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notsosensational · 4 years ago

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This is my classpect master post for Danganronpa 2! It's been a while since my post for the first game, mostly because I was stuck on a few characters (it was much harder overall for some reason), but I'm finally done, god bless. I’m hoping to start and finish V3 soon to work on the next classpect post

Hinata Hajime- Page of Hope

-actively exploits and is served possibilities and positivity. Hope was easy for Hajime, because even though he's more of a "realist" than our other hope players, he's a fantastic beacon of encouragement to the people around him. Somehow he just knows the right things to say in order to lift people's spirits. He definitely didn't start out with much hope himself though. He was bitter and futureless, attending the Hope's Peak reserve course as more of a conciliatory prize than anything. But Chiaki bumped into him and gave him the belief that he's not any worse by not having a talent. And later, he was given a huge opportunity to take part in the "hope cultivation plan". There's a lot of self-denial going on with him, trying not to admit to others that he's only in the reserve course and trying to convince himself that he doesn't care that much, which runs rampant in pages and knights.

Kamukura Izuru - Muse of Hope

-passively embodies possibilities and beliefs. On my previous classpect post with the DR1 characters, I said I didn't do the master classes but I've changed my mind. I'm not going to go back and edit my post but I'm definitely sorting Junko as a lord and Izuru as a muse. There's nothing else he could be. Extreme passivity and preoccupation with personal belief and possibilities (what is interesting, what is boring, is there anything I can't do?). He *is* possibilities in that he has so many talents, he can do nearly anything. Also, this just goes to show that no class, aspect, or title is inherently good or bad. Some might be more inclined to, uh, moral confusion, but we all make our own choices.

Owari Akane- Mage of Life

-actively understands and guides energy and growth. Life seems a pretty solid fit for her, as she's basically grown up overcoming obstacles, metaphorically and literally as she does parkour and gymnastics. Her relationship with food is all about energy and not about quality (... she eats crushed flowers after Hiyoko tells her you get more protein when you crush the food). What really sold me on mage though, was her intuition. She's really noted for her accurate gut feelings; she can tell when someone is strong even when they don't look it and I learned after reading her wiki that in the "ultimate talent development plan" she could sense Mukuro and Maki weren't who they appeared to be.

Komaeda Nagito- Bard of Light

-passively destroys information and fortune. A lot of people say he's hope but while that could fit, light fits so much better. His cycle of good luck & bad luck makes sense as he's drawn to luck as a light player but then destroys it as a bard. Most importantly though, the way he wields information like a weapon to confuse and undermine people really solidifies it for me. Somehow, someway, he always knows (or acts like he knows) much more than everyone around him. His dialogue is endless exposition and self-centered but all his information is given to manipulate people and tear them down.

Pekoyama Peko- Knight of Doom

-passively serves systems, restrictions, and suffering. She serves the system she's always known. She is a tool to be wielded by Fuyuhiko and nothing more. Her feelings and desires are pushed down because there's no point in expressing them. She's very good at what she does though, she definitely exploits the rules she adheres by enough to be called an Ultimate. And even though she doesn't express her emotions, it's clear that her suffering has made her empathetic, as she's respectful and one of the few people who holds basic decency towards Nagito.

Kuzuryu Fuyuhiko- Prince of Blood

-actively destroys through relationships and bonds. He's destructive and he acts like it; heir was the only other class I was considering but he's very active and more into intentional destruction than unintentional changes. Obviously he destroys nearly any chance of close relationships with his classmates, but as a yakuza his job is to use his connections to lead, which often involves tearing down other gangs and ties. And finally, he destroys his only real relationship after Peko is executed after he orders her to kill Mahiro.

Hanamura Teruteru- Maid of Rage

-actively creates rage and limitations. I think maid fits well from the start, as he's a cook and that's all about creation. He definitely inspires rage in people, and the doubt and disbelief of rage is very evident in his constant denial of his surroundings. He created a lot of fear and negativity in himself because he wouldn't settle on believing or refusing what was going on- he needed to know the truth and that drove him to acting out. His insistence on being called "chef" and that he's from the city both fuel a sort of self-delusion that seems to be common with rage.

Nanami Chiaki- Rogue of Blood

-passively steals and relocates relationships and bonds. She is very focused on interpersonal relationships, and not just those centered on herself. To some extent, she's able to connect with everyone including reserve course Hajime, and black sheep Nagito. In the game, she's *really* good at redirecting people. If they're focused on arguing with someone, she manages to turn it around for the better, like with Hiyoko's shrine to Mahiru. She also fits the rogue archetype well, as in the anime she was an outcast in the beginning, and- this might just be my opinion- honestly I don't think anyone ever seriously got close to her as well as they did with some of the others.

Tanaka Gundham- Witch of Hope

-actively changes beliefs and possibilities. Honestly, I could see a bit of everything in him. I think witch fits very well with his aesthetic, but it also fits his choices. Witches are highly active but often off doing their own thing instead of cooperating with everyone; he spent more time looking for his earring than investigating for the first trial. Hope very clearly fits the zany belief system he has, but it also fits in other ways. It's not obvious because of his vernacular, but he has a crazy amount of optimism; he gets regular remarks ranging from "politely shunning" to "outright hurtful" and they never seem to seriously bother him. I view his act in chapter 4 as a grand example of changing his classmates' hope.

Sonia Nevermind- Knight of Breath

-passively exploits and serves through freedom and direction. While she is a princess, she definitely does not act like a prince. Instead she considers her title to essentially be a servant to her people. She isn't above them in anything but position, and she needs to direct them to a better future. She is cooperative and helpful to the rest of the class but not in the healer way a sylph would be, more in the useful motivator kind of way. She serves the team by keeping a composed head and encouraging everyone to stay calm and work towards the goal. She expresses the motivation and direction aspects of breath more so than freedom but it still shows in her detachment from everyone else due to her status. She's never really had close bonds before Hope's Peak.

Saionji Hiyoko- Thief of Time

-actively steals time. I went through several different titles for her in between analyzing other characters. She definitely fits the role of thief with a personality comparable to Vriska and Meenah. Dancing is a time activity as you need perfect timing for a routine, and traditional dancing even more so since it's lasted for centuries. Personally, I think because of her upbringing she is not quite acting as she wants to, and is ghosting the knight of space. She wants to be bold and confident, able to take up the time of others and act meaningfully, but she's hesitating; serving others space to keep them away and is pretending she's more capable than she is. She was kept spoiled and helpless growing up which means she developed the personality and drive of a thief, but not the skills needed for one.

Mioda Ibuki- Sylph of Heart

-passively heals emotions and sense of self. To me she is very clearly a heart player. She's very sure who she is and doesn't mind expressing it, and all of her free time events with Hajime are centered around helping him with his identity. She's friendly and gets along with pretty much everyone in some way, including "Byakuya", Mikan, and Hiyoko; all of which are not so easy to hold friendships with. I think it's interesting how much she likes "Byakuya" considering his constant identity crisis and I wonder if she can sort of sense that. She's loud and she stands out, but she's a pretty passive person concerning her actual actions and mostly helps people individually.

Souda Kazuichi- Page of Space

-actively exploits and is served space. I like space for him; I think the creationistic, physically-oriented, free-flowing structure of space suits his nature well. He's more concerned with the journey rather than getting to the perfect end results, as shown by the examples we have of his machines. One of his inventions automatically draws the lines on a soccer field but it had no stopping mechanism and escaped from the school grounds- it was quite a success to him though! He dreams of creating an incredibly fast bike that he can't even ride and he enjoys every step of the process even though it's taking him a while. He has created an intimidating physical persona for himself by dying his hair and wearing contacts to give him a punk look, but others comment that it doesn't quite match his jumpy, anxious personality. This is on-par for pages, who often feel the need for a mask, because he is now served space by strangers due to his appearance.

Koizumi Mahiru- Seer of Space

-passively guides and understands space. I struggled with her a bit as we really don't know much about her. She's kind of plain compared to the other outlandish personalities and she says she doesn't open up to Hajime as much as she would with a girl. Space is about creation, physicality, location, and enjoying the moment. Her interest in photography satisfied all of those especially with how she views it; she captures pictures of people smiling to create a record of the current moment. She's very level headed and is good at seeing the whole ~picture~ (hehe). She's not a very active person but she's quick to give her opinion and advice if she thinks someone is on the wrong track.

Tsumiki Mikan- Bard of Rage

-passively destroys through negativity and limitations. Rage was easy for her; she's surrounded in negativity and it tends to annoy (and occasionally enrage) those around her. It provides a unique contrast with Nagito, as she subverts the usual motive for killing (hope of getting off the island) and kills only for despair. It is, of course, expected for a bard to flip their lid, but she also acts as a bard before remembering her prior life. She does destroy some of the limitations through the first two trials by providing autopsies when the Monokuma files didn't cut it, and she very clearly represses her own rage at her abusers nearly 24/7. I think it's also worth mentioning that on a fictional level, rage and hope both are often associated with a sort of hand-wavey deus ex machina bullshit which I'd say applies to her ability to retrieve the memories of her past life due to the despair disease, even though it didn't work that way for anyone else.

Nidai Nekomaru- Heir of Mind

-passively changes actions and logic. The English translation of his ability is "team manager", but when he explains his skill, he doesn't focus on teams, he focuses on the athlete themself, so "coach" or "trainer" would be more apt I think. And a trainer is focused on changing your actions, getting you to perform better and better. Despite his loud and boisterous personality, he tends to be pretty level headed. He's able to clearly ascertain what each individual athlete needs to improve and create an orderly regiment for them. It took me a while to decide on heir, but it fits better than any other class I feel, as he does inherit the title from Daisuke, a team manager he shared time in the hospital with who later died, and his personality is similar to the other heirs we know in Homestuck.

Ultimate Imposter- Maid of Void

-actively creates nothingness and secrets. I was originally gonna go with heart because of identity issues, but after reading their wiki because I didn't want to rewatch the anime, most of their issues stem from feeling like they don't exist, feeling like nothing, which is spot on for void. Not to mention they need to keep their secret while impersonating someone, and they have to basically create secrets whenever people ask them personal information about whoever they're portraying at the time. They are made of nothingness, with no name, no background, and they create more of it when providing falsities to their classmates. Even without the pun of "made" and "maid", they're a very kind and helpful person no matter who they're posing as.

#homestuck #danganronpa #danganronpastuck #danganstuck #drstuck #classpects

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staliasjeronica · 6 years ago

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Jughead Jones Personality Profile

According to my knowledge, Jughead would be an INTJ. Note: These are from a website, and therefore is what the website says for this type. I went through every single one to figure out the right fit for Jughead and this one was the closest and fit him best according to how he is in the show.

It can be difficult for Architects to find people who can keep up with their non-stop analysis of things. People with this personality type are imaginative yet decisive... ambitious yet like their privacy... curious about everything but remain focused.

With a natural thirst for knowledge that shows itself early in life, other kids at school often call Architects “bookworms.” While their peers may intend to insult them, those with this personality type likely identify with the label. Throughout their lives, they’re proud of how much they know, and Architects enjoy sharing the knowledge they gain. They’re confident in their mastery of their chosen subjects. They are serious and prefer to design and carry out effective plans rather than waste their time with foolish distractions like gossip.

Architects accept and work with inconsistencies that make perfect sense to them – at least from a purely rational standpoint. For example, Architects can be both the most positive dreamers and the bitterest pessimists at the same time. On the positive side, these personalities believe nothing is impossible with enough effort, intellect, and thought. On the negative side, they might also believe that people are usually too lazy, unimaginative, or selfish to reach hard goals. But this idea won’t put them off chasing their own.

Architects are self-confident in the skills and ideas they focus on. Using their insights and logic, they push innovation through by sheer willpower. It may seem that Architects constantly deconstruct and rebuild every idea and system they encounter. They typically apply a sense of perfectionism and even morality to all their work. Anyone who can’t keep up with Architects’ processes or doesn’t see the point of them is likely to lose their respect.

Architect personality types dislike rules, restrictions, and traditions. For them, everything should be subject to questions and reviews. When they can, Architects often act alone, and their approaches are usually innovative and unique. They may not wait for others to catch up to them. Because of this, they’re sometimes not as sensitive as they could be to the thoughts, desires, and plans of others.

But they aren’t impulsive. Architects strive to remain rational no matter how attractive an easy but ill-considered route might be. Every idea must pass the strict and ever-present “Does this make sense?” and “Is this going to work?” filters. They apply the filters to all things and all people, and this is sometimes where Architect personalities run into trouble.

Architects are confident in the subjects they take the time to understand, but, unfortunately, they are reluctant to bother with topics that involve social skills. White lies and small talk, even when useful, are hard for a personality type that needs truth and depth. Architects may even see many social practices as downright stupid.

Ironically, it is often best for Architects to remain where they’re comfortable – out of the spotlight. They have natural confidence there. If they stay within their element and do what they do best, they are likely to draw people to them, professionally, socially, and even romantically. They are fine on their own, and reaching out is often optional.

This strategic style isn’t meant to suggest that Architects act coldly and without conscience. But Architects like to win and dislike acting solely on emotions, and this can make it seem that way to other types who don’t understand them well. This may explain why many fictional villains are modeled on this personality type. But Architects are as likely as anyone else to act from integrity – or more, if to do so makes clear sense.

Architects move through life as though it were a giant chessboard, advancing and retreating with considered intelligence. This personality type always looks for new tactics, strategies, and contingency plans. They constantly outsmart their peers as they maintain control, all the while making the most of their independent style of thinking. With this, they can achieve any goal they apply themselves to.

STRENGTHS

Quick, Imaginative, and Strategic Mind – Architects pride themselves on their minds, and they take every chance they can to improve their knowledge. This shows in the strength and flexibility of their strategic thinking. Highly curious and always up for an intellectual challenge, Architects see things from many different angles. Architect personalities use their creativity to plan for unforeseen possibilities.

High Self-Confidence – Architects trust their rationalism above all else, so when they decide something, they have no reason to doubt their decisions or insights. This creates an honest, direct style of communication that isn’t held back by what others expect of them. When Architects are right, they’re right, and nothing will change that fact. Whether it’s a person, a process, or themselves whose course needs to be corrected, they’ll hold their ground and have it no other way.

Independent and Decisive – This creativity, logic, and confidence form individuals who stand on their own and take responsibility for their actions. Authority figures don’t impress Architects, and neither do social conventions. And no matter how popular something is, if they have a better idea, Architects stand against anyone they must to promote their plan. Either an idea is rational, or it’s wrong – and they’re happy to apply that standard to themselves.

Hard-Working and Determined – If something grabs their interest, Architect personalities can be very dedicated to their work. They often put in long hours and intense effort. Architects are goal-oriented, and if tasks lead to something clear and relevant, they strive to accomplish those tasks.

Open-Minded – Architects are open to new ideas as long as they’re argued well. People with this personality type are even (maybe especially) open to ideas that go against their own if the thinking is sound. They often apply their openness and independence when thinking about matters like alternative lifestyles. Mix this with their dislike for rules and traditions, and it’s easy to see how Architects might lean toward more tolerant social views.

Jacks-of-all-Trades – Because of Architects’ open-mindedness, willpower, independence, confidence, and planning abilities, they are capable of doing anything they set their minds to. Skilled at hacking anything life throws their way, Architects are able to break down and learn from almost any system. They then use the ideas found there wherever they’re needed. Architects tend to have their pick of jobs, from IT system designers to political organizers.

WEAKNESSES

Arrogant – Architect personalities can carry their confidence too far. They may falsely believe that they’ve fixed all the issues of a matter, then call it a day, rejecting the opposing opinions of those they believe to be intellectually inferior. With their disrespect for social standards, Architects can be insensitive when offering their opinions if they aren’t mindful of their attitude and less-developed social skills.

Judgmental – Architects have complete confidence in their thought processes because rational arguments are almost by definition correct – at least in theory. In practice, emotional considerations and history are hugely influential. A weak point for people with the Architect personality type is that they brand these factors and those who embrace them as illogical. They often dismiss them as people who think in an inferior way. This can make it all but impossible for others to be heard.

Overly Analytical – A repeated theme when discussing the strengths of Architects is their analytical skills. But this strength can fail them when logic isn’t the most important factor. Relationships, in all their complexities, often resist neat explanations. Architects may be highly critical and sometimes reach a high level of picky thoroughness when dealing with others. At that point, many people – with the exception of extremely loyal and understanding friends – are likely to flee, sometimes not to be seen again.

Loathe Highly Structured Environments – Architects hate blindly following...anything...without understanding why. They have a greater dislike for authority figures who go around forcing others to obey laws and rules without understanding the purpose of the standards themselves. Architects are likely not to get along with anyone who prefers how things “have always been.” However, by not going along with the standards – even when doing so might not be a big deal – Architects can make their lives harder than they need to be.

Clueless in Romance – This resentment toward rules and their tendency to overanalyze and judge, even to the point of arrogance, adds up to a personality type often clueless in dating. Having a new relationship last long enough for Architects to understand what is going on and how to behave is difficult. Trying harder in the ways that Architects are used to can only make things worse, and, unfortunately, it’s common for them to simply give up the search for love. Ironically, this more-relaxed state is when they’re at their best, and only then are they most likely to attract that special someone without effort.

RELATIONSHIPS

(ATM Betty Cooper)

In romance, people with the Architect personality type approach things the way they do most situations: they create a well-designed plan with precise expectations and the right end goal. Here, the goal is a healthy long-term relationship. They rarely fall head over heels in love in a way that involves spontaneous passion and romance. Architects find potential partners who meet certain established criteria, break the dating process down into measurable steps, then complete the plan with great precision. In a purely rational world, this would be foolproof. However, it ignores important factors that Architects are likely to easily dismiss, such as human nature.

People with the Architect personality type are intellectual, always developing a world in their heads that is more perfect than reality. Other people entering their worlds need to fit this fantasy in some way – even if only by agreeing with their concepts. It can be incredibly difficult for Architects to find someone up to the task. Finding a compatible partner is the most significant challenge the majority of Architects will face in life.

Sentiment, tradition, and emotion are Architects’ weaknesses, and social gestures that seem not to have a clear purpose are often viewed by Architects as silly, even insulting. The problem is that common, ritualistic dating practices grew over time to make introductions between potential partners easier. They help couples gradually develop a connection. Architects’ liking for directness and honesty, in both word and deed, often go against these unspoken social agreements and niceties. This can make dating difficult for them.

As they mature, Architects often come to see romantic rituals as important. But until they do, it can be risky, especially for Turbulent Architects. If they are shot down too many times when younger, they may decide that everyone else is too irrational or beneath them intellectually. If cynicism takes hold, Architect personalities may begin to show off their intellectual superiority – as they place themselves above such “silliness.” Being alone then becomes their unintentional choice – a kind of surrender to a life without love.

The positive side of Architects’ “giving up” is that they are most attractive when they aren’t trying to be attractive, most appealing when they are doing what they do best. Generally, that means working in a familiar environment where their confidence and intelligence can shine. Allowing others to come to them is often Architects’ best strategy. Then, if they believe a relationship has potential, they will spare no effort in developing and maintaining stability and long-term satisfaction.

Once a relationship begins, an Architect’s significant other will find an imaginative and enthusiastic companion. Architects typically give a huge amount of freedom to the people they love, and are often trusting partners. People with the Architect personality type may never be very comfortable sharing their feelings, and they may spend more time thinking about love than expressing it. But, using their strategic thinking, they usually figure out how to make a situation work for everyone – including the act of falling in love.

Architects seek strong, deep relationships, and trust their knowledge and logic to ensure that their partner is satisfied, both intellectually and physically. But when it comes to emotional satisfaction, Architects are often out of their element. Not every partner likes addressing conflicts and emotional needs as cold puzzles to be analyzed and solved like Architects do.

Sometimes emotions need to be expressed for their own sake, and putting every outburst under the microscope, as Architects are prone to do, isn’t always helpful. If outbursts become a habit needing constant attention, or Architects think they may, these personalities can simply end the relationship. They’ll see this as more rational than dragging things out to their exhausting conclusion.

