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icicledream-archive · 4 years ago

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part 2 of portal robot size post

(because i am still obsessing over this)

continuation of this post where i posted this image which is a screenshot from this video showcasing the size of portal 2 characters. and also i included my height of 5′3 for fun!

the post got a comment basically saying “model sizes don’t always = canon sizes” and that is indeed true! especially given how the game seems to handle how things look when they’re picked up. personally i can find these sizes believable, especially comparing them to how big glados appears in robot repair vr.

anyways, i’ve been thinking about that comment a lot! like i said, i personally find all these sizes believable, but i wondered how much different they would be if i resized them based on certain robots with canon measurements: atlas and p-body!

these blueprints are shown in portal 2 co-op loading screens! i specifically chose the blueprint of atlas facing the right because the front facing version’s head size seemed to include the frame that holds it, which added little over an inch.

ALSO, this was just something i did for fun! please don’t treat this post as the Definitive Portal Character Sizes Post. personally, as much as i love how huge the in-game model sizes are, i’m going by my resizes from now on because while they’re still decently big, they’re a lot more manageable to draw lol.

if you DO want to use this post as a reference to their sizes, by all means go for it! :D credit isn’t necessary, but it would be nice just because of how much time i spent on this ;w;/

the rest of this post will be under a read more due to its length!! as a tl;dr, here’s a direct comparison image!

feel free to share your own thoughts and whatnot if you would like!! ^v^ just a few more things before i continue...

THERE WILL BE A PRETTY BIG PORTAL 2 SPOILER GOING FORWARD!

i bolded character names + their heights because it was easier for me to read :o

i did all of this in.... gmod..... because i couldn’t find all of the models i needed, and i couldn’t be bothered to rip models from a freakin’ source game. SO i just, carefully lined everything up in gmod to the best of my ability and took screenshots, which i edited in my art program!! i’m a bit of a perfectionist, so hopefully things aren’t toooo far off... but yeah, just a heads up.

i’m, really bad at math, so not everything will be 100% accurate, especially the full glados size measurements. i used the website mrinitialman and a lot of measurement calculator websites to be sure things seemed alright. still, if there’s errors i apologize!

ANYWAYS let’s go!!

SO, here’s a new size comparison image i made. sorry if my writing isn’t readable! i’ll be restating the important things written on the images as this post goes on ;v;/

p-body is around 6′7.5″ (201.9cm), atlas is around 6′1.3″ (186.2cm).

for chell i decided to go with her height from her heels rather than from her tiptoes. she’s still pretty tall at 5′11″ (180.3cm)!

wheatley’s model is around 2′7″ (78.7cm) in diameter, which is hilariously big and i love it BUT it’s probably not what his actual height is. same goes for the turret’s 4′10″ (147.3), and glados’ head being around 6′10″ (208.3cm) (i do wish these were the For Sure canon heights because glados' full model being ~50' (15.24m) long is so very funny to me. Giant.)

i’ve seen a few people say that atlas and p-body may be based on personality spheres and turrets respectively, and i like to think so too! so i resized wheatley and the turret based on those two. also, considering that wheatley’s model size stays the same size when he is on glados’ body, i resized them at the same time, as their sizes are relative to each other.

anyways with that, here’s my resize!!

as i said: wheatley (and the other cores, of course) ends up being the same size as atlas’ head, so that makes him around 1′8.4″ (51.8cm) in diameter!

the turret ended up being around 3′10.5″ (118.1cm) tall.

glados’ head is around 4′6.4″ (138.2cm)! which makes glados head + body around 18′1.4″ (5.5m), and her entire model around 34′2.8″ (10.43m)! (btw for reference, movie theater screens are generally 30′ (9.14m) tall!!).

aand that’s it for my resizes, really! :O like i said earlier, this is what i'm personally gonna go with for my headcanons and whatnot.

that’s not the end, though. when i went back into gmod to get a screenshot of chassis wheatley, i somehow noticed for the first time that there’s just. straight up smaller models of a core and glados’ head, so i thought “eh! why not!” and measured those out to the best of my ability! here’s the results of that.

the smaller gmod core model is around 1′3.8″ (40.1cm), and glados’ head is 3′3.6″ (100.6cm)! this would make her head + body be around 13′2.4″ (4.02m), and her entire model around 24′11.3″ (7.6m)! i imagine this is what the “actual sizes” of cores and glados would be? who knows though!

with all of this being done, here’s the quick direct comparison image again :D

oh and also for fun, here’s portal 1 glados’ head compared to the portal 2 glados head models and the resize i did! i always thought the portal 2 glados in portal 1 mod looked weird, turns out it’s because her main p2 model is much bigger than her p1 model!

and well! i don’t really have anything else to say, so that’s the end!

like i said, this is NOT the Definitive Portal Character Sizes Post ;o; i did this entirely for fun!! and even if this was the Definitive Portal Character Sizes Post, you can do whatever you want with these characters and their sizes! but again if you would like to use this post as a reference then by all means, go for it!! :D again, credit isn’t necessary, but it would be nice just because of how much time i spent on this...

ANYWAYS thanks for reading!!! :D

#hoo hoo!#portal #portal 2 #portal 2 spoilers #chell #glados #portal turrets #wheatley #atlas and p-body #HOPE U ENJOY THIS. this took too long but im happy. also sorry if any grammar's weird or whatever im Done rereading this.

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k-s-morgan · 3 years ago

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Hello! I first followed you for Hannigram but your fic single handedly dragged me into Sebaciel hell ( pun intended ) and by reading your asks about Kuro religiously I've wanted to ask about your view on Ciel's darkness, particulalry pre-contract. Most fans, even anime only fans, tend to consider it a result of his traumatic experience, not necessarily something that existed before then - small or bigger measure. And if he and Sebastian hadn't met like they did, how do you think said darkness could have come out?

Haha, I'm so pleased to hear this! I believe Hannigram was exactly the reason that attracted my attention to Black Butler. In many ways, Ciel and Sebastian are Murder Husbands: I think someone recced them to me as a duo with a similar dark dynamic. I watched a few fan edits, something like this one, with Ciel's backstory & him and Sebastian building their empire, and this one, with their dynamic as a whole, and was intrigued enough to try it. And here I am years later, just as hopelessly in love.

While the anime seems to portray Ciel as strictly naive and light before the contract, I don't share this view, and it's a good thing that there is space for all possible headcanons. I'm not a fan of thinking the captivity and trauma gave him a total personality switch. I think there was always some darkness and cruelty in him; he was always manipulative and calculating, though obviously, in pretty childish ways. In fact, this topic is going to be brought up in the next chapter: Sebastian is going to learn that Ciel was never particularly innocent and did some very questionable things even before their contract. I thought it'd be fun to come up with a more specific and darkish reason for hostility Elisabeth's brother Edward shows to Ciel.

If Ciel and Sebastian never met, I think Ciel would still thrive in the underworld. His father would have to pass the reins to him at some point, and Ciel would become pretty ruthless and intimidating, although his taste for darkness would never be colored with the personal desire for vengeance. I imagine him being more carefree, happier, less restricted and rigid, maybe a little less smart because canon Ciel feels a strong need to keep up with Sebastian and pushes himself above and beyond his limits. Still, he'd be impressive, a force to be reckoned with. He'd enjoy getting rid of his enemies, scheming and playing games, expanding his reach and intimidating the entire underworld.

I think Sebastian would feel equally drawn to this version of him. There is something unique and special in Ciel that I think was always a part of him: he can be sadistic and he can delight in darkness, but he also has his sense of justice. Whenever they met, Ciel and Sebastian would be captivated and pulled into their deadly relationship one way or another.

#sebaciel #black butler #kuroshitsuji #my fics #ciel phantomhive

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girlsbtrs · 5 years ago

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Lia Menaker on her music, inspirations, and teaming up with Melanated Social Work

Written and edited by James N. Grey. Graphic by Moira Ashley.

Lia Menaker wants to support Black lives, specifically within the mental health sphere. So she donated the proceeds from her album, I am Kyrøs, toward ending the stigma around mental health in those communities. Girls Behind the Rock Show connected with her to get her perspective on her music, her identification with the cause, and how she feels it all ties together.

How did you find Melanated Social Work and how did you identify with their cause?

I actually know one of the founders personally, Marvin Toliver, so I’ve been following their social media and learning about the organization from him. We are talking a lot about police reform and the justice system now, which is great and important. But we often forget about the health component. And these guys, in their focus on the liberation of Black and Brown people, are working to end the stigma around mental health in Black and Brown communities, and working to make sure mental health professionals are truly culturally competent. I realized that they were the best place to dedicate my resources and time to.

What inspired you to donate your Bandcamp proceeds to them?

George Floyd was killed just weeks before my EP was set to release. And when the riots started, and the country started waking up to the level of police brutality threatening people of color, and the injustice of our institutions, it felt very strange to release the EP. The intersection of everything—COVID-19, the racial disparities and economic inequalities thus heightened, and the slew of unjust murders of POC—all became this giant traumatic thing our country was experiencing. I felt Black voices should be heightened, and in many ways, felt that it wasn't the right time to share the music. But on the other side of things, I also knew the world needed as much art as possible, of all kinds. Since the songs dealt with identity and the self, they could relate to what was going on in many ways.

I decided the best thing to do would be to release the music as planned, and in between the sharing and promoting of the album, to highlight as many Black voices and resources and information as possible. I wanted this to incorporate a donation and some awareness of solid Black-run organizations.

How has being Kyrøs allowed you to be more creative and free?

The word “kairos” is an ancient Greek concept referring to that perfect melding of space and time when it’s the opportune moment to act. It was a way of measuring time in moments (versus “kronos,” which was their concept for chronological time). When I came across the word, it felt like it described my change as an artist to a T. And once I took on the name, all that history that comes with one’s name—the feelings, memories, habits and obstacles that came with 30+ years of being “Lia Menaker”— dissolved. I think I subconsciously felt the freedom to try new things.

