#3 whatever system i come up with is guaranteed to not be permanent so if anything similar happens its also my fault

[terrorbirb]

I think permanent corrective actions and root cause analysis exist solely to cause people with OCD and anxiety disorders to ruin their brains.

[percontaion-points]

Lifeblood chapter 3

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Chapter 3

“Humility is your protection from self-deception. Pride is your defeat.” —Troika

Bold words from a book about a girl who is suffering from “too stupid to live” syndrome. 

And I’m ecstatic for Archer. He’s entered into the Rest. Who wouldn’t enjoy a permanent vacation from war?

Which is all well and good until you remember that Deacon told her about reincarnation. So yeah, he did have his seconddeath… But like… how long is that going to last? 

What exactly is the point of any of it if the only thing that you will ever know, in life AND the afterlife, is nothing but suffering?

Victor winks at me. “Welcome home, newbie. You’re going to love it here. Come by my apartment later, and I’ll personally make sure of it.”

Oh hell no. What’s the point of paradise in the afterlife if they also let in creeps like this?

Thousands of people surround us. Male, female. Young, old. Well, not too old. No one tops thirty-five, I’d guess.

I love how there’s this implication that you can look like whatever you want in the afterlife, and then they cap out the physical age at ~35.

It’s simultaneously “written for teenagers” and also “I’m edging into my thirties and I’m having a panic attack” from the author. 

Like I’m 33 right now, and holy shit, I would not want to spend eternity being around a bunch of baby-faced immortals. No thank you. 

Various perfumes scent the air, blending harmoniously with the fragrance of roses. Multicolored petals continue to rain from the sky.

That would get so old real fast. 

Though she experienced Firstdeath in her forties, she now appears twentyfive, her skin unlined, her pale hair without a single strand of gray.

Once again, older people are allowed to exist. 40 is legit not even that old. 

Exactly how rough of a life did she have to the point where her skin was getting all wrinkly and her hair starting to grey at FORTY?! (I say knowing that she also DIED at 40.)

“Did Marlowe make it into Troika?” Please, say yes. Please. 

Marlowe Dillinger is another of my Prynne friends. The sweetest, gentlest girl I’ve ever met. She ended up at the asylum because she stole money from her mother to—horror of horrors—pay for groceries. 

She signed with Troika, hoping to escape the asylum. Her mom refused to spring her, and soon after, a guard sneaked into her cell to—

 My mind shies away from the horrors she endured. The next morning, the girl with a heart of gold killed herself. Maybe she voided her contract, maybe she didn’t. I’m unclear about the fine print. 

Clay flinches. “I’m told suicides are decided on a case by case basis. Hers... She’s in Many Ends.”

I’m sorry, but any system that forces people to endure suffering like that in their firstlife only to be punished in their secondlife forever is not a system that I want any part of. 

Marlowe’s Firstlife sucked, and guaranteed her Everlife is worse. It’s not fair.

I have yet to see literally anything remotely nice about anything of this set-up. Not even all of the rose-scented air is enough to convince me that Troika is anything but a golden cage. 

Jeremy farts.

THANK YOU FOR INCLUDING THIS. I REALLY APPRECIATE IT.

A gold catsuit makes her luminous from head to toe.

A gold lame catsuit is considered fashionable in the afterlife? I’m pretty sure that this is literally hell. 

“Oh, there’s a rhyme and reason all right. I had to do three things I’d never done before. Believe in myself, expect good things to happen to me and love the people around me, whether I felt like loving them or not. Easier said than done.”

“I don’t understand. You used to take my mother to homeless shelters.” 

“Appearances can be deceiving. I did what I did under duress. It was my husband, your grandfather, who so faithfully served others.”

I’m all for learning those three lessons, and giving people a chance to better themselves, but holy shit. I’m not here for this series’s heavy-handed messages about women blindly following men and being trapped in toxic relationships. 

When I reach Elizabeth, she grabs my arm and softly grates, “Watch out, Numbers. I owe you big-time, and I always pay my debts. Plus interest.”

Chapter 3 summary: When Ten walks into the protective mist, she’s suddenly at peace with everything that’s happened. This lasts for about a page, or 2 seconds, until somebody bumps into her. It’s a guy introduced as Archer’s brother, who is oddly at peace with the news of his brother’s death, and only wants to get into Ten’s pants. Yuck. 

Deacon takes her into one of the 7 cities. There, the narration will not stop stalling out in favour of describing how beautiful the city is… Over and over and over and… Deason shows her to a room full of her dead friends and family who are there. The only ones worth mentioning are: her mom’s mom, Meredith. Her friend Clay who died in the first book, and her baby brother, Jeremy, who also died in the first book. 

Meredith talks to Ten about “unlocking her key” (one of the tats she got was of a key), which will allow her deeper access to universal understanding. But to unlock it, you basically have to do a lot of self-reflection and work on yourself. 

Eventually, Levi asks Clay to show Ten to her new apartment, so they go to another city, which is full of “every type of building from Egyptian pyramids to spaceships”. He says that the two of them are neighbours, but there’s this implication that this is only housing for trainees and newbies. In their building, Ten sees a girl who had chucked a weapon at her when she was trying to defend Killian. And this girl has murder in her eyes… and clearly in her heart for Ten having tried to stop her. 

[consumeconstantly]

Those Who Are Kind

1| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 (you are here) | next

Summary: Siblings are the last thing on Marinette’s mind as she begins her frantic search for Tikki. Really, she can’t even consider them siblings, not yet. But they’re along for the ride, whether she wants them to be or not.

Duke doesn’t know what to make of the current situation.

He’s always known that the Waynes are crazy, insane, even, but he loves them all the same, in the begrudging, cautious way he cannot shake. (This approach has served him well over the years, allowing him to avoid multiple schemes that Tim or Jason typically start up to rile up Damian. From there, everything is guaranteed to snowball. The only time things get really bad is when Cass gets involved.) To him, it’s always been a bit uncanny how similar all the brothers looked, despite the fact that none of them shared blood. All of them had the same sharp jaw, piercing blue eyes, chiselled cheekbones and defined bodies. Only Tim and Damian differed slightly, with Tim having a dancer’s figure instead of that of a body builder or demolitions expert, and Damian having green eyes instead of blue. It’s also disconcerting that everybody the Waynes are more intimately involved with have some sort of alter ego. He often joked with other members of the Justice League that heroism ran in Bruce’s blood.

With the new addition of Marinette to their family, he has to say that he’s been proven right.

A girl who had absolutely nothing to do with the Waynes in any capacity other than the fact that she and Bruce share blood becoming a hero. The leader of a team. Fighting supervillains at the age of thirteen.

He’s very, very glad that he was not adopted by or shared blood with Bruce. He doesn’t think he could have handled being a superhero at age thirteen. He can barely handle being Signal now some days, and he’s an adult. The amount of responsibility on Marinette’s shoulders is difficult to understand. To be the sole wielder of magic that can revert an entire city back to its original state. To bring people back from the dead. 

Dick is strangely quiet. A car is driving them from a pit stop near a zeta tube to Marinette’s hospital. 

Hands down, Dick is the most sane male of the Wayne family, not including Alfred. But there are times when Duke sees the weight that he carries. All the times that he refuses to talk about the burdens that he bears. Moving forward with a smile when he’s in pain. When he gets in a mood like this, he’s hard to read. But given the circumstances, it’s fairly clear exactly what’s bothering him. 

“He’s known about her this entire time,” Dick says, tinted windows allowing Duke a glance at his expression, carefully devoid of any telling emotions. “Nineteen years. He kept her a secret.”

“It’s Bruce.” The man is known for keeping secrets. 

“Yeah, but Marinette is family. She should have been, at least. And now…”

Now she’s all alone when she should be surrounded by people that love her, praising her for her victory, for how she shouldered so much responsibility at such a young age. But by bringing her to a hospital in America, she’s been cut off from her team, and any support system she should have had is gone. 

“You and her,” Duke says, looking for a way to comfort him. “You’ll get along. You’re similar, after all.” After they brought Gabriel and Lila to the a top security prison and sent Emilie to a hospital that couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, they got two files from Tim. One detailing Ladybug and all of her exploits. The second, detailing Marinette’s life. 

Duke has watched the videos. Has watched how Ladybug leads by example, comes up with the plan and begins the execution. How she shoulders more battles than she should. 

He’s seen Marinette pull people together with a smile on her face, even while she’s running on empty after a strenuous akuma attack. 

Dick and Marinette are alike. 

“We’re too much alike,” Dick says. “I suspected for a long time that Bruce had another kid that he wasn’t telling us about, but I thought that if he was keeping her away from us, then maybe she’d have a shot at leading a good life. A normal life. Not the one she got. Sabine’s— Bruce’s biological daughter shouldn’t be somebody like me. She deserves better.”

Duke is acutely aware that Dick’s parents were also murdered, but whatever relation he had with Sabine is something he’s never been willing to talk about. There are pictures in his apartment of a petite Asian woman with a soft smile standing next to him, but whenever asked about her, Dick never gives a straight answer. 

“Nobody has the ability to change the past.” Duke claps a hand on his friend’s shoulder. He sags imperceptibly under the weight. 

Well— actually, it’s not out of the realm of possibilities, given the fact that magic, aliens, and metahumans all coexisted, supplemented by the fact that multiple members of Marinette’s team do have the ability to travel back in time, but that’s another matter entirely. There’s not a lot of information on the Miraculous, and all of their knowledge is coming from Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Zatara, and even the three of them don’t know everything. 

“But you have the chance to do good by her. Be a good older brother, like I know you are.”

A thin smile appears on Dick’s face. “She’s going to need more than just one good influence on her life. And Damian is better, but you saw how he looked at her when Bruce brought her through the Zeta tubes. Tim’s not going to react well either, and Jason is a wild card. She’s not going to get the support she needs if she stays with us.”

Duke crosses his arms, knees brushing up against the back of the car seat. “The only person whose actions you’re responsible for are your own. Don’t worry about them. If they don’t like her, they’ll just avoid her.”

That’s certainly not true— all of the members of the Wayne family are notorious for going hard after all of the things they don’t like. But... it’s comforting to hear. Sometimes temporary and known lies are much nicer than harsh realities.

#

She’s gone.

All of her belongings are missing, the IV needle is hanging from the stand, the window open, and Marinette is missing from her bed.

At least she left a note?

Be back soon — Marinette

“Great,” Duke mutters under his breath. “Another incredibly vague, cryptic Wayne.”

Dick’s face turns to ash. “Her legs. Her head. She can’t go out so soon. Hold on, maybe Barbara can pull up some footage.”

“On the bright side, there’s no blood,” Duke says. 

“That’s not a bright side.”

“It is,” Duke argues. “She fell in the worst places possible, right on top of that broken glass casket. If she’s not bleeding that clearly means she didn’t pull her stitches on her mad escape out.”

When Ladybug fell, they’re not exactly sure what happened, because the screen showed Ladybug collapsing almost gracefully. When they arrived on the scene, she flickered between Ladybug and Marinette as her earrings beeped. Her legs were slashed from falling on the glass with a seemingly unnatural force— simply falling would not have garnered cuts that large— and her head was twisted at an odd angle, debris bloodied beneath her.

Somehow, the Miraculous Cure seemed to be working backwards. Not from the epicenter out, but rather from the edge of the damage, in. It worked slowly, every mile taking minutes instead of mere seconds. It hadn’t happened before in any of the battles.

It was useful in apprehending Hawkmoth and Pavona, who were still knocked out. But Marinette, even after the Miraculous Cure washed over her, didn’t get healed. Her injuries didn’t revert. There was still a gash on her stomach from Hawkmoth’s cane, still muscles exposed on the back of her legs and blood on her neck. When she was first brought in, the doctors feared that she may be permanently incapacitated. 

Good at keeping to her word at least. She came swinging through the window with worry on her face and grief in her eyes. 

“I need to go back to Paris,” she says. 

Dick will undoubtedly say no. He’s a very protective person, and Marinette is the center of his current efforts. 

But she doesn’t look injured. He eyes her stance. She’s standing with no effort, walks with no limp. No hospital dress, no blood on her neck, no bruises in all of the places he was expecting them to be. Marinette does not look like she just faced a world ending threat less than twenty four hours ago. She certainly doesn’t look like she’s permanently lost the use of her legs. There’s the familiar Wayne Brand Stubbornness in her eyes— no way she’s not Bruce’s kid— that tells him that she’s going to get to Paris one way or another, and that they’re either lucky they were even notified in the first place or that she wants to use a resource that they have that she does not have access to. It’s fairly obvious what that resource is, considering that Paris is nine hours away by any normal plane and it sounds like she wants to get there in minutes, and not hours. Duke also knows that if they don’t take what she’s offering now, she’ll use an alternative method that definitely won’t be as nice or clear cut. 

He jumps in before Dick can say anything. “We’ll take you as long as we go with you every step of the way.”

Oh, he’s going to get in so much trouble for doing this. Dick is looking at him with his Disapproving Dad glare, and he can imagine Bruce going into brooding silence when he hears that Duke allowed this to happen. 

Marinette’s lips pinch together, but she nods. “Where’s the nearest zeta tube?”

#

Barbara gets Dick’s text and sighs in frustration.

She’s already got her hands full with watching Tim, who’s spiralling trying to find information about the Miraculous, muttering under his breath in the way he does when he gets a particularly hard case to crack. He’s gone through six cups of coffee in the last hour, and he kicked off his research with a combination of 5 Hour Energy, Monster, three packets of sugar, and 10 caffeine shots. Soon, she’ll have to start limiting his caffeine intake, but right now it’s clear that any attempt to get him to stop his research now will fail spectacularly. At least she’s not in charge of Damian and Jason. Wherever they are, they’re definitely on the move and not happy.

She never thought she'd be able to say she’s happy about being paralyzed from the waist down, but she certainly doesn’t want to be chasing after one of the two hellions. Cass definitely has her hands full and whoever’s watching Jason— wait, is anybody even watching Jason? Typically Roy gets stuck with Jason-sitting duty, but he’s been out for a while. 