Architects value depth and intelligence, bringing stability and insight into their romantic relationships. They prize honest communication, and everything in a relationship is open to discussion and change. But this must be returned by their partners.

Architects do what they think is right regardless of feelings, and sometimes that comes across as cold. It’s important for their partners to know that Architects don’t make these decisions lightly. They spend tremendous time and energy trying to understand why and how things go wrong, and they hurt deeply when things fall apart. This is especially true if they’ve taken the difficult risk of committing themselves.

Their challenge is finding partners who share those same values. While no personality type is excluded from this, each provides its own unique challenges. It can be important for Architects to feel like they’re on common footing on at least a few fronts, making some shared traits a potentially important factor. But they shouldn’t necessarily go around looking for another Architect. Each opposing trait brings the opportunity for great personal growth.

Having one or two counter-balancing personality traits – such as Extraverted (E), Observant (S), Feeling (F), or Prospecting (P) – can help keep a relationship dynamic and growth-oriented. They challenge Architects to remain involved with other people, focus on the present, get in touch with their emotions, and stay open to things they’re not used to. To a type so intent on their own development, these differences can make all the difference.

FRIENDSHIPS

(ATM Betty, Archie, and Veronica)

Architects tend to have more success in developing friendships than they do with romantic relationships, but they have many of the same difficulties with both. They too often put rational processes in place of emotional availability. This intellectual distance tends to go both ways. Architects are difficult for others to get to know. And they don’t always want to bother with anyone else they believe isn’t on their level. Avoiding these potholes is nearly impossible – except for the instant connection often made when potential friends share the Intuitive personality trait.

Architects tend to have strong opinions about what works, what doesn’t, what they’re looking for, and what they’re not. This can come across as arrogance. But Architects would argue it’s a basic filtering tool that allows them to focus more effectively.

In friendship, people with the Architect personality type are looking for an intellectual soulmate more than anything else. People who aren’t equipped for such a relationship are seen as boring. Architects need to share their expansive ideas; making chronic small talk is something they typically avoid.

Architects will keep up with just a few good friends, eschewing larger circles of acquaintances in favor of depth and quality.

Further, having more than just a few friends may compromise Architects’ sense of independence and self-sufficiency. They gladly give up popularity to ensure this freedom. This need for freedom even applies to the few who fit the Architects’ criteria for friendship. Their relationships need little attention or upkeep to remain on good terms. They encourage everyone in their lives to enjoy the same independence.

With emotional support, Architects are far from being good at offering comfort. They expect their friends to do the same. When emotional situations happen, Architects may have no clue how to handle them. They may have no idea what to do. This sudden cluelessness goes against their usual ability to calmly and rationally make decisions and can seriously throw them off-kilter.

When they are in their comfort zone, though, among people they know and respect, Architect personalities have no trouble relaxing and enjoying themselves. Their sarcasm and dark humor aren’t for everyone – especially those who struggle to read between the lines – but these types provide fascinating stories for those who can keep up.

It’s not always easy to become friends with Architects. Rather than the usual social rules and behaviors, Architects look for friends who value intellect, honesty, and a wish to grow and learn. Architects are bright and always want to improve themselves, and expect their friends to share this attitude. Anyone falling short of this is labeled a bore. But anyone with these qualities likely appreciates Architects as well, forming strong and exciting friendships that stand the test of time.

CONCLUSION

Armed with a powerful intellect and strategic thinking, Architects can overcome or outmaneuver obstacles that seem unbeatable to most. Their many quirks, such as an often unconstrained rationalism, lead to many misunderstandings.

#Riverdale #Jughead Jones #Personality Profile #INTJ #Bughead #Jeronica

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soniaspeaking · 6 years ago

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Memento: Part 1

Hello and welcome to Sonia Speaking, a blog focused on dissecting and demystifying the narrative techniques employed by the greatest films ever made. The films covered here will encompass a wide variety of genres, historical eras, themes and tones. But the very first film to be covered here in a seven-part series will be Memento, arguably Christopher Nolan’s greatest work (yes, I do believe it is his greatest). Each part will cover a specific screenplay sequence. This first part will, of course, cover the opening sequence until the film’s inciting incident. I will be assuming that readers will already be familiar with the different sequences of a screenplay. But if you are not, please Google “screenplay sequences and dramatic turning points” to familiarize yourself with the concept. Not all screenplays follow this structure nor is this structure meant to be followed by every screenwriter. But the model exists for a reason and it is incredibly helpful with laying down the foundations for creating a screenplay that feels cohesive and focused.

Let’s get into Memento. Whether you are a Christopher Nolan fan or not, there is little doubt that this is one of the greatest films ever made. Most strikingly, it is one of the few films that presents a direct and unique relationship between the visual style and narrative choices. All films do have their own “visual rules” (stylistic choices that signify importance of certain narrative choices). But Memento takes it a step further because of the deep thematic resonance it weaves through the entire narrative. It is not enough to suggest that the color blue signifies sadness in your protagonist; that sadness has to become a topic and arching theme that the entire narrative explores and eventually makes a statement about. Memento’s themes obviously explore the temporal landscape as well as the shifting landscapes of identity and self-awareness by alternating between the black-and-white (BW) and color sequences. This series will divide the screenplay’s color and BW scenes for the sake of reading ease and understanding.

COLOR SCENES

The film opens with its famous opening image, a Polaroid being shaken. Like every other scene and plot development in this film, the audience is introduced to something without its context. This is Leonard’s “memory” of the event (Teddy’s murder). Even within the span of the first two seconds or so we see this, it is automatically clear that this photograph is important to Leonard. After all, we only record what we want to remember. But the scene immediately throws a curveball as the scene plays out backwards with the Polaroid jumping back into Leonard’s camera and ending with Teddy’s abrupt and unexplained murder. This creates the film’s first overall layer of mystery: who are these men and why did one just kill the other? When the scene ends, the violent image of Teddy being murdered has not been recorded by Leonard’s camera yet but it has been in the audience’s mind. Even though this is technically the “ending” of the actual story, it works as an opening teaser because of the way the conflict escalates and leaves most of the context unexplained.

Even though the color scenes play out backwards in terms of chronology, it could be argued that they still manage to follow the conventional three-act structure because of the way each succeeding scene provides more context and insight into Leonard’s motivations. One such example is that on page 3:

LEONARD

Beg my forgiveness! Beg my wife’s forgiveness!

TEDDY

Leonard, you don’t have a clue what’s going on. You don’t even know my name.

This is the first mention of Leonard’s wife, clearly a source of intense motivation and emotion for Leonard.

Another essential goal that Memento’s first fifteen pages achieves is the “world-building”, a term more often associated with high fantasy/science-fiction/genre stories. But each film has its own world, rules and tone. After the opening sequence, we’re taken to the motel, prior to Teddy’s murder. Here we are introduced to Burt (the clerk), a brief explanation by Leonard about his condition, visual cues like Leonard’s suit and car, his Polaroids. The world-building in Memento is done masterfully. This is the kind of story where a different writer would surely have fallen victim to the dreaded “info-dump”. The trick is to find the logical reason for a character to directly explain something. It is done masterfully here as Leonard himself cannot remember if he’s explained his condition to Burt or not.

As the screenplay barrels towards its inciting incident, another character is introduced: Natalie. Like Sammy (discussed below), she herself is not present in person at her introduction. Instead, Leonard has an envelope from her. His Polaroid of Natalie presents her as an ally, someone who identifies with Leonard because “she has also lost someone”. And this envelope is a bombshell as it contains a photocopy of Teddy’s driver’s license, except it lists his name as “John Edward Gammell”. And here is where a major set-up is paid off as Teddy’s Polaroid is noted with, “Don’t believe his lies”. This scene on page 13 is layered with surprise after surprise as Leonard sheds his clothing to reveal tattoos that contain information about his past and his current quest. The most damning are the license plate (which matches Gammell’s) and the one that says, “JOHN G RAPED AND MURDERED MY WIFE”. And it is at this point we realize that this was the real moment Leonard decided to kill Teddy/Gammell, making this the film’s inciting incident. While the larger context of Leonard and Teddy’s relationship is still unexplained, enough context has been provided here to make this the end of the first sequence.

BW SCENES

Immediately after the opening, the audience is very briefly introduced to the film’s BW scenes. Similarly, the first BW scene has no real context. But the first line of dialogue in it (“So where are you?”) echo exactly what happens in an audience’s mind as they watch a film unfold: constantly asking questions, orienting themselves physically and geographically within the location, etc. As much as this film is about memory and identity, it also acts as commentary on the film-watching experiences. As the theater darkens, the individual audience member’s identity as well as the collective audience identity are snuffed out and the film’s identity is adopted in place of those. We take on the protagonist’s identity and absorb the presented philosophical musings, forcing us to ponder how to assimilate or reject those ideas into our “real” identities once the credits roll and the theater lights return.

This concludes the first post. Stay tuned for the next post, this time next week. Feel free to comment and/or send me questions and thoughts. Thank you for reading!

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homenum-revelio-hq · 6 years ago

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Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, Caroline!

You have been accepted for the role of ALICE LONGBOTTOM! It was so much fun to read about your Alice! I loved the way you explored the parts of Alice that are conflicted within the Order and her role within her family, as well as the survival and biases sections. I am so excited to have you as part of this roleplay!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Caroline

AGE: 21

TIMEZONE: EST

ACTIVITY LEVEL: Roleplay’s a hobby, and often times the commitments that take precedence do just that — they take their precedence, and it’s something I’m rather unyielding on. I am able to come on and post fairly regularly, at least two days out of the week on busier weeks, and if the need for a hiatus/semi-hiatus arises I am fairly good in getting everything squared away with the admin. My activity high points are at nights, on weekends and Wednesdays, and I’m typically always lurking on mobile for plotting purposes at the very, very minimum!

ANYTHING ELSE: I'm about to talk your head off, for which I apologize! I’m a rambler through and through; never been able to stop it and I don’t think I ever will. Also, I’m submitting another application (because I really could not decide on just one character, thank you for that), so if you notice any similarities within the OOC exploration section of the application, that’s why! I ask that you please consider Alice as my first choice character. Thank you so much!

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Alice Camille Longbottom (née Fortescue); Alice, a German-originating name, means “noble.” It is derived from the Greek word alethéia, which means “truth." Camille is derived from the Latin camilla, and its related meaning pertains to an unblemished character or pureness in order to serve at the altar.

AGE: Thirty-three; Alice was born on May 6, making her a Taurus. Taurus women are described as powerful forces to be reckoned with and the same could be said for Alice. Determined, uncompromising, and somewhat of a dark horse, Alice works hard and plays hard (when she bothers to play at all) and every action is infused with great intent and purpose. Her level of thoroughness and fixity will sometimes get her in trouble — once the blinders are firmly strapped into place, there is typically no doubling back.

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Alice identifies as cis-female and uses she/her pronouns. Her sexual orientation is heterosexual.

BLOOD STATUS: Pure-blood; while Alice’s family does not hail from the "Sacred 28”, both of her parents are of magical descent and come laden with rather typical pure-blood ideals, even if they are watered down.

HOUSE ALUMNI: Slytherin; green and silver scarf knotted tight around her neck, Slytherin was more of a stepping stone than a home. Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, even some Ravenclaws and Slytherins alike, they all had the notion that House equated family, but for Alice, it was merely the place that she best fit and the place that helped foster growth towards being the best possible Alice she could be. Rather introverted, Alice didn’t necessarily feel as though she belonged within the folds of her House’s fabric, and she certainly never took a needle and thread to sew herself into it. The stereotypes in Slytherin that others embraced were ones she actively turned away from. She liked not being tied down exclusively to her House and having friends elsewhere, liked having some degree of detachment that others didn’t seem to have when it came to falling for the idea that your House was your home. Slytherin was where she slept, Slytherin’s colors were hers, Slytherin encouraged her to follow ambition and was a garden where she could grow success, but her House pride derived from much different motives than that of her fellow alumni.

ANY CHANGES: N/A

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Listen, I gotta start by saying that I absolutely Alice. The reason I was drawn to her bio in the first place is that first and foremost, Alice is a strong character. She is a strong woman, yes, but she is a strong character, period. She is unsure and sometimes unsteady but she is a force to be reckoned with. She does not compromise herself for anyone. She knows who she is at heart, even if she doesn’t know who she is as a player in this world. She has a strong mind and a strong heart and a strong sense of independence — she doesn't need anyone else.

As mentioned above, Alice is a bit of a dark horse, somewhat unconventional for a woman who has a pretty stiff ideal system. To some, that would translate as aloof, self-isolating, detached from emotion and unapproachable, but I find that the opposite. Alice doesn’t just encompass everyone at first meeting (if she did, she would have been a Hufflepuff) because she has recognized a pattern that people’s first impressions versus their real personalities has too wide a discrepancy for her to be comfortable with. Alice instinctively keeps up a set of walls because she is selective in who she trusts, but once over that hurdle, Alice is the person you’d want in your corner, the person you’d want by your side staring down death. She is the kind to deplete from her own cup to give more to others and she will not complain — she will not draw attention to it, either. She does it on her own volition, because she believes it’s the right thing to do, and she will ask for nothing in return. She doesn’t mind being alone (quiet moments with her cat snuggling in her lap are some of the best). She does not wait for sunlight to poke through a cloud on chance and find her; she works herself to the bone in order to create a hole in the dark sky. There aren’t very many people that she trusts enough to let see all the facets (work Alice, Order Alice, person Alice, etc.) but those who do can note the way light finds her and makes her shine in a subtly brilliant way, the same way low lights bring out sparkle. Her liveliness is rather subtle, only seen by those she wants to let see. She loves fiercely and when it comes to those she loves or those she feels needs protection, she doesn’t hesitate to stand in the way. She is ambitious not for the sake of ambition, but with a purpose and an end goal. She’s a visionary, striving for a world that is inclusive and fair. She’s smart and sophisticated, knowing exactly how to present herself and keep all her edges smooth with a polished exterior. She’s cool under pressure, level head on her shoulders that she lets rule her. It’s what makes her so good in duels; she knows how to stack priorities over reactions, how to get inside the head of her opponents and stay one step ahead. Her exterior is hard but it is only to protect the emotion that lies beneath. She feels every single chink and chip and blow and feels it completely, vibrations running through her. She knows that vulnerability is what powers endurance, but she doesn’t let others see what keeps the electricity on. It’s the private moments where she lets herself fall apart, and then she gracefully stitches herself back up to keep moving through another day.

She is her biggest critic and her worst enemy is the voice inside of her brain. She worries excessively, worries that she isn’t doing enough, that she isn’t enough. She sometimes feels like she’s torn between two different worlds and that there is no true place of belonging for her, that she’s merely drifting and playing a game of charades that will only result in her losing. She is perfectionistic and she likes for things to be done correctly. She likes structure, likes having a set of rules and doesn’t like to deviate from them (they exist for a reason, after all) and it puts her in compromising situations when she is around people who are deviating or asking her to do so. It’s this hesitance and inner debate before her decision that is a fatal flaw — it’s war. It’s nothing but hard decisions, and yes, they’re the type to get people killed. Alice will fight but she’s also the type to ask why. She wants to know that there’s an existing means to an end, that it’s not all for nothing, perhaps too much so at times. There’s also a purposeful ignorance about her, especially when it comes to the Ministry. She puts her entire backbone into her job and the institution that allows her the chance to do what she is passionate about, but that institution is as good as compromised and she’d still prefer to jump through all its hoops. She’d rather walk through every step and be thorough than take the short cut, because she believes it eliminates mistakes, but she doesn’t see that sometimes, not making the split decision and cutting out the excess is a mistake in and of itself. Her family is another weakness — they raised her, they are what she knows, but she also knows that some of the things they think aren’t what she’s learned are right. Brother against brother is not uncommon in war and that’s the kind of thing to make Alice hesitate. Slytherins will use any means to achieve their ends, after all, but if it means turning her back on her own family? She’s not sure she could. Her temper isn’t the best either (that goddamn Augusta is what really does it for her) and when someone finds her buttons and keeps pushing, she isn’t the type to take it lying down. She doesn’t forthright express what’s wrong but she does wear some of her emotions on her face, unable to control the split second reactions of disgust or irritation or otherwise. It’s hard for her when she believes she is in the right and no one else can see her point of view (or refuses to), and it’s something that makes her shut down on the spot — or resort to more drastic measures.

Wands, too, I think, speak volumes about their wizard’s personality. Wood: Rowan. Rowan wands are comfortable in the hands of those who are clear-headed and pure-hearted, which I think suits Alice quite nicely. Though the roads to hell are paved with them, she always has intentions for and of the best at the forefront of all she does and her mind is quite good at remaining one tracked and steady when placed under duress. According to Ollivander, rowan wands will perform equal to, if not better and out-perform other wands specifically in duels. Rowan wands do well with defensive magic, a particular strength Alice has per her own reputation as one half of an extraordinarily gifted (and perhaps lethal) dueling team to come through the Auror department. Core: Phoenix tail feather. Phoenix tail feathers can often be found in the cores of wands owned by witches and wizards who are considered noble, wise, willing, strong-willed, bright, loyal, and self-sacrificing, all of which are traits that align closely with Alice’s personality. While this core is not common among Slytherins due to its reputation to impede Dark spells, which further solidifies Alice’s personality veering from the stereotypes of Slytherin house. The qualities she holds near aligned with Slytherin but she knows there is a right way to obtain success and pursue ambitions. Flexibility: Hard. Owners of hard wands tend to view things in absolutes (black or white), which is a beyond fair summation of Alice. These are people who others may find intimidating or difficult to approach. Wands of this flexibility are great for complex and advanced levels of magic, which I envision Alice having wholeheartedly embraced. Learning was a piece in the equation to becoming the best she could possibly be and I see her brain being like that of a sponge, absorbing all it could and constantly wanting to take things to the next step, eager to move on to a higher level since the ceiling for her didn’t (and does not) exist.

And, because I really love personality tests… MBTI Type: ISTJ - The Logistician (x) Moral Alignment: Lawful Neutral - The Judge Enneagram: Type 1 - The Reformer (x) Element: Earth

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

The Fortescue family was, in terms of how pure-blood society operated, under the radar. No one looked to a Fortescue as an example (or a non-example); they were often after-thoughts. It was very much, oh! A Fortescue! They weren’t shunned out, they weren’t outcasts, but they certainly weren’t sitting in the thick of things. Dexter Fortescue was not the first Headmaster of Hogwarts to come to mind, after all, but not being first didn’t mean you were last. Alice and her brother (and potentially other siblings - I am very flexible to this and would truthfully love to see some other Fortescues running around in this group) were raised by Fennell and Adrianne to follow after their desires and dreams with a single exception: do not bring shame to the family. Do not push the Fortescue name into the light for all of the wrong reasons. There was never an explicit correlation to shame and bloodline, with the Fortescues always rather indifferent towards Muggleborns — they did not have qualms or prejudice towards Muggleborns being a part of the Wizarding World (if magic chose you, it chose you) but still being embedded in pure-blood society to some degree, marrying outside of pure-bloods would have caused under-the-radar tension within the family. Everything in the Fortescue family was done in subtleties. If there was disapproval, it was not outright shown, but alluded to in the choice of words or lack of action taken. Tempers, if they existed, were always below the surface. Alice could never truly recall a time when she saw her parents fight or get into arguments or display anger in a dazzling firework display. Fortescues knew how to keep up an appearance, how to be poised, and all grievances were usually dealt with behind doors or ignored to the point where they merely suffocated themselves on their own silence.

