#[A fragment of my past - Timothy]

[sweetellafontaine]

((Polaris)) 💗 Someday | Timothy [18 Aug 2019] ((Do not reply))

She was beginning to feel the weight of summer. Summer meant no classes, it meant working at the magic laundry and working on the household. The Fontaine mansion wasn’t built for one person to do all the work yet that was exactly how the household was arranged. And all of it was put on Ella Fontaine who, if her father had not remarried would be the master of the mansion.

After her shift at the magical laundry, she barely could stand on her feet. Blisters prevented her from moving quickly and she barely could bite back her tears.

“Someday, I will find my happiness.” She whispered to herself as a weak attempt to cheer herself up, she found herself sitting down on the pavement removing a shoe to see the damage on her feet. It was worse than she imagined. And she sighed. “When will kindness repay me, mother?” She whispered to herself, surprised to see a butterfly landing before her. She decided to dry her tears and put back her shoes but got started to see she no longer was alone.

“Oh, I apologize.” She kindly smiled before offering the other a bow.

After two back to back washes Timothy let out a sigh of relief when he sniffed his clothes. While working at Jumbo’s was fun his clothes tended to smell like pizza more often than not, even spreading to his home clothes. Stuffing everything away into a gym bag he hoisted it over his shoulder, hearing the bell jingle he watched a blonde girl duck out with a wave goodbye presumably to her coworkers. 

Following not far behind her he blinked when he saw something flash on the ground, feeling the light bounce off into his face. Bending down he picked up the small case looking vaguely like a card holder, glancing back up he figured it was more than likely the girl’s. Seeing her a bit to his left he blinked in surprise wondering if she was waiting on a ride or taking a small break, though she’d picked an odd place. Too lost in thought he’d walked up faster to her than he’d anticipated, hearing her mumbles he almost missed the tears she was quickly drying.

His brows shot up at the bow, ok now that was a new one he mused. Clearing his throat he shook his head, “You’re fine, honestly my bad for walking up without saying anything,” he apologized. Remembering his whole point of walking up he held the case up for her to see, “By any chance is this yours?”

She took notice of the case she was holding, and a fond smile carried on her lips. It was one her mother had made when she was still alive. “In fact yes, that is mine.” She opened the case to see a picture of her former family and smiled as if it was a sign of her dear mother herself. “I must have dropped it during my shift.”

She softly hummed for a moment before giving him a tiny bow. “Thank you, what can I do to repay your kindness?”

Timothy let out a sigh of relief when she confirmed his assumption. Handing it off to her he smiled as she looked at it fondly. Jimmy would be proud of him he thought, maybe he’d bring up the situation during drinks just to get him to relax for a bit. “Found it outside actually probably just slipped out your bag.”

At her second bow he raised a brow in surprise, her mannerisms reminded him of Duke. Clearing his throat he shifted the bag resisting the urge to make a quip, Jimmy was rubbing off on him more than he liked. Shifting his bag again he paused before smiling sheepishly, “Actually could use some advice, any tips for how to get pizza smells out of clothes? You could probably save me a couple hours a week.”

She got quite startled, and yet she had been extremely tired so it wouldn’t be too odd that she had lost it outside. Part of that filled her with dread. She could have lost such an important memory of her parents. “Thank you, truly. This means a lot to me. I wouldn’t know what to do if I lost it to never have it returned.”

Pizza smell? She pondered for a moment. “Mix 1 cup distilled white vinegar and 1 cup baking soda with just enough water to cover the clothes. Soak for 4 hours. Then put the clothes and vinegar/baking soda mixture in the wash and launder as usual.” She smiled. “Do you work in a pizza place?”

“Hey no need to dwell on what ifs,” Timothy said feeling a little self conscious from all the praise and using his best method to deflect. Jimmy usually said similar things trying positive reinforcement on him. He shot her an easy grin, “Sure anybody woulda done the same thing.”

Nodding he typed a quick note onto his phone making a mental note to forward it to all the kiddos working for him. “Jumbo’s actually, your run of the mill friendly neighborhood manager,” he said cheerfully. “You’re gonna have a lot of grateful teens on your hands, pizzas great for lunch not so great during the off hours.”

He made a fair point, the most important part was knowing that she had her picture returned. She could remember well when this was taken, she could remember her mom hugging her close and her father’s fond smile before trying to look like a stern father. He was way too softhearted with Ella. She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Jumbo? I haven’t been there yet. Maybe I should.” She chuckled. “I’m happy to help in any way. I do hope it helps in the end.”

Patting his body with his free hands he dug around his pockets before he found a card with Jumbo’s logo and his name underneath. “We’d be happy to have you come in,” he said holding the card out to her, “bring some friends in sometime this week. I’ll get you guys a half off deal on food and games.” 

“Honestly you’re a bit of a life saver right now for them, we’ve been trying a lot of different detergents. You’ve been working at the laundromat long?”

“I’m happy to pay you a visit, but you really have no reason for repaying me after all this is my job.” Though it felt a bit rude to reject his kind offer. “Well, it won’t be too many people. My friends are very limited.” Mostly due to the fact that she didn’t get to get out much aside from going to work.

“I’ve been working here ever since my father died after remarrying. My stepmother felt that I shouldn’t burden her by having her pay for my tuition. And that I should be happy I’m still allowed to live with her. I guess she has a point since she is the mistress of the house.”  Ella didn’t mind having to work hard. “So it’s been a couple of years already. Everyone is very kind here, so I don’t mind it at all.”

“Technically you’re not on the clock right now,” he replied shrugging a bit, “Actually speaking of which I’m not keeping you from anything am I?” This girl was too nice he mused, he hated to think he was inconveniencing her in some way. 

Burden? His brow furrowed in confusion at her words the wheels clicking in his head. He had to bite back the urge to argue, she reminded him a bit of Duke when they first met. “She sounds like a..,” don’t say it that voice that sounded like Jimmy in his head snapped, “very old fashioned woman,” he said settling for a more neutral term. “Does she..usually talk like that about things?” he questioned trying to be as casual as possible.

“I work after hours to generally clean up.” If she didn’t she couldn’t afford college. “Don’t worry, my boss isn’t that strict with me. She is very kind and she allows me to breaks when I need one.” She truly was blessed to work in such an adorable place like this.

Her smile faltered for a second. “I suppose she would be in the eyes of others, she, however, considers herself to be a rather…modern thinking woman.” Almost instinctively, her hand moved to her sleeve, tugging to hide the bruises. “Well…” She wasn’t quite comfortable with the question. “I mean…It’s manageable you know.” But was it?

Least her work life seemed healthy enough he mused quietly to himself. He himself was fairly laid back in his workplace letting the kids do homework while he finished closing up on slow nights. “Careful you keep telling me how good of a worker you are and I might try to poach you for Jumbo’s” he teased playfully.

Resisting the urge to snort Timothy fiddled with the strap on his bag thinking over his words. He averted her gaze when he saw her fiddling wanting to give her some semblance of privacy. Shrugging he for one of the few times in his life picked his words carefully, “You know manageable looks good on a resume, not sure how well it fits towards home stuff.” Pausing he shook his head, “Sorry I’m probably overstepping just…you remind me of a buddy of mine.”

“Well I could always use an extra job, but I fear my body won’t let me.” She already lived on three to four hours of actual sleep. If she were to take another job, she might get overwhelmed with the house chores. She pondered over it. Maybe she could reschedule how she did her chores and her laundry job.

“We don’t get to pick our homes.” She muttered. It wasn’t very kind of her to say, but she didn’t like lying either. Her home was in the hands of a woman who despite her. “I understand your concern, but I’ll manage.” She would manage, saving money to the day she could leave that house filled with memories of her real parents. Secretly her heart broke a little over the idea.

Timothy resisted an urge to frown at her words, that hadn’t been his intention at all. He’d met less adults that were less workaholic than this girl was, though he doubted it was just because she enjoyed it. Still there wasn’t much he could do without overstepping he thought, he was a stranger after all. 

“No we don’t,” he agreed thinking back before his adoption and the less than stellar home life he’d had. Swallowing he knew he should probably let her go off he’d held her up long enough and he very much did not want to come off as creepy. “I’m sure you will but,” he grabbed one of his business cards out of his wallet. He rarely used them but for once grateful the owner had made them, “Listen if you ever wanna talk…or just need someone to make you laugh. Call me alright?”

end

[sangreprince]

Headcanons: Zagreus, The God

Who Zagreus is as a god is a complicated question, but one that boils down into a semi-simple answer: He is the god of blood, sweat, and tears. In other words, determination. This is gonna be broken into a few parts to avoid yapping so people can easily find the lore they're interested in.

1. Overview & Sources

2. Abilities

3. Personality / Alignment

4. Following

1. Overview & Sources Borrowing from his etymology first, I'm sourcing mostly from Dionysos by Karl Kerényi. A lot of what he is as depicted by SSG comes from that and I'm similarly drawing from those sources. There's other conflicting information out there such as some of the materials in the Greek Epic Fragments by Martin L. West, but I personally won't be referencing it since I don't believe much of that was sourced for his character in this specific portrayal. That said though, I do recommend people check it out regardless as there are some things in there that also seem to be the basis for what SSG establish (Such as some lines cited by Timothy Gantz). That said, I also borrow (what I can) from the Sisyphus epic as detailed in the Aeschylus, which you can find online under West as well. Mainly this pertains to not only his nature as the Son of Hades but also his specific function within the Underworld. My portrayal is kind of a mix of those sources, heavily inspired by the tones SSG set in their own interpretation of the mythology.

Because we don't actually know a lot about the historical Zagreus and some of the information is conflicting, especially regarding Orphic tradition and his relationship / identity with Dionysos, most of my portrayal is going to be a mix of filling in the blanks with my own narrative based off of (primarily) the sources given. There's a lot of mixup there regarding Zagreus and Dionysos that I won't really be touching for the purposes of this blog. That said, I strongly believe in being authentic and respecting the source material! If you know of any good sources. That said, if anyone has any ideas or thoughts regarding this please let me know some source materials I can go over!! Mediterranean history and mythology is something I'm going to try and respect and acknowledge, even if some liberties are taken for the sake of distinction. Comments should be open for this so if you've got sources, feel free to paste them below!

I'm using these two sources alongside the story established by SSG to sort of form my own narrative with Zagreus. That said, if anyone wants to read them I'll source them here!

Kerényi, C. (1976). Dionysos : Archetypal image of indestructible life. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA52740670

West, M. L. (1990). Studies in Aeschylus. In De Gruyter eBooks. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110948066

2. Abilities.

Zagreus is Hades's son. He is undying, unable to die except by extremely unconventional means that would sever his link to the cycle of life and death itself. But that isn't to say he can't be killed. He is still partly, even if only by a small margin, mortal. This allows him to be vanquished by any conventional means that would otherwise kill a regular human. Even if he's a god, he bleeds. He can be bested.

'Zagre' has its roots with 'zoë' and 'zoön', the Greek words for 'life' and 'living thing' respectively. I take this to mean he can be killed as any living thing can, a narrative the game-play supports. Taking a 'Yes and' improve approach to that, I also feel like part of what makes him formidable however is his influence over the blood of living things. This can extend to the ability manipulate the blood in an individual's body to a number of effects, such as making wounds that never heal on their own or stop bleeding. This would reflect the casting ability he has, and possibly was even one of the sources of inspiration for SSG in regards to that mechanic. Secondly, taking that prescient I'd like to think he could also control the flow of blood in a living creature to varrying effects. Heightening senses, accelerating heart-rate, even using the blood of living things to heal himself. But nothing on the level of say, water bending. His power is a lot more subtle than that.

Additionally, his name (and even Artemis in game) suggests he's a fantastic hunter. And that, I think, is where much of his actual formidability comes from. An exact translation of his name would be something like, 'catcher of game' and I think that's appropriate. He is a fighter trained by Achillies and a hunter favored by Artemis that cannot die. What makes him frightening as an enemy is the fact that, no matter what you do, he's just going to come back. And every time he does, he gets a little bit better at fighting you. And that should be terrifying, were it not the fact that Zagreus can be reasoned with. It would be a nightmare if you couldn't avoid him simply by laying down your weapon and engaging in a dialog. In as much a way that he is a god and an unstoppable force, he is still his own individual with principles. Among said principles is mercy, understanding, and compassion.

But to those that don't heed that? Zagreus is and should be frightening. Because he is stubborn. In that way he is Hades' son. And he will never stop until one day, eventually, he bests them. It isn't a matter of 'if', but when.

3. Personality / Alignment

As a god, Zagreus is... Fairly outgoing. He doesn't believe himself above anyone else, living or dead. In much the same way his name derives from 'living things', he's very compassionate towards mortals and doesn't place himself on a pedestal regarding them. If anything, he views his power as a god as a responsibility, a trait his Father instilled in him after much effort. In this way, he uses his power and influence as a god in service of the living despite being a chthonic god of the Underworld. But from a distance. He knows that power can corrupt, and his influence carries weight among the mortals that acknowledge him. So he prefers to be more of a distant but dedicated figure, one who only intervenes when inaction would be detrimental to all parties involved. Including his conscious.