Barbara groans. Jason is probably on his own, wreaking havoc.

Great.

She’ll deal with that later, even though she has no doubt she’ll regret that decision, but if Marinette is gone from her room, Dick needs the footage, and somebody needs to find where she is. The nurse put in her latest report that her legs were almost healed and that she didn’t show any signs of a concussion, but Marinette was in bad shape when she got admitted to the hospital. Even though Barbara doubts that there was any misdiagnosis, given that Bruce sprung for a VIP room in one of the pricier hospitals, in a world where magic and aliens are present, who knows what’s true or not.

“Tibet!” Tim jumps up from his hunched over position for the first time in hours. “I’m going to Tibet, the closest zeta tubes are three hours by car away, but I can get somebody to loan Wayne Industries a helicopter while I’m over there.”

“Sit down, Tim.” Barbara takes her glasses off and pinches the bridge of her nose. Why can’t Bruce rein in his children? Why is she the one stuck babysitting? “Marinette left her hospital room.”

That certainly gets Tim to put the brakes on his movements towards the zeta tube in the bat cave. 

“What?”

“I said, she left her hospital room. Just sit down while I send the information over. It’s not going to do you any good to rush into things anyways.”

A quick review of the surrounding CCTV shows that Marinette didn’t travel far, just around the hospital. She’s looking for something, calling out for it, too. Barbara grabs that file and slows it down so she can read her lips. “Dickie? Do she and Dick know each other already?”

A quick text back to Dick reveals that Marinette has already returned to the room and—

Oh, hell. 

“Well,” Barbara pushes her laptop away from her, letting Tim watch the files she’s pulled up. “It looks like we’re taking a family trip to Paris.”

#

Somehow, Marinette almost manages to lose all four of them within the first four minutes of roaming around Paris.

Luckily, their family has an almost absurd amount of luck between all of them (not all of it good) and the person Barbara was half sure she could only find in prison, beating up Hawkmoth and Pavona, runs into Marinette on the streets and herds her back to them.

“Lose something?” Jason asks, arm slung around Marinette’s shoulder, the smaller, younger girl looking rather upset at having her plans thrown off.

“I told them that they could follow me,” Marinette argues without much real bite. It’s not my fault if they can’t keep up, is the clear meaning of her statement.

Again, Barbara is very impressed that the barely nineteen year old somehow managed to shake off vigilantes with decades of experience with ease. But it is, at least, partially due to her disability. Every time she goes out in her wheelchair, her heart aches a little, especially as the civilians she passes eye her with pity. Barbara doesn’t want pity. Doesn’t need pity. She shouldn’t feel anything when people look at her like she can’t keep up, because she can keep up.

Most of the time, anyways.

It doesn’t matter how she uses her tech skills to modify her wheelchair and deck it out with all the equipment she could ever need, or that she can easily get up to speeds rivalling sports cars for short periods of time before the power runs out. When she’s stuck in her wheelchair, she loses the maneuverability she had when she wasn’t paralyzed.

She couldn’t follow Marinette through the alleyways because she was stuck. Barbara was the one who noticed her escape first. If only she were more capable, she could have—

But it’s okay now. Jason ran into her. Marinette is back with them. 

“I need to search for something, and none of you can help.” She’s not intentionally being rude when she says it, and if anything, sounds apologetic. Barbara sees the similarities between Marinette and Bruce. It makes a lot of sense that the two of them are father and daughter, when the two of them are so insistent on keeping major issues to themselves. Marinette twists herself out from underneath Jason’s arm, clutching her purse. Her head doesn’t move, but her eyes are wild. 

“We can help,” soothes Duke, ever the voice of reason. “You know who we are.”

“And I’m guessing you’ve all either deduced who I am or have been told my identity,” counters Marinette. “Which means you should know why I can’t have you helping me.”

Barbara and Duke exchange pointed glances. 

“That’s not really clear to us, actually,” says Barbara. Marinette isn’t moving, but the way her shoulders tense makes her believe that the younger girl is ready to run at the drop of a hat. 

A small group of people from the parade on the streets tumbles into the alleyway they’re resting in. They smell like cheap booze and sweat. 

“What are all of you doing in this alley?” one says, after he finished vomiting up his last (very colorful) meal. “You should be out there partying with the rest of us! Celebrating Ladybug and her team.”

“Fuck Hawkmoth and Pavona,” says another solemnly, with neon face paint and pigtails with glitter string intertwined. “Their defeat should be celebrated by even the darkest souls.”

Jason, easily amused by their antics, looks very willing to join them. “Yeah Marinette, we should be celebrating Ladybug not—”

As one, everybody looks at the place where Marinette was, just moments ago. The alley is decidedly empty of a small asian girl with blue eyes and pigtails.

“Fuck,” Jason curses.

“Fuck is right,” Duke agrees, placing a hand over his temple. 

#

Marinette manages to disappear for three hours.

Three full hours.

“She’s good,” Tim says, typing into the holographic computer embedded into his sleeve. 

Paris’ CCTVs are painfully easy to hack into, though he suspects that the lack of attention to them may have to do with the fact that everybody in the city is celebrating. Policemen, politicians, artists, students, scientists—  people from all walks of life are in the streets today, screaming and shouting and being free for the first time in years.

He spies more than just a few dozen people bawling their eyes out within a few minutes. But that’s not surprising, considering how long Parisians have had to suppress their emotions for. 

Dick and Barbara are still in the midst of profiling Marinette, trying to determine the most likely places where she’d stop by, either as Ladybug or herself. All of Ladybug’s usual haunts are decidedly devoid of the young heroine, though Tim does manage to catch a good amount of footage of the other young heroes like Carapace and Rena Rouge, who are most definitely in a relationship based on their makeout session on top of the eiffel tower (one of the first places Tim checked), Viperion, who seems to be the only one from Ladybug’s team to be seeking out the crowd which seems rather atypical considering that the hero never frequented interviews or was spotted on news coverage all that frequently,  and Chat Noir and Queen Bee who Jason insisted were in a relationship as well, though the rest of them believed they were only embracing each other out of comfort— Chat Noir looks like he’s been crying for hours, and Queen Bee looks like she’s barely holding it together.

Ryuko has not shown up on camera once today. Neither has Ladybug.

The second place Tim checks is the bakery. She is not there either, though another girl is. It doesn’t seem like the girl has any ill intent, but Duke is more than happy to pull up past files to see if she’s been there before, if she has any reason to be there, and who exactly she is. 

Just as Barbara and Dick are debating the chances that Marinette would be at Le Grande Paris, she walks past one of the cameras focused on Tom & Sabine’s Boulangerie. Tim has the system rigged up so that any facial matches for Marinette automatically alerts the room. He hadn’t been able to replicate that with Ladybug’s face for some bizarre reason which is why he, Barbara, Dick, and Jason are manually combing through the areas where Dick and Barbar think she may be (magic is why, but Tim has always believed that technology can be used against and with most forms of magic) so it’s lucky that she enters as Marinette. 

“Kagami Tsurugi,” Duke says triumphantly. “She visited often when Tom and Sabine were still alive. Potential candidate to represent France or Japan for Sabre in the next Olympics. Definitely friends with Marinette.”

“Thank God,” sighs Dick. “Now let’s get over there.”

It’s truly, truly unfortunate that they set up shop quite a distance away from the bakery.

They take too long to arrive.

#

Perhaps it was a mistake, telling Kagami first.

No, not just perhaps. It was a mistake. A bad one.

But Kagami was pushing so hard, and Marinette was so tired and so alone without Tikki at her side, without the knowledge that her parents would be waiting for her. Kagami pushed and pushed and pushed about why the house felt so empty, why there was dust on the floor, why the bakery was closed for so long, and where were Tom and Sabine? Why weren’t they there for the team yesterday, when the battle was won, when they knew how important it was to be there for Adrien who had just lost all three of his parental figures? 

The moment the words fall from Marinette's lips, she knows she shouldn’t have revealed it at that moment, because Kagami draws in on herself, lips turning downwards, hands curling into fists. 

Kagami has come a long way from the girl she was in lycèe. The thrill of victory is still something she enjoys, but not something she needs to feel secure in her place in the world. She has trouble expressing her emotions, but when it comes down to it, she communicates everything necessary to understand why. 

With the news of Tom and Sabine’s death, she withdraws into herself, shifts back into that thirteen year old Marinette first met. Logic  and rationale thrown to the wind in favor of cold anger. 

It’s no secret that Ryuko, Ladybug, and Viperion are the main strategists of their team. Viperion, out of his duty of using Second Chance and his ability to keep a level head in the face of constant death. Ladybug out of necessity as her position as team leader and the power of Lucky Charm. Theoretically, the two of them should have been enough. But over the years, Kagami became Marinette's favored confidante; though Ladybug trusts all of her team to keep a tight hold on any information she gives them, Kagami is one of the few who is able to pick apart a given situation and transform the monsters they face into manageable pieces. 

Today, it is Kagami who has broken to pieces. Very angry, razor sharp shards that seek to hurt.

“You lie to the media, tell them a pretty tale of how they died due to a break in. Why do you avoid pinning their deaths on Lila as you should? To absolve a quality woman from guilt?”

Marinette can’t look Kagami in the eyes.

Her parents deserved a peaceful death. To pass on in old age, hand in hand. Not looking on as a family member died, in fear of what would happen next for their daughter. 

“The police know. The judges know,” Marinette protests weakly, but without much eight behind her words.

Kagami just scoffs. “Tom and Sabine were kind people. To not tell the media what truly happened— that’s preventing Lila from getting the full force of what’s coming to her. What happens if she gets out of prison one day? Without any real deaths to her name, she could just flee to another country to escape it all. And when another person loses their life because of her…” 

She doesn’t need to finish her sentence. If somebody else gets injured in any way, shape or form at the hands of Lila Rossi, it’s Marinette’s fault. Marinette gets what Kagami is trying to say. She thinks the same thing, after all.

“My parents would not want their death publicized in that manner.” It’s the truth, but it’s said so weakly that the words come off as little more than a weak defense, and Kagami takes the words and twists their truth.

“You know little of your parents, considering that you’re their daughter.” Kagami stands stock still, not a single extra muscle moving. “Perhaps if you spent more time with them as Marinette instead of unsuccessfully gallivanting around as Ladybug, you’d have realized that Tom and Sabine admire truth above all else, even if it is painful.”

Kagami does not ask a single question about where Marinette was last night, or how Marinette felt over the loss of her parents or when she saw all those she held dear lying still on the ground after Hawkmoth and Pavona’s final attacks. She just purses her lips and sweeps out the door.

And then she’s gone, and Marinette is alone once more. 

#

The bakery is bone-achingly quiet.

Every step Marinette takes creates such a disturbance in the peace that moving hurts. 

But she can’t stay here. She can’t stay here. She does not deserve to stay here. Kagami is right. Marinette was a bad daughter. She could have prevented their death, could have given them justice sooner, could have— 

And Marinette can’t breathe. She tries to, she tries so hard to, but she chokes.

She kneels down on the floor— Kagami is right again, the place is dusty, because Marinette couldn’t bring herself to use the living room and kitchen without her parents, could barely bring herself to sleep in her bedroom because she knew that her parents were not sleeping soundly in the bed below hers— and scrabbles at her throat, vision coming in and out.

Her legs burn. She knows that during the final battle, her legs were cut towards the end of it, and they should be healed, she should be okay now, she’s better than this, she’s— 

Somebody gathers her in their arms. They smell slightly of Lotus flowers, just like Maman, and cradle her ever so gently.

Marinette’s eyes open— black hair, greyish eyes filled with understanding and love and— 

She can breathe again.

She falls asleep.

#

“Cass?” Dick’s eyes widen at her unexpected appearance at Marinette’s home.

“I thought you were on Damian guard duty,” Barbara says, fixating on the red around Marinette’s eyes and the barely dried tear tracks on her face.

“Where’s that Kagami girl?” Jason scuffs his shoes on the hardware floor, silently marking the footprints on the floor and getting a general idea of what occurred before they were able to get here based on Marinette’s current state and the other girl’s absence. “I want to have some words with her.”

Cass inclines her head sharply, eye sparking with anger. Jason’s fists rise unconsciously— Cass rarely gets angry, and whenever she gets angry at a specific person, that means they’ve done something very, very wrong— ready to hunt down Kagami. Marinette sniffles and shifts in Cass’ one armed embrace, to which Cass places a finger over her lip and shakes her head, a universal sign to be quiet.

 Jason scowls but settles down.

They’re quiet as they wait for Marinette to wake.

@biodad-bruce-month

Maribat tag list(to be added onto this pls send me an ask/dm): @our-precipreciousss @my-dear-friend-anxiety

Who Are You (and what will you become) tag list (to be added here just comment): @anjuschiffer @theunquiet-dead @certainmuffinbagelcalzone @cresentmo0n @allulily @myazael @zalladane @rebecarojas07 @keepingupwiththemalfoys  @frieddonutsweets @all-mights-asscheeks @thornalchemist23 @trippingovermyfeet @jiso-lee @redscarlet95 @ira-sairain @screechingflapbiscuitpeach @ramos123 @cutechip @theunquiet-dead @sleep-deprived-aroace @enternalempires @lilkymilky @woe-is-me0 @officiallydarkgeek @miyla-lokidottir @queencommonsense @demonicbusiness @iamablinkmarvelarmy 

@emark7 (i will have the edited version of these on ao3 eventually but i think the link to ch 1 on this one works)

where i ended this doesn’t feel very good but ehhhhhhhhhh my writing process is summary then word vomit that barely correlates which means nothing makes sense unless i edit but looking back at my work makes me cringe so at a crossroads yayyy

also can you guys tell which prompts ive written these for because i’m curious

[fanfic-obsessed]

Finding the oddest family

So this is another odd one, someone please take it because I want to see this story.

Set sometime in season 3. The Phoenix Team vanishes on a mission. It is generally suspected that they have been captured by Murdoc, as they had been out hunting him. It will take 3 years for them to be found. Even longer before they stand in the war room again.