Alice didn’t have a bad childhood; she was much more reserved than most children. She would ride brooms and play a crude position of Chaser in Quidditch matches with cousins who actually let her join in the games (usually due to an uneven number of players) but she would also find just as much fun in reading through the books her father kept in his study, a miniature library of sorts. She was not the first person noticed sitting around the dinner table, but in her family, there was never anything wrong with being a chameleon and blending in. Her mother raised her with the understanding that the loudest person in the room wasn’t always the right one. Success didn’t depend on being flashy. Hard work and the drive and a pinch of patience would do the trick. Expecting things was a horrible way to look at the world: it wouldn’t just offer its hand and give away everything without some sort of price, whether it was immediate payment or came about later. Alice looked up to her mother perhaps more so than her father, finding a strength in the way her mother carried herself, fashioning her own confidence in the image of her mother’s. Confidence didn’t mean cockiness. Confidence was believing in oneself and their abilities, and it could be quiet. Strength could be quiet and show itself in a myriad of ways. Of course, her childhood days and beliefs have since shifted since her days at Hogwarts and in the Ministry. She hasn’t lost touch with following ambitions down their paths, not needing to be a firestorm to be a firebrand, but in adulthood she has grown away from their shadows and stepped into the light of thinking for herself, letting her own experiences shape her. Her family likes order and balance, which explains their position in the war. Her parents and grandparents see value in a pure bloodline and because they have never had to understand the struggle of Muggleborns, do not see the genuine harm Voldemort and his followers and their ideals bring to the Wizarding world. She has cousins far down the branches of the family tree who she knows side with Voldemort in more than just opinion, but in battle, too. It genuinely bothers Alice to hear her family talk like this, a veil being swept away of sorts. Alice, in her heart, knows what is right. The world is changing, why shouldn’t views? Tradition is valued and respected but sometimes tradition is a sword that runs right through people, good people. As she’s gotten older and lived a life beyond her parent’s four walls, a life that has brought her up to the face of just as much strife as success, she finds it harder and harder to operate under the radar. There are times when she doesn’t want to sit back in the lounge chair like her father and press a thin smile over her mouth, she wants to start an argument so that things will move themselves along. Despite their disheartening talk, Alice loves them still and there is the horrifying thought that the war will force her to either stand with her family or against when all is said and done. She has lost the golden view of her childhood and dismantled any heroification of her parents, but breaking away from them is a level of instability she cannot bear to think about. She doesn’t see the hypocrisy in that action, either.

OCCUPATION:

There were lots of different occupations Alice could have (and wanted) to delve into. Healer, working somewhere within the Ministry with law and regulation; Alice is very much driven and motivated by making things right. Florean had ambitions leading him towards entrepreneurship, a path that didn’t seem too terrible for Alice (though she didn’t know what her business would have looked like, and she wasn’t nearly as charming as her brother to draw in customers). In the end, Auror prevailed, and Alice hasn’t looked back. She was tough enough to handle the pressure (that or she knew how to absorb the shocks well while remaining on her feet), smart enough to think on her feet, and hunting down and imprisoning those who abuse magic, use magic for wrongdoing, it gives her a sense of purpose. It fulfills her. Alice is not the type who can consciously waste her life away when she knows there are things she can do to improve the world that she lives in, and being an Auror means she gets the most immediate course of action in improving the world — even if it is taking down one Dark wizard at a time.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER

The Order was, in the beginning, an extension activity. The Ministry had its boundaries like any structure of government would, and Alice could justify expanding beyond them. She saw the benefit in going the extra mile even if it was frowned upon on paper and in the laws. She, after all, had up close experience with Dark wizards, how they thought and the damage they could do, the threats they posed and how imperative it was to snuff out their sparks. She joined the Order on the precipice that it was the right thing: killing innocent people for things out of their control didn’t seem fair. She joined the Order because there was more she could do and the Order eliminated the need to dance around the red tape the Ministry would have set out. Alice wanted to fight, so she’d dedicate herself to the fight. It was new and exciting when the Order was first formed and even if some decisions from up high were questionable, it was a step on the path to making things right.

She’s somewhat of a veteran in the Order at this point. She’s survived long enough to have experienced highs and lows (and the current sinking low they are in as the scales tip out of their favor) that she’s got a jaded viewpoint of the Order. Violence used to be combated with skill, knowledge, strategy, the sheer goodness in their hearts or whatever noble shit she used to justify, and now it seems like the Order is sinking to the same levels as the Death Eaters when it comes to fighting fire with fire. The stakes raise consistently, especially being on the losing side, and more and more is asked of members of the Order who, like Alice, have tenure. Even members who are fresh in the fold are being asked to submit blind faith without context and Alice has lost all sense of novelty in that ideal, abandoned the assumption that it would result in victory. She is black and white in an organization that has always been grey and there are too many shades now for her to feel like she’s got any sense of alignment. Every decision and action sits uneasy with her. What were once infractions in the laws that she could justify turning a blind eye to (even if it did sprout lots and lots of questions) are now full on blowing past any sense of legality and it bothers her. There are too many shifty allegiances in the Order now — there’s Dorcas and her gang, taking matters into their own hands, there are those more committed to helping Muggleborns escape and go into hiding than eliminating the threat that causes them to go into hiding in the first place, there are those who no longer know where their loyalties lie, and then there are just those that she doesn’t trust, point blank. It’s hard for Alice to commit any kind allegiance to an organization that is hardly organized. She feels as though there’s no accountability, no real plan on how they’re going to win this war, and that will be what ultimately sinks the ship. Though she is a part of the inner circle, she doesn’t view it as any kind of grand privilege or incentive that she might have when she herself was bright eyed and ready to fight Death Eaters, eager to work hard and work her way up the ranks so she could feel her purpose being actualized and brought to fruition. I think Alice has her reasons for staying in the Order (people like Caradoc, trying to make her marriage with Frank stay afloat, the whole “we’re trying to take down the bad guys” thread still there somewhere in the tapestry) but it’s not because she agrees with what they’re doing anymore. It is a sinking ship. She is very much chained to it and the more they lose, the more conscious she grows of how heavy the chains are.

SURVIVAL:

“How have they not died?” I just love this question. You can figure Alice Longbottom hasn’t died because one, she’s not the type to follow anyone blindly and thinks for herself (she’ll be the first to question something if it sparks a question inside her) and two, there’s still a fair slew of Death Eaters running around. You could bet that if she’s going, she’s taking as many as she can with her with a bloodstained smile. Her death is something she refuses to let occur in vain. Like her life, it’d have purpose.

On a much more serious, in-depth sort of note, part of the reason Alice has stayed alive as long as she has comes with the privilege of her pure-blood. Her family aren’t blood traitors, not so far on the outskirts that they don’t have good graces to get them by. She takes advantage of it more than she realizes. She tries not to rely on her own bloodline or the one she married into to save her skin, but it has certainly dragged her out by the skin of her teeth from hairy situations before. Her position in the Ministry has also somewhat kept her stable. The Order is as good as illegal these days, and while the Ministry is corrupt, keeping her position as an Auror keeps a blanket of cover over her not-so-legal pastimes. She shut down the possibility of being a part of the Order to people with their prying eyes and questions and she has never outwardly given them reason to double back and pry further. Hunting Dark wizards puts a target on her back, obviously, but her skill and the formidable duo she and Frank can be has kept her alive. Her survival is strategic. She is aware that no one is safe, that even with all bases covered there are still blind spots. She doesn’t have an invincibility complex. She knows and has made peace with the fact she could die at any point, long since been a truth she’s accepted (practically necessity in being an Auror). It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t pull out the stops, have her reasons and hoping they will see her through. She stays at the Ministry not just in the hopes there is something left to save, but because of the protection it provides. She stays in the Order because there is value to her position in the inner circle, protection against those who think she is playing for the other team and intel that has kept her one step ahead in her work. She can divide her loyalty and the time has yet to come where she is forced to pick only one to commit to.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Alice is not a people person, not really. She’s an ISTJ; their circles are small and the way they make friends is utterly methodical. Alice picks and chooses who she puts time, energy, and loyalty into, and she doesn’t do so lightly — once it’s given, very rarely will she retract it. That said, it’s a time of war, and Alice is rapidly losing her stability, which means loyalty isn’t necessarily spouting out of her in spades. Relationships at this point in time have to be of substance, conversations need a purpose and an end goal or result contrived from them.

I think her relationship with Frank is possibly the most important relationship in her life at the moment, especially considering that it’s crumbling. Frank was the yin to her yang. She thought him a perfect complement to her; it was why they were so lethal in duels. He understood her, she (thought she) understood him, and Alice truly felt herself better just by Frank’s presence. Frank validated Alice in a lot of ways; he validated every feeling that didn’t quite align with what was in place for her, whether it was her exploring a freedom that many people around her didn’t or keeping to herself. She felt like she didn’t have to tick boxes or live up to certain expectations around him. Because of that, in a way, she would protect him with a dying breath, walk into fire with him and never look back. Now, of course, he feels off-kilter to her, and it is utterly nerve-grating. With everything going on she doesn’t necessarily have time to deal with working out the puzzle of what’s wrong with Frank and how do I make it right? and if it weren’t because of how much she loves him (or how long she’s loved him, per se, he’s remained a constant in a time when nothing is guaranteed and there’s somewhat of a reliance on Frank being the anchor in the storm) she’d shift her focus elsewhere. There’s never a good time for her to pick his brain and sift through the issues, which means it continues to get put off. There is a part of Alice that is afraid they’re no longer on the same page and she doesn’t know what she’ll do without him, so she simply doesn’t ask so she doesn’t have to hear the answer she doesn’t want to hear.

After Frank, I’d say that the next incredibly significant relationships Alice has are those with the inner circle. The inner circle is not the Ministry. There is no real structure, no hierarchy of responsibility. The inner circle is a group of people who are supposed to be trying to keep order within the Order all while win a losing-war, and where she may have been gung-ho in the beginning, she’s now internally straddling the fence. The only person she really trusts in the inner circle anymore (and is subsequently the tether keeping her intact with the organization as a whole) is Caradoc. Mary is a finger on the trigger and Alice knows that explosion is inevitable with her, she’s either going to lead Mary down a path that keeps her in a range of safety or wind up as collateral damage. James is just as much of a risk in her eyes. To her, all of the younger members of the Order have the right idea but they certainly don’t go about it in the right way. They’re all ready to kick up the gravel but they don’t see method to their madness, they see no benefit in taking a moment to process before they lurch into action, and to Alice, that’ll be the thing that gets everyone killed. Quite frankly, she doesn’t know how much more blood she can stand to have staining her hands.

Obviously, this is by no means the full extent of ‘relationships’ for Alice - I’m merely just writing what I personally picked up from the connections listed in her bio. As a member of the “inner circle” Alice has a position that puts her into contact with nearly every member of the Order in some way and I’d love to expand and explore other connections where she discovers and aligns to people who are in the same boat as her when it comes to the tone this war has taken and how to go about it (every girl needs a drinking buddy to bitch to) and bumps heads with those who differ or have their issues with her/how the inner circle operates.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS:

I rank chemistry higher than anything, truthfully. The way I look at things is that at the present moment, Alice is married to her work and her alignment on the right-wrong spectrum much more than she really is with Frank, whether she can swallow her pride long enough to choke that out or not. There’s a lot of waist-high angst that Frank and Alice have to explore and work their way through that I’m fully ready to fling myself into, but when it comes to any kind of definitive thing or endgame, I’m leaving myself open for any and all possibilities that come through. The rift between them could close, the rift between them could deepen and drive Alice into isolation (or into the arms of someone else) — it’s something I personally want to save for discussing and developing over time with Frank’s writer. I never join groups or apply for certain characters on the sole precipice for a guaranteed ship, I’m drawn to characters based on the vision and what avenues I can take with them, how I’ll be able to write them into the fold. With Alice, romance is certainly an undeniable element to her character but I don’t think it’s a very prominent shade in her palette considering everything else she’s got going on. I always leave windows open! I’m just more interested in diving in, exploring her, and seeing what colors and shades I can pull out of her when writing against other incredibly talented people.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

To put it rather plainly, Alice doesn’t have much room (if any) to complain when it comes to how she has it. Her family may not be what the Wizarding World would hail next to royalty, but aside from being a woman, she’s got just about every box ticked when it comes to possession of privilege. Pure-blood? Check. Caucasian? Check. Heterosexual? Check. Alice doesn’t expect the world to hand her things on a silver platter but she’s used to drinking out of a silver cup. I like to think that she’s intelligent enough to recognize her privilege and an existence of bias but very rarely does she check it at the door. Alice’s morality and sense of wrong and right is one that I think, given the direction of this group, will be something wildly fun to explore! She’s always consumed with doing “the right thing”, her world is very much black and white, but Alice’s interpretation of “the right thing” may not be what underprivileged people in the magical community consider to be right. When she is called out on behaviors or exhibiting her bias, I want to see to what extent she will recognize her wrongdoing and legitimately grow from it. She knows discriminating against Muggleborns is wrong, but her actions don’t always reflect that (usually an unintentional thing, but nonetheless still indicative). In a way it goes hand-in-hand with her association with her family (they aren’t radicalized like the Death Eaters and they wouldn’t say that Voldemort is right, but the principle of the thing is enough to align them) — Alice may educate herself and think differently, but will she choose to put it into practice instead of just turning a blind eye and grinding down her teeth to keep quiet? She’s the kind who likes to make things right, but is she too selective in what she makes right? What holds her back from speaking up against her family, what will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back (if it comes at all)? It’s something I definitely want to explore as time goes on, and I really would love to perhaps put Alice in a situation where other characters really push her in a corner and make her analyze what she’s doing about her privilege. Acknowledgment is an important step, but action (especially out of the mouth of someone who is impassioned when it comes to aligning things back to a rightful state) is just as important, and not just when it is convenient. That latter component is something Alice does need work on but I think with time, she could find herself steadily improving upon. Let her fuck up be it in a subtle manner or of epic proportion, let her be educated and let her have the opportunity to (maybe) grow from it! After all, if we as human beings are stagnate and refuse growth, are we living at all?

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

I’ll be honest, I’m very selective when it comes to Harry Potter groups. I like having some kind of structure within them but also having the liberation to run with my muses, but above all else, I look for the groups who go the extra mile. Whether that’s with plot, originality, or just the sheer dedication admins and members alike pour into their group, I like to think I have an eye for finding the diamonds in the basket. To me, this group is it. I’m a sucker for an AU on anything. The creative freedom, the doors it opens, it entices me and it gives me as a writer to take a chance that I probably wouldn’t otherwise. I also really like groups that walk the balance between external and internal strife, while also allowing their writers the chance to flesh out characters in a different light than canon did. That can be hard for groups to find and walk, but I think you’ve done such a magnificent job in doing such that it’s crazy to not at least try my hand at a muse or two. For Alice in particular, I was drawn to her bio because of the completely different light you’ve angled on her and the garden of opportunity sown. As writers, we sometimes ask things of the characters we breathe our life into and what I love most about Alice is she’s the one who always steps up to the plate, an equal participant in the process. She makes you question your own motives with her character and why you write her in the way you do, she doesn’t conform to one style or one story line, and she demands all of your attention and affection with the glaring reminder you will not tame her or conform her to the basis of another muse or a past portrayal. It is imperative to her character and the development she has the possibility of undergoing — she relies on you as much as you rely on her. At the same time, she is almost an entirely separate being and writes herself (this application for her did anyways) and Alice is an incredible opportunity to deviate from myself, the canon of Harry Potter — or at the very least, the preconceived notions of fandom as to what canon in the Marauders era entails — and just write. I’m looking forward to writing a character far different from anything I could have envisioned for her (as a Slytherin myself, I’m pumped to be writing a fellow Slytherin!) or that I would have predicted taking on and I like a challenge. I’m looking forward to getting to walk in your Potterverse, I’m looking forward to how the future isn’t set and what incredible things can come from it. And of course, I love the things that can be born from war-based settings, whether it’s a plot drop or character tension, and to be on the inside of it as well as watch it unfold is an exciting prospect!

PLOT DROP IDEAS:

Look, I love angst. So much. As if you couldn’t tell. One group-wide plot I think that could be a lot of fun, especially since this is a smaller bunch, is to see what would happen if outside forces wedged their way into the group in an attempt to divide and essentially conquer the Order? I’m not sure where Peter’s storyline will take him, of course, but I think it’d be fun to play out something where there’s a strong cause for suspicion after a mission that one of them has betrayed the group and is working as a double agent, and of course, everyone thinks it’s someone different and results in everyone pointing the blame at everyone and just, a lot of angst, testing these friendships and bonds, seeing who’s ready to sell out who and so forth. This would obviously create a big vulnerability within the group since they don’t trust one another, throw in perhaps the Death Eaters or other Dark forces attacking them out of nowhere…I think it has some potential, it’s just a little idea right now that definitely needs some fleshing out, obviously, but it’s an idea that could be really fun. Another small little plot idea I have is someone in the Order going missing (could be a NPC close to one of the players, or could actually be one of our players) and it’s revealed they’ve been captured, they’ll be exchanged harm-free if our little group hands back over something of importance to the Death Eaters. There’s a time limit involved as well, and if the group doesn’t comply, this person is killed. Of course, segue into conflict, angst, and all the good emotions. Ultimately though, I like waiting and seeing the dynamic of the game and all the other players to really develop group plot ideas? As far as Alice-specific, I am currently planning to play her devoid of child, but dependent upon future discussion with other players (and of course seeing where the course of things take her), I think it’d be fun to see Alice fall pregnant and watch her struggle with that whole Pandora’s box? Would she tell Frank or keep him on the outside? Would it bring her joy or terror? Would she keep the baby or would she choose another route considering the bleak state of things? Just an idea.

ANYTHING ELSE? N/A

#homenumaccepted #bio rpg #bio rp #marauders #alice longbottom

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patriotsnet · 4 years ago

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Why Do Republicans Want To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-want-to-repeal-the-affordable-care-act/

Why Do Republicans Want To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

Why Republicans Cant And Wont Repeal Obamacare

Editor’s Note:

This article was originally posted on Real Clear Health on January 16, 2017.

Now that the Republicans control both the presidency and both houses of Congress, they must put up or shut up on their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Here is a flat-footed prediction: the effort will fail for three reasons. First, the Affordable Care Act has largely succeeded not failed, as president-elect Trump and other Republicans falsely allege. Second, it is impossible for the stated goals of repeal to be achieved. Finally, the political fallout from the consequences of partial or total repeal would be devastating. When it comes to casting votes, enough Republicans will conclude that repeal is a bad idea and will join Democrats to sustain the basic structure of the health reform law.

Second, the stated objectives of repealing Obamacare are mutually inconsistent. Three provisions comprise the core of Obamacare. First, rules barring insurance companies from refusing to sell insurance to people because of preexisting conditions or varying premiums based on those conditions. Second, a requirement that everyone carry health insurance who can afford it. And third, subsidies for those with moderate incomes to help make such insurance affordable. The law contains many other provisions as well, but these three are core.

Slashing Ads And Budgets

Funding for the “navigator” programme, under which trained individuals or organisations help people sign up for insurance through Obamacare, has dropped from $62.5m to $10m under President Trump.

His administration has also cut Obamacare advertising spending to $10m – a 90% reduction.

According to a November 2018 Kaiser Health poll, 61% of Americans aged 18 to 64 said they did not know about any enrolment deadlines.

Republicans Want To Get Rid Of Obamacare But Then What

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President Trump has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but Sarah Kliff of Vox.com says it’s “an overreach” to say that Republicans have a plan for what comes next.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. While President Trump clashed with some Republicans over a variety of issues in last year’s campaign, one thing they all seemed to agree on was the need to repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Now that congressional Republicans have a willing president and the votes to scrap the health care law, they’re finding the task a little more complicated than it seemed. Republican lawmakers have a wide range of ideas about what they might replace Obamacare with. But a secret recording of a Republican policy meeting in Philadelphia revealed many are worried about the political cost of removing coverage from those who’ve come to count on it.

For some perspective on what’s happening in Washington and how it might affect our health care, we turn to Sarah Kliff, a senior policy correspondent at vox.com. Before joining Vox, Kliff covered health policy for The Washington Post and for POLITICO and Newsweek. She co-hosts a policy-oriented podcast for Vox called “The Weeds.” Kliff and co-host Ezra Klein recently interviewed President Obama about the debate over health care and the possible repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I spoke with Sarah Kliff Tuesday.

DAVIES: And where have we seen those pools before?