For the same reason, he doesn't to reveal his nature as a god too often to those that don't already know. He understands that others might perceive him differently as just another being with their own agenda and morality if they view him through the lens of a god. They might think because he is a god and thinks these things, his opinion should be held with more regard than somebody else's. And Zagreus just doesn't believe in that. And more than that, it often introduces a power dynamic he simply isn't comfortable with in most instances.

4. Worship Zagreus is often misunderstood by mortals. Often, they see that him and Ares are close and, considering his affiliation with blood, make him out to be somewhat more of a sacrificial deity than he is. Mostly they perceive that he's the good of blood without contextualizing that he's more than that in a literal sense. Zagreus's domain more subtle, less 'blood and conflict' as it is 'blood sweat and tears'. He's portrayed as a stubborn, defiant, persistent and I'm inclined to believe he's the of god of effort and 'bleeding for your passions' so to speak.

While this does have relationships with conflict and battle, as you would naturally expect,  it's hardly what he represents on the whole. In regards to most of the people that follow him, he almost has this bitter and hesitant relationship. He doesn't necessarily endorse the collection of people who see him as a sort of god of passionate violence and bloodshed which. Is only a partial truth, and one he isn't fond of.

Ironically, a lot of the times the mortals he actually admires don't' even worship him at all. To an extent, Zagreus actually prefers this.  He doesn't seek worship. So when people actually come around and understand him and pray that fit that niche of being stubborn and passionate people who bleed for their convictions and invoke his name? He's' probably one of the easiest gods to talk to individually, as well as work with on a practical level due to his compassion and natural intuition.

[samthecookielord]

YEAHH WOOO ROUND 2!!!! RESULTS!!!! ok here we go this one has a lot of fun deaths (no one died) (lol)

Match 1 and 2...

Coffina and Kaleodoscope lost!

Coffina: a shadows over loathing oc! He is one of many hobos you can find and bring to the hobo camp throughout the game. Her quest involves replacing her old broken umbrella because she turned into a vampire and can't leave his current shelter due to being very aware of vampire tropes and will burn immediately. this train of logic makes more sense if you know the game i promise (vampires in sol dont take damage from their weaknesses unless you point them out LOL)

Kale: HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS ACTUALLY KILLED HER. XEY WERE THE REIGNING CHAMPION SWEEPER OF THE PAST TWO BLIND DATE TOURNEYS AND SHE JUST BARELY GOT KILLT. HOLY. that was so fun to watch lol. i dont think i need to explain her i think she kinda just explains herself by existing (oh yeah and pillow belongs to @pastel-player)

Match 3 and 4...

Moth and Parker lost!

Moth: a young witch from the story that came to me in a dream - So Apparently We're The Last Witches On Earth. he specializes in light magic and he loves bugs :3 and his name is short for timothy!

Parker: HAHAHAEAHWGHADSHDHSDJFHDJSDSF YAYYY YOU KILLED THEM. CONGRATS CLIVE NATION. you know him. do i even need to explain this one. uhhh read my clides they have exactly one dedicated slide there

Match 5 and 6...

Chrys and Timespace lost!

Chrys: MY GHOST TRICK OC HI CHRYS HIIII (short for chrysanthemum)!!!!!!! i wanted to make a funny weird friend for weird park guy. so i did! she's a goofy gal and she loves all things nature :] its why she spends so much time at temsik park!

Timespace: hi clive nation this is like the timebug before clives. i weird bugged my own oc (kaleidoscope) <3 shes an au version that got stuck in between dimensions for so so so so very long that she gained the power to open portals between dimensions. she sees hidden rifts that others do not.

Match 7 and 8...

Romy and Rainbow lost!

Romy: ROMYYYY ILY ROMYYYY he's my funny little shadows over loathin au guy that turned into an oc. he's a split off fragment of hellstrom's soul (got separated when hellstrom gets sent to HELL lolll) that turned into his own separate being and now the hellcows want him in hell too

Rainbow: goopy (NOTE: THEIR DIALOGUE SHOULD SAY "Ah, so I did mess up that last one" BUT I DONT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THERE AND I DONT FEEL LIKE FIXING IT)

[havendance]

Why you wanna fly, Blackbird?

Ao3

Fandom: Batman

It’s the Lonely Place of Dying fic I’ve been working on, finally finished up!

Summary:

The first memories Timmi had were of death and the Batman. In the end, was it really any wonder that she ended up where she did?

(A fem!Tim Drake character study)

Excerpt:

 Dick could feel a headache forming. “Tell me again what your name was?” he asked.

 The girl who was his current source of stress couldn’t have been much older than thirteen. Well off, judging by the quality of her clothes, but dirty. Greasy black hair was pulled back in a messy braid. Muddy jeans and sneakers. A look of urgency in gray blue eyes. An overly-full backpack sitting next to her that looked like it belonged more with a jungle expedition than a school kid. Under normal circumstances, he’d assume that she was a runaway. After the mess of her sticking her nose in his investigation, he was pretty sure whatever was going on, normal wasn’t it.

 The girl shook her head. “That’s not important.” She shoved a spiral-bound notebook at him. It had TOP SECRET written on the front of it in permanent marker. “Batman needs you.”

 That would’ve been a bigger red flag if Dick hadn’t already opened the notebook to find it full of photographs, printed out and pasted in. They were all of Batman. Batman fighting a man with sword. Batman falling off the dam. Batman walking towards the Batmobile, obviously injured. He flipped through the pages quicker and quicker. There were more pictures, newspaper clippings going back weeks. The obituary of Jason Todd, carefully centered on a page all of it’s own. “My God,” he said under his breath, “Where did you get all this?”

 The name on her birth certificate was Timothy Jacqueline Drake, but the only person who ever called her that was her mother. Everyone else — her father, her teachers, the endless parade of nurses and nannies — they just called her Timmi. The official story was tidy little thing involving a botched ultrasound and a dead great-grandfather that was trotted out at formal events and the few extended family gatherings that the Drakes actually attended.

 Unofficially, well. No one ever Timmi the real story. She had to piece it together from dusty old documents hidden in the corner of Janet’s study, from fragments of conversation, from arguments and old stories. As best she could figure, it went down like this:

 Back at Janet’s first job, the one at the university in California that she never talked about, she’d received the news that her application for tenure had been denied shortly before going into labor and spent the next 15 hours in pain and angry about it. There were official reasons given, vague platitudes, but she knew the real reason was her pregnancy, was the fact that she was a woman that spoke her mind and didn’t take the bullshit her older male colleagues tried to throw her way. The end result was that Janet looked at the little, screaming red bundle in her arms and decided that her daughter’s name wasn’t going to be Angela like they’d planned, it was going to be Timothy.

 “If you have a boy’s name, they have to judge you to your face, they can’t just dismiss you out hand,” Janet had said once when she’d had a little too much to drink.

 “You know how your mother gets,” Jack had said with a shake of his head when Timmi asked. “It’s easier just to humor her when she gets an idea in her head like that.

Timmi didn’t remember California. Shortly after she was born, Janet got a new job at a private university in New Jersey and they moved across the country to just outside Gotham. Sometimes she wondered what life would’ve been like if Janet had gotten tenure and she’d grown up as a girl named Angela in California. If she’d never heard of Gotham or the Batman.

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[anthonyjoesison]

Makers of Music

“To the makers of music - all worlds, all times.”

-The Voyager Golden Records

This blog post is not a formal or argumentative essay (which I would expect to be the dominant essay type in the upcoming weeks). Rather, this is an exercise in meditation. 

I can’t sleep. Why?

I’ve been working on a short film for the past few days. My OCD and unwillingness to share anything short of perfection (yes, I am unapologetically anal about putting any piece of writing, video, etc. out into the public that isn’t the absolute best I have to give) has turned a project that was intended to be enjoyable and self-reflective into a stress-inducing and time-consuming commitment. 

So I can’t sleep because I have an urge to return to my laptop and continue to narrate, film and edit. But I also can’t sleep because I can’t help but lay awake pondering the self-imposed questions I will have to answer if I want to see this short-film come to life.

I’ve taken to Tumblr because if I told my friends I couldn’t sleep, they’d assume a worst case scenario (which would typically be the aptly titled “Sad Boy Hours”) and if I told my parents I’d reinforce their concerns that I worry too much (which candidly, I do).

I wish not to reveal anything unnecessary of the short film, but I do find it appropriate to share the questions that I lie awake pondering.

If you had to choose the pictures, videos, sounds, poems, books, paintings, music, and knowledge that best represent you, what would you choose?

To some the question requires little to no hesitation. To others it is unanswerable, if among many reasons it is because it leads to many more questions and dilemmas. I am unsurprisingly a member of the latter.

How can you craft a fair representation of your past self…your future self? Do they not share equal fragments in your whole existence? Likewise, would you choose the pieces that exemplify your imperfect self? Or would you wish to only share representations of your ideal self?

The aforementioned question and the many that follow it are at the heart of what I seek to tap into through the course of this short film and is inspired by my favorite story of human finitude: the Voyager Program.

Briefly, the Voyager Program was a project by NASA that launched two space probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, in August and September of 1977. The Voyager’s central mission was the flyby and scientific observations of the outer planets (and their respective moons, rings, etc.) of our Solar System.

The mission was successful in sending back hundreds of important measurements, data points, and photographs (perhaps most famously, is the Pale Blue Dot photograph that captures Earth as indeed a “pale blue dot” amidst the vast emptiness of space). Beyond this already exceptional body of work, NASA had the foresight that upon completion of the central mission, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 would not cease drifting into interstellar space. 

Thus, NASA appointed Dr. Carl Sagan as the chair of a committee that was tasked with creating a time capsule to represent humanity in the event that either Voyagers would be intercepted by intelligent, extraterrestrial life.

The result of Dr. Sagan and Co.’s efforts? The Golden Record. A collection of 115 images, 90 minutes of humanity’s greatest music, a plethora of Earth’s natural sounds, and human greetings in over 55 languages, all pressed onto a 12” gold-plated copper disk (complete with incredibly meticulous and well-thought instructions for playback).

I have gone over how difficult it would be to choose the creative media to represent just ourselves as individuals. Can one bring themself to imagine the unprecedented challenge that Dr. Sagan’s team faced?

Presiding over the entire project must’ve been the reality that it is improbable that such extraterrestrial life exists that hears, sees, and processes information in human-like manner. Further, one would imagine there must have been increasing pressure to include (and exclude) the appropriate facets of the human experience and the pinnacles of human creativity, in an ethical and responsible manner.

However, this wasn’t the case. In an article for the New Yorker in August of 2017, Timothy Ferris, producer of the Golden Record, reflects with fondness. In detailing the experience of selecting humanity’s music, Ferris writes: “We’d comb through all this music individually, then meet and go over our nominees in long discussions stretching into the night. It was exhausting, involving, utterly delightful work.” Sounds a lot like the late night music sessions I’d have with my friends.

It would dishearten me if my description of creating a short film and a Golden Record for my own life (“stress inducing” and “time consuming”) were taken out of context. While Dr. Sagan and Timothy Ferris worked in the face of bureaucratic deadlines and regulation, they did their job with a passion and care that is metaphorically represented in the enduring life of the records. (The records are expected to remain playable for over a billion years).

I work with no boss other than myself. As a good friend once reminded me, “You’re your own worst critic”. My project is stressful and time-consuming because I, like almost every human being before me has and every human being after me will, look towards the night sky with awe, asking in silence more questions about the meaning and purpose of one’s place and existence in the universe as we know it.

I am not exceptional. (One of my favorite college essays I wrote was for the University of Washington, detailing a trip to Yosemite National Park which doubled as the first time I had ever seen the night sky proper). When compared to the infinitude of space, our physical and temporal limitations are baffling. 

While I don’t believe that this project will convince me otherwise, I am not appealing to the anti-humanists in the crowd. The uncompromising reality of a universe indifferent to the wishes of men must not be made analogous to remarks similar to philosopher John Gray’s in his 2003 book Straw Dogs: “If we speak of the history of the human species at all, it is only to signify the unknowable sum of these lives. As with other animals, some lives are happy, others are wretched. None has a meaning beyond itself.” 

This is crucial because the Voyagers and Golden Records (and to a significantly smaller scale my short film and construction of a time capsule of my own) are exemplary of the very best in human nature. Humans at their best are curious, self-reflective, and wish to see new horizons. As Carl Sagan himself noted: “The launching of this bottle (Voyagers 1 and 2) into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet."

Some may denounce time pondering the Voyager Program in the midst of the challenges we the human species face as wasted time. One may reference not only the global pandemic, but a difficult grappling with issues of race within the United State (where I write this), the blatant neglect for the Earth’s climate and natural resources, and rising xenophobia throughout even the world’s most developed countries.

In response, I feel a need to share that I too am acutely aware of the hardships we face. I recently read Richard Haas’ The World: A Brief Introduction (Think of the book as an Introduction to Foreign Policy/Globalization for Dummies). Each chapter ended with a section titled “Looking Ahead” in which he summarized the future prospects of the region, development, etc. Reading that book left me existential angst, for almost every chapter concluded with dreadful prospects for the future of humanity.

However, let us remember the message attached to Voyager 1 by then United State’s President Jimmy Carter. It reads: “This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.” 