It is not Murdoc who has taken them, in fact he and Cassian had also been captured by the same people. These nameless people have been taking people for something that is a cross between the Hunger Games and medical experimentation. They have a hidden facility with something like a forest and a cave system that their experiments are dropped into. Murdoc convinces the Phoenix team that they should pool their resources until they find a way to escape. He has done the calculations and would do anything to keep his son safe.

The Hunger games parts come out in that there is only so much food and other resources in this artificial, underground forest. In addition part of the experiment manufactures disasters to test captives with. None of our heroes know how many people are in this vast underground forest but they do know there is more than them. By the time the three years is up, each of them, even Cassian, have had to kill to protect their little group. The drugs in the air and the food have served to induce a mild confusion, enough to keep them from trying to escape. And after three years Murdoc is part of their family, even to the point that they trust him with each other. On Murdoc's end, he did not suddenly grow a conscience. But Jack, Mac, Bozer, and Riley were his people now, like Cassian.

After three years there is a raid on the compound. We switch back to Matty and James, who are informed that the team have been found. They fly to a medical facility not far from where they had been kept. We find out that nearly 200 people have been freed from the underground forest, which was measured at something like 300 square miles. Only a handful of the captives had been there longer than our heroes, and all of them are mild to moderately feral. Plus very traumatized. And very very drugged with some chemicals that the medical teams had never actually seen before. The rescuers, military for whatever country this compound was in, believe that the captors had been operating at least 15 years before the Phoenix team was taken.

By the time Matty and James reach the medical facility, our heroes have escaped the medical facility. None of them had reacted well to being separated upon rescue. Frankly they were not the only people who had reacted badly and violently, but they were the best trained and the only ones who had managed to escape. There were some severe mental breaks from the other captives though. Our heroes have vanished, gone to ground entirely.

Three months after that, Matty is sent a coded message to that leads her to meeting with Riley in a coffee shop in LA. When asked Riley says that she would be the one that would be the most underestimated if the Phoenix chose to capture her. She also warns that the others were watching and would break her out and likely kill people to get her back. She explains that the drugs had induced both confusion and some amnesia, so they had not remembered much when they had escaped, just that they could not be separated. The drugs had been flushed from their systems and their memory had returned, but the drugs had permanently stripped their emotional connection to their pre capture memories. They remembered trusting Matty but did not feel it anymore. They remembered hating Murdoc but he was family now. Their family. Riley, on behalf of their family, was only reaching out because they want to make sure they are doing the best thing for Cassian, who is now a young teen.

Riley tells Matty that Matty has to choose between two options for the family. The family can find some backwoods somewhere to dig in, they didn't need much as they had been living in a cave for three years. They would do their best to keep Murdoc's murderous impulses to bad people and would likely start abducting abused children to raise with love. OR Matty could guarantee that they would be allowed to stay together, wipe Murdoc's slate clean and then they would work for Phoenix again.

[sirpoley]

On the Four Table Legs of Traveller, Leg 3: Character Creation

In part 1 of this series, I described how Mongoose Traveller's spaceship mortgage rule becomes the drive for adventure and action in a spacefaring sandbox, and the 'autonomous' gameplay loop that follows.

In part 2, I talked about how Traveller's Patron system gives the DM a tool to pull the party out of the 'loop' and into more traditional adventures.

In this part, I'll talk about Traveller's unique character creation system, and how it supports the previous two systems.

Brief Overview of Character Creation

Traveller's character creation is weird, and it was the first thing house-ruled away by my old DM—and I can see why.

Traveller character creation is a minigame of sorts, in which you first generate ability scores (much like in D&D), then pick a career. You make a stat check to qualify for the career, one to 'survive' the career (more on this later), and one to advance. Every time you qualify for the career and/or advance, you get a random skill or stat boost from a table related to your training. In the Army and Marines, for example, you're very likely to get combat-related skills, while as a Merchant you're more likely to get something like Broker or Admin (which tend to be more useful, surprisingly).

You also roll once on a life event table, in which your character might fall in or out of love, make friends or enemies, study abroad, and so on.

You then advance four years in age and try again, and continue for as long as you want. If your character gets too old, they start suffering physical ability score consequences, though these can be bought off with semi-legal anti-aging meds, the consequence of which is starting with high amounts of medical debt.

Rolling to Survive

If you fail a survival roll, you're permanently expelled from your career (but can start another one), and often suffer major debilitating injuries in the form of sweeping permanent ability score damage, though this can be bought off by going deep into medical debt. It's technically possible to die in character creation if your physical ability scores are reduced to zero in this way, in which case you would start over. For that to happen, the player would have to decline treatment—basically, they're making a choice to give up and start over. This is a kind of extreme "safety net" against playing truly worthless characters, I suppose, though I haven't seen it happen yet.

Why is this Good Again?

This way of creating characters is shockingly different from any that I've seen before. The character that you end creation with might not have any resemblance at all to what you sat down and intended to create, which was a huge source of frustration, as a player, in my last two campaigns. It's more common than not to, for example, come up with a concept for a dashing space pilot and end up with a 98 year-old-that-looks-34 white-collar office worker who's got a laundry list of grievances against various corporations who have fired him over the years.

When I've seen this system work well, it's because players went into it with different expectations that they would in D&D. For a D&D campaign, you usually come to the table with a more-or-less fully-fledged character concept, then roll stats (or point-buy) and fill in the boxes. In Traveller, it's more like spinning a wheel and seeing what you'll get.

For the kind of campaign that Traveller assumes, however, this is perfect, and here's why.

First, it sets the tone of the campaign. Traveller is very different from most D&D-esque RPGs. It doesn't provide any guidance for or benefit from, for example, balanced encounters. By creating mechanically unbalanced, unpredictable characters, it is telling the players from the start that there are sharp edges to this game and they have to stay on their toes.

Second, it generates crucially important NPCs for the campaign. Those life events—and some fail-to-survive rolls—often create allies, enemies, rivals, and contacts: NPCs that are guaranteed to be met during the campaign. The book provides tips to the DM to ensure that these NPCs have access to spaceships, as they can be found on the random encounter tables. But here's the fun bit: the Player will be just as pissed at their rival, Captain Morgensen (or whatever) as their character is supposed to be, as he was (according to the events table) instrumental in getting them fired from their career as a space scout. By generating these characters during character creation's life-simulation, it gives them a real, emotional connection that leads to a lot of fun during play. These NPCs can easily function as Patrons (which, as explained in part 2, are the keys to adventure), or can provide paths to Patrons.

Third, it has the potential to start the characters massively in debt. The clear optimal path in character creation is to pay off any injuries by going into medical debt, and chug analgesic anti-aging pills like they're Skittles in order to keep advancing down your career paths, or start new ones. As explained in part 1, Traveller's 'loop' functions best when the PCs are swimming in as much debt as possible. The more debt, the more motivation to travel, and thus the more space pirates and space dragons and space princesses and whatever that they'll meet.

Fourth, it familiarizes them with the setting. The book provides quite a few career path options to the Players, and uses the same to generate its NPCs. Thus, just by reading through the career path options available to them, Players learn a lot about the world of Traveller and the kinds of people they might meet, without having to read lengthy setting handouts or pages and pages of lore or anything like that.

Fifth, it creates gaps in the party's expertise, which encourages hiring NPCs. It's virtually impossible to end up with an adventuring party that can cover every skill required to operate a spaceship, for example. This encourages hiring NPC crewmembers to fill in those gaps, which really helps make Traveller 'work'. A lot of the party's time is going to be spent on their spaceship, so the more people who are on there, the better from a roleplaying standpoint. Also,  

That said, it's not perfect, as…

There Are Some Real Limitations

Mechanically, the main issue that's come up with Traveller's character creation is that it's entirely possible for the party to be missing one or more vital skills, or for a character to be lacking something that would be key to making them 'work'. Traveller's basic dice mechanics harshly penalize untrained skill checks compared to attempting even slightly-trained ones, and some roles can't be easily filled in by NPC crewmembers. If your character never rolls to learn the Gun Combat skill, for example, they'll more likely than not miss every attack they make in the whole campaign. The party can overcome this by hiring marines, for example, but the player might still be bored every time a gunfight starts.

This can be mitigated by, say, letting that player control their hired NPCs in combat directly, but as the game doesn't really provide a lot of guidance for who plays hired NPCs (the DM? the player that hired them? The party as a whole, by vote?), the DM and player will have to come up with their own solution. Since they might not even realize that there is a problem that needs to be solved, this can easily lead to traps (for example, if the DM assumes full control over hired NPCs, many battles will lead to the DM just rolling checks against himself/herself over and over in front of an audience) that generate frustration.

Mechanics aside, there are some narrative implications for character creation that might strike many Players as quite weird. Most D&D Players default to making their adventurers whatever their races' equivalent of early-20s is. Sometimes there's an old wizard thrown in to spice things up, but I'd say 9-in-10 characters I've seen are 'college-aged.'  

Traveller strongly rewards old characters. Sometimes very old. Don't be surprised if the average age of the Traveller characters is the same as the summed age of all of your Players. This isn't necessarily bad—immortal, eternally-young sci-fi characters are kinda neat—but it's also pretty limiting, and may not be within the Players' expectations. If a Player wants to make a character who's a young hotshot just starting out, the rules will punish them severely. They'll have virtually no skills, no money (or debt!), no ship shares (units that track ownership of the spaceship), and no NPC connections.

Making it Work

I'm not going to change these rules until I'm more familiar with the system, but my gut says that many of the game's skills (such as Computers, Comms, and Sensors, or the two skills that govern two different, but similar, kinds of environmentally-sealed armour) could be consolidated to reduce the odds of a missing skill torpedoing a character. I also think flexibly passing back and forth control of hired NPCs between the DM and Players will solve a lot of problems, but deciding on the fly who is in control in a given scenario will probably take some experience as a DM. I’m vaguely aware that there’s a second edition of Mongoose Traveller, which may have done some of these things, but I haven’t played it and as such can’t comment on it.

I think for a satisfying experience, you have to make it clear to your Players not to try to build their characters to a pre-imagined concept, but rather come up with a concept as they play through their character's life. Also, tell them upfront that, in this particular sci-fi universe, anti-aging technology has allowed for the rich and powerful to stay eternally young, and that they can expect to have already retired from one or more full careers before the campaign even begins.

Next up, how this all ties in with random encounters.

[soft-ris]

Hello, Cupid's Pick sounds fun! If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to request one for Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (I'd prefer Part 5 since I'm most familiar with it, but only if it's okay with you!)

I'm a very open minded person, kind of quiet but I get talkative the more I know you. I'm the chaotic friend who's usually down to do anything with you. You could literally talk about anything (except math), and I would listen to you attentively if you sound excited enough. I do swing from lazy to hyper and energetic. There's very few people I genuinely open up to, but I dearly love them so god help anyone who insults them because I can and will fight them (nothing can stop this 4'11" gremlin!!!). My humor is either dirty innuendos or sarcasm. I am also the kind of person who can cry just cause someone else is crying. For hobbies, I'm very fond of cooking, singing, and playing video games. I absolutely love sweets and I am very much a cat person. I hate bugs with every fiber of my being though, I will definitely run out of the room like my life depends on it. An ideal date would probably be relaxing at home or going somewhere quiet to hang out and talk.

Ahdkakjda wait, I'm so sorry, I got so excited I misread your Cupid's Pick post... if it's alright, could I choose Melone, Ghiaccio, and Risotto as my top 3 picks? (I was the anon who asked for Part 5 of Jojo specifically...)

———————————————————————

Cupid’s Pick for your match made in heaven is...

...Melone!

I personally think Melone would only be open to a relationship if he believes the other person is a perfect match for him (and his genes)! And guess what? He believes you are and so does Cupid!

———————————————————————

I'm a very open minded person...

Necessary for their line of job, but definitely a plus for Melone due to his…tendencies and personality and interests. So I feel like he would be very into open minded people (like yourself) because that just means more acceptance and more things to try out ;)

I mean he may brush off or ignore other people’s disgust, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be accepted too uwu so your open mindedness is one of the big reasons you’d catch his heart!

If you have limits, he will push them from time to time, but reign him in and he’ll be more than willing to behave (with a price ;3)

...kind of quiet but I get talkative the more I know you. + You could literally talk about anything (except math), and I would listen to you attentively if you sound excited enough.

Melone strikes me as someone who talks moderately in general (he just talks to himself a lot), but he will talk more to the people he’s close to/comfortable with, and his excitement when he realizes you’re actually listening to him will shoot up and up and up (like his rate of talking).

He knows you tend to zone out when he’s talking about math related stuff, so that won’t come up often with him, but it still will sometimes because he probably thinks your expression is just Di MoLtO~🥴

He also loves collecting data/information on you, so whatever you talk about to him, he’s gonna be typing it down simultaneously!! So not only does he listen, he remembers (and has like 50 sub-folders on the stuff you say lol). This is mainly because he wants a more cohesive file on you. Like I said, he already believes you’re practically the perfect match for him with all the information he has on hand already, but his appetite for more information about you drives him to do this because it’ll just affirm for him that ‘ok wow this person really is my match made in genetic heaven’.

Ghia’s excitement comes in the form of rage and it happens often, so while he loves that you’re listening to him, I think he would almost never show you that he appreciates it. Also, if you’re talkative when he’s stressed or angry, he will yell at you to shut up. Ris would be straight forward (tells you that he’s not in the mood) and Melone would say stuff like “Not now. Later.” (but he doesn’t sound as gruff as Ris).

Ris is the same way with the quiet to talkative thing (in my HC at least), so getting past that initial stage would be hard as hell with him. Imo Melone would be the easiest to get past that stage, and Ghia…depends? If you keep pissing him off though (bc yk…tsundere with anger issues lol), he’ll be the hardest to get to a comfortable stage.

There's very few people I genuinely open up to, but I dearly love them so god help anyone who insults them because I can and will fight them (nothing can stop this 4'11" gremlin!!!).