Board Of Governors Professor School Of Public Affairs & Administration

The Trump administrations efforts to sabotage the ACA and their consequences receive detailed attention in a recently released Brookings book, Trump, the Administrative Presidency, and Federalism. For present purposes, I highlight six major sabotage initiatives which emerged in the wake of congressional failure to repeal and replace the ACA.

1. Reduce outreach and opportunities for enrollment in the ACAs insurance exchanges. Established to offer health insurance to individuals and small business, the exchanges have provided coverage to some 10 million people annually. The Obama administration had vigorously promoted the ACA in part to attract healthy, younger people to the exchanges to help keep premiums down. The Trump administration sharply reduced support for advertising and exchange navigators while reducing the annual enrollment period to about half the number of days.

2. Cut ACA subsidies to insurance companies offering coverage on the exchanges. ACA proponents saw insurance company participation on the exchanges as central to fostering enrollee choice and to fueling competition that would lower premiums. The law therefore provided various subsidies to insurance companies to reduce their risks of losing money if they participated on the exchanges. The Trump administration joined congressional Republicans in reneging on these financial commitments.

Repealing Obamacare Is A Huge Tax Cut For The Rich

This did not play a major overt public role in the 2009-’10 debate about the law, but the Affordable Care Act’s financing rests on a remarkably progressive base. That means that, as the Tax Policy Center has shown, repealing it would shower moneyon a remarkably small number of remarkably wealthy Americans.

The two big relevant taxes, according to the TPC’s Howard Gleckman, are “a 0.9 percent payroll surtax on earnings and a 3.8 percent taxon net investment income for individuals with incomes exceeding $200,000.” That payroll tax hike hits a reasonably broad swath of affluent individuals, but in a relatively minor way. The 3.8 percent tax on net investment income , by contrast, is a pretty hefty tax, but one that falls overwhelmingly on the small number of people who have hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in investment income.

For the bottom 60 percent of the population that is, households earning less than about $67,000 a year repeal of the ACA would end up meaning an increase in taxes due to the loss of ACA tax credits.

But people in the top 1 percent of the income distribution those with incomes of over about $430,000 would see their taxes fall by an average of $25,000 a year.

The Acas Protections Changed Public Opinion In Its Favor Republicans Are Keeping Up

For more than a decade, the Affordable Care Act has been the Republican Partys nemesis. As it was first debated in Congress in 2009, when it was enacted in 2010 and through the next six years of implementation, Republican leaders rallied supporters by vociferously opposing it and calling for repeal. The Trump administration and states controlled by Republicans remain hostile to the ACA.

But the coronavirus pandemics fast-moving destruction has pushed Republicans to rely on Barack Obamas signature law to respond to the crisis, even taking action to strengthen it. The law, as written, requires that Americans who have recently lost jobs and insurance coverage to be permitted to enroll in its insurance marketplace, and they are doing so in swelling numbers. Meanwhile, Republicans recently backed that increased federal funding for a critical part of the ACA: Medicaid for lower-income people. And Trump administration regulators have used their authority to insist that insurance plans pay for coronavirus tests as an essential health benefit under the ACA a Republican target in the past.

Our research shows that this about-face cannot be explained by the pandemic alone. The partys rank-and-file and many other Americans have shifted to supporting the ACA and expanded government payments for health care. The pandemic is giving Republicans cover to follow changing public opinion.

Republicans have spent 10 years trying to kill the Affordable Care Act

Younger Americans Could Get Cheaper Plans

Obamacare was designed so that younger policyholders would help subsidize older ones. That would change under the Republican bill because it would allow insurers to charge older folks more.

This means that younger Americans would likely see their annual premiums go down. Enrollees ages 20 to 29 would save about $700 to $4,000 a year, on average,according to a study by the Milliman actuarial firm on behalf of the AARP Public Policy Institute.

Those under age 30 would also get a refundable tax credit of up to $2,000 to offset the cost of their premiums, as long as their income doesn’t exceed $215,000 for an individual.

Related: What’s inside the Republican health care bill?

The GOP tax credits would also likely be more generous than Obamacare’s subsidies for these folks. For example, a 27-year-old making $40,000 a year would receive $2,000 under the GOP plan, but only gets a $103 subsidy from Obamacare, on average, a Kaiser analysis found.

Also, the bill keeps the Obamacare provision that lets young adults up to age 26 stay on their parents’ insurance plan.

This Is Why Republicans Couldnt Make A Better Replacement

Republicans have made a lot of political hay out of pointing out that the plans available under the Affordable Care Act are, in many ways, disappointing. Unsubsidized premiums are higher than people would like. Deductibles and copayments are higher than people would like. The networks of available doctors are narrower than people would like.

These problems are all very real, and they all could be fixed.

They are not, however, problems that the American Health Care Act actually fixes. While Republicans have made several changes to the AHCA to cobble together a majority of House votes, the core of the bill remains the same: it offers stingier insurance to a narrower group of people.

This is because the AHCA does what Republicans want: it rolls back the ACA taxes. But under those circumstances, its simply not possible for the GOP to offer people the superior insurance coverage that it is promising.

The bill the House is voting on Thursday doesnt get rid of the ACAs tax credits to make it easier to buy health coverage, but it bases them on age, with younger people getting bigger credits, rather than income which means poorer Americans. especially elderly ones, will have a bigger tax burden and more difficulty affording the insurance they need.

Dont Like Obamacare It Was The Republicans Idea Says Liberal Democrat

Susan Jones

Robert Reich served as Labor Secretary for President Bill Clinton.

While Republicans plot new ways to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, its easy to forget that for years theyve been arguing that any comprehensive health insurance system be designed exactly like the one that officially began October 1st, glitches and all, said Robert Reich, who served as President Bill Clintons Labor Secretary.

Reich says Democrats should have insisted on a single-payer system because it would have been cheaper, simpler, and more popular.

In a blog at The Huffington Post website, Reich that Republicans have long argued for a health care system based on private insurance and paid for with subsidies and a requirement that the young and healthy people sign up. Democrats, he says, wanted to model health care reform on Social Security and Medicare, and fund it through the payroll tax.

Reich says President Richard Nixon in 1974, proposed, in essence, todays Affordable Care Act. Thirty years later, then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, another Republican, made Nixons plan the law in Massachusetts.

Reich adds: When todays Republicans rage against the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act, its useful to recall this was their idea as well, as proposed in 1989 by Stuart M. Butler of the Heritage Foundation.

Reichs blog is entitled, The Democrats Version of Health Insurance Would Have Been Cheaper, Simpler, and More Popular

Background On The Health Care Repeal Lawsuit

From the beginning, the Trump administration and allied leaders in Congress and state governments have been committed to dismantling the ACA and the consumer protections it confers by any means possible. The Trump administration has repeatedly key provisions of the landmark law by executive actions and other more covert tactics, including removing essential consumer information from federal websites and defunding outreach and enrollment programs intended to expand coverage. After several failed attempts by President Donald Trumps legislative allies to repeal and replace the ACA, Congress passed a tax bill in late 2017 that zeroed out the individual mandate penalty.

After the tax bill became law, Texas and other states filed a federal lawsuit, claiming that because the mandate had no financial penalty, it made the rest of the law unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Reed OConnor accepted this reasoning and held that the entire law must be struck down in what one legal expert called a partisan, activist ruling. On appeal, a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel also in December that, following the tax bills change to the law, the individual mandate is unconstitutional. The panel then remanded the case back to Judge OConnor to determine which parts of the ACA, if any, can remain given their decision. Since that ruling, the Supreme Court has to hear the case during its upcoming term, and, for now, the ACA remains the law of the land.

Obamacare: Has Trump Managed To Kill Off Affordable Care Act

The Trump administration has ramped up its attack on the Affordable Care Act by backing a federal judge’s decision to declare the entire law unconstitutional.

For now, Obamacare is still standing. Around 4.1 million Americans have signed up for new plans so far this year, according to government reports, down 12% from last year.

At a rally this week, Mr Trump again promised his supporters: “We are going to get rid of Obamacare.” But how much has he delivered on that pledge so far?

Efforts To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

This article needs to be . The reason given is: Missing the May 2018 efforts. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.

The following is a list of efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act , which had been enactedby the 111th United States Congress on March 23, 2010.

This Is Also Why Republicans Might Drop Repeal

While mania for tax cuts is an important driver of the GOP push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, it might also ultimately be what leads them to abandon it. The healthcare debate has already taken more time than either Congress or the White House wanted and the bill hasnt even gotten to the Senate yet.

Meanwhile, many Republicans are itching to move on to their next priority: tax reform.

Republicans have a bunch of different tax plans floating around, but they all feature enormous tax cuts for wealthy households. Democrats will object, but they wont be able to stop the GOP from enacting a big tax cut. The only issue will be how large of an increase in the budget deficit do Republicans consider economically viable. Once thats decided, however, the tight linkage between the ACA and tax policy will be broken, since the entire rate structure will have already been rewritten in a way that makes the ACAs specific financing mechanism irrelevant.

No matter how the budget crunch gets resolved,however, the tax issue is the $500 billion elephant in the room. Its a key reason GOP leaders want repeal, a key reason theyve had trouble coming up with a popular replacement, and potentially a key reason theyll ultimately decide to move on to other matters. Talking about health care politics without talking about the revenue side misses an enormous part of the story.

Republican Views On Obamacare

The Republican Partys view on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Actcommonly known as Obamacareis that its implementation was less about providing healthcare to millions, and more a result of power as the government sought to expand its reach over one sixth of the economy. The party claims that Obamacare has resulted in an attack on the Constitution of the United States because it requires U.S. citizens to purchase health insurance, and its impact on the health of the nation overall has been detrimental. The party is in agreement with the four Supreme Court justices who dissented in the ACA ruling. The justices stated, In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety. As of 2012, the partys stance was that Obamacare was the result of outdated liberalism, and the latest in a series of attempts to impose upon the people of America a euro-style bureaucracy to micromanage all aspects of their lives. One of the partys biggest issues with Obamacare is its unpopularity among the peoplewhen polled on the subject, pluralities and even majorities often state they do not like the law.

Older Americans Could Have To Pay More

Enrollees in their 50s and early 60s benefited from Obamacare because insurers could only charge them three times more than younger policyholders. The bill would widen that band to five-to-one.

That would mean that adults ages 60 to 64 would see their annual premiums soar 22% to nearly $18,000, according to the Milliman study for the AARP. Those in their 50s would be hit with a 13% increase and pay an annual premium of $12,800.

Also, the GOP bill doesn’t provide them with as generous tax credits as Obamacare. A 60-year-old making $40,000 would get only $4,000 from the Republican plan, instead of an average subsidy of $6,750 from the Affordable Care Act, according the Kaiser study.

States could also receive waivers to allow insurers to charge older Americans even more than five times the premiums of the young.

Whats Dividing Republicans And Democrats On Healthcare Reform

Since the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, Republicans have been determined to destroy it while Democrats insist its the countrys best chance at reforming healthcare to make it affordable and accessible. Both parties want reform, but the approach has been fundamentally different and for good reason. There are basic, core reasons why conservatives and liberals cant get on the same page when it comes to healthcare reform. Lets take a moment to dig into the details and figure out what is exactly keeping Republicans and Democrats from being able to find a middle ground on healthcare reform, so far.

Democrats want the federal government to legislate and administer healthcare while Republicans want private industry to helm the healthcare system with as minimal input from the federal government as possible.

Of course, there are always exceptions within each party because people arent one-dimensional. Moderates on both sides, for instance, would seek compromise wherever possible. But in general, these core ideological differences make healthcare reform particularly challenging, especially when one party holds more power. In 2010, Democrats passed the ACA without a single rightwing vote.

Repeal Of Obamacares Taxes Would Be A Huge Tax Cut For The Rich

This did not play a major overt public role in the 2009-10 debate about the law, but the Affordable Care Acts financing rests on a remarkably progressive base. That means that, as the Tax Policy Center has shown, repealing it would shower moneyon a remarkably small number of remarkably wealthy Americans.

The two big relevant taxes, according to the TPCs Howard Gleckman, are a 0.9 percent payroll surtax on earnings and a 3.8 percent tax on net investment income for individuals with incomes exceeding $200,000 . That payroll tax hike hits a reasonably broad swath of affluent individuals, but in a relatively minor way. The 3.8 percent tax on net investment income , by contrast, is a pretty hefty tax, but one that falls overwhelmingly on the small number of people who have hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in investment income.

Tax Policy Center

For the bottom 60 percent of the population that is, households earning less than about $67,000 a year full repeal of the ACA would end up meaning an increase in taxes due to the loss of ACA tax credits.

But people in the top 1 percent of the income distribution those with incomes of over about $430,000 would see their taxes fall by an average of $25,000 a year.

Under the actual AHCA, Jared Kushner would actually pay even less in taxes. As a young person, Kushner would get a larger tax to buy insurance under the AHCA than he does now.

New Threats & Potential Affordable Care Act Changes For 2019

To date, the ACA has been challenged in front of the Supreme Court twice. Judges upheld the constitutionality of the ACA both times. But now, a new effort to strike down the act is making its way through our legal system. Two Republican Governors and 18 Republican state attorneys general, led by Texas, initiated the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, Texas v. Azar, alleges the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional now that TCJA set the penalty tax to $0. In December 2018, a Texas district court judge agreed with the plaintiffs. The judge also concluded that the intent of lawmakers was that the individual mandate was essential to the ACA, and as such couldnt be severed from the larger text. Therefore, the entire ACA was unconstitutional and repealing it was appropriate.

But the ruling hasnt gone into effect yet. The judge is allowing the status quo to remain until all the appeals have been heard. In efforts to combat the ruling, and since the current administration is refusing to defend the law in court, 21 Democratic state attorneys general and the U.S. House of Representatives filed an appeal to challenge the ruling. In July, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans heard arguments in favor of overturning the original ruling. The court hasnt yet reached a decision, and most believe this lawsuit will eventually make its way to the Supreme Court.

Republicans Are Still Trying To Repeal Obamacare Heres Why They Are Not Likely To Succeed

Conservatives are still trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act even after the Republican-majority Congress failed to overturn the law in 2017. A coalition of conservative groups intends to release a new plan this summer. The groups will reportedly propose ending the laws expansion of Medicaid and convert Medicaid funding into block grants to the states. And just last week the Trump administrations Justice Department argued in a legal filing that key provisions of the law its protections for persons with preexisting conditions are .

Why are Republicans still trying to undo the ACA? We argue in a forthcoming that the laws political vulnerabilities and Republican electoral dynamics drive conservative efforts to uproot it.

In the past, conservatives have thrown in the towel

As politicians and political scientists both know, the can never be taken for granted. Even so, the duration and intensity of conservative resistance to the ACA is historically unusual. The ACA is a moderate law, modeled on that Republicans once supported, such as insurance purchasing pools. Whats more, many red states refuse to accept the ACAs funding to expand Medicaid to more of their citizens such as , which has a large number of uninsured residents even though you would think they would want those federal benefits.

So why is the ACA still politically vulnerable?

The answer lies partly in the way the program was designed.

Is repeal likely?

The Health Care Repeal Lawsuit Could Strip Coverage From 23 Million Americans

Nicole RapfogelEmily Gee

Tomorrow, the Trump administration and 18 Republican governors and attorneys general will file their opening briefs with the Supreme Court in California v. Texasthe health care repeal lawsuit. The lawsuit, criticized across the political spectrum as a badly flawed case, threatens to upend the Affordable Care Act and strip 23.3 million Americans of their health coverage, according to new CAP analysisabout 3 million more than was forecast before the coronavirus pandemic. The anti-ACA agitators who initiated the health care repeal lawsuit, backed by the Trump administration, continue their attempts to dismantle the ACA, including its coverage expansions and consumer protections, amid the pandemic, during which comprehensive health coverage has never been more important. Millions of Americans who have lost their jobs and job-based insurance due to the current economic crisis are relying on the insurance options made possible by the ACA to keep themselves and their families covered.

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statetalks · 4 years ago

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Why Do Republicans Want To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

Why Republicans Cant And Wont Repeal Obamacare

youtube

Editor’s Note:

This article was originally posted on Real Clear Health on January 16, 2017.

Slashing Ads And Budgets

Funding for the “navigator” programme, under which trained individuals or organisations help people sign up for insurance through Obamacare, has dropped from $62.5m to $10m under President Trump.

His administration has also cut Obamacare advertising spending to $10m – a 90% reduction.

According to a November 2018 Kaiser Health poll, 61% of Americans aged 18 to 64 said they did not know about any enrolment deadlines.

Republicans Want To Get Rid Of Obamacare But Then What

Facebook

EmbedEmbed

President Trump has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but Sarah Kliff of Vox.com says it’s “an overreach” to say that Republicans have a plan for what comes next.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

DAVIES: And where have we seen those pools before?

Board Of Governors Professor School Of Public Affairs & Administration

Repealing Obamacare Is A Huge Tax Cut For The Rich

For the bottom 60 percent of the population that is, households earning less than about $67,000 a year repeal of the ACA would end up meaning an increase in taxes due to the loss of ACA tax credits.

But people in the top 1 percent of the income distribution those with incomes of over about $430,000 would see their taxes fall by an average of $25,000 a year.

The Acas Protections Changed Public Opinion In Its Favor Republicans Are Keeping Up

Republicans have spent 10 years trying to kill the Affordable Care Act

Younger Americans Could Get Cheaper Plans

Obamacare was designed so that younger policyholders would help subsidize older ones. That would change under the Republican bill because it would allow insurers to charge older folks more.

Those under age 30 would also get a refundable tax credit of up to $2,000 to offset the cost of their premiums, as long as their income doesn’t exceed $215,000 for an individual.

Related: What’s inside the Republican health care bill?

Also, the bill keeps the Obamacare provision that lets young adults up to age 26 stay on their parents’ insurance plan.

This Is Why Republicans Couldnt Make A Better Replacement

These problems are all very real, and they all could be fixed.

Dont Like Obamacare It Was The Republicans Idea Says Liberal Democrat

youtube

Susan Jones

Robert Reich served as Labor Secretary for President Bill Clinton.

Reich says Democrats should have insisted on a single-payer system because it would have been cheaper, simpler, and more popular.

Reichs blog is entitled, The Democrats Version of Health Insurance Would Have Been Cheaper, Simpler, and More Popular

Background On The Health Care Repeal Lawsuit

Obamacare: Has Trump Managed To Kill Off Affordable Care Act

The Trump administration has ramped up its attack on the Affordable Care Act by backing a federal judge’s decision to declare the entire law unconstitutional.

For now, Obamacare is still standing. Around 4.1 million Americans have signed up for new plans so far this year, according to government reports, down 12% from last year.

At a rally this week, Mr Trump again promised his supporters: “We are going to get rid of Obamacare.” But how much has he delivered on that pledge so far?

Efforts To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

This article needs to be . The reason given is: Missing the May 2018 efforts. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.

The following is a list of efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act , which had been enactedby the 111th United States Congress on March 23, 2010.

This Is Also Why Republicans Might Drop Repeal

Meanwhile, many Republicans are itching to move on to their next priority: tax reform.

Republican Views On Obamacare

Older Americans Could Have To Pay More

Enrollees in their 50s and early 60s benefited from Obamacare because insurers could only charge them three times more than younger policyholders. The bill would widen that band to five-to-one.

States could also receive waivers to allow insurers to charge older Americans even more than five times the premiums of the young.

Whats Dividing Republicans And Democrats On Healthcare Reform

Repeal Of Obamacares Taxes Would Be A Huge Tax Cut For The Rich

youtube

Tax Policy Center

But people in the top 1 percent of the income distribution those with incomes of over about $430,000 would see their taxes fall by an average of $25,000 a year.

Under the actual AHCA, Jared Kushner would actually pay even less in taxes. As a young person, Kushner would get a larger tax to buy insurance under the AHCA than he does now.

New Threats & Potential Affordable Care Act Changes For 2019

Republicans Are Still Trying To Repeal Obamacare Heres Why They Are Not Likely To Succeed

Why are Republicans still trying to undo the ACA? We argue in a forthcoming that the laws political vulnerabilities and Republican electoral dynamics drive conservative efforts to uproot it.