Perhaps, in our most intimate moments when we acquaint ourselves with our uncertainty over the meaning and purpose of our existence, we may remind ourselves that like Voyager, we too are stewards to the future of humanity. And like Voyager, we too are encouraged to observe and remember the awesome music, sounds, peoples, places, and knowledge along the way.

-Joe Sison (July 4th, 2020)

[mxaxwx]

1-6-22

I'm in an outdoor mall of some sort. Some kind of supervillain is in a store that sells TVs. I walk to the store. It’s up on the second floor. I look in through the broken windows and can’t see the supervillain but know that he's somewhere inside. A friend and I enter the store. After a short while someone tells me that police are coming so my friend and I leave quickly.

I walk past a middle-aged man who stops me and tells me to look at a bible verse about finances in the book of “1 Timothy”. I tell him thank you and that I've been worried about my finances lately. I write a note to thank him, but when I finish and look down at it again it's different. There is some inappropriate language in it and I don’t want to offend him so I try to scratch it all out. I do my best but worry that he’ll still be able to see it so I try to keep it from him. He ends up with the note somehow...

.

In a very large, beautiful looking church, which may be in Chicago. I'm looking down from an overhead view. A famous athlete is on stage speaking. At some point during his speech he starts running out of the church. He runs through the seats, stepping over rows of chairs very quickly (which I find quite impressive) and may also give fives to some of the people he passes. The church is packed and there are even people leaning in through the windows.

After the church service, I'm with a man I know who is trying to pick up his kids from their class. We drive through dense church traffic and he talks about how long it takes to get your kids here because of how many people there are...

.

(Fragment)

I'm outside with someone like George Costanza and someone else. It's sunny and rather warm outside...

[dfroza]

people want to see change on garden earth for the better

since we are its caretakers.

but ultimately our Creator will restore purity to earth in all things, even to remove death at some point.

Love is absolutely pure and it doesn’t change its True nature. we can only choose to be humbled and changed by it.

(rebirth)

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 3rd chapter of the Letter of 2nd Timothy:

But you need to be aware that in the final days the culture of society will become extremely fierce. People will be self-centered lovers of themselves and obsessed with money. They will boast of great things as they strut around in their arrogant pride and mock all that is right. They will ignore their own families. They will be ungrateful and ungodly.

They will become addicted to hateful and malicious slander. Slaves to their desires, they will be ferocious, belligerent haters of what is good and right. With brutal treachery, they will act without restraint, bigoted and wrapped in clouds of their conceit. They will find their delight in the pleasures of this world more than the pleasures of the loving God.

They may pretend to have a respect for God, but in reality they want nothing to do with God’s power. Stay away from people like these! For they are the ones who worm their way into the hearts of vulnerable women, spending the night with those who are captured by their lusts and steeped in sin. They are always learning but never discover the revelation-knowledge of truth.

History has given us an example of this with the Egyptian sorcerers Jannes and Jambres, who stood against Moses in their arrogance. So it will be in the last days with those who reject the faith with their corrupt minds and arrogant hearts, standing against the truth of God.

But they will not advance, for everyone will see their madness, just as they did with Jannes and Jambres!

But you, Timothy, have closely followed my example and the truth that I’ve imparted to you. You have modeled your life after the love and endurance I’ve demonstrated in my ministry by not giving up. The faith I have, you now have. What I have hungered for in life has now become your longing as well. The patience I have with others, you now demonstrate. And the same persecutions and difficulties I have endured, you have also endured. Yes, you know all about what I had to suffer while in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. You’re aware of all the persecution I endured there; yet the Lord delivered me from every single one of them! For all who choose to live godly as worshipers of Jesus, the Anointed One, will also experience persecution.

But the evil men and sorcerers will progress from bad to worse, deceived and deceiving, as they lead people further from the truth. Yet you must continue to advance in strength with the truth wrapped around your heart, being assured by God that he’s the One who has truly taught you all these things.

Remember what you were taught from your childhood from the Holy Scrolls which can impart to you wisdom to experience everlasting life through the faith of Jesus, the Anointed One! God has transmitted his very substance into every Scripture, for it is God-breathed. It will empower you by its instruction and correction, giving you the strength to take the right direction and lead you deeper into the path of godliness. Then you will be God’s servant, fully mature and perfectly prepared to fulfill any assignment God gives you.

The Letter of 2nd Timothy, Chapter 3 (The Passion Translation)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 35th chapter of the book of Jeremiah:

This word from the Eternal came to Jeremiah when Jehoiakim (son of Josiah) was king of Judah.

Eternal One: Go to where the Rechabites are now staying and invite them to My temple. Take them to one of the side rooms there and offer them wine to drink.

So I took the leader of this clan, Jaazaniah (son of Jeremiah and grandson of Habazziniah) along with his brothers and sons who represented all of the Rechabites to the temple of the Eternal. I led them into a side room that was used by the sons of Hanan (son of Igdaliah), a man of God. This room was right next to the room used by temple officials and right over the room of Maaseiah (son of Shallum), the doorkeeper. Once we were in the room, I set before these Rechabite men pitchers full of wine with some cups.

Jeremiah (to the Rechabites): Have some wine.

Rechabites: We do not drink wine because our ancestor, Jonadab (son of Rechab), gave us very clear commands: “You and your children must never drink wine. You must not build houses or plant crops or have vineyards. You are not to do anything that resembles settling down in this land. Instead, live in tents and roam the land as nomads. Do this, and you will live for a long time in this land.” So we have done just that—we have obeyed our ancestor Jonadab (son of Rechab) throughout these many years. We have never drunk wine, nor have our wives or children. We have never built houses to live in or owned a vineyard or a field or even planted seed. We have faithfully lived as nomads in tents and have obeyed what our ancestor, Jonadab, commanded all those years ago. But when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded this land, we knew we could no longer wander the countryside. So we said, “Come on, let’s go to Jerusalem so we don’t fall victim to the Babylonian and Aramean armies.” That is why we are here in Jerusalem.

After this encounter with the Rechabites, the word of the Eternal came to instruct Jeremiah.

Eternal One: I, the Eternal One, the God of Israel, Commander of heavenly armies, want you to go and deliver this message to the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem: “Why won’t you hear My words and learn from Me? Jonadab (son of Rechab) told his children, among other things, not to drink wine, and they obeyed him! To this day they still obey their ancestor for this is his command. But I speak to you again and again, and you have never obeyed Me. I have sent My servants, the prophets, to you again and again. They warned you with My words: ‘Turn back from your wicked ways and change what you are doing. Stop worshiping other gods so that you may continue to live in this land that I gave to you and your ancestors.’ But you did not bother to listen to Me. The descendants of Jonadab (son of Rechab) have obeyed the orders of their ancestor and leader, but these people have not obeyed Me.

“Listen! This is why I, the Eternal One, the God of Israel, Commander of heavenly armies, will send all the disaster I promised against Judah and all the citizens of Jerusalem. For I spoke to them, but they never listened. I called out to them, but they never answered back.”

Jeremiah (to the Rechabites): The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies and God of Israel, has this message for you and your families: “Because you obeyed your ancestor Jonadab and faithfully followed his instructions for all these years, I promise that Jonadab (son of Rechab) will always have descendants who serve Me.”

The Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 35 (The Voice)

A note from The Voice:

The next two chapters are a flashback to earlier times and circumstances. Jehoiakim is in the last years of his reign as king of Judah. Babylon, along with Aram, is raiding Judean villages. These raids cause many to seek refuge in Jerusalem, which is not yet under attack. Among those who run to the capital city is a nomadic clan known as the Rechabites. Their customs are simple and austere; their lifestyles are not suited to city living. However, they now find themselves in Jerusalem. Their faithfulness to those strict customs is held up as an example for the rest of Judah.

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for friday, September 17 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons that looks at our time here on garden earth:

We are all on the "road of life," and each passing day draws us closer to our destination... Therefore we should treasure our time, the remains of our day. “Any time you are with anyone or think of anyone you must say to yourself: I am dying and this person too is dying, attempting the while to experience the truth of the words you are saying. If every one of you agrees to practice this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise” (de Mello). Amen. The sages say, “Repent one day before you die.” But who knows the day of one’s death in advance? Perhaps your name will be called today, ending your lease on life in this world. Are you ready? Are you prepared to appear before your Creator to account for your life (Rev. 22:12)?

The Scriptures admonish: “Find God or die...” (Deut. 30:19). We cannot choose not to choose; we cannot “opt out” of our sacred responsibility to live before God. Every human being faces the holy dilemma, and there is no way to avoid the “either/or” by attempting to somehow unite heaven and hell. Spiritually this means that we must learn to “choose to choose,” since denying the power of our choice (e.g., by rationalizing, blaming others, playing the victim) means forsaking our identity as a soul made in the image of God, and this results in being inwardly “disfigured” and fragmented...

Henri Nouwen wrote, “I am beginning to see that much of praying is grieving,” that is, realizing the fracture between the “is” and “ought” of our lives. Kierkegaard said that the purpose of prayer is not to influence God but rather to change the nature of the one who prays. When we get past our words -- our chatter, the insecurities that rise from our hearts, the cares of the day, even our hopes and dreams -- then we are sufficiently quieted to encounter God. It is then that we can truly listen and grieve over our lives in naked dependence upon God.

Psalm 139 has the tone of “hitbodedut” (הִתְבּוֹדְּדוּת) – a spontaneous prayer of intimacy and earnestness that flows from personal experience. For David, God is contemporaneous and infinitely concerned with his personal life. The great psalm begins with “O Lord, you have searched me and known me” (v.1) and paradoxically ends with “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (v.23-24). But why would David pray this way when he already understood that God knew his every thought?

There is a saying that we are “only as sick as the secrets we keep.” God is sovereign and knows everything about us. We have nowhere to hide. David’s desire is to live transparently before the LORD without self-deception. We must abandon, therefore, the “fig leaf” attempts to cover the truth about our lives and to welcome His examination of our hearts (Psalm 7:9; 11:5; 26:2, Prov. 17:3). When we do so, we can trust that He will lead us “in the way everlasting” (בְּדֶרֶךְ עוֹלָם).

The central issue of genuine spiritual life is the willingness to do God's will, or the willingness to believe, since these amount to the same thing.... Believe what? That God is real, that He has (personally) called you by name, that he has particularly redeemed you by Yeshua's own blood poured out for your sins, and that therefore that your identity and life are bound up with his mercy and truth... The spiritual danger is always being “pulled apart” in opposite directions, dissipating the soul so that it will not be unified, focused and directed.

The stakes are nothing less than everything, friends. May the Lord give us the willingness to do His will and the courage to believe in His love. And may God deliver us from doubt and from every other fear. May we all be strong in faith, not staggering over the promises, but giving glory to God for the miracle of Yeshua our LORD. May we all be rooted and grounded in love so that we are empowered to apprehend the very “breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of God given to us in Messiah, so that we shall all be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:14-19). Amen. [Hebrew for Christians]

9.16.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

September 17, 2021

The Foot of Pride

“Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me.” (Psalm 36:11)

The contrast in this psalm is not only between good and evil, but more specifically between the prideful man who lives without fear of God and the God in whom godly men trust.

The description of the evil man (vv. 1-4) is an apt description of a modern-day humanist. He is convinced that God, if He exists, does not intervene in the affairs of men. He therefore sets himself up as an authority, deciding right and wrong on his own arbitrary scale. He has “no fear of God” (v. 1), and arrogantly he “flattereth himself in his own eyes” (v. 2), speaking “iniquity and deceit” (v. 3). He is foolish, and even his humanitarian deeds are not good, in the ultimate sense. Furthermore, the modern-day humanist “abhorreth not evil” (v. 4), insisting that such sins as promiscuity, homosexuality, witchcraft, abortion, brainwashing of children in pantheistic evolution, etc., are, in reality, to be desired.

The contrast with God consists of a list of some of His majestic attributes in His dealing with men. “Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast. How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light” (vv. 5-9).

The wicked with his “foot of pride” will ultimately fall (vv. 11-12). But we can pray as David prayed, “O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart” (v. 10). JDM

[sincerelybluevase]

Fanfic Friday: New Year’s Eve, Chapter Six

With all the travelling I did I’d almost forgotten today is Friday. Luckily my trusty beta @purple-roses-words-and-love didn’t forget!

She waited till after Tim had gone to bed to confront Patrick.

Timothy and Patrick ate Granny Parker’s apple pie with gusto, but Shelagh couldn’t force a bite of it down her throat.

“You’ve gotten thin,” Patrick said, and touched her hand lovingly. “You’ve got to eat something, darling.”

But how could she when she kept replaying his mother-in-law’s words in her head?

Maybe Patrick had simply been fed up with being lonely, and had confused that for being in love with Shelagh. Maybe he knew very well that he didn’t love her like he’d loved Marianne, but he simply wanted someone to do the housework and ask him how his day had been, and maybe a little bit extra after they’d both retired to their mutual bedroom. Maybe that was why he was disappointed with Shelagh clinging to the guestroom.

All untrue, the voice of reason told her, but she was so angry that it was easy to drown out that little voice.

Patrick was sitting on the couch flicking through one of his medical journals when Shelagh decided she was ready to talk to him. She didn’t sit down; she preferred to stand, preferred to be taller than he was for once.