All of them would appreciate this one way or another, but Melone more so because you’re fighting…for him. Him who’s always touted as gross or perverted or disgusting by the majority. Him who never fights in a confrontational manner because he isn’t comfortable with that and prefers long range tactics (satisfactory but seeing u fight face to face for him just hits different YK?). And it means so much more to him than you’ll ever know.

He’ll also be standing behind you, cheering u on with the biggest smile on his face too :’) also would jeer & taunt ur opponent LOL

I'm the chaotic friend who's usually down to do anything with you.

I HC Ris as having a routine set of things he enjoys doing and it’s on permanent rotation (I’m not saying he won’t go out of his comfort zone, but he knows what he like and if he doesn’t like something, it’s hard to change his mind), whereas with Ghia I HC him as only having 2 interests – cars (more specifically the type of car he drives) and knowing facts (+ disputing and ranting about them). Ris would indulge in some chaos once in a blue moon, but I feel like him & Ghia are set and happy with their current interests.

Melone however would be the most open in terms of what he’s willing to do as long as his safety is guaranteed or if the activity does not involve him getting hurt. Like stealing a yacht or hacking ur annoying neighbour’s computer system LOL

Because you bring that chaos, Melone would be the most fit with you. I know you’re probably like “Huh? Ain’t Ghia chaotic too?”, or “Wouldn’t Ris handle chaoticness the best?”, but chaos (Ghia’s) feeding into chaos (yours) might burn the both of you out, and Ris already deals with chaos 24/7 and he just wants to relax imo. Melone though, looks the most flexible and can probably match up with you the best because of that since he deals with Ghia and the rest on the regular without looking like he’s Tired™️ lol

I do swing from lazy to hyper and energetic.

Like I just mentioned, Melone most likely deals with Ghia’s energy on the regular and he looked chill with the other members too, so he (and Ris as well since yk…he’s the one overseeing everyone in LS) would adapt to your moods the best.

Ghia…I feel like because he has such a short fuse AND is a tsundere (well, at least that’s what I get from his vibe), he would not deal well with your energy if it’s higher up there. He might blow several fuses if the situation and your mood and his mood doesn’t align properly. I also think if he happens on your lazy mood, he would just leave you alone and go do his own thing.

My humor is either dirty innuendos or sarcasm.

Melone is technically a pervert, so when you make dirty innuendos, he’ll absolutely eat it up like a wet ass pussy.

I feel like he definitely prefers that over sarcasm, unless your sarcasm is aimed at someone else (especially if it’s someone he doesn’t like). He’ll probably just ignore you if you’re sarcastic to him lol, but Ghia would absolutely take it too far too quick. Ris enjoys the sarcasm more than the dirty innuendos I feel, but because he’s also your boss, you have to know where the exact boundaries are when y’all are in a professional setting. He’s not quite forgiving if he feels undermined or disrespected. But if Ris is in the mood, he’d dirty innuendo you back, but if he’s not then he’d either brush you off or pretend you didn’t just say that lol. Overall, kinda dry with your humour bc in my head his humour brand is Dry too LOL

I am also the kind of person who can cry just cause someone else is crying.

Ghia would scold you or make you feel like an idiot because of that (he might think it’s a liiiiittle cute, but the chances of him telling you that is like 0.0001% lmao). He’s prideful as hell too so…. But he might also find it annoying or ridiculous (depending on the situation). 0/10

Ris would hand you a tissue and maybe offer his embrace. He thinks it’s a little odd, but it’s not something he would give most of his attention to after you explain it to him. 4/10

Melone would coo at you. Would tease you with it too. He’d also love your tears. Something about you crying…kinda turns him on…maybe. Overall, he’d be the one who doesn’t mind it the most and likes it the most too. 100% wouldn’t make u feel stupid or weird about it, that’s for sure. 8/10

For hobbies, I'm very fond of cooking, singing, and playing video games.

Cooking - Ghia’s taste is Picky, so he won’t eat everything you cook and will 100% complain if it’s something he doesn’t like smh. Ris enjoys the domesticity when you cook with him, but he’s 90% in charge bc he likes certain dishes a certain way. He would also give you constructive criticism like you’re on masterchef or some shit😭😂. Melone would eat it all up. No complaints. On the pan, on the plate, on the cutleries, on your body. Man don’t give a fuck. Put your cum in it too and he’ll gobble that shit up SO quick😭 Overall, would eat anything you give him because he’s chill in that aspect bc I see him as kind of a trash eater? 😂

Singing - Ris would listen and dish out a compliment once in awhile, Melone would verbally appreciate it the most (and also secretly record it and save it amongst the 2k other files he has on your singing lmao), and Ghia in all his tsundere-ness would ask you to can it (he really doesn’t want u to shut up but you don’t actually know that lmao).

Video games - Risotto would never LMAO. If he sees you playing games, he’s just gonna go about his day or even turn around lmao. Ghia probably thinks its childish. Melone would indulge in this hobby of yours the most. Probably buy some for you or even make hentai games just for u💓

I hate bugs with every fiber of my being though, I will definitely run out of the room like my life depends on it.

Ris is the best candidate for this because he would kill it for you, Ghia would walk out, and Melone would scream and run with u LMAO

An ideal date would probably be relaxing at home or going somewhere quiet to hang out and talk.

Melone would try to push you to go out & try different kinds of dates, which is fun in its own, and a good balance for compromise between the two of you. But then again, it’s not like he’s constantly going out lol, so when you go on your ideal dates with him, he’s reminded that intimate quality time like these are so important too (and it secretly becomes his favourite types of dates as well because more time = more info on his lovely baby)

Risotto would match up with this the best, but that would also mean these kinds of dates (chill, lowkey & personal) will make up majority of your dates. And he (imo) is quite fond of chill lowkey routine type dates, so...unless you’re the homebody introverted type, I don’t think Ris would match the best.

Ghia’s ideal date is probably travelling? And 60% involves his car and other cars & 40% involves trivia & debates (whether it’s a game between you two or at a bar against other teams). No other interests LOL

———————————————————————

All in all, Melone x anon 🤷🏻‍♀️

I hope you enjoyed this 💜

[diffractor]

So, there’s several different aspects of punishment that the criminal system is trying to do, none of them well. I’ll try considering how to best optimize them individually, and then mentally expose them to other considerations to arrive at something not totally evil (something still feels a bit off about my results, this is a first draft). Only reblog if you’re going to do a dry effortpost about crucial considerations left out and a better way to do things taking those considerations into account.

The aspects: 1: Retribution: Someone hurt you, so you want them to suffer. 2: Deterrence: Preemptively prevent people from doing [thing] by guaranteeing that bad things happen to them if they do [thing]. 3: Prevention: If someone does [thing], you do something so they don’t do [thing] again. 4: Reparation: If someone does [thing], you take resources from them to pay back for the damage caused. 5: Preemption: Do stuff that makes [thing] less likely to occur in the first place, like after-school programs or something. For maximizing retribution: Well, that’s just called torture. For maximizing deterrence... well, certainty of punishment plays a bigger role than magnitude of punishment, so some 100% certain moderately bad thing is visited upon you when you commit a crime. For maximizing prevention... idk, a magic rock that when you touch it, it instantly wipes any desire to commit crimes. Or a teleporter to extradimensional australia where someone walks in and they don’t come out. For reparation... fines seem pretty sensible. And for preemption, that’s just structuring society in ??? way s.t. there’s no incentive to commit crimes in the first place. Now, a lot of the earlier-mentioned stuff is pretty evil when taken to extremes, so let’s try throwing a moral parliament at this. Retribution: Ok, this one gets a whole lot of shit as not a morally valid motive, and I think there’s a lot of people who, if given a magic criminality-wiping rock, would have “touch the rock” as their only legal consequence. I don’t know about that, desire for retribution is pretty clearly a terminal value. If a man shot someone’s dog, and then they touched the magic rock and were remorseful and would never do something like that again... then, according to my personal sense of which worlds are better, it’d be clearly better if they also got kicked in the nuts by the dog owner, even though that doesn’t affect anything going forward. With that said, however, there’s still all the other moral considerations about. Disproportionate retribution like Hell or Azkaban or spending a decade or two in prison gets a very strong veto from the rest of the moral system, and it isn’t even that satisfying to the retribution value. If someone burns down my house, I don’t want them to spend several years in a dreary place with their life on hold, either no or bad company, a high risk of rape, and then find it impossible to come back into society, that’s just depressing, excessive, and not even that satisfying as punishment. Retribution-Value says it’d be much more awesome to just beat the shit out of them with a stick, or sting them with a bullet ant. I also think that, if given a choice between the latter options and prison, I’d take getting beat up in a heartbeat. There’s a tremendous amount of risk with the legal system having retribution as a purpose, because there’s no incentive for mercy there. The prisoners cannot vote, and the people voting for what to do with criminals are not going to go in the direction of “more mercy”, signalling is going to take it to really bad extremes. Also (Retribution-Value says), hurting someone yourself is way better than having someone do it for you, and (Mercy-Value says), there’s a possible check in the latter case that isn’t present in the former case, namely, the person doing the punishing feeling bad. There is, however, still a slippery slope of being permitted to come up with increasingly nasty retributions to do to people. So, the best option for retribution seems something like “if you were greatly wronged, you get a chance to personally beat up the person, someone’s nearby to ensure you don’t do permanent harm”. For stuff like imposing a bullet ant sting, that’d take a great deal more care because past a certain point, increased intensity of pain doesn’t make someone look like they’re suffering more, so you’d need incredibly strong restrictions on not adding additional painful options (example of failure mode: “yo we found this one species of centipede that hurts like 3x as bad as a bullet ant, let’s add that to the allowable retribution list”), or a rule like “you’ve gotta personally go through a quarter of what they’re going through, choose your retribution accordingly” to give more of an incentive towards not being too cruel for really vengeful people. I don’t trust any civilization to be able to stick to those rules, so I guess “you get to personally beat up the criminal, but not cause permanent damage” is about as good as you’d get. Retribution-Value says this is awesome, and other values don’t object too hard. 2: Deterrence. Magnitude of punishment isn’t as important for deterrence as certainty of being caught, so I guess just ramp up the number of police, and do the Singapore thing of caning. I’d definitely take that over prison and it seems like a pretty effective deterrent. Or maybe “eat this ghost pepper”. Having devastating punishments that are infrequently applied is just the exact wrong way to go about this. 3: Prevention. I don’t really know what works for this one, having not done a literature review. I will, however, observe that putting someone in a place stuffed with repeat criminals and then tanking their ability to get honest work once they get out is a uniquely awful way of preventing future crimes. An aspect of this is incapacitation, where a repeat offender has to be kept in prison because otherwise they’d totally do [thing] again. If you need to incapacitate someone, prison seems like an uneccessarily cruel way to do it, just design, like, a big apartment, throw in an unlimited supply of video games and weed, and drop the solitary confinement part. Or, if you really really need to make sure someone stops interacting with others, period, just cryopreserve them. Thinking about it a bit more, these two feel unsatisfactory, there’s probably better options. Also, I’d be quite worried about using crime-stop magic rock for this one, because we have instances of moral progress (legalization of weed, gay rights) which relied on people breaking the law, so sufficiently advanced deterrence or prevention may shut down lawbreaking for bad laws. I’d take a bullet ant over the magic rock if the magic rock enforced compliance to the laws of the US, because there’s a lot of really dumb laws. 4: Reparation. Idk, fines? Community service seems like a way of doing reparation, but I’m a bit leery of it because it saps time instead of money. 5: Preemption. Again, I don’t really know what’d be effective here, and there’s the aforementioned issues with sufficiently advanced deterrence/prevention/preemption taking away the recovery mechanism for bad laws. And there’s one last thing that hasn’t really been discussed but also feels like a terminal value. The desire for the person to realize how bad the thing they did was. I think one of the original motives for prison back in the 1700′s-1800′s was that the time of solitary reflection would prompt a realization on the part of the prisoner that what they did was wrong (source: half-remembered Focault book), and... it doesn’t really seem like that works. The ideal would be something like the ending of the Eragon series (major spoilers ahead!) So, there’s an evil king who’s been making the land pretty terrible for a while, the hero confronts him, is just about to lose, and then in the last moment manages to fire off a  wordless empathy spell born from the desire for the king to just... understand that what he’s been doing is wrong. And so, he mentally experiences all the consequences of what has happened to all the people of the land since becoming king. Needless to say, full awareness of all the consequences of one’s actions minus scope insensitivity is a pretty severe thing to think about, and the king shortly thereafter commits suicide. Minus the suicide part and the full removal of scope insensitivity part (because wouldn’t that be as bad as all the stuff that has happened up to now?), that just feels deeply right. That there be something to bring awareness of the full ramifications of everything you’ve done and realize that it was wrong. We’re probably not getting that, but it feels like an unusually pure form of justice. So, summary: current penal system sucks, more police, less prison, more minor corporal punishment (for deterrence/punishment), more fines (for reparation), ??? (whatever works) for addressing the cause of crime/somehow ensuring that people don’t do their crime again, if you need incapacitation then you don’t need to be cruel about it, just go for something Lotus-eater-like. You don’t want to be too effective at shutting down crime, because some crime is good when the laws are dumb. Retribution is a terminal value, fite me on this, but it’s best done on a personal level without lasting harm instead of being put in the hands of an impersonal organization with no incentives for mercy. Finally, full awareness of what one has done is something that’d be awesome if it existed.

[yogaadvise]

I`m a Shiny New Yoga Teacher - Here`s 5 Things I Know

I'm a Shiny New Yoga Educator - Right here's 5 Things I Know ( And Also Extra Significantly Some Points I Do Not Know)

The initial thing you will become aware at the beginning of any type of yoga educator training course, no matter just how several years you've been exercising yoga or in how numerous different countries you have actually travelled, classes you've participated in or new designs you have actually tried, is exactly how little you actually learn about it. Don' t get me wrong right here, I simply imply that there is so much to know and also find out and experience concerning the practice of yoga exercise that as soon as you place the void in your very own expertise into context it will eventually appear a million times larger than it was before you familiarized it. Make sense? It's humbling, really.

