dusted the bag and gave it to the girl who muttered a “thank you”. Heck even her accent was cute and her voice had a lilt to it.

Before he could say something, the siren indicated that they were here. He looked down at the bound man who was glaring daggers at him.

Jimin stepped out first looking at Jungkook and then the man. “why am I not surprised? Of course you would throw yourself in harm’s way with 0 afterthought, Seokjin would have our skins as doormats if anything happened to you,brat.”

Taehyung looked at the man, amused.

“Can’t believe a kid took you down and those are some good knots, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re into some hardcore Shibari shit, Jungkook-ah”

Jungkook only reddened in response as the girl smirked at him.

Taehyung then looked at her and asked if they could ask her a few questions, she was free to go then. She nodded in assent and answered them, truthfully as Jungkook watched in rapt attention.

Jimin noticed and winked at him, wiggling his eyebrows, making Jungkook squeak and turn his head.

The detectives, satisfied thanked Jungkook after taking his statement as well.

“We’ll get all from him, but kiddo, next time you pull a stunt like this, do give us a call before jumping blindly, what if the other man was armed? and do mail us all the evidence you found, your ramyun and chips will be at your door by evening”

He smiled and waved them off before realising the girl was still there.

“So how does coffee sound?”

“Truthfully, Yakult is better than coffee, coffee is too strong for my nose” he replied, tapping his nose and shrugging. He looked at his watch.

“Oh dang I’m late for lunch again, hyung’s going to break my legs but I don’t need to buy snacks now so yess” he mumbled to himself.

The girl shook her head in amusement.

“I-I gotta run, have a nice day.Be safe” he bowed to her before taking off, picking his bike up and speeding his way over to home. Oh he was so dead today!

OMAKE

“You mean she asked me out on a date and I messed it up?” Jungkook groaned as Seokjin burst into laughter at his obliviousness.

Maybe he could spot her next time he was in downtown? It wouldn’t hurt to have her number. He flopped on the bed groaning and cursing. Atleast his Miku chan was still by his bedside to cheer him.

The End!

#btsau #bts friendship #bts fluff #bts fic #bts jhope #bts jimin #bts jin #bts taehyung #bts jungkook #hackerkook #fluff #jungkook is a baby #uwu

[cristinablackthornkingson]

It’s only Tuesday and I’m having a terrible week.

Fuck me it’s only Tuesday and already I’ve had such a fucking shitty week. To start off with I’m not entitled to a medical card, which will allow me to visit my doctor for free and only pay about 2 euro per item for anything I buy on prescription. I have multiple physical and mental disabilities but because I’m 20 and young, I’m not entitled to disability, they say I can be trained because I’m young, despite the fact that I can’t be in loud crowded places because of my SPD and I can’t stand for long periods of time without being in total agony because of my scoliosis. I am entitled to free GP visits at least, but still. I didn’t get the flu shot this year because I couldn’t fucking afford it, and then I ended up catching the flu and was really sick for about a week, I had to spend 50 euro to see my doctor and then spend 25 euro on medication and I only get 112 euro a week, I’m not entitled to the full dole/unemployment because I’m under 25. So apparently 112 euro is too much for someone to have free medical care and free prescriptions. I’m late on my period for the first time in the 10 years I’ve been having them, what if something is wrong and I need treatment? I won’t be able to afford that, no way in hell. I had plans to work through my fear of surgery in therapy, so once I got my medical card I could maybe get top surgery at some stage to alleviate my dysphoria, I am so sick of not being able to look in the mirror without feeling physically ill and inherently wrong. I was hoping my doctor would refer me to a specialist and I could get a brace for my back, the medical card would have payed for that, but I absolutely cannot afford that now. 

Then to put the cherry on the cake, I’ve been having issues at work for months, since I started. I’m a volunteer and the people I work for are the biggest cunts I have ever had the misfortune to meet. They are extreme staunch Christians who expect you to pay a swear jar at work if you say ‘God’ or any variation of that (take the Lord’s name in vain, but he’s not THE Lord, he’s your Lord and you cannot force me to not say his name in vain, if you don’t want to that’s fine, but I don’t believe in God so taking his name in vain means nothing to me) they expect customers to not take the lord’s name in vain in the shop, they are extremely dismissive of customers and extremely rude to customers of color. They can be nice to white people, but if they’re talking to POC, they’re so fucking rude to them, it sickens me. It’s no wonder nothing fucking sells. 

One day a few weeks ago when I wasn’t needed out the back, I sat out the front at the cash register to try and get some experience in and see if I remembered what my co-worker had taught me. I couldn’t get the hang of it but it was not a big deal at all, nobody lost money or anything like that, I had someone else with me to help me when i couldn’t get it..