“Why didn’t you tell me Granny Parker had a key?” she asked. Her voice was sharper than intended, but she couldn’t help it.

Patrick put the journal down and looked at her with knitted brows. “Shelagh?”

“Why didn’t you tell me she could drop by?”

“Did something happen?”

Already tears were burning behind her eyelids. “She went on and on about Marianne.”

Patrick rubbed his mouth. “And?”

“And? And?!” Shelagh bored her nails in her palms. “I found it upsetting, that’s what!” she spat.

“Well, surely you two had a lot to talk about,” Patrick bit back.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It seems to me you’re obsessed with my first wife, Shelagh.”

“How can’t I be? She’s everywhere in this bloody house, yet you never talk about her, though everyone tells me she was beautiful and clever and kind and intelligent. What am I supposed to make of that?”

Patrick stood, his face contorted in an angry mask. “I don’t want to talk about this,” he said.

“But I do!”

“And that’s all that matters, isn’t it? Doing what you want.”

She blanched. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not as if…”

“You don’t want sex, so we don’t have sex. You want to stay in the guestroom, so I still sleep alone at night. You don’t want to accept my money, so you only have the bare necessities to dress yourself with.” He wagged her finger at her. “Don’t make it out as if I am somehow the bad guy here.”

Blood roared in her ears. How dare he wag his finger at her? She was his partner, not his daughter! And that condescending tone of voice he used with her was enough to drive any sane woman mad.

“Patrick Turner, if you’re going to make this all about your insulted pride as a man…”

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You find me failing as a man.”

“No I don’t, it’s simply that…”

“All this probing about Marianne; are you trying to find out if I treated her differently from you?”

“Well certainly you did! Even a blind man can see that you loved her very much, and how could I ever…”

“God, stop comparing! You behave like a child sometimes, do you know that?”

“And that gives you the right to treat me as a child? To wag your finger at me and…”

“What else am I…”

“Stop interrupting me!” she screamed, and knocked Marianne’s little china dog from the coffee table as she brought her hands to her face. It bounced on the floor and fragmented in several curled shards. Shelagh stared at the pale petals of china with horror.

Patrick got to his knees with a grunt and started to gather up the pieces.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and stooped to help him.

“Leave it,” Patrick growled.

She cut her hand on a jagged piece of china. Blood welled from the cut. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.

He took her hand and put his handkerchief around it. His fingers were tender. “It’s just a silly ornament.”

“Was it Marianne’s?” she whispered.

It was the wrong thing to say, but it leapt out of her mouth like a toad, just like the girl in the fairy tale, as if she had no control over it.

He let go of her hand. “Please leave me alone for a bit,” he said, and started to gather up the pieces methodically. They clinked against each other as his rough hand cradled them.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“Please, Shelagh.”

She swayed as she got to her feet. Her vision was blurred by tears. The cut stung. She curled her fingers around his handkerchief as she went to her room, like a naughty child sent to bed without supper.

She sobbed as she pushed the door shut. She pulled her knitted dress over her head and flung it in a corner. Tears coursed over her cheeks as she slipped into her nightgown.

She sat down in the windowsill and pressed her burning forehead against the cool pane. This room didn’t face the street, but looked over the little garden instead. The rosebush clung naked and shivering to the house, rattling its branches, clicking thorns against brick in the way an impatient woman would click her nails on a table top.

Shelagh removed her glasses. They had misted over from her hot tears. She unbound the handkerchief and stared at the pale sliver of skin. It slowly coloured pink as the cut started to bleed again. She’d have to disinfect it, but she couldn’t bring herself to get up.

“You little fool,” she murmured between sobs.

Blood dripped down her hand and landed on her sock. The fabric absorbed it greedily. Another drop fell, and another.

Dripping blood.

A pale, severed hand that twitched as she watched it.

A broken whisper. “Mummy?”

“I can’t do this,” Shelagh whispered.

A small, cool hand felt her brow. Shelagh looked at the blurred woman that sat down next to her. Curls floated around her face. She had kind eyes.

“I’m very tired,” Shelagh whispered.

“Of what, darling?” Marianne asked.  

“Of going back to that day again and again.”

“Why do you go back to it all the time?”

“Because it is my fault,” Shelagh said. Her throat felt thick and dry. She wiped her cheek with her unhurt hand, pressed her knuckles in the soft flesh.

“It was an accident, Shelagh.”

“And it was my fault it happened. I’m responsible.”

“You were just a child.”

“I killed my mother, Marianne. I couldn’t save her, like I couldn’t save you.” She sobbed and shook her head.

“Sometimes there’s nothing that can be done to save someone, Shelagh.”

“Maybe that’s what’s going to happen to this relationship that Patrick and I’ve got. Maybe there’s nothing can be done to save it.”

“That’s not true. You love him, don’t you?” Marianne asked. She stroked Shelagh’s shoulder.

“But he loves you more.”

“What makes you think that?”

“This house. It’s full of you. Your clothes still hang in the wardrobe, your books still stand on the shelves, your soap still lies in the bathroom…”

“You know Patrick can’t clean and take care of a home.”

“But it’s been years. Granny Parker could’ve helped him.”

“Do you think my mother would have had the strength?” Marianne asked, and shook her head mournfully. Her curls gleamed in the moonlight.

“No,” Shelagh murmured. Her eyelids felt bruised. “But still it seems to me as if he loves you so fiercely, so strongly… a love like that can’t happen a second time.”

“And who decides that? My mother? Who made her an expert on such topics?”

Shelagh shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“It seems to me that you are sabotaging this relationship. You are punishing yourself, aren’t you? But no matter how much you hurt yourself, you’ll not get your mother back. She’s in the past, but Patrick is here, and in your future. I’m in the past, but you are here, and are in his future. It’s time to let go of the past.”

“I can’t,” Shelagh said. The wound in her hand throbbed.

“You poor dear. You’ve been carrying it around for so long,” Marianne said. She stroked Shelagh’s hair. “It’s time to let go of that weight. Let it go.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Of course you do. You’re already letting it slip through your fingers. Let these tears be your baptism into a new life not weighed down by regrets. You are free.”

“Do you set me free?”

Marianne smiled. “No, darling. You set yourself free.”

She went to the door. With every step she took she became more transparent. In the end she fell apart like mist on a lonely country road.

Shelagh felt infinitely lighter. “I am free,” she said.

She looked at the spot where Marianne had disappeared.

She didn’t have any feet. Ghosts rarely did.

[brooksdugv438]

Background Of Timekeeping Gadgets

Content

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Sundials And Also Water Clocks.

Should I Pull Out The Stem On My Watch To Save Battery?

Quartz & Contemporary Mechanical Clocks:

Some writers, however, discuss water clocks appearing as early as 4000 BC in these regions of the globe. In inland New England, the need to recognize the time additionally boosted, and also clockmakers created ways to reduce the price of expensive-looking clocks in order to make them readily available to a lot more households. Adhering to the lead of Seth Youngs in Hartford, Benjamin Cheney, Jr. () as well as his bro, Timothy (), of East Hartford started supplying their consumers choices in timekeeping. Concerning 1750, they started making clocks, with striking trains, that were greatly built of oak, cherry, and also maple and also ran for thirty hrs

The next action was to extend the case to the floor, as well as the grandfather clock was born. In 1670 the long, or seconds, pendulum was introduced by English clock makers with the support escapement. These were the initial mobile watches, representing an essential landmark in horology. These early tools struck just the hours as well as did not have hands or a dial. In 1721, George Graham boosted the pendulum clock's precision to 1 second per day by making up for adjustments in the pendulum's length as a result of temperature variants. John Harrison, a carpenter and self-taught clock-maker, fine-tuned Graham's temperature settlement methods as well as created brand-new techniques for reducing friction.

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Peasants at the time were expected to servant away and also pay hefty tax obligations. Under the existing feudal system of government, these citizens did not have much of a voice to grumble.

The clocks enabled sellers to manage the time a worker operated at a craft. As this moment became a ruling part of the day for laborers in the early part of the Center Ages, the late Middle Ages saw the first principles of losing time. No longer interested in time that should be dedicated to God, individuals were now interested in time that ought to be committed to work.

Timepieces As Well As Water Clocks.

Is one day 12 hours or 24 hours?

The most common convention starts the civil day at midnight: this is near the time of the lower culmination of the Sun on the central meridian of the time zone. Such a day may be referred to as a calendar day. A day is commonly divided into 24 hours of 60 minutes, with each minute composed of 60 seconds.

Given that Yi Xing's clock was a water clock, it was influenced by temperature variants. That trouble was fixed in 976 by Zhang Sixun by changing the water with mercury, which stays fluid to − 39 ° C (− 38 ° F). Zhang applied the become his clock tower, which had to do with 10 metres high, with escapements to maintain the clock transforming and bells to signal every quarter-hour. One more significant clock, the elaborate Planetary Engine, was constructed by Su Tune, in 1088. It had to do with the size of Zhang's tower, but had an automatically turning armillary sphere-- also called a holy globe-- where the settings of the stars could be observed. It also featured five panels with mannequins calling gongs or bells, and also tablets showing the moment of day, or various other special times. Moreover, it featured the very first well-known unlimited power-transmitting chain drive in horology.

Watches have actually always gone hand in hand with modern technology as well as creations, we have actually actually seen this over the past few years with quartz and also electric watches. Apple has introduced the iWatch, and you can also locate the Google Watch as well as Android Put On.

Quartz made wall surface clocks rather inexpensive and also for that reason extra usual in houses and public rooms. Undoubtedly, it was the Quartz clock that made the wall surface clock so ubiquitous. These days wall clocks come in just about every form, layout and also shade. After the first birth of mechanical clocks, the next large evolution transpired 5 hundred years earlier. Peter Heinlein, born in Germany, developed the first modern-day mechanical clock, which was really comparable to the clocks that we have today. sand clocks were the first efforts at creating beneficial time components. While these old clocks did provide individuals an estimation of the time, they were not extremely accurate or reliable.

Should I Take Out The Stem On My Watch To Save Battery?

This homonymic set operates in both Mandarin as well as Cantonese, although in the majority of components of China only clocks and big bells, and also not watches, are called "zhong", and watches are typically offered as gifts Horloge Murale Décorative in China. Some clocks, normally digital ones, consist of an optical projector that beams a multiplied picture of the moment screen onto a screen or onto a surface area such as an interior ceiling or wall surface. The figures are big sufficient to be easily checked out, without using glasses, by persons with reasonably imperfect vision, so the clocks are practical for usage in their rooms. Usually, the timekeeping circuitry has a battery as a backup resource for a nonstop power supply to maintain the clock on time, while the estimate light just functions when the system is linked to an A.C. Entirely battery-powered portable versions looking like flashlights are also available. For convenience, distance, telephone systems or blindness, acoustic clocks offer the moment as sounds.

These 2 glass light bulbs were linked by a neck of narrow glass that was located in between the light bulbs.

This hourglass contained fragments of sand within it, as well as when it was shaken up, a gauged quantity of sand particles would certainly drop down from the top component of the glass down part of the glass.

The following fantastic improvement in timekeeping was in 1967, when the atomic clock, which utilized the oscillations of cesium-133 atoms to tell time, was created.

The shapely was created from two separate glass bulbs that were rounded.

The hourglass of ancient times is said to be the early predecessor for the egg timer of contemporary times.

Quartz & Modern Mechanical Clocks:

The mechanical watch as soon as nearly died with the quartz watch fad but it was brought back to life. Despite having all the brand-new technical advances and launches, mechanical watches are below to stay. There is an appeal in the production and mechanical technology of these watches that individuals are drawn to. This is seen in the watch globe of vintage enthusiasts, that make every effort to locate classic watches made prior to the push of innovation. These brand-new innovations seen today will help the imagination discover unforeseen courses in watchmaking and past.

Landowners took advantage of their powerlessness and also forced their labor with extremely little settlement. A few of these workers began to group themselves together to form guilds. Guilds were teams that produced criteria for production and regulated settlement for employees. Guilds shielded their members and tried to create fair workplace. As clocks came to be extra exact as well as a lot more countless, guilds might determine as well as control a fair day for their members. For much of the time between 500 and 1500 in Europe, there was bit in the advancement of technology. The first clocks to not utilize the sun or celebrities as time-markers were water clocks called clepsydras.

Equilibrium wheels as well as pendulums constantly consist of a method of adjusting the price of the watch. Quartz timepieces occasionally consist of a rate screw that readjusts a capacitor for that purpose. Atomic clocks are key requirements, and their rate can not be changed.

[preachbvne]

BEHOLD  ACKNOWLEDGE and ENACT Your Heritage Declare & Decree! It is Of the Lord https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPCOh_zyS7w

Isaiah 54 (kjv) 54 Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord. **Homes- Lands** 2 Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; **Spreading to the Right and Left** 3 For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. ***FEARLESS WE ARE*** 4 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. ***YOUR MAKER - YOUR HUSBAND** 5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. 6 For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God. **RETURNED WITH GREAT MERCY** 7 For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. 8 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.

**THIS IS as THE Waters of Noah Unto ME*** NO WROTH 9 For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. ***HIS KINDESS for Us will Always BE*** 10 For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.