So much so, actually, that also after completing an intensive 3-week YTT in Bali last year where equator-sweats and crawly bugs throughout savasana were all incorporated right into the requirement flow of our 3-hour morning practices, I still emerged on the various other side sensation as if I understood much less than I had previously. There was simply so much to process. That being said, here are 5 points I have learned/realised throughout my short time as a glossy brand-new yoga instructor.

Fear of the Unknown The recognition of our capacity as human beings, as individual souls as well as sources of internal power that we attain with an intensive and comprehensive research of yoga as well as all its teachings makes us definitely more conscious of ourselves, of our place on the planet, and also of both how little and also exactly how huge it all actually is - all at the very same time. The magnitude being the frightening part - the unidentified. That part that we normally shut out simply because it's just easier that way. Yoga exercise educates us to welcome the dark, uneasy and unknown components of ourselves. Due to the fact that just by ending up being accustomed to every aspect of our being can we genuinely approve ourselves as we are.

Progression and Sharing

As a new yoga exercise educator now home in Dublin and also looking for to expand my understanding as well as mentors even more, I can't assist but admire my own expansion as well as personal development having actually stayed strongly rooted in my method since my return. I would previously have actually been one to belittle the mention of any type of 'transformational' top qualities of yoga exercise as well as I wholeheartedly confess to having giggled through my whole initial ever before yoga exercise course as a hungover fresher in college - but therein exists the proof of it. I have come until now from the individual I was after that - unhappy, confused, directionless, lethargic and undesirable both in body and mind, and by becoming aware of myself and also my very own abilities I have actually in some way finally gotten a grasp on how to handle my own individual energy as well as guarantee that it is utilized currently permanently. To assist others. To share this understanding, this knowledge. To teach.

The Significance of Self-Awareness

I don't recognize what will certainly make you really feel great. I simply feel I currently have some understanding of just how to encourage power in the ideal instructions as well as increase understanding to permit trainees to identify this for themselves. It takes a specific degree of individual introspection and self-investigation for a student to really feel the modification, as well as change in all things requires time, yet having been both pupil as well as educator in this circumstance I now really feel a particular connection to this transformative high quality of the method we look for to embody. This for me is what an everyday technique sustains, encouraging power down the ideal paths as well as away from the ones which offer us adversely. Ending up being mindful of where and also how your power is utilized. Becoming aware that power takes numerous forms, as well as that the physical expression of it is simply one of its several manifestations.

Adapting is Key

In regards to the courses I've instructed so far, yoga exercise for kids and also teenagers and also teaching yoga as Gaeilge have confirmed most likely the most unexpected of challenges I could have prepared for encountering in my initial months as an instructor, the skills I so carefully sharpened alongside a selection of nationalities all having occurred in English as well as with a goal of growing serenity, not the animated power of a course of 6-year olds. Yet yoga exercise additionally teaches us to be adaptable, in both body and also mind, therefore my creative thinking has been placed to great use in adapting what I have actually discovered to suit whatever class or age group I'm faced with. Being able to 'review your space' being some crucial guidance I have actually obtained right here for when you're faced with an unanticipated challenge.

Yoga is Certainly a Legitimate Career

It's hard for me to take into consideration yoga exercise as a 'profession', primarily since the majority of my friends and also household do not actually take it that seriously and additionally due to the fact that I just appreciate doing it a lot. But both of those things for me are reasons to proceed down this path - the sensation of achievement, satisfaction, energised and also contented link I really feel having actually effectively delivered a class or talked on a certain degree or aspect of the technique ... that's the experience I wish to preserve. I need that feeling in my life from day to day, and also so it makes feeling for me to seek this as a 'career', or as whatever you want to call the important things you do day-to-day that pays the bills.

In conclusion, I do not know just how to solve the globe's problems, yoga teachers aren't wonder workers, and also we're most definitely not the photo of bendy and also toned perfection we frequently see in the media. I do know nonetheless that inside every human being lives a certain power, a life and also a deserving, effective pressure of creative possibility that is simply waiting to be given the possibility to arise. We are in ourselves entire cosmos composed of systems, ideas, feelings, sensations as well as experience, therefore by recovery ourselves as well as offering ourselves the very best feasible life we can visualize - are we not boosting the globe? One little human each time. One little small action. One breath, one movement, as well as one heartbeat each time. Modification takes time.

We'll get there.

More from Jenny at Upward Facing Blog and also Jennybean818 on Instagram

[infinitebanking9-blog]

Infinite banking

The Infinite Financial Idea is a procedure, not a product. Rationale is to recapture the passion that is presently paying to banks and also finance business for the major products that we require throughout a life time, such as cars, home, financial investment chances, business equipment, and so on. The suggestion of "Infinite Banking" was developed by the late R. Nelson Nash, the writer of the best selling books titled "Becoming Your Own Banker " and also" Structure Your Warehouse of Wide range". In these bestselling books, Nelson discusses the effect of financing with 3rd party banks as well as lenders over a lifetime and how much wide range is completely transferred far from your Family members or Organization. https://www.facebook.com/ascendantfinancialinc/ https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ascendant-financial-inc Nelson also takes place to describe that "you finance whatever you purchase ... you either pay passion to another person or surrender the passion you could have otherwise gained". The real power of The Infinite Financial Idea is that it addresses for this issue and also encourages the Canadians who accept this idea to take the control back over their funding needs, and to have that money receding to them versus away. It is often misconstrued yet this includes the money purchases that a person makes over a lifetime as you are still working with obtained money, also when you pay money for things. This is called lost opportunity price. When you pay money for things, you permanently quit the possibility to make passion on your own cost savings over numerous generations. To solve this problem, Nelson developed his very own banking system through making use of reward paying participating whole life insurance plans, ideally through a common life firm. It has actually been called numerous things over the years consisting of Infinity Financial, Cashflow Financial, The Continuous Wealth Code, The Cash Multiplier, as well as several various other variations. Set up a FREE examination Infinite Financial Idea Developer Nelson Nash Infinite Banking Concept The tool that is made use of to execute Nelson's Infinite Financial Idea, is a appropriately designed returns paying taking part entire life insurance policy, or a system of plans. The cash returned to a policyholder by the life insurance firm if the individual forfeits the life insurance policy contract prior to it grows, or before an insured occasion occurs, better called overall money surrender value, acts as security for policy finances from the insurance company. The Policyowner has complete contractual authority and so when a plan lending is asked for, it is issued disorganized, meaning the policyowner controls the settlement schedule. The insurance provider puts a lien on the death benefit for the loan balance as well as the whole money worth of the policy proceeds expanding daily ... undisturbed. The factor the life insurance firm does not need (nor can they request for) a settlement routine, is the insurer itself guarantees the collateral (the overall cash money worth). Policy loans are the very best invested possession the life insurance policy business can have due to the fact that they establish a ensured return and also the is no risk of default. The life insurance policy policy is designed to cover the entire life of an private, and not simply to assist their beneficiaries when the specific passes away. That said, the plan is taking part, meaning the policy proprietor comes to be a component owner of the life insurance company, and also participates in the divisible profit produced in the form of rewards. Currently I understand what you're thinking when you read the word reward. " Right here comes Profits Canada". That is not the case. When returns are chunked back right into the policy to buy compensated enhancements for no added price, there is no taxable event. And also each compensated enhancement additionally obtains rewards each and every single year they're proclaimed. Currently you might have listened to that "dividends are not ensured". That's not true. The only reward that is not assured is the one that hasn't been proclaimed yet. Life Insurance Policy Companies that offer participating entire life plans declare rewards one-time annually, and also when a reward is declared, it is contractually guaranteed to be paid as well as it can never be repossessed or decline. Advantages of Infinite Banking The main benefit of the boundless financial process is that it develops a serene, anxiety totally free financial life. It is a financial way of living, not a financial plan. Other benefits are control. Envision having a pool of economic worth that's expanding on a daily basis no matter what and being able to make the most of opportunity that will track you down. An additional is the boost in capital or liquidity. The total assets of a life insurance plan standing in as safety is has more liquidity, than, let's say, equity in real estate, because the funding can be accessed without certifying and also the insurance policy holder can obtain money more quickly. The advancement of a person's capital can be impressive, specifically in the onset of financial troubles or unexpected costs. If a insurance holder is provided briefly unemployed, either since they are sick, bereaved, or completely jobless, a plan finance may likewise serve in such a scenario. This is since policies under entire life insurance fall in the category of non-correlated-- merely meaning that they are not tethered to the fluctuations of a high-risk securities market, as they always keep as well as grow in value. Downsides of Infinite Financial Infinite Banking has negative aspects also. The initial is thinking this procedure has anything to do with life insurance policy. It doesn't. That being stated, the policy or system of policies are the devices made use of to apply the procedure. A individual has to either be insurable OR have a beneficial interest in somebody else who is. It's also vital to make sure that whatever costs you pick to deposit into a plan, that it fulfills 3 criteria. It has to be cost effective and also It needs to fit and The death benefit must base on it's very own and have benefit. In addition, if you're not dealing with an Authorized Infinite Banking Professional, you might not be getting the most effective guidance or mentoring. To apply this correctly, you require a great Coach. Infinite Financial Training Course Call our Group to enroll in our Infinite Banking Training Course. Regain the interest that you pay to financial institutions as well as money firms for the major items that you need throughout a life time. Build and also keep your Personal/ Organization wide range without Bay Road or Wall Street. Ascendant Financial Inc

Our Social Pages:

facebook

twitter

linkedin

youtube

[surendrasinghbhakuni]

Night Auditing in Hotel

NIGHT AUDITING

 Night auditing is the process of verifying and providing the accuracy and completeness of guest and non-guest account with departmental activity reports. Night audit is actually the audit process of taking inventory of days work .In other words it is the activity of checking and confirming that whatever transaction have been done during the day are correct and complete. Since the hotel is round the clock business so the auditing is done during the night and hence called night auditing.

®      It is the control process whereby the financial activity of guests’ accounts is maintained and balanced.

®      The basic function of night auditor is the responsibility of overall operations of the hotel as per policy and procedures laid down, also the closing and balancing of the front office and accounts recoverable.

®      Any mistake made during the day of transaction posting and the guest accounts such as rooms, food and beverage, phones and others are corrected and account balanced.

®      In hotels, operating manually or mechanically the best suited time for the process is midnight as the activities are minimum during this time

®      It is mainly to inform the management about the total amount of revenue generated on a day, and how much the hotel is owed by the guests both in house and checked out, and producing operational and management reports.

®      Night audit process increases the probability of correct account settlement and avoids disputes with the checking out guests.

®      Night auditing verifies entries to non guest accounts also, monitors guest credit limit, balances all front office accounts and sorts out any room status discrepancies.

 Duties & Responsibilities of the night auditor:

 Apart from the basic audit activities listed above, the night auditor carries out the following responsibilities:

1.     Taking over from the last shift.

2.     Checking-in or checking-out the guests after 11:00 pm at night.

3.     Registering the guests.

4.     Allocating accommodations to the newly checked-in guests.

5.     Settling transactions in the newly created guest accounts.

6.     Verifying guest folios.

7.     Verifying room status report.

8.     Balancing all paperwork with the accounts in the PMS.

9.     Remaining liable for security of the premises.

10.  Processing reservations

11.  Posting all pending entries

12.  Balancing and totaling of all accounts.

13.  Preparing Reports for the management e.g. Occupancy reports

14.  Verify no shows.

15.  Handling guest accommodation

16.  Taking backup of the PMS generated reports.

17.  Preparing lists of expected guest arrivals for the next day.

18.  Closing financial activities for a day.

19.  Starting financial activities for the next day

20.  Receiving and recording bank deposits.

21.  Performing the duties of security guard

22.  Monitoring fire safety systems

23.  Acting as manager on duty

24.  Summary of cash, check, credit card.

25.  Verifying correctness of entries.

26.  Monitors guest credit limit.

OPERATING MODES OF NIGHT AUDIT PROCEDURES

 I.        NON AUTOMATED

 ·         It means that the front office accounts are audited manually by the night auditor to find out the discrepancies.

·         In this system four audit forms:

      i.        Daily and Supplementary transcripts

     ii.        Guest and non guest folio

    iii.        Front office cash sheet

   iv.        Audit recapitulation voucher produced by hotels revenue centre are sent to front desk.

·         The auditor manually checks all guest and non guest accounts.

·         It involves a lot of time and is practically not possible to physically check each and every voucher.

·         The night auditor checks at random some vouchers but he checks all totals both horizontally and vertically.

 II.        SEMI – AUTOMATED

 ·         Electro mechanical posting machines and their improvement such as fully electronic posting machines are used for front office accounts posting.

·         These machines are only capable of producing a limited number of departmental totals.

·         They don’t interface with POS systems and don’t retain folio balances.

·         Though some new electronic systems are capable.

·         In this semi automated system, simultaneous to the postings of accounts folio , the voucher used to indicate the posting is imprinted with the same information posted to accounts folio, and also same information is printed to a paper tape to save as a permanent journal records, and also as a part of hotels internal audit trial.

·         Amount of each posted charge charge is added to the running departmental for department originating the posting.

·         Departmental totals are helpful in end of work shift end of day reporting.

 Forms produced in semi automated systems are;

a)    Front office cash report

b)    Night auditor summary report (D card)-

This card shows the opening balance of the system provides a running record of all charges and credit postings through the machine and shows a final balance.

 III.        FULLY – AUTOMATED

 ·         It is a simple, quick and very accurate system in which automatic posting to the guest and non guest folios can be done.

·         It is very fast and various audit functions can be performed.

·         It can be interfaced with POS equipment, telephone switches , and call accounting systems for automatic posting from these devices directly to guest and non guest folios.

·         Monitoring account balances and verifying posting is done simply by comparing guest and non guest ledger audit data to front office daily report for balancing.

·         This system offers immediate reach to information, and hence management can more effectively manage operation.