I started producing, and getting super creative on my live streams. I was improv-ing with no idea what I was doing, but it didn’t matter. I just kept doing it and didn’t feel the same self-judgment I’d had before. Approaching music with a sort of reckless abandon allowed me to be the best and boldest version of myself.

But what’s interesting is even the things that free you can start to take control of you. That high you get from being in such an open, creative space…you can only ride that wavelength for so long. At some point, you get stuck again, and you find yourself chasing that high. It can become an addiction, you know?

In a way, I ended up clinging to that identity of who I was when I was kyrøs, and I didn’t realize it until I was literally releasing the songs. It’s a big reason why it became the album name instead of my new artist name. I realized it was really more of an alter ego all along. That it didn’t replace Lia Menaker as an artist. So it turns out I was still learning lessons on identity as I was releasing the songs!

How did your childhood in theater and pop music inspire you?

While kids watched shows like Sesame Street and Barney, I was watching Annie, The Sound of Music, [and] Peter Pan… I was always drawn to it and felt like I could see myself in the characters. I begged my mom to do a musical at age 6 (Oliver), and then I was hooked doing musicals the rest of my childhood and most of my young adult life. So I think it felt like a language I understood, a form of expression I connected to on another level. There was always a story to the songs, an arc, [and] often, deep emotion and expressive vocals. I think the way I approach music—my soulfulness and the way I connect to it—comes from years of growing up with that. Also, I think a lot of my phrasing and how I articulate words comes from the musical theatre influence.

I think it was later in life that pop music began to really inspire me. Discovering Joni Mitchell was a huge one. Her incredible use of lyrics (in my opinion, she’s one of the lyrical greats and extremely underrated), and her 100% unabashed authenticity and womanliness was captivating. Her music is poetic, moody, unique—filled with so much complex emotion and story. Lyrically, I think my first album (Animal Behavior, in 2015) shows some of her influence on me. Especially the opening track, “Holding My Space.”

But pop aside, some of the great jazz vocalists were a big influence on me as well. It started with Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. It was an easy segue because they sang a lot of Gershwin and musical theatre covers, but then I delved deeper into their work, and eventually found (and fell in love with) Nina Simone too. The raw, warm, raspy, bold voice filled with more soul and both joy and pain than I could imagine. And I always found that type of music so beautiful as a kid. I just found that part of people to be equally as beautiful as the lighter side, and found expressing pain through art to be the most incredible thing. So when I heard music that captured that, I think I was always intrigued.

What storylines in your 30's did you find that you were shucking off?

I had this limited view of myself my whole life as a singer/performer. Since I was 6 years old, that was my life: community theatre as a kid, studying musical theatre at Penn State, tours and regional theatre, then songwriting, music and singing in every fashion. It was the way I saw my value to the world, and I basically lived for my dreams and goals—this is how I saw whether or not I was successful. And the thought of not reaching them consumed me…

I always felt I wasn’t measuring up to whom I could be. This was a huge storyline I had to face: this idea of not being enough right now. And then it got me thinking about all this living in the ego… and “if I’m not my dreams, my goals, or even my job, what am I?” This inspired the song “Some Kind” because I realized if I wasn’t those things I most identified with, I was still me. A lot of the lyrics to that song express the storylines I grappled with, and also how I made sense of them: “We measure all that’s left with time - a calculated art. The things we do that give us pride, we hold up high as if it’s all that we are / All the stories give us meaning - keep us moving on… make it real. Run our choices, our bodies - keep us fused to what we feel.”

I would look back periodically at my life and think things like “What have I even done? My tour wasn’t successful enough, not enough people are listening to my music, I don’t make the money I should be making at this age, I’ll never amount to anything.” [I used] whatever metrics I thought would show me proof of a valuable life. I still struggle with them sometimes. Realizing the storylines is just the start. You have to keep checking yourself [and make sure] that you’re not caught up in them again. They were ingrained in my head for years, so it takes time to rewire the brain.

Ultimately, in my 30s, I’m finding so much more joy in the process and the creation itself, and trying to practice looking at what I have in my life as “enough.” The older I get, the more I see life passing quicker, and the more I just want to take it all in. To bask in love and music and the feeling of living with versus without. The 30s are a great time, because I think it’s the decade where a lot of us start to realize these things. Though, of course, some of us go our entire lives without feeling like we are, or we have enough. And new storylines will always be created, so we have to just keep checking ourselves. Especially when we’re all so obsessed with social media. Social media is literally a collection of storylines.

What inspired you to meld together eclectic sounds? Why a soulful, jazzy voice with a minimalistic background?

I’ve always loved warm, jazz vocals. As I mentioned earlier, I grew up engrossed in musical theatre, and that included a lot of standards by singers like Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald. About four years ago, I also re-fell in love with Amy Winehouse and started really listening to her vocals and her style, pinpointing what it was that I loved so much. There’s a mix of this warmth and authenticity, but with a modern edge that just hits you in all the right places. So that’s what’s inspired my sound vocally.

But at the same time, I’m a big fan of using unconventional sounds and challenging people’s ears. A lot of what I’ve listened to over the past few years has strong electronic elements. SOHN is one I’m really drawn to, and he’s brilliant at the mix of pure/simple and unconventional. He has this way of putting a simple, soaring, haunting vocal over a backdrop of complex, evolving electronic elements. It’s a sound that you can’t produce with conventional instruments. When I first heard him, it blew my mind—it was like a spiritual experience, and I thought “I want to do THAT!” Susanne Sundfor’s Silicone Veil album was a big game changer for me too.

I loved the idea of marrying the two worlds—this classic, timeless feel with an electronic modern sound that reflects the times—to create something authentic to me and my influences. With so much of our world being digital now, it felt right to experiment with electronic elements. And when I started playing around with new software, and some samples, beats, and different gear, it just all slowly started to meld together into a sound that felt right.

What were some favorite ways that you experimented with sounds and techniques to achieve your sound? Anything that you might take over with you into the future?

A lot of the experimentation happened (and continues to happen) during my weekly live streams on Twitch (@liamenaker). It’s sort of the place where I have permission to work through songs, try stuff out, and honestly just have a lot of fun and engage with others during the creation process. The community there is also so incredibly supportive and open. The last song I wrote for the album, “Imprinted,” started out as some improv loops and just fooling around on my Twitch live stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xWjEAYAa7w. And I have at least four others waiting in the queue to finish that also began the same way. One of which I sent over to a jazz funk band in Paris to collaborate with me on. So I’ll definitely keep this as part of my approach.

Aside from that, my process is always changing, to be honest. So I’m trying to remain open to new techniques and approaches, and to keep allowing myself to be inspired by other artists and sounds. I’d like to explore more synth sounds and recording techniques, and just keep improving as an artist and producer as well. One thing I’ve noticed, too, is if I zero in too much on one writing approach or technique, I start to cling to it, relying on that as the way I “should” write everything. And then things just start to feel stale for me, or I run out of juice or hit a writer’s block. Then I find a new technique or gear or collaboration. I guess that’s why my approach keeps changing. We’ll see how long the current one sticks for, ha!

Which track on the EP is your favorite and why?

I think it keeps changing. But at the moment, the opening track "All My Life" is my favorite. I’m really connecting to the meditative and tribal nature of it, and I think the chorus is the catchiest of the songs. It has that "nobody's gonna bring me down!" feeling too, which feels extra relevant now, as many of us in the country feel like we're just pushing forward, doing everything we can to make things work during this difficult time.

I constantly imagine songs in other places: are there any movies/TV shows or any other places where you'd imagine your songs would play?

I can see some of these in crime and murder mystery-type shows. I’ve had people tell me “Imprinted” has a Twin Peaks or James Bond feel to it. So maybe a show or movie with a kind of slinky jazz lounge vibe. There’s definitely a meditative, tribal feel to some of the songs too, so I think they could work in a movie/TV show with that vibe. But honestly, I think less about music in terms of specific movies or TV shows, and more about fitting themes. So, for example, “All My Life” is perfect to capture that theme of being unstoppable, or a character finally going after their dream. “Stranger” would work well for a theme of not feeling like yourself or acting out of character. I think a lot of the songs on the album fit clear, universal themes, and so I’m hoping that I can find some success pitching these to music supervisors, production companies, etc.

For all us young'un's out there: How much of our identity is actually wrapped up in our dreams? Do you think it's important to separate our dreams, identity, and realities?

Uh oh… you’re going to get me on a soapbox, ha!

So I think it’s different for everyone, but I think it’s fair to say that for most of us, yes, our identity is either wrapped up in our dreams and/or in our work. Think about it. When we meet people, how often do we ask, “What do you do?” as if the answer will give us an accurate idea of who they really are. And how often do we judge people based on their careers?

But the truth is, achievements DO NOT define who you are, and do not define your worth, value, or potential. And while dreams can shape us, they can also limit us. They can keep us from seeing other sides of ourselves. And when we’re hyper focused on them, we miss out on so much beauty! I find the most memorable moments of life are actually quiet, behind the scenes, and not at all the result of working towards a dream or goal. [Goals] are not as great when they determine your ultimate view of yourself and control your amount of suffering.

I think I’m just realizing now too, that I hate the term “dream.” Dream sounds like an “all or nothing” approach. “Ideal” feels more flexible. For some reason, it feels healthier for me to look at it as “my ideal situation” version “my dream.”All around us, we’re being told we need to “dream big” and “you can do whatever you set your mind to” and “live up to your potential.” We love to dote on famous and rich people or take courses on how to be like them. Those who never “make it” (whatever that awful phrase even means) are looked at as failures, less successful, not as worthy or talented or smart. It’s. All. Bullshit. And the song on the EP “Imprinted” basically revolves around all of this.

