#I get its normal to ask for samples of previous projects

[senipsenipsenip]

Do I give up too easily or is it weird that for this internship application they just sent me a bunch of materials and are asking me to make a finished product for them before they decide whether or not to hire me

[knvoiceovers]

KNVO FAQs

So I've received a lot of questions of the past several days and I decided to consolidate them all into one neat and tidy FAQ section!

If your query is not listed, please come on over to the "Ask Me Anything" tab and submit your questions there! (here it is)

With that sorted, let's begin!

1.   What genres or styles of voiceover work do you specialize in?

I currently provide narrations for YouTube videos, but my preference had always been characters of both comedy, drama, and the like. I had previously lent my voice to a video game project that you can play over here!

2.   What is your turnaround time for projects?

This heavily depends on the length of the script and the complexity of the lines provided. My normal narration service typically demands turnarounds that are within the day of handing over the script. I'd say, for about 2600 words, you can be sure that I'll get it done within at least 3-6 hours, unless certain circumstances arise, then I'll communicate with the client and give an updated ETA.

3.   What are your rates and how do you structure pricing for different projects?

My rates are generally priced according to GVAA guidelines. You've got your services fee, broadcasting licensing fee, commercial rights fee, all the good stuff in order for you to legally use my work in your project. However, like shoes and hats, my prices are not a "one fits all" number. It will be specialized according to your needs, and they tend to teeter towards the more inexpensive side.

4.   Can I listen to samples of your previous work or your demo reel?

Sure can! They are plastered all over my Demos and Stories sections!

5.   Do you offer revisions if the client wants changes to the voiceover?

As with any standard VO service, there is an entitled "first one's on the house" policy. If you decide that there needs to be a bit of a tweak, or the delivery of the lines is not meeting your expectations, we can work out what needs to be improved and I will gladly incorporate the revision, free of charge! ...for the first time.

Afterward, a revision fee will be included.

6.   How do we collaborate if I need directed sessions or specific voice direction?

I am available on all sorts of messaging apps! Whatever works best for you!

7.   What file formats do you deliver voiceover files in?

I typically deliver in WAV format, but if the client wishes certain parameters to be changed, I'm happy to abide!

8.   Can you provide a custom audition for my project?

Only if it guarantees me a spot! ;)

(The answer is yes, although lines must be provided with the proper context).

9.   Do you offer translation or localization services for scripts?

This is not quite a skill that I normally advertise, because it's a painstaking process to proofread translation and making sure that it makes sense to the audience. But I am quite good at it, so it's something that I do, indeed, provide, but for a cost all on its own.

10. What is your policy on confidentiality and usage rights for the voice recordings?

It's all up to the client. I know how to lock it up and throw away the key, so to speak!

11.   Are you available for live sessions or directed recordings?

Scheduling comes first, but absolutely!

12. How do we handle any technical issues or quality concerns during the recording process?

This is a simple matter, everything should be addressed at the initial point of communication and we'll go through the motions together.

13.   Do you have access to a professional studio for high-quality recordings?

For the past 2 and a half years, I've been working exclusively from home. I currently use an Audio Technica AT2020+ with intentions of upgrading to a new(er) microphone in the near future. My space is treated so it is 9/10s of the way to a professional studio. Remember to check my samples in order to gauge the quality that I provide and to see if it suits your needs!

14. What is the best way to communicate with you regarding project details and updates?

For matters that require immediate attention, please contact me in the email that will be provided after the initial point of communication.

15. What is your process for handling script revisions or changes after the initial recording?

First, the client explains the manner of the revision (inflection, speed, tone, mood, astrological sign (that's a joke)), and then I'll go through a sentence or two in order for them to provide real-time feedback. Once everything is squared away, I'll return to my little hole and redo the takes (please refer to FAQ #5 for further details).

16. Can you provide references or testimonials from previous clients?

They are all on my Upwork profile, but I can copy paste it here:

...I still get goosebumps reading this!

17. Do you offer any additional services, such as scriptwriting or post-production?

I do offer a once-over proofreading service so that the ideas in the script flow more smoothly and coherently. No one likes it when the person they are listening to are jumping from one conclusion to another without any sort of transition! (And grammatical errors).

18. How do you ensure the voiceover matches the intended tone or emotion of the project?

That's where the "Acting" in Voice Actor comes in! I find it helps me to be aware of the context, and, even moreso, the state of the character and their past, what grudges they hold, what aspirations they have.

Also, asking the director would help out a great deal!

19. What sets your voice acting services apart from others in the industry?

While there are numerous options out there in the sea of VO, I can only assure the client that my voice is the speaker of my soul. I am hardworking, dedicated, and always go (reasonably) above and beyond for my clients.

20. What do you need from the client to ensure a successful voiceover project?

I am but a simple man. I only need:

-Open/Clear Communication -Compassion -Respect

I'll briefly underscore what each of these mean:

Open/Clear Communication: If it wasn't made self-evident, this means that both I and the client must be honest in our expectations for each other. For example, the client requests a reading of a 1000-word script. I expect the script to be no more than 1100 words (as we can't be so fickle about word count). However, if it's any more than 1100, say, 1500? I have to draw the line and call the client out, respectfully.

Compassion: Everyone's got a lot on their plate sometimes, and that means we blast through deadlines occasionally. Inversely, you may be getting stressed out or are dealing with stuff in your life and replying to messages is all too much for you. I get it, but there's only so much anyone can endure. That being said, I will extend to the client a decent grace period to reply to my messages, as I know they would do the same for me if I needed more time on my end to deal with certain life events.

Respect: Above all else, I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't respect the people who gave me the opportunity to utilize my talents. In turn, if they hadn't respected me by allowing me to audition without any snarky remarks or making snide comments, they wouldn't have had the pleasure of working with me. (Just kidding, but still. Be nice!)

Hey, you've made it to the last item of the FAQs! Good job! Here's a link to a game that I've had the pleasure of being a part of! Mysterious Mystery: The Demo Chapter by Walker Sheets (itch.io)

[wrensnz]

Hiring Skilled Tilers and Plasterers: The Ultimate Guide

Do you want to update your room with shiny new tiles or freshly plastered walls? The key to producing outstanding outcomes is investing in the services of experienced tilers and plasterers. Whether you're replacing your kitchen backsplash, remodeling your master bath, or painting your entire home, it's important to hire qualified contractors. In this comprehensive tutorial, we'll discuss why it's a good idea to hire professional Tilers in Dunedin Otago and plasterers and how to best collaborate with them. Get ready to learn the tricks of the trade for designing a room that flows beautifully and leaves guests in amazement.

The Advantages of Working with Experts

Tiling and plastering are two examples of home renovation jobs where having specialists on the job can make a world of difference. In addition to the fact that they will execute a good job, experts should be hired because of the many advantages they bring.

Skilled tilers and plasterers are worth their weight in gold because of their meticulous attention to detail. They are so meticulous that you can trust them to line up your tiles exactly or make your walls precisely even. Incorporating this level of craftsmanship into your project can greatly improve its overall appearance and quality.

Time savings is an additional perk. Working quickly and accurately, professionals get the job done right. You may save a lot of time and effort by not having to research how to correctly apply plaster or place tiles on your own. Instead, you can delegate the task to the professionals and go on with other parts of your life.

In addition, expert tilers and plasterers have access to supplies that may not be easily obtained by the average homeowner. They are well-versed in a variety of items and can advise you on the best course of action for achieving your desired outcome.

Additionally, by enlisting the help of experts, your tiling or plastering project will stand the test of time. Professional craftspeople recognize the significance of these surfaces withstanding normal use. They are well-versed in the methods that ensure optimal longevity without sacrificing visual appeal.

Last but not least, though this list may go on, hiring experts ensures that everything is done well from the beginning to the end. Professionals take pleasure in their job, so you won't have to worry about uneven tiles or unfinished walls.

When planning a tiling or plastering in Dunedin Otago area (or anywhere else), it's best to leave it to the experts. They'll be able to do a better job, save you time, have better access to materials, guarantee the project's longevity, and give you peace of mind. To that end, why trouble yourself with a DIY

What to Ask Before Hiring a Tiler or Plasterer

Asking the proper questions before selecting tilers and plasterers is essential. This will give you an idea of their level of knowledge and whether or not they are a good fit for your project. Here are some questions you should ask any potential tilers or plasterers:

Prior Knowledge: 1. How long have you been a professional tiler/painter? Can you provide me some samples of similar work you've done?

2) Requirements: How about credentials and safety nets? Are you a part of any associations or groups in your field?

Thirdly, do you have client references I may contact? You can learn a lot about the standard of service given by talking to previous clients.

Timeline 4 How long do you think it will take you to finish the project? Will there be any hiccups or holdups?

5 - Costs: What factors go into setting your prices? Is it an hourly rate, a flat charge, or a price per square foot?

Materials and Methods #6: What do you suggest I use for this project? Do we have any other choices at this time? What methods will be utilized during the setup/repair procedure?

What kind of warranty or guarantee do you provide for your work and the products you use?

Don't forget to take your time and carefully consider each candidate's answers to these questions before making a hiring decision.

How to Best Coordinate with Tile Setters and Plasterers

When you first begin the process of hiring professional tilers and plasterers, it's crucial to get along well with them. As a result, you can count on clear lines of communication, rapid development, and gratifying outcomes. Here are some suggestions for improving your collaboration with the experts you hire:

First, before beginning the project, make sure the tilers or plasterers understand your vision and desired outcome. Specify any material or finish needs or preferences you may have.

Second, make sure to get a formal estimate that covers every facet of the task, from the cost of supplies and labor to an estimated completion date. In this way, there won't be any billing shock.

Third, establish reasonable deadlines: While it's important to work toward a common end date, keep in mind that good work can't be rushed. Don't rush the tiling or plastering jobs; give the workers ample time to make a good job.

Fourth, keep the lines of communication open by checking in with the professionals you've hired on a regular basis to make sure the project is moving along as planned and to address any problems as soon as they arise.

Fifth, pay attention to what they say, because competent tilers and plasterers know a lot. You may rest assured that they will make the right technical and design choices for the project.

If other contractors, such as painters, are engaged in the project, it is important to coordinate their timetables so that there is as little downtime as possible between each stage of construction.

7. Choose high-quality materials rather than trying to save money by using cheaper components. This will ensure that your results last as long as possible.

[toomanyfandoms02]

5 Times -- JJ Maybank

Summary - 5 times Reader knew they were in love with JJ, and the one time they didn't have to hide it anymore.

Word Count - 2.8k (I KNOW ITS LONG I'M SORRY. I PROMISE THIS ONES WORTH IT.)

Warnings - Gets a little dirty towards the end

SEND ME JJ REQUESTS!! If you look up 'prompts' or 'dialogue' in my search bar it can give you some ideas!! I need some :)

It was always simple in the movies. The girl would come walking down the staircase in a fancy dress and a sparkling necklace and *suddenly* the boy realized he was in love. Or the boy would catch the girl *just* before she fell, and as she stared into his eyes, he was her hero. Her love.

But we all know that's not how it works. I realized my love in far different and unique ways.

1. Saturday, November 24th, 2020 -- 1:53 a.m.

I sat on my bed, scrolling on my phone in the early hours of a Saturday. I had taken a nap the previous day, making it impossible to fall asleep at a normal time. My phone buzzed suddenly and a notification framed the top of my screen.

*Snapchat From Gay Jay Maybank*

And then another, and then another.

I scrunched my eyebrows and clicked on the latest one. I opened the picture to see a deep frown set on JJ's face.

*I'm a killer Y/n.*

The caption read. I clicked again to move to the next one. This time the picture of him had his palm to his forehead.

*I didn't mean to hurt him, he was so fucking fast :(*

All I could think was that JJ had hit a literal human on the road at nearly 2 a.m. and I was going to have to get him out of this sticky situation. It wasn't too far out of the realm of possibility, he did *just* get his license. I clicked again to reveal him fake wailing.

*I'M A HORRIBLE SQUIRREL FATHER!*

I giggled, taking a picture of me looking distraught.

*How will I ever forgive you? After killing our SON!*

He replied quickly.

*I'm so sorry my love, I will be so careful next time.*

My heart skipped a beat. **My love**. It felt so right coming from him. So warm and welcoming. It felt like the first Sun of summer or the last snowflake of winter. Just a little sting. Though it was far easier keeping my composure over snap chat, I would manage.

2. Sunday, December 18th, 2020 -- 5:03 p.m.

JJ and I wandered around the little pop-up shops figure 8 had going on for Christmas. People were selling little goodies and crafts to make a little extra money, it was one of the few things the cut and figure 8 came together for.

"Free samples!" A younger lady shouted from her stand, this pulled me in of course. "Hi, there! Free sample ma'am?" She asked me with a smile.

"Sure!" JJ turned around at the sight of a dog, kneeling to pet it. She handed me a small slice of fudge. I put it to my nose. "Woah, this smells good, what kind is it?" I asked, putting it to my mouth.

"Buckeye." She smiled, I nodded, opening my mouth to eat it as JJ stood *very* quickly, nearly putting his whole hand in my mouth. He took the fudge from my hand and gave me a scolding look.

"Y/n, that has peanut butter in it, you could have died!" He shook his head, popping it in his mouth. "Please be careful, I can't have you dying on me." He joked, looking to the lady again. "Do you have any samples without peanut butter?" I could barely pay attention to their conversation as I thought about everything that just happened.

He saved my life, and not only that he was listening to everything. He paid attention, so endearing.

*Damnit, he makes me so happy.*

3. Thursday, February 6th, 2021 -- 1:36 p.m.

My foot tapped under my desk, listening to our teacher drone on about World War 1. A paper ball hit my desk and slid into my lap. My head snapped up to see who did it. I caught the eye of JJ, holding his pointer finger to his lips. I raised an eyebrow, uncrumpling the paper.

*I looked at Mrs. Bailey's class plan for today and we need to find partners for a project. Wanna be together?*

There was a little "yes" and "no" option at the bottom. I put a circle over the yes and threw it back to him. He opened it and smiled at me, sinking into his seat and looking back at our teacher.

"Alright, so you're going to need partners for this project..."

4. Friday, May 15th, 2021 -- 11:55 p.m.

I sat on John B's couch, my feet up on the coffee table as the boys drank. Sarah, Kie, and I were playing Go Fish.

"Sarah, do you have a ten?" She huffed, pulling a ten from her hand and giving it to me. I smiled, plucking it from her fingers and putting it in my hand. "Kie, do *you* have a ten?" She squinted at me.

"Nope, go fish!" She announced triumphantly. I rolled my eyes playfully and picked up a card. "Sarah, do you have a seven?" Just as Kie asked, I felt the couch dip next to me.

"Hey, pretty lady." An arm was slung around me and pulled me closer.

"Hello JJ." I giggled, looking over at him. I could smell the Apple Cider Alcohol on his breath.

"Can I tell you something?" He asked seriously, though I was sure it would be something silly. He was never a serious guy unless it came to someone messing with his friends.

"Y/n, do you have a six?" Sarah asked, kicking my foot on the table lightly to get my attention. I looked at my cards and silently handed her a six with a smile.

"Yes, you can always tell me anything JJ." I gave him seriousness back. His smile grew with every word.

"I learned about jellyfish in zoology today." He said with a little slur. I tried to hold back a laugh, remembering this was *serious business*. So I just nodded, gesturing for him to go on.

"Did you know that at least one species of jellyfish, Turritopsis nutricula, maybe literally immortal?! When threatened, they are capable of undergoing "cellular transdifferentiation," a process whereby their cells essentially become new again. In other words, this jellyfish has a built-in fountain of youth. It's theoretically immortal Y/n!" With every word, the room got more silent. We all knew that JJ was smart, smart enough to do almost anything. The problem was that he just wanted to goof around and have fun, which we supported. But then there were moments like these where he would say something pretty intelligent.

The room laughed, a look of confusion appearing on the boy's face. He looked at all of his with a scrunched face.

"What? It's interesting right?" He asked me, getting closer to my face.

"Yes, if was very interesting I promise, I'm just surprised you're so coherent after drinking so much, that's all." I stated, putting a smile back on his face.

"I knew you'd like that." He sighed, putting his head in my lap and wrapping his arms around my torso.

You tell a boy one time that you think jellyfish are cool and they go on a whole drunken rant about them, huh?

5. Sunday, June 6th, 2021 -- 5:50 p.m.

I invited the Pogues to my house for dinner, my mom wanted to meet them all together. They had only met Sarah, Kie, and Pope (briefly), so they wanted to actually get to know them.

My mom stepped into our little circle we had made on the living room floor.

"Alright, spaghetti is almost ready, before we sit, can I get all of your names?" JJ stood first, taking my mom's hand lightly.

"Hi Mrs. Y/L/N, my name's JJ. I'm your girl's favorite." He looked down and winked at me. My mom gave a raised eyebrow and I just shook my head at her. John B then stood up.

"I'm John B, nice to meet you." He gave a kind smile. Kie and Sarah stood simultaneously.

"So nice to meet you." Sarah said mockingly, making Mom giggle. Then was Pope.

"Hello, I'm Pope, the food smells amazing." She thanked him and we moved to the dining room.

The dinner went by pretty fast, seeing as it was 6:35 now and we were finishing up. I grabbed everyone's plates and made my way to the kitchen, JJ stopped me, taking them from my hands.

"I got you." He took them to the sink where my mom was. She smiled and thanked him, I just listened. "Mind if I help?" He asked, grabbing a towel.

"Oh, you don't have to do that sweetie." She lightly swatted at him.

"But you cooked for us, let me at least dry the dishes." He tilted his head hopefully. She eventually agreed. I listened to them laugh in the kitchen for 10 minutes before he came out, wiping his hands on his jeans.

"Spending time with my mom hmm?" I teased.

"Gotta make a good impression ya know?" He asked, "Unfortunately I've gotta go, Pops needs to be taken to the pharmacy." He gave me a two-finger salute and I held my arms out for him. He pulled me in tight. "You're moms awesome." He laughed, I nodded.

"Don't go liking her more than me." I giggled, letting him go.

"I could never." And with that he was gone, not long after the rest left too. My mom suddenly came from the kitchen, untying her apron.

"You better have a crush on that JJ boy." She gave me the mom look and I just shook my head again. "Yeah, that's what I thought." She laughed, patting my back. "I like him."

SIX - Saturday, July 24th, 10:30 p.m.

I was already pretty tipsy, much like the rest of the group, as we played the dirty deck of truth or drink. Pope picked a card up, reading it aloud, towards Sarah.

"Where is one place you’d like to have sex at but never had the opportunity?" He asked her, a blush creeping on her cheeks.

"Uh, a boat probably. Sounds good to me as long as we take Dramamine beforehand." This made us all laugh. Sarah turned to me, pulling a card.