NIGHT AUDIT PROCESS

 The night audit process focuses on two areas:

1.     Discovery and correction of front office accounting errors through the cross-Referencing process.

2.     Creation of accounting and managerial reports (ex. Average Rate, Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR), Occupancy Percentage, usage of package plans and other marketing programs, and the number of group rooms and complimentary rooms occupied).

 The main steps of the night audit process are:

1.             Establishing an End of Day

2.             Complete outstanding posting

3.             Reconcile room status discrepancies

4.             Verify room rates

5.             Balance all departmental accounts

6.             Verify no-show reservations

7.             Post room rates and taxes

8.             Prepare reports

9.             Prepare cash receipts for deposit

10.           Clear or back up the system

11.           Distribute reports

 1.     Establishing an End of Day:

Each hotel must decide what time will be considered the end of its accounting (or hotel) day. This time is refered to as the End of the Day which is an arbitrary stopping point for the business day. Theoritically, it is the time when all Points of Sales are closed. If this is not possible, it should be the time when all Points of Sales no longer have frequent activities.

 2.     Complete Outstanding Posting:

The Night Auditor must confirm that all transactions have been posted before starting the audit routine.

 3.     Reconcile Room Status Discrepancies:

The Night Auditor must review Front Office (Occupancy) and Housekeeping Room Status Reports to reconcile and finalize the occupancy status of all rooms for a given night.

 4.     Verify Room Rates:

The Night Auditor shall compare Registration Records with system-generated room report. If room’s rack and actual rates do not match, the Night Auditor shall consider the following issues:

·         If the room is occupied by a member of a group or by a corporate-rate customer, is the discounted rate correct ?

·         If the room is occupied by a guest with a package rate or on a special discount offered through the hotel’s reservation distribution channels, is the dicounted rate correct ?

·         If there is only one guest in a room and the actual rate is approximately half the rack rate, is the guest part of a shared reservation ? If he / she is, did the second guest register ?

·         If the room is complimentary, is there appropriate supporting evidence for the rate (for example, a complimentary room authorization form).

  5.     Balance all Departmental Accounts:

It is more efficient for a Night Auditor to balance all departmental accounts first and then look for individual posting errors within an out-of-balance department. In this respect, the Night Auditor shall compare vouchers received at the front desk and other documents with revenue center summaries (Z Reports). This process of balancing all Revenue Center Accounts is called Trial Balance. Night Auditors may prefer to conduct Trial Balance before posting day’s room and tax charges. This way, if the trial balance was correct, and the final balance turned to be wrong, the Night Auditor can deduce that the error is coming from room and tax posting.

6.     Verify No-Show Reservations:

The Night Auditor is responsible for:

·         Clearing Reservation Files

·         Posting Charges to No-Show Accounts (Guaranteed Reservations)

While doing so, the Night Auditor shall pay attention to the folowing points:

·                     Duplicate reservations

·                     Misspelling of Guest Name and / or Surname or reversing them

·                     Front Office or system entry errors

·                     Front Office foregetting to cancel properly a reservation

 7.     Post Room Rates and Taxes:

Posting room rates and taxes takes place typically at the end of the day. The advantages of posting room rates and taxes automatically by the fully automated system are:

·                     Room Rates and Taxes posting to appropriate electronic folios can be done in minutes.

·                     Posting is reliable, accurate with no pickup, tax calculation, or posting errors.

 8.     Prepare Reports:

The Night Auditor shall prepare reports that indicate the status of front office activities and operations. Some of the reports prepared by Night Auditor are:

 a)    Night Audit Accommodation Report − It gives a snapshot of the days when accommodations are occupied, the days when the accommodations are available, check-ins, check-outs, no-shows, and cancellations. This report can show further details for any of the items listed above.

b)    Night Audit Counter Report − It gives details on cash and credit card receipts and withdrawals.

c)     Night Audit Revenue Report − It delivers information on accommodation revenue, cancellation and no show revenue, and other POS revenue. Revenue generated through various agencies and bodies such as travel agents, corporate organizations, internet booking. etc., is also listed in this report.

d)    Night Audit Tax Report − Contains all the tax information on reservation revenue and other POS revenues such as VAT, luxury tax, and service tax.

e)    Cashier’s report − It is the detailed list of cashier activity of cash influx and out flux, credit cards, and PMS totals. Cashier’s report is very important part of the financial control system of a hotel. The front office manager reviews the night audit and looks for any divergences between the actual amount received and the PMS total.

f)      Manager’s Report − It is a statistical list of previous day’s occupancy. It includes details about available accommodations, occupied accommodations, sold and vacated accommodations, rack-rate, number of guests in the hotel, number of no-shows, and so on.

g)    General Manager’s Report − Each department in the hotel is required to send daily sales report to the front office. Using their information, a departmental total report is generated for the general manager’s assessment. The General Manager determines the profit-generating departments and evaluates the success of sales and marketing.

h)    High Balance Report − This is a detailed report about the guests who have exceeded the credit limit set by the hotel management.

i)      Ledger Balance Summary Report − It displays the opening and closing balances for the Advance Deposit Ledger, Guest Ledger, and City Ledger.

j)      Room Rate Audit Report − It lists all rates that are applied to each guest and the difference from the rack rate with the predetermined rack code

 9.     Prepare Cash Receipts for Deposit:

The Night Auditor should prepare a Cash Deposit Voucher as part of the Audit Process. If cash Receipts have not yet been deposited in the bank, the Night Auditor should compare the postings of Cash Payments and Paid-outs with Actual Cash on hand. In some hotels, Front Desk Cashiers might be called to deposit cash at the end of their shifts without knowing how much in cash receipts that the system has recorded for them. This process is called Blind Drop. Under this practice, Night Auditors shall compare system totals per cashier with the actual cashier drop document. Had any discrepencies occur, the Night Auditor shall report this to General Cashier, Front Office Manager or Controller.

 10.  Updating the System:

At least 2 Guest Lists must be printed for back up and emergency use: one for the Front Desk staff and the other for Switchboard Operator. Moreover, a printed Room Status Report shall be prepared to enable front desk agents to identify vacant and ready rooms, should the front office system become inoperable. In addition to that, a Guest Ledger Report shall be prepared which contains the opening and closing account balances for all registered guests shall be generated. Last but not least, a front Office Activity Report is generated to include expected arrival, stayover and departure in formation for several days.

The system-generated front office information shall be copied (backed up) onto magnetic tape, optical tape, or other media.

*Switchboard operators handle all external and internal calls for a company. They answer the phone and route the calls to the correct destinations within the company. They also handle internal calls that need to be directed within the company.

 11.  Distribute Reports:

Due to the sensitive and confidential nature of front office information, the Night Auditor must promptly deliver appropriate reports to authorized individuals.

[inthespiritofthemind]

#29 THE LIE OF THE TITHE

Most of us have been taught in a denominational setting that tithing is a doctrine for the church today.  The preachers go to Malachi 3:8-12 and tell the congregation of Christians that they must pay 10% of their gross income to the church or they are robbing God.  They believe they are cursed with a curse if they do not tithe.  Verse 10 says that God’s response will be to “open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing until it overflows.”  The next verse says He will rebuke the devourer from the fruits of the ground and the vine.  This was the Law for the Israelites who were called the Sons of Jacob in the scripture.  

The tithe was to be taken every year for the support of the priestly tribe of Levi and it primarily consisted of food, wine, herbs, goods and money so that the priestly tribe had sustenance during the year. They had to fulfill their priestly duties and did not always have time to do any other work to earn a living.  The Israelites had not been obeying the law of the tithe and the Levites were suffering.  So, God’s words concerned the tribe of Levi and the breaking of the law.

In Matthew 23:23 Jesus spoke of the scribes and Pharisees and how they kept the law of the tithe giving mint, dill, and cumin, but neglected the weightier provisions of the law, speaking of justice, mercy, and faithfulness.  Jesus lived under the Law until His death and kept all of them, being the only person to ever keep them all, obeying all the commandments of His Father and never sinning. Jesus put tithing under the Law of the Old Covenant which changed at Calvary!

There are two covenants.  The provisions of the Old are for the Jews and Hebrews.  The second or New Covenant is for Christians.  The first part of the New Testament is not for Christians. Jesus was under the Law until He shed His blood at which time new provisions came about.  In Hebrews 7:5 the law commands a collection of a tenth from the people, the descendants of Abraham for the sons of Levi who received the priest’s office who had no portion or inheritance among the tribes.

Before the law, Melchizedek gave a tenth of his spoils of war to Abraham as a voluntary offering for one time only.  The law did not happen until God gave it to Moses. In Matthew 5:17 we see that Jesus came to fulfill the Law.  He did not abolish it.  He lived under it and fulfilled it.  He covered all things.  

To receive atonement under the Law the people sacrificed unto God every year and were cleansed for the past sins of the last 364 days.  They gave the blood of bulls and goats to pay for their sins for a year and they repeated it the same way every year for the previous year’s sins. Hebrews 7: 6-8 was written in the present tense before 70AD while the Temple was still in place and the Jews still received tithes.  But now the Temple is gone and there are no more tithes as under the Law. In Christianity we receive redemption and salvation once through the blood of Jesus on the cross.  There is no need for another sacrifice again and again.  The blood of Jesus took care of everything for all of us one time.  It is an abomination to God to be mixing the blood of bulls and goats with the blood of Jesus, His Son.  That kind of sacrifice was under the Law and was not to be done again because the Law has been fulfilled.  This pertains to the Law being fulfilled and part of the Old Covenant and not for Christians.  As is the tithe!  It is done!

It is mentioned in Deuteronomy14:22-26 concerning the tithe that the people should eat the tithe from the field – grain, wine, oil, flocks, in the presence of the Lord where He established His Name so that they could learn to fear the Lord.  And if it was too far to go they were to exchange the tithe of their goods for money and go to where the Lord chooses and spend the money for whatever their heart desires and eat in the presence of the Lord.  Then they were to take their tithe every third year to their town for the priests and widows and orphans.  God gave the crops, goods and flocks to them and He doesn’t want the Israelites to forget that He is the One Who gave this wealth.  He wants them to remember Him.  

Hebrews 7:11 – 28 expands on the theme of the priesthood and their purpose.  The statement is made that if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood or the Law there would not have been a need for another priesthood to arise.  When there is a change of priesthood there must be a change of Law.  The writer speaks of the new priesthood from another tribe which has never been before or officiated at the altar.  Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, not a Levite.  Jesus is proclaimed a Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Then we read that the tithe is being set aside, a former commandment, because of its weakness and uselessness, or because it was unprofitable (King James).  The Law made nothing perfect, but there is a better hope.  And Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant! The Levites held their priesthood until death and there were many of them. Jesus abides forever and holds His priesthood permanently!  He saves forever and always lives to make intercession for us.  He was sinless and does not need to offer sacrifices daily for Himself and the people.  He did once for all!  The Law appoints men, but the word of the oath appoints a Son made perfect forever!!

Jesus represents a new covenant and priesthood. Hebrews 8: 4-5 states that the priests under the Law serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.  Jesus obtained a more excellent ministry.  He was the mediator of a better covenant enacted on better promises.  The first covenant was not faultless.  There was need for a second covenant!  When He said a new covenant, He made the first obsolete and ready to disappear!  In Hebrews 9 Jesus is seen as the new High Priest Who gave His blood as a perfect sacrifice once for all and became the mediator of the New Covenant.  He becomes the new Tabernacle, not with the blood of goats and bulls, but without blemish He offers Himself to God and cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.  Chapter 10 says again of the Law that it is only a shadow of the good things to come, and can never make perfect those who draw near.  If it could there would not have been need for continual sacrifices.  In sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year.  If the offerings worked to cleanse sin we would no longer have had consciousness of sin.  It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.  By this New Covenant we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all!

The Law was fulfilled by Jesus’s sacrifice.  The tithe was under the Law.  It was not profitable and was indeed useless.  Jesus became the High Priest of the tribe of Judah. Change of Priesthood meant a change in the Law.  The lie of the tithe is based on performance and fear of not meeting up to the Law.   Romans 8:2 says that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the Law of sin and death.  The Law has not been abolished, just fulfilled.  Jesus was the perfect sinless sacrifice and He died as each one of us and was resurrected as each one of us!  His performance met God’s Law and was supremely important for our lives!   The tithe was obsolete and has passed away.

 We now live under a New Covenant and part of that covenant is shown in 2 Corinthians 8:9.   That provision of our Covenant has to do with finances.  We are made rich because Jesus took poverty.  When we receive Him as Savior, we receive this provision.  2 Corinthians 9:6-15 speaks of offerings to be given as cheerful givers while our provision is received.  Pastors and Ministers are each receiving the same covenant from God and do not need to rely on tithes anymore.  Instead they need to learn the truth and ask God for understanding about how to receive the finances which have already been given.  We are all to ask the Holy Spirit what His will is concerning our offerings.  We say at our church, New Creation Ministries, ask the Lord and do what He says. 1 Corinthians 9:14 states that “the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.”   In other words, we all get our living from the gospel, from the benefits of the cross.  Those include righteousness - right standing with God; health – by His stripes you were healed; and riches – by His poverty we were made rich.  It is this gospel which has been given already and paid for by His blood that we all as believers are to live and receive our living!  So, when we give to support the lives of our pastors and their families, we are to give offerings, not tithes!  

The tithe is gone.  It is no longer to be part of the Christian’s life.  The remaining belief systems concerning this lie need to be confronted in spiritual warfare.  I needed warfare to tear down many religious strongholds and the Holy Spirit had to show me what they were and how to deal with them.  The best way to uncover the faulty belief systems is to spend time with God and speak in your prayer language which is direct, pure communication between you and the Father.  He will reveal all that needs to be known through the Holy Spirit.  Salvation means deliverance from conditions and circumstances. Deliverance is a wonderful gift from your Father.  The enemy has a lot invested in each of us, and us learning the truth threatens him. Of course, he doesn’t want you to know about the tithe being obsolete.  He doesn’t want Christians knowing the truth and walking in freedom. Bondage in believers is his protection. And we shall know the truth and the truth will set us free.  If we continue to practice the tithe, we will still be in bondage and denying the truth. Making light of the benefits of the cross is an abomination to God.  So is substituting the blood of bulls and goats for the blood of His Son.  We will not receive the benefits Jesus died to provide because we are double-minded and unable to receive anything from God.  “Be renewed in the spirit of the mind. Ephesians 4:23”   The battle is in the spirit!  