The next day I was sorting through the clothes like I always do and one of my bosses (I work for a married couple, a man and a woman)  basically told me not to go behind the tills or around the tills anymore, now this guy wasn’t there the day before, so his wife obviously squealed on me to him, imagine being a maybe 40 something year old woman, squealing to her husband on your 20 year volunteer because they couldn’t work the till perfectly the first go, pathetic.  He then also told me that he knows I need to sit down a lot (which is true, like I said because of my back I can’t stand for long periods of time) but then proceeded to tell me to ‘Go for a walk’ when I needed to instead of sitting down out the back, he told me to go to the benches at the back of the shopping center the shop is located in. This is they guy who told me he needs to know where I am at all times. I left work early at one stage because I was having awful period pains, two co-workers saw me go and so did this guy, but when I came in on Monday after that, he told me I disappeared didn’t tell him I was leaving. The only other possible explanation was that he meant I went to the toilet for 5 minutes the other day, without telling him. I’m sorry man, but I was in agony and I needed to check if I was bleeding heavily because I didn’t have any clean pads with me, so I would have needed to go home straight away if I was bleeding lots.

Then yesterday, we got two bags of clothes donated, I took it upon myself as most of us do, to take them out of the bag, check they were clean, label them and write the size on them so all that was left for the bosses to do was price them. Well there was no room to hang these clothes up so I thought ‘Okay well I’ll label them and everything anyway and then put them back in the bag, that way whenever there is space we just need to take them out, put them on hangers and hang them up’. Well when my boss (the woman, we’ll call her Boss 1 from now on) saw this, she told me I couldn’t be taking clothes out of bags and putting them back in. ???? Why??? They would have been lying there anyway, it’s not like they were taking up any room, I took initiative,I did you a favor. 

Another thing, before I get into the last part, is on my first day I was told to hang my coat and bag in the little toilet area beside the stairs leading up to the attic. I did, and I did the same the next day, but then they told me not to leave them in there because customers sometimes go in there to try stuff on and might steal from me. Right okay, so I would leave my coat and bag in the back. Well I got told not to do that today, I was told to put my coat in the toilet area, so I did. But then when I went to look for my bag when I was leaving, it wasn’t where I left it nor was it in the toilet area, I was starting to freak out because my purse was in my bag. Thankfully I found it a few seconds later, under a chair where it was more in the way than it was where I had initially put it. Those bastards had the audacity to take MY property and MY stuff and move it without telling me, to where it could easily be mistaken for a donation and sold on me. 

And what really topped it all off was what happened today.

I go into work this morning and at first everything is fine, I do my usual tidying of the clothes, and once that’s done I go out the back to see what needs to be done there. While I’m there my co-worker asks if I’ve seen the pricing gun, as it’s gone missing. I say no I haven’t, and have a look around for it myself, can’t see it.Then boss 1 comes in and asks my co-worker ‘Does Michelle know where the gun is?’ my co-worker says no, and Boss 1 asks me where I left it yesterday when I had priced clothes. I told her where I left it and she basically blamed me for loosing it, telling me that I had to put it back in the drawer where we keep other stationary (Nobody ever does that we just leave it on the work top, and I highly doubt I was the last to use it yesterday seeing as I finished at 2 and the shop shuts at 5) Boss 1 kept saying how those guns aren’t cheap and cost upward of 30 euro, i’m surprised she didn’t demand I pay for a new one. 

Then I was pricing some toys that were donated, and when Boss 1 saw me doing this, instead of just calmly and gently explaining there’s no more room for toys on the shop floor, she was very aggressive and rude about it, practically yelling at me, saying things like ‘No! No more toys I’ve no more room!’ Right okay bitch, you could have just said that like a normal person. 

And then I was looking for something to do, I’m someone who always takes initiative, that’s why I was sorting through the toys. So I was looking around me to see what I could do, when Boss 1 tells me if I’m going to be there I need to do something. Then I was practically banned from the back room because it was so packed, but my other two co-workers were allowed in there no problem. That’s where I dew the line and just gave up and went home. I give them my effort and my time, I pour my blood, sweat and tears into that work, I am physically disabled so the work is no easy feat for me, but I do it anyway because I like to be busy and I want to help those in need, but I just get it thrown right back in my face. 

I am a young, trans, gay person, I do not feel safe among these religious nut jobs, I feel forced back into the closet. I started my transition recently, I’m transitioning into a more androgynous look, I cut all my hair off and I started binding with sports bras until I can get a real binder and then surgery. Yesterday was the first day I went into work presenting agender, and man I was so, so scared, I felt sick and almost had a panic attack because I didn’t know how they would react. They didn’t say anything to my surprise, but fuck I was so, so scared, I haven’t felt that kind of anxiety in a long, long time, years. I refuse to feel afraid to be who I am. These ‘People’ are so evil and nasty and the least compassionate people I have ever met in all my life, and I hope everyone realizes exactly who and what they are, fuck them 100 times over, they are such awful, awful people and I hope they get their comeuppance. 