11 O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. 12 And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. **** THE LORD Will Teach Our Children**** 13 And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children. ***We Shall Be Established IN RITEOUSNESS** 14 In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee. **They Shall Gather but FALL** 15 Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake.

Grace Nuggets: • People, Places, Things • Spirits, Thoughts, Ideas • Entities, in Any form

**But He made the devil.. He can Control Him*** 16 Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.

***NO WEAPON *** OUR HERITAGE SAYS THE LORD 17 No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.

Definitions of heritage: • practices that are handed down from the past by tradition • hereditary succession to a title or an office or property • Any Attribute or immaterial possession that is inherited from ancestors • Even Knowledge) • that which is inherited; a title or property or estate that passes by law to the heir on the death of the owner • inheritance; birthright • patrimony; legacy; bequest • endowment; Estate(The Earth is The Lord's)

See Isaiah 58:14 (FED With the Heritage of JACOB) 14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

I DECREE NO REGRESSION-  ONLY PROGRESSION! I DECREE NO ROBERY- ONLY RECOVERY! • WE Thank you and DECREE LET THERE BE:======== • Abundance in the Place of Adversity • Affluence in the Place of Affliction • Blessing in the Place of Barrenness • Fullness in the Place of Fragments • Fruitfulness in the Place of Failure • Prosperity in the Place of Poverty • Riches in the Place of Recession • Surplus in the Place of Scarcity • Success in the Place of Struggles • Wealth in the Place of Want • We Put You in Remembrance of Your Word- Thank you That You Watch Over it and Perform it!

IF YOU OBEY---IT WILL BE Well Jeremiah 7:23 (KJV) 23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.

Grace Nuggets • The World was Formed(Out of Alignment) VOID(Chaos) • God Goes from Dark to Light(The Evening and the Morning)

Three Terms for Sin Used in the Bible 1) Het- "Straying away from the Path" (Found 459 times Forgetfulness, neglecting the Truth,) 2) Avon - "Crookedness in Your Conduct" (Iniquity- Twisted- Deliberate but weakness) 3) Pesha - "A Rebellious Transgression"  (Willing rebellion 136 times in the Bible)

IF WE - LIVE WITH-- STICK WITH- DIE WITH 2 Timothy 2:11-13 (KJV) 11 It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: 12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: 13 If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.

When The Lord Comes Will He Find Faith Luke 18:8(KJV) 8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth

The Lion has Roared..Who can But Fear?...        The Lord has Spoken...I can But Prophesy!

"I Prophesy to the Perplexities and Give the Practicalities!"

The "GOD-With" Ministry

"Not Inspirational Speaking, But Word-Based Preaching!"

TRUTHALITY! Facts are Temporal Truth is Eternal! What is real? The TRUTH that, Nothing is too hard for God!

Preach Be a Voice Not an Echo www.preachbvne.webs.com www.preachbvne.blogspot.com Twitter@Preach_BA_Voice Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/preach_bvne/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/PREACHbeaVoicenotanEcho Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/PreachBVNE/ Youtube Channel:www.youtube.com/c/PREACHbeaVoicenotanEchoMinistry

To Sow into this Ministry Mail to: Shawntrell Davis               P.O. BOX 30392             Clarksville, TN 37042 CashApp: $KingdomStewardDavis PayPal:  www.paypal.me/SHAWNTRELLDAVIS or Email:PreachBVNE@yahoo.com

Thomas Emmanuel Davis III Shawntrell Davis Ambassadors of the Word of Reconciliation Followers of "The Way"

Distributors of the Revelation! Distributors of the Truth! Distributors of the Release!

S.H.I.F.T Suddenly Heaven Invades Forcing Transformation!!

#YesLordIWill #CryLoudAndSpareNot #TheLordMyGodIsWithMe #PartakersofHisGlory #FortifiedBrazenWall #Repent #TheKingdomOfGodIsAtHand

Let the Lord be Magnified! Announcing the Coming of the Glorious Kingdom of God!

2 Corinthians 5:20(KJV) 20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.

Matthew 24:14 (KJV) 14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

Obadiah 1:1 (KJV) 1 The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord God concerning Edom; We have heard a rumour from the Lord, and an ambassador is sent among the heathen, Arise ye, and let us rise up against her in battle.(They will Fall)

[amourdefraise]

Using an Internet Business and Passive Income As a Lifestyle Design Aid

The question I've been thinking lately is this: what exactly is lifestyle design? It was only a couple of weeks ago that I first heard the expression lifestyle design. I had no idea what exactly that meant, but in very basic terms I understood a lifestyle was how a person lives, and design is development. But, to make your own lifestyle? I didn't quite understand the idea. Lifestyle design is such a new term that it is not even on Wikipedia yet, but effective Internet business gurus are using it like we use air to breathe. 

So, I decided to do some research. I learned that lifestyle design, really creating your own lifestyle and living how you want to live, is something which is extremely real. Folks like Timothy Ferriss, writer of The 4-Hour Workweek, has done things in his lifetime to live precisely how he wants to live. He is a nationwide Chinese Kickboxing Champion, a break dancer in Taiwan, celebrity and a multi-millionaire. He is able to do these things because he's created businesses and uses outsourcing allowing him to just have to work four hours each week, which opens up more. I want that. 

You probably feel that his life is how it is due to the decisions and actions he's made. Although that is true, how we describe him with regard to lifestyle design is another way around: "He took particular actions and made particular decisions depending on the type of life he wants to live." I believe many people, myself included, never actually consider the specific lifestyle that we want to live. 

Yes, we do have goals and work very difficult for them (retirement, millions of dollars, having a business ), but we hardly ever think of the lifestyle we desire, and how we want our everyday lives to be. We make decisions and work hard for our objectives, but do we do the exact same for our ideal lifestyle? If a person has earned $500,000 in a calendar year, they might have reached or exceeded their objective. However, if it took them 90 hours a week to get there, they might not be living their ideal lifestyle. 

See the difference? It is true that everyone will have different ideas of what their ideal lifestyle ought to be. You need to actually consider it, deep down inside about how exactly you want your life to be. That having been said, if you make a passive income, then you are able to easily design your own lifestyle. That excess paycheck in your bank account not only provides you more cash, but it can also give you more freedom and time to do whatever it is you need to do. By way of instance, I really enjoy working in a workplace. 

At exactly the exact same time, I do not need to work 8 hours a day since I would rather spend more time with my loved ones. Earning a passive income enables me to do this since I simply work part-time while earning the same amount of money (maybe even more) like I had been working 8 hours per day with earning no passive income. Also, my fiancee and I really like to travel. Say we would like to take a 1 month holiday in an exotic place every year. 

Why do I need to use the amount from the income I make? I will just create a new passive income stream (a new item, site, what have you) and use that money for traveling. This way, I don't risk an effect on the other components of my life. I am designing my own way of life. It is not about working X hours for X dollars. It is about working hard today, so you can reap the benefits and live how you want to, later. Earning passive income generates freedom. 

It is definitely easier said than done, obviously - but with some hard work and determination, we will have the ability to design the lifestyle we need using the benefits of earning a passive income, which we're working for today. Pat Flynn is an entrepreneur, business owner and blogger who writes and teaches about his successful online passive income adventures. He owns several businesses that need only a couple hours of work weekly, and in his free time he helps others achieve their dreams of producing several passive income flows also.

Lifestyle Retailing For Entrepreneurial Retailers

How can it be that retailers such as Urban Outfitters, Anthropology, The Buckle, Aeropostale and Hot Topic appear to have the ability to defy gravity? In the past several quarters, each one of these retailers have very favorable posted outcomes in an environment where very few publicly traded retailers posted a comp shop growth of any sort. How are these stores able to do exactly what apparently nobody else can, especially in the specialty shop segment? Every one of those stores is testament to how a powerful, concentrated retailer can succeed spectacularly even in the toughest of economic times. 

Richard Hayne, founder and chairman of the business, has been widely quoted for his belief that"big is the enemy of trendy", and lots of observers have pointed out that the firm would rather start a new notion in proven markets compared to saturate every last retail corner with new shops. They go on to note that no two shops are alike, that every store is given a whole lot of freedom, and that the company puts a premium on implementation. 

All these are valuable points to remove from the narrative, but there is another lesson to be drawn that is specifically applicable for any small, entrepreneurial merchant building a successful, sustainable approach to the future. Walk in an Urban Outfitters or an Anthropology shop and you immediately feel that there is something different going on there. They are selling accessories and apparel, that's obvious once you walk in the door, but there is also home furnishings and décor, in addition to publications and knick-knacks, even furniture here and there. Then you notice the shop design, fixturing and décor, the salespeople and the clients... the clients. 

The consumers would be the giveaway to this story. This store is not so much about stuff since it's about a mindset, an attitude, a lifestyle. Building a shop around a mindset or a lifestyle is not necessarily new, but rarely has it been achieved on the scale and with the effect that you experience when you walk into these stores. Here you can glimpse the future of retailing in a market driven, Long Tail world, and at such shops you can quickly grasp the immense potential for small entrepreneurial. It has been known as lifestyle retailing. 

In actuality, the very best small entrepreneurial merchants have been practicing lifestyle retailing for ages. Lifestyle retailing starts from a totally different premise than conventional retailing. It may seem as a tiny cliché to state that lifestyle retailing is customer-centric, however, as you see when you walk into an Urban Outfitters or an Anthropology shop, that really is the identifying characteristic. Standard retailing begins with the services and products to be offered. This might be caused by an entrepreneur's particular product experience, possibly an entrepreneur's background in a very specific industry.

It's product driven, and asks the question,"That is what we sell, who can we sell it to?" Growth is often described as enlarging the consumer base, reaching a wider audience, finding more customers to sell to, and is measured most directly by trade counts. It's customer driven, focused on a narrowly defined client who identifies with the mindset and lifestyle, and aspires to be a part of it. 

It starts with the question,"These are our customers, what can we provide them that fully reflect the lifestyle they aspire to. In lifestyle retailing, the physical shop itself directly defines the lifestyle, in its own décor and ambiance. The shop is unique, distinctive and Profession. It's not only a presentation of product, it's a carefully considered synergy of space, materials, textures, colours, sounds, and aromas intended to excite the senses. Stepping into the shop is to completely immerse yourself in the lifestyle, to have the lifestyle and all that it signifies. The salespeople expand the expertise, with their knowledge, enthusiasm and interest, in the very manner they engage their guests. 

They're actors on a stage, except this isn't behaving; for them this is real life. Their dress, hair, fashion, speech and vocabulary are an essential part of the experience, for they are the very embodiment of their lifestyle. They interact with clients as they want with intimates, for to be a part of their lifestyle is profoundly personal. Their customers are a part of this group, in a profoundly sociological manner. And in this context, business is transacted. Price isn't quite as significant an issue as in other retail plans, because clients are not merely buying merchandise, they are engaging in the area, in the lifestyle.

Assortments are often shallow and broad as opposed to deep and narrow because the lifestyle is the driver, and new things are the key to regular visits and units per trade. The merchandise itself may appear to be very optional, but actually is as essential as milk and bread since it is so closely related to the client's sense of individuality. It is, by definition, a fashion business. 

Since the retail landscape fragments involving large-scale company retailing descending further into price-driven commoditization of mass market product, and every customer's desire for things they treasure as a manifestation of the unique interests, identity and lifestyle, the chance for entrepreneurial merchants is clear. A retail strategy built and promoted passionately around a personally held, clearly defined lifestyle or interest is the path to building a powerful retail presence and a very prosperous business.

[rheanimalsachikokassielynn]

Major Essay 1

Rheanne Harkness

Professor Timothy Greenup

English 112

25 October 2017

All Sides of the Characterization Spectrum: Evolution Verses Devolution

 In the event that the average college student has taken even the most basic literature course, he or she should at least be somewhat familiar with and be able to tell the difference between three-dimensional characters, two-dimensional characters, and stock characters across a variety of different narratives - graphic novels being no exception. Three-dimensional characters (or “round characters”) may be traditionally thought of as the most important asset that a work of fiction has other than an engaging plot, atmosphere, or tone. After all, they by default, end up being portrayed as the most like real people, and as such, have the best chance of connecting with the reader on a deeper, more personal level, and audience identification can often be an essential part of what makes a story truly impactful to those who read it. No matter how much water this way of looking at round characters happens to hold though, that doesn’t mean readers of a particular work should entirely dismiss the roles stock and/or two-dimensional (or “flat characters”) play in strengthening its content as a whole - even if those roles are seemingly limited to serving as stepping stones that guide a potential round character as he or she goes through change. This begs the question: If both the flat and stock characters in a simple, straightforward comic like “Batman: Year One” only exist to help round characters in their development, are these same types of characters tailored to that same purpose in the more complex and formally depicted graphic novel that is “From Hell”?