"What is your biggest turn-on?" She asked. If I were more sober, I may have taken a drink. But this question was not worth getting wasted for.

"Uhm," I laughed, trying to think about it. "I would say there's a two-way tie. Between neck kisses and massages. There's just something about neck kisses." Kie agreed with me as I picked up a new card, one for JJ. I stared at the card, not sure if I even wanted to know the answer to it.

"What is the last “dirty” dream you had?" He wiped his hand down his face with a smile, reaching for his cup.

"Come on JJ, don't be a pussy." John B nudged him. JJ gave him a shitty look, rolling his eyes.

"Fine. It was a few weeks ago." He shrugged.

"It actually said *what* not *when* JJ." I looked at him with a challenging smirk. He glared at me a little.

"Okay. Do you guys really want the details on this?" He looked at us all expectantly, all of us gave him a nod. "Alrighty. I was in this girl's house, and she was taking me to her room, pretty normal. She sat me on her bed and sat on my lap. She kissed me and ran her hands all over my body. After we made out for a while we, ya know, and we took a shower together afterward. It was cute actually." He stared at the ground the whole time he told the story, not his usual cocky confidence coming through.

"What position?" Kie asked out of nowhere, making me laugh uncontrollably.

"Uhh," JJ closed his eyes, his head coming up from the ground. I could see his cheeks were a dusty pink, I couldn't tell if it was because of the question or the alcohol. "She was, riding me." He smiled, eyes still closed.

"Damn JJ! Who was this about?" Pope asked, raising an eyebrow at him. JJ threw his hands in the air.

"I thought we were only supposed to be asked one question!" Pope raised his hands in defense, making JJ pick a card and ask Kie a question.

Soon enough we were all about a round tipsier and it was back to Sarah asking me a question. She pulled a card for me.

"Do you prefer rough or romantic sex?"

"Definitely romantic. No questions asked." I then pulled a card for JJ and smiled.

"So the card says I get to ask a question of my choice, but it's gotta be dirty." JJ shook his head at me, knowing what my question would be. "Who was the dream about?" He groaned, grabbing his cup.

"No way I'm answering this one. All you get to know is that this wasn't the first and it probably won't be the last time I have a dirty dream about the person."

"Yeah, that's not enough." I crossed my arms.

"I know." He then threw back his drink, chugging it.

By the end of the game, I was *nearly* wasted. You know what they say about liquid courage right? Well, I was *going* to find out who that dream was about. Everyone was spread across the Chateau, I knew JJ would be in his spare bedroom, most likely smoking a joint. Perfect, he would be loosened up. I knocked lightly on the door.

"Come in." I opened the door and just as I suspected he was smoking a joint.

"Can I join you?" I pointed and he nodded. My body plopped onto the bed next to him, I got right to the point. "Who was the dream about JJ." I asked, grabbing the joint from his fingers. I took a hit, blowing the smoke in front of me.

"Why do you care?" He laughed, taking a hit and blowing the smoke in my face playfully. I swatted at it.

"I just wanna know." I slurred, slapping his chest pitifully. He shook his head at me.

"You're wasted aren't you?"

"No! Just nearly wasted." I babbled, trying to focus on him.

"Alright, I'll tell you. *Only* because I'm 98% sure that you won't remember in the morning." I nodded aggressively, eager to know the answer. "It was about you." His head was down, taking a very long drag, he let out billows of smoke, not making eye contact with me.

"What?" I laughed, shaking his shoulder. "Nuh-uh!" He turned his head slightly at me, just nodding. He looked *so* nervous. I didn't have to be sober to see that. I scrunched my eyebrows at him.

"I'm not high enough for this." He laid back on his bed, next to me, who was sitting up. I turned my body around to look at him.

"And you had more than one?" I asked calmly, I suddenly felt a bit more sober, maybe it was the shock. He just nodded again, refusing to look at me. "But why?" This genuinely confused me. He only raised his head, looking at me with a dumb look. I climbed on top of him, making him look a little surprised. I sat on his stomach, leaning over his face and putting my arms on either side of his head.

"What does it mean?" I asked seriously. He just looked up at me, his smile growing by the second.

"It means I've got the hots for you, obviously." He said, though it sounded like a joke. I squinted at him in suspicion. "What about you, do you have dirty dreams about me?" He smirked, taking another puff. I only nodded at him slowly.

"Do you really have the hots for me?" I asked cautiously.

"Yep, have for a long time. And now you know, which is great. Certainly wasn't planning on telling you any time soon but, fuck it, right?" I lowered myself to my elbows, making our faces inches apart.

"You're so cute when you're nervous." I giggled, bumping my nose with his.

"Who said I was nervous?" He asked.

"Your face does the telling." I chuckled, moving my hand to touch his cheek. "If you're serious, the feelings are mutual." I confessed quietly. He muttered a quiet yes, so I took that as a go and leaned in, kissing him tenderly. He breathed out a sigh as I kissed him, putting his hand behind my head to keep me in place. I soon pulled away, just staring into those baby blue eyes.

"You aren't just doing this cause you're drunk right?" He asked.

"Nope, I've felt like this for a long time. Though it is a little amplified when I'm drunk." I laughed, pecking his lips again.

"You're so perfect." He chuckled, flipping us so he was above me. "Now let's test some things." He then began kissing down my neck.

*Oh yeah, he was gonna ruin me.*

[ephyranpit]

Šɯk, Sumerian, and marking phrases instead of words

So, I was reading through the new(ish, I'm late, sue me) grammar for Šɯk from Mark Rosenfelder's Almea project and came across what at the time seemed like a really bizarre detail. To quote from the very first line of the nouns section,

Nouns do not inflect, but NPs [noun phrases] do.

Needless to say, this seemed like a less than naturalistic choice - very out of step with the usual tone that the languages in Almea have (besides, possibly, the lack of pronouns in Munkhâshi, but I wouldn't be too surprised if a language did this in real life as well).

So, I searched the bulletin board for a post about the grammar, and in the very top of one, someone asked about the system... and then compared it to Sumerian.

Yeah, it's a natural feature, and with a real-life example. And I've got some thoughts.

How Šɯk and Sumerian handle noun inflection

These are very similar and both really easy to understand, so I'll group them together here. When a clitic is applied to a noun, it is added to a "stack" at the end of the noun phrase in a certain order and duplicated as needed, as in these samples:

Šɯk:

meʇ ɯsak ʘily-at-at-nye son healer queen-gen-gen-pl the sons of the queen’s healer

Sumerian (From the Wikipedia article on Sumerian, so take with grain of salt):

dig̃ir gal-gal-g̃u-ne-ra god great~ints-3poss-plr-dat for all my great gods

And in cases where it would lead to three or more doubled segments, the third is left ambiguous. Simple enough. But what does this mean for someone like me who wants to put their own spin on it in their own conlang?

Implications

In my opinion, the big takeaway here is that phrases can carry segments, even including ones we generally think of as "belonging" to a specific word in a phrase. On the surface level, of course, this means verb phrases could of course do the same as the NPs above. For example, you could have a system where TAM gets marked on the earliest element of a verb phrase - normally probably a verb or auxiliary, but... adverbs? Nonfinite verbs?

But also, there's other phrase structures that this seems to apply to easily. What about relative clauses? Maybe a full-phrase stack like this could form its own strategy for relativization: assuming an ancestor language uses the gap strategy, non-reduction strategy, or the internally-headed relative clauses strategy, that these behave like clitics more than suffixes, and that they get placed in a consistent place within the phrase, then could these stacked roles behave like a combination of a relative pronoun as well as keeping track of the roles of the rest of the nouns in the clause?

Additionally, speaking of reanalysis, I could see a system like this degrading over time into something that encodes specific relationships. Let's say we have some accusative, instrumental, and genitive cases, and their clitics get shunted to the initial position of a phrase. Over time, these may degrade into single words that encode the meaning of both nouns involved - a particle for first-instrumental, second-genitive, a particle for first-accusative, second-zero, and such. And let's also say that our instrumental particle is used with the accusative to represent giving someone something (i.e., a "You received the book via me" approach). Eventually, if most of the clitic system falls out of use, than this previous stacked-cases word becomes a valency-increasing operation! It might even come across as a marooned part of the verb phrase. (Or it could be something else, but that was the first place my brain went).

Regardless, I think there's a lot of interesting things that could be done with the idea of inflecting phrases instead of smaller blocks. Obviously, it isn't something common, but it could add a lot of flavor to a conlang concept, which is definitely something I'll need to keep in mind for my next project.

[soysaucednd]

So, you want to start a D&D Podcast

Awesome! Share your art! This is going to be my little guide of recommendations as someone who used to work in radio and has been involved with a couple of radio plays and online play readings.

Step one: You are good enough.

The first step is to not get discouraged. You may not be the next Critical Role or The Adventure Zone, but you will have a podcast project. The first priority should be a philosophy of sharing rather than ambition of success. Even if you don’t amass a following, you will be sharing a piece of yourself, and that is always something to be admired.

Step two: Set clear expectations with your players.

Making a podcast of a d&d campaign is harder than running a home game. There are a lot of things that you have to take into account during a recording session that aren’t that important in your everyday game.

This is a performance. Players need to be focused on you and the game.

Eating makes sounds that can be picked up by the microphones.

Your levels may be overwhelmed by the dice, consider using dice pads.

You and your players have to be understood, and it has to be clear when they are in character and out of character.

No matter how much you think you won’t, you will have to edit some sections.

If players are talking over each other or having outside of game conversations, it will be picked up by the microphone and it will disturb the flow of the game.

Step three: The equipment and software.

As I said in the previous section, you and your players have to be heard and understood. To that end, you will need to have the right equipment to make that happen. Here is what you will need:

A microphone. Do some research on what microphone to get. It will have to be better than one that is connected on a set of headphones, but you don’t necessarily have to break the bank for a good one.

Audacity open source audio editing software.

This is the program I used to edit all of my pre-recorded radio segments and I still use it when I have to edit any kind of audio. It has a bit of a learning curve, but once you get used to it it has almost unlimited potential.

(it is also super useful for untraceably pirating music)

A room with minimal background noise.

Ideally, you will want a soundproofed room with no windows, but that is not possible for most people. Record some sample audio in different rooms in your house and see what works best. You’ll be able to tell the difference.

A padded dice box or a dice mat.

You do not want to be rolling your dice straight on a table next to a microphone, it will be loud and will be jarring to people listening to the recording.

Step four: Get used to your voice on recording.

We all hate our voices on recording. I had a recurring segment on a local radio station for four years and I deeply hated the way I sounded. It is just something you need to get used to. If you are going to use a character voice, rehearse it. Troubleshoot it in the recording software. See if you can get it to sound the way you want it to. If you are dming, you have your work cut out for you. I would recommend pre-writing introductions and very important pieces of description because once you are on recording, you will forget everything you wanted to say WAY more often.

Step five: Editing

You’ve gotten your first session out of the way! Yay! You might be tempted to just upload it and be done, but that is not going to be the best decision. Here are a few things to do to make the quality just a little bit better.

Get a background noise profile.

Open the audio file in audacity and open the effects tab.

It will ask you to get a noise profile, select a section of the audio where no one is speaking. (Ideally a period of around 10 seconds where everyone is quiet.)

The program will isolate the sounds present in that 10 seconds and do its best to remove those sounds from the whole sound profile.

Normalize.

If a few of your players are slightly quieter than your louder players, there is a tool in the effects window called “Normalize.”

This will take all of the audio in the file and standardize it at a volume you choose (measured in decibels). It will boost quieter voices and bring down the volume of louder voices while keeping things like shouting distinct. Be careful, but it is fairly easy to understand.

Compress.

This effect will reduce clipping (I will explain later). It brings any very loud sounds into a safer range for the ear and brings very quiet sounds up to be audible.

Beware of clipping.

If the spikes on the audio file’s waveform go above a certain point, we call this clipping. It will distort the audio in the final product and be uncomfortable to listen to. You can sometimes fix it by using the amplify tool or the normalization and compression tools, but it is better to set a lower input level on your microphone to avoid it and amplify your volume in the editing process. It is easier to add more volume than to take away too much.

Background music.

If you are using background music, make sure it is licensed for you to use. Royalty free or self-produced music is usually best. If you drag new audio files into audacity, you can create new layers and adjust positioning by adding in silence or by manipulating the start time and end time of your background music. There is also a fade in/fade out function that you can access by selecting a piece of audio in one layer and then going into the effects tab.

Step six: Recaps and Rules

For a produced show, you should start every session with a recap both for anyone tuning in to your podcast and to remind the players of their given circumstances. Take notes during the session if you can, or listen back to the previous episode to study before your next one. This is a good way to get used to your voice, remind yourself of the voices you have given NPCs, and remember where in your story you are.

When you are running a game on stream, you will not have time to stop the game and look up a rule, so get used to problem solving as a dm. Make reminder cards, spell cards, have statblocks ready, and if you do not have a rule in front of you, make a ruling. If you are uploading a prerecorded game, you have a bit more leeway, but it depends on how much time you want to spend editing. My advice would be to get used to making rulings on the fly and confirming them later.

Step seven: General Performance tips

Players:

Stay engaged.

Not paying attention and missing the fact that it is your turn, or not understanding how your sheet works is similar to an actor forgetting their lines and stopping on stage.

Don’t fudge your dice rolls.

I know. It is tempting. No one can see them and if you got a nat 20 here it would be SO POETIC. But seriously, don’t.

Listen to your DM and try to limit off topic conversations.

Make your voice for your character distinct from your own.

DMs:

Be prepared.

Have your statblocks ready, bring any visual aids you need, have your notes opened, have a compendium of spells available, have an initiative tracker, have enough dice, know what the shape of the session will be.

Don’t bring your sourcebooks.

This seems weird, but it is a recommendation I can’t stress enough. If you have it with you, I guarantee you will flip through it to check rules and such. Don’t.

Practice your timing on certain levels of narration.

Try to figure out some fun ways to add tension through how you narrate.

Watch a LOT of liveplay d&d and study what you like about the dms.

I would recommend Dimension 20, Naddpod, Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, or any other piece of media you can find.

Now go out there and get started! Message me and I will try to tune in to whatever you produce!

[zulkaif-riaz-blog]

All you need to know about FL Studio app

Info:

Full name

FL Studio

Publisher

Image-line

Genre

Entertainment, music

Operating System

Android

Official website

Image-line.com

What’s new?

Its transport panel is now available with MIDI input.

There was a bug in the previous version due to which we weren't able to record stereo sound. This bug is now fixed in the latest version.

Many other bugs are also fixed.

A number of new tracks and beats are added, many of them are paid.

About FL Studio Mobile app

FL Studio is a digital audio workstation software and multi-track producing mobile application developed by "Image-Line". FL Studio is available for android, IOS, Windows, and macOS operating systems. The word FL stands for ‘Fruity Loops’ and till 2003 it was known as "Fruity Loops Studio". That's why we see a mango-like fruit in its logo. This software was initially launched for windows and macOS computers but with an increase in the number of users, fl studio's mobile phone supporting versions were also launched till 2013. These apps are available on the apple app store (IOS devices) and google play store (Android devices).

Fl studio is one of the best audio editing and music creating apps available on the play store. FL Studio provides a GUI (Graphic User Interface) where users can perform several audio and music editing-related functions including making, mixing, cutting, and recording just by dragging and dropping. However, FL Studio is a professional android app that is used in audio editing. FL Studio mobile app has more than 130 instruments (musical instruments), drums, and beats which can be used to covert your simple sound into a music track. You can simply say that you aren’t going to install any app, you are going to own a full-featured music studio for yourself where all possible musical instruments, tools, and plugins are available within a platform. These musical instruments are very easy to use like you will see piano buttons on your screens. You just have to touch your fingers on piano buttons to produce a piano music track. The same method applies in the case of drums, beats, and other instruments.

You don't even need to use only your mobile phone to use the fl studio mobile app, you can synthesize your project on other operating systems like Windows, macOS, and IOS, etc. This feature allows you to share your customizable file on social media and other networks. You can also use this feature to ask someone to customize your work. You can simply create music with teamwork. If you become an expert in fl studio mobile, you will be able to earn money by helping other music creators on social media and freelancing platforms.

Yes, I do believe that fl studio mobile won't attract you if you are looking to work the same as you did on the desktop version, it is hard and it won't even work 10% of that of Pc version but still, it is much better in performance if you compare fl studio mobile with other audio editing android apps available on google play store. That’s why fl studio is one of the most used music creating over the internet. Fl studio mobile may include in-app purchases of two instruments groove machine and transistor bass. There are many sample players available for an in-app purchase.

You aren't familiar with the fl studio mobile app? And don't even want to watch lengthy tutorials. You don't need to worry. Unlike many other apps, fl studio mobile uses an optimal interface which makes this app easy to understand. FL Studio has also created a forum where users can discuss, share, and ask questions and answers, this forum is much helpful. A large number of fl studio users are using this forum, so you can get a quick response from the community. Claim your account here https://forum.image-line.com/

There are several features available in FL Studio's latest version. A few of its main features are listed below.

Features of FL Studio:

•FL Studio mobile supports many musical instruments. You can use these musical instruments to create music lyrics for your audio file. You can also play with musical tools like piano, drums, and much more.

•You can add synthesizer, drum, and beats easily. As discussed in the above point, this app can do almost everything we do in a real music studio.

•You can record audio and can easily export it in WAV, ACC, and MP3 formats. You can also record your audio first and edit it later instead of performing both things at the same time.

• Several audio effects are available which can make your audio perfect. You can simply select and customize them. These effects include auto ducks, chorus, reverb, flanger, phaser, delays, and much more.

•Audio compressor can be used to compress the whole or selected part of a recording. Here compressing means the compression of audio volume.

•GUI (graphic user interface) of this will provide you the best interface. As this app has the best user interface, you will be able to understand its use in no time

•You can also do collision programming with reliable sequencing using the fl studio mobile app.

•A graphical waveform editor available in this app can be used to edit sound wave professionally. Even a small issue in the track can be detected and is solved by this feature available in fl studio mobile app.

•Professional pitch changing, tempo changing, and speed changing options will make your audio different from the original one. However, these options can be found in many other apps.

• FL Studio provides a synchronization feature where you can edit your project on other operating systems such as android, iOS and windows etc. You can share your projects with other.

•Last as well as least feature i am going to discuss is its feature of “noise reduction”. FL Studio app can reduce background noise and unwanted sounds easily. Mostly on use of mobile mice or mice with low quality, we hear unwanted sounds in the background that we can remove by using this feature.