So do I think it’s important to separate our dreams, identity, and realities? I think it’s probably unrealistic to try to. I think it’s all intertwined. Our dreams (or “ideal situation,” ha) will probably shape a bit of who we are (our identity). But I think the key is to understand [that] it’s a very small, ego-driven piece of who we are, and doesn’t ultimately define us. And I think it’s important to see our identities (and dreams for that matter) as constantly shifting. To, as one of my favorite spiritual teachers Pema Chödrön talks about, get comfortable with the fact that the ground beneath us is always shifting. I think it’s healthy to incorporate the stuff on the ego-level (dreams, identity) and the stuff underneath, the non-ego (that pure essence of who we are underneath the dreams, underneath the identity perceptions, underneath all judgments and experiences). Because while the stuff on the surface doesn’t define the essence of who we are, it’s still a reality that we take the train into work, or have to cook dinner for the kids, or need to make money to survive, right? These are still very real; they’re just not the full picture. And that’s the important part.

I think it’s especially important for the younger generations to pay attention to all of this in the age of social media. [Social media has] made understanding the truth of who we are and the idea of living in the non-ego so hard. Social media is all ego, storylines. I’m not saying it doesn’t have a lot of good aspects to it too. But it make[s] it very hard to feel and see the layers of a situation. Things are often black and white on social media, and we are sold specific messages on what it means to be successful and happy. It’s a system based on instant gratification (likes, comments, followers), and we have the tendency to add it up to calculate our value. If we’re not careful, it can drive us further from the whole truth, and deeper into the storylines.

Lia Menaker’s album I am Kyrøs is available now on https://liamenaker.bandcamp.com/.

All proceeds throughout the month of July benefit Melanated Social Work [https://www.instagram.com/melanatedsocialwork/?hl=en].

#james nida grey

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doublethetheories · 6 years ago

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Show vs. Science: Exploding Hands?

Hey everyone, welcome to the (long awaited) Bakugou Science Bust!! In this post it’s less about theories and more about finding the scientific inconsistencies in Bakugou’s quirk and finding solutions in the form of mini-theories. The formatting is going along the top questions I had and the results I got. Also warning this ended up being ~1900 words long (before editing) so... yea.

The conclusion is basically a compare and contrast of the Canon vs. Scientific Bakugou and what differences we end up with. Feel free to reblog with your own theories or reaction to this, since I really enjoy seeing your feedback.

Before getting into the science of it, let’s just recap what we know about Bakugou Katsuki. As explained in season 1, episode 7, his ‘exploding hands’ quirk stems from him sweating nitroglycerin and (somehow) being able to channel that into his explosions. Right off the bat, we already know the science will not allow him to use his quirk the way he does in the show where he uses mere ‘concentration’(?) to set off his explosions. So let’s get into the specifics of his limitations.

Could he actually control the explosions?

Seems like a pretty easy place to start right? It’s a valid question; just because he has nitroglycerin in his system doesn’t mean he can actually control when or if he explodes. (Which is a bit worrying.)

The answer to this one already gives us a few inconsistencies between canon and science compliant versions of this character. Yes, he can control the explosions. If Bakugou is able to sweat nitroglycerin, he would almost always have a thin layer of explosive liquid covering his body. (It can also be assumed that, with this as his power and with puberty having already hit, he sweats a lot.)

From there, the nitroglycerin in its liquid form can be exploded in one of two ways; heat or shock/impact. And since Bakugou obviously isn’t going to rely on a lighter or Todoroki to help him out every time he needs to use his power, it can be deduced that he’s using impact to create those explosions. Which leads us into our next section,

How would he control his power?

Going with ‘impact’ as the match to the gasoline raises two problems for Bakugou, though. One, he canonically has way more control over his power than scientifically possible, and Two, this boy is a very short-tempered one. Adding his easy-to-anger personality to this (very literally) explosive quirk would be a huge safety issue to both him and everyone around him. Having control over the blasts is possible, but it’d take effort.

So, first off, he would have to fix his anger issues and learn to not hit or slam his hands on the nearest item when something goes wrong. Along with this, he would have to avoid getting in the middle of fights as well (unless he means to use his quirk in it). He might be the most peaceful Bakugou possible, but that won’t stop an explosion from getting slapped.

He’d also need to wear thin but tight long sleeves and pants in order to absorb and dilute the nitroglycerin, making it less likely to explode on unavoidable impacts.

Now, to address the few options he has that provide at least some for of control over the explosions.

Initially, snapping seemed like the obvious solution. Not to say that it isn’t an option, since it would work to activate the nitroglycerin in his hand, and if he was snapping while flicking his wrist for more control, then it’d be a totally viable option. The problem comes up when looking for actual damage to be done to the opponent. Snapping his fingers close to them would be enough to stun an enemy, but the power of the explosions he could potentially make measures around the strength of the first two firecrackers from this video.

The next step I took in researching this was finding a directional way for him to clap, in order to exhibit some stronger results than the snap. (Though heads up, even at maximum power, he would not be able to naturally make the huge explosions he does in the show. The gauntlets he has though might be able to help him do that.)

There were many ways for him to, essentially, clap in order to get his blast in the intended direction, but almost all of them require at least a paragraph of explanation in order to get the idea across sans imagery. There is one that came to me almost immediately; it’s from a theater game called Zip Zap Zop. This video demonstrates the clap pretty well.

With the impact of his fingers on his palm, the majority of the nitroglycerin would be on the palm, therefore igniting it and allowing it to go in a specific direction as he slides his exploding hand forward.

Sweating Nitroglycerin???

So this part of the research was a lot harder than literally any of the rest of it because in every diagram I found, the sweat glands weren’t connected to anything. Literally no website I went to explained where specifically the sweat glands got their ingredients. This resulted in me taking an alternate route.

Sweat is the body’s way of disposing of waste and maintaining a steady temperature (woop woop homeostasis), and it consists mostly of water and salt. Sweat glands are also found all throughout the body, hence Bakugou needing to dilute all the sweat with fabric before the excess sweat becomes a real problem.

Since the “research” was a lot of roughly-averaged math based on conflicting information, the answer is tentative, but generally, yes, it is possible for him to sweat nitroglycerin. The natural implication of it into his body is a separate thing, but if you replace all the water in his body with a 2 parts water 1 part nitroglycerin mixture, his body should hold up along with the nitroglycerin. Surprisingly, it holds it’s chemical make-up holds its own pretty well in the face of water.

Bonus science fact that came out of this section: if the 2/1 water/nitroglycerin mixture was what was flowing through his veins, along with his sweat, his pee and spit would also be explosive. So would the water from his showers or baths since the nitroglycerin would be mixed into it.

Would he be deaf?

Just going to preface this by saying I am obsessed with Deaf!Bakugou headcanons, oneshots, fics, and art because A, I love deaf representation so much, and B, it’s freaking accurate the show is lying to us he would 100% be deaf and here is why-

According to the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, hearing loss due to exposure to sounds can begin at 85 decibels or higher. To put this in perspective, the NIDCD says that heavy traffic averages at 85 decibels and firearms average around 150 decibels. 150 decibels is also the estimated bursting point for eardrums.

It’s difficult to estimate how powerful his explosions are, but I’m going to use an ‘average pistol’ for this research. I am doing this because firearms use mini explosions in order to fire the bullet, and an average pistol is just an average place to start. A .22 LR pistol falls around 152 decibels.

Next, instead of going through all the calculations to see how large this explosion is in comparison to his would-be hand explosions, I decided to convert the mass of the bullet to liters (which is what I have his sweat measured in) and see how the two numbers compare. The bigger the number, the more explosive matter there is and the larger the explosion.

Bakugou sweats roughly .21 liters per hour, based on research on how much people sweat averagely during exercise and having him be on the upper end since he’d be working out hard in order to use his quirk and have actual impact. When speaking of a .22 caliber bullet, the measurements fall around 3.1 grams. Converting that, we get .0031 liters. This number is obviously too small to compare with the caliber of explosions Bakugou is letting off. In fact, bakugou’s explosions are more than 70 times that.

The (insane) difference between the two number shows us that Bakugou’s explosions will produce a lot more sound than that of a simple pistol. Instead of being just deaf, his eardrums would be nonexistent. HIs explosions’ sound might not be to the same ratio as the intensity but still.. hopefully he looses his hearing gradually over time as his explosions get more powerful, because otherwise, that’d be extremely painful.

(Please note that this section was written before I found these blueprints showing his headpiece as having earplugs, though he would still have significant hearing loss from the explosions he does even when he’s not wearing those.)

Could his skin take the constant damage?

The explanation for this section is less scientific and more of a theoretical hypothesis. There is also a second theory I have that helps defend this question, but I’m probably going to make that its own post. (If I do I’ll come back and link it here.)

Anyways, I think he just used simple endurance training.

It might seem random but the chances that his skin just built up strength over the years of constant, slowly growing damage being done to them. We already know his power grows as he does, and we know that he did use it as a child, so it just got used to it. Sort of like calluses from monkey bars.

Going off of that assumption, it’s reasonable to think that at first, with his small pops, his hands’ skin was hurt but quickly grew back thicker and stronger. Because that’s how the body works when it’s hurt. When you burn your skin, it grows back with a different texture because it has been burned and it trying to prevent that damage from happening again. So if he’s been slowly building up his skins’ resistance to the explosions, he should be generally alright at this point.

Please remember this is just a theory written without much knowledge f burning skin and not a recommendation. Do not try this at home. :)

Conclusion

Scientific Bakugou:

Whenever he needs to use his quirk, he either claps, snaps, or hits the object he’s aiming for.

In order to avoid accidental explosions, he avoids sharp, impactful movements (smacking, hitting, or slamming things.)

He normally wears thin, lightweight long sleeves along with generally snug pants in order to absorb the excess sweat on his body for his safety and others.

When he sweats, he’s sweating a mixture of nitroglycerin and water.

His spit and pee are also explosive.