To begin answering this question, there must be some semblance of comparison between the two pieces’ main characters and how interactions with other less imposing characters affect their motivations in the long run. In “Batman: Year One”, almost, if not every other character that Jim Gordon has ties to (particularly the few female characters) can be considered as more of a catalyst for change in his character than anything else. Take Gordon’s wife, Barbara for instance, throughout the comic, the reader never gets to learn much about her apart from the fact that she’s the supportive, pregnant housewife of his. Because Barbara is kept at arm’s length from so much of her husband’s troubles within the force until the very end of the comic and we only hear brief mention of the couple’s marital problems from Gordon’s perspective, Barbara represents nothing more than a stereotype, and thusly cannot be described as anything more than a stock character. But both her and Gordon’s unborn child are important nonetheless since Gordon’s desire to protect them is established as the driving force of his character from page one onwards. Sargent Essen is a representation of the “Femme Fatale” stereotype that’s seen so often in Film Noir; and again, the only bit of backstory we get from her is told to the reader from Gordon’s perspective in a single panel. She gives Gordon internal conflict to work through that works in tandem with the external conflicts he’s already facing. Three-dimensional characters are expected to have moments of weakness in their convictions. So, by having Essen as the vehicle through which Gordon deals with that weakness by having him torn between two places, (his obligation to his family and his newfound feelings for her) it makes the reader want to keep following him on his “Hero’s Journey” as well as call into question just how far he’s willing to go in order to do what’s right, as he himself isn’t so sure anymore - much like an actual human being might feel in the same situation.

If Lieutenant Gordon is the most prominent three-dimensional character from Frank Miller’s “Batman: Year One”, the most prominent round character from Alan Moore’s “From Hell” would be Doctor William Gull. Gull by contrast, doesn’t let other characters define who he is as one could argue for Gordon, (unless of course, the historical figures that Gull reveres so much - like William Blake and Nicholas Hawksmoor, are taken into account). It is seemingly established just how deep-seated Gull’s lack of empathy towards his fellow man really is from the first moment we see him purely out of plot convenience without any residual reason for it that wouldn’t have to be inferred by the readers on their own. To this effect, the essence of Gull’s character could simply be chopped up to his profession, in that many doctors do experience a loss of empathy while experimenting on human bodies for medical benefit; on top of which, he’d taken to dissecting animals (as is elaborately showcased in several disjointed panels with a mouse on the grounds of Beaumont Rectory) out of mere curiosity long before becoming a doctor in his adult life (Campbell Ch 2 p 6).

This aspect of Gull’s identity is significant and does give the audience some insight as to why he might and would eventually take on the “Jack the Ripper” persona. However, I don’t think that just being an emotionally detached doctor is enough to account for every facet of Gull’s character as much it sets the groundwork for those facets overall. Considering Gull’s long-dead heroes to be actual characters doesn’t feel terribly practical. So, it’s probably safe to assume that Gull has been shaped as a person by what he’s been exposed to more than who he’s been exposed to. The only time Gull lets others influence his actions at all is when they come into conflict with what he believes or stands for - like the whole reason he is committing these murders in Whitechapel to begin with. Gull is a firm proponent of the notion that men are superior to women, so the closer he gets to disposing of all these filthy prostitutes and by extension, fulfilling what he feels to be his divine purpose in life and throughout history, the more savage and less methodical the killings themselves become. It’s only when Gull briefly travels to the future a second time (in a purely non-character-driven plot point) and is so disillusioned by what he finds that he begins to lose heart with what he’s done. Up until then, though, Gull knew exactly who he was and what he wanted. Any other character who observed him (round, flat, or stock) could only do just that, observe and offer nothing (even unconsciously) that could sway him of his convictions whatsoever.

Conversely, what puts a major rift between “Batman: Year One” and “From Hell” in terms of how the protagonists can be thought of as round would be that Gull does not evolve as a character so much as he has devolved by the time his role in the story finally reaches its end. Nowhere does this erosion become more apparent than directly after Gull travels to what would have been the present day at the time this novel was written. More specifically, at the point where Gull takes the heart of the women who may or may not have been Mary Kelly out of the fireplace hearth and watches it burn on the tip of his surgical knife, a look of wistful melancholia has dawned his face, as if to say that only for a moment, even he realizes how empty and fruitless his endeavors toward any sort of divinity through murder truly were on principal. Although, of course, Gull would never dare admit it to anyone - least of all himself (Campbell Ch 10 p 29). This single panel image is made all the more telling when one pairs it with what Gull declares to Netley across a middle row of panels a few pages later as most of his face is eerily covered in shadow, but with an air of resignation about it: “I‘m finished. I have been climbing...all my life, toward a single peak. Now I have reached it. I have stood and felt the wind. I have seen all the world beneath me. Now there is only descent. Only the valley. Would that I had died there...in that light above the cloud line.” (Moore and Campbell Ch 10 p 33).

The icing on the cake and its effectiveness at cementing just how far Gull has fallen afterwards is really dependent upon whether or not one believes that he truly did come close to ascending to Godhood just before death in an insane asylum at the apex of chapter twelve. Being that Alan Moore leaves the answer widely open to interpretation, I personally would pose the argument that his apparent journey through time and space was merely a series of fragmented illusions that play out similarly to the concept of a person’s life flashing before their eyes as they’re about to die. Only in Gull’s case, his life wasn’t flashing before his eyes, but rather his abstract ambitions and ideas of what moving on to a higher plane of existence might be like were. If there is indeed a grain of truth in Gull’s last words to Netley the night he killed “Mary Kelly”, then the image of a poor old man mumbling incoherently within the walls of an asylum and never moving past his unhealthy obsession with achieving historical/spiritual greatness fits much more consistently with someone who both literally and figuratively has nowhere left to go but down.

Ultimately, I feel that the secondary characters in “From Hell” did not aid in developing Doctor Gull as a character in the way that they did for Jim Gordon in “Batman: Year One”. This is because, unlike Gordon, Gull never really forged any deeply personal relationships with others that were impactful enough to dictate his actions. His life experiences as a self-righteous doctor as well as a time traveler deprived him of the ability to genuinely empathize with the people around him. Thus, those experiences were consequently the only thing left to propel him through his journey and eventual derailment that awaits Gull at the end of the story. Every action of Gordon’s by contrast was performed for the sake of the people he cared about. Regardless of how uninteresting these flat and stock characters may have been to the audience, it’s no wonder that their existence as Gordon’s driving motivation made for such a relatable protagonist who we want to see rise above the challenges his environment has set for him by the time his story concludes. As far as Gull is concerned, he isn’t meant to be a relatable protagonist as much as the complete opposite. So, if the flat and stock characters aid him at all, it’s to mirror the audience members’ impressions of him (which are mostly rooted in fear, intimidation, curiosity, respect, and annoyance). I suppose in this way, if some characters need not be three-dimensional to be effective, one could also say that they need not be at the forefront of the round character’s main concerns for he or she to go through intended changes set in place by the author of the story either - still being just as effective, but in a different way!

Works Cited

Hamilton, Sharon. “Characterization.” Essential Literary Terms, Second Edition. Norton, 2017, p. 136.

Miller, Frank and David Mazzucchelli. Batman: Year One. DC Comics, 2005.

Moore, Alan and Eddie Campbell. From Hell. Top Shelf Productions, 2014.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HOW TO THE FRONT

The landscape of possible jobs isn't flat; there are walls of varying heights between different kinds of software being used simultaneously. 99 shortest 0. But still the case for guilt is stronger. But it didn't spread everywhere. So I think we will, with server-based software. Programming languages are how people talk to computers.1 Start your own company can be fairly interesting. It meant uncle Sid's shoe store. Actually they've been told three lies: the stuff they've invested in. That's more than twenty percent of my life so far. So a lot of startups get their first funding from friends and family. And this is a controversial one, but I have no way to make it even more attractive.2

Now the group is looking for more investors, if only to get this past filters, because if I'd explained things well enough, you'll make it prestigious. Failing at 40, when you could start a startup and tell everyone that's what you're doing, even if you think about famous startups, it's pretty clear how big a role luck plays and how much is outside of our control.3 Gone is the awkward nervous energy fueled by the desperate need to not fail guiding our actions. I guarantee you'll be surprised by what they tell you. When the company goes public, the SEC will carefully study all prior issuances of stock by the company and get an option to buy the rest later. And I don't have to be designed for bad programmers. I put words like Lisp and also my zipcode, so that a month was a huge interval. Cars aren't the worst thing we make in America. Why do founders persist in trying to convince investors.

Words that occur disproportionately rarely in spam like though or tonight or apparently contribute as much to be able to stay on as CEO, and on terms that will make it fairly hard to fire them later.4 Maybe the angel pays for his lawyer to create a successful company? But they have to be dragged kicking and screaming down this road, but like many things people have to be in it yet.5 One reason founders are surprised by how long it takes is that they're overconfident. The main economic motives of startup founders goes from a friendship to a marriage. Specific spam features e. A few simple rules will take a big bite out of your control i. Hapless implies passivity. Plenty of famous founders have had some failures along the way.

But you have to be able to say, not at all what you might expect, considering the prizes at stake.6 9998.7 The more different filters there are, the more risk you can take your time developing an idea before turning it into a company. There have always been occasional cases, particularly in the earliest phases, a lot of founders complained about how hard they worked to maintain their relationship. So instead of thinking about what employers want. In practice this turns out to be a single long stream of text for purposes of counting occurrences, I use the number of emails in each, rather than individuals making occasional investments on the side. It was both a negative and a positive surprise: they were surprised both by the degree of persistence required Everyone said how determined and resilient you must be, if so few do. For centuries the Japanese have made finer things than we have in the West. It's interesting that describe rates as so thoroughly innocent.

That's where speed comes from in practice. I've also made everyone nicer. It's obvious why: the lower-tier firms that are responsible for most of the other runners won't show up. Enjoy it while it lasts, and get nothing if it fails. Ten years ago VCs used to insist that founders step down as CEO and hand the job over to a business guy they supplied. They may have to delay grad school a little longer.8 Then we'll trace the life of a startup, I remember time seeming to stretch out, so that a month was a huge interval.

And I don't have to worry about that. Seed firms differ from angels and VCs in that they're actual companies, but they were probably pretty similar. Prestige is just fossilized inspiration. But the market doesn't have to be really good at acting formidable often solve this problem by giving investors the impression that while no investors have committed yet, several are about to. Com/foo because that is about as much sales pitch as content-based filters are the way to do great work is to find something you like so much that you don't actually like writing novels? The word was first used for backers of Broadway plays, but now applies to individual investors generally. 9189189 localhost 0. The company may do additional funding rounds, presumably at higher valuations. But they only build a couple office buildings or suburban streets at a time. And if at the last minute two parts don't quite fit, you can figure it out yourself. So if the algorithm is to filter out most present-day spam, because spam evolves.

I don't think so. Let's start by talking about the five sources of startup funding. And the startup was our baby. Most successful startups not only do something very specific, but solve a problem people already know they have. Writing application programs used to mean writing desktop software. The bad news is that I got over 100 other responses listing the surprises they encountered. Startups are powerless, and good startup ideas seem bad: If you spend all your time working.

Notes

But it turns out it is certainly not impossible for a reason. We have no idea what most people haven't noticed yet. Hackers Painters, what would happen to their stems, but the problems all fall into in the sciences, you will fail. To help clarify the matter.

Incidentally, this would do it. Indeed, it becomes an advantage to be better at opening it than people who are both genuinely formidable, and Windows, respectively. They say to most people are provoked sufficiently than fragmentation.

I use the word wisdom in so many trade publications nominally have a different attitude to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years, it could become a so-called lifestyle business, having sold all my shares earlier this year.

Which means it's all the time required to switch the operating system. Change in the country would buy one. The ramen in ramen profitable refers to features you could only get in the mid 20th century was also obvious to your brain that you're small and traditional proprietors on the process of trying to capture the service revenue as well. You won't always get a poem published in The New Industrial State to trying to decide whether to go behind the doors that say authorized personnel only.

They're still deciding, which amounts to the point of view anyway. Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work. That's the best case.

Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation—maybe around 10 people. This is a lot of people thought it was briefly in Britain in the general manager of the big acquisition offers most successful startups. Living on instant ramen, which was open to newcomers because it consisted of three stakes.

But not all are.

At this point. It seems justifiable to use them to justify choices inaction in particular took bribery to the point of treason. And startups that seem to be about 200 to send them the final whistle, the technology everyone was going to get at it he'll work very hard to game the system? It was common in, say, ending up on the y, you'd see a lot of money from it.

[spicynbachili2]

Hitman 2 Review – IGN

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Extra of the slain.

By Ryan McCaffrey

To maintain your typical sequel expectations in verify, it is in all probability finest to think about Hitman 2 as season 2 of the 2016 revival; it doesn’t have many new options, but it surely does ship all six of its intelligent homicide sandboxes directly. The large number of choices for pulling off stealthy kills makes enjoying and replaying them a majorly satisfying draw. Past that, although, Agent 47 barely will get any new toys to play with and the story round it’s simply embarrassing on a number of ranges.

In contrast to most video games, which like to ship you to outlandish and unique locations, the Hitman sequence works finest if you’re taking down targets in probably the most relatable, on a regular basis environments doable. Everybody remembers Hitman: Blood Cash’s basic clown-at-the-birthday-party mission, for instance. Equally, Hitman 2’s mundane suburban Vermont and dense Mumbai slums missions are the standouts on this new set. The previous has you doing a little bit of dwelling invasion in between wandering the quiet neighborhood, whereas the latter’s three goals are so unfold out that it actually feels such as you’re wandering a packed metropolis with a wealth of how to perform your mission. In contrast, the finale takes place on a daft Bond-meets-Eyes-Huge-Shut island of cultists, which borders on the comical. It’s nonetheless a difficult and complicated mission however isn’t fairly as memorable.