FL Studio mobile apk download

As i have already mentioned above that fl studio mobile is a paid tool and everybody can’t afford it and want to download this app free of costs. Another issue is that you don’t know whether this app is useful for you or not? Like that of fl studio’s desktop version which you can even use before payment by claiming its free trial. However free trial is’nt available in case of android app, that’s why many people prefer downloading it for free instead of paying to its publisher through play store. Here we are providing FL Studio mobile apk cracked to download for free with obb file. This apk file won’t harm your device. You can easily download fl studio apk latest version and obb file for free from here.

Before downloading fl studio mobile apk, you should know that it against the publisher's terms to download this app from a third party. However, this apk file is safe and is virus-free. You just need to click on the download option given below, and have to wait till apk file is downloading. When downloading completed, you just need to click on apk file (normally you can find this file in the Downloads folder) having .apk extension. And you will see an option to install or cancel, click on the install option to install this app. You will also find obb file here. First of all you need to extract/unzip that compressed folder (zip folder). Copy ‘folder with obb file’ and paste this folder in given pathway: Storage > Android> OBB> paste file here*. Now launch this app and enjoy. Didn’t understood? A simple method for installing Fl studio mobile apk is given below. Just follow this method to install fl studio mobile apk mod for free

·        Download all the files we have provided below and open “Downloads” folder in file manager.

·        Now you need to install the APK file. Read method of installation given in above paragraph.

·        Copy OBB file from here available in a folder named “com.imageline.FLM” and paste in the following directory: Storage / Android / OBB.

·        Above folder should be located in this directory;-

Android > OBB > com.imageline.FLM > main.302043.com.imageline.FLM.obb

All done! Now you can launch the application. I recommend you to visit this site regularly so that you don't miss any update of this app. Whenever image-line updated their app, the updated version will be uploaded to this site in no time. In this case, you don't need to uninstall the previously installed app as you w'll loose your data and files. You just need to downloaded the updated one and update your app by same method which you applied while installing apk file. If found error, then you must uninstall previously installed app and have to install newer version to enjoy fl studio mobile with a lot of new features and clean from bugs.

Users Reviews about FL Studio Mobile

Fl studio mobile has good rating that’s why i am here to share fl studio mobile apk full with you. I am going to mention a few pros and cons of this app.

PROS:

vIt allows creating multi track music.

Can export in many formats like ACC, wav, mp3 and other MIDI formats.

Can use a number of music instruments.

It has best graphic user interface.

It is easy to use.

CONS:

vIt is hard to use on devices having RAM and Storage less than it is required to run this app.

Sometimes it stops working due to bugs that are not fixed yet.

Some of the musical instruments are paid, and are available in-app purchase.

Its performance is not too good to compare it with Pc software.

You can’t use this on devices with Android 3.0 or less.

FL Studio is one of the most recommended apps as most expertise has experienced fl studio on desktop, IOS and macOS which are more reliable than apk. But actual thing is that you have an app with almost all features that any high level professional app should have. You don't need to find beats from somewhere. You don't even need to collect different instruments and to use all of them by mixing it one by one. It is a tiring work. You just need to sit at a place to create multi track music and to edit audio files. How simple this is?

But there are many things in this app which user don’t like. One of them is availability of premium tracks and beats whom you need to buy before using them. It is a multi operating system app and you may experience windows, IOS and macOS better than android. So many users prefer to use fl studio on mac or pc for better experience. This application also has age restrictions, the recommended age for using this app 3+ years. Their latest version has been installed on more than one lac devices till now. On a five point ratings scale, fl studio mobile is available with 4.2 out of 5 star ratings and a number of positive reviews on google app store. In short, fl studio mobile is providing all musical solutions, best user interface, high performance and much more on your mobile phone. Although this is paid (we have also solved this problem) but you can’t find such features for free. If you are music creator then i suggest you to give a try to this awesome app by downloading and installing from this site for totally free.

Have a query? Feel free to ask.

[homeremodelingatlanta7b]

Determining a Kitchen Remodeling Budget

Basement remodeling atlanta

It is very important to find out a financial budget for virtually any do it yourself project, and kitchen remodeling isn't exception.

A thing of caution: I spent hrs researching kitchen remodeling cost and budgeting online to accumulate data with this article. I ran into a few websites that gave size pricing for kitchen remodeling. Although I commiserate using look for an easy approach to determine remodeling pricing, this kind of advice just isn't based in reality. Remodeling jobs normally are so specific to the conditions of the building and tastes from the homeowner that no square footage pricing is ever going to starting point. I additionally encountered many sites that didn't offer you any real information about establishing a budget but basically interpreted Hanley Wood's Remodeling Cost vs. Value report that's published annually. You happen to be far better off going to the Cost vs. Value report on the web and evaluating the final results yourself.

home remodeling marietta

Like other things in this world a kitchen remodel will cost more than you thought it would and the sky's the limit about what it can cost determined by your preferences. You can find multiple factors that go into determining a remodeling budget.

There are numerous places online you can check out help you establish a basic budget number to start with. Our recommendation is Remodeling Magazine's Cost vs. Value Report which is released by region and major city each year. The truly nice thing about this report would it be provides description from the "average" project to help you gauge in case your kitchen remodel is going to fall above or below the benchmark. Furthermore, i find their average pricing to be an exact reflection in the pricing for our company, so by recommending to clients before I even talk to them that they can investigate this report they are prone to begin a realistic budget we could work within to present them an incredible kitchen.

Custom Hutch designed with Semi-Custom Cabinets

While Remodeling Magazine's report is quite helpful, it is a very one size fits all method of establishing a budget. Continue reading if you want to try to hone your numbers a little.

Escape a pad and paper and jot down several notes about each factor along the way through their list:

Factor 1 Home Value- Consider not merely how you feel your home is worth, but also the price of similar homes where you live that curently have updates. The best site to check home values is zillow.com, simply enter your address and you also have an interactive map with home along with other information listed right on the map. Pay attention to which homes are of similar size to yours, happen to be purchased recently, but have a higher value, then peek in their windows to determine exactly what the house looks like. Ok, seriously, I became only kidding. Should you not know them perhaps it's time to meet the neighbors and ask for a simple tour.

Factor 2 Wow! - It is everything to use your primary goal and motivations. Write down each motivational factor which can be crucial that you you in the kitchen remodel. Here are several possible examples: Kitchen is falling apart. You want to cook and the layout doesn't suit you. You love to entertain and want to start living rooms like a place to gather. You need a kitchen that wows your guests. You get able to sell your own home and also the kitchen is really a sticking point with buyers... Now that you have your list, determine what motivations are most important and relist them in motivational order. Imagining your financial allowance beginning in "the middle" pay attention to which factors might move the budget up or down...i.e. attempting to remodel to encourage sales might slowly move the budget down, remodeling to wow guest might max it...etc.

Factor 3 Did someone say AGA? - List any "must haves" for a kitchen remodel to become worth the cost to you personally. Possible examples: granite counters, a tropical with an extra sink, an extra dishwasher, an advert quality gas range, etc.

Factor 4 Longevity- Determine to the best of what you can do the length of time you intend on owning the home.

Factor 5 Size Matters- Determine what amount of your property your kitchen encompasses. A sampling well over 100 modern home floorplans of 1000 to 3000 square feet homes revealed the average kitchen size to be 7% from the home's sq footage. If your kitchen is greater or smaller than this average you might need to decrease or increase your allowance accordingly.

Factor 6 Layout- should you may have learned you're going to want the sink moved, hawaiian isle sink added, an enclosed wall moved plus an exterior door added, you will want to add money on your budget well past such a basic facelift would cost.

Tricky layout: the decorative column conceals a sound wrapped drain pipe

Factor 7 Funding- Determine the maximum amount money you could manage to spend. If you're financing your project you are able to calculate such a lender will likely lend you. Lenders are interested in a personal debt to income ratio(DTI) of.36 or less. Your DTI is established by taking all of your monthly debt obligations (credit card payments, automobile financing, mortgage, etc.) and dividing from your monthly income. To discover your maximum safe monthly debt multiply.36 times your monthly income. Now subtract your existing monthly debt out of this number and you've got a monthly budget maximum. Here is a connect to a calculator that will perform the math for you personally: mortgage calculator

Putting it All Together

The key to managing your finances are choosing the amount of your home's value you should use being a budget guideline. While researching this article I discovered recommendations to make use of percentages starting from 10% to 25% of home value. For any kitchen remodel of any substance that features new flooring, appliances, cabinets, sink/faucet, lighting and bringing electric approximately code I have discovered anything below 15% to become very dubious number. I guess on a million dollar house 10% will be a workable budget, but on the 200k house a 20k affordability is marginal at the best for the complete kitchen remodel.

If resale value is very important for your requirements it is wise to keept the cost of your home renovation project within 20% of the present worth of your home. Staying within this range insures that the majority of the brand new kitchen's price is recouped in increased home value immediately, and the remaining cost must be recouped within 5 years because your home appreciates.

Ok, let's put into practice one example. Remember, there is no exact formula here. We have been simply doing good to become as informed as you possibly can and create a wise decision about how exactly much to spend on the kitchen remodel.

For the example let's use the house. It's a 50's cape cod with a modest square footage of 1500.

Factor 1 value: Zillow provides me with an estimated price of $167,500, however, I notice zillow hasn't yet updated and taken into account the single homes which are recently integrated the sector behind us with a starting expense of $270k. Zillow also has our square footage listed at under 1200. Looks like the previous owner did a bit remodeling with no permit. I am going to base my budget with a expense of 180k which is similar to other houses locally which might be exactly the same size.

Factor 2 Goals: My family and i want to entertain guests. To create a kitchen remodel worthwhile for all of us we must lose an interior wall to spread out up the kitchen and dining nook on the family area. I am going to add 1% to plan for this.

Factor 3 Most important items: As being a former chef two most important items for me personally are a new oven as well as a really nice propane range(no gas main service here), preferably an advertisement range modified for your kitchen at home (real commercial ranges lack insulation throughout the oven, critical for home safety). I am going to add another 1% to my budget to make certain there's enough money to acquire me my range and propane installation.

Factor 4 Longevity: We plan to be in the house at the very least 4 years. Generally of thumb it will take Five years for most remodeling to achieve and recoup all of its cost. Because we will probably be at least Five years I'm not gonna penalize the budget, consider there's a good chance we'll move right around Five years That's not me gonna increase it like I might whenever we were staying considerably longer.

Factor 5 Size Kitchen: The kitchen at home is approximately 140SquareFeet(SF). That's over 9% of the SF of your home, 2% excellent. Obviously this kitchen is going to require some extra material and cabinets. I'll in the budget 1% with this, I am hoping it's enough.

Factor 6 Layout: We are going to customize the layout of our kitchen pretty extensively. We currently use a cooktop peninsula. The product range will probably use a differnet wall as well as the dishwasher will move to the peninsula, though organic beef ditch the peninsula, slowly move the fridge and add hawaiian isle instead. About the only stuff that won't move may be the sink. I will add another 1% to my budget, again hoping $1800 (1% individuals 180k value) is enough to cover the electrical and plumbing changes.

In my base I am going to use 20%. Because i mentioned earlier on, you'll find gonna be people who will argue with me on that, but going lower often doesn't leave you with workable budget numbers for full blown kitchen remodels. I'm adding 4% according to my factors in the above list. I adjusted my zillow.com estimated home value to 180k depending on the comparable size and value of other homes around me. This provides me a working budget of 24% x 180k= $43,200 When I match it up to the Cost Vs. Value report I see that in the centre Atlantic Region an important Kitchen Renovation is $59, 098. It looks like my budget could be bit low, especially since i have really would really like granite countertops along with the Cost Vs. Value specs necessitate laminate tops. Conversely the kitchen at home is really a lot small compared to their 200SF benchmark, i really think I'll opt for my budget number and discover what my contractor can perform personally because budget.

[shemakesmusic-uk]

After releasing her film Black Is King as a Disney+ exclusive a few weeks ago, Beyoncé has shared the visual 'Brown Skin Girl' on YouTube. Featuring SAINt JHN, WizKid, and daughter Blue Ivy, the clip features appearances by former bandmate Kelly Rowland, Noami Campell, Lupita Nyong’o, and more. The video coincided with a special message the star shared with Good Morning America. "It was so important to me in 'Brown Skin Girl' that we represented all different shades of brown," Beyoncé said of the video, crediting director Jenn Nkiru with the concept. "It was important that we are all in this together and we're all celebrating each other." [via The FADER]

Eivør releases a new single and video, ‘Let It Come’, the latest lifted from her forthcoming album Segl. The transportive new clip - filmed in Iceland - is a prequel to the video for previous single release ‘Sleep On It’, which Eivør released last month. Both videos are directed by Einar Egils and feature actor Tómas Lemarquis (Blade Runner 2049, X-Men: Apocalypse). Speaking about ‘Let It Come’, Eivør says; "It’s one of those songs that took many shapes before it reached its final destination and I guess the opening line pretty much explains it all: “Sometimes I overthink the most simple things”. This song is a follow up to my previous single 'Sleep On It' - whilst that was about insomnia and making difficult choices, 'Let It Come' is about coming out at the other end of this struggle, embracing the uncertainties you might find yourself in and finding the courage to believe that something good will come your way." Of the interplay between the two music videos he has created for Eivør, director Einar Eglis adds; "'Let It Come' is a prequel to the end of the world that was portrayed in the ‘Sleep On It’ video. Eivør has been stuck in a loop of uncertainty for years, until she sees a vision that will end everything as we know it, and she is the key towards redemption. She must face these facts and embrace the golden idol she is to become."

The gentle, hypnotic sway of 'god's chariots' is central to MaryLou Mayniel's first full-length project Galore. Her catalogue of experimental electronica is impressive whichever way you look at it. Creating everything from video game soundtracks to an EP sampling the likes of Miley Cyrus and Carly Rae Jepsen to vast instrumental odysseys and empowering pop anthems, Mayniel can turn her hand to almost anything. 'god's chariots' is at the helm of the singer-songwriter's latest drop of new music. “It’s a fantasy, a place you’re in to escape reality, but it’s also about being so lonely that you kind of lose your mind,” explains Manyiel. A fragment of her forthcoming debut full-length project 'god's chariots' is just one piece of the ever-expanding story which Oklou shares on Galore. With additional tracks 'nightmare' and 'rosebud', also out n ow, we get to piece more of Galore's narrative of emotional rebirth together. Already an illuminating experience with its first six songs out in the world, soon you'll be able to witness Manyiel's first masterpiece in all its glory when the rest of the project is released next month. [via Line Of Best Fit]

Madeline Kenney has shared the visual for her Sucker's Lunch album track 'Cut the Real'. 'Cut the Real' is one of the most lyrically confrontational tracks on Kenney's new album Sucker's Lunch. Kenney has unveiled the accompanying self-directed visual filmed in Oakland that sees her dressed in a Rococo style suit and makeup, giving a heartfelt performance of the song's fierce lyrics. Madeline Kenney: "I wrote 'Cut the Real' when I was feeling particularly insane / depressed /"out of my mind" as I was starting a new relationship. I really struggle with self confidence and found myself spiraling out into deep holes of self-loathing -- even though I knew what was going on I couldn't stop that cycle. The concept was inspired by the aesthetic choices in recent Aldous Harding videos as well as old Annie Lennox videos. I wanted to put on a gender-neutral Rococo outfit and just really allow myself to ham it up, and occupy that same spinning-out headspace as I was in while writing the song." [via Line Of Best Fit]

Four years after she released her solo debut Slugger, Speedy Ortiz leader Sadie Dupuis is getting ready to release Haunted Painting, the second album released under her Sad13 alias. The album comes out next month, and  now we get another new song, and it’s got a pretty great music video attached. The new Sad13 track is called 'Hysterical,' and it’s a zippy synthpop track with layered lyrics: “I wanna see you disappear and laugh like I don’t need permission.” In a press release, Dupuis says that the song is about “unfunny comedians [who] love to argue that ‘PC culture’ destroys comedy.” Dupuis plays almost all the instruments herself. The video, directed by Kate Banford and Jamie Loftus, features Dupuis alongside comedy-world mainstays like Loftus, Mitra Jouhari, and Demi Adejuyigbe. Like the new horror movie Host, the whole thing takes place on a computer screen, and it’s all about what happens when a ghost shows up in a Zoom party and kills everyone. [via Stereogum]

When Cross Record’s Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski teamed up with Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg to form Loma, it seemed like it might be one-off endeavor. But then last month we got news that they’d be following their 2017 debut with a new album, Don’t Shy Away. Along with the announcement, they shared a stunning new track called 'Ocotillo'. Today, they’re back with another one.  The latest preview of Don’t Shy Away arrives in the form of 'Half Silences,' which the band shared an earlier iteration of last year. 'Half Silences' was the first song we recorded for Don’t Shy Away, and we kept tinkering with it after we soft-released an early version last year,” Meiburg explained in a statement. “When you start making a record, you don’t know which songs will make the cut — but this one always seemed to belong, and we wanted to give the final mix (and its DIY video) a proper debut. People have asked if the fireworks are CGI. They aren’t.” 'Ocotillo' was an almost foreboding song, cresting into horn arrangements that teetered on the brink of chaos. In comparison, 'Half Silences' is a dreamier and hazier composition. But in either form, Loma are making some gorgeous, otherworldly music. [via Stereogum]

Back in June, the Bristol songwriter Fenne Lily announced her sophomore album, BREACH. So far we’ve heard advance singles 'Alapathy' and 'Berlin,' and today she’s back with another one. Lily’s latest is called 'Solipsism.' Here’s what she had to say about it: "A lot of situations make me uncomfortable — some parties, most dates, every time I’m stoned in the supermarket. 'Solipsism' is a song about being comfortable with being uncomfortable and the freedom that comes with that. If you feel weird for long enough it becomes normal, and feeling anything is better than feeling nothing. I wanted this video to be a reflection of the scary thought that I’ll have to live with myself forever. It’s surreal to realize you’ll never live apart from someone you sometimes hate. Dad, if you’re reading this you killed it as shopper number 2." The song comes with a video directed by Tom Clover with the non-profit Film Co. “I asked Fenne what products she wanted to be and then worked backwards from there with the illustrators,” Clover explained. “Most of the references came from Asian Supermarket packaging — they are way more interesting. The most important thing was making sure that it reflected upon Fenne’s personality — there’s a bunch of details you might miss on the first watch!” [via Stereogum]

About two weeks ago Oceanator shared 'Heartbeat,' the third and final single from their upcoming full length debut, Things I Never Said and now it has a video. The highly anticipated album via Plastic Miracles captures Elise Okusami’s songwriting at it’s best, a strong effort that sits between pop, rock, fuzzy punk, and alternative radio gold. The video, directed by David Combs and Ben Epstein, is every bit as delightful as the song itself, opening with the same magnetic energy as we find Okusami seemingly lost and looking for companionship. She finds it eventually in the form of herself, quite literally, as she joins herself at a bus stop, and then again in a field, with ten of more copies, al rocking out, all enjoying each other’s company. There’s a brilliant barbershop quartet moment, cool animation, and enough smiles to keep you going throughout your day. Speaking about the song, Okusami shared: “This song is loosely about having a crush, and both the grounding feeling and the anxiety that feeling brings. We recorded it all together like a live performance, and then I went back and added the lead guitars and the vocals. Guitar and vocals by me, bass Eva Lawitts (they), drums Aaron Silberstein (he)." [via Post Trash]

Ontario-based project Falcon Jane – the moniker for primary songwriter of the group, Sara May – have released their soaring new single, ‘The Other Moon’ via Pittsburgh-based label, Darling Recordings – you can watch the new video that comes co-directed by May and Dominique van Olm above. ‘The Other Moon’, which is lifted from a larger body of material set to come from Sara May further down the line, finds the artist exploring deeply sentimental and personal themes, from death to memory, and the miscommunication that can take place between generations. May has a penchant for unpacking these emotions in succinct and comprehensible forms, making something so personal and idiosyncratic to her feel so familiar to the rest of us. Much of May’s forthcoming work found its source of inspiration in early 2019 when her songwriting synched up with a string of deaths that occurred in her immediate family; ‘The Other Moon’ pays a touching testament to her Nonna with May lacing the track’s stark honesty with swooning guitar and her enchanting vocal palette, a sound that co-director, van Olm visualized as May’s DIY journey through space. Speaking about the new track, May says: “‘The Other Moon’ is a letter and tribute to my late Nonna whose death inspired me to start recording this album. Despite being from two completely different generations, and speaking two different languages, my Nonna and I had a very special connection. We understood each other and cared about each other, even if we couldn’t find the words to express it. My Nonna would always cheekily joke about her own death, and through her broken English, she claimed that when she died she’d be going to “The Other Moon”. This song is not a story about a happy-go-lucky relationship between grandmother and granddaughter,” May continues. “It accurately depicts the contrasting dynamic of a very loving friendship mixed with a lifelong trauma-ridden miscommunication. The big hole in my heart, the black cloud over our love. This song feels like the message I always wanted to send to her; pushing through the darkness to find the deep love we shared and continue to share now.”