His hearing is gone completely once he hits highschool, as his explosions reach well over 150 decibels on a regular basis.

The skin on his hands has (possibly) built up burn-calluses from the explosions over the years, growing in strength as the explosions do. It still hurts but the nerve damage is enough to prevent it from being too painful.

Canon Bakugou:*

Whenever he needs to use his quirk, he somehow charges the nitroglycerin in his hand via concentration. ?

In order to avoid accidental explosions, he tries to keep control over his nerves, since that seems to be what causes him to loose control and accidentally release some pops.

He normally wears loose fitting pants and a tank top because apparently he does not fear science.

When he sweats, he's sweating nitroglycerin.

His spit and pee might be explosive but are probably not.

His hearing is just fine with barely any noticeable damage at all, despite the decibels he is constantly being exposed to.

The skin on his hands is normal and undamaged. (Bonus science inconsistency is that he wears gloves in his hero costume, which would mute his power completely. If he even managed to make an explosion in those things, they seem to be explosion resistant, so it'd do more damage to him than anything/one else.)

*I think it should be noted that canon Bakugou's power seems to be tied to his emotions, which I only noticed as I was writing this.

Outro

Despite how long it took, I really had a lot of fun with this project. I’m tempted to make this into a series, possibly doing Creati / Yao-Momo next. I also have a few things I mentioned in the post above that might be part two, three, four, etc.s to this post, but going in the direction of further exploring Bakugou’s abilities. Still need help on deciding which part two option to focus on first though.

Possible part two’s include:

another post like this but shorter and about his gauntlets (and hero costume in general, this would probably go more in depth on what he wears in general as well)

a post like this that follows up on my rising question of ‘could he actually control the explosions with neither of the triggers of nitroglycerin’ and going into what other explosive he’d have to use in order to have that chemical interact with the ones flowing through his system (i.e. hormones and nerves-)

a follow up on the fact that I didn’t actually complete the research on his hands being able to / not able to withstand all the explosions over the years

a post dedicated to my mini-theory about bnha having one consistent mutation over everyone who has a quirk

Also the art in the deaf!bakugou section doesn’t have a signature on it and when I reverse image searched it the only account I could find that possibly made it was @maelstrom-prince. So much freaking respect to whoever made it though, I freaking love blueprints for fictional things.

#bnha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bakugou katsuki #kacchan #exploding hands #theory #theorist #show vs. science