In the past, conservatives have thrown in the towel

So why is the ACA still politically vulnerable?

The answer lies partly in the way the program was designed.

Is repeal likely?

The Health Care Repeal Lawsuit Could Strip Coverage From 23 Million Americans

Nicole RapfogelEmily Gee

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-want-to-repeal-the-affordable-care-act/

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maplespritz · 8 years ago

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Zodiac Legacy Challenge - Updated for Seasons/Get Famous

As someone who is a bit of a nerd when it comes to astrology and witchcraft in general, I of course love learning about western zodiacs. So I thought I’d bring my love of the zodiac signs to the sims.

I know that a challenge with this name has been made before, however mine will be more structured for each generation. This is a 12-generation legacy, with each generation representing one of the different zodiacs.

Side note: This legacy is not meant to misrepresent or offend anyone. The generations are being based off of descriptions of the zodiacs from this website. Feel free to read up more about each zodiac to get a better sense of your sim’s personality!

Starting out:

Feel free to make your founder however you’d like. Traits for each heir will be listed in their section, but their looks are up to you so feel free to get creative! You’ll start out like a traditional legacy on one of the 50x50 lots (or 64x64 if you’d like). Here is a link to Pinstar’s legacy rules.

General Challenge Rules:

No money cheats

Mods such as MC Command Center is allowed (and encouraged) but not necessary

No mods that give you a clear advantage over people who don’t use it

CC is allowed

If you don’t complete one of the goals for the generation, you lose the challenge.

Honestly this is the only way to fail the challenge, other than not producing an heir.

Generation One: Aquarius

“Aquarius’ are shy and quiet, but on the other hand they can be eccentric and energetic. However, in both cases, they are deep thinkers and highly intellectual people who love helping others. They are able to see without prejudice, on both sides, which makes them people who can easily solve problems.”

Who ever said eccentricity was a bad thing? You are a little out there and can be pretty spacey sometimes, but overall you are very passionate about your morals and strive to make other people’s lives better. Just be careful not to become a pushover.

Traits: Self-assured, Erratic, Ambitious Aspiration: Leader of the Pack Career: Politician

Goals:

Reach level ten of the Politician career, either branch

Complete your aspiration

Have a club gathering at least once a week (your club can literally be for anything! Get creative!)

Have three kids, get married as an adult

Have at least four good friends (they don’t have to be a part of your club)

Reach level ten of the Wellness skill

Generation Two: Pisces

“Pisces are very friendly, so they often find themselves in a company of very different people. Pisces are selfless, they are always willing to help others, without hoping to get anything back.”

You love to socialize and surround yourself with all different kinds of people. Your parents loved you and raised you to be kind and perhaps a bit sensitive. You can be insecure at times, especially when it comes to your significant other. For some reason, you can’t seem to stay in a relationship for very long. Is there a way to fix this?

Traits: Creative, Jealous, Gloomy Aspiration: Soulmate Career: Painter

Goals:

Have at least two friends of a different race/gender/sexuality than your sim

Reach level ten of the Painting skill

Reach level ten of the Painter career, either branch

Must go through at least two girl/boyfriends before settling down

Have two kids

Own a pool (at least a 4x4 size)

Generation Three: Aries

“As the first sign in the zodiac, the presence of Aries always marks the beginning of something energetic and turbulent. They are continuously looking for dynamic, speed and competition, always being the first in everything - from work to social gatherings.”

You’re competitive and hard working, and can sometimes come across as a bit arrogant. However, you have a bit of an inferiority complex, so every time your sibling or a friend succeeds, you aren’t too happy about it and always try to one up them. But after a while, you realize that you acting this way is pushing away the people you care about. Can you salvage these relationships before it’s too late and the damage is done?

Traits: Hot-headed, Ambitious, Perfectionist Aspiration: Renaissance Sim Career: Secret Agent

Goals:

Be enemies with your sibling until you are both YA

Only have one friend until you are a YA, since they were the only one who stuck around

Repair your relationships as fast as possible

Reach level ten of the fitness skill

Reach level ten of the Secret Agent career (any branch)

Complete your aspiration

Go for a jog for a total of three hours each week

Have one kid

Generation Four: Taurus

“Practical and well-grounded, Taurus is the sign that harvests the fruits of labor. They feel the need to always be surrounded by love and beauty, turned to the material world and physical pleasures. Stable and conservative, this is one of the most reliable signs of the zodiac, ready to endure and stick to their choices until they reach the point of personal satisfaction.”

You grew up truly appreciating food and what it meant. You were amazed how a simple meal could bring a family together, and how many memories were made because of that. You were close to your parents and were taught to always stand your ground and share your opinions. However, this caused you to become a little bull-headed (pun intended). You’re super stubborn and don’t like to be wrong, and won’t admit that you are ever wrong. This makes romance hard for you, but you keep trying because you are a hopeless romantic at heart. And once you find that special someone, you are loyal ‘til the end.

Traits: Romantic, Foodie, Materialistic Aspiration: Mansion Baron Career: Business or Culinary

Goals:

Have a garden with ten perfect plants

Only make organic meals (using ingredients, no quick meals, no eating out)

Reach level ten of the singing skill

Have a karaoke night with your family every other week

Reach level ten of the Business/Culinary career (any branch)

Complete your aspiration

Have four kids (one set of twins, feel free to cheat for this)

use the cheat sims.get_sim_id_by_name {PlayedSimFirstName} {PlayedSimLastName} Get the pregnant Sim's ID, then use the cheat pregnancy.force_offspring_count {simID} {amount}

Reach Soulmate status with your spouse before becoming an elder

Generation Five: Gemini

“Expressive and quick-witted, Gemini represents two different personalities in one and you will never be sure which one you will face. They are sociable, communicative and ready for fun, with a tendency to suddenly get serious, thoughtful and restless. They are fascinated with the world itself, extremely curious, with a constant feeling that there is not enough time to experience everything they want to see.”

Growing up, you had the “perfect life”: two parents who loved each other, lots of friends, good grades, and a beautiful house. You were living the good life, so why did you always feel like you wanted more? You decide to take a step on your own, leaving your family behind to pursue your dreams in the big city. However, you quickly realize that life is harder than it seems. You can’t find a job you’re comfortable in, you can’t hold down a relationship, but you find solace in entertaining people and throwing parties. Something about being a host really makes you feel happy.

Traits: Noncommittal, Outgoing, Insider Aspiration: Party Animal Career: None

Goals:

Must have a twin (feel free to cheat for this)

You are the opposite of your twin, in obvious ways such as style, but also in more subtle ways such as emotions and reactions to events (for example, you could be stereotypical and make one of the twins a “preppy” person and the other an “emo” person)

Reach level ten of the charisma skill

Must move out to an apartment with the Needs TLC trait

Throw every type of party at least once

Complete your aspiration

Have three jobs (at least one week for each) before deciding to freelance

Travel to at least two community lots each week and stay there for at least an hour

Have at least level four in three different skills by the time you’re an elder

Learn all of the recipes from the vender stalls in City Living

Have one set of twins (keep trying until you get them)

Be caught cheating by your spouse (you can decide whether they stay together or not)

Generation Six: Cancer

“Deeply intuitive and sentimental, Cancer can be one of the most challenging zodiac signs to get to know. They are very emotional and sensitive, and care deeply about matters of the family and their home. Cancer is sympathetic and attached to people they keep close. Those born with their Sun in Cancer are very loyal and able to empathize with other people's pain and suffering.”

In another life you would have become a doctor, but in this one you are content with looking after your family and making sure your children grow up the best they can. You’re a loving but strict parent, and just want what’s best for your children. However, will you push them away by being too overbearing?

Traits: Gloomy, Jealous, Family-Oriented Aspiration: Super Parent Career: None

Goals:

Gen six heir must reach level five in Imagination and Communication as a toddler

Master Baking skill

Master Cooking/Gourmet Cooking skills

Host a tea party (or a small get together) every week. Invite over your neighbors, your friends, your family, whomever you’d like. Must have a baked good for the gathering made by you.

Complete your aspiration

Pick up woodworking as a hobby and craft every sculpture

You live off of your parents’ money until you get a spouse: you are to be a house wife/husband, and will never have a job. You’re allowed to sell duplicate sculptures for money, however.

Show off your sculptures by putting them on display somewhere in your house!

Pack a lunch for your kids every morning. If you forget, make them a snack when they get home.

Keep the house clean—all you have to do all day is chores, after all!

Have two kids

Both kids need to have A’s in school

Generation Seven: Leo

“People born under the sign of Leo are natural born leaders. They are dramatic, creative, self-confident, dominant and extremely difficult to resist, able to achieve anything they want to in any area of life they commit to. There is a specific strength to a Leo and their "king of the jungle" status. Leo often has many friends for they are generous and loyal. Self-confident and attractive, this is a Sun sign capable of uniting different groups of people and leading them as one towards a shared cause.”

Your parents were so overbearing to you and your sibling growing up that in your teenage years you began to rebel. Staying out late, skipping class, whatever you could think of. Your parent made sure you got good grades, but you didn’t care about school. All you cared about was the spotlight. You were going to make it big, and you didn’t need calculus to help you rock out on your guitar or make the crowds feel emotions from your acting. You’re arrogant and stubborn, but determined to succeed no matter what the cost. Unfortunately, that means that you can miss out on things that are most important in life.

Traits: Materialistic, Music Lover, Cheerful Aspiration: Musical Genius/Master Actor Career: Entertainer/Actor

Goals:

Have a one night stand with a groupie once you reach level five in your career, which leads to an unplanned pregnancy

If your heir for this generation is male, come up with some sort of reason for why you got the baby. The mother didn’t want it, the mother died in childbirth, whatever. You can even move her in until she gives birth, then they have a big fight and she walks out on them.

Reach level ten of the Entertainer/Actor career (musician branch)

Complete your aspiration

Have one kid

Never get married, but have as many relationships as you’d like

Never be that present in your child’s life; you don’t want to be overbearing like your parents

Reach level ten in two instruments (you can choose)

Licensing songs is okay to make some extra money

Master the Acting Skill

Making videos is also okay for extra money

Generation Eight: Virgo

“Virgos are always paying attention to the smallest details. Their methodical approach to life ensures that nothing is left to chance and their heart might be closed for the outer world. This is a sign often misunderstood, not because they lack the ability to express, but because they won’t accept their feelings as valid. The symbolism behind the name speaks well of their nature, born with a feeling they are experiencing everything for the first time.”

You grew up without a strong parental figure in your life, which made it hard for you to trust other people. How do you know that they would be there for you when you truly needed them? You’re cautious and shy, but curious about the world. You truly enjoy learning and collecting things, and through this passion is how you meet the love of your life. They are the only person you can trust, but they can tell you’re always holding yourself back and hiding parts of yourself away from them. Can a relationship last with this kind of distrust?

Traits: Loner, Geek, Bookworm Aspiration: The Curator Career: Scientist

Goals:

Marry a coworker who has at least one trait in common with you

Get married right before becoming an adult

Separate from your spouse for a while after a large fight (your choice if they get back together)

Reach level ten of the Scientist career

Complete your aspiration

Have a home library (at least 25 books)

Finish a collection (your choice)

Have two kids

Generation Nine: Libra

“People born under the sign of Libra are peaceful and fair, and they hate being alone. Partnership is very important for Libra-born, and with their victorious mentality and cooperation, they cannot stand to be alone. The Libra is an Air sign, with expressed intellect and a keen mind. They can be inspired by good books, insurmountable discussions and interesting people.”

You thrive on socialization. Your parents are kind of shy homebodies, but you crave constant company and cannot stand to be by yourself. This can come across as quite overbearing to some people, so sometimes it’s hard for you to make friends. And, despite being such a sociable person, you are kind of oblivious when it comes to romance. You are very childish in the best possible way, and are the kind of parent to get down in the dirt and play with your children. You are a very supportive parent and you strive to make your family as happy as they can be, through whatever means.

Traits: Unflirty, Loves the Outdoors, Goofball Aspiration: Big Happy Family Career: Social Media/Gardener

Goals:

Go on vacation to Granite Falls every other week (or once a season)

Encourage your children to do homework and practice skills

Have your children max at least one skill

Have four good friends

Be best friends with your spouse

Visit at least two community lots each week and spend four hours socializing and meet new sims

Complete Aspiration

Reach level ten of the Social Media/Gardener career (either branch)

You post a lot about your kids and about your life, so take as many pictures of your kids as you can!

Have a wall in the house filled with family photographs

Master photography skill

Master parenting skill

Master Herbalism/Gardening skill

Have two kids, and adopt one (total of three kids)

Generation Ten: Scorpio

“Scorpio-born are passionate and assertive people. They are determined and decisive, and will research until they find out the truth. Scorpio is a great leader, always aware of the situation and also features prominently in resourcefulness.”

You grew up watching true crime television shows and superhero movies and decided that’s what you wanted to do with your life: bring justice and fight evil. Unfortunately you can’t become a superhero, but you can become a police officer/detective. You want to make the world a better place than it was before, and you want your legacy to be something of legend. Hardworking and dedicated to your craft, you tend to focus too much on work and it puts a strain on your relationship.

Traits: Ambitious, Good, Genius Aspiration: Nerd Brain Career: Detective

Goals:

Get married to your high school sweetheart

Complete your aspiration

Reach level ten of the Detective career

Reach level ten of the logic skill

Reach level ten of the handiness skill

Get a divorce (you can decide who gets custody of your kids)

Get remarried as an elder, retire from your career

Have three kids

Generation Eleven: Sagittarius

“Curious and energetic, Sagittarius is one of the biggest travelers among all zodiac signs. Their open mind and philosophical view motivates them to wander around the world in search of the meaning of life.”

You love travel and learning new things. You want to experience as much as you can in your lifetime, which means meeting people different from yourself. You heard that one of your ancestors (generation five) was a big traveler too, so you decide to follow in their footsteps.

Traits: Outgoing, Noncommittal, Dance Machine Aspiration: Friend of the World or Archeology Scholar/Jungle Explorer Career: None

Goals:

Live in three different worlds for at least a week before settling down

Have kids with three different people

Never get married

Make money freelancing (collecting, gardening, painting, writing, whatever you wish! This includes the stuff that comes along with Jungle Adventure, such as archeology and treasure hunting.)

Completely redesign your house at least once (after settling down for good)

Go to every festival (unless you’re at work/on a date/at a wedding/etc)

Travel to the Nightclub every Friday

Complete aspiration

Master dancing skill

Master comedy skill

Generation Twelve: Capricorn

“Capricorn is a sign that represents time and responsibility, and its representatives are traditional and often very serious by nature. These individuals possess an inner state of independence that enables significant progress both in their personal and professional lives. They are masters of self-control and have the ability to lead the way.”

You hated how free spirited and laid back your parent was, and craved structure and discipline. Since a teen, you had a schedule every day after school: do homework, practice your skills for an hour, eat dinner, go to bed. Moving around so often meant that you didn’t make many friends, so you chose to devote all of your time to mastering as many skills as you could. But focusing in on one detail of life made you miss out on the bigger picture.

Traits: Ambitious, Snob, Mean Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy Career: Tech Guru

Goals:

Since this is the final generation, you can choose whether to have kids or not. Preferably none.

Reach level ten of the Tech Guru career (either branch).

Master logic skill

Have at least level seven in three other skills (your choice)

Follow a schedule every day; spontaneity is not your strong suit

Get married as an adult to someone who shares at least one of your traits and is in the same career as you.

Live in an expensive house (200,000 simoleons or more) by the time you’re an adult

Surround yourself only with other snobby people

Buy an expensive item every Wednesday. (Perhaps even start a collection of expensive artwork or sculptures and showcase them somewhere in your house. Feel free to get creative with it.)

Oh wow, we’ve made it to the end of the challenge! I hope you enjoyed. Feel free to show me pictures or update me on your playthrough on this if you’d like (tumblr: lemonfraise.tumblr.com/twitter: @dainty_cherub). You can also use the hashtag #autumnalzodiac so I can see your posts and reblog some of them!

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to tell me and I’ll take them into consideration. <3

#autumnalzodiac #sims 4 challenge #sims 4 legacy #ts4 #the sims 4 #sims 4

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germanyvisainfo-blog · 6 years ago

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Germany Training Internship Visa

Aside of being a nation that offers the chance to pick among a wide scope of planned colleges, Germany is additionally the essential decision to numerous remote understudies and recently graduates the world over for temporary jobs or expert trainings in their field of enthusiasm, at various foundations and organizations.

On the off chance that you are intending to complete an entry level position or preparing in Germany, at that point there are a couple of things you ought to ask yourself before you travel towards the nation, as for example in the event that you are qualified for a temporary position/preparing and whether you need a visa or not.

Who can do an Internship/Training in Germany?

Everybody intrigued, paying little respect to their age, sexual orientation, religious perspectives and so on., can get the opportunity to complete an entry level position or preparing in Germany in their field of intrigue. The necessities for doing the temporary position rely upon the organization or establishment offering it. Some of them may request familiar German, while others would be content in the event that you can oversee talking fundamental German, and require no more.

Be that as it may, it is a vital condition for you to discover the entry level position or preparing preceding your excursion to Germany. Particularly in the event that you are the international ID holder of one of the nations the residents of which are required to acquire a visa so as to be allowed to enter and stay in Germany.

You can check online for preparing and temporary position openings in Germany. You should realize that not all organizations and establishments pay assistants in Germany, in this manner check cautiously whether the association where you will get drew in at as a learner or understudy will pay you or not. Life in Germany has its costs, thusly you should remember that regardless of whether you were paid, it would be hard for you to cover your costs with an understudy installment.

Who needs a Germany Training/Internship visa?

In the event that you have officially discovered a temporary position or a preparation program in Germany where you are eager to draw in and increase proficient abilities, the subsequent stage is to ask yourself: Do I need a visa or not? Regardless of whether you need a visa or you don’t, everything relies upon your nationality/citizenship.

Foreigners that do not need a visa

In the event that you are an identification holder of any of the European Union part expresses, the European Economic Area, or the European Free Trade Area, at that point this implies you don’t have to acquire a visa so as to almost certainly complete a temporary job or take an interest at a preparation program in Germany. You can also move to Germany as a beginning stage, and afterward begin searching for an entry level position or preparing, in the event that you have the way to do as such.

In the meantime, nationals of Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand and the United States of America as well, are not obliged to acquire a visa, so as to most likely enter Germany and complete an entry level position. In any case, they should apply for a living arrangement license when they touch base in Germany, straightforwardly at the Immigration Office, so as to probably legitimately do their temporary position or preparing. You as well, can discover your entry level position while in your nation of origin, or in the wake of settling in Germany.

Foreigners that need a visa

Then again, whatever is left of the world nations should right off the bat discover a temporary position or preparing in Germany, and afterward experience every one of the necessities and go to the meeting so as to probably acquire the visa.

On the off chance that you are the national of one of the nations the natives of which are obliged to acquire a temporary job/preparing visa, at that point adhere to the directions given in this article on the prerequisites for a Germany visa, application procedure, expenses and everything else you should know before your visa application.

Germany Training/Internship Visa Requirements

When you apply for an Internship/Training Visa, you should present some required archives at the German international safe haven or department in your nation of origin so as to demonstrate your personality, foundation and the reason for making a trip to Germany, just as on the off chance that you will almost certainly spread your costs amid your stay in Germany.

Commonly Required Documents for a Germany visa

Application structure – completely finished with right data that conforms to the data in alternate records that you are required to submit. Print the application structure twice and remember to sign each duplicate toward the end with the goal for both to be legitimate for the government office.

Two visa photos – taken inside the most recent three months and as indicated by the strict necessities recorded in this page, as set by the German movement experts.

Substantial national identification – no more established than ten years, with somewhere around one void page so as to probably fasten the visa sticker. The identification must consent to the next visa necessities as clarified in this page.