Baby Queen has released her third track 'Medicine' with a fab new video. The follow-up to ‘Buzzkill', it arrives ahead of her debut EP later this year. "It's about a tangle of mental health and navigating your way through this world,” Bella says of the song, “whilst being so unhappy and equally disillusioned with the cyber landscape that we are forced to live inside, and the different ways people might numb themselves, or try to find a place where they can exist in amongst all of this fucking chaos." [via Dork]

Oklahoma-born, LA-based electro-pop songstress Mothica has released her debut album Blue Hour, accompanied by the official music video for her single 'VICES.' The album was written over the course of a few months, starting with one of the worst moments of Mothica’s life: a psych ward stay for self-harm and ends with a song about never wanting to feel the “crash” of drugs ever again. “Following that incident, I sought therapy and wrote lyrics detailing my journey into sobriety. I am now 13 months sober at the time of writing this, and have never been in a better place emotionally.” With her new album Blue Hour, she chronicles her deep struggle with addiction + mental health and the process of getting sober. “Someone told me that every artist has their ‘getting sober album’ eventually,” she explains. “I find it ironic that my debut album is my ‘getting sober’ album, because I think that’s indicative of how quickly I was forced to grow up."

FKA twigs has always made incredible music videos, and 'sad day' ranks right up there with her best. For this clip, twigs worked with the director Hiro Murai, one of the best music-video directors to emerge in the last decade. Murai has mostly moved on from music videos in recent years. Instead, he’s directed episodes of Atlanta and Barry, two of the best shows on TV, as well as Donald Glover’s Amazon short film Guava Island and the forthcoming apocalyptic miniseries Station Eleven. The 'sad day' video is Murai’s first clip since he made the instantly iconic 'This Is America' with Donald Glover in 2018. I don’t want to give away much of the 'sad day' video, which starts out in a dingy takeout spot and transforms into a surreal dream-logic head trip. But you should know that twigs only made this video after spending three years studying martial arts at the Shaolin Wushu Center, and you can tell. A dancer named Teake, who twigs discovered via social media, co-stars. [via Stereogum]

The latest of Silly Boy Blue's ongoing build is 'Hi, It's Me Again,' a song she describes as the "too long text I didn't want to send at 3 AM to my ex." Like the rumination behind a loaded, emotional message to a former lover, she adds that it took months to assemble the words in her head but only one night to write out the lyrics. "I needed to write a song about this, because it's a very special place between the hate and the void during a breakup." With an almost lullaby melody, the spacey tune slowly builds into the ultimate warning: "You'll be the one I always haunt," Silly Boy Blue sings, her voice beautifully layered and atmospheric. All her thoughts throughout the song are interlaced with the relatable, somewhat insecure backpedal, "I'm sorry," capturing the headspace "just before resilience," as she describes. It's "when you start to understand the breakup, but you still have so many questions popping in your head." In the 'Hi, It's Me Again' video, Silly Boy Blue says she "needed to show the different parts" of her identity. "Some of them are masculine, some of them are feminine, some of them seem confident, some seem shy, some seem to suffocate, some stand proudly." Much like the nuanced feelings during a breakup, she expresses without binaries — and especially through fashion, as she opens the clip in only an oversized men's button-down. Scenes in the new visual roll by like memories or fleeting emotions, ranging from subdued drama to full on meltdowns. At one point, she's shown with a plastic bag pulled over her head to capture the most extreme feelings of dread, juxtaposed against a more innocent shot of Silly Boy Blue in all white with two lone tear drops fixated on her cheek. The artist also loaded in "important" references to her favorite movies, from the Titanic's necklace to The Rocky Horror Picture Show's big mouth. [via PAPER]

Dream Nails have released a video for their new single, 'This Is The Summer'. It's a song from their new Tarek Musa of Spring King-produced, self-titled record out now via Alcopop!. “[It's] a song about how our climate is breaking down irreversibly,” says singer Janey Starling. “Colonial capitalism, waged by UK governments and corporations for centuries, has ravaged our earth. “We need to be urgently fighting for migrant rights so the UK welcomes climate refugees displaced by countries hit by extreme weather. We must demand transparency from oil companies who relentlessly put profit before people, even as the world burns." Guitarist Anya Pearson adds: “We wrote ‘This Is The Summer’ in the heatwave of 2018, recorded it in another heatwave in 2019 and now we are releasing it in yet another heatwave! Our video for the track shows how the current pandemic, white supremacy and climate change are not separate issues but interlinked. The song is about the brazen complacency of getting drunk and catching a tan in the park while the world burns.” [via Dork]

BBC Sound Of 2020 winner Celeste has shared her new single 'Little Runaway'. Out now, the single is about a crisis of faith, and features a towering vocal from the London artist. A song about succumbing to the depths before emerging renewed, 'Little Runaway' began as a jazz sample, before taking on a life of its own. Celeste says... “‘Little Runaway’ is a song about losing your faith, even if just momentarily, and seeking answers from spirits and ghosts as nothing seems to make sense on this planet. My favourite line in the song is ‘good news I could use some’ – I believe everyone has a guardian angel, a protector, and this is me talking to mine.” “The verses actually started as this saxophone sample we were playing around with and eventually it transformed into the melody. I always play the sax back in my head even though it’s not in the song.” 'Little Runaway' features an innovative music video, steered by Celeste’s frequent collaborator Sophie Jones. [via Clash]

Anna Sofia released a brand new music video for her song 'Don’t Play Pretend'. 'Don’t Play Pretend' is from her latest EP Broken Perfection. Over a million streams into her career, Anna Sofia sings this song about her own life. She might not be perfect. She might make mistakes. All that said, at least she doesn’t pretend to be something she’s not. Sofia said she doesn’t have a message. “It’s just real life,” she said. “One day, I hope to fill stadiums all over the world. I want to have fans everywhere and have some way of helping them or guiding them through my music. My confidence comes from being myself and connecting with people.” [via The 360 Mag]

Last year, the K-pop group BLACKPINK made big moves in America with their Kill This Love EP, becoming the highest-charting women-led Korean act on both the Billboard 200 and the Hot 100 (with its title track). They also played Coachella. Earlier this year, they had a guest feature on Lady Gaga’s Chromatica with ‘Sour Candy,’ a single that matched their previous chart record at #33. They’re releasing a new album in a couple months, which was led off by ‘How You Like That’ in June. Now, they’re putting out another song from it, a collaboration with Selena Gomez called ‘Ice Cream.’ The food angle of the track is appropriate for Gomez, who has most recently been in the headlines for her new HBO Max cooking show. [via Stereogum]

Tel-Aviv based artist Noga Erez shares the next in a series of game-changing singles leading into her mysterious second album (details yet to be announced). 'You So Done' and its striking accompanying video are out now via City Slang. Following the sparkling sass of 'VIEWS' and the irresistibly upbeat lockdown anthem 'NO news on TV', Noga Erez and her collaborative partner Ori Rousso's latest offering 'You So Done' has been highly anticipated online since appearing on NBC's Good Girls earlier this year. It sees Erez shift from outward looking political themes to personal soul-searching, opening up for a stirring track about rejection, toxic and emotionally violent relationships, and ones own inner violence. Along with the track she has shared a moving statement, saying: "At some point, exactly one year ago, I started flashing back to one of the darkest times in my life. I was young, incredibly confused and lonely... There was a moment during this period where I was actually so weak, insecure and in need of love that I was not able to step out of what I know now to be an emotionally abusive relationship." She concludes: "It really, truly means the world to me to give this song to you. I hope this story can help some of you to realise that you are not alone. And I really do hope to make it clear that even the darkest places are not impossible to free yourself from. They are eventually an opportunity to learn, grow and to become a stronger person." Erez has created a reputation for the captivating videos that accompany her songs, and this latest video sees her step it up a level yet again. Her third collaboration with Tel Aviv-based director Indy Hait sees Erez as a puppet in a dystopian future, being violently flung to-and-fro by an unknown captor. "The video for 'You So Done' was a big risk taker for me" she comments. "Usually, I have an idea or I work with a director on an idea together. Since this was my third video with Indy Hait, I decided to let him do his thing. He offered up an idea that included a robot and I immediately hated it. I was just not able to imagine how it wouldn't come off as a science fiction video and felt it wasn't my style. But after talking and tearing the idea apart, I realised that this is a truly meaningful character. The robot in this video is actually not the violent character.  Its job was to portray the act of violence through transferring the moves from an unseen character and helping them come alive visually. The video uses muscle memory as the 'engine' to that violent dance act, and muscle memory is something that fascinates me. Eventually this video is far from being science fiction, it is my most personal video to date."

[dramamirror7-blog]

List Of Tools For Static Code Evaluation.

Java Tester Jobs In London

#toc background: #f9f9f9;border: 1px solid #aaa;display: table;margin-bottom: 1em;padding: 1em;width: 350px; .toctitle font-weight: 700;text-align: center;

Content

Qualified Software Test Automation Designer.

Automation Testing Resources.

Test Automation With Selenium Webdriver.

Leading Tips For Discovering Java Programming.

Enhance provides this training in home as well as tailored to your specific scenario or needs upon demand. There's no far better method to find out than by doing, so you'll exist with a range of hands-on exercises throughout this training course. what circumstances are suitable for applying which techniques and tools. We might be looking for you if you like publications as well as enjoy to develop awesome items. To ask various other readers inquiries aboutJava For Testers, please register.

To see what your close friends thought about this book, please join. Software Tester, audio speaker as well as trainer at Friendly Testing. I hope you taken pleasure in reading this sample of "Java For Testers" by Alan Richardson.

Do you need math for Java?

There are several ways by which you can learn JAVA within a week. I feel that since JAVA is an Object oriented programming language just like C++. If you are fully thorough with all the OOPS concepts that you have learned in C++,then I am 100% sure that you can learn JAVA within 2 to 3 days itself.

Qualified Software Program Examination Automation Designer.

However this one got me started, and I still find it clear as well as simple. But occasionally as a tester we have to work with pre-compiled libraries, without source code, as well as usage parts of the code base out of context. This publication assisted change my coding design, as well as just how I come close to the building of abstraction layers. Other publications that cover comparable topics consist of "Clean Code" by Robert C. Martin, and "The Pragmatic Developer" by Andrew Search and David Thomas.

Automation Testing Resources.

Things are various, we instantiate them, so the two Integer variables both describe various things. Despite the fact that they have the same 'value', they are different things. Well, primitives are simple and also there is no distinction between value and also identity for primitives. I'll illustrate with a code instance, why the experienced designers are worried. You might not recognize the next few paragraphs yet, yet I just want to give you a little detail regarding why one Integer, or one Object, does not always equivalent one more Things.

Gradually I will certainly include videos and also details to JavaForTesters.com to show more performance with IntelliJ that I do not have area to include in this publication. er zijn anderen can assist you learn the fundamentals of IntelliJ very swiftly. This is very valuable for rapidly providing mvn commands or any one of the various other terminal commands pointed out in this publication. This can do partial matching, so you don't need to type in the full name of the class. I look at every one of those in this appendix for simple referral, and include some added details on using IntelliJ with this publication.

Test Automation With Selenium Webdriver.

Yet I discovered "Execution Patterns" even more suitable as well as helpful to my job. " Implementation Patterns" by Kent Beck clarifies some of the mind involved in composing specialist code. When I first reviewed it, I located it hefty going, because I really did not have adequate experience or knowledge to comprehend it all. Yet I re-read it, as well as have actually continued to re-read it over the time I have actually created my Java experience.

" Effective Java" by Joshua Bloch, at the time of composing in its second Version. This publication helps novices and also progressed programmers. Due to the fact that they are a very individual thing, I do not advise a great deal of Java books. There are publications that people rave about that I could not get my head around. And also there are those that I like that individuals despise.

A connected listing is a straight collection of information components where each aspect indicate the following.

It is utilized when we require to accessibility items by their secrets.

It is usually utilized for innovative situations where we need fast access to the next component, or when we need to eliminate a component from anywhere in the collection.

Many modern-day programs languages automate this process; nonetheless, it must still be a vital consideration when applying an application.

It is an information framework consisting of a collection of nodes which together represent a sequence.

Leading Tips For Understanding Java Programs.

And each time I review it, I find a new subtlety, or a deeper understanding of the principles. Each, rather brief, but dense in their coverage and also discussion. Java developers develop a great deal of knowledge concerning their language from other designers.

I hope you'll continue to find out more as well as put it to utilize on your projects. You will certainly be servicing projects, and also the kind of collections you are using, as well as the technological domain that you are servicing, may require various strategies than those pointed out in this publication. I suggest you start with the videos and books recommended here, yet also ask your team friends. John's approach is geared around writing programs, as well as I assume that if you have actually currently completed this book, you will certainly benefit from the conventional programmer based protection that John provides.

The two day training stresses hands on exercises and also task. It is possible to run this as an eventually Summary Of Java version yet this significantly reduces the moment spent on study code and also time for exercises.

In the previous phase we said that an int ranged from, to.Integer has static constants MIN_VALUE as well as MAX_VALUE. To access a continuous, you don't need to include parenthesis since you are accessing a variable, and not calling a method. Along with being static areas, these are likewise constants, in that you can not transform them. The naming convention for constants is to make use of only uppercase, with _ as the word delimiter.

Is Java a good career choice?

Similar to COBOL, thousands of critical enterprise systems have been written in Java and will need to be maintained and enhanced for decades to come. I'd be surprised if it's not around for at least another 15 years. But it will change, and is changing.

Integer has a static technique called toHexString which takes an int as criterion, this returns the int as a String formatted in hex. We can benefit from a Java attribute called 'autoboxing' which was introduced in Java variation 1.5. Autoboxing will instantly transform from a primitive kind to the connected class instantly. In the variations of Java that we will certainly be using, we do not in fact need to instantiate the Integer course with the new key phrase.

What is Java used for?

The simple answer is: no, coding is not hard to learn. If you take the time and have a little patience, you can really learn just about anything–coding is no exception. Learning to code takes time and persistence, but if you have that, then coding is not hard to learn.

Can I learn Java after Python?

There are numerous reasons why Java continues to be a leader in the world of development and why it is still a language worth learning in 2020. Although Java's many benefits and capabilities make it a very diverse language, it is actually fairly easy to learn and master for developers of all skill levels.

I have actually checked out a few of them, and John supplies example coding for a number of the products covered in this book, as well as in the "Advancing Ideas" section. We didn't cover the full power of Normal Expressions in this publication. You can normally select this up fairly inexpensively used. There are various other publications that cover decompiling, reverse engineering and also reflection.

[fullmetalscullyy]

my inferno - chapter 1

summary:  singer riza hawkeye has the gig of a lifetime at a new high end bar that's recently opened up in central - a passion project of roy mustang's, the poster boy for central city records - which opens up a whole lot of new avenues for both their careers and personal lives

rated: t | words: 2781

an: yo so ya gal is back with another fic but this one will be pure happiness and fluff I SWEAR. i've been wanting to do one like this for aaaages (that's what "let you love me" was supposed to be lmao) so it's finally here. there's no ~royai relationship~ angst, but riza's backstory will get explored which will obvs have angst in it

read on ao3 or ffnet

The bar was busy tonight – a regular occurrence but still a constant worry in Roy Mustang’s mind. His newest venture was working out well, but he’d been in the game too long to let it get his hopes up. A good start was all well and good, but he’d need to retain these customers in order to maintain his success. This bar was a passion project of his and he didn’t want to ruin it.

Laughter and chatter filled the space. The bar itself was packed as people conversed and as others tried to buy their drinks. Every table was filled, all the seats taken, and people milled about in the free space in between, celebrating the end of the week with their friends and co-workers.

Seeing it with his own eyes and feeling the atmosphere of the place soothed his fears and he let loose a long breath, a smile spreading across his face.

He was so happy this was working out.

Ignis was a higher end bar in Central, the drinks a little more expensive than what the regular person would spend, however it was expected in the capital of the country. Roy himself wanted his bar to be open and attract everyone, but due to the location it wasn’t possible. Until it was well established, he would need to cater to a particular clientele, and in turn those rich kids would keep his dream alive. He was thankful, but until he could cater to all – not just the higher end of society – then Roy wouldn’t class this as a success.