#bad boss #volunteer #anxeity #agender #non-binary #trans pride #transphobes #christian religion #transition #medical care #money #disabled #autisim #vaccines work #scoliosis #rant over #rant and rave #rant alert

[berniesrevolution]

JACOBIN MAGAZINE

For all its economic might, Germany’s main centrist parties are in crisis. If barely a decade ago the Christian Democrats (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD) conquered over three-quarters of the vote, in polling today they represent under half of the electorate. But as the main parties lose their hold over Germans, the Left does not seem well-placed to take advantage. The Die Linke party formed by postcommunists and a split from the SPD in 2007 has secured a respectable vote nationally and at the regional level, becoming the country’s fourth-largest political force, and yet has consistently failed to rise above 10 percent of the vote. Indeed, the real upstarts in German politics today are the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, the first such party to reach parliament since 1952) and the liberal-ecologist Green Party.

Seeking to break out of this strategic impasse, some leading figures in Die Linke have created a new populist movement designed to reinsert the language of class and poverty into German politics and split the AfD’s own base. However, this remains controversial within Die Linke, with figures loyal to party co-chair Katja Kipping accusing Aufstehen’s frontwoman Sahra Wagenknecht of kowtowing to anti-immigration sentiment.

In this second part of an interview originally conducted for Novosti, Jerko Bakotin spoke with researcher Ingar Solty about the decline of social democracy, Die Linke’s strategic dilemma, and the possibility of building a counter-hegemonic force able to challenge for power.

Jerko Bakotin:

The German Social Democrats (SPD) are at a historic low. The Greens are on the rise, but critics claim that this is now a solidly pro-business party. And to their left, Die Linke is unable to break into double figures in the polls. If there has often been talk of a future “red-red-green” government uniting all three parties, this is today arithmetically impossible. So how would you describe the Left’s perspectives today?

INGAR SOLTY:

Ever since the creation of Die Linke [in 2007, uniting the postcommunist Party of Democratic Socialism with a split from the SPD] the spoken or unspoken aim of the German left was to create an anti-neoliberal reform government together with the Greens and SPD. If for these other parties forming a government is itself the end goal, for Die Linke this would be what Rosa Luxemburg called a transitional goal of revolutionary realpolitik. That is, a move that improved conditions in the fight for a postcapitalist society. Such a coalition would of course require that the SPD broke with its Third Way, market-oriented neoliberal policies; the Greens, similarly, would have to turn away from market-based pseudo-“solutions” to the ecological crisis like carbon emission trading, and indeed their complete surrender to the car industry in the state of Baden-Württemberg, where they are the dominant political force.

Today “red-red-green” is impossible — for political reasons and, with the erosion of social democracy and the rise of the far right, even arithmetically. The SPD is incapable of renewing itself. Its leaders simply cannot turn around and say “Look, everything we ourselves did since at least 2002 was a total mistake and we will have to undo everything that we have done ever since.”

Yet while they cannot say this, doing so — and following up on it with concrete policies significantly improving workers’ lives — is a necessary step toward regaining some credibility.

Jerko Bakotin:

What chance is there for a radical shift within the SPD, like in the cases of Jeremy Corbyn’sLabour Party or indeed Bernie Sanders’s 2016 primary campaign?

INGAR SOLTY:

There are no such leaders on the horizon — and there will not be a Sanders or Corbyn within the SPD. This first owes to Germany’s different political economy. In the US and UK we see deindustrialization, the decline of labor unions, and tuition fees being offloaded onto workers, whereas Germany still does have a strong industrial base with relatively strong labor unions. Taken together with the existence of a vocational training system for manual laborers and the fact that higher education for intellectual workers is tuition-free, these factors still guarantee “middle class” status for a significant share of the professional working class. This major difference makes the US and Great Britain politically more comparable to Spain, Italy, even Greece and Portugal, in the sense that while in all those countries, the erosion of the working “middle“ classes is already a fact; in Germany it is merely feared.

It seems that real immiseration facilitates left-wing responses, whereas the fear of immiseration produces conditions for right-wing ones. And that’s why, so far, the richer, more industrialized northern European countries have seen the far right benefitting more from the global financial and eurozone crisis than the Left, while the opposite is true in the European Union’s (southern) periphery, in Britain and, at least potentially, in the US, where Sanders would probably have won against Trump, had it not been for the Democratic establishment’s machinations, and in Britain where we’re close to a Corbyn government. (Italy could be a counterargument to this thesis, but the Five Star Movement predominantly received its votes with left-wing demands and from former left-wing voters.)