One duplicate of your international ID’s information page (A4 measure duplicate)

Old international ID (if pertinent) – in the event that you are in control of any more seasoned identification that has either lapsed or the pages of which are full with visa stickers and stamps, at that point you ought to present that international ID as well. In the event that you possess more than one old international ID, which contains visa stamps and stickers, at that point you ought to present every one of them. Tie the international IDs with an elastic band, and don’t staple them using any and all means.

Medical coverage – you should present an affirmation letter by the insurance agency where you have obtained Travel Health Insurance. The record must affirm that the protection covers any crisis restorative medicines and hospitalization just as repatriation in the event of death, with a base inclusion of 30 thousand euros, in the entire Schengen domain.

Confirmation of budgetary assets – you should display records that demonstrate you are skilled to cover your stay in Germany. This can be a bank articulation that indicates you have enough cash to fiscally subsidize yourself for the entire time frame you will stay in Germany, an agreement with the organization where you will understudy/preparing that demonstrates the amount, you will get paid, on the off chance that you will get any installment. It can likewise be a letter by a support who affirms they will send you cash routinely, joined by their bank proclamation, work contract and pay slips, so as to help their letter. It can likewise be a blend of every one of them. As a major aspect of the money related supports you may need to present the accompanying records as per your working status:

Whenever utilized: Pay slips of the previous three months/business contract

In the event that independently employed: Certificate of Proprietorship or other confirmation of possession (evidence of land title, verification of pay from farming (deals structure) and so forth.)

Confirmation of common status – marriage endorsement, birth authentication of kids, demise declaration of life partner and so on.

Flight Itinerary – that can be a flight reservation, rail tickets, others. You can utilize the visa discussion administrations like this one or discover one on the web.

Verification of convenience for your whole remain in Germany – which could be a rental assention, an inn booking, or a welcome letter in the event that you will remain over at companions or relatives.

Specific Requirements for Internship/Training Visa

Bundesagentur für Arbeit – which is an authorization to work in Germany, and assistants are obliged to have it all together for their commitment at any association to be legitimate. It is upon the foundation/organization where you will connect as an understudy or student to acquire it for you. A few temporary positions under EU-subsidized projects (Leonardo, Socrates, Erasmus, and so on.) don’t require this record.

Assignment/no-complaint letter from your nearby manager or college you are learning at which affirms that the candidate is a representative/understudy at their association.

Endorsement letter from German organization/establishment affirming states of candidate’s stay in Germany, including installment.

Verification of capability (confirmation, scholastic degree testament or imprint sheets).

Training/Internship Visa Application Process

The application for a Germany Visa is basic and clear. You will simply need to pursue the visa application process rule given in this page well ordered, without missing a thing. You should apply at the German Embassy or Consulate in your nation of origin, whichever is nearer to where you live.

We firmly prescribe you to apply somewhere around three weeks preceding your arranged travel to Germany, so as to stay away from any deferral.

Training/Internship Visa Fee

When you go to your meeting you should present a receipt that affirms you have finished the installment of the German visa charge, which is a MUST all together for you application to be prepared. A German visa charge for remains longer than 90 days is 75 euros. The charge can be paid in the neighborhood cash as indicated by the trade rates endorsed by the international safe haven.

It would be ideal if you note the visa charges won’t be repaid if there should be an occurrence of the visa being rejected and the cost is liable to change whenever.

Visa Processing Time

In spite of the way that Germany visa application handling takes around 10 to 15 days, the preparing time changes from one case to the next. While a few candidates get their answer inside seven days, others may take a long time to get a reaction on their application due to their circumstance.

Here and there, in view of the huge number of utilizations that the international safe haven is getting at the time, the preparing time can be reached out for a couple of days.

Germany Training/Internship Visa Validity

The most extreme time frame for which an entry level position/preparing visa can be issued is a year. The legitimacy of your visa relies upon the length of your temporary position. On the off chance that your entry level position is four months in length, at that point the government office will give you the required four months just as a couple of days or weeks increasingly preceding the beginning date of your temporary job/preparing and a couple of progressively after its finish.

Make a point to check your visa sticker when you get it, for its legitimacy and the allowed length of remain.

Can I extend my Germany Training/Internship Visa?

You should exhibit a solid reason on which you will base your application, on the off chance that you choose to apply for a visa augmentation.

One case could be if the organization or establishment where you are interning or preparing wishes you to proceed with your temporary job or preparing for a more extended period from what was designated toward the start.

Toward the finish of your temporary job, if the organization or foundation where you were locked in needs to procure you, you will have tor come back to your nation of origin, and from that point apply for a working visa so as to be permitted to function as a customary worker.

Can my family join me?

On the off chance that you are in Germany with an Internship/Training Visa and you need your family to come over, at that point they can apply for a Tourist/Visitor visa so as to visit you. Nonetheless, they are not qualified to apply for a Family Reunion Visa.

Germany Training Internship Visa

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kayawagner · 6 years ago

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An Elementary Alternative to Combat (Fire/Water)

Image Courtesy: Pixabay

As any number of language classes have taught most of us, stories are what happens when characters who have goals meet people, places, things, or ideas that prevent them from accomplishing those goals. Most of us can probably name off a handful of the more famous ones: “Gnome vs. Nature,” “Gnome vs. Gnome,” “Gnome vs. Self,” “Gnome vs. Intriguing Cave Filled with Goblins.” But when it comes to games, particularly the ones that always seem to be on the shelf in your Friendly Local Gaming Store, it seems that we default to a certain kind of conflict — the kind that results in careful tracking of resources like hit points, status effects, and positioning. In short: combat.

In case it isn’t already clear, I am a really really big fan of this kind of gaming. There are few things I enjoy more than making and playing characters (okay, villains) with new and exciting ways to beat up heroes, move them around, and thwart their ambitions — but variety is the spice of life, and no matter how much I enjoy those kinds of games, once in a while it’s fun to pull out something a little different.

Of course, there are a ton of games that do things other than physical combat brilliantly. Some concentrate on using the defining qualities of characters in ways that mechanically advantage them, or focus on exploration, or mystery, or drama, or dozens of other different (awesome) things, using games as metaphors and tools and vehicles for experiences. Those games are also great, and I can’t encourage you strongly enough to go out and play those games. Seriously: go play one now.

But not everyone has the energy or (frankly) gaming group it takes to learn, make characters for, and play an entirely new system. In those cases, it can seem like your only option is to continue playing the same games you’ve always played, occasionally leavened by the introduction of a new module or character option.

In those cases, your best option is often to identify the tools that you have available to you in your group’s preferred game, and like Lego (or Taco Bell), put them together in a new and exciting way, or at least a way your group hasn’t seen before.

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For pulse-pounding action, tension, and the potential for gruesome character death, natural (or unnatural) disasters can provide an alternative way for your characters to struggle against forces they can’t swing a sword at. The remainder of this article is devoted to two approaches focusing on natural disasters: the first is a kind of challenge-within-a-challenge that pits your characters against the relentless growth potential of a fire, and the second is a set of hooks and emotional notes to hit when dealing with a flood.

These tools can also be used to give players a sense of scope for the magic, superpowers, or feats of mad engineering that their antagonists bring to bear. It’s one thing to dodge a fireball, but quite another to turn around and realize that the fireball hit a building. In a land without fire codes, every such mishap can endanger innocent bystanders, rivals, or (for incredibly goal-oriented groups) an important MacGuffin.

Note that both fires and floods are real disasters, and none of this is intended to trivialize the very real suffering that very real people go through when these disasters happen. With that in mind, I’ve linked to a relevant charity next to the two disasters examined in this article. If your group feels particularly moved after a given session, or even if you just have some extra to give, consider donating to these charities. Money doesn’t solve many problems, but for a struggling nonprofit, it rarely hurts.

Fire:

Charity: Operation USA

Charity Navigator Rating: Four Stars

Fire has a pretty central role in the mythology of our games. From fireballs to ancient fire gods to The Human Torch, the idea of shaping and using flame through means magical or mundane is where any number of games start. At the same time, consider how devastating fire has been in the United States in 2018, despite our relatively robust infrastructure and the truly heroic efforts of firefighters and first responders.

When a villain (or even a hero) carelessly tosses out a spell or power with the deceptively simple warning that it may catch objects on fire, institute rules that cover just how destructive and uncontrollable fire can be.

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The excellent board game Flash Point has excellent mechanics that illustrate just how easy it is for a fire to rage out of control. The below rules are (very) loosely inspired by the way that this game handles fire.

After a triggering event occurs (an out of control spell, a fumble, or even a candle setting fire to bed curtains), and if no player has taken action to put out the blaze, roll a 6-sided die at the end of players’ turns to determine whether the fire spreads, roughly in size or intensity. On a 1-5, the fire stays where it is. On a 6, the fire spreads to every adjacent space (or doubles in intensity/size if you’re not using tactical grids).

Track the intensity/size of the fire like a fire’s “hit points” with character actions decreasing that total, and inaction allowing that total to increase through the d6 roll. Note that even stone construction often has wood joists and floors, and most wall materials are at least somewhat flammable — the key is that there’s something that can catch on fire nearly anywhere, and getting finicky about whether this thing or that thing can catch fire takes a lot of the urgency out of gameplay.

If a fire is particularly intense or large (as any fire will become if left alone), add to the roll based on its intensity. The longer a fire is left alone, the more distinct actions are required to put it out. The below numbers provide for both “theater of the mind” (requiring distinct “actions” to put out a given level of fire) and tactical miniatures-type combat (showing the number of “squares” a fire occupies). Clever actions or actions that create areas of effect may (at the game master’s discretion) put out more than one square or count as more than one action.

+0: a candle flame (1 action/square total)

+1: a torch or other open flame (2-4 actions/squares total)

+3: a fire of roughly the size and intensity of a campfire or fireplace fire (5-16 actions/squares total)

+5: a raging conflagration (16+ total squares)

For every round that an open flame begins and ends a turn next to a wall or other structurally important part of a building, do one point of damage to that building. Buildings have a number of points of damage based on the size and relative quality of construction. For games that do not track movement using tactical grids, every point of total intensity over a certain threshold counts toward the building’s limit.

6 points: A one-room shed (every point of flame counts as being next to a wall for as long as the fire is burning)

12 points: A normal-sized house, or a small building that’s relatively well-constructed (every point of intensity past 6 points counts toward the building’s limit)

24 points: A large house, or a particularly well-constructed smaller one (every point of intensity past 9 points counts toward the building’s limit)

48 points: Large public building, or another building particularly well-shielded against fire (every point of intensity past 12 counts toward the building’s limit)

If a building runs out of hit points, it collapses. Depending on the level of lethality in your game, NPCs or even characters may die instantly. At minimum, everyone involved should be completely out of commission until the next scene.

If the fire occurs outside, there is no limit to the potential spread of flame, and without quick and clever action, characters may well find themselves surrounded by towering walls of flame they have no hope of escaping.

Adjudicate fire damage to characters according to the rules of the game you’re using, and encourage players to think creatively about ways to put out the flame in efficient ways. Note that unless characters are fireproof or otherwise able to bypass areas that are currently on fire, aiding each other or escaping will likely be thwarted by burning walls, floors, doors, or trees.

The fire continues to burn (and potentially spread) as long as it has even a single point of intensity remaining. The key to this conflict is that every instance of the fire spreading requires distinct action by the players, and the problem compounds the longer characters do not take action.

Particularly sadistic game masters or those with groups that enjoy particularly grueling challenges may institute other potential obstacles — even after they’ve been put out, fires produce a lot of smoke that may require rolls to avoid conditions like being sickened or poisoned, and areas that have been devastated by fire can easily be difficult or treacherous to move through, especially if players are attempting to rescue bystanders, priceless objects, or gigantic handfuls of snakes. Game masters may also require a roll for all or some approaches to putting out a fire, though note that doing this may well risk exposing your players to spectacular failure.

Water:

Charity: SBP (Saint Bernard Project)

Charity Navigator Rating: Four Stars

If you’re going to destroy the world, flooding is really the way to do it;

If you’re going to destroy the world, flooding is really the way to do it.

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Cultures all over the world are intimately familiar with the damage that can be done by out of control water, Atlantis and Noah’s famous Ark immediately spring to mind. Characters might face flooding through the actions of an angry god, demon, or godlike sorcerer. Weather magic or super science might cause endless rain, or local dams can be threatened or destroyed by careless magic or powers, or by deliberate sabotage. For an unusual flood, consider a substance other than water, and the damage it can do — studying up on the Great Molasses Flood of Boston is a great place to start.

Unlike with fire, when a flood is under way, there’s little any but the most powerful characters can hope to do. Instead, characters should face challenges in two distinct phases: during the flood, and afterward.

During the Flood: Survival

During the flood, characters’ main focus should be escape and rescue — disaster is happening, and the characters can only hope to survive it. If using tactical miniatures or similar combat, consider restricting movement in one direction — characters may be able to move north, south or west, but cannot move south, due to the relentless pressure of water forcing against them. Terrain should be difficult or impossible to navigate through, and characters should constantly be forced to make decisions between things that they value.

For an especially bleak experience, linger on locations, objects or buildings that have been important to characters in their previous stories as they wash away. As always, be conscious of your players’ feelings, and know when too much is too much. The X card is an excellent tool (though by no means the only one) for helping navigate this kind of scene.

After the Flood: Recovery

Rebuilding communities and the buildings that house them is only the most obvious part of recovering from a disaster like a flood. In modern floods, rebuilders are forced to deal with the logistics of moving new materials into ruined and impassable areas — something that can take weeks or months, even with modern technology.

During that time period, even basics like food become scarce, and people can fall to desperation. Game Masters may want to play up the potential for conflict inherent in this, and allow players who specialize in the social elements of game play to step up and prevent riots or other forms of violence.

For external threats, opportunistic villains may step in and make impossible promises, or a warlord may see a population that, though poor, is ripe for plunder.

All of this is to say nothing of how such a weakened population deals with disease or injury — or with the health problems that can easily arise when waterlogged crops lay rotting in the fields and sodden soil sprouts disease, fungi and mold.

Stories of disaster can give heroes challenges that they know they stand no chance of fighting against — neatly avoiding the unspoken assumption some groups have that “if it has hit points, I can kill it.” Such encounters or stories can break up combat and even social encounters in ways that can make a world feel more real and lived-in. As with any topic that has real-world equivalents, game masters should pay attention to the emotional states of their players, some of whom may have directly or indirectly experienced these disasters, and make sure that everyone is on board with the inclusion of these kinds of elements. With the whole group on board and sharing in an understanding of what they’re in for, this kind of game can be a great way to spice up your sessions.

Do these kinds of disasters have a place at your table? If so, how have you used them in the past?

An Elementary Alternative to Combat (Fire/Water) published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

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swipestream · 6 years ago

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An Elementary Alternative to Combat (Fire/Water)

Image Courtesy: Pixabay

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Fire:

Charity: Operation USA

Charity Navigator Rating: Four Stars

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+0: a candle flame (1 action/square total)

+1: a torch or other open flame (2-4 actions/squares total)

+3: a fire of roughly the size and intensity of a campfire or fireplace fire (5-16 actions/squares total)

+5: a raging conflagration (16+ total squares)

6 points: A one-room shed (every point of flame counts as being next to a wall for as long as the fire is burning)

12 points: A normal-sized house, or a small building that’s relatively well-constructed (every point of intensity past 6 points counts toward the building’s limit)

24 points: A large house, or a particularly well-constructed smaller one (every point of intensity past 9 points counts toward the building’s limit)

48 points: Large public building, or another building particularly well-shielded against fire (every point of intensity past 12 counts toward the building’s limit)

Water:

Charity: SBP (Saint Bernard Project)

Charity Navigator Rating: Four Stars

If you’re going to destroy the world, flooding is really the way to do it;

If you’re going to destroy the world, flooding is really the way to do it.

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During the Flood: Survival

After the Flood: Recovery

For external threats, opportunistic villains may step in and make impossible promises, or a warlord may see a population that, though poor, is ripe for plunder.

Do these kinds of disasters have a place at your table? If so, how have you used them in the past?

An Elementary Alternative to Combat (Fire/Water) published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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cameronwjones · 7 years ago

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10 Tips for Planning a Great Training Session

Training sessions happen all the time and while they may seem second nature for some, only a few training sessions are insightful, meaningful and effective. Follow these 10 tips for planning a great training session for a flawless next event.

What is a training session and why should you organize one?

Intuitively, a training session is an event that provides education value to attendees. Whether you’re planning a corporate and team skill training or a general certification class, training sessions can include anything from lectures and evaluations to discussions and demonstrations.

The benefits of training in the workplace are undeniable.

A training session underway at LABS Holborn. Source: HeadBox

Training sessions are great for boosting morale, re-focusing your team, and enhancing the professional development of your employees. In turn, these forums help foster a happier working environment and increased productivity from your colleagues.

As an organizer, your goal is likely to maximize the training day experience to be both effective and valuable for your attendees (in this case, your team). Our 10 tips for planning a training session will help ensure that your training day will prove beneficial for your business, from accelerating your team’s performance to hitting key targets.

1. Before the Session, Perform a Needs Assessment

Performing a needs test will help guide how you structure your training course. Establishing the needs of your company from those that experience it in the day-to-day will enable you to design a training session that will up-skill your team, and ultimately help you to achieve your business goals.

A sample training needs assessment template.

While there are many techniques you can use to conduct a needs test, we’ve provided a sample assessment template above that you can modify according to your training needs. Implementing a test like the one prior before your training session will highlight the gaps in your team, and help you determine the demands of individual participants.

2. Keep Adult Learning Principles in Mind

Organizing a training session should take into account the principles of learning, more specifically, adult learning principles. The Adult Learning Theory by Malcolm Knowles, a pioneer in the field of adult learning, focuses on five main principles of learning:

Self-Concept: As a person matures they move towards becoming a self-directed human being.

Adult Learner Experience: As a person matures they accumulate a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.

Readiness to Learn: As a person matures their readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of their social roles.

Orientation to Learning: As a person matures their perspective changes and they become more focused on solving problems.

Motivation to Learn: As a person matures the motivation to learn is internalized.

It’s a great idea to revolve your sessions around these adult learning principles, in doing so you will optimize the training as a valuable experience for your attendees. Take principle #5, Orientation to Learning. A training session is inherently about understanding and fixing problems—whether that is a lack of strategic understanding, a gap in vocational knowledge, or the need for personal skills’ development. This focus on problem solving learning underpins your whole training session and as such, should be considered throughout the training process.

3. Establish Learning Objectives

Learning objectives are the basis of your training session. These will highlight the skills and knowledge that your team will master by attending your event, but more importantly learning objectives should be derived from the needs assessment we previously mentioned. Having clear goals maximizes the potential and impact of your session by setting expectations and ensuring attendees that the topics being covered pertain to the feedback they had provided.

In turn, learning objectives must be measurable. It would prove impossible to sustain and support future training sessions without being able to speak to your events success. When it comes to establishing measurable objectives, the SMART format of formulating learning objectives is a great way to create clear goals. SMART refers to:

S — Specific: Goals for training must be specific to the training you are running.

M — Measurable: Learning objectives need to be measurable so that you are able to evaluate the success of your training session.

A — Attainable: Learning objectives can be ambitious, but keep in mind that they must also be realistic and attainable given the factors at play.

R — Relevant: Consider the implications for attendees and the business alike.

T — Time: A goal without a deadline isn’t feasible. In this case, consider both the time for the session as well as the time to implement the skills learned in the workplace.

Working without learning objectives may affect the outcome of your training session and your teaching may not be as successful as first hoped. Follow this format to create meaningful and attainable learning objectives for any training session.

4. Structure

The structure of a training session can be make or break. As such, it should be planned after you have established learning objectives and with a strong focus on the adult learning principles.

The structure gives you, as the trainer and organizer, a timeline to follow and will be indicative of how clearly you are resolving the team’s training assessment needs. It is a good idea to share a simplified version of your training session with your participants in advance, so they can be better prepared the day of.

A sample training session structure. Source: Moz

5. Training Materials

Training materials are essential in running the perfect training session, and they fall into two categories: 1) training materials for the trainer and 2) training materials for the attendees.