Roy scanned the bar from the balcony outside his office. The décor was modern and minimalistic. Black tiled floors and white walls was the main theme of the bar. The ceiling was open, showing the pipes and lighting wires in the ceiling. The lights hung low over the black topped tables and matching chairs, the lampshades white but the bulbs inside were dulled at the moment, giving off a cosy feeling. They could change colour to whatever Roy wished them to, but for now the dull amber light was perfect – and his favourite. There were candles on every table as well but were unlit at this time of night. Tipsy customers and fire decidedly would not mix well, even if the name of the place was Latin for fire.

The bar itself had a black tiled front with a black marble top. It ran the length of the wall opposite the door and he watched as his staff effortlessly moved around one another to pour drinks and serve customers. They each laughed with those they were serving, and Roy felt a surge of pride inside him. He wanted to be known for having staff like that – those that would welcome anyone and act like a friend to those who entered.

“What’s up man?” a voice asked, clapping Roy on the back. Maes Hughes grinned at him from his right, setting his forearms on the chrome railing that surrounded the balcony to mirror Roy’s stance. He looked down on the space below.

“Hey, Maes.”

“How’s it going?”

Roy let out a breath. “Good,” he replied sincerely. “Really good. Everyone seems happy, the bar is busy, so… yeah. Good.”

“You are a natural born wordsmith, my friend.”

Roy raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been stuck in that office all day responding to emails and making phone calls. Excuse me if I’m not up to par on my conversational skills after talking for the last right hours.”

“I’m surprised. You seem to love the sound of your own voice I thought you’d be used to speaking for so long by now,” Maes joked, laughing loudly when Roy elbowed him in response.

“The live music is organised for tonight,” Maes revealed. He turned to face Roy, crossing his arms and popping his hip to rest it on the railing. “I managed to pull in a last-minute favour.”

“You’re the best, Maes, thank you.” His act for tonight had pulled out two hours ago and Roy’s bar was the only place in the city known for its live music every weekend – Friday to Sunday. He’d only been open a month and didn’t want that weekly tradition to be slipping already.

“Now, the act is… slightly different from your usual music, but I think you’ll like it.”

“That’s fine with me, I’m open to anything,” Roy revealed. “As long as the people like it, I’ll be happy.”

Maes grinned. “Excellent. I’ve been told she’s fantastic.”

“Does “she” have a name?” Roy asked, amused.

“Riza Hawkeye. No band, just one woman and a guitar. Not well known but I heard a sample of her material that the manager passed along and –” Maes whistled low showing his appreciation. “She is fucking good.”

“I’ll take your word for it. There’s a reason you’re the head of live music,” Roy grinned. “You’ve got a good ear for his stuff.”

“Thank you, thank you,” he bowed before laughing and leaning against the railing again. “I know,” he sighed, as if his “gift” was a burden. “It’s a tough life listening to good music all day.”

“I’ll bet,” Roy smiled wryly.

“I need to get going. I promised Gracia I’d be home before nine o’clock for once in my life and I intend to stick to it.”

“Go for it, man. I won’t keep you.” The poor guy had been a saint helping Roy with his opening and keeping the business afloat for the last month. It was about time he earned a break. “Take tomorrow and Sunday off too. I’ll be here anyway so there’s no point in both of us being in.”

Maes clapped him on the shoulder again, thanking him. “Have a good one, Roy.”

“You too, Maes. I’ll catch you later.”

After Maes left and after one last cursory glance over the busy bar, Roy returned to his office and shut down his computer. He’d spent too long looking at that damned screen all day and he wanted to get out there and enjoy the live music and the atmosphere of his own bar. Those remaining five emails that were calling to him could wait until tomorrow afternoon when he would be back in.

“Hey, Roy!” Jean Havoc called to him with a grin from behind the bar. He lifted a glass in greeting, bringing it down to fill it with a pint of beer for a customer in front of him. He said something to the man who grinned and laughed in response. Jean beamed at him, slinging his dishtowel across his shoulder across his shoulder while turning his attention to his boss. “What can I get you?”

“Kraken and coke,” Roy replied, entering behind the bar with the rest of his staff.

“Coming right up!” He effortlessly poured the drink, not wasting a drop of rum as he poured the shot then transferred it to a glass. The man was an artist with his ability to create drinks. His cocktails were part of what made the place kind of famous. The designs he could create even baffled Roy. He had no idea how Havoc did it.

He glanced at the clock, noting it was five minutes to nine. Roy stepped into the kitchen behind the bar and turned the music low, signalling tonight’s act would be starting soon. The murmur died down for a few moments before being replaced by a more excited aura.

Roy felt pride surge inside him once more. All his hard work had paid off and it had all led to moments like this. He was no stranger to success in his life, but seeing this idea finally come to fruition after years of hard work and delays was infinitely more satisfying than any of his previous success.

He retrieved his drink from Jean and at nine o’clock he turned the music off in the back completely. His skin prickled in excited anticipation as it always did once a new act came to perform at his bar. Normally he would listen to their stuff beforehand, but this had been way too last minute and if Maes Hughes – once one of the most prolific talent scouts in music – said the act was good, then the act was good. He hadn’t even said this Riza woman was good, he said she was fucking good and that put her way up in his estimation.

A woman stepped out from behind the black curtain behind the stage to the left of the bar. She had her acoustic guitar in tow, her long blonde hair falling in front of her face as she organised her set and made herself comfortable in the chair he offered the acts. The chatter had died down as some watched expectantly – Roy included.

*          *          *

“Where is this place again, Becca?” Riza asked as her oldest friend and manager ushered her rather quickly into her car. Apparently, Rebecca had found her a last-minute gig for the night, and it started in less than an hour. Riza lived on the outskirts of Central and they would have to book it across town to make in time. She was already bracing herself for a ride with her eyes closed. If she couldn’t see her friend’s manic driving in Friday night traffic, then her anxiety wouldn’t play up and she wouldn’t begin to fear for her life. Seriously, it was a wonder Rebecca Catalina hadn’t crashed her car yet.

“It’s called Ignis. The newest and hottest bar in Central right now,” Rebecca revealed with a pleased glint in her eye. “It’s very exclusive, and ya gal has just managed to book you in there,” she grinned.

At the word “exclusive” Riza’s stomach sunk. She faltered in her walk, only to have Rebecca place a hand on her back and firmly keep her moving towards the car. She didn’t want to play “exclusive”. That meant rich kids and stuck up assholes. They wouldn’t be interested in her kind of music. Riza’s palms begun to sweat.

“Wait, exclusive –?”

“It’s just what the papers say,” Rebecca cut her off, waving away her insecurities. “And nobody really pays attention to what they say. It’s just a ploy to get people to go there. It’s all advertising.” Rebecca opened the boot of her car and gestured for Riza to place her guitar case in there quickly and for her to get her butt in the car pronto.

“And what was it called. Ignite?”

“Ignis,” Rebecca rolled her eyes. “You’ve never heard of it?” Riza shook her head, strapping herself into the car. “It’s on Third Street.” Riza’s anxiety kicked back into gear. That was a high-end part of town. He didn’t get much time to dwell on it because Rebecca took off at a breakneck speed and Riza grabbed the handrail above her head for that little bit extra security. “Next to Lizzar’s.”

Riza cocked her head as she racked her brain for a moment. “Didn’t that used to be Velocity?”

“Riza,” Rebecca stated, tone condescending. “Velocity was replaced ten years ago. Since then it’s had two name changes.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised. This was news to her. “I… I thought it had always been Velocity…” She trailed off, realising just how much she was digging herself into a hole here. She loved Rebecca, and vice versa, but Riza new she got frustrated with her not-up-to-date-on-anything ways. All her friends did – not that there were many.

“Oh my god, you really do live under a rock,” Rebecca sighed in exasperation.

“I don’t,” Riza huffed, leaning her head on the car window and looking outside. “I’ve just got better things to do than sit and stare at my phone for every minute of every day.”

“Well me staring at my phone every minute of every day got you this job.”

Riza sighed. Rebecca was right. Her tone wasn’t clipped or irritated, just a friendly reminder for Riza that the world was moving on quickly and she needed to catch up. As per usual. Riza liked her lifestyle right now and was pleased she wasn’t a mindless zombie strapped to her phone. She got out into the world and appreciated it for what it was, rather than staring at it through a screen.

As they passed by the front of Ignis Riza felt her stomach sink. She was pleased to see there was a queue already forming outside the bar complete with two bouncers outside, but how many people were actually here to listen to her? She was last minute and not the typical music found at a trendy place like this. Her anxiety returned with a vengeance.

“Who owns this place?” she asked, taking in the black tile behind the silvery-white writing above the entrance. Tiny lights sparkled in the black tile, giving the impression the background was sparkling. It looked really nice, Riza noticed. Not what she expected, which was flashy and gaudy. This place looked classy, nothing like Lizzar’s they just passed next door.

“I don’t know. Some rich dude with glasses?” she shrugged. Rebecca rarely had time for the finer details which made Riza’s life slightly more difficult at times. For one thing, she liked to know the name of the person paying her before she turned up at the venue. That always led to awkward introductions and didn’t exactly leave a good impression.

Rebecca drove and parked around the back, jumping out before the engine was completely off and ushering Riza inside. She barely had time to grab her guitar before Rebecca almost ripped it out her hands and carried it herself. Riza held it protectively against her body and glared at her no-nonsense manager. God, the woman could be infuriating.

“Come on,” she rushed Riza, gesturing for her to hurry up towards the curtain backstage.

“Becca, I don’t think this is a good idea –”

“It will be fine.”

“But they’re not exactly the type for this –”

“Riza.”

“I really think I shouldn’t –”

“Riza,” Rebecca cut in. “We’re out of time. It’s nine o’clock and you’re due on,” Rebecca told her firmly. “We both need the money so get out there and knock ‘em dead. We both know you will.” She smiled encouragingly at Riza and it was needed.

Rebecca could be a pain and pushy at times, but she believed in Riza – more so than herself – and she often forgot that. Rebecca had never steered her wrong before and every gig had been a success so far – despite not being called back yet. She’d only started singing semi-professionally a year ago in between working in the coffee shop below her apartment. It paid the bills and it was what Riza loved. With Rebecca’s help, Riza had become successful. If she said there was nothing to worry about, then there was nothing to worry about.

Riza took a deep breath and steadied her nerves. “Right.”

Rebecca grinned at her, squeezing both her shoulders. “Go out there and show Ignis just how good Riza Hawkeye really it.” Riza rolled her eyes at her friend but passed through the curtain with a grin.

She organised herself on the small stage overlooking the bar. After a quick glance she saw there were already a few people looking at her expectantly. She angled her head so her hair fell in front of her, shielding herself from their gazes.

Steadying her slightly shaking hands, she repeated that she could do this over and over again in her head. Riza took her seat and strummed her guitar, finally looking up and meeting the gazes of the people staring at her. She took a deep breath and let it out in one go.

Her pre-gig ritual was complete.

“Hey everyone,” she greeted into the mic. She cringed at how loud she sounded. She’d always hated hearing herself back, but Riza blocked it out. She couldn’t help but smile as a few people whooped and shouted “yeah!” after her greeting. “It’s good to be here tonight,” she added, strumming her guitar a few more times and tuning it how she liked. “I hope you enjoy my stuff. If not, my manager has ear plugs just for this occasion.” The self-depreciating joke went over well, and more than a few people laughed. It was a lot more than she expected.

“I’ll ease you in slowly,” she told them, adjusting the earpiece so she could hear her guitar better with every strum. “This is a cover of a song that I’ve loved for years. It’s called Ships in the Night. I hope you like it.”

Riza opened her mouth and blocked everything else out, beginning her set of the night.

[prophetandprincess]

X X X X X X X

Hello All! I am still coming to terms that Endgame is out, I saw it, and I survived to tell the tale with only minimal tears! I think it was a satisfying ending to the journey that we started way back in the day. Now, let’s head back in time to see what Alex is up to before even Age of Ultron happened

“Where’s the fire, Parker?” Alex called as Peter all but ran out of their lab section on Friday. She had to dodge other students, calling out apologies as Peter seemed to have no problem moving through the crowd. He was pretty thin, but it seemed a little odd that he was so good at bobbing and weaving.

Peter pretended that he hadn’t heard Alex, even though she knew that he had from how he hunched his shoulders even lower. He got to the stairwell first, but with a burst of speed, Alex was able to grab onto his arm. Peter successfully wiggled out of her grasp, but his backpack was not so lucky. Papers, pens, a calculator, and gadgets that Alex had no idea what their use was went skittering all over the stairwell. There was a collective groan from the other students, and some jeers, as people moved around the carnage.

“You’re like a one woman wrecking ball, aren’t you?” Peter sighed as he started to gather up the gadgets before they were trodden on by the caffeine filled zombies of the student body.

“Well, if you would have stopped to talk to me, this wouldn’t have happened,” Alex hissed as she gathered up the papers while attempting not to drop any of her own things. “I said we were going to have a conversation and now you’re acting like I’m a leaper.”

“I’m busy,” Peter grabbed everything, leaving some pens to their fate, and shoved everything into his bag.

“Make time,” Alex snapped as she shoved the papers into his chest. She was about to continue her rant, but the top piece of paper caught her eye. It was an application that held the crest of Imperial College of London for a foreign exchange program.  

“Harper, I get it, we need to talk, but there is something happening right now that I need to get to. Do you get me?” Peter gave her a meaningful look as he shoved the papers into his bag.

“Are you going to England?” Alex countered, not really paying attention to the look or what he was trying to tell her.

“Alex, please…” Peter gave a huff as he ran his fingers through his hair. “How about this, come to dinner at my house tomorrow. You’ll get free food, we can work on the project, and you can ask your questions, okay? I’ve gotta go.”

“Alright, alright, fine,” Alex was a little confused by everything. “Text me the address later.”

Peter gave her a small smile before dashing down the rest of the steps and disappearing outside. Alex moved at a much slower pace, wondering why Peter would be looking to go to London, especially knowing what he did at night. She also didn’t understand why she felt so upset about it, only a week ago, she thought he was a stalker. It kept nagging at her, even during her time at Stark Tower, and it was creative enough to work its way into her nightmares.

Saturday was a grey morning as Alex got up to start getting ready for her first day working on the extra credit assignment. Professor Warren had stated that a driver would pick her up promptly at eight and Alex had hit snooze three times, but she still took time to check twitter. After the normal memes and conversations about celebrities that Alex really didn’t care about, there was a news story about a scientist’s apartment that was completely ransacked the previous afternoon. Spiderman had been seen around the building, but it was unclear if he had been the one who when into the place.

“Well, that is something to ask him about,” Alex sighed as she continued her preparations. Hadn’t Jake mentioned something about a scientist being attacked when she talked to him at some point? It could be a coincidence, but it seemed rather…concerning.

Alex’s phone started to ring, making her jump. The fear turned to confusion when she saw it was the front desk number.

“Johnathan, is there a problem?” Alex asked as she finished dressing.

“There is a…man sitting out front in an SUV that said he was waiting for you. Should I call the cops?” Johnathan, who was new on the weekends, asked.

“No, someone was supposed to send a driver for me, I’m guessing that’s him.” Alex said slowly, wondering what this guy looked like to make the doorman so concerned.  

Alex saw exactly why Jonathan was concerned when she got down to the lobby. The man standing outside the SUV was large, stone faced, and looked as if his nose had been broken at least three times. He just nodded his head as he opened the door for her, never speaking a word, and then he started to drive her toward the Ravencroft Institute. Alex wondered what the hell she had gotten herself into as a couple rain drops splashed onto the windshield.  

“Oh this can’t be right,” Alex looked through the windshield between the wiper blades at the large stone structure that loomed up in front of the car. It reminded her of a medieval castle that had been turned into a prison at some point. She wasn’t exactly sure what she had been expecting, but this was far more foreboding.  

“Ravencroft Institute, state your business,” the guard at the outer fence asked, hand on the gun at his hip, when the driver rolled down the window.

“Alexandra Jade Harper, student assistant to Dr. Miles Warren.” The driver’s voice was deep and gravelly, which Alex realized she should have expected. Of course the man who looked as if he used to work for the mob had a six pack a day voice. Maybe he was a mobster at night and this was just his day job. Who was she to judge?

“She’s on the list. Drive through, she can pick up her badge and sign the papers at the front desk.” The guard didn’t even look into the back seat before taking a step back and tapping his ear. “Open the outer gates for a visitor.”  

Soon the car stopped in front of a large stone arch, the doors obscured by the gloom of the surrounding stone and the dark clouds that were releasing a light drizzle onto the asphalt. Alex’s mind suddenly went to the line from Dante “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”, not exactly what you wanted to think about when entering a psychiatric facility, especially one that housed criminals.  

“I will wait out here for you.” The driver unlocked the doors before slipping on his sunglasses, even though it was raining, and folded his arms over his chest.

Alex waited for a second, attempting to collect herself, but staring at the darkened doorway wasn’t making her feel any more excited about her decision about taking this extra credit assignment. Finally, Alex sent out a quick text to Peter, stating that if he didn’t hear from her by the time for dinner, to send out the National Guard, and got out of the SUV. As she approached the door, Alex realized that sending a vague text like that to a vigilante might not be the best idea, but she was hoping that he was so busy or sleeping and he wouldn’t see it until she was done with the interview and sample collection.

There was a little comfort in the satisfying click of her heels as she approached the front desk, smoothing out her skirt in the hopes of calming her nerves. She had no idea what the dress code was for interviewing someone who was deemed criminally insane, so she went with professional. Red sweater, black pencil skirt, panty hose even, and black pumps. Her hair was down to hide her earrings, but she still didn’t feel all that confident or professional.

The interior of Ravencroft Institute wasn’t any more inviting than the outside. The floors were concrete, the walls were gray, and the ceilings were just a latticework of exposed pipes. Alex had been in prison before, and this had the same feel with industrial touches. The front desk was located behind bullet proof glass, and neither of the guards even attempted to give a smile as Alex approached the opening.  

“Hello, I’m Alex – Alexandra Harper,” Alex’s voice shook a little. “Professor Warren sent me to collect samples and interview one of your…patients?”

“Sign in and take the clipboard to fill out the forms.” Neither guard looked up at Alex or corrected her use of the word patient instead of prisoner.

For imposing at the building seemed from the outside, the lack of basic curiosity from the guards was even more disconcerting. In one of the cracked plastic chairs that were just begging to snag her panty hose, Alex stifled a yawn as she skimmed over the paperwork. The forms were the run of the mill stuff, if you get murdered or maimed, you can’t sue us. They were forms she had signed a number of times, but they seemed more menacing when she realized that the likelihood of being maimed, murdered, or other horrible things were much more likely here.

“Finished,” Alex attempted to sound chipper as she slid the clipboard to the guards.

“All personal belongings will go into a locker,” one guard said as he got to his feet, heaving a huge sigh. “You will be pat down as well to make sure you’re not smuggling anything in. Doctor Warren has had equipment approved and it will be given to you when you get to the subject in question.”