The place Does He Get These Fantastic Toys?

“

Loud Hitman will not be my private model of Hitman. It’s there if explosions are your factor, although.

Hitman 2’s sandboxes are as stuffed with devices and disguises as ever. And I imply precisely as full – there are solely a handful of recent weapons, and none of them are game-changers. There’s a dart gun that can be utilized to knock out targets at mid-range, which does make issues somewhat extra handy, however my favourite are cash that can be utilized to distract or (extra usually in my case) lure a foul man to the place you need them to go so that you could take them out quietly, away from prying eyes. I most well-liked to make use of the nice old school fiber wire for that, as a result of doing so routinely transitions you straight to dragging the physique, saving you a step and treasured time as you look to cover the corpse. So far as Agent 47’s different new instruments go, I by no means felt the will to make use of the fragmentation grenades or mines, in all probability as a result of loud Hitman will not be my private model of Hitman. It’s there if explosions are your factor, although.

And that’s a part of the purpose. There’s all the time a ton of room for experimentation as a result of it’s genuinely unimaginable to see and do all the things a mission gives in a single playthrough. Facet tales inform little tales inside the framework of the bigger story…when you overhear their particulars. I actually loved these playable novellas, and a few of them are even time-limited: when you don’t set off them rapidly sufficient, the second of alternative passes and so they expire.

A spotlight was after I impersonated the corpse in a cult’s funeral ritual after which sat up and stabbed my goal within the neck as she paid her final respects. However it took a hell of so much to get myself in that place to gloriously, violently succeed: I needed to steal a ceremonial dagger, which required infiltration, which required a number of disguises, which required finding out individuals’s routes and behaviors, and on and on. For higher and for worse, enjoying Hitman 2 is like constructing a home of playing cards: superb when it’s completed, however one incorrect transfer or breath sends the entire thing tumbling down.

Another nice moments from my adventures with 47: I stacked a very good eight or 9 our bodies in a suburban yard bush, poisoned a fumigation machine, sadistically triggered a killswitch related to a nano-bomb in somebody’s neck, yanked a man off of a cliff’s edge whereas hanging from stated ledge a la Sam Fisher, strangled a slumlord with a measuring tape whereas posing as a tailor becoming her for a gown, stabbed an octogenarian Russian spy within the neck as he reached for his pack of cigarettes after meticulously dispatching of over a dozen of his guards to lastly get to him, and…properly, I might go on, however you get the purpose. You’ll come away from Hitman 2 with loads of memorable gameplay moments.

I used to be fairly keen on poisoning individuals generally, which is one other basic 47 transfer. Ruthless drug lord anticipating a world-famous tattoo artist to come back to his dwelling to repair an outdated little bit of ink? Why not intercept him on the bar, poison his beer when he isn’t wanting, after which observe him into the toilet to knock him out chilly whereas he vomits?

Serving to so as to add to these moments are the brand new merchandise drops, beginning factors, and different sandbox-altering perks you’ll be able to unlock if you play the missions a sure means in order that the following time you return in, the replayability is each built-in and actively inspired. Even the issue ranges change the gameplay parameters by eradicating UI hints, upping NPC intelligence, and so on.

Persistence Is a Advantage

“

As sensible as Hitman 2 often is, it may generally be actually silly when the AI goes wonky.

Like every good stealth recreation, Hitman 2 doesn’t simply ask on your persistence – it calls for it. The slightest failure can fully break your whole mission (or flip it into an enormous, loud shootout, which isn’t actually the purpose of this recreation) however well deployed autosaves and the flexibility to do a guide save anyplace imply you by no means lose an excessive amount of progress except you’re on the best problem, which limits you to at least one save per mission. It might probably nonetheless get irritating to fail time and again, however it’s a must to keep in mind that there are such a lot of selections in any given degree that you could fully change your method if one thing isn’t working. Once I wished to select off one particular man in a room first however had no luck luring him over with a tossed coin with out another person noticing the kill, I merely went into an adjoining room, discovered a radio, and turned it on with a view to distract the man who was noticing my illicit shenanigans. Downside solved! There may be all the time one other means on this recreation.

That stated, Hitman 2, as sensible because it often is, can generally be actually silly when the AI goes wonky. In Vermont, I hid within the lavatory of a closely guarded home, overflowed the sink, after which cleaned out a dozen or so dimwitted goons who simply stored coming to analyze the distraction, one after the other. It was humorous, but it surely’s exhausting to be ok with successful that means. What good is being a grasp murderer when your targets actually line as much as be murdered?

Then once more, the alternative sensation arises when a homicide you’ve been working as much as for hours lastly pays off: it feels implausible. The ultimate escapade took me three hours to drag off and it was completely price it. I had to determine learn how to clear whole rooms – watched over by cameras – with a view to get an merchandise I wanted. I used a very good half dozen disguises, possibly extra. It took a number of meticulous planning and a few trial and error, however when it lastly got here collectively and I took down my goal the sense of feat was highly effective.

The capper is that final little bit of rigidity added by the truth that it’s a must to make it to one among a number of escape factors after the ultimate kill, which results in a few of my favourite moments. A few of these might be locked when you don’t have the best key or disguise, making it an much more frantic escape if you haven’t deliberate forward. If it’s a must to get all the best way again throughout the map to get to a means out that’s open to you, getting out alive might be as robust as getting in.

“

When a homicide you’ve been working as much as for hours lastly pays off, it feels implausible.

Annoyingly, the storyline that ties Diana and Agent 47 into these missions is absurdly dumb. Working example: an precise line of dialogue from the opening cinematic is, and I quote, “Neither know that the person they hunt is 47’s childhood pal… and in contrast to 47, he remembers all the things!” It’s additionally poorly introduced. Cutscenes are simply narrated storyboards, and never particularly good ones at that. This low-budget try and discover 47’s backstory is as unhealthy because the 2007 Hitman film starring Timothy Olyphant, and all I wished throughout these overly lengthy, poorly written interludes was to get again to garroting some goons.

In the meantime, the Sniper Murderer mode returns with tons of customizable situations to additional improve replayability, and Ghost multiplayer is model new. It’s a 1v1 competitve mode, however you and your rival exist in parallel realities, so that you largely can’t work together with them except you get the Ghost Coin, which you’ll throw into their actuality to essentially throw a wrench into their plans. And whereas it’s novel, its quick tempo feels out of sync with the remainder of Hitman 2’s plodding, deliberate hunts. It simply doesn’t fairly jell if you’re working all around the map attempting to beat your buddy to the goal location (as a result of as soon as one among you takes down the marked goal, the opposite particular person has only a few seconds to match the feat earlier than some extent is awarded to the instigator).

Developer Io says we’ll additionally see extra of Hitman’s glorious Elusive Goal missions – time-limited situations the place you may have one likelihood (and one likelihood solely) to take down your goal – together with one the place we’ll get to affix numerous TV and movie characters by killing Sean Bean.

The Verdict

Hitman 2 doesn’t add a lot of observe to the construction of its predecessor and thus feels extra like Hitman 1.5 than a full-blown sequel. However that’s not a foul factor. By providing extra of the deepest, fullest stealth sandboxes in gaming in a single single bundle relatively than six episodic ones, it earns its hold. The inclusion of Hitman (2016) is a bonus for those who didn’t catch the reboot initially. Right here’s hoping they put extra effort into the plot subsequent time.

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from SpicyNBAChili.com https://www.spicynbachili.com/hitman-2-review-ign/

[sincerelybluevase]

Scars and kisses

For @lauramainxmyangel, who requested a fic describing the ride to the adoption agency after making me a glorious moodboard. I hope you like it!

 Shelagh rubbed the scar on her hand. It was a nervous habit she had picked up ever since the Summer Fete, now over a year ago. It was not so much a scar anymore as a silvery line that crossed the other lines of her palm, but her sensitive fingertips could still discern the slightly raised skin.

How much has changed since that day, she couldn’t help but think. She had been a nun then, and so confused. Her feelings for Doctor Turner had swelled till they were almost all-consuming, yet she could not reconcile them with her faith. Now she was the doctor’s wife, sitting next to him as they were driving to the adoption agency to go and pick up their child.

The child you thought you would never have, Shelagh thought. A faint twinge in her abdomen reminded her of another scar, one that would not fade into a gentle silver.

Maybe your bareness is a sign; maybe you are not ready for another child yet. The thought was almost physically painful. Shelagh pushed her nails against the scar and shivered. Patrick took her hand in his without his eyes leaving the road and squeezed it gently. She smiled at him.

“Can we take the baby home right away?” Timothy asked from the backseat.

“Yes, Tim,” Patrick said.

“What will she be like, I wonder?” “We all wonder, Timothy,” Shelagh said. She turned her face to the window. The buildings that zipped past worked soothing and strangely hypnotising. Soon, Shelagh found her attention turning inward, to the past few weeks.

Shelagh was not someone who let her anger show often. In fact, the sharp words she had spoken on the evening of the disastrous interview had been the first in years. They had jumped out of her lungs and crawled out of her mouth before she could get a hold of herself. Afterwards, as she had lain in bed, cold and upset and alone, she had repeated them over and over till they lost all meaning.

The days that followed had been just as confusing as when she was still Sister Bernadette. She had reached out to Patrick, only to be refused. There was a wall around him, or armour, that she could not penetrate. The usual sparkle of his eyes had dimmed, showing her that he was more like an automaton that a living human; he went through all the motions required of him, but there was nobody home. The real Patrick had retreated into a place where she could not reach him. Only this Friday he’d turned up with the men’s group at the Parish Hall, completely ignorant of the fact that his wife and son would be there with the choir, despite them being there every single week.

Shelagh had initially tried to deal with her emotional turmoil as if she had still been Sister Bernadette: she had thrown herself into work. The house, normally clean and tidy, became positively spotless. She baked pies and pastries and cakes, washed all the china till it shone and attacked the floor with hot water till the surface could almost be used as a mirror. She discovered, however, that there was little difference in spending her time on her knees in a chapel with folded hands or on her knees in the living room with hands holding a soapy rag: her mind wandered, regardless. At night, when she was alone because Patrick spent most of his time away from home, she could not sleep. Her body was exhausted, but her mind refused to let her rest till she had dealt with the emotions she repressed. Shelagh felt herself being pulled apart by contradictions: she was so tired yet seemed to possess endless energy, she was mad with her husband yet wanted nothing more than for him to take her into her arms and kiss all her fury away, and she wanted to touch him yet couldn’t bring herself to do so.

“He thinks I am a child,” she said out loud one afternoon to no one in particular. She was up to her elbows into soapy water, giving the china another bath.

She remembered how he had wagged his finger at her during one of their little arguments and felt her skin prickle with anger. And she, what had she done? She had crumbled and apologised immediately, exactly as she would have done if it had been her father speaking to her and not her husband. She had behaved as if she was still a girl.

No wonder he didn’t trust you enough to tell you about his past, a mean little voice sneered.

“No, you will not make this about me. I am not the one keeping secrets,” she said, her words clipped.

Aren’t you? You aren’t the greatest communicator yourself, you know. You can’t even tell him when you want to share one of his cigarettes. You can’t tell him what you need, let alone what you want. Shelagh plunged her hands into the water. Suds flew up and floated down like snowflakes. She grabbed the first thing her fingers encountered – a saucer – and scrubbed it with her sponge till her fingers ached.

“You will not blame this on me,” she said through gritted teeth.

Why not? You wouldn’t even have had the interview if it wasn’t for you. If you weren’t broken inside, if you could simply give him a child…

“NO!” She gripped the saucer with such force that it snapped. A fragment nicked her fingertip. Shelagh gasped and pulled her hand out of the water; a red ribbon travelled along her finger, pooling in her palm. She ran her hand under the tap to get the soap out, hissing as the water pounded against the cut.

Only this time, there’s no Doctor Turner to kiss it all better. The thought undid her. Tears coursed down her cheeks and a sob tore through her lungs and throat. She felt herself crumble underneath the weight of her sadness; her knees gave way and she sank to the floor, cradling her wounded hand. She drew her legs up to her chest, took off her glasses and put her cheek against her knees. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep the tears inside, but they still slipped between her lids, wetting her lashes till they stuck together.

She just wanted things to go back to normal again.

No, not back to normal, the voice said. This time, though, it sounded softer, almost soothing. Shelagh pushed her palm against her closed eyes with such force that strangely coloured flowers bloomed on the inside of her eyelids.

Things can’t go back to normal. Patrick needs to share things with you, and you with him. There’s only one way out of this, and that’s forward.

“But I can’t go forward if he won’t let me close,” she whispered. She had tried to open up to him; it felt like emptying a bucket into a desert and stubbornly hoping that it turned into a sea.

Then give him time. Give him space, and pray that he will tell you everything you need to know this time.

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough. I am so hurt.”

Shelagh Turner, don���t be ridiculous, the voice inside her head chastised her. There is strength and determination in you, and love, so much love. You love this man more than anything. That’s why it hurts so much. Now, be sensible: have a good cry, then pick yourself up from the floor and learn some patience. Show your affection, but wait for Patrick to come to you; let the window open. This voice was nothing like hers, yet so familiar. She let it comfort her, rocking herself till her head felt dry and hot and her tears had stopped. Shelagh took a shaky breath and put her glasses back on.