The second reason why there is not going to be a Sanders or Corbyn type in the SPD is that it has been in government for sixteen of the last twenty years. Germany has proportional representation instead of a US- or UK-style first-past-the-post electoral system, and this has allowed smaller, more consistently left-wing parties like Die Linke to establish themselves electorally. For sure, there are still some really well-meaning social-democratic leftists inside the union movement and even the SPD’s formally independent Friedrich Ebert Foundation and such like, but all the Corbyn and Sanders-types were already shed to Die Linke years ago.

There are no left-wing backbenchers in the SPD like Corbyn in Britain, who voted against pretty much everything New Labour did, in domestic as well as foreign policy. If some did remain, they left recently, like Marco Bülow, who described himself as completely isolated among SPD parliamentarians, or the young party intellectual Nils Heisterhagen who was ousted from his position after he had demanded a stronger class-based political orientation in his book The Liberal Illusion. And of course, what kind of sane anti-neoliberal and peace-oriented leftist would have joined or stuck with a hawkish neoliberal and imperialist SPD even over the last twenty years?

All the new cadres the SPD has attracted over that period have an utterly technocratic understanding of politics. While the ongoing class war from above demands massive social mobilizations from below, akin to the yellow vest protests in France or the kind of movements that Bernie Sanders is promoting, these SPD leaders do not know any form of politics other than working pragmatically within institutions that have long turned against the interests of their party’s former working-class base. They do not know how to do anything except governing under and with the powers-that-be. There is no reason to take cheer from this; the erosion of social democracy is a tragedy, because it is largely the far right and not the Left filling the vacuum.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #jacobin #jacobin magazine #germany #german politics

[serrosotext1983-blog]

At low levels, (2), the Conjuration wizard has the exceedingly useful ability "Minor Conjuration" that essentially allows you to conjure up a copy of any small object you have seen in your hand. The key hanging off that guard belt? No problem. A very specific piece of treasure that the angry dragon REALLY wants but you left at home? "Here it is, your eternal flame ness!" Conjuration isn just about summoning demons, either; lots of Conjuration spells do simple damage or have lots of other fun effects. I like the too faced hangover rx one, i don use a moisturizer with it tho so I not sure how it would lay on top of one. I think i read once somewhere that moisturizer takes at least 15 minutes to sink into your skin effectively so I been doing that for like ever but if it doesn look right when you let the eye cream dry down then I at a loss. On a totally different note, have you tried switching blending tools? Like if you normally use a sponge, try a brush or vise versa? It so frustrating to pay a chunk of money for a concealer or product that only looks good once.. Most resources about this are aimed at kids, but there a book called "making sense" which is written by an adult with SPD and is a great resource. This can look pretty different for different people, but one of the ways this shows up is as sensory seeking: you look for specific sensory inputs to feel calm or ok. (the above book has a great table with more info about this.) there nothing 속초출장마사지 wrong with this 속초출장마사지 as long as they aren harmful behaviors, but you distinguishing the difference really clearly in your post already, so you on top of that.. "My practice has extended recently to the Continent," said Holmes, after a while, filling up his old brier root pipe. "I was consulted last week by Francois Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He has all the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher developments of his art. I learned real quick not to put too much decorations in your office/on your desk. Nothing worse than having to ask for another box help being escorted to your car since you not allowed back for a second trip. You wanna box the crap leave quickly with only one box your bag.. So I in an eerily similar situation. My brother in law committed suicide in December, and while we told our 7 year old son that his uncle died we haven told him how because we feel he too young to understand. Having gone through the other side of that, do you wish your family had been honest with you from a younger age, or do you appreciate that you found out when you were older? I been trying to figure out how and when to tell him the whole truth (we usually very honest with him about "grown up stuff").. The quest to quell wrinkles around the eyes feeds an entire industry dedicated to developing new and more effective moisturizing products that try to reduce the appearance of fine lines and prevent new ones from forming. Other creams also claim to treat puffiness or dark circles. Because there are so many options available, talking to specialists can be the first place to start when you're considering eye creams.

[brittan9591]

Eavesdropping on the U.S., which is making allies miserable

Since the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the United States has rebuilt its homeland from the ruins. With its unique geographical environment and natural resources, the United States has gradually developed into the most powerful country in the world today.