“The extra credit better be freaking worth it,” Alex muttered as she picked locker nineteen, her lucky number, and punched in the code to lock it. Not having anything to defend herself with, especially after the alley attack, made her even more uncomfortable.

“Alright, come through,” the guard waved here to walk through the metal detector, which thankfully didn’t beep because of her earrings, before a thorough pat down. “Here’s your visitor’s badge, which you will need to show a guard at every door. There is also a panic button on the clip in case anything happens. You’re going to cell G-9.”

That was it, not even any explanation how the panic button worked, before the guard disappeared back into his little control room. There was the loud click of the doors locking behind her. The sound of her heels clicking was no longer comforting as she walked down the hallway. Alex showed her badge to the guard standing at the elevator and she hoped he was armed more than necessary. He punched in a code to a pad that had no markings on it and waited without saying a word. It was like a Buckingham Palace guard that was armed for the zombie apocalypse.

The door slid open, showing another guard waiting in the small silver box the badge. Alex thanked the guard outside, though he didn’t even look at her, before stepping inside. There were no buttons in the elevator, but it started to descend soundlessly. Alex was pretty sure she had a nightmare like this before, the doors were going to open and there was going to be a boogeyman there. Though if it was a more recent nightmare, it would be The Winter Soldier, or just a tidal wave of blood. You know, super cheery things.

“It’s seems scarier than it is, Miss,” the guard said, making Alex jump. “We have only had one security breach, about a year ago, and since then they have gone a bit overboard. Even that situation, it wasn’t anything major.”

“Better safe than sorry, right?” Alex gave him a nervous smile. The fact that there had been a security breach, even if it was a year ago, was not exactly comforting.

“Especially with the people we have here, but there is no reason for you to look so jittery, you’ll be safe.” The guard gave her a reassuring smile underneath the visor of his riot gear. “You don’t want to let them smell fear. It’ll just make them rowdy.”

“Just like every other man I’ve ever met,” Alex muttered, not completely reassured by that information.

“You need anything, just push that panic button. Take no prisoners.” The guard gave that one last piece of advice as the elevator stopped.

Alex wasn’t sure if that was guard humor or not, but she couldn’t bring herself to laugh. Instead, she took a deep breath, a nod of acknowledgment and stepped out of the elevator. Alex put a little steel in her spine as the doors slid closed, and started forward. If there was one thing she was good at, it was bullshitting confidence.

It was surprisingly quiet, no screaming, laughing, or whimpering. After seeing so many movies set in insane asylums, she had expected pandemonium, but everything seemed controlled and contained. Each cell had a glass door with a safe like lock and a guard positioned alongside each in the shadows, as the light was pretty atrocious. None of the guards looked at her as she passed. The sound of her heels on the concrete floor mixed with the sound of water dripping somewhere, unnerving Alex more than screaming or manic laughing would have.

Cell G-9 was easy enough to find as there was a metal cart with supplies and a plastic chair outside the glass door. Alex said hello to the guard, who didn’t move a muscle, before taking a deep breath and looking into the cell. The lighting was no better, but there didn’t seem to be anyone in there.

“Don’t mind Jason,” a voice in the back corner of the cell called, making Alex jump. “He’s not supposed to talk to the dangerous criminals and must think that it also applies to pretty girls.”  

The voice was rather gentle, and cultured, which was surprising given the less than gentle and cultured surroundings. Alex’s eyes finally adjusted to the low lighting and could make out a pair of legs in orange cloth and white prison shoes against the back wall, though the rest of the body was still impossible to see.

“My name is Alexandra Harper and I’m Professor Warren’s assistant on the research project that you’re a participant in,” Alex took a seat on the edge of the chair, crossing her legs in an attempt to appear calm and professional. Don’t let them smell fear and take no prisoners. She had a job to do and she was going to do it, end of story.

“Well, you sound smarter than the last psychologist they sent to analyze me,” the voice continued, white shoes shaking a little. “The poor thing could barely get a word out, his teeth were chattering so badly. That begs the question, how did the good professor headhunt you for this particular assignment?”

“I’m not a psychologist, I’m a biochemist,” Alex wished she could see his face, it would make her feel a little less nervous. “And I wasn’t headhunted, I’m one of his students and this is an extra credit assignment. I just have to collect some skin and blood samples and then conduct a short interview. I hope that isn’t an issue, Mr…”

“Your honesty, as well as your company, are refreshing,” the legs disappearing into the shadows before the speaker walked into the light provided by the one recessed bulb in the ceiling. “Mr. Osborn, Harry Osborn to be precise, but you can just call me Harry. No need to be formal if we are going to be seeing each other every week.”

Alex had pictured what the person on the other side of the glass would look like since she had said yes meeting them, but the former head of one of the most powerful companies in the world had never even popped into her mind. It was all over the news that Harry Osborn had a nervous breakdown and that was why he was removed as the company CEO, but she had no idea it had landed him in a criminal asylum. What had he done to wind up here?

“Miles, Professor Warren, didn’t tell you who you were coming to see, did he?” Harry’s smile was soft as he sat down on the edge of his cot. His hair was a mess, but other than a jagged patch of scaly looking skin on the side of his face, he didn’t look all that mutated. What had caused the mutation? Something at Oscorp?

“He did fail to mention that the person I was coming to interview was worth probably over a million dollars, but what else is new?” This whole assignment was bizarre.  

“I know that feeling, never getting the whole truth to ensure that you do what someone wants. Since I was a child, everyone has always been after something from me, but no one was ever honest about it.” Harry tilted his head as he studied her for a moment, before giving the ghost of a smile. “Also, I want to point out, I am worth a lot more than a million, even locked up in here.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Alex gave him a smile as she looked down at the clipboard on the metal cart. “Now, it sounds like the psychologist when through these questions with you before, so I’m guessing you’re primed with the right answers. Is that right?”

“If it was anyone else who asked, I would say no,” Harry laughed, but it wasn’t dark or twisted. It was light and soft, and sounded very out of place in this setting. “However, I like you, Alexandra. Everyone else tried to adopt the persona they thought would best get me to talk, nice and cordial or stern and cruel. You are just talking to me like a person.”

“Last I checked, you are still a person, so I don’t see any reason to treat you otherwise.” The conversation was alarmingly comfortable and Alex found herself even liking Harry a little bit. “Also, please, call me Alex or A.J. Alexandra is just so…

“You don’t like Alexandra? I think it fits you, regal and gentle.” Harry tilted his head as he studied her. “You expected me to be less sane than I am right now, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t really have expectations,” Alex looked down at the clipboard again, reminding herself that she had a job to do. “So, are you going to answer these questions or not?”

“How about this?” Harry crossed legs and shimmied to the end of the bed, blue eyes sparkling. “For every question you ask me, I get to ask you one.”

“You can ask, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll answer,” Alex conceded. “You’re also not getting any blood or skin samples from me.”

“Fair enough, you start,” Harry gave her a smile, showing slightly pointy teeth.

Alex asked the first question and Harry was answering before she finished asking it. However, he was patient and repeated himself slowly, pausing so that she could easily transcribe it accurately.

“Where are you from?  It’s obvious that you aren’t native to New York,” Harry propped his head up on his folded hands.

“A tiny Midwest town on a not so tiny farm,” Alex relaxed in the chair a little. Harry had to be close to her age, something she would have to google later, but in the slip on shoes and jumpsuit, he seemed younger.

The rest of the hour continued in the same vein, Harry asking innocent questions and Alex providing vague answers. While she felt relaxed, telling a mentally unstable criminal detailed facts about herself did not seem wise, but she saw no problem with her favorite color or what her zodiac sign was.

“I have a question that’s not part of the assignment, if you don’t mind,” Alex said as she motioned for the guard to open the little area in the door that would allow Harry to stick out his arm for her to collect the samples.

“I get to ask another question then,” Harry said as he rolled up his sleeve and slid his arm out without any protest.

Alex snapped on a pair of gloves and opened the container with medical supplies. It was rather simple, a couple vials of blood and a small skin sample. Relatively noninvasive and painless, if you weren’t scared of needles. Professor Warren had given her a lesson about how to properly collect samples when she agreed to the assignment, but her hand still shook a little as she placed her hand on his arm to make sure he didn’t flinch.

“Calm down, Alex,” Harry said softly, looking up through his lashes and giving her a smile. “I promise one little needle stick isn’t going to bother me. What’s your question?”

“Earlier, you said ‘less sane than I am right now’” Alex slid the needle into Harry’s arm, he didn’t even flinch. “Does that mean that, because of whatever happened, you have a fluctuating mental state?”

Alex knew that the likelihood that whatever happened to Harry had nothing to do with Hydra, but a fluctuating mental state made her think of James. If she could get a brain scan on how his brain functioned during one of these episodes, maybe that data could be used in her research on a way to help James once he was found.

“Whatever happened, well, I did it to myself,” Harry said as Alex gently cut out the skin sample. “I had a rare genetic condition and there’s no cure. Slowly, I would have become an invalid, dying before my time, a husk of a human being. The only thing my father ever gave me.”

Alex looked up at Harry and was surprised to see that he was watching her intently. There was something about the way his blue eyes focused on her, the strange light behind them, that sent a small shiver down her spine. She could feel his pulse hammering as she pressed gauze to the small incision. There was an itch in her wrist, but she ignored it as she secured the samples, disposed of everything, and stripped off her gloves.

“At Oscorp,” Harry continued, voice even softer that he was basically whispering, “we had a cure of sorts, but it hadn’t been tested on humans. Well, it had accidentally been tested on one. It was my only hope, so…I took it.”  

“It didn’t go well,” Alex realized that they were almost nose to nose through the glass, feeling as if she moved away she would break something. This was not an answer to the question she asked, but it was still fascinating and she didn’t want Harry to stop talking.

“Well, my condition has slowed if not been stopped completely due to the mutations that the serum caused,” Harry gave her a ghost of a smile. “However, at times, I’m not myself. There are physical transformations as well and they’re not pretty.”

“Well, that will remind me to never skip the proper scientific procedures in my research,” Alex tried to joke, but it was an awful attempt. “I’m sorry, about the illness and…what came after.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Harry pulled his arm back, rubbing the back of his hand as the opening was secured once again. “The transformation, it taps right into my rage and I don’t care what’s right or wrong, just what I want. Sometimes I remember what I do, sometimes it is something I’ve wanted to do all along, other times…”

They were standing there, looking through the glass at one another, deep blue eyes looking into light blue. There were equally deep purple bags under both sets of eyes. Alex realized that she was barely breathing, completely entranced with what he might say next. It felt weird, to be staring at someone she had just met and hanging on his every word. Was she really so tired that he was having such an effect on her or did it have to due to the setting that the conversation was taking place in?

“Other times I do something I regret, like kill an innocent woman, one about your age, just to hurt someone who had wronged me.” Harry was studying her face, to see how she took the news. “They didn’t put me in here because I look good in orange.”

Alex finally blinked and took a step back, processing the information she had just been given. It wasn’t like she didn’t know more than her fair share of people who had blood on their hands. Steve during the war, Sam as well, James had killed people right in front of her, and that didn’t even count the people at Stark Industries. Harry seemed genuinely upset by what he had done, but did that change the gravity of the act?

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Osborn,” Alex said as she got ready to leave, turing to the guard. “Yours as well, Jason.”

“Harry, please, and I meant what I said about your honesty being refreshing. That’s why I told you the truth, I’m hoping that you come back next week for the next interview. I do like you better than anyone else that Miles, the professor, has sent me.”

“Take care of yourself, Harry,” Alex said with a small smile. “I’ll see you next week.”

Alex walked down the hall, feeling a little braver, letting her eyes drift over to the cell doors. There was nothing to see in most of them with the small glimpse that she got, but in a couple she would see the back of a head. There was only one that had a man standing at the door, looking out at her. He was older with wispy blond hair and round glasses. The expression on his face as she passed could only have been described as concerned. Then she was passed the window and stepping into the elevator.

There must have been a changing of the guard while Alex was interviewing Harry because it was a silent elevator ride up to the main floor. While the whole experience was far more than she had expected, there was a glimmer of hope that this extra credit might do some actual good for more than just her GPA. Alex was going to have to ask Professor Warren about what his research was actually focused on to understand the scope of what they were doing.

Alex was patted down again before the doors were unlocked and Alex was able to collect her things. The slight drizzle had advanced to a full-blown thunderstorm when Alex dashed to the waiting SUV. It wasn’t until they had pulled away from Ravencroft that she looked at her phone. Six missed calls and two voicemails. A heart in her throat, Alex listened to the first one.

“Harper, it’s me, Peter Parker. I’m not sure what you meant by your text, but you not answering your phone is not doing a lot for my anxiety. Now, I know you don’t like me following you around, I get it, you’re an independent woman and everything, but when you send me that text and I then can’t trace your cell phone signal, that goes way past anxiety. I know that I have been ignoring you and avoiding you, and I’m sorry, but like this is just cruel and unusual punishment. I invited you to dinner! I promise we’ll talk! As soon as you get this, I mean the immediate moment, call me.” Peter spoke so quickly that it took Alex two listens to the message before she caught all of it.

Alex sent Peter a quick text, saying that she was alright and would call him once she was back at her apartment. While she doubted that would placate her lab partner, she didn’t really want to have the conversation with the possible mob member by night driver able to eavesdrop. Instead she hit the other voicemail to listen to, hoping that Peter hadn’t done something stupid like call in a missing person’s report.

The first couple seconds of the message was just silence, and Alex was about to hang up, before there was a deep inhale on the other line.   

“Alexandra,” James’s voice was shaky and heavily accented. He started talking then, but it was in fluent Russian. Alex picked up a word here and there, but it was mostly nonsense to her. There was no pain or anxiety in the tone of his voice, but Alex could have thrown her phone out of frustration. Apparently, he had slipped back into his programming a bit, but at least he didn’t sound in danger.

The voicemail ended, but Alex couldn’t pull the phone away from her ear. Each phone call was a little glimmer of hope attached to a blade inserted straight into her heart. To hear his voice, to know he was alive, made butterflies awaken in her stomach. It also made her remember that when he was free of the programming, he wanted nothing to do with her. God, how did this become her life?

“Miss Harper, thank goodness, I was worried about you,” Jonathan said as he opened the door to let her out of the SUV. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine Jonathan, thank you.” Alex gave him a smile as they headed into the apartment building. “It was part of a job, I’m sorry to not warn you.”

“I don’t like the look of that man, Miss.” Jonathan shook his head as he went behind the front desk. “Please be careful.”

“Always.” Alex was starting to get tired of all the males in her life believing that she needed a bodyguard. Yes, she got into trouble more than your normal citizen, but she was self-sufficient. However, Jonathan was just trying to be nice, so there was no reason to take his head off.

“There was also a rather persistent young gentleman here to see you earlier. However, since you weren’t home, I told him I’d tell you he stopped by and sent him away. He even tried to sneak past me.” Jonathan sniffed in disdain.

“He’s fine, Jonathan, he’s just a friend from school.” There was a very small list of young gentlemen that Alex knew and only one who would attempt to sneak by the doorman. Peter really must have been worried about her, but how did he know where she lived? He had said something about tracking her cell phone too, which was a conversation they were going to have to have.

By the time got to her apartment, she was bubbling with rage. She stabbed Peter’s contact picture with more force than necessary and put her phone to her ear. The call was answered almost immediately, though Peter was apparently out of breath because he didn’t say anything right away. There was also the sound of water somewhere in the background, maybe he had been in the shower?

“Alexandra, where have you been? You dropped off the face of the earth after sending me a cryptic text. I stopped by your apartment and you weren’t there, the doorman wouldn’t tell me where you had gone. I almost called the cops!” Peter rambled.

“Funny, Peter, I don’t remember you being my keeper,” Alex’s voice was a cold as ice as she kicked off her heels. She noticed that her window was open, letting some cooler air into the apartment. She could have sworn it that she had closed it before she left.  

“You texted me!” Peter’s voice climbed a couple octaves.  

“Just as a precaution, it’s a girl thing. I should have just texted Monica,” Alex grumbled as she walked over to the window.

It was still storming pretty heavily now and she didn’t want anything in the apartment getting wet. There was a little fumbling as she pinned the phone between her shoulder and cheek as she reached between the curtains to push the window closed. There, on the other side of the glass was Peter Park, wet and looking rather sheepish.

“Jesus Christ!” Alex stumbled backward, the phone falling onto the floor. He was very lucky that she didn’t carry a gun or he would have had to attempt to dodge a bullet on her tiny fire escape.

“Most people just go with Peter,” he gave her a smile as he hung up the call. “Can you let me in? I’m starting to grow mildew out here.”

“What the hell are you doing out there?” Alex’s voice was a little shaky, though now probably because of anger.

“Okay, maybe this wasn’t my best thought out plan,” Peter admitted, pushing wet hair out of his face, “but I panicked when you wouldn’t answer your phone and I couldn’t get its GPS location. You really should get someone to give that doorman a raise, by the way, he was rather forceful, but still polite with me.”

Alex huffed, but he looked so pathetic out there bent at the waist to look in the window and dripping wet hair, that she had to let him in. It took her a little time to get the screen up, but finally Peter slithered into the apartment. Alex directed him to the bathroom, so he didn’t drip all over the place, before lowering the screen and closing the window. Luckily, there was a clean towel in the closet, even though she hadn’t done laundry in weeks, and she tossed it at Peter before she started to change out of her interview clothing.

“So, where exactly were you today that blocked cell phone signals and made you worried enough to text me?” Peter called from the bathroom. Alex heard wet clothes hitting the tiles and prayed that he wouldn’t walk out in just the towel.

“It’s for this extra credit assignment I’m doing for Warren. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting into. I never intended you to track my cell phone. How can you even do that?” Alex called as she tugged on a hoodie and a pair of yoga pants.  

“I’m Spider-man,” Peter said, waiting out of the bathroom towel drying his hair. As if to make his point, he was wearing his suit, well the bottom half of it. He was really only using it as a pair of pants, the rest scrunched up around his waist to show a lot of ab muscles.

“There’s a drier down in the basement, if you want me to take your stuff down,” Alex offered. “However, you’re going to have to supply the dollar.”

“I don’t think I have a dollar on me,” Peter shrugged. “You’re doing extra credit for Warren? Since when? I wasn’t offered extra credit.”

“I would have told you all about it, if you would have talked to me the past couple days instead of acting like I had the plague.” Alex pointed out. “And since when are you planning on going to London? You didn’t think that you might need to mention that to your lab partner?”

“I thought we weren’t friends?” Peter countered as he perched on the edge of the battered trunk that was her coffee table, a small smile on his face. “It’s just an application and even if I do get selected, I wouldn’t leave until next semester. We wouldn’t be lab partners anymore. How do you know the head of the anti-vigilante division of the NYPD?”