[drewx4-blog]

Why You Must Think about Living In A Camping tent

Recently I discovered on my own asking yourself and speaking about a few of the eccentric as well as fantastic techniques people coming from around the globe usage outdoors tents. Subsequently I pondered concerning the opportunity that some people have considered or even picked living in a tent totally. Motivated by this tip, I dug a little better into this subject of long-term tented holiday accommodation.

What will staying in a camping tent full-time require? Some individuals may be unnerved by this idea, while others could be delighted as well as thrilled to handle the difficulty as well as some might possess no alternative. Whatever the explanation or justification - there are 5 unassailable and wonderful perks of moving from your present day home to stopping it in a tent.

1. The price performance is very clear

Finding the right area to pitch your camping tent is going to undoubtedly lessen your regular monthly price of rental payment, electricity and so on. The idea of conserving your expenses in this particular matter could seem to be slightly extreme, but compare it to operating a modern-day house and you might only transform your mind. Normally, you may be worried regarding chilly wintertimes, no web as well as not possessing warm and comfortable showers, but there are actually ways to stay clear of that. You might purchase an appropriate camping tent as well as sufficient winter stipulations, sign-up at a health and fitness center that has downpour features as well as use the free world wide web offered through collections, coffee-shops as well as also looking around malls.

2. It is going to be actually an invigorating problem and a significant adventure

Having a luxurious, purpose-designed, camping tent is going to undoubtedly create the knowledge even more comfy and also much less effortful, but it will certainly still be an asking for obstacle to live in an outdoor tents full-time. There is, nevertheless, a myriad of people who locate enjoyment, enthusiasm as well as satisfaction coming from such uphill struggles as well as lots of people prosper in it! Facing as well as controling a problem similar to this will undeniably be actually enormously fulfilling as well as improving. It will definitely not only liberate you and also increase your confidence and decorum, but it will certainly also supply you a feeling of accomplishment having the capacity to live as well as take care of your own self like our ancestors, just before modernism.

3. It is going to dramatically reduce your Eco Footprint

Our team are all ending up being significantly aware of the usefulness of reducing as well as the impact of our Eco Footprint. This starts with being much more mindful of leaving a lot less of a damaging environmental impact on Earth and also guaranteeing it is as little as possible. Reviewing the managing a modern house to staying in an outdoor tents - it is crystal clear that an outdoor tents leaves behind a profoundly tiny Eco Footprint. If you are actually presently regarded concerning The planet's future and also minimizing the impact you have on Mother Nature - you are most likely completely all set as well as capable to live in a camping tent permanently.

4. It is going to enable you to experience rainforest bathing

Although the idea of submerging your own self in the open waters concealed within forests is actually enchanting - woods taking a bath in fact refers to hanging out amongst trees and also is actually a recognized technique of improving you contentment as well as wellness. Oriental researches have actually discovered that the phytoncides discharged by vegetations assistance in moderating your body, strengthen the body immune system as well as enhances air intake - which triggers joy and happiness and also enhanced health.

5. It offers you a much less complex way of life

Modern life is often qualified by a continuous rush and a scene of difficulty. Lifestyle in a tent forces you to pay attention to the many things that are actually really necessary. Tent-living is actually a lifestyle that is actually easier and extra focused on what really matters, and also a change in correct viewpoint. Due to couple of individuals having experienced a real simple lifestyle - residing in a camping tent will very much be actually life changing and purposeful minute.

While researching this write-up I discovered an astonishing wide array of, what is coined as, glamping tents. Some business put a dual bed and also a rug inside and also call it glamping and then others provide tent frameworks along with flooring, appropriate windows and doors, washroom features and beautifully decorated insides

[weaselle]

The Plan to Save All - speedrun

I’ve tried to write this out before and it gets really involved and complicated because it’s a big idea I’ve spend decades developing. I want to try to get it all out in one simple, short, digestible bit. Here we go ____________________________________________________________________ (edit) the MOST simplified version/overview:    Phase One: initial membership all lives under one low-cost roof  Phase Two: start making $$ by creating alternatives to shitty institutions  Phase Three: use those institutions to create an entire city  Phase Four: showcase successful alternative that self-propagates via imitation _____________________________________________________________________ 

PHASE ONE: -leverage group dynamics to lower living costs of both money and time -find simple solutions to complex systems by addressing them under one roof -provide affordable housing and property ownership to minimum wage workers 50 to 100 people live in a single building with communal facilities: shared industrial kitchen, showering (like at the gym -- in fact, include a gym) common areas for recreation, etc. This lowers cost through efficiency, i.e. you don’t need 50 apartments with 50 ovens, you can have a large communal kitchen with like 4 industrial ovens. One Monthly Payment: everything including food and chores        -about one 50th to one100th of the 10 year mortgage (and property tax)        -all utilites: garbage, gas, electricity, water, internet, group phone plan        -meal plan, like at a college or whatever.        -laundry plan        -community fund (for building upgrades, amenities, repairs, etc)        -about one 50th to one 100th of the caretaker stipend        -a group healthcare/health insurance program Caretakers: about 20% of the residents no monthly bill for living there, plus paid a reasonable stipend. Caretakers have a 30 hour workweek wherein they do all building maintenance and cleaning, provide the meal plan, do the laundry, water the plants, feed the pets, etc. Not only does this solve an increasing time issue for the residents, each caretaker also receives the solution because they live in the same facility - in other words, the caretakers that do the cooking don’t have to come home after work and do laundry and the caretakers that do the laundry don’t have to come home and cook dinner. More time to be a student, do art, or care for your kids. Costs continue to lower through efficiency - you don’t need 100 apartments with 100 toolboxes containing 100 hammers. Shared facilities like gym showers means caretakers don’t have to clean 100 showers all over the building; about 25 showers in one place will probably do. Free Rooms (and board): semi-temporary room and board outreach programs it does not significantly increase each person’s monthly bill to leave about 5% of the facility’s rooms empty and absorb the corresponding room-and-board costs (in other words splitting the total bill 75 ways instead of 80 ways equals almost the same payment per person). This allows the group to offer free housing and food to whoever they decide needs help in their area - women fleeing abusive relationships, homeless veterans, disowned transgender teens, etc. Cost: about $1,000 per month, or roughly 2/3 a minimum wage income. My initial budget exploration shows that the total monthly cost to each paying resident works out to be about a thousand a month. Since about half the monthly payment is going to the mortgage, and property values / local minimum wages tend to be relative to each other, this amount tends to be about 2/3 of a full time income on minimum wage. In other words, out where minimum wage is about seven dollars, the property values are also lower, making the total monthly payment closer to $700, whereas in Oakland where I’m doing the most planning, the mortgage would make the monthly payments closer to $1,200 but minimum wage is 11 or 12 dollars. Remember, total payment includes food and everything. Built in Disposable Income Raise (through cost lowering) even if none of the residents ever get a raise in 10 years, after a decade the mortgage is paid off which means the monthly bill gets cut in half. Plus residents now own outright a share of the facility, which increases in value; the beginning of a retirement investment. But in phase two we go after more money anyway. **************************************************************************************************** PHASE TWO: -help the middle class pay minimum wage workers to create alternatives to corrupt, damaging, or flawed institutions -create monetary success and grow socio-economic\political capital -move into another, better building -help the next group of 50-100 minimum wage workers Develop Caretaker Positions into alt institutions imagine you want to start a business as a bike repair shop. Now imagine you are starting that business with 100 guaranteed customers paying a pre-arranged fee that has been budgeted to cover your business supplies, workshop lease, plus your wages and personal monthly bills. Dog walking, gardening, house cleaning, cooking or food delivery, whatever the group needs and the facility/community is designed for, there are plenty of business to start this way. A group providing a dedicated and funded laundry service to 100 people within a facility designed for it can easily expand to accommodate paying customers from outside the community and keep growing. This is how the facility can start offering house cleaning, laundry, meal plan, gardening, etc. The middle class is already paying for these things - gardeners, housekeepers, dog walkers, laundry service, food delivery... so the market is there. The wages for these jobs are typically more than minimum wage. As more middle class households become customers, more residents of the facility can quit their minimum wage jobs at corporate mega stores and start earning better wages working for themselves and each other. The community incorporates and is able to take part in all the unfair advantages afforded corporations over the common public. Soon the public will BE corporations, and either everybody has to pay a fair tax, or nobody does. This also helps the group include a health plan as part of the monthly bill. Move to Better Facility and offer the old one to a new group When the first group gets a property and pays the mortgage, they pay the bank an additional few hundred thousand dollars for their property. For instance, if you buy a 2 million dollar property from a bank and pay a 30 year mortgage, the total payments on your 2 million dollar property after 30 years will actually be about 3 million dollars. It’s less over a ten year mortgage, but still. SO when the first group owns their facility outright, they can enter a second 10 year mortgage on a different facility, but offer the first one to a second group while acting as the bank themselves - doing this for a cycle of 3 means that after 30 years the first group owns a single property just like a standard mortgage, but has helped two other groups own property and defrayed their own payments instead of shoveling so much money into a bank. The goal is to liberate more and more property from the banks and enter them into a system of citizen-to-citizen ownership where people own the buildings they live in, having paid other citizens for them. In the second facility, the building is nicer, there are more amenities, monthly payments go up, and you add people to the group. The people you add are more-than-minimum-wage professionals. Teachers, firefighters, admin clerks, paralegals. Some of them join the caretakers to provide their services to the group -- daycare, tax-filing, vehicle repair, IT service, plumbing, even community security officers who are people you know and trust who live with you... and of course coffee and cake and everything else. Once again, these are fledgling businesses with guaranteed clientele and budgeting, that can then be offered to customers outside the community. Once again, the other professionals added to the group can quit their outside jobs and work for each other and themselves. These all grow into full institutions along planned paths. The caretaker watering the plants and cleaning the house becomes a gardener and handyman. The gardener/handyman starts a landscaping home-renovation business. That business grows into a property development and construction company. The caretaker doing the laundry starts offering repairs and minor alterations (replace a button, hem some pants). They start a laundry/dry cleaner and taylor business. They grow into a clothing line. The meal plan grows into a restaurant grows into a farm-to-table network. After school programs, daycare and tutoring become a whole school. Each service within the community becomes a business that grows into an institution. PHASE THREE Build A City You have a large construction company. You have a school. You have a publicly owned non-profit bank/credit union. You have firefighters. You have Alt-mart, which I’ll have to explain fully somewhere else but involves a locally sourced mega-mart featuring a permanent farmer’s market and is designed to put Walmart and Target out of business. So. You have all the elements you need for a functioning city. Have your construction company build one. In this city, there is no private property; you lease a private residence directly from the city, which holds the whole city in a trust for the citizens and administrates it via an elected city council, which means each citizen owns an equal share of the city as a whole. The whole “rent” is therefore subject to regulation and available to fund public works instead of going into the pockets of some real estate mogul or slum lord.  Imagine if your city had your entire rent payment to help end homelessness, provide healthcare, maintain infrastructure and innovate powergrid alternatives, instead of trying to do all that for the 2% of the property value they have access to now. I have a whole bunch of city design stuff that addresses things like sustainable water sourcing etc, but, I’m trying to get through this quickly PHASE FOUR this is important. By the time you get to phase 4, the project is showing a successful straight line development from minimum wage/poverty and powerlessness, to autonomous socio-economic alternative achievable by any group. You start as a fry cook in your twenties, and you end as a comfortably successful citizen in a city you created, that takes proper care of you and which has improved the lives of countless people along the way, all by the time you are 65. Now THAT’s a retirement. You KNOW people are gonna copy that all around the country. It’s my socio-economic worm ... it self replicates, and has the potential to subvert and replace existing socio-economic systems. I don’t want to tell people how to live, I’m trying to free them to live how they want. If they want a city that allows homelessness but everybody gets a horse, then fine, that’s their city (which I predict will fail, but whatever) the power will be with the people, and the city I live in will have priorities I agree with.