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dietaku · 6 years ago

Text

Amazing Quest 1: Chapter 4

The fourth chapter. You know how it is. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 4: 2 Million Leagues Under the Sea!- We get another sepia tone flashback, this time of an only slightly-younger Hiro and Emilia. Emilia: Well… your form is good. But you swing your sword like a little girl. Hiro: I don’t like hurting people, sis. Besides, everyone knows YOU’RE the messiah the Pudding tribe has awaited! I’m only here because mom had that bottle of aged tequila lying around. Emilia: That has nothing to do with anything! You need to have more confidence! … Wait, I got just the ticket! Emilia runs behind Hiro and plays with his hair. Hiro: Um. What’re you doing? Emilia: I’m giving you a Pudding Warrior Knot in your hair. It’s an ancient custom of our tribe that when a Pudding Warrior comes of age, he gets one! Hiro: Oh. That’s pretty neat. Emilia finishes, presenting the now French braided hero, Hiro, we know now. Hiro: Somehow I feel more fabulous than before. Can’t quite place my finger on it. Emilia: It’s perfect! You’ll be beating up Dark Puddings before you know it! The scene fades, then returns, Hiro, Ozma, Kimyawa and Loyroll laid out on a beach. Hiro: Ungh. I wonder why I never dream in color. Hiro gets up and the others join him. You’ll soon discover this area is only one screen wide, so you’re left to exhaust every possibility until you investigate the water. Not just any water, though, the ONE specific square, just to the left of center. Many players wasted HOURS trying to find this event flag, and many people wrongly believed it was an anti-piracy measure. Nope. Just shoddy programming. The mermaid from before surfaces. Mermaid: So, thief, ready to pay up? Ozma: Hey! We don’t even HAVE a thief in this party! Hiro: Just a reasonable facsimile. Loyroll: You flatter me, as always. Mermaid: You yoinked the goods from that place without paying its rightful owner! Kimyawa: Isn’t that technically liberating it? Mermaid: QUIT CHANGING THE TOPIC! Kimyawa: What’s your name, Stranger-chan? Mermaid: I’m Mancala! Call me Manny and I’ll punch ya in the mug, got it?! I’m the number one marine merchant mermaid you’ll ever see in the sea! Ozma: Meh, mehmehmeh? Mancala: Ignoring that. The point is you took stolen property. So I’m gonna maroon you here until you pay up! Hiro: (Great. Now what do we do?!) You then get a prompt which can result in some different dialogue options. 1) Barter 2) Lie 3) Beg -Barter- Hiro: Okay. It was just a few things. Can’t be THAT expensive. What’s the tab? Mancala: Well… since you asked so nicely! Mancala brandishes an abacus and begins calculating. Mancala: The items total net value, plus the emotional damage to this delicate mermaid, plus interest, plus tax not withheld, plus tax withheld, social security, deducting the “asked so nicely” fee… it all tallies up to a measly 36 trillion gold! Ozma: Can I crush her head like an overripe melon? Hiro: T-trillion?! Are you MAD?! Mancala: If you’re nice, I’ll even include the “cute boy” deduction! That would knock it all the way down to 34! Loyroll: And certainly a deduction for yours truly, if I may be so bold? Mancala: I’m not into girls. … Much. Loyroll: Pardon? Hiro: There’s no way we have that much. That price is absurd. I refuse. Mancala: SAY WHAT NOW?! -Lie- Hiro: What if I told you I know of a great treasure?! It’d more than make up the difference! Mancala: Okay, I’m listening now. Kimyawa: Hiro-ni-chan! You DO?! You’ve been holding out on us?! Ozma: Hiro, how could you?! Loyroll: Most unfabulous of you, my friend. Hiro: … Mancala: … Hiro: Err. Friendship is a sacred treasure, above all material wealth in the Pudding society! Ozma: (So it was just a lie…) Mancala: *Sigh* -Beg- Hiro: Please don’t make me beg. I am not a proud man. Ozma, Kimyawa & Mancala: (This is about to get really hot…) Hiro: (Suddenly, my pride is flaring up within me and I don’t know why…) Loyroll: Well? We’re waiting. Hiro: On second thought, I think I’ll just take a moment to absorb the scenery instead. Mancala: (Darn…) Regardless of your choice, it comes back to here afterward. Mancala: This isn’t getting us anywhere! Hiro: Is there no way to come to an agreement on this? Mancala: Well… you could be my servants for a while! Y’know, help with this, that and the other for a bit and we could call it square! Hiro: I somehow get the impression you’re more ambitious than that. Mancala: Aww, you flirt~! Hiro: (Not the intended reaction. Why does it feel like my life is in danger now?) Ozma & Kimyawa: *Stare* Hiro: At any rate, we don’t have the kind of money on-hand to pay. So I guess we’ve no choice. Mancala: Well, you’re in luck! I just so happened to overhear some of the Dark Puddings talking about the Water Talisman. Hiro: You did? Where is it now?! Mancala: In the Octopus Garden. It’s some ancient ruins not far from my hometown, Mermania. Regrettably, those have been locked up tight since far back as anyone can remember. But I just so happen to know some juicy gossip that may lead us to a key. The Legendary Ice Key! Hiro: Sounds like a lead! Ozma: Or a diversion from the main plot. Poh-tay-toe, pah-tah-tow. Mancala: Either way, I need some henchmen and you need the talisman, right?! I knew it soon as I saw that birthmark! Hiro takes a moment to examine himself. Hiro: Okay, seriously, where is this birthmark you people keep going on about and why do I not see it? Mancala: But that whole “air-breather” problem… there’s only one fix for that! Hiro: Oh no, not another racket… Mancala: Calm down, calm down. It’s a Mermaid’s Kiss! Hiro: Oh. Is that some kind of stone? Or maybe a plant? Or— Mancala leaps from the water, her tail morphs into legs, allowing her to glomp Hiro. Accompanying in a loud, cartoonish “SMOOCH” sound effect, which always gets a giggle out of me. Hiro: W-whoa. That was… brusque. Ozma: *Furious* Kimyawa: *Envious* Loyroll: *Yawns* Are we ready to go now? Then we can enter the water and dive to the underwater map. Though, thanks to aquatic canyons, we can’t just go anywhere we want… yet. Our first stop is down south a ways at Mermania, a recurring city throughout the franchise. There, we can get the “Bikni” armors for our female party members, which give a serviceable boost in defense to each. Hiro and Loyroll can get the “Trnks” which are a step up, but not as huge of one. How does an armor that covers less protect more? It is one of the long, lost legendary mysteries of JRPGs. Anyways, if we talk around at the merchant’s guild here, we’ll learn that Mancala has lost her trader’s license 17 different times due to “questionable practices”. The others roll their eyes when they learn this news but refrain from commenting. After talking to enough merfolk, Mancala fans out from the party. Mancala: Okay! We got everything we need? The legendary ice key is held in the underwater volcano! Hiro: I’d question the physical possibilities but somehow I feel like I’d just be encouraging you at this point. Mancala: Oh, don’t be so glum, chum! It’s pretty much a straight line there! … With a few curves and bumps. And a giant, angry dragon at the bottom. Hiro: Ah. There’s the hitch. I was waiting for that. Loyroll: Slaying a dragon? It’s a tad cliché but I think we can handle that! Mancala: Then what’re we waiting for?! Let’s do it! Ozma: What? You mean stroll up to the dragon and punch it in the face? Mancala: … Yes? Ozma: Metal. Kimyawa: Sugoi, Ozma-chan! At this point we can move back to the ocean floor and the cave in the top-right area is open now. Had we gone he previously, Hiro would’ve met the Giant Sentient Block, a really existential gag that plagues AQ players for years to come. In fact, in the early-internet era, whether this pseudo-character even existed was up for debate, as most of his appearances in this game are very easily missed. The cave itself is pretty straight-forward, except about midway, where the current puzzles spell out great confusion for those who tried to brute force the puzzles, which would flush them down a comically oversized pit where you’d battle the Toilet Snake monster, which is obsessed with poison attacks. Otherwise, the local monsters like the Munchkinfish, Seaweeder, and Poof Fish are actually quite weak compared to other monsters around this level. Here you can find a Coral Abacus for Mancala, replacing the nonsense “TmSn” Abacus she comes with normally (the Japanese name is “Termite Snack” and I guess they were okay with letting everyone assume it meant “Thompson” or something!). Afterward, you just press on down the stairs… up until you enter the gameshow chamber. Yeah, that’s not a joke. The party fans out and stands behind a podium as a huge, anime octopus-man plops down in a suit and tie. Octopus: Welcome, ladies and gentlefish to Amazing Quest: The Game Show: The Video Game: Home Edition v. 1992! I’m your host, Otto! And you lucky heroes are in for a treat today! You get to try my quiz game challenge! Win and you’ll receive fabulous prizes! Fail and you get… well, nothing! Are we ready to play?! We then get a prompt of “Squid yeah!” or “Fin no!”, but obviously the game won’t let you progress until you at least TRY, so, yeah… Otto: Question 1 will be an easy one to get your feet wet! What tribe is Hiro from? We get a prompt between “Pudding”, “Protagonist” and “Team Laser Explosion”. The answer is quite obvious. Otto: Correct! Question 2: What is Ozma’s family name? This one is a little trickier, being given the possible answers “Trouble”, “Tohrubble” and “Toruble”. Just be aware of what her name REALLY is, and you’ll be fine. Otto: Great job! Really kraken ‘em up! Question 3: What mystical artifacts, when united, unleash a great and terrible power? The answers this time are: “The DisKord Stones”, “Hell’s Bells”, and “The Talismans”. Interestingly enough, the other options are shout-outs to DOS-era adventure titles, which AQ4 later also shouts out to. Otto: Whooo! Now we’re gilly getting into it! Question 4: What elemental affinity is the first boss of this game? The prompt is just Fire, Water and Pie, so the answer is obviously water as it was the monster in Fog Tower. If you say Pie, Otto’s arms drop to his sides, as he turns to face the player directly and will stare at you for 10 tedious, unnerving seconds before prompting you to try again. Otto: ALRIGHT! Last one and this one separates the squids from the suckers! Question 5: Which of these is NOT an element of magic?! The answer prompt this time is four options wide, including: “Music”, “Emotion”, “Boobs” and “Food”. You’d only know the answer to this if you read the instruction booklet – which specifically references the elements of magic in the AQ universe. This is kind of a jerk move by the game devs, as losing the manual in the early SNES era was a foregone conclusion by all but the most dedicated collectors. The answer is technically food, but the AQ manga series actually contradicts this during the “Great Pudding Cook-Off” arc. Otto: N-no way! What an amazing contestant we had on the show! Everyone, put your fins together for our new winners! A bunch of fish suddenly leap-on screen and shake about excitedly as the SNES strains to emulate the sound of uproaring applause. Then they retreat to whence they came. Otto: How do you feel? Hiro: A little drunk? Otto: YOU HEARD IT HERE, FOLKS! Now, enjoy your fabulous prizes! For answering all five correct, we get 3 “Fishy Hats” which are helmet upgrades that anyone in the party can put on. We’re then booted from the quiz room and resume our trek through for a few more rooms up until we reach the boss chamber. There, there’s a huge hole in the center of the room, glowing red. Hiro: I have to assume this is where the dragon awaits us. Mancala: Better go up and check just to be sure, Hiro! We’ll wait back here, where it’s safe! Hiro: *Sigh* Very well. One moment. Hiro walks to the lip and looks down. Hiro: Deep. But I don’t see anything. Hiro kicks a small stone from the lip down below, then puts a hand to his ear to listen for it. Hiro: … Deep. Very deep. But I still don’t— The screen begins violently shaking. Hiro: Well, I’ve been wrong before. -Boss Fight!- Trench Serpent LP: 7500 MP: 1000 This gigantic beast is a real threat at last! I hope you took the time to level up on your way here! Your best bet is use Kimyawa’s Fox Flip, if you’re leveled high enough to have it by now, which can briefly confuse the monster to some considerable effect. However, it mandates being quite a bit over-leveled to use here, so she may be money ahead to spam the Mirror of Kii. The serpent’s most dangerous move is “COWABUNGA!” which sends a killer tidal wave over the party – never mind that we’re already underwater during this fight. Your Pudding Swirls should be sufficient, provided you’re not careless. If you monitor your HP burn, you should come out on top. -Boss Fight!