“Michael had the misfortune of being the officer on duty when I had some issues last year and he just can’t seem to get away from me,” Alex shrugged, jumping up onto the kitchen counter. “Are we still having dinner with your Aunt tonight?”

“She has a shift at the hospital today, so I figured we could get pizza or something so she doesn’t have to cook and we can get some work done on that project. Though apparently you have extra credit…” Peter trailed off, dropping the towel and picking up the notebook on the table. “What’s all this?”

“None of your business,” Alex jumped down and snatched the notebook out of his hand. “And for some reason Professor Warren really doesn’t like you, so that’s probably why you weren’t offered an extra credit assignment.”

“He really didn’t like you either, until recently,” Peter pointed out.

He had a point, but Alex wasn’t going to tell him that. Whatever the reason for Warren’s sudden interest and like of her was, it was helpful. There is that whole saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Still, maybe on Monday she would stop by office hours and see if he would give her any more details about what they were working on, exactly. While she was fascinated by Harry, there were a thousand different biochemical avenues that his case could do down, and she should probably figure out which one.

“There was another reason I stopped by your place,” Peter said as he looked up at her, hair drying at erratic angles on his head.

“You don’t say,” Alex rolled her eyes as she sat down on the couch.

“Have you heard about the attacks on scientists? Their apartment’s being trashed, as if a wild animal was in there?” Peter leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees while Alex nodded. “When I couldn’t get a hold of you, I was worried whatever it was got to you, so I came by to check out your place. While it was dirty enough that someone may have ransacked it, there were no scratch marks. Then you called and here we are.”  

“Since you’re investigating, I’m guessing it isn’t really a wild animal being set loose by like PETA to protest animal testing?” Alex was a little touched that Peter was so worried he had come to check up on her, even though it was ridiculous.

“No, no, I’ve caught glimpses of him and if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a werewolf,” Peter sighed. “However, it wasn’t a completely selfless reason I stopped by, I wanted to make sure that you haven’t told anyone at Stark Tower about me.”

“Why doesn’t anyone at Stark Tower know about you? I mean, you guys are in the same line of work.” Alex really hadn’t given any thought to the idea, but shouldn’t the Avengers be recruiting Peter?

“Because I draw the line at aliens,” Peter laughed before turning serious. “I was in New York for the battle, with those things pouring from the sky. There was nothing I could do and honestly I want no part of that. Besides, someone had to take care of the smaller threats while the Avengers are off saving the world.”

“I’d be even more worried about your mental state if you hadn’t been scared by that,” Alex smiled. “I mean, you’re just a scientist in spandex. Aliens are a bit above your pay grade.”

“I’m not just an inventor, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, but I would have been totally out of my depth.” Peter laughed as he got up and stretched.

“Is that so?” Alex raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

Before Peter answered, a ringing phone can be heard from the bathroom. Alex hopped up and grabbed it out of the soaking wet jeans Peter had thrown over the tub. Peter was right behind her and his face fell when he looked at the readout.

“Another scientist apartment was just called into 9-1-1.” Peter was moving toward the window before the words were out of his mouth. “If I get there first, maybe I can find out what this guy is after.”

“Peter wait a-” Alex didn’t even get to finish the statement before he was out of the window and perched on the railing of her fire escape.  

“I’ll call you later about dinner,” Peter called before he vaulted over the railing and fell out of sight.

“Parker,” Alex screamed as she scrambled out of the window. Gripping onto the railing, Alex looked over, rain be damned. There was not a splattered lab partner on the ground, in fact, there was nothing in the alley. She heard his laughter and turned her head in time to see a streak of full suited up Spider-Man swing around the building. Alex remembered the white substance that he used when fighting, was it webbing? Damn it, she was curious now.

Slamming the window shut, Alex stripped off again as she was once again soaked and collapsed on the couch, closing her eyes. It had been one hell of a day and it wasn’t even noon. She was tired. Her phone buzzed, a text from Jake asking her about what dates would be good for his trip to the Big Apple. It was just a jumble of letters and Alex couldn’t even figure out a good reply. So she just closed out of the message.

All Alex wanted was a nice long rest. No college to worry about, no vigilantes or superheroes, just for everything to stop. For a second her finger hovered over Sam’s contact picture, for him to tell her everything was alright, to come over and talk with her. However, she couldn’t bring herself to make the call. She scrolled down and got to Steve’s number, the one she should have called the moment that she got James’s voicemail. Once again, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Instead, she turned on her side and listened to James’s voicemail again and again.

[oscopelabs]

3D, Part 1: James Cameron and the Broken Promise of the Third Wave by Vadim Rizov

[Note: This essay is the first in a two-part series on 3D. Part 2, coming soon, will discuss the unexpected peak of 3D as an artistic form. —ed.]

It’s not fair to say that James Cameron ruined projection standards by pushing for a digital changeover—the industry impetus was already under way—but Avatar left less of an impression as a movie than as technological advocacy, resulting in unintended, still-lingering side effects. Cameron dreamed of 3D cinema arriving, finally, at what he viewed as its overdue narrative fruition; he couldn’t have imagined compromising projection standards or undermining film archiving in the process. This is a two-part essay: The first is a grim recap of the Third Wave of 3D, which has unfolded over the last decade. The second will advocate for a secret classic of 3D cinema at its inadvertently experimental peak.

****

The not-too-reductive standard narrative goes like this: 3D was popularized contemporaneously with widescreen in the ‘50s as half of a two-pronged initiative to lure audiences away from their TV screens by giving the theatrical experience something unavailable at home. By decade’s end, widescreen was normalized; ’60s and ‘70s one-offs excepted, 3D wasn’t. 1980’s Comin’ at Ya! kicked off its second wave, which had a similarly short lifespan. In both runs, 3D failed to transition from passing gimmick to standard filmmaking option, mostly due to the diminishing thrill of seeing things flying at you, but also due to technological flaws that made the results physically difficult to watch. This history’s a bit of an oversimplification: like sound, color, and widescreen (all of which were experimented with long before they became standard options), 3D had test-run incarnations well before its ‘50s boom. Still, this story is largely accurate. So what makes the third wave different?

Cameron’s ideal 3D would be to create totally immersive worlds, refusing to throw objects at viewers the way the first two 3D waves had done. These effects were presumably cheap grabs for attention, while Cameron was focused more on depth rather than breaking the proscenium. In a (troublesomely unattributed) quote from 2009, a collaborator summed up his approach: “There’s a scene early in [Avatar] where something jumps out of the screen. Jim said, `I just did that so that they would know I know how to do it. But then I stopped doing it because that’s not what 3D is; 3D is bringing the audience completely into the environment of the movie.’” Narrative disruption was not on the agenda; Cameron’s films have always followed conventional dramatic arcs, and Avatar has a particularly unchallenging (“archetypal”) story. This meant yoking 3D to digital projection, which would straighten out the format’s numerous problems once and for all by eliminating both the visual eyestrain and eyeline problems of watching 3D, either polarized (the default standard until digital) or in anaglyph (the infamous red-and-blue glasses format that became a stand-in image for the format, despite being relatively rare) and the double potential for error caused by an incompetent projectionist. Cameron had spent years preparing audiences—and, more importantly, the industry—for a digital conversion. In 2005, he, George Lucas, and Peter Jackson appeared at ShoWest, the trade theater convention to boost for 3D and, by association, digital projection. “I’m giving you guys plenty of warning,” Cameron said. “You’ve got two years to get ready.” His timeline was off, the larger idea was not: In 2009, 16,000 screens worldwide were digital-ready. The next year, that had shot up to 36,000.

It’s not clear digital projection is the optimal way to see Avatar; the late 3D advocate Ray Zone saw the film five times in multiple formats in its first run, concluding not only that film-based IMAX 3D (with two 70mm projectors running simultaneously) was the correct way to see the film, but that “One hint that IMAX 3-D 15/70mm was the native 3-D format for Avatar was that the new large platters would only hold two hours and forty minutes of 15/70mm film—the exact running time of the film.” Nonetheless, Avatar’s overwhelming success sped up a slow-moving push to digital conversion, which the industry had been inching towards for some time. George Lucas had some digital screenings of Phantom Menace, but locally, I remember digital first rearing its head at the arthouse—specifically Austin’s long-closed four-screen Dobie Theatre, an independent that had by then been bought by Landmark Theatres. The arthouse chain went in early for digital projectors, a bright future ushered in Windows Media Player 9. (From a press release at the time: “The film is a milestone in digital origination — a genuine work of art that takes full advantage of new technology. Windows Media 9 Series will show it in all its glory.”) “We can hear the techies in the crowd oohing and ahhing already,” The Austin Chronicle’s Marc Savlov wrote. “It'll only be a matter of time before the entire industry goes digital and the notion of scratched and blotchy film and frazzled frame adjustments will seem very quaint indeed. Progress, baby. We live for it.” My first screening in that format was Russian Ark, Alexander Sokruov’s one-take Hermitage film that would have been impossible to realize on celluloid, with its inherent time limits on how long each reel can be. That projection (the Dobie was only one of four US theaters to play it that way in the film’s initial run) made sense: digital in, digital out.

Still, the stakes of first digital conversion were relatively small; Avatar’s success upped digital’s presence significantly while coupling it to 3D. This is the part that’s different: where previous pushes for 3D worked with (extensively) modified versions of existing film hardware, this time the medium’s perfection accelerated the wholesale rethinking of film production and exhibition. Striking and shipping 35mm prints was expensive, as was paying qualified projectionists, and said prints would get beat up; the longer you waited to see a film, odds were the worse it would look. And “qualified” projectionists certainly weren’t the baseline standard by any means: I remember going to see Talk to Her improperly projected in 2002, the frame misaligned so that the bottom of the frame showed as a sliver at the top from start to finish. (Here’s a much more dramatic projection fail story from back in the day; probably everyone has at least one.) As with any new tech rollout, unforeseen problems followed: smaller theaters crowdsourced funds for new projectors or risked going out of business, digital files proved anything but foolproof in practice, a push for digital archiving placed the history of film at risk as new storage formats proved highly unstable relative to well-preserved film. (This last sentence is a heavily compressed version of what David Bordwell tracked at length in his highly recommended “Pandora’s Digital Box” series.) More succinctly, this is the first time 3D introduced a specific ghost in the machine: every time you go to a multiplex to see a movie that looks way too dark, the odds are good someone left the 3D lens on, and no one’s around who can fix it or who would even care to. What started as an attempt to perfect 3D had the inadvertent effect of undoing 2D digital projection standards.

Again, none of this is directly James Cameron’s fault. He’s just the one who helped push through a change faster than it might have been implemented otherwise. Avatar’s blockbuster breakthrough was followed the next year by Alice in Wonderland, which harvested a billion-plus dollars worldwide, making the case that it didn’t matter whether 3D was native or, as in Tim Burton’s film, post-converted. Not a year later, Jeffrey Katzenberg—another 3D booster—was already worried “the bloom was off the rose” because cynical types “thought they could just deliver a kind of low-end crappy version of it, and people wouldn't care, or wouldn't know the difference.” Five years later, Katzenberg was blunter, quoting (intentionally or not) Easy Rider to convey the extent of his disappointment: “we blew it.” 3D’s never had as big a year since 2010: its revenue has declined every year since, and production of 3D films has gone down. The technology stuck, but 3D’s potential as a normative storytelling tool remains once again questionable until further notice.

Setting aside the grim trajectory of 3D’s current wave, which has seen revenue (and audience demand) for the format decrease, it’s worth reflecting on Cameron’s original idea that 3D would add “depth” to the familiar, instead of a better brand of comin-at-ya effects. For years, whenever people would ask which 3D movies I liked, I’d say Yogi Bear. This is (not entirely) a smartass answer: obviously Goodbye to Language would be a better response, but Godard sought to dismantle all 3D’s rules one event shot at a time, and no one will (be able to) follow up on its visual inquiries. Pina made visual sense (the performers are dancing outside, depth is important), Hugo looked neat, and Tron: Legacy was a cool lightshow (though that had more to do with sheer color overload and Daft Punk’s super-loud score as rendered on the biggest speakers theatrically available, and a 3D expert friend swears it has some of the worst use of the medium he’s ever seen); otherwise, my 3D sampling has mostly been review assignments of bad-looking movies. The worst are the post-converted monstrosities. A real low here was the new Pete’s Dragon, which Disney screened in 3D: it looked extremely dark, which was predictable, but worse, a bunch of shots which were clearly shallow-focus, had all been rendered as three to four separate planes of depth, casting blurry background areas in semi-sharp relief, each shot an unintentional diorama. It was sort of possible to tell what the compositional intent was, but impossible to really envision it.

So Yogi Bear is peak 3D. Why not? At a cost of $80 million, Yogi Bear renders a depth-filled Jellystone Park entirely on par with Pandora, with all of the depth and none of the tacky colors. Both movies tell stories, both benefit from depth to spatially reconstruct a largely external environment: the differences are mostly details. In an interview Google will no longer let me find, but which I swear I remember, Cameron said only 19 shots (or thereabouts, let me hedge) in Avatar featured zero CG. These are, I presume, the shots of Jake Sully back on base; to me, they’re easily the most memorable parts of the movie, capturing the full depth of a set (and its metal walls) in a way that’s way more compelling than a fully rendered fake ecosystem . What if Cameron was wrong and 3D is, fundamentally, not just a way to enhance immersiveness but one which, when deployed in the non-CG constructed world, can recode the nuts and bolts of narrative filmmaking visual language itself? In Part II, I’ll look back at the much-derided second wave of ‘80s 3D to make the case that 1983’s Treasure of the Four Crowns, a little-regarded Raiders of the Lost Ark knock-off, is one of the format’s greatest, most progressive and inadvertently suggestive moments.

[loveandcigarillos]

It’s Tricky.

Erik x Black!Reader

A/N: Another adventure with Erik and Peanut. Maybe this should become a thing. This one was inspired/requested by @untouched-rose. I hope you enjoy it. 

Warnings: None. Explicit language and a mention of nudity just in case though.

“Guap, Guap get some chicken! Guap, guap get some bread!” You rapped along with Cardi B.

You were attempting to wipe down the kitchen counter on a warm Saturday morning but, that quickly turned into you placing the palms of your hands against the counter top and twerking your ass in quick circles to the Project Pat sample from Cardi B’s debut album. “Aye! Pop that pussy like poppin’ pussy is going outta style! Yes, Cardi!”

“This what you doing while I’m in here slaving over your laundry?” Erik asked loudly over the music. You were too enthralled in the lyrics to hear his question but that quickly changed when the rest of the verse halted abruptly.

“Excuse me? That was the best part!”

“You don’t need to be poppin’ shit. Wipe them counters and simmer down.”

You responded with a disgruntled grumble before returning to your original task. He scoffed at your childishness while disconnecting your phone from the soundbar and connecting his. He’d normally let you be in charge of the cleaning playlist but he’d been listening to Invasion of Privacy longer than he was comfortable with.

Gucci Mane’s ‘Both Eyes Closed’ replaced the brief silence causing you to roll your eyes. How many times could a person listen to one song was all that crossed your mind as your traded the damp dish cloth for a broom.

“Woooow! I finally convince you to move to Atlanta and now that’s all you can listen to.” You said watching him dance around you en route to dropping the laundry basket by the bedroom door.

He donned his gold rimmed glasses and an old MIT t-shirt that horribly clashed with his baby blue University of North Carolina shorts. Sure, it was a lazy day but this outfit was absolutely terrible.

Erik caught you giving him a once over with your face scrunched and turned the song down to address you.

“I know you ain’t talking shit, Peanut. That sweatshirt is raggedy as hell. You didn’t even go to Duke so, you really set trippin’.”

“Oh I’m set trippin’?” You laughed, putting the broom against the wall and making a move to stand toe to toe with him. “Tell me when you were enrolled at UNC. Or are you mad because your team is ass and got bounced from the tourney early as hell?”

“Oh so we going there!”

“Yeah, that’s where we going!” It took all of your strength not to burst out laughing at the petty argument but a goofy smile still made its way across your face. Erik’s own smile served as a mirror to your expression, the gold caps on his canines glinting in the Georgia sun.

“How about this? I challenge your loud ass to a dance off. First one to run out of moves loses and winner chooses the punishment. Bet?” He extended his arm expecting you to shake his hand and agree to the terms of the deal. You looked his hand for a second and then back at him with a confident smile.

“Run it.”  

Furniture was pushed to the outer walls to give both of you ample room to move around. This wasn’t the first time a dance battle had broken out in your living room but, it was the first one that would end with a winner and loser.

As always, shuffle decided the battle song and you silently prayed that it was one that would put you at an easy advantage. Erik had moves but there was no way he could keep dancing through a Trina song. Carefully eyeing you, Erik pressed the button to skip to next song before moving back to his side of the room and waiting for the battle to begin.

The air was thick with anticipation as both of your eyes were glued to the phone waiting for whatever would spill out of the speaker next.

“This speech is my recital. I think it’s very vital...”

Your squeal clashed with Erik’s groan once you realized that the shuffle goddess had blessed you with ‘It’s Tricky’ as today’s battle song. A previous best of three rock, paper, scissors match determined that you would go first.

You quickly made your way to the center of the makeshift dance floor and started the competition with an excited cabbage patch, effectively stealing your boyfriend’s signature move. You came to win and taking it easy on him wasn’t going to happen today.

Finishing up, you pointed to the floor to let him know it was his turn. He rolled his eyes at your antics, choosing to counter your cabbage patch with his own running man, capping it off with a spin and point to the center of the floor.

“I see you, baby. Okay!” You complimented, genuinely amazed at his ability to switch it up on the fly.

You made the decision to see his running man and raise him a Roger Rabbit, intensely staring into his eyes as you executed the move. He gave you an impressed nod, walking around in a circle to gear up for a fluid top rock that perfectly fit into the beat. He was playing dirty!

You pulled out a robot, he attacked with some tutting and that was returned with a tootsie roll. The battle went back and forth until both of you were literally running out of moves. The end of the song was near and neither of you had considered what would happen if the song ended with no clear winner.

Obviously winded, you claimed your spot in the middle of the floor and executed a flawless Robo Cop, effortlessly jerking your shoulders and arms from side to side. You knew you had him beat when he scratched the back of his head to take a moment to think.

“Just give up, boo. I promise you’ll like your punishment.”

Erik, unphased by your cockiness, stepped to the middle of the floor and eyed you. A sly smile covered his face as he lowered himself onto the floor, laying flat on his stomach with his arms out in front of him.

“Nigga, what are you-” You question was cut short when Erik, with all six feet of his muscle ridden body, began doing The Worm.