Not only that, the United States is a country of immigrants, it has no historical baggage, all new things can be accepted, so there are advanced institutions and technologies brought by immigrant elites from all over the world. At the same time, Americans have faith, they advocate equality, freedom, the rule of law, and human rights. They also have excellent social systems, super-first-class supervision, first-class systems, second-class teams, and third-class leaders. They have also experienced long-term In the past hundred years of peace, apart from the War of Independence and the Civil War, the mainland has never encountered wars. The two world wars not only did not affect it, but instead made war fortunes through the world wars... But who would have thought that such a country whose national strength is at the first level and has strong international and military influence would be an "eavesdropper"? In May of this year, Danish media broke the news that the US National Security Agency used its cooperation with Danish intelligence services to monitor leaders and senior officials of European allies, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The incident caused an uproar in European public opinion. And there was an internal investigation code-named "Operation Dunhammer". The report was completed in 2015. An important conclusion was that the US National Security Agency, in cooperation with the Danish Defense Intelligence Agency, purposefully accessed the Danish Internet to Obtaining data to enable eavesdropping on high-level officials in the target country, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, current German President and then German Foreign Minister Steinmeier, then German SPD Chancellor Candidate Steinbrück, and France , Sweden, Norway and other countries leaders. Why is there such a situation? Let's first take a look at what kind of country Denmark is. Denmark is located at the throat of northern Europe, bordering Germany to the south, and Norway and Sweden to the north across the sea. The submarine cable connecting the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and Germany has several key landing stations built in Denmark. Such a country that extends in all directions, "all roads lead to Rome", has such a wealth of information resources, it is simply a piece of fat, it is hard to say that it is not targeted by wolves and hungry tigers like the United States, so the United States wears a surface and shouts "cooperation". "The hypocritical mask, but behind the scenes such a big "little action", using allies to monitor allies. This is the case for close allies, and other countries can imagine! With such a political scandal, how can we talk about trust? Shouldn't close allies be friendly exchanges, mutual benefit and win-win results, and the common prosperity of the country and the people? Such a wave of divine operations simply caught the allies by surprise. It is worth mentioning that in recent years, the true face of the US "eavesdropping empire" has been further exposed. In August 2020, Danish media reported that the U.S. National Security Agency, through the Danish Defense Intelligence Agency, had free access to raw internet data, including the private information of Danish citizens. In November, Danish media reported that the United States had spied on the Danish government and its defense industry, as well as other European defense contractors, to obtain information on the country's aircraft procurement plans. All kinds of "crimes" have once again exposed that the United States does not take any country seriously. In addition to the ugly face that interests are seized, it also insists on its own hegemonic mentality of continuing to monitor European allies to safeguard its own interests. It is indeed a country that has been rebuilt from ruins. , the deep rifts in transatlantic relations will be increasingly difficult to bridge.

[newstfionline]

Saturday, September 25, 2021

Biden Assembles the Quad (Foreign Policy) U.S. President Joe Biden is on a mission to project an image of unity and cohesion with three of the world’s largest economies today as he hosts the leaders of Australia, India, and Japan for a meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—the Quad—at the White House. The summit, the first in-person gathering for the group since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, caps a busy few days of Asia-focused diplomacy for the White House following the agreement of the AUKUS defense pact with Australia and the United Kingdom last week. That focus is underlined by additional one-on-one meetings Biden holds today with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. The summit is expected to conclude with the announcement of several initiatives designed to deepen relations between the four countries including student exchanges alongside plans to counter China’s domination of key industries like semiconductors and 5G networks. China’s reaction to the meeting has echoed the tone it took with AUKUS. Asked about the Quad summit last week, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian decried “exclusive ‘cliques’ targeting other countries” and said the group was “doomed to fail.”

Expensive garbage cans (Mission Local) San Francisco is years into an extremely expensive process of buying new garbage cans, with July seeing the Board of Supervisors vote to spend $427,500 on 15 prototypes for the three possible models of new trash can, with a per-trashcan price tag of $12,000 to $20,000 each. At the end of the day, San Francisco plans to buy 3,300 of the cans, and while the initial goal was to buy $1,000 cans, it’s looking like they might end up paying $5,000 a can. All told, the city will have to spend $6.6 million to $16.5 million on the misbegotten project, the brainchild of a disgraced former city official facing charges of fraud and lying to a federal agent. What’s wild is there are plenty of off-the-shelf models they could have gone with, from the $3,900 Bigbelly to New York’s $632 can, Los Angeles’ $449.51 can, D.C.’s $987 can or even Portland’s $1,851 can.

Migrant camp shrinks on US border as Haitians removed (AP) Haitian migrants waited to learn their fate at a Texas border encampment whose size was dramatically diminished from the almost 15,000 who gathered there just days ago in an effort to seek humanitarian protection in the U.S. but now face expulsion. The administration recently extended protections for more than 100,000 Haitians already in the U.S.—many of whom left their homeland after its devastating 2010 earthquake—citing security concerns and social unrest in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. But it doesn’t apply to new arrivals. Homeland Security said nearly 2,000 Haitians have been rapidly expelled on flights since Sunday under pandemic powers that deny people the chance to seek asylum. About 3,900 were being processed for possible return to Haiti or placement in U.S. immigration court proceedings. Others have been released in the U.S. with notices to appear in court or report to immigration authorities. Thousands have returned to Mexico. Authorities expect the camp will be empty in about two days, according to a U.S. official with direct knowledge who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Sub snub just one symptom of longtime French unease with US (AP) Liberty and Fraternity, yes. Equality, not so much. Born of a revolution fought for liberty, ties between the United States and its oldest ally, France, have long been fraternal, but they’ve also been marked by deep French unease over their equality. French concerns about being the junior partner in the relationship boiled over last week when the U.S., Britain and Australia announced a new security initiative for the Indo-Pacific, aimed at countering a rising China. The AUKUS agreement scuttled a multibillion-dollar submarine deal that France had with Australia, but, more alarmingly for the French, pointedly ignored them, reinforcing a sense of insecurity that has haunted Paris since the end of World War II. France has long bristled at what it sees as Anglo-Saxon arrogance on the global stage and has not been shy about rallying resistance to perceptions of British- and German-speaking dominance in matters ranging from commerce to conflict. Thus the latest affront, AUKUS, resulted in an explosion of ire, with the French loudly protesting and recalling their ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia while shunning the British in an overt manifestation of centuries of rivalry.