- Hiro: Whew… that was surprising. Mancala: Look! The Ice Key! A banana in a block of ice floats down to Hiro’s hands. Hiro: I lack the words. As usual. Mancala: We have it! Now we can go to the Octopus’ Garden! Hiro: Tell me it’s not a quiz game. Mancala: Probably not! Loyroll: Life is far more fun when you never know what comes next, right? Hiro: I guess so. At this point we –can- go on to the next area, if we wanted to. However, a hilarious and easily-missed Easter egg awaits those who return back to Zaius and Heston. The people gather at a neutral ground once you walk into one of the cities. Hiro: Okay. Everyone. Watch very carefully. I’m gonna bring peaceful resolution to this once and for all. Hiro brandishes his sword, then cuts the Ice Key clean in half. Mancala: HIRO! WHAT THE HELL?! Hiro: Just watch. This is going some place. Hiro takes the banana free of the ice, then peels it from center-out on both ends. Crowd: WHAT?! N-no way! No one has ever… how did he DO THAT?! Hiro: See? Now you understand: there’s more than just two ways to do something! And each is equally valid. And now we all learned an important lesson, right? Crowd: HE HAS ANGERED THE VOLCANO GODS! Hiro: Beg pardon? The camera pans out as a nearby mountain erupts into a volcano, the magma pours out and wipes out both villages in a flash. It then cuts back to the party. Mancala: Oh. Right. This place is ruled by the twin brother gods of volcanoes: Rilk and Klir. They also had very particular food habits. And banana peeling was one of their sacred doctrines. Hiro: … How was I supposed to know that? So with two more destroyed cities under our belts, we find the Melted Blade, a new sword for Hiro as we return to the sea for the Octopus Garden. The garden is a 3D maze, using a really curious fixed-perspective isometric view and water spouts that move Hiro up and down as you run through. People have wasted HOURS of their lives here due to the numerous deadends and confusing layout. This is also only the first screen. The second area has moving platforms which Hiro must traverse in order to cross a river. For some reason, this ordeal seems quite nostalgic, doesn’t it? The third area introduces the garden’s true gimmick – the octopus jars and the red and blue octopi. When you get here, the party fans out. Mancala: Ah. I’ve heard of this room. We have to approach it from a certain angle! Hiro: I don’t suppose you know what it is? Mancala: Grandma said this: red octopi are friendly and will pull you near them for a closer look! Blue octopi are shy and if approached, will politely move you away from their homes! But don’t fear – neither will harm you! Hiro: What on Earth does THAT mean?! Mancala: I dunno. Why? Hiro: … Kimyawa: Nii-chan, I think I understand! The octopi-tachi are different colors here. Red will pull us near from far away and blue will push us from near to far. And the room is full of holes in the floor. So, to progress, we need octopi-tachi to move us from one spot to another. Hiro: So the riddle lies in the color and the distance. I see. This is the most head-scratching moments in the game, not due to the base mechanics, but to how fiendishly clever the rooms that lie ahead really are. As explained, red octopi reach out three or four spaces ahead to grab us, but will ignore us if we’re one or two spaces out from them, and blue octopi ignore us at distances of three or greater, and will move us away from them three to four spaces if we approach. Using this knowledge we must move about the map step by step to progress. The first room is very simple and just a test of how each works. The second room adds more walls and holes in the floor to test your critical thinking. The third room adds floors that collapse once stepped on (which reset if you leave and come back) and the final room adds conveyer belts for a touch of twitch-reflex testing! Even with random encounters turned off for these moments, this still routinely gets ranked in the top 5 most hair-pullingly frustrating dungeons in the series. Once you get to the end, we see another pit not unlike the underwater volcano end area. Mancala: Oh? Is this the center area of the Octopus Garden? Ozma: Ugh. Not a recolor boss fight. How uncreative can you get? The area rumbles as a large, purple Trench Serpent rises from below. Kimyawa: Ozma-chan, Snake-san didn’t like that comment. Hiro: Get ready, everyone! Before the battle can begin, something flashes across the screen, and the serpent roars, sinking back into the abyss. Hiro: Wait, what? Who was that?! ?: Light Puddings! Prepare yourselves! Ozma: Uh. Strictly speaking only one among us is a Pudding! A tall, slender man with an oversized tower shield on each arm stands before the party. Man: I am Praetorian Mih! Hiro: Of course you are. Loyroll: I understand your frustration, my friend, but you must admit, he’s got style! Mih: You’ve done enough damage, Light Pudding! It’s time your little escapade— Hiro: Excuse me. Mih: What? Hiro: How are you breathing right now? Did you kiss a mermaid too? Mih: Huh? Hiro: We’re underwater, so I just wanted to know if we did the same thing is all or if there was a better way. Mih: Kiss a mermaid? What are you on about? Everyone knows mermaids aren’t real. Mancala: *Ahem* Mih: Bah! I tire of this. Enough banter! Have at you! -Boss Battle!- Praetorian Mih LP: 8800 MP: 750 Praetorian Mih is every bit the human wall his massive design and dual-wielding shields might indicate, coupled with by far the most LP of anything we’ve yet encountered. The best thing to do is to use Ozma’s Table Flip in hopes it reduces this giant’s defenses and use Pudding Swirl with Hiro and Kimyawa in order to give him the offensive edge needed to compete. Loyroll should use the Mirror of Kii, exploiting Mih’s middling magic defenses. Mih’s most annoying ability will be “Safe & Sound”, a special technique accompanied by an unusually cool trumpet solo which will render him virtually invincible for two rounds before he opens up with a party-wide physical blow. However, if you can weather this, he has a 3 turn cooldown on the ability, so he cannot spam it. You’ll have to play the endurance game just as much as he does, but if you keep it up, you’ll send him packing. -Boss Battle!- Mih: Hahaha! Not bad. Not bad at all. But it will take way more than that to defeat the Human Wall, Praetorian Mih! Hiro: How many more times are you going to introduce yourself?! Loyroll: It seems our unstoppable tempo has met with an unmoving mountain! Kimyawa: Nii-chan, I think you’re mixing your metaphors. Ozma: Don’t give up. I have an idea! But I’ll need your help, Mancala! Mancala: Huh? Uh. Okay! Lay it on me! What’s the plan?! Ozma palms Mancala’s head in her hand. Mancala: Eh? Wait, what— Ozma then hurls Mancala head-first into Mih, who slides back as she impacts, coming to the rim of the pit behind him. Mancala falls flat, stars circling her head. Mancala: BARF! Mih: Hahahaa! You must be truly desperate to resort to such flailing, desperate measures! Ozma: Oh, am I? Mih: Huh? What did you…? Oh no! Mih panics, desperately attempting to run as the cliff below him gives out and he plummets into the pit below. After a few seconds of a whistling, falling sound, we hear a violent crash below. Kimyawa: Yatta! Hiro: That was, uh, a creative way of dealing with that. Ozma: I’m pretty pleased with myself. Mancala: My poor head… I’m gonna feel that for weeks! Ozma: Oh, walk it off. Mancala: How do you walk off a headache?! Hiro: C’mon, guys. The water talisman must be… huh? Do you guys hear something? The area rumbles distantly. Suddenly, an explosion rockets up from the pit, sending the party skyward. Hiro: He exploded?! Loyroll: Not just him! The serpent too! Hiro: BECAUSE THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE, RIGHT?! Something shiny flies among the party. Kimyawa: Sugoi! The water talisman! Guy-nii-chan! Ozma: I got it! Ozma grabs Mancala’s tail and swings her around, causing Mancala to grab it. Mancala: STOP THAT, YOU CRAZY BITCH! Ozma: But it just feels SO RIGHT! How can it be wrong?! Ozma learns the Dual Tech – Fish Slap! She’ll grab Mancala’s tail and swing her about like a flail, dealing great damage to a single target. This move deals water-type damage. And we get the Water Talisman! Ozma: The important thing is that we got the Water Talisman now, right? Hiro: No! The important thing is that we’re ABOUT TO FALL AND DIE!!! Ozma: Such a gloomy gus… The party is then viewed falling, crash-landing in a seaside village on the opposite side of one of the underwater canyons that previously prevented our passage from Mermania. They pick themselves up and survey the town. Mancala: Oh! I know where this is! This is Trackland, the town known for its enormous race track and horrible, crippling gambling debt! Hiro: That seems… informative. Never heard of a place that bagged on their own town when they were naming it. Ozma: Might as well have a look around. I don’t see anything else we can do for now. Here we can buy some upgrades, like Kimyawa’s CatCap helmet, Ozma’s Blaz Knuckles and Hiro’s Shing Sword, provided you didn’t find the Melted Blade earlier. By talking to the locals, we learn the Dark Puddings have already ransacked their town, and now their sole joy remains in the race track – famous for being so long it’s also the main highway to the next town! We then go to talk to the operations manager to find a means down said road. Hiro: Hello. We were wondering if it would be alright to head down the race track to the next town. Ops Guy: No, no, no. You don’t “head down” the race track. You RACE down it! That’s why they call it a RACE track! Mancala: Yeah? Then why do they call something you drive on a parkway and something you park on a driveway?! Ops Guy: Look, I don’t make the rules – I just enforce them. If you try any funny business, I’ll run your butts down and drag you back here for the biggest lecture of your lives! So race properly or don’t race at all! The party leaves the room, then spreads out again. Hiro: Well, so much for the direct route. Ozma: Anyone have any ideas? Loyroll: Why not do what he said? After all, a race sounds like fun! No one can keep up with our tempo! Mancala: We can’t just run the track. We’d pass out from exhaustion before we hit the midway. We need something we can ride. We need a pack mule! Hiro: A town renowned for its race track? Well, there has to be a ranch nearby with animals for such an occasion. Let’s ask around. Heading over to the ranch on the east side of town we can talk to the rancher – a strangely feminine man in a long, white trench coat. Hiro: We need— Rancher: A monster for the race, right? Hiro: Wow, you’re— Rancher: I am pretty awesome. Moreover, you’re wasting your time. The Dark Puddings raided my ranch last month and I’m still putting the pieces back together. Hiro: Isn’t there anything— Rancher: Yeah, if you get a few million going spare, I could lend you one of my thoroughbreds I’ve been raising. Hiro: We don’t have— Rancher: Neither does anyone else, bro. If you want the bargain bin, you’re in luck. This way. Hiro: Are you going to let me— Rancher: No. The rancher leads us over to one particular pen where a sad, squat lizard-like creature with a camel’s hump, two wings and two tails, weighed down by mace-like appendages crawls out. It coughs out dust on Hiro’s boots. Hiro: Is it dying? Rancher: I can only hope. This here is the bottom of the bottom of the barrel. This is the last of the Griffohumps. Hiro: Okay, you’re gonna need to explain that one to me. Rancher: It’s half griffon, half camel-dog. Its eyes also don’t align properly and it’s wantonly flatulent. I’ll let you take it for 100 gold. Take it or leave it. Hiro: Well, that’s a very reasonable price. For an unreasonable animal. I was thinking more of something like a horse… Rancher: Then you’re out of luck, chum. What little I have left other than this guy is for rebuilding and repopulating my ranch. Hiro: Looks like I don’t have much of a choice. We then get a Yes/No prompt, which is entirely pointless as saying no means we just walk around town until we go back and say Yes. In the GBA remake, however, if Kimyawa is level 37 (really, only a few levels higher than the average for this segment) and knows her Fox Inferno technique, this entire segment takes on an entirely DIFFERENT connotation as Kimyawa can replace the Griffohump as our pet in this minigame. But that’s creepy. So I’ll stick with the SNES version, thank you very much. The Griffohump is then dropped into a special Virtual Pet-style menu, which we can access whenever we want by speaking with the rancher. We’re then prompted to name the little guy – his default name is “Stinky”. We can feed it either mundane items, or special items the rancher will offer to sell us, which influence its stats. We can train it in minigames, or by fighting it like it was a monster encounter – which is the most effective means to raise it. Unequip the party and let it beat on the party and its stats will skyrocket, especially if it KOs the party. We can also have Hiro pet it and talk to it, which makes Hiro spout off nonsense jokes that were poorly translated from their original Japanese counterparts. You may persist in doing this as long as you’d like or until you hit the ludicrous 999 stat caps. Really, if you get it to around 150 in everything, Energy, Speed, Acceleration and Defense, you don’t need anything more than that. Return to the ops guy. Ops Guy: You again?! Didn’t you hear me?! Hiro: We’d like to enter the race properly now! Ops Guy: Really now? Well, that’s an entirely different story. Ready to begin? We then get a Yes/No prompt. Select Yes to continue. Ops Guy: Alright! To the starting line! This cues up the race minigame, with Hiro sitting astride the Griffohump, who is barely larger than his owner. The race itself involves running to the right-hand side of the screen as other racers try to jump on/over us. We’re ranked as we go and we must be in one of the top three places in order to win the minigame. Failure to do so drops us off where we started the race and Hiro mumbling something about “Not being on his A-Game today”. Clearing in higher ranks nets us better money and item rewards, but nothing worth freaking out over just yet – but they do get better as the plot progresses. But if we manage to win in 1st, 2nd or 3rd, we reach the chapter’s end! Narrator: And thus, Hiro and his party, riding gallantly atop Stinky, gracefully coast across the valley. What awaits them ahead? Only time will tell… We then get the Griffohump Feather, a key item we can use to access the virtual pet minigame from anywhere, anytime! Don’t forget to feed him from time to time!