For the organizer, the materials act as an agenda and a form of guidance. They should support what you are saying and they should prompt you and keep you organized. From beginning to end, staying organized can be the difference between an excellent training session and an average training session. The 5E Learning Model is a great one to follow with its five different stages:

The 5E Learning Model. Source: Swift

Engage: To learn attendees must be able to contextualize this experience and have readily available activities to guide them.

Explore: Usually a group activity, this phase focuses on helping attendees understand and develop new skills.

Explain: As an organizer and trainer, emphasize why the previous stage was relevant for this session and for your greater goal.

Elaborate: Employs participants to hone in those conceptual skills by implementing practical training activities.

Evaluate: This stage applies to organizers and attendees alike. Both must conclude and internalize the lessons learned throughout.

If you follow this in your training session structure or even also provide this to the students for their training materials you will ensure a better structured session. For instance, begin with a problem —the learning objectives you have established from performing a needs test. Your training session should answer these problems by teaching every attendee something they didn’t already know, providing them with new skills, and helping them to do their jobs better.

For the attendees, training materials will guide the session, making different parts of the training session digestible. Providing training materials for the attendees also allows them to revisit the information on their own time.

6. A Clear, Digestible Presentation

The presentation you deliver is the most important training material you will produce. It guides your whole training session, both as an organizer and for your attendees. When it comes to planning your training presentation outline, detail is key.

The 1-6-6 Presentation Rule Visualized. Source: University of Cape Town

Text should be clear and concise. Ever heard of the 1-6-6 Rule? This guideline suggests that effective presentations should have:

One idea per slide

A maximum of six bullet points per page

No more than six words for every bullet point

This technique will optimize your presentation to be concise while keeping your audience engaged.

7. Incorporate activities

At times, a training session might involve tens of people, some of which might not be familiar with each other. Training sessions are all about a dual-relationship, a collaboration between the organizer and the attendees. That’s where games come in. One of our favorite ice-breakers is to split the group you are working with into smaller groups of four or five. In these smaller groups, participants can work together to find ten things that they have in common with every person in the group. Establishing what people have in common allows individuals to bond over their similarities, leading to a more relaxed and conducive learning environment.

Another great activity to try is role reversal. When each learning objective has been covered by the trainer, pass the presentation over to the attendees and ask them to present what they’ve learned. Encouraging active participation will solidify the lessons learned.

8. Time Management

Being an organizer means being a 24/7 time manager. If you’ve created a schedule, you should follow this closely to ensure you have enough time to fit in all aspects of the training you’ve spent time outlining. Heard of the 80/20 rule, otherwise known as the Pareto Principle? It is the theory that 80% of results come from only 20% of a person’s actions. As an organizer, this rule is a way to prioritize your time against your most important goals. Working out what that 20% is for your individual training session is important to ensure success.

Consider how some concepts or skills will need more time than than others. What skills are you willing to allocate more time on, and which are nice-to-have that you are okay addressing later? Remember to use the needs assessment, as well as in-person feedback from the group to determine how much time you should be dedicating to a certain topic or skill.

Pro tip: Don’t forget breaks. It can be hard for most people to concentrate for an extended period of time. Breaks, however, have been linked to improving concentration. From the Ultradian Method to the 52-17 Method there are so many different break techniques, so choose the one which suits your training session best.

9. Pick a Conducive Event Venue

The venue of your training session is the heart of your event. Your venue will depend on your event brand, as well as the size of your session. If you have a large, company-wide training session perhaps a conference venue will be suitable. If there’s just a small group of you perhaps a meeting room or workshop will do.

A smaller meeting room from The Office Group. Source: HeadBox

Want something a little more creative? Why not choose an unusual venue in the city where you can get creative with your training and really inspire your guests. Did you know that off-site meeting or conference often improves productivity? According to Forbes, 51% of workers said they weren't engaged with their office environment and even worse, 17% said they were actively disengaged with their office environment—use an off-site as a way to re-engage your employees across the board.

10. Evaluation

Running a training evaluation is key when developing your own skills as a trainer and ensuring you have met your training session goals. Of course, taking into account whether or not your participants have acquired the intended learning objectives. Feedback may seen daunting, but it’s essential to your development as a trainer. One of the best ways to gather feedback is through face-to-face conversations with your attendees. Ask attendees to give a brief reflection on the activities they’ve just completed.

Alternatively, you can ask for reflective feedback post training day through an electronic feedback form your attendees can fill out. For instance, consider using a feedback questionnaire or an evaluation form.

If you need some inspiration, we’ve put together a basic evaluation form template.

Key Takeaways

Like most tips, it is usually best to try implementing a few of these training session suggestions. That said, the main things to remember when planning a successful training day are as follows:

Stay organized.

Keep adult learning principles at the forefront of all activities and sessions.

Use an off-site venue to increase productivity and excitement around the event.

Active Learning: Encourage participation from your attendees for a truly impactful session.

Evaluate. Reflect, get feedback, and try again.

No training session will be perfect the first time around, but eventually you will find a strategy that works best for you and your attendees. Keep these 10 tips in mind when planning your next training session.

from Cameron Jones Updates https://blog.bizzabo.com/training-session-tips

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flauntpage · 7 years ago

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A Pro/Rel Column – Why American Soccer Can Exist Without It

I’ll start by saying that I don’t hate promotion and relegation. I can’t dislike a system that rewards success, punishes failure, and provides opportunity. Stripped down to the simplest of explanations, it sounds very American.

My stance has always been that domestic soccer has unique challenges and considerations that aren’t necessarily fixed by structural changes to the pyramid. There’s no magic bullet here, as some would have you think.

What we get is a noxious clash of ideas with a lot of shouting and idiocy on both sides. Pro/rel advocates froth and whine on social media while those of us on the other end of the spectrum, or somewhere in the middle, are guilty of engaging in the pissing contest instead of ignoring the trolls and seeking out rational thought instead. Just like Capitol Hill, moderate voices and measured takes are often drowned out.

So I think the premise of the column is this –

American soccer doesn’t necessarily need promotion and relegation. I think we can be successful in our current setup, with a closed league, steady growth, and a soft salary cap that promotes pseudo-parity in lieu of top-heavy foreign-framed systems. Let’s fix MLS before tearing the whole thing down and starting over.

The main pro/rel argument basically suggests that opening the pyramid will provide opportunities for smaller teams and result in widespread investment at lower levels due to the removal of the ceiling that limits those clubs. Would-be owners who can’t buy in to Major League Soccer can start a lower division team that has unlimited potential for upward growth. Lesser division one teams, like your Philadelphia Union, can’t be cheap and lazy, or else they go down.

Sounds good in theory, right? Fresh blood and motivation. Jay Sugarman, one of the worst sports owners on this side of the Atlantic, would be punished for his thriftiness with D2 relegation, which would have happened in 2015 after the Union finished with 37 points and a 10-17-7 record. Down goes boring Philly, up comes the exciting New York Cosmos. We punish the underachiever and reward success.

Nothing wrong with that on paper. My stance has always been predicated on four things:

1. There are organic ways to remove owners and executives in a closed system

During that 2015 Union season, the Sons of Ben marched to the gates of PPL Park carrying a coffin with an image of CEO Nick Sakiewicz inside. Painted on the casket were the words “serial franchise killer,” a reference to Sakiewicz’s time with the Tampa Bay Mutiny and New York Red Bulls, the former of which folded in 2001 and the latter which found little on-field success.

This was a grassroots protest from the same fan body that lobbied for an MLS franchise in the first place, starting with a group that gathered in McGillin’s Olde Ale House to discuss ways to generate interest in Philadelphia soccer. In a way, that 2015 protest was a natural extension of the process that started the Union, which was organic and fan-generated. Sakiewicz was removed at the end of the season and Earnie Stewart was installed as the club’s first Sporting Director.

Two years later, Union fans have come to realize that the failures were not entirely Sakiewicz’s fault, as the team continues to struggle after his departure. But the takeaway here is that fans were able to influence the front office even in a closed system with no built-in punishment for under-performance. And if they’re fed up with the team in 2018, they can simply stop showing up, stop buying tickets, and stop buying merchandise. The consumer always has the power, whether he or she realizes it or not.

Another point is that relegation doesn’t automatically mean that ownership and front office problems are solved. Take Hull City, for instance, who are currently in 19th place in the English Championship. Owner Assem Allam bought the team in 2010, saw it promoted twice and relegated twice, and tried to change the name at the same time, angering the entirety of his fan base with one weird decision. Here’s a team on its fifth manager in two years and now trying to stay afloat in the second division after seven seasons of turbulence.

How about Francesco Becchetti, who took Leyton Orient from the verge of the Championship to division five?

Or Ellis Short, the guy who oversaw Sunderland’s descent into irrelevance? What about Mike Ashley and Karl Oyston?

Relegation isn’t an auto-fix for ownership issues. There’s no guarantee that Jay Sugarman or Stan Kroenke would leave town if their clubs took the drop. They can drag it down even further into the mud.

As it stands, their franchises continue to increase in value with the addition of new MLS expansion teams, so they can simply sit on their rear ends and watch their investment grow. Sugarman paid $20-30 million in an expansion fee back in 2010 and that fee is now up to $150 million. I don’t know how much that value drops if Philly takes the fall. If anything, the asking price probably remains relatively high in a system where that franchise can potentially go back up. I think it’s a wash.

What the league can do is guide ownership from within. MLS can certainly pressure cheaper owners to add new partners or increase their financial profile, or run them out entirely ala Chivas USA. You can tweak cap and roster rules to price them out. Look for MLS to start turning the screws a bit once expansion finishes.

Trust me on that one, per sources that have been spot on in the past. I’ve spoken to numerous people who say MLS HQ isn’t exactly thrilled with Union ownership right now. Sugarman sits on the expansion committee and, theoretically, the value of his club should level off at least somewhat when we get to 28 teams.

2. Pro/rel creates top heavy leagues and alternative boardroom objectives

Look at the Premier League table right now, where Manchester City is 13 points clear with a +49 goal differential after 20 games. Might as well hand them the trophy.

They’ve been a pleasure to watch, a team with 18 straight wins and 0 losses this entire campaign. They’re having historic success this season.

Next up is the clump of Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool, and Arsenal, who are sort of jockeying for Champion’s League positions. Going into this season, I think those were the six clubs that really had a chance to win anything in the Premier League, which is usually the case every year.

What, then, are squads like Stoke and Watford playing for? 10th place? Moral victories?

The problem with a pro/rel setup that doesn’t have a salary cap* is that only a handful of teams can really achieve anything, while the mid-table clump is irrelevant and the bottom feeders are just trying to stay afloat. That creates auxiliary goals for smaller clubs who aren’t even necessarily trying to win, they’re just trying to remain in the division. And maybe that’s a success for a small team like Huddersfield, which is trying to make progressive forward steps after years in the lower divisions.

But the nice thing about American sports is that everybody, theoretically, is pulling a Herm Edwards. You play to win the game. Sure, teams like Toronto and Seattle are obviously going to be favored to beat New England and Colorado, but at least the lesser MLS teams still have a chance at the playoffs in September and October. This doesn’t turn into a two-team race between Barcelona and Real Madrid seven games in.

For starters, eight different clubs have won MLS Cup in the last 10 years. La Liga has three different winners in that time frame. Same thing in Italy, where Juventus has won six Scudettos in a row. Same thing in… Germany, too, where Bayern Munich has won the last five. In Turkey, only one non-Istanbul club has won the Super Lig dating back to 1984.

1984!

In the prem, it’s United, City, Chelsea, and… Leicester!

We love Leicester. What a story, right? It’s the prime example pro/rel advocates use when explaining why their system makes more sense than what we currently have.

Problem is, a story like Leicester only comes around once in a blue moon. Chapecoense doesn’t happen often enough. There’s a big gap between Eibar and the Spanish top-five. Go around the world and you’ll find that these “small club” success stories are too often drowned out in top-heavy leagues with oil sheikh and Russian oligarch owners. It results in some high quality football at the expense of table slots 5 through 20, which are ultimately pointless unless you care about the Europa League. What we’re trying to build here is not a three-team snooze-fest, but a league with parity and competition.

Let’s take a look at the last nine years of Ukrainian football:

See a pattern there?

I enjoy the MLS system, where every season 10-12 teams can win a trophy. Our league has plenty of ridiculous issues, which requires a separate column, but I like the idea that squads are playing to win hardware, or at least make the playoffs, as opposed to “just staying up” or being satisfied with a mid-table finish.

Let’s check in with the Crystal Palace boardroom:

“Well lads, we finished in 14th place and fired our manager, but at least we didn’t go down! Hooray!”

I don’t like the direction the Philadelphia Union are going in, but I can appreciate the fact that they don’t need to bring in Sam Allardyce to save themselves from the drop. They’re at least committed to a young manager and not going to bail after four months to bring in a “relegation specialist.” Say whatever you want about Jim Curtin, who isn’t the best example for this story, but we can’t be canning coaches at the rate of Swansea City. Caleb Porter went from 1st place in the west, all the way down to 6th, then won a title. Bob Bradley will have a chance to build something at LAFC, not get run out of town at a shit club after 11 games.

Honestly, a lot of this just boils down to preference. Do you like open leagues with unrestricted spending that results in three to four clubs having a real title-winning shot? Or do you like a closed league with restrictions that close the gap from one to 22? MLS, of course, is not the best product out there, but it’s certainly more competitive and interesting, and at least I know that there’s something to play for in October, November, and December. Truthfully, I’m just bored with the Premier League and Serie A and La Liga, where it’s the same shit year after year after year, save for one enjoyable season of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. I watch the games and enjoy them in a vacuum, but the title-races leave a lot to be desired.

Now, does pro/rel automatically come with the removal of the salary cap? No, I don’t think so. But are we going to open the pyramid and then tell Miami FC that they can’t spend more than Jacksonville? You can’t cap teams while asking them to be ambitious investors at the same time. The MLS salary cap is waaaaaay too low right now and that has to change. We haven’t even scratched the surface, and we have to get rid of at least 50% of the absurd MLS roster building rules if we’re going to keep moving forward. Again, another article entirely, but I can’t get behind pro/rel entirely until I feel like we do everything in our control to maximize what we currently have. It’s like tearing down a building that’s only half-way finished.

(*I put the asterisk there because, yea, you can go above the MLS cap with a couple of designated player signings. That’s why it’s a soft cap with pseudo-parity instead of a true cap like the NFL or NBA.)

3. We’re not financially stable, yet

Let’s say the Philadelphia Union take the drop. Say it happened in 2015.

Now you’ve got a division two team playing in a half-full, eight-year-old stadium in one of Pennsylvania’s poorest cities. Chester is under a state-mandated recovery program (Act 47) and already pulling from other revenue sources to cover for the $275,000 annual shortfall in county bond payments. The stadium lease doesn’t expire until 2040. The pending litigation over waterfront property (and its valuation) takes a turn. How many people are driving down there to watch the Union play the Richmond Kickers? Every painfully small step to improve that area goes straight into the toilet if Philly goes down.

In a perfect world of Capitalism, you let it fail, right? Just let the market do its thing, which is what our economy is predicated on. That sounds good in theory, but the cost is just too much here. People lose their jobs. The city loses money. Fans stop showing up. The Philadelphia Inquirer pulls Jon Tannenwald off the Union beat to go do high school football instead. 2,000 season ticket holders decide not to renew and the front office lays off 10 sellers. Academy investment is cut back and Bethlehem Steel hemorrhages more money in year number three. It’s like a devastating backwards version of Reaganomics, where nothing is really trickling in either direction.

We don’t have 75 years of history to create a diehard core of supporters who will stick with the club through something like that. If the Eagles go down, no problem. If the Union go down, I don’t know if they survive. This is a 10-year old team and long-term project that already faces incredible struggles, some of which are self-inflicted and some that aren’t, namely the construction of a soccer-specific stadium in a less-than-desirable area during the worst part of the economic recession. Good job by Ed Rendell on that one.

Furthermore, potential buyers know they’re going to take a short term loss on an investment that might not even pan out if the Union never make it back to D1. Sure, they’d probably slap around Charleston and Pittsburgh and remain in the top-half of the table, but there’s never any guarantee here. Portsmouth and Blackburn are where right down? League One? Where’s Charlton?

Here they are:

PROGRESS |

2013: Charlton finish 9th in @SkyBetChamp.

2014: Duchatelet buys Charlton.

2016: Championship relegation.

2017: 13th place finish in League 1.

December 17: Promotion campaign starts to falter, #cafc can’t fill the substitutes bench for a league fixture. http://pic.twitter.com/QqECqGFMeN

— Charlton Athletic {…} FC (@ParodyCharlton) December 26, 2017

People always talk about the rise of new clubs but ignore the fall of once-great clubs. Charlton has been around for more than 100 years and now languishes in the third division while their fans suffer:

“Next on 60 Minutes, it’s the side of pro/rel that they don’t want you to see. I’m Lesley Stahl and I’ll take you to Southeast London, where one of England’s historic clubs is now total shite.”

Is there enough money out there to provide a parachute payment that would sustain an MLS drop? I don’t know, but that same infusion is basically labeled as allocation money within our closed system. It’s all coming from the same source, I just don’t know how much you would need to keep these clubs afloat.

If Wall Street banks were “too big to fail,” then MLS clubs are too fragile to fail, at least the one that plays here. You’re trying to make inroads in the country’s fourth largest television market, not risk the entire thing falling apart. We’ve already taken major backward steps from 2011 until now, with local TV ratings dropping below 1.0 and a slight dip in attendance. The Union have become more and more irrelevant and demoting them to D2 ain’t gonna help.

For years, Major League Soccer’s success was built on the process of slow growth and steady expansion. Seattle came in. Toronto came in. Vancouver and Montreal came in. One or two teams every year or every other year. These are nascent and vulnerable clubs. The fallacy here is that every division one team is some established juggernaut, which is certainly not true. Philly is a venture. The club didn’t even have practice fields or a training complex until two years ago. They used to drive to a public park to train. Now we’re pulling the rug out and jeopardizing a decade of (slow) development in a difficult soccer market just so division five Traverse City can get a shot? Do we want Capitalism or Socialism? What exactly are we looking for here?

Overall MLS attendance has increased dramatically in the last 20 years. TV ratings aren’t amazing, but they’re better than they were. This league has grown by leaps and bounds, but don’t let the success of Atlanta and Portland fool you. There are a ton of challenges for numerous “big market” teams, especially on the eastern seaboard. Revenue needs to increase, our TV deals need to be stronger, we have to do a better job of attracting casual fans, and we have to keep improving the product and create some stability before we risk it with structural changes. 1,500 fans might work in Utica, but it’s not gonna work in Philly. We can’t start turning our attention to smaller auxiliary markets until we gain a foothold in places like Boston, Dallas, New York, Washington, and Chicago. That’s how we negotiate better broadcasting deals and get more eyeballs on the product. As someone who worked in television for nine years, I can tell you that division one Shreveport does nothing at the bargaining table. But if the Chicago market, with 3.4 million TV homes, tunes in to a Sunday afternoon Fire game against Seattle, then partners are willing to sign off on bigger and better deals.

On the bottom end, we need to get teams like Harrisburg (now Penn FC) out of baseball parks and into stable situations. We need to stop sharing college stadiums and we need to continue building on the positives at the USL level. A lot of lower level teams simply do not have the infrastructure and business setup to be viable at division one. MLS is only 22 years old, yet lower division teams that have played less than five seasons are ready for promotion? The cart is way out in front of the horse here.

We’re only just starting to find our feet.

4. You are not entitled to anything

You know what’s more American than a free market economy? Earning your spot at the table.

Sorry, but you don’t deserve a shot to play with the big boys simply because you started a division nine soccer team that plays in a borrowed middle school stadium.

“We want the shit we don’t have and we want it for free!”