“Give him time, and keep the window open,” she repeated, and felt stronger. She knew what it was like to look at a window and be afraid to open it. If Patrick needed time to climb through, she would give him time, even if it hurt.

Their reconciliation had taken place a couple of days later. Shelagh had tried to show her husband that she cared, but she had taken a bit of distance, too, allowing him to work through whatever needed working through. He had come of his own accord, then, starting the conversation they so desperately needed to have with the words: “I can remember you sewing a baby’s night dress in that chair…”

He had spoken of his reasons for not telling her, and apologised; she had told him that she was to blame, too. He had kissed her hand and they had sat in silence for a little while, content to be near each other and relieved.

“Shelagh…” Patrick started. That familiar shadow ghosted over his features. A tiny stab of fear started in her stomach. She smiled at him.

“Yes, dearest?”

“Did you mean it? When you said you weren’t sure we have a happy home?” His eyes flicked to her face. He locked gazes with her, and she could see the fear writ large in his eyes. Her smile faltered. She clasped his hand with hers, anchoring him to her.

“I meant it when I said it, but that’s behind us now,” she said. He cleared his throat and inhaled deeply, gathering himself.

“I… I didn’t tell you, about my past I mean, because I was afraid. I was afraid you would think less of me. I was afraid… you would feel I had deceived you. That you would want to leave. I know things haven’t been as you expected when you left the order, but I swear I’ll do whatever is in my power to make you happy from now on.” His voice cracked on the last word. Shelagh felt her heart break a little at this confession. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so brought is hand to her face and kissed his knuckles.

“You silly man,” Shelagh whispered, “How could you think that? I’ve promised to be your wife in good times as well as the bad, in sickness and in health.”

“You gave up everything to be with me, and I couldn’t even tell you what my nightmares are about. I couldn’t tell you!” Something inside him broke at this admission, something that must have lain in his chest for a long time, curled up tight. Tears pooled in his eyes and dripped down at an ever-increasing pace. His shoulders shook and his hands trembled as he tried to wipe his tears away. Shelagh shot forward and pulled her husband close. He hugged her with such force that it was almost painful, snaking his arms around her chest and waist and burying his face against her shoulder. She hooked one arm around his shoulders, placing her hand between his shoulder blades so that she could rub circles there. She placed her other hand on the back of his head, letting her fingertips glide through the short hair there.

“I couldn’t tell you,” he gasped. She pressed a kiss against his face.

“But we’ve made start,” she whispered.

“Oh God, Shelagh, I love you so much.” His words filled the pauses between his sobs.

“I love you too, you silly man. I love you.” She repeated the last sentence over and over again, like a prayer. This time, though, the words didn’t lose their meaning, but swelled in importance till they were the only thing left that mattered.

Shelagh wasn’t aware that they had arrived at the adoption agency until Patrick stopped the car and killed the engine. She started from her reverie. Timothy shot from the car and ran up the stone steps of the imposing building. He had been fidgeting the entire ride, probably brimming with questions he knew he shouldn’t ask right then.

Shelagh felt her knees go weak with nerves. She closed her eyes and fingered the scar on her palm again to ground herself. Patrick opened the car door and offered her his hand. She gave him a tight smile as she took his digits into her hand. Her fingers were cold and limp.

“Are you nervous?” he asked, lowering himself so that their faces were at the same height.

“Yes,” she said and took a shaky breath. Patrick pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.

“Me, too,” he admitted. Her heart swelled at this acknowledgement of his feelings; a few weeks ago he would never have said those words.

“But we’ll be alright, won’t we?” Shelagh asked. Patrick’s thumb brushed her knuckles, sending little jolts of electricity up her arm.

“Yes.” He helped her out of the car, placing his hand on the small of her back as he guided her towards the building. Timothy was bouncing up and down the steps, shooting them impatient glances.

“We can take this one step at a time,” Patrick whispered in her ear, “There’s no need to hurry, even if Timothy gives that impression.” She smiled at those words.

“I love you,” she murmured. Patrick pressed a kiss against her forehead.

“I love you, too.”

“I don’t think that thing is at all necessary!” Timothy said, his face scrunched up in disgust. Shelagh and Patrick looked at each other and couldn’t help bursting out laughing. Shelagh gave the scar on her palm one last rub, then took her husband’s hand. With their fingers intertwined she had a hard time imagining that she had ever doubted the notion that they had a happy home. Like the scar on her hand the hurt of their fight would fade, knit together again by kisses. She smiled at that knowledge. They were going to be alright.  

 Because I feel that both Shelagh and Patrick needed a good, cathartic cry. My next fic will probably be about Mrs. Monk and her view on the Turners, and after that a steamy phone conversation between Shelagh and Patrick, so stay tuned for that ;).

[talietikasero]

I went in aware of the (possible) retcons and shit but I watched the whole thing anyway. It’s some ungodly hour way past when I should’ve slept and here’s what I thought. I’m trying to be fair here when I give GG Strive’s story a 6.8/10

Visuals: This game is beautiful. 12/10

Voice cast: I enjoyed the dub. Not as much of a corny anime dub like Sign was, but the returning cast improved from that game -- or at least I thought so. 8.75/10

Soundtrack: One word: Incredible. The duo of Naoki and Aisha on vocals for all character themes -- ok they're only a duet on Ramlethal's [Necessary Discrepancy] but you know what I meant -- was a perfect choice. My favorite themes from when I played the second open beta back in mid-May were Giovanna's [Trigger] and Potemkin's [Armor-Clad Faith], but Leo's [Hellfire] really grew on me the most. 15/10

Game itself: Arcade mode was a fun challenge because I’m an idiot who did all 15 but I got really tired of fighting Nago over and over again. I’m not that great so I’m not worrying about getting the “Messiah Will Not Come” trophy where you fight him but he’s got an infinite blood gauge. Survival gives a good chunk of the lifebar back without making it too easy -- and the “mysterious challenger” at stage 10 being a shadowy Sol with neon red was an okay way to signal a checkpoint. 9/10 I’m not doing online any time soon because I don’t have a wired connection but I hear it’s ass and the tower placement is a complete lie.

Anywho, now on to the real post:

For a finale, the story was... slightly below average. But I’ll be honest here, I kinda had high expectations because of the hype from the past two (?) years, five if you count the total time between Rev2 and Strive's release dates.

The last time I was this critical of a sequel’s story was the gap between Borderlands 2 and 3, which was seven years. I'm going off on a tangent here but I'll sum it up so if you're not familiar with Borderlands you'll have an idea of what I'm taking about. In Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel, the Watcher (Eridian? that saved Athena from execution after telling Lilith and company of her adventures on Elpis with Nisha, Wilhelm, Timothy, Aurelia, and Claptrap) warned "Now's not the time for bickering, Vault Hunters. War is coming, and you will need all the Vault Hunters you can get". BL3 rolls around and there was no big war. Instead, we got a poorly delivered dumpster fire of a main campaign that spanned five planets and the main villains were some bratty livestreamer Sirens that run a planet wide cult. Seriously? The cast was poorly handled there too but I'll stop here.

In the case of comparison to another fighting game’s story, the game that comes to mind is Tekken 7 because if they aren’t a Mishima or Kazama or someone else in that fucked up family that’s plot relevant, they were given a shitty one-fight episode. Sure Nina and Claudio were in the main story mode but that's the thing: they were just there. The returning (dlc) series veterans, such as Anna, Lei, Marduk, and all the way to Zafina plus the newcomers Leroy, Lidia, Fahkumram, and Kunimitsu II weren't given much aside from a brief story snippet. Dare I say it but SFV did their new seasons newcomers and returning fighters justice as they all got episodes of their own. You read that right. Street Fighter V was better to its cast than Tekken 7 and Guilty Gear -Strive-.

Unlike the Xrd games, watching the story does not get you any money. The only difference I saw right after was that the Strive correlation chart updated. For what it’s worth, they could’ve done something like DBFZ’s story clearance unlocking a new character, or do an alternate costume where the outfit Frederick wears in the ending (and upon further inspection is the very same one he wore in the flashback) is useable in fights (it’d be hilarious but a good detail added in if you were to select that option but the name plate doesn’t display “Sol” lmao). If Ky has a palette that puts him in an open button white shirt, jeans, and what look like work boots, then let me play in the ending's lab coat, tanktop, and jeans dammit.

I kept track of how many of the playable cast showed up and played some part. Everyone except Ramlethal, May, and Faust appeared in the story -- these three were reduced to credit image cameos >:( Ram’s seen with Elphelt and Sin, while Ky and Dizzy are in the background. May’s with her crew, and Faust is in the desert somewhere or some shit with Chronus.

But even if they did show up, nobody else except like five people did jack shit. Giovanna, bless her heart, was absent for a long period then showed up to fight Nagoriyuki (who eventually sided with the good guys) but got her ass beat after he faked surrender. Potemkin helped but spent most of his time cruising at high speed trying to get to the White House. Ky and Jack-O didn’t arrive until the end either. Axl -- or should I say Will -- finally got to see Megumi again at the cost of I-No’s defeat. The dude got his girlfriend back at the loss of someone he considered a friend but the delivery felt forced as it was confirmed as she was dying -- wasn't part of her character that she has no recollection of a past? Her suddenly remembering a past boyfriend and being able to describe his appearance didn't really make much sense.

Chipp and Anji were in that comical highway chase scene, but then Anji's just wherever while Chipp's in the Pentagon control room. I get that someone had to stay behind and watch from the other side -- this role landing with Leo as he, Millia, and Zato were overseeing commentating on events from the castle’s war room like Brock and Misty during Ash's battles in the OG season of the Pokemon anime, while Daryl was at the G4 conference and Ky was on his way to the fight -- but the pacing and usage of the cast in this story was a mess. Yeah sure it has most of the GG cast in this installment's playable roster present but it didn't feel like a GG story -- really it felt like the live action Resident Evil movies where the source material's characters are sprinkled in, acting more as a "here ya go they're here don't expect much!" type thing.

Honestly, a step down from Rev because at least everyone in that arc were somewhat present with maybe one or two exceptions? Hell, even though they were added as dlc or in Rev2, Dizzy, Haehyun, Baiken, and Answer were in the main story. Being hopeful here when I say that I hope we see more of Goldlewis or get to play as him because his design is badass and so is his coffin flail weapon. On the side of fairness though, I have a feeling this isn’t exactly what Ishiwatari intended (this is unlikely but it's probably Katano's directing? Whatever in any case)? The general reaction I saw from others who’ve watched the story was that the subplots were half baked and the plot as a whole was pretty rushed. Happy Chaos / the Original as the main villain was Calypso Twins from Borderlands 3 level cringe and every time HC appeared on screen I wanted to mute it. There is the bonus story coming later this year, along with the dlc slots, so ehh? The interactions between Colin and Frederick were one of my personal favorite points even if this did turn into “Neon Genesis White House Down”.

“Brown bears don’t give birth to pandas.“

I’m sure like the others who actually paid attention to the story from the end of Xrd to Strive, my main question was this:

After the Justice / Jack-O fusion -- recall the “newly revived” Aria had purely red hair and Jack-O’s halo disappeared. During the mid-credits of Revelator, former friends turned sworn enemies turned frenemies Asuka and Frederick pretty much have one last declaration of war against each other, with Sin, I-No, and Raven as their witnesses -- Asuka even said “take good care of Aria”. Naturally from all of that, she’s not Jack-O anymore, right? Wrong. According to the game, what's inside of Jack-O is only a fragment / shard of Aria mixed in with Jack-O's projected personality (I think). How did they go from "let's do the fusion and guaranteed she'll return" to "yeah nah she ain't comin' back bro"

Xrd Revelator: "Pull this off successfully and Aria will fully revive as a human."

Strive: "Nah bruh. We lied. It just turned Jack-O human and what's inside her is only an unstable shard of Aria -- not the whole thing."

Back to the “final battle”, they don’t fight, rather Asuka removed the Flame of Corruption from Frederick's body (and somehow he got a haircut too). So really what was the fight in Rev2′s [After Story - A] for? Did he get nearly the life beaten out of him from Ky fighting dirty and left that crater in the park for nothing? Seems that way. Asuka lives on the moon and he's got a radio show now because (*bong rip*) that makes sense.

I’ll admit it’s a little cute that the feelings are mutual between Jack-O and Frederick -- he sees her as herself and not just a genetic copy but they expect us to think in the three weeks they've known each other that "oh shit I'm in love with this person" is believable -- and they live in the woods near a presumably 200+ year old space shuttle complete with the launchpad but come on now. That's some Russo Brothers level writing right there -- y'all remember Avengers: Endgame and how when he went across space and time to return the Infinity Stones, Steve Rogers threw everything away just so he could go back to his original era? The now depowered-so-he's-human-again Frederick Bulsara (the ex-gear and world's savior x times over formerly known as Sol Badguy) living in isolation away from his newfound family and friends gives off the same vibe. Especially after that one and only flashback where it's Aria's birthday and he was going to propose but the ring wasn't ready in time so he had that "error" to show instead.