#Adventure #fantasy #fiction #science fantasy #writing #infrequently asked questions #Amazing Quest

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davidboles · 4 years ago

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The Ultimate WHOOP Review

I’ve been using WHOOP for a couple of months. WHOOP is a biometric device you wear on your wrist, or bicep, to help measure cardiovascular inheritance from aerobic Strain training during your workouts as well as the mounting recordable stresses of the day based on heart rate beats per minute. My WHOOP device, worn exclusively on my upper bicep, has taught me the hard way that Kettlebell workouts are great for increasing anaerobic strength, but Kettlebells also need extra help to push the body into aerobic cardiovascular fitness, and for me, that translates into having to add running, Kettlebell EMOM (with cautious variations), jumping jacks, and cycling to my daily workout routines. Those additions compete to complicate both time and trouble.

As you know, I use my Apple watch on my left wrist to measure my heart rate all day. I wear an Oura Ring on my left hand in marriage position — as does my wife! — to help track HRV every day. I wear my WHOOP all day and all night, on alternating biceps, to bring it all together in the ultimate triumvirate of health in exposition.

I’ll give you my ultimate WHOOP review bullet points in a moment, but first, I want to discuss my initial experience with getting to know WHOOP by sharing my initial conversation with support.

QUESTION ONE

BOLESBELLS.COM: Is there any way to tell Whoop that I am on medication that affects my heart rate? I'm on Blood Pressure meds, and while I may be able to peak at 150bpm, my sustainable max is really around 135. With other Apps, I can tell them I'm on meds, and the expectation is lowered. When my heart rate jumps to max, it almost instantly drops back down to my RHR of about 60 while exercising. Will Whoop eventually figure this out on its own?

WHOOP SUPPORT: You can track your blood pressure medication in the WHOOP Journal! To add it to your journal, you can edit your journal topics and under "Medication" there is an option to add blood pressure medication. If you would like some more information on your personal HR data, I would be more than happy to connect you with our Data Analytics team. They are the experts!

BOLESBELLS.COM FOLLOW UP: I found the BP meds part of the journal! Thank you. Initially setting up the journal, I remember seeing something about anxiety meds, but nothing about BP meds. I fixed it, and was able to go back in time, and adjust the journal for BP meds. I do think more options need to be added above 100mg a day, though! What happens when you read that plus one upper limit in the way WHOOP interprets the BP meds data? As well, are BP meds that significantly affect my upper heart rate, influencing my daily Strain requirements? Or does that only happen once a month? Or never?

QUESTION TWO

BOLESBELLS.COM: Why no connection to Apple Health and Apple Watch? What is the point of siloing your App and data? I have to use Strava as a bridge to get my workouts recorded, so the investment into Whoop now becomes a multiple of a Strava subscription as well.

WHOOP SUPPORT: Our only two integrations at the moment are Strava and TrainingPeaks. We currently do not have any plans to integrate with Apple Health or the Apple Watch, but I am more than happy to send this feedback over to our Product Development Team for future updates.

BOLESBELLS.COM FOLLOW UP: Thank you for submitting the Apple Health request function. By including two applications, you appear to indicate you are willing to allow Apple Health functionality, but not directly, as some web analysis suggests the WHOOP team is not large enough to offer enough software management muscle to support Apple Health and the Apple Watch.

QUESTION THREE

BOLESBELLS.COM: I'm not certain why Strain is so complicated to comprehend when -- "Do This, Get That" -- is much more relatable. I've read all your info pages on Strain, and I've read all the online forums, but Strain appears to be a proprietary, and secret, algorithm that you don't want end users to figure out to actually meet the goal. Keeping us in the dark makes us work harder to reach a metric that is unclear and muddled. This makes for a frustrating workout experience in the end because you are withholding clarification and confirmation of progress.

WHOOP SUPPORT: We do not intend for Strain to be complicated to comprehend! Strain is a measurement, on a 21-point scale, which quantifies the total cardiovascular load undergone. The score is not “linear”, in that it is easier to go from a 0 to a 4 than it is to go from a 10 to a 12.

This [sic] non-linearity reflects physiological processes in the body, for example why you are unable to sustain an all-out sprint for longer than a couple of minutes. Unlike counting steps, Strain is personalized and accounts for differences in fitness and ability such that two people who complete the same run (with the same amount of steps) could get very different Strain scores based on differences in the relative difficulty to complete that run. In the case of this run, the more fit athlete would get a lower Strain because he or she did not have to work as hard to complete the run as the less fit athlete did. Strain starts to build at the beginning of each cycle (when you go to sleep), and the score will get harder and harder to increase as it gets higher. If you don't do much activity outside of walking and/or working, it may not increase.

Strain for an activity is calculated by combining a weighted sum of the duration of time you spend at various heart rates. Each heart rate has a different weight to how much Strain will increase. To accrue Strain points, you must have a Heart Rate that exceeds 30% of your Heart Rate Reserve (Max Heart Rate - Resting Heart Rate) plus your Resting Heart Rate.

BOLESBELLS.COM FOLLOW UP: I understand Strain, but I don't understand if Strain understands me. Because of my BP medication, I'm not able to sustain much of an upper heart rate and, right now, WHOOP is holding that against me statistically because the base Strain expectation is too high. I don't know if that will change if WHOOP learns my maximum heart rate and adjusts, but right now, it's frustrating that I'm stuck in "recovery" for Strain, when I'm actually killing myself just to get above the 50% level of Strain for my WHOOP workouts. I wish the BP meds were not part of a journal, but an integral part of determining my daily Strain effort.

That conversation with WHOOP support was about two months ago, and I was pushed over to a WHOOP data technician to continue the approach; and here are my extra thoughts, and analysis — in informational bullets — concerning my ongoing interaction with the WHOOP strap, and the reasons behind the how, and why, of WHOOP data dislocation:

WHOOP data support and I had a long conversation about Blood Pressure medication, and Strain, and my ability to move my maximum heart rate into the recordable aerobic range. I’m old and I’m on meds — both of those things negatively affect my achievable maximum heart rate. At the time, my default heart rate max was set at 185bpm server side with WHOOP. I can barely reach 150bpm in any workout, even at my full Strain capacity, and even then I cannot sustain that 150bpm heart rate for any longer than a minute or so. That means I’ll never reliably reach my daily Strain goal, especially if I sleep well the night before, and over the last two years, I’ve worked really hard — in concert with my Oura Ring — to always make sure my sleep is right. WHOOP support, based on reading the initial 10 days of my metrics recordings, agreed to lower my server side heart rate peak from 185bpm to 160bpm. I agreed to that change because I’ll never hit 185bpm with my medication holding me back, but I still believed 150 should be my actual peak — because my true, sustainable max heart rate is 135bpm — and I’ve been proven right in my first monthly WHOOP assessment that just dropped this morning. However, WHOOP data support, at that time, was unmoved by my 150bpm request because, they could see, I’d hit 151bpm once. That echoing decision makes the idea of continuing on with WHOOP beyond the six-month minimum subscription a hard task to imagine because I’ll never achieve acceptable cardiovascular health in that WHOOP world.

It is a real hassle to get WHOOP involved in your Apple life. WHOOP will not directly write the Apple Health, or allow Apple Health to directly access WHOOP data. So, if you want the full inclusion of WHOOP into your workout life, you have to make a kludge connection by “hiring” the Strava run App to mediate — to become the “middleman” of record in the Apple world — by negotiating the writing of WHOOP data to Apple Health. That is just a bad user experience. There’s no direct WHOOP data available on your Apple Watch. You can’t start a WHOOP workout from your Apple Watch even if you’re wearing the WHOOP strap. That makes WHOOP technologically feel very old and isolated.

No matter how hard I work out — right now it’s three times a day — I cannot move my Strain gauge into anything other than recovery. That means, according to WHOOP, that I will never be able to meet the daily Strain challenge unless I perform something along the lines of three hours of jumping jacks every day. It’s an impossible task and, in all the time I’ve had my WHOOP on my bicep, I’ve only met my basic Strain requirement once, and that was after a slightly bad night of sleep.

Yes, you can manipulate WHOOP to significantly raise your Strain meter by: Not sleeping enough, drinking alcohol, and not allowing your mind to quiet. All of that will tank your HRV, and WHOOP will then lower your achievable Strain score for the next day. So, we can beat the WHOOP Strain game with intentional bad behavior, but for those of us trying to live, and eat right, WHOOP will not give us that benefit of that doubt because we are “punished” by their Strain algorithm, and then forced to work harder, and push stronger, especially if we are feeling good, and doing well. Sometimes, it feels like WHOOP wants to push me to the point of bodily danger to surpass my arbitrary Strain goal. The stronger you become cardiovascularly, the more WHOOP raises the base Strain expectation of your performance behavior. It feels like a never ending circle by design you can never successfully close. Sometimes, you need to let the dog win the bone.

The fight to beat the WHOOP Strain gauge every day has raised my HRV. That’s pretty amazing. I’m seeing a 10 point increase in HRV in just a month of changing the way I schedule my training and expectations. That’s one behaviorally-enforced miracle on the WHOOP side that cannot be denied.

The WHOOP journal is not a great pathway for determining expectations or habitual implications. I suggest you only include journal variables that are always changing, because if you routinely do a “good” thing every day, it won’t be counted in your monthly report unless you also don’t do it at least five times. That’s a confusing metric that really only allows for the inclusion of bad habits you’re trying to break, and not all the good habits you religiously covet into your daily grind.

WHOOP is amazing technology, but often the promise appears more valid than the proof.

#aerobic #anaerobic #whoop

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joiedevivremx · 6 years ago

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Monthly Thoughts 2017

December 2017

Déjà Vu Déjà Vu

There are theories of déjà vu: a warning, a sign, lack of vitamins, a glitch in the matrix. Either way, I get them constantly and highly believe they are a sign, I just have no idea what for.

Listening to a podcast (one of my favorite things right now) called rabbits (which I highly recommend). Anyway, it talked about the way that there are things constantly repeating. Always hearing the same song, keep seeing the name of a similar street so on, were checkpoints in the game of life. I absolutely loved that idea because it´s completely different from what it feels like, which is being in a rut.

Similar to Déja Vu, you can only really trust yourself. Repeated events could be a metaphorical key such as a video game that helps you discover new worlds.

November 2017

Horoscopes & Signs

I read my horoscope, usually, when I'm uncertain - will my choices help me out? Am I making the right decision for a better future? Is my luck going to stay the same?

Is it easy to make good decisions? -no, is it easy making bad decisions? -yes. Is it easy to know the difference? -almost impossible. We seek help, so we find religion, clubs, friends, guides, therapy that fit our predetermined thinking.

Horoscopes. I kept a clipping in specific that stated that in may I would have a kid - the same year/month my baby was born. I just think of the process with the publisher - really? it needs to be more general, so people can identify more. and the writer was determined that all Leos would have children.

I kept it, and constantly check out my horoscope even though when I don´t even believe in the calendar, it doesn't make sense. Why isn´t it better 13 months that divide almost perfectly into 28 days? Better all around, but no, its randomly divided days in 12 months. So if I don´t believe in a calendar, how can I believe in horoscopes- I think its a sign from the universe.