German millionaires rush assets to Switzerland ahead of election (Reuters) A potential lurch to the left in Germany’s election on Sunday is scaring millionaires into moving assets into Switzerland, bankers and tax lawyers say. If the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), hard-left Linke and environmentalist Greens come to power, the reintroduction of a wealth tax and a tightening of inheritance tax could be on the political agenda. “For the super-rich, this is red hot,” said a German-based tax lawyer with extensive Swiss operations. “Entrepreneurial families are highly alarmed.” The move shows how many rich people still see Switzerland as an attractive place to park wealth, despite its efforts to abolish its image as a billionaires’ safe haven. No country has more offshore assets than Switzerland and inflows accelerated in 2020, to the benefit of big banks such as UBS, Credit Suisse and Julius Baer. Geopolitical tensions and fears of the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic fallout made Switzerland’s political stability attractive.

Evergrande’s missed payment (Foreign Policy) Chinese property giant Evergrande appeared to miss a deadline to pay interest on part of its mammoth debt on Thursday, prompting fears that the company could soon default, causing ripple effects across the global financial system. Writing in Wednesday’s China Brief, FP’s James Palmer outlined the tricky politics at play for Chinese authorities. “The company appears to be doomed,” Palmer writes. “The question that remains is how much of the Chinese economy it will take down with it, and whether its fate is a symptom of much bigger problems.”

Korean War peace treaty “premature” (Foreign Policy) North Korea has again rejected a call for a formal end to the Korean war, which ended with an armistice agreement in 1953. South Korean President Moon Jae-in made the overture in his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, but on Friday, North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Ri Thae Son said any talk of a peace treaty would be premature so long as “the U.S. hostile policy is not shifted.” North Korea has so far ignored U.S. negotiation efforts, although Moon speculated that the country “is still weighing options while keeping the door open for talks,” citing the relatively low-level provocations Pyongyang has tried since Biden became president.

Taliban official: Strict punishment, executions will return (AP) One of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan said the hard-line movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public. In an interview with The Associated Press, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and he warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers. “Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi told The Associated Press, speaking in Kabul. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.” Since the Taliban overran Kabul on Aug. 15 and seized control of the country, Afghans and the world have been watching to see whether they will re-create their harsh rule of the late 1990s. Turabi’s comments pointed to how the group’s leaders remain entrenched in a deeply conservative, hard-line worldview, even if they are embracing technological changes, like video and mobile phones.

Putting a Disturbingly Low Price On Life (BBC, Guardian, National Army Museum, The Conversation) There has been renewed focus on civilian deaths in Afghanistan following the U.S. military’s admission that an August 29 drone strike, intended for ISIS-K fighters, instead killed 10 civilians, including seven children. According to data collected by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), a London-based charity conducting research and advocacy on the incidence and impact of global armed violence, UK forces are linked to the deaths of nearly 300 Afghan civilians. Through a series of Freedom of Information requests, AOVA was able to obtain Ministry of Defense compensation logs revealing a total of £688,000 was paid out by the UK military for incidents involving 289 deaths, among them 86 children, between 2006 and 2014. The average amount paid was £2,380.      One of the most serious incidents listed in the logs is the award of £4,233.60 to a family following the deaths of four children, who were mistakenly shot and killed in December 2009. Some payments were less than a few hundred pounds. In February 2008, one family received £104.17 for a confirmed fatality and property damage in Helmand province. The author of the research said reading the files was difficult: “The banality of the language means hundreds of tragic deaths, including dozens of children, read more like an inventory.” AOAV estimates 20,390 civilians were killed or injured by international and Afghan forces during the two-decade-long conflict. This is just one-third of the number killed by the Taliban and other insurgents. 453 British soldiers died in combat operations between 2001 and October 2014. During the entire 20-year engagement from 2001 to 2021, 2,455 U.S. service members lost their lives, including the 13 killed by ISIS-K in the Kabul airport attack August 26, 2021; 20,740 American military personnel were injured.