It doesn’t work that way. I worked graveyard shift producing the 5 a.m. news in Augusta, Georgia before I earned the opportunity to work at a bigger television station and make more money. I didn’t come out of college demanding $55,000 and a nine to five gig at Action News.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some apologist for the GOP or the “one-percent,” but there has to be a modicum of respect for the owners that took a leap on Major League Soccer back in 1996 and got us to where we are today. Yes, that includes Bob Kraft, who is terribly absent in 2017 but played an enormous role back in the day. That includes Phil Anschutz and Lamar Hunt and everybody else who got this thing off the ground.

If you don’t like it, you work against it. NASL pushed MLS but ultimately blew it. Cross-league jockeying creates competition that forces rivals to up their game. That’s how our economy works. Don’t like Verizon? Go to Comcast. Don’t like Comcast’s horrendous customer service? Cut the cord and stream the game on your Chrome Book. Don’t like your Chrome Book? Buy a Mac.

That’s America. It’s not about free handouts, it’s about making a product that’s bigger and better and more desirable than the other person’s product. And when you fail, sue the shit out of someone! Minnesota and Montreal went to MLS because it meant financial and competitive stability. Carolina, Tampa, and Ottawa saw a path forward in a smarter and less bombastic USL. The NASL shot itself in the foot with a lack of focus and poor expansion strategies (among many other things), then pointed the finger at the USSF instead of looking in the mirror.

And if we want to go down the road of, “well, the U.S. Soccer is a corrupt monopoly that favors MLS,” then go out and lobby for one of the candidates currently running for USSF President. Go be a part of the democratic process and make your case. There are pro/rel candidates out there who can change the game if they win the job. This is your opportunity make your voice heard. We’re still a pay-to-play sport that caters to suburban white kids with money. We need a national team coach. The women’s team isn’t being treated the same as the men’s team. U.S. Soccer has a million problems, but not all of them are directly tied to whether or not we have pro/rel at the professional level.

Just don’t suggest that the American soccer media, which is basically a rag tag group of part-timers, is “in the bag” for MLS or U.S. Soccer. I made less than $25,000 in eight years of writing about soccer ($3,125 annually) and never received a paycheck from MLS headquarters. I think I speak for most writers when I say that my motives were to put something on the resume and do a bit to hopefully grow the game in this country. I didn’t spend Saturday nights in Chester to pad my bank account, I was down there to hopefully play a small role in pushing the Union in a market that traditionally only watches the “four major North American sports.” I’d be flattered to receive bung offers but they just haven’t come. There’s no secret conspiracy going on here, so enough with the accusations of “collusion” and “tyranny” and all of the conspiratorial melodrama.

People with truly productive pro/rel opinions are being done a disservice by the tinfoil Twitter personalities. These guys claim to speak for the movement but they’re really just faux guerrillas fighting a contrarian war against the “establishment.” It’s like Occupy Wall Street, which started out as a protest against, well, Wall Street, then slowly morphed into a catch-all demonstration for the grievance of the day.

Walk away from these people and you’ll see the conversation open up. You can’t make outrageous accusations and then act surprised when the vitriol is reciprocated by myself and others.

Can it ever work?

Sure, pro/rel could work here, but it’s a monumental project. You’re talking about 100+ clubs spread out over a massive geographic region that includes two countries. Are we doing single-table or playoffs? Spring and Fall seasons? FIFA calendar? Is Canada on board? MLS is already on a seven-month, 34 game schedule built to accommodate weather, travel, and the existence of competing sports.

With the partnership between USL and MLS, people talk about doing a controlled, two-division pro/rel system after expansion is completed. I think that’s a start, but the problem there is that a lot of USL clubs are farm teams for MLS squads. Bethlehem Steel exists solely to provide minutes for academy kids and future Union signings, not to win trophies and make money. The team plays in a borrowed college stadium that has no lights. It’s funded entirely by Keystone Sports and Entertainment.

Now, compare that to teams like Charleston and Cincinnati, who have no affiliate and are not owned by a parent club? What now?

If you’re going to do pro/rel, I think you start with these four clumps:

Major League Soccer clubs

independent USL clubs

NASL leftovers and folded teams

USL clubs owned by MLS teams (Steel, NYRB 2, etc)

I don’t know what you do with the fourth grouping. Bring back the MLS reserve league? No idea. I like the idea of playing double-headers where, for example, Bethlehem Steel can get a 90 minute run out against Orlando City B after the senior teams finish their game. That might be a solution.

Then, if you take the first two groupings there, throw #3 a bone, and split the country in half, you’d get something like this:

West

East

It’s arbitrary. I’m just flying by the seat my pants here. But you get the idea, right?

I like four divisions split into two halves of the country, because it cuts down on travel and creates more meaningful games in smaller geographic regions. You’d play a 30 game schedule from March to September, with two teams relegated and two teams promoted every season. You could hand out a trophy for winning your regular season, then do a four to eight team playoff in October between eastern and western teams and award another trophy there. This all coexists with the U.S. Open Cup and Canadian Championship, so it’s basically placing more value on the regular season while still throwing out two more trophies to claim.

Maybe NPSL clubs or new franchises fill the slots that say “team.” There’s room here to add more, but I don’t know where a squad like Reading United fits in. They play at Exeter High School and are an incredibly small operation. Even if that team is promoted to D2 or even D1, that market doesn’t move the needle. Are we closing this off at four divisions in two regions or going further down the pyramid? I don’t know, but I think we need 8 to 10 more years of stability before traveling down this road.

It’s a start, though. I think something like this could work. More rivalry games, easier road trips for fans and media, and single tables that could still theoretically operate with a salary cap. You’ve got possible expansion from 16 teams per bracket, to 18, then up to 20, with room for new blood in ownership. Existing owners will never sign up for anything that could harm their investment, so they give them a five-year window to cash out before we install the new system.

The biggest struggle I have with pro/rel is that I feel like there has to be bridge here to involve investors who want to play a role, people dissimilar from Riccardo Silva and Dennis Crowley, who just want a piece of the pie that they didn’t bake.

That’s the important thing here, we’re selling ourselves short by excluding people who have good intentions and something tangible to provide. I joke about 500 fans showing up to a division four soccer game in Altoona, but we want these people on our side. We have enough obstacles trying to attract the Philly tough guy who could give a shit about the Union but walks around wearing a Chelsea kit. It’s counter-intuitive to divide soccer fans in this country when we already face an uphill climb against NFL and MLB traditionalists.

Right now I think we have four competing factions:

MLS fans

pro/rel NASL types

white Americans who watch foreign soccer but not MLS

1st/2nd generation immigrants who watch foreign soccer, but not MLS (think Mexican-Americans and Liga MX fans)

It’s ridiculous that soccer in this country features multiple groups of fans with contrasting opinions and interests, and that’s the priority here. We need to pull these groups together and find some common ground before we start working on the 65-year-old Phillies fan. He or she is probably a lost cause anyway, but we’re trying to grow the game here with soccer people on entirely different pages.

I don’t like going to bat for folks like Bob Kraft, but I do respect what they did for MLS in the late nineties. And I don’t want to dismiss investors at lower level clubs with good intentions, I just want to weed out the leeches who want a free spot at someone else’s table. I think pro/rel provides opportunity and forces lazy owners to spend, but I also don’t like top-heavy leagues with a lack of true competition. I appreciate stories like Leicester City while also being concerned about the future of a Bolton or Blackpool.

Each system has its own merits, and a lot of this, as I said before, just comes down to preference. Right now, I think we can be successful by improving what we currently have and building on a competitive and interesting league, instead of taking a huge risk by tearing down 22 years of progress and starting from scratch.

A Pro/Rel Column – Why American Soccer Can Exist Without It published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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davidgascon · 8 years ago

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Personalidad/Carácter, artículo en inglés...

Personality and / or Character

Hello everyone:

Today I would like to deal with the concept of personality. In my opinion, the personality has to do with the character of the person, and I can visualize as a mental structure, metaphorically speaking or from a psychological perspective point of view.

Therefore, I would like to start by defining what we understand in psychology by

Character.

We have two parts in this concept, one is the normal character and the other is the pathological character. Many of the transcendental questions that people ask are whether we think they are normal or abnormal. It is normal to think or feel of this or the other way? Of course, if there is an obsession in between, that feeling or that thought is not very normal. But let’s go step by step.

We begin by defining the normal character of a person by using the dictionary, and read the following: from Latin: “character”, “iron to mark”, then follows about ten different meanings to this word. We will choose to quote number eight and nine according to the diccionary (according to the María Moliner Dictionary), where it tells us that (8)”it is the way of being of a person, with reference to his attitude and reactions to life in general and his dealings with others”, (9)”is the Quality of the person who stands firm in their line of conduct and is able to lead others.” It also speaks of character to refer to a kind of energy, strength, firmness, pushiness, tenacity or will.

With respect to the term personality, it would be the tenth meaning, says the follow: (10)”set of well defined traits in the way of being or acting of someone, particularly an artist or his style.”.

Particularly the latter is not very clear to me, but on the whole the dictionary tries to define from the grammar rules what the character is, nothing is mentioned with respect to the psychology or its possible psychopathological quality.

Therefore, from psychology we could define character as a characteristic pattern of behavior, attitudes, ideas, motivations and emotions that define a person over time and through different situations, giving him some stability in his presence with himself and with others. In addition we would add that this pattern is composed of traits, which are specific ways or characteristics that describe the habitual way of behaving, thinking or feeling of someone. Therefore, we have the character of a person and their personality traits that make it up. We could also add that these traits are based on certain physical attributes, which together with the way of thinking, feeling and how we have been judged by others will give rise to personality profile.

So far, it seems to me that we have a description of the character quite finished to help us to understand well enough the complications that we will face later in this article.

Therefore we could add the following annotation within this description of normal character, character traits do not appear accidentally or are congenital (at least it is what I believe), but develop progressively, as more or less fixed and repeated patterns Of attitude and response to external and internal stimuli (I underline this word because I think it is important to emphasize it).

With respect to the internal stimuli, we refer to our impulses, desires, instincts and thought. And if he is a normal person, he will find the proper way that all this “internal” is adapted to the external or environmental reality through the activity of his personality, where synonyms such as temperament, idiosyncrasy or habitual style of

proceeding of his character. Therefore, to have a personality that is sufficiently functional or operative helps us to live our life.

In this way, it is through our character that we achieve very important functions for our life such as organization, integration, and again the adaptation of our internal world as the external reality (work, friends, familiy…) shared with our family, friends or co-workers.

So far we can understand how important the presence of character is in us, since it has goals or goals to fulfill for our lives as important as for example survival, socialization or being at ease with ourselves.

But if the mediation by our character between the internal and the external fails, because we put our mettle at the service of our passions or our instinctive impulses (is what I referred to as the internal world), and our sexual orientation already comes into play, Our tastes and hobbies ... or because we mimic with the external world as if we were a biological automaton machine (over adaptation to the external world, impersonate people), we will arrive at our second definition of character that are the pathological forms of character that are not very efficient and contented, The creative capacity of the individual is imprisoned.

The pathological forms of character called by psychology Personality Disorders become a disorder when they cause a significant functional deterioration or subjective discomfort into us. In turn, there are different types of personalities with different forms of characterological reactions that establish a pathological structure of character.

With regard to personality types we refer to rare, eccentric or extravagant subjects, then there are dramatic, emotional or unstable subjects; And finally, anxious or fearful subjects. Together, these personality classes are distributed among women and men, being more frequent in women and others more frequent in men.

Finally, with respect to the different types of characterological reactions we refer to personality in three ways: passive-dependent personality, passive-aggressive personality and aggressive personality.

Then, when the character is disturbed, we can begin to speak of psychic alteration. This phenomenon is usually accompanied by anxieties of all kinds, and according to the person and its characterological constitution, this could be translated or transferred to anomalous, inharmonic, impulsive or maladaptive behavior according to the norms of family, society, moral, professional ethics or In the sexual life (with problems in the operation or in the sexual orientation.

These alterations in character, which as we have said are of a psychic nature, prevent us from functioning well in our abilities and potential dispositions in all the fields in which our life unfolds. We also think that the necessary adaptation and development that we intend for our vital pursuits, disturbed by feelings and inadequate character traits in what could generate a certain awareness of illness, and in many occasions push us to the

request of professional help, is wrong.

At this point we come to the core of the question, we will say that the alterations of character are pathological as they reflect immaturity, disharmony, lack of global integration, lack of adequate socialization, then there is also a greater complication when our character is overwhelmed by our own impulses (also sexual, with desire

or fantasy) and our own moral requirements that may have lagged behind our personality or the demands or needs of others for not being able to evolve enough (I mean to stay a bit young in our sights, also naive).

From this melting pot of our behavior distinguishes from the scientific literature three forms of personalities: Psychopathic; Drug addiction and, finally, sexual perversions. I forgot! we would also include psychosomatic problems such as anorexia or obesity.

I would like to end this article with the cover image and the words of Walt Disney. To my knowledge, he has been able to know from a very psychological perspective (although he has never studied psychology) how personality and character flow socially and in cultural creation. Character and personality interact in this creation he invented: cartoons. His drawings have been filled with personality by giving them life on the screen thanks to the fact that Walt Disney understood what is necessary to fill into “The Personality”, something that we psychologists pay close attention to it, and is a very important psycho-affective element, whether we think it from normal or abnormal behavior, and that is: A drawing is “animated” giving character to his person, but would be “something” inanimate.

A kind of anthropomorphism, isn´t? Thank you Walt!

And so far we have arrived today, greetings to you...

David Norberto Gascón Razé. Psicólogo en Madrid

Tel: 636 55 45 62

Email: [email protected]

Web site: www.psicologo-davidgascon.es

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patriotsnet · 4 years ago

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Why Do Republicans Want To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-want-to-repeal-the-affordable-care-act/

Why Do Republicans Want To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

Why Republicans Cant And Wont Repeal Obamacare

Editor’s Note:

This article was originally posted on Real Clear Health on January 16, 2017.

Slashing Ads And Budgets

Funding for the “navigator” programme, under which trained individuals or organisations help people sign up for insurance through Obamacare, has dropped from $62.5m to $10m under President Trump.

His administration has also cut Obamacare advertising spending to $10m – a 90% reduction.

According to a November 2018 Kaiser Health poll, 61% of Americans aged 18 to 64 said they did not know about any enrolment deadlines.

Republicans Want To Get Rid Of Obamacare But Then What

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President Trump has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but Sarah Kliff of Vox.com says it’s “an overreach” to say that Republicans have a plan for what comes next.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

DAVIES: And where have we seen those pools before?

Board Of Governors Professor School Of Public Affairs & Administration

Repealing Obamacare Is A Huge Tax Cut For The Rich

For the bottom 60 percent of the population that is, households earning less than about $67,000 a year repeal of the ACA would end up meaning an increase in taxes due to the loss of ACA tax credits.

But people in the top 1 percent of the income distribution those with incomes of over about $430,000 would see their taxes fall by an average of $25,000 a year.

The Acas Protections Changed Public Opinion In Its Favor Republicans Are Keeping Up

Republicans have spent 10 years trying to kill the Affordable Care Act

Younger Americans Could Get Cheaper Plans

Obamacare was designed so that younger policyholders would help subsidize older ones. That would change under the Republican bill because it would allow insurers to charge older folks more.

Those under age 30 would also get a refundable tax credit of up to $2,000 to offset the cost of their premiums, as long as their income doesn’t exceed $215,000 for an individual.

Related: What’s inside the Republican health care bill?

Also, the bill keeps the Obamacare provision that lets young adults up to age 26 stay on their parents’ insurance plan.

This Is Why Republicans Couldnt Make A Better Replacement

These problems are all very real, and they all could be fixed.

Dont Like Obamacare It Was The Republicans Idea Says Liberal Democrat

Susan Jones

Robert Reich served as Labor Secretary for President Bill Clinton.

Reich says Democrats should have insisted on a single-payer system because it would have been cheaper, simpler, and more popular.

Reichs blog is entitled, The Democrats Version of Health Insurance Would Have Been Cheaper, Simpler, and More Popular

Background On The Health Care Repeal Lawsuit

Obamacare: Has Trump Managed To Kill Off Affordable Care Act

The Trump administration has ramped up its attack on the Affordable Care Act by backing a federal judge’s decision to declare the entire law unconstitutional.

For now, Obamacare is still standing. Around 4.1 million Americans have signed up for new plans so far this year, according to government reports, down 12% from last year.

At a rally this week, Mr Trump again promised his supporters: “We are going to get rid of Obamacare.” But how much has he delivered on that pledge so far?

Efforts To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

This article needs to be . The reason given is: Missing the May 2018 efforts. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.

The following is a list of efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act , which had been enactedby the 111th United States Congress on March 23, 2010.

This Is Also Why Republicans Might Drop Repeal

Meanwhile, many Republicans are itching to move on to their next priority: tax reform.

Republican Views On Obamacare

Older Americans Could Have To Pay More

Enrollees in their 50s and early 60s benefited from Obamacare because insurers could only charge them three times more than younger policyholders. The bill would widen that band to five-to-one.

States could also receive waivers to allow insurers to charge older Americans even more than five times the premiums of the young.

Whats Dividing Republicans And Democrats On Healthcare Reform

Repeal Of Obamacares Taxes Would Be A Huge Tax Cut For The Rich

Tax Policy Center

But people in the top 1 percent of the income distribution those with incomes of over about $430,000 would see their taxes fall by an average of $25,000 a year.

Under the actual AHCA, Jared Kushner would actually pay even less in taxes. As a young person, Kushner would get a larger tax to buy insurance under the AHCA than he does now.

New Threats & Potential Affordable Care Act Changes For 2019

Republicans Are Still Trying To Repeal Obamacare Heres Why They Are Not Likely To Succeed

Why are Republicans still trying to undo the ACA? We argue in a forthcoming that the laws political vulnerabilities and Republican electoral dynamics drive conservative efforts to uproot it.

In the past, conservatives have thrown in the towel

So why is the ACA still politically vulnerable?

The answer lies partly in the way the program was designed.

Is repeal likely?

The Health Care Repeal Lawsuit Could Strip Coverage From 23 Million Americans

Nicole RapfogelEmily Gee

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germanyvisainfo-blog · 6 years ago

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Germany Training Internship Visa

Who can do an Internship/Training in Germany?

Who needs a Germany Training/Internship visa?

Foreigners that do not need a visa

Foreigners that need a visa

Germany Training/Internship Visa Requirements

Commonly Required Documents for a Germany visa

Two visa photos – taken inside the most recent three months and as indicated by the strict necessities recorded in this page, as set by the German movement experts.

One duplicate of your international ID’s information page (A4 measure duplicate)

Whenever utilized: Pay slips of the previous three months/business contract

In the event that independently employed: Certificate of Proprietorship or other confirmation of possession (evidence of land title, verification of pay from farming (deals structure) and so forth.)

Confirmation of common status – marriage endorsement, birth authentication of kids, demise declaration of life partner and so on.

Flight Itinerary – that can be a flight reservation, rail tickets, others. You can utilize the visa discussion administrations like this one or discover one on the web.

Specific Requirements for Internship/Training Visa

Assignment/no-complaint letter from your nearby manager or college you are learning at which affirms that the candidate is a representative/understudy at their association.

Endorsement letter from German organization/establishment affirming states of candidate’s stay in Germany, including installment.

Verification of capability (confirmation, scholastic degree testament or imprint sheets).

Training/Internship Visa Application Process

We firmly prescribe you to apply somewhere around three weeks preceding your arranged travel to Germany, so as to stay away from any deferral.

Training/Internship Visa Fee

It would be ideal if you note the visa charges won’t be repaid if there should be an occurrence of the visa being rejected and the cost is liable to change whenever.

Visa Processing Time

Here and there, in view of the huge number of utilizations that the international safe haven is getting at the time, the preparing time can be reached out for a couple of days.

Germany Training/Internship Visa Validity

Make a point to check your visa sticker when you get it, for its legitimacy and the allowed length of remain.

Can I extend my Germany Training/Internship Visa?

You should exhibit a solid reason on which you will base your application, on the off chance that you choose to apply for a visa augmentation.

Can my family join me?

Germany Training Internship Visa

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