[betossamuele-blog]

Best Football Gloves 2019: Understanding How You can Make the Right Choice

Considered as a fad before, the best football gloves are now becoming among the most common pieces of protective gears for those who play football regardless of their skill level and age. Certain playing positions, like receivers, even need to wear the best football gloves for receivers. It is primarily because these are among those gears that can provide you with additional protection while you are on the field. By wearing the gloves, you can lessen the risk of harming your hands while combating and performing on the gridiron. Prior to purchasing a pair of football gloves, though, it pays to increase your knowledge about the best football receiver gloves that perfectly fit your requirements. Note that you have numerous options so figuring out the best receiver gloves might be somewhat confusing without the proper guide. The good news is that you do not need to purchase the most expensive pair of gloves just to be sure of their quality. In fact, you already have a higher chance of finding reasonably priced gloves that are reliable enough that they can improve your performance and give you protection. To guide you, here are some of your top choices for the best and the stickiest football gloves in the market today. We also tackled some of the coolest gloves for a lineman but note that the main focus of this article is on gloves for wide receivers so expect to find more options for football receiver gloves here. 1. Cutters Rev Pro Football Glove If you are looking for a pair of football gloves with the best grip then I am sure that the Cutters Rev Pro Receiver Gloves will never let you down. I can attest to the quality of this pair of football gloves from the reputable Cutters brand as it offers the best combination of fit, performance, and durability. I noticed the lightness of the gloves, too. It is lightweight enough that it does not have the tendency of affecting your performance on the field. Aside from being lightweight, I am happy with the flexible back of this pair of football gloves. With such flexibility, I am sure you will enjoy maximum comfort and flex. It is also form-fitting to your fingertips, thereby providing superior control. Another thing that these football gloves take pride in is the use of C-TACK grip technology. The use of such technology ensures that the gloves can provide full coverage for the front of your fingers as well as your palms. The cover also extends to the wrist, thereby maximizing its gripping surface area. You will also feel pleased knowing that it is not that hard to maintain the solid grip and stickiness of the gloves. All it takes is to wipe them using a damp cloth or tumble them in your washing machine so you can restore their solid grip. 2. Seibertron Pro 3.0 Elite Ultra-stick Football Receiver Glove Designed for both the youth and adult football players, this ultra-stick football receiver glove from Seibertron will also surely deliver an excellent performance when worn on the football field. I find it versatile as I noticed right away that it works for youth and adult football receivers. Another thing I like in this football glove is the fact that it is durable. It is known for being a great performer in the field. It fits nicely, too. With the high level of quality integrated into this football glove, you have an assurance that it will hold up regardless of whatever environment you expose it to. Also, it is machine washable. This means that it will never cause issues when it comes to cleaning. You do not also need to worry about it losing its superior performance. What I find so remarkable about this football glove for receivers is that it has an excellent grip, especially in the palm area. It also delivers its promise of being sticky. With that, you are assured of its ability to help you control your game and make it work in your favor. 3. Cutters Football Glove Another football glove from Cutters known for its ability to offer an excellent grip is the Cutters Football Glove designed for both the youth and adult football players. I always noticed that a legitimate and fare Cutters football gloves review includes this product in its recommendations because of its top-notch quality. I think that this is the ideal football glove for any player who wants a really lightweight and flexible protection for their hands. I am so impressed with the extreme grip provided by this glove, which is brought by the use of the C-TACK performance technology. This technology is effective not only in giving you a strong and extreme grip but also in ensuring that the grip is permanent. It also promotes a self-restoring grip. Another remarkable advantage of this popular football glove from Cutters is that its construction can handle all types of weather. The lightweight and flexible material used in this product also further increases your level of comfort once you wear it. Furthermore, it guarantees a comfortable and secure fit with the help of the 2-way stretch material, which is used at the back of the hand. It also provides additional support with the aid of its strategically positioned panels. 4. Battle Ultra-Stick Receiver Gloves You might also want to include the Battle Ultra-stick Receiver Gloves in your list of reliable choices. One thing I am really glad about in this receiver glove is the fact that it utilizes a truly high-quality material, which is tacky and sticky enough in the sense that it provides more than enough grip to catch and handle the ball. Available in 10 colors, I am sure that you will never run out of options when you choose to buy this football glove. It also has several sizes to choose from – starting from youth sizes to adult sizes. With that, I find it a great choice for kids as well as for male and female football players regardless of their age. Another satisfying benefit of this product is its high level of breathability brought on by the use of Ultra Blad-span technology. Aside from ensuring that the gloves will enhance their breathability, this technology also makes it possible for them to maximize their performance and control due to its ability to promote full-hand flexibility. I am also greatly satisfied with the shock-absorbent material used in this football glove. The fact that it is shock-absorbent means that there is minimal vibration once you grip the ball. It also works well for kids and adults of all ages and skill levels. It provides the right combination of comfort, performance, and breathability. 5. Under Armour F5 Football Gloves Designed mainly for men, I can also say that the Under Armour F5 is one of the best wide receiver gloves anyone can find both online and offline. What I am so impressed with in this glove is the fact that it makes use of the HeatGear compression material designed to improve the performance of your hands during your game. It also makes use of a synthetic material. Combined with the exclusive HeatGear, the overall construction of this football glove can supply the right amount of ventilation designed to maintain the dryness and coolness of your hands. I am also pleased that it guarantees a secure and snug fit with the closure systems found at the wrist. Another impressive fact about the gloves is the fact that they use the GrabTack technology. Such enhances the stickiness of the glove’s palm. This makes it possible for the overall material to promote a sticky and better grip. Such stickiness and grip can definitely give you an edge once you start playing in the field. It also provides a high level of protection for your wrists. It is mainly because of the wrist straps integrated into the gloves that you can easily tighten, release, and adjust. Offered at an affordable price, the glove can also satisfy the majority of its users. It is comfy plus provides adequate tackiness. 6. EliteTek RG-14 Football Gloves You should also consider investing in EliteTek RG-14 football gloves if you are looking for those that can fit both youth and adults. Any Elitetek RG-14 football gloves review will definitely agree with how impressive the performance of these gloves is, especially when used during intense games. I am glad of its quality as well as its ability to provide a sticky grip. It is mainly because of the GripTech palm technology that it makes use of. I am also greatly satisfied with the fact that these gloves deliver an excellent performance no matter what surface and weather conditions you expose them to. It is also made to be tight-fitting. With that, expect the gloves to hold tightly and securely on your skin. It is even designed in a way that you will feel like you do not wear a football glove at all. I also noticed the lightness and thinness of this glove without compromising its ability to offer protection. Due to its lightness and thinness, there is a hundred percent assurance that it offers a high level of comfort. I am also glad that these football gloves come with several safety measures designed to provide a high level of protection for your hands. The special grip tech function used in this product also further boosts its gripping power. However, you have to take note that it is not as durable and as long-lasting as the other football gloves in the market today due to its lightweight construction. Still, since it is offered at a reasonable price, you will instantly realize that it is worth buying.

[spitfireapm-blog]

Permanent Plotting Call ahoy! 

DISCLAIMER: Liking this post / optionally giving me a number will tell me that you’re interested and I will get to you! HOWEVER, it will not guarantee an interaction or thread right away! I am a rather slow roleplayer. I have a really hard time focusing most of the time and there are times I have quite a bit of threads going on. If you’re fine with that though, proceed on with this post!

Liking this post means you are giving Hana the permission to throw herself randomly into your askbox at times, preferably being able to skip over those tiring first meeting interactions, allowing me to contact you via IM or your preferred ooc contact, and just generally being an RP partner of mine! Liking this post will also make you qualify for what is to follow below. This got SUPER long so I’m throwing it under a cut. Thank you!

Here are some categories and options of how Hana and your muse can associate with each other. Throw some numbers at me if any catch your eye immediately! Though I might want to discuss them with you if they’re the more touchy categories, I’m not familiar with your muse, or I don’t quite see our muses meshing in that way. If you have any other suggestions do let me know when I contact you!

[1] Everyone needs a full unit! | Friend: This one’s pretty easy to do so long as your muse can handle Hana’s high energy, video game references constantly, and well… her in general. It’s okay if your muse is a little grumpy, she’ll do her best to try to break through to them if she believes they are a good person or capable of good.

[2] Thanks for your support! | Fan: If you can somehow manage to fit Hana into your muse’s verse/world and approach her with that notion of being a fan, she would be ecstatic! If that’s with Hana’s entire famous gamer/streamer/actress/war-hero reputation schtick, or even just one portion of it like her gamer notability, it doesn’t really matter! But of course, Hana probably wouldn’t be aware of your muse in said world/verse.

[3] Try and keep up! | Fellow gaming peer: Pretty self-explanatory. If your muse enjoys or is pretty skilled at gaming Hana will definitely latch onto your muse for gaming related matters. She’s extremely skilled at gaming but she is always looking for some kind of challenge. If not that, she’d love to teach your muse how to game!

[4] All systems operational. | Fellow Mech enthusiast: If your muse has a GIANT MECH or something similar, consider Hana interested. This would probably work out well with a discussion of how their various mechs work, help construct something cool, or help each other out with maintenance and new additions to whatever it is they’re working on. While she did not make her own mecha unit, she does know how to keep up with it, add new additions, and generally the ins and outs of what makes it tick.

[5] Wow~ the view is amazing! | Sightseeing partner: Believe it or not, Hana does love sightseeing and going out to view nature in its full expanse. Activities in specific she loves to do are cycling, rock-climbing, and just general exploration of new places. If your muse is up for an adventure, this is the category for them!

[6] Here comes a new challenger! | Sparring Partner: Hana is strong, but perhaps a little too reliant on her mech at times. She’s acknowledged this and is looking for ways to buff up her skills! This most specifically means with some kind of physical regime like running, boxing, and other things related to that. Gym junkies accepted and other types of fitness enthusiasts are welcome, but do NOT underestimate her. She’s capable of a lot more than she looks- she just wants a little co-op with your muse to get better.

[7] Ooh you’ve got some leet skills! | Mentor: Kind of similar to above. The notable difference is that your muse has to be more skilled in some sort of aspect than she is and be able to teach Hana how to refine her skill at it or teach her something new altogether. I namely see this being a great opportunity for muses who wield some sort of weapon, her Overwatch aligned peers, and any other kind of combatant muses.

[8] Can I take off this mask now…? | Confidant: Not a persona reference intentionally, but here we are.  Hana has a lot of really bad, deep-rooted depression and trauma to the point she gets nightmares sometimes from her war crusade and otherwise. To get to this point your muse needs to have that persistence and want to break through her shell, as she will not open up too willingly or easily. She’s hiding a lot of her struggles with her jaunty, happy persona. Ideally, they need to be at the point of being really good friends. If not, your muse has to have gone through some similar amounts/degree of trauma in order for her to open up. It’s probably going to be a lot of hard work. Having that amount of trust in your muse, however, will be something she treasures very hard. She will fight till her dying breath for you if your muse and she reach this point. It’s that serious!

[9] 아, 열받네 ! (Ah, that pisses me off!) | Rival/Enemy: Wanna get under her skin? Does your muse have a super annoying bitter disposition or is constantly trying to best her in video games, combat, or something else? (Successfully OR unsuccessfully?) Is your muse someone who won’t shift from ruthless evil? This is for you! I’ll mesh out specifics with you if you choose to pick this since the extent will definitely vary.

[10] Winkyface! | Romance and related: For starters… Good luck with pursuing Hana for a serious relationship! Unless I already have the possibility in my head, no, probably even then, this will be difficult! Hana is kind of a flirt. More specifically, she is extremely playful. But being in a relationship? That honestly kind of scares her! She has commitment problems (not that she would cheat or anything, again she’s just… scared) and getting her to stay tied down and not pass it off as a fling so she “won’t get hurt" will require some work, even if she’s crushing. Ideally, if you want your muse to be her ship partner your muse would have to hit [1], [8], and share quite a few of her interests or at the very least support them with enthusiasm. Similar/Complementing personalities are always a plus, too.

Nonsense, no strings attached flings, however, are freely up on the table if Hana finds interest in your muse and vice versa.

So, with all of this being thrown out on the table, let’s get plotting guys! I’m excited to talk with you all about all the possibilities!

[worldofalore]

After the End

Where to start but the end? I know for you humans here on Earth, death seems to leave you with many questions. There’s not really a clear answer on what happens after, and it seems to me that it’s pretty confusing. On Alore, we know the afterlife is real and we know what happens we die - mostly because the deity in charge of it, Calizra, is pretty open it. Honestly, I think she’s just proud of her system and wants to show it off whenever she can.

When a soul on Alore dies (whether they be human, Moi, Faik, Swin, or whatever), their soul is greeted by a Threi - they’re Calizra’s chosen sentients - and escorted to their judgement. At your judgement, your Soul Book is brought out and reviewed. Everything you’ve ever done during your life is recorded in these books (we’re not quite sure how they work, and Calizra keeps it as a closely guarded secret - which I find a little rude honestly!). Anyways, all of your actions are recorded in the Soul Book, but that doesn’t mean they track your every little thought or anything like that. No worries, your secret fantasy is still safe.

Who does your judging? Well the Threi of course. Or rather, the soul of a Threi who died and decided that they wanted to spend their afterlife judging souls who have passed on. What kind of soul chooses that by the way?! Whatever. These judges review your book and decide on one of four fates: Peace, Redemption, Punishment, or Erasure.

With Peace, your soul enters an afterlife where everything you’ve ever wanted or wished for comes true. It’s an endless world, and you can spend eternity traveling or settle down wherever you choose. There’s no limits, no fear, no negativity. Peace is the dream destination, but the problem is there’s no set rules or guidelines to make it here. It’s up to your judge to just decide whether you’re good enough? Seems like a flawed system to me.

Redemption is what you call reincarnation. If you’ve led a mediocre life then you get another chance at life, another chance to earn your way into Peace. Here’s where it gets fun, each soul is guaranteed 2 redemptions - that’s 3 lives total. After that it’s up to your judge. Typically if you’ve been doing better every life they’ll just let you keep trying - I’ve heard of one soul whose on their twelfth redemption and honestly at what point do we just call it? So, if you get redemption, your judge makes a few notes and sends your file off to Ehona (deity of life) and she sets you up with a new chance somewhere else (without your memories of course). Better luck next time!

Punishment is reserved for those who completely messed up. If you end up in Punishment, you’ve committed some heinous crimes. It’s the equivalent of your hell. Unlike hell, you typically only serve a certain length of time here, and it depends on how badly you messed up. When your sentence is up, your judge will review your case and how your punishment has changed you. Then, you’ll likely end up in Erasure, although some lucky few have ended up back in redemption for another chance. Each punishment is individually tailored, there’s no assigned punishment per crime. Be careful not to end up here, those judges are pretty evil when they need to be and their punishments are creative in a terrifying way.

The final choice is Erasure. It’s just as it sounds, you cease to exist. Your soul is poof, gone, no trace that it ever existed but in the memories of those who knew you. Erasure is reserved for those who have completed their punishment, or only do worse each redemption. It’s not the most common option, but it still happens pretty regularly. When a soul is slated for Erasure, their Soul Book is sent to Calizra who reviews it to ensure she agrees, and then she personally erases you. She likes to argue she’s the goddess of the dead and the vulnerable, but it seems to me that maybe she’s also just the goddess of death because this is the most permanent kind of death. She likes to do the erasing herself. She claims it’s so that no one else has to bear the burden, but Havad says it’s because she likes it. I’m not sure which I believe honestly. . .

I could go into further detail if you wanted, but I think this is a good overview for you. If I know anything about you Earthlings (is that seriously what I should call you?), it’s that you like a little bit of mystery in your afterlife. Of course, if there’s anything more you want to know just ask.