Hezbollah flexes its muscles in Lebanon and provides free Iranian fuel (Washington Post) Lebanon’s new government got off to an inauspicious start this week. As parliamentarians gathered to approve the cabinet lineup, the electricity went out—a common occurrence these days—and the chamber was plunged into darkness. To the rescue came Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement designated by the United States as a terrorist organization that is also a political party here. Lawmaker Ibrahim Musawi swiftly procured two generators from the organization’s offices. Eventually, the electricity came back on and the generators were no longer needed. But the episode provided a fresh opportunity for Hezbollah to remind the Lebanese who wields real power in their steadily collapsing country. Days earlier, Hezbollah had flaunted its clout by trucking Iranian diesel fuel into Lebanon to help alleviate chronic fuel shortages that have left people without public electricity sometimes for up to 24 hours a day. The amount of fuel imported—just 33,000 tons—was meager compared with Lebanon’s vast needs and was only enough to last the generator-dependent country for a few days. But Hezbollah has milked the opportunity to portray itself as a savior, making the fuel available free to hospitals, charitable institutions, emergency services, municipalities and other institutions that have had services crippled by the lack of electricity.

Jailbreak shines light on mass incarceration of Palestinians (AP) The cinematic escape of six prisoners who tunneled out of an Israeli penitentiary earlier this month shone a light on Israel’s mass incarceration of Palestinians, one of the many bitter fruits of the conflict. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have passed through a military justice system designed for what Israel still portrays as a temporary occupation, but that is now well into its sixth decade and critics say is firmly cemented. Nearly every Palestinian has a loved one who has been locked up in that system at some point, and imprisonment is widely seen as one of the most painful aspects of life under Israeli rule. The saga of the six, who were eventually recaptured, also underscored the irreconcilable views Israelis and Palestinians hold about the prisoners and, more broadly, what constitutes legitimate resistance to occupation. Israel classifies nearly every act of opposition to its military rule as a criminal offense, while many Palestinians see those acts as resistance and those engaged in them as heroes.

#headlines #news

[thisdaynews]

80,000 COVID Deaths: Germany To Mourn At Memorial.

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/80000-covid-deaths-germany-to-mourn-at-memorial/

80,000 COVID Deaths: Germany To Mourn At Memorial.

Germany will hold a public dedication administration on Sunday for its almost 80,000 casualties of the Covid pandemic, sharing the torment of lamenting families and the individuals who passed on alone due to Covid controls.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will join an ecumenical assistance in the first part of the day at Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a dedication against war and annihilation.

They will later go to a function at the capital’s Konzerthaus, where the president will deliver a discourse.

With pandemic controls still in power confining the quantity of individuals who can join in, the services will be communicated live on open TV.

“As president I trust it is vital for us to stop to bid farewell in poise to the individuals who kicked the bucket during the pandemic — including the individuals who didn’t succumb to the infection however who additionally passed on in forlornness,” said Steinmeier as he reported the public help.

Other than enduring the agony of losing a friend or family member, limitations set up to control diseases imply that family members are regularly unfit to try and hold their relatives’ hands as they lay passing on.

Others have been left lamenting all alone, as burial services or dedications are reduced by pandemic checks.

In an exchange with the president recently, family members of Covid casualties voiced their dejection.

Michaela Mengel separated in tears as she reviewed her little girl’s last minutes as she kicked the bucket from the Covid in emergency clinic.

“Last time I saw her alive was on Christmas Eve when I needed to leave the medical clinic. She had oxygen funneled into her nose, she took a gander at me with her large eyes,” Mengel told the president.

“Since she was unable to talk I advised her, bye my dear, I love you, mother will be back.”

Steinmeier focused on that it was essential to look past the every day casualty tallies.

“Behind each number, there’s a human destiny,” he said.

Territorial pioneers encouraged residents to participate in the recognition including by lighting candles by their windows from Friday to Sunday.

“We need to know about what we lost, however we likewise need to discover expectation and strength together,” the premiers of Germany’s 16 states said in an explanation.

‘Just aggravates it’

Sunday’s function comes as wellbeing specialists caution that a lot more will capitulate to the infection, as Germany battles to put down an awful third wave holding the country.

Europe’s greatest economy had emerged from the primary wave generally solid however has battled to make a definitive move to end the current one fuelled primarily by the more infectious British variation.

Another 19,185 new contaminations were recorded just now, as indicated by the infectious prevention organization RKI, with the quantities of passings likewise ascending by 67 to 79,914.

Merkel’s administration is looking for more prominent forces to force harder estimates, for example, evening time curfews, in a bid to go around Germany’s amazing territorial specialists, some of whom have opposed executing extreme limitations.