Your hands flew to your mouth to stifle your surprised laughter. When his off-beat flopping finally ended, you were double over with tears clouding your vision. Erik pushed himself off the floor wearing a confident smile knowing he had finally outsmarted you.

“Laugh all you want but, yo’ ass just took a mean L.” He said dusting his shirt off and sitting on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter.

Normally you’d be pissed about losing but today it was worth it. This was the perfect thing to store in your mental Rolodex of embarrassing moments to pull out in public group outings with your friends.

Once you finally calmed down, you made your way over to him, stopping to position yourself between in legs and wrap your arms around his neck. “You won fair and square, E. What’s my punishment?”

You expected one of his usual “punishments” that always involved you doing something in the nude. Vacuuming in just a of pair heels, cooking in just an apron, literally just walking around the house naked for a day. The amount of naked activities he could come up with was honestly astounding.

His innocent smile and chaste kiss on your lips assured you that whatever the punishment was would be something you both would enjoy. Grabbing your waist, he gave your forehead a kiss and your sides a gentle squeeze before moving you to the side so that he could stand up.

“Clean the rest of the house by yourself, baby girl. Get to scrubbing.”

He couldn’t stop himself from laughing at your confused expression on the way to the bedroom. Just when you thought he had calmed down, he turned around to get another look at you, rekindling his hysterical laughter as the door closed behind him.

Rolling your eyes you took a look at what was left to do. A mountain of dishes and the sound of Erik switching on the television on the other side of the bedroom door taunted you

“Asshole.”

[fanfictionized]

Help Me Help You - EXmode (5/?)

Character: Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Reader / OFC

Chapter summary: They've finally cracked Hydra's database, meaning that they have a name; The next one of Hydra's victims and they need to find her before they do.

Also they have more of an idea of what enhancement-program they're dealing with...Something familiar, perhaps?

Warnings: Mentions of torture and death, angst?

Words: 1.9k

Previous Chapter // Help Me Help You - Masterlist

“It didn’t occur to me until I tried matching the people’s blood samples up with the rest in S.H.I.E.L.D’s database.” Bruce recited as he called up the different hemograms. Bucky wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking at, numbers and percentages listed in tabular form that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him.

Bruce rambled on about the numbers and percentages and Bucky noticed that he was not the only one drifting off until the next swipe with his hand showed a microscopic animation of real blood cells. He remembered that much from school. Micrography had been quite a new technology, allowing to show real, yet blurry and black and white examples over a projector. But that was nothing compared to this.

Those cells were red and pink with a purplish center and it seemed as if they were vibrating as they coursed slowly into one direction like a current. The dark purple was starting to spread out into its entirety, the yellowish green edges of the cell beginning to extend small antenna-like arms that wiggled their way outside the cell. Bucky had never, in any way, been good at biology or science, but he didn’t need to to determine it strange. Nothing but normal.

“But I had kept myself so busy with the mutation in your blood and what the super serum did to you” He continued, looking at both Steve and Bucky “That I didn’t think about the rest of Hydra’s altering experiments.” His head turned towards Wanda. She had been staring at the screen for quite some time now.

“It’s… mine, isn’t it? My blood?” She asked cautiously and Bruce nodded, pushing back the glasses onto his nose and continued explaining with a soft tone to his voice.

“Strucker’s experiments were revolutionary after Zola’s.” Bucky looked up at the familiar name, a shiver running down his spine. “It seems as if Hydra has gotten more information on how to put both of their lives’ work together.”

“To create the ultimate weapon. Indestructible and enhanced.” Vision stated as he had entered the room by floating through the glass. Another thing Bucky wouldn’t be able to get used to. It was only the third time he had seen him. He had disappeared to go on his own mission weeks before. Something about S.H.I.E.L.D he assumed, but it didn’t really matter anyway.

“Vis!” Wanda squealed excitedly as she saw him floating towards her and wrapped her arms around him. The others smiled and greeted him back. “Vision is right. I’m not just talking about your super strength or physical resilience” He looked back at Bucky and Steve “Or your enhanced abilities, Wanda. This could be a whole new thing.” He shook his head in disbelief as he showed the next picture.

A sea of dark purple spots trembling across the screen. The room got quiet as everyone watched the oval cells with jet-black cores quivering with, what everyone assumed; pure fucking energy.

“What the hell is this?” Sam asked, clearly shocked. “That’s the sample of Nina Alice, one of the victims.” Bruce added before Sam interrupted him “And let me guess; the others look exactly like hers?” Bruce nodded. “More or less, yes. You can see a slight change in the bloodstream, but my guess is that Hydra is still playing with the formula…” “But” Natasha inquired “They were all dead when they found them, right?” Her voice was laced with something Bucky had never heard from her. Possible fear of what they were facing. “Yes, unfortunately-” Bruce began but she continued. “Then how… are the cells still moving?”

Goosebumps crawled over Bucky’s skin at the realization and the others looked just as horrified as him as they faced each other. Bruce sighed deeply.

“All of them were found within 24 hours after their initial time of death. The autopsy showed that even though their hearts had stopped beating, they were not quite… dead… in a literal sense.” “What are you talking about?” Wanda asked, as confused as the rest of the group. “Their brains are still active. Something inside them was still keeping them alive for a couple more hours.” “The new serum?” Natasha asked. “Probably.” Tony responded “Their brains’ activity essentially shut down after an average of 16 hours after their death.” “Actually, post-mortal brain activity is not uncommon, but the average time span for that is maybe up to six minutes.” “Not sixteen hours…” Steve repeated calmly as he looked down, either thinking or processing. “How the fuck are you so calm? Man, we got a new Hydra weapon that could take us all down, how are you not freaking out right now?” Sam clearly wasn’t. Rightly.

Bucky’s own heart had begun to thump inside his chest at a maddening pace. He didn’t want to imagine what those people must’ve gone through in comparison to him. His story was one to ignite nightmares by its own. He had gone a long way to become what he was, but it was the aftermath that still traumatized him. They had died getting there.

“I’m not.” Steve replied “But we might be able to stop them before anything else happens to any more civilians.” He said and gestured to Tony who was still pacing around restlessly. “…Tony? Do you know something we don’t?” Natasha asked as he picked up his tablet. “Maybe.” He shrugged and projected the picture on the screen above the table with a tap of his fingers.

“S.H.I.E.L.D has found more than one of Hydra’s programmer. They… interrogated them-” He raised his brows and Steve scoffed “What do you want from me, Cap? Because I want this to end.” Steve crossed his arms in front of him but let Tony continue.

“-Anyway, they got enough information from them to add to the hacking of the system they had already achieved to find out the plan on the new serum.” The information on the operation appeared with a title.

“The Exome-Modification and Enhancement Program.” Tony said “Also called EXmode.” He remarked, letting everyone observe the information in front of them. “We have the names of the victims right here- “ “Along with their process-evaluation during their treatments.” Bruce finished his sentence “They never wrote down the actual formula, but what it did to the people as they used it on them.” “Something like a fucked-up diary…” Sam muttered angrily. Bruce began to look more and more depressed during the course of explaining the current situation.

“They have all the names here in order. But not only the ones that were found… but also the ones they still… want to experiment on.” “There, after Yorick Lambert.” Natasha pointed out the name on the sheet. “Has anyone after him been reported missing yet?” “Not yet, no.”

Annabelle Feldner. Bucky read inside his head. She was the next one on the list, right underneath Yorick. There was nothing else, no date, no information.

“We need to find her, Tony.” It just slipped out, his thoughts running freely and he felt the need to express them. “We can’t let them get to her.” All eyes were on him. Although he didn’t speak much, his words had value once they were out. And of cause he was right, they all knew it.

“S.H.I.E.L.D is already on it.” He assured him, but it didn’t quite answer his question. “Are they bringing her to a safe location?” Bucky asked, but Tony only fidgeted on the spot, looking over at Bruce who was already eyeing him.

“Not exactly…” Bucky’s scalp began to prickle, the fiery sensation spreading over his skin. Nausea settled inside his stomach the second he thought about other people living through the same hell as he did. This was no longer a simple mission. This was personal.

“What do you mean…?” His voice was low and dark. “Well, first off; There are a few Annabelle Feldners on the face of the earth. Trying to find out which one Hydra is interested in is a bit of a predicament since we still don’t know what connects all of them.” He tried to explain. Bucky’s shoulders tensed up.

“Second, I have my doubts S.H.I.E.L.D will tell us once they’ve figured that one out, because, well…” He sighed and took off his yellow sunglasses “They still don’t have the serum. My guess is that once they know which Annabelle they’re after, they will wait for Hydra to show up so they can see where they’re taking her.” All of them listened carefully as he explained his theory.

“Of cause this is all just assumption, but I’ve known those guys for a couple of years. They are trying their best to find her, but also they won’t let an opportunity like this slip through their fingers. Thinking about the greater good- “

“No way.” Bucky interrupted as he stood up, almost knocking over his chair. He was angry. Tired of this, but mostly angry. He had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t let one more person be the victim of the “greater good” because the “greater good” had him killing pointlessly for decades for it. Who were they to decide if they could spare that life? They would take Hydra down to help themselves to their knowledge to use it for whatever, but not for the greater good. “They can’t do that.”

“I’m afraid that’s not up to you anymore.” Tony said and sunk back into his chair with a huff “We’ve come this far but I wouldn’t count on S.H.I.E.L.D taking us any further than that. Maybe they’ll call us if they want their base destroyed or their agents taken out. But I doubt they’ll let us know about the formula once they have it. They want to avoid this- “He pointed at Bucky, Steve and Wanda “-happening again. Not unless they know how to control it.” “So what? You’ll let them play god?” Bucky asked incredulously. “Buck…” Steve started reaching for his friend’s arm but he pulled it back. “Bucky is right.” Wanda agreed and stood up as well “You’ll never know what it’s like to be experimented on like that. They cut you open, the pump you full of stuff that makes your veins burn and make you wish you were dead.” Tony lowered his head at her words and even though she had hit a blade in his heart with the accuracy of her words, Bucky was proud of her speaking up as well.

“They don’t have a voice, Tony. But they don’t deserve it. No one does and that should be out first priority instead of being sad because we cannot change how it is.” “She’s right, you know.” Sam muttered. “I know!” Tony groaned “Of cause I know that.” “We’re Avengers.” Steve spoke “We need to stand up for the little guys. Especially since no one else will.”

Bucky chuckled. Captain America in its full glory. He was expecting nothing less. “Then it’s settled.” Vision spoke with a faint smile on his lips. “Oh, so what now exactly? I’m supposed to break into S.H.I.E.L.D’s security network?” Tony huffed sarcastically. “Haven’t you already...?” Bruce asked him, but Tony immediately tried to shush him. “Shhht! All right, okay.” He threw his hands into the air dramatically “God, I feel stupid for saying this, but let’s spy on S.H.I.E.L.D.” “We can do it. As a team.” Steve said and Tony rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Miss American beauty pageant. I’ll do most of the work anyway so lay back until I’ve found a name.” Everyone laughed at that.

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Next Chapter

[lilydodge]

the trauma epidemic & the crisis at the border: what you can - no, NEED - to do

Immediate places to donate/volunteer

RAICES

Border Angels

Texas Civil Rights Project

South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project

Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Services

The Young Center

The Florence Project

Our country is currently in the business of traumatizing children and families at an alarming rate. What can we as individuals do about it?

GET TRAUMA INFORMED.

People often say that when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail - but after 2 years of training, studying, and living this reality, I’m pretty confident in saying that addressing trauma can go far toward addressing a whole host of other problems that we often see as discrete.

Some facts about trauma

First: we need to take trauma seriously. Trauma is an experience outside the scope of normal brain development. Too often, we dismiss survivors by saying that what they experienced was not that bad, or that other people have it worse, or that “bad stuff happens to everyone.”

At the same time, trauma is everywhere. I must confess that when I first entered this world, I would hear stories and think they must be outliers. Sure, stuff like that happened, but incredibly rarely. How many people are really living through some kind of Lifetime movie hellhole as kids? The answer is far too many. So while trauma is “not normal” based on healthy brain development, it is all too normal based on our existing culture. It’s not just the handful of people writing memoirs about lurid abuse or on the news being rescued from torture - it’s people you know. Lots of homes, childhoods, and adults hide incredibly damaging trauma.

So when I say “trauma” in this piece, please know that I mean both intense experiences of fear, pain, humiliation, etc. that do lasting damage AND very common experiences that many people - more than you might guess, if you’re not one of them - endure.

Second: trauma changes the brain. Trauma does lasting neurological damage and can impact someone’s functioning long after the trauma takes place. And this impact is incredibly wide-ranging. Just a sampling of things trauma can leads to: difficulty in relationships, trouble focusing in school, substance abuse, trouble sleeping, disordered eating, low self-esteem, poor impulse control, depression, dissociation, identity disturbance.

Specific discussions of childhood trauma relevant to this crisis:

Nazis separated me from my parents as a child - it caused permanent damage

A pediatric doctor on the trauma caused by this administration’s policies

The toxic stressed caused by family separation

Kids can suffer permanent damage from border separations

Third: Trauma begets trauma. The symptoms of trauma put individuals with trauma at risk for more trauma.

Consider the young man who is sexually abused as a child. The trauma sets his brain into fight-or-flight mode so constantly that he simply cannot focus in school. His shame at not knowing what’s going on around him in the classroom causes him to act out. He gets in trouble at school, which stacks onto the previous trauma, making him feel that no adults and no situations are ever safe. He acts out because he feels ashamed and afraid, and the consequences are that he is made to feel more ashamed and more afraid, so the problem is never solved. He ends up in a classroom with other students who act out, and frequent violent behavior from his classmates stacks more trauma. He drops out of school. Police approach him for loitering, and since he is so triggered by aggressive authoritarian figures and never learned healthy impulse control, he lashes out and is violently arrested and charged with assaulting an officer. Another trauma. He ends up incarcerated, which is an environment seemingly designed to do nothing but deepen existing traumas and cause more trauma.

Consider the young woman who is raised by a mother with untreated mental illness and her own traula. Her mother is distant and neglectful. When she as a young child cries for her mother, no comfort comes. Sometimes mom is playful and attentive; sometimes she is entirely absent. Adults are unstable and frightening. Her brain learns early on that she’s on her own and that others cannot be trusted. As a young woman, she acts “manipulative” and “codependent” - survival mechanisms learned by her trauma. Adults at school and in her family shame and scold her for this, and she has volatile relationships with peers and adults. She seeks sexual attention from older men, since this seems like a way to gain security and a stable relationship. Some of these men are abusive - more trauma. She gets pregnant at a young age. Because of her trauma behaviors and fear of abandonment, she and the child’s father fight loudly and sometimes violently. This traumatizes the child, who becomes whiny and “difficult”. She, never having learned how to parent in a healthy way, grows distant from the child. And the cycle continues.

Fourth: trauma can be healed, but it takes time and effort. None of what I described above is a life sentence. It does not make people unable to function, or impossible to have a healthy relationship. But it does not heal on its own. It takes therapeutic expertise and an environment that can re-teach the brain how to feel safe.

Right now, there are not enough institutions and individuals that are trauma-informed. Schools, rehab centers, jails, prisons, courts, libraries, churches, hospitals, families - we all need to get our act together and work to understand, treat, and prevent trauma. Because I truly believe that trauma is at the root of most of our social ills, from failing schools to addiction epidemics to police brutality. And if we can get all hands on deck to prevent and treat trauma, we can stop the cycle for an entire generation.

ACTIONABLE STEPS YOU CAN TAKE:

Take trauma seriously. If you joke about “triggers” or “daddy issues;” if you think people need to “just get over it” or “be less sensitive;” if you don’t believe survivors, you are part of the problem. If you “refuse to accept excuses” when someone’s behavior is difficult or troubling, because they are struggling to control feelings or impulses due to trauma, you are part of the problem.

Get informed. Read The Body Keeps The Score, The Connected Child, The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, and anything else you can get your hands on about how trauma works and how it can be addressed. Lots of trauma survivors keep blogs where you can read about their daily struggles and what helps and doesn’t.

Work on your own trauma. You can make sure the cycle ends with you. If you have the resources, see a trauma-informed therapist. Check out workbooks, online communities, and any other resources that can help.

Vote in people who take this seriously. Police violence, prison abuses, under-funded social programs - these all contribute to the epidemic of trauma we’re facing. Trauma is a political issue. Vote.

Be a village parent. If your cousin is spanking their kids, say something. If your spouse teases your son for crying, put a stop to it. If you’re not teaching your children healthy ways of handling their emotions and relationships, start doing that. Now. If you don’t know how, learn. Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn is a great place to start.

Advocate and educate. Do you have kids? Is their school or daycare trauma-informed? Advocate for a classroom management and discipline solution that is trauma informed. Is your workplace trauma-informed? Your church? Your local library? Set up panels and workshops in your community where people can learn about trauma. If one book particularly helped you, order extra copies and hand them out.

Get your boots on the ground. The world needs more trauma-informed people who put their skills into action. Volunteer with young people who are at-risk. Become a classroom teacher. Or a foster parent. Or a lawyer. Go into jails, group homes, shelters, rehabs.

Get. Your. Boots. On. The. Ground.

I’m dead serious about this. The constant cycle of trauma in our world is an absolute crisis. A crisis that is calling out to us to upend our careers, our homes, and our lives. A woman fleeing a domestic violence situation needs somewhere to stay where the people around her are trauma-informed and can help her heal instead of stacking the trauma. A man with an addiction problem that’s numbing years of untreated trauma needs a trauma-informed recovery environment. A 6 year old with violent symptoms of abuse needs a trauma-informed foster family, not a situation where adults attempt to control and discipline him out of the behaviors. Can you provide any of those? Can you support people who are trying to provide those?

The world needs more trauma-informed, therapeutic environments. Learn how to provide one, then do it. Open your home. Open your life. Open your budget. Open your career. It will be messy and difficult and inconvenient. Do it anyway.

Ask yourself: what’s really stopping me from using my time and skills to heal cycles of trauma? And how can I get around that obstacle? Self-work? Therapy? Training and workshops? Changing how you spend your free time? Budgeting? A career change? This is critical. Find a way to get involved.

This is true regardless, but since we as a nation are now causing this sort of trauma to thousands more children at an alarming rate, it’s more pressing than ever. Counseling services, therapeutic families, and other programs intended to help kids with trauma are already under-funded and over-taxed. While it’s critical to stop traumatizing kids at the border ASAP, the fact remains that at the time of this writing, we already have over 2,000 children who are going to grow up needing trauma-informed schools, communities, churches, doctors, families, police, teachers and courts. This problem is only growing and it’s critical that we all start working to shrink it. Now.