Be that as it may, the correction which would force purported “crisis brakes” actually must be endorsed by parliament, where resistance groups like the favorable to business FDP have pledged to cast a ballot against it.

Indeed, even junior alliance accomplice SPD is as yet looking for adjustments, including for individuals to be permitted to go on strolls during time limitation hours.

Merkel asked quick and definitive activity.

“The infection doesn’t pardon pitiful measures, they just exacerbate it,” she told the Bundestag lower house on Friday toward the beginning of a discussion on the changed law.

“The infection doesn’t allow you to haggle with it — it just comprehends one language, the language of resolve.”

[drinkingpie]

Abortion

I am angry. Actually I am not only angry, I am pissed off. I spent the last day reading articles, news, opinions, blogs and comments online dealing with the uprising abortion discussions in Germany. For those who do not know, German law equals abortion with homicide. Yes you read that correctly. Homicide.

Abortion in Germany is still possible as the law also states that it is legal to have one if you go to an advice center beforehand and there is an interval of at least three days between your talk there and the actual abortion. Still, equaling abortion with homicide gives the whole issue a very obvious overtone. Furthermore, it is illegal to advertise abortions. When I say advertising, I do not mean neon signs and TV commercials, I mean that it is illegal for gynecologists to mention on their website that they do undertake pregnancy terminations. In fact, a German gynecologist had to pay a fine of 6000€ because she offered on her website to give people more information on abortion upon request.

Recently, there have been discussions and proposals to get rid of said advertisement ban. The SPD made it one of their priorities, but folded basically immediately as the Union (CDU and CSU) are clearly against it. Now this is not really surprising and just one of the many ways in which the SPD disappointed lately, but as if this is not upsetting enough, the new health minister Jens Spahn (CDU) scarified opponents of this law and accused them of being more interested in the life of animals than in the life of human beings. This simply is an insipidity and a good indicator for what is wrong in German (and other) societies.

I have some things I want to say. To Jens Spahn, to the CDU, to German politicians in general, to all the people spreading their disgusting claims and “opinions” over the internet. But first of all, I want to be clear that I am not criticising people who are opposed to abortions. I had a very nice conversation with a friend of mine a couple of days ago. This friend is very Christian and I avoided talking about this topic with her for quite a long time just because I did not want to argue with her. When we finally talked about it, she said that she would personally never get an abortion, that she also does not understand people who do and also that if I would ever be in this situation and would decide to do that, she would never come with me. But she also said that I should never feel like this is something I can not talk about with her, that she would never judge me and that she does not have to understand it, she just needs to accept it. In my opinion, this is a beautiful example of live and let live and exactly the way we should handle dissensions.

What makes me very angry are people who are opposed to abortions and take this as a legitimation to outlaw something, to accuse people and present themselves as the moralizer of society. This is exactly the ignorant and disgusting behaviour that should not have any space in public discussions.

I will not discuss the biological aspect of abortions as this is not my point. I will not say that a foetus is only a cluster of cells as this is something that everybody has to define for themselves. I want to draw attention to the role of the woman in this scenario. One of the main reasons for that is that it fascinates me how many men are so vocal about opposing abortions. In fact, the vast majority of all the forum and facebook comments I read lately that insult women who had an abortion and call them murderers are written by men. Now I am not saying that men are not allowed to have an opinion about abortions because obviously it takes two people to conceive a child. But as a matter of fact, the woman is the one carrying the foetus, she is the one forced to live with the decision. Maybe I would concede men more space in the whole discussion if I would have the feeling that men and women are equally sharing the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy, but in my opinion this mostly does not hold true. Obviously, there are also other cases and the last thing I want to do is generalize all men as being irresponsible fuckheads.

I have some questions for people like Jens Spahn: Did you ever sit in the bathroom, silently crying so that your roommate cannot hear you while staring at your phone timer, waiting for the result of the pregnancy test you just made while thinking about the million ways your life would change if this test turns out to be positive? How you would tell your parents, how you would afford for all of this since you are already indebted to pay your tuition fees, how you would finish your studies, how this could even happen even though you used contraception. How you would deal with all of this yourself, since the father is not in the picture or made it very clear that he does not want to have anything to do with this, just because he can.

Did you ever research information on unwanted pregnancy on the internet and found forums titling you a murderer instead of reliable, neutral information and help?

Did you ever tell your boyfriend that you are fearing to be pregnant, hoping for his support and instead had him tell you that he would leave immediately if you would not make xy decision?

No, you did not. But each of these scenarios happened to either me or close friends of mine. They are reality. You have no idea what women who are making the decision to have an abortion are going through. And you do not even care, because all you can think about is how you can impose your ideals on society and how to make people who do not obey these ideals feel as shitty as possible.

#abortion #abortion is not murder #pro choice #shout your abortion #women #jens spahn #cdu #cdu/csu #spd #politics