October 2017

Dogs

In Mexico, dogs are very important.

In the city they are considered family, you get them everything you think they might need to be happy and safe.

In little towns, they are mostly considered as protection.

In the last big earthquake 19S, they are considered heroes.

I have had dogs before, but never to the extent of loving them so much.

When you have kids they are great, its a way to teach them big things in a simpler cuter note:

-even though you mess up, I'll still love you.

-you need to be firm for their own good

-just cause you can't be with them all the time it doesn´t mean you don´t love them.

-and other types of stuff like the birds and the bees when you have to take them to the vet and such.

My dogs love us and would protect us from anything. Which is also nice.

Seeing the world be more and more into animals, also is a way of accepting that we are not the center of the universe. We are in all of this together.

September 2017

Earthquake

It´s been two days since the earthquake, I think I'm finally coming out of the shock. I every now and then feel like crying. Up to now, all I have done is reposted things. It´s taking me a while to feel, whatever I'm feeling.

I'm heartbroken and sad, and scared and still, I can't believe that has happened.

What has been the silver lining is that each day, more and more people are realizing that they are the change. Not the government.

There were some people trying to take advantage of the situation, but the numbers of the good heavily outweighed those of the bad.

There are true heroes, humans, and dogs in this city that the only thing that was needed was the same community that made the advances possible.

Our moral compass // humanity outweighed any other element that could have gotten in the way.

If only that is how we kept on living, helping each other, and of course why not, accepting help from others.

The heroes were people that would help move parts of the fallen buildings, doctors giving free treatment, donations up to where the eye could see, blood donators, so on.

Before that the unseen heroes were/are the ones that made sure that the buildings that were up to protocol despite if there was a law or not defending it. Companies that would do the emergency drills not only the ones by law but to really make sure everyone would be ready.

Making sure the companies that could help were available for business for when this happened and trusting them to be there for just these type of situations. (all the restaurants, big and street vendors, tool stores big and small, vets, doctors, etc)

We are our government

we vote with what we consume.

August 2017

Tests

I find tests absolutely useless.

In no part of life, you have to remember anything. Especially now.

You do have to know how to use the information given to you.

It stresses you, and the worst part is - you most likely will forget everything sooner than later.

How to prove if someone did learn? Trial and error, and repeat till you have the best response.

Trick tests questions are the worst - double negatives, always and never - not the full truth.

They don´t help at all. Its as if every single test is really just an English (or whatever language the test is) test.

For me tests are obsolete. They don´t help out, and they create people that can't think, just follow.

It´s amazing how far apart school ways and working ways are. School, after all, should prepare you for work. Not be like another job.

It should make you better - it should prepare you for what's up ahead.

Tests are easily manipulated, this school has a great test score, not focusing on what was learned.

When I got to Mexico, I saw that school was definitely much more advanced than school in the states, meanwhile since the test scores were higher in one part of the world that is what calculated the effectivity of the school. Unless you lived the two you can come to questions the difficulty level of what the test was based on.

The battle from quantitive vs qualitative is a forever struggle. Being how do you quantify something that is intangible. How do you measure the quality of something? with tests, will you use those test to have a manipulated outcome, or to really know the answer?

Seems to me, it's all been manipulated with no long-term thinking, and we are all living the consequences.

July 2017

Worldly world

I love watching stuff like Master Of None and seeing how the world gets worldlier, when go-to Italy, they speak Italian.

You see various type of lives and religions and ways of thinking coexist.

It's a new world of people, all of us that aren't from here or they're just a mix, that appreciate a bit of it all.

I may speak Spanish or English - no threat.

I can be urban or serious.

Go to museums and shop.

No this or that, but a mix of everything.

Letting other people know of this beforehand so it is not to be confused with arrogance, or mistrust but just different.

June 2017

Getting to know all about you

It´s been a while, but the time has come to feel that I get myself.

My likes, my dislikes, why I do things when I can say no. Confidence to take feedback, confidence to stand my ground.

Hope for tomorrow and that everything comes for a reason, which is part of my beliefs.

Pressure and motivation to give my kid a better life. The Calmness of getting here so far and fear of not getting further.

Ease to know that what was meant to come will, so I can relax a bit, rest and think instead of getting into a nervous overdrive.

Imagining all I would change if I could know all I know when I was 10. Mostly talking to people to help them not make such downward spiral decisions that started so young.

Worry less, no "diets" more exercise. Learn more. Let go at the right time, not get caught up in the trends. pretty much sums it up.

Trust yourself, cause maybe, just maybe you're the one that planned out your life anyway.

May 2017

Disconnected.

Each time I spend less and less time online for personal purposes. I don´t have my personal social media on my phone. I work quite a lot so when I´m connected, it's for something else.

I catch up every now and then, a way to let my mind wander, but it´s not really real-time thoughts. More like a documentary of what's been going on. A way to prove that I thought of this first.

Me time, I can say, disconnected to enjoy the moment and connected to remember those times.

Documentary half uploaded and half edited but enough to remember and so people can maybe learn from my thought process.

April 2017

Shop your vote

It´s been over a year that I have been buying things only made in Mexico, which makes me find out of more and more brands that are so awesome.

Plus the benefits that it´s rare that someone else has the same outfit/design/whatever you do.

It makes me feel special and somewhat superior knowing I can find the treasure where most people don´t look.

Ahead of my time, and some sort of control of helping my country become a better place, purchase by purchase.

It also helps me control my spending, being that my things have to fit various criteria: Not harmful to animals, Mexican, Make with quality.

One day, these brands can be worldwide, and I can say I had them when.

March 2017

Pets

I highly recommend having pets, not just having them, but making them part of the family.

They care for you and they make you learn simple stuff.

It´s quite impressive how my pets get me more than at least 90% of the people I know. Without speaking a word. It´s lovely.

They teach us and the people they live with some of life's difficult conversation starters, without the words.

I truly enjoy not talking, gets in the way, and it gets misunderstood way too easy.

The more you grow, the more you realize that people understand and hear what they want, from what they have gone on - nothing to do with whatever you might say or do.

You have to take things as they come - from what people think and what they have learned.

You can see that in bullies, of how their family life treats them. That´s what they are used to.

Pets don´t have that baggage and if they do, they get rid of it quite quickly.

Simple and sweet.

February 2017

Grateful

Every day, more and more, I feel more grateful.

It´s sad to see how many people live, and the things they have to go through.

I´m lucky to say I have my health (at least my urgent visits to the doctor are less and less). I have the gift of learning, where I can not only learn, but apply everything to everything.

I have my needs met, and I feel satisfied with my life.

How, in the world, and this is how this -JDV- started, can we get more people to live this way. A better education, a chance, a helping hand, trust, whatever it is, I know it is not one man's job, but everybody's - and it is up to all of us to help at least a bit one person.

January 2017

Women´s Rights

Before I started working people knew me by "Karime", or in the states like "Kamie". My family and friends know me by those names. When I started working and I needed an office mail, first of all, I wanted Superspecial, lol, the people at the office politely pointed out that using a name is probably better.

They recommended I use my other name: Emmanuelle because it would be hard for people to know if I were a boy or a girl, and that little decision has helped me thru out my career.

Once people I´ve worked with find out I´m a woman/girl/feminine the trust and the relationship is already made which makes it easier for me to get things done.

Of my favorite experiences is when I have to interview people and women, in particular, come to the meeting wearing very suggestive clothes, which is probably thought out for Mr. Emmanuelle.

I´ve been in meetings, trips, reunions that I am the only woman, or at least of the 10%.

Could it be just the name? In my psychometric tests, I usually come out more of a male way of thinking. Who knows.

That's just what I personally have experienced.

Seeing the buses here in Mexico and to see that they are divided with a women's car and "not women's" car just goes to show how much we have left for real equality, a humans rights more than women rights - I just hope my kid gets to see the day.

#mexico #ideas #thoughts #mindset

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filipeteimuraz · 6 years ago

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Learn from the Best: 6 Skills All Great Writers Have (and How to Learn Them)

If you want to be a successful online marketer, there’s one thing you must be able to do:

you must be able to write.

Writing is involved in almost every type of content creation there is.

Emails, blog posts, and books are all primarily written content.

But even for videos, podcasts, and courses, you need to write content as well as scripts.

I’ll be honest with you:

If you’re a terrible writer, it’s unlikely you’ll be successful.

It’s harsh, but it’s true.

The good news is that you probably aren’t a terrible writer. It’s pretty hard to be one.

But at the same time, it’s hard to become a great writer.

Even after years of writing, I still wouldn’t say I’m a great writer—maybe a good one.

The key thing that you need to know is that you can improve your writing skills.

By studying the works of great writers, you can learn what makes their writing great.

And with practice, you can improve the effectiveness of your own writing, which means more traffic, subscribers, and customers.

Although you could spend dozens of hours doing that research yourself, you could just let me show you which skills are the most important when it comes to writing.

I have studied a wide variety of top notch writers (who are also great marketers) over the years and noticed that they all have certain skills in common.

In this article, I’ll break down these skills, showing you examples of them in action and ways to develop them.

By the end of this post, you should have a concrete game plan of how to become a better writer for the benefit of your business.

1. Having a big vocabulary doesn’t make you a great writer

When most people picture great writers, they think of them crafting sentences full of obscure words such as aphesis and esculent.

But the people who use words like that are usually terrible writers.

The measure of a writer is not how big his or her vocabulary is. As long as you have a decent vocabulary and understand the fundamentals of grammar of the language you’re using, you can be a good writer.

Even if you’re just learning a language, don’t think that you can’t be a good writer just because you don’t know every word of it.

There are plenty of successful bloggers who write in their second language (e.g., Bamidele Onibalusi).

Is their writing perfect from a grammar and vocabulary perspective? No, of course not.

But even without an extensive vocabulary, they’re able to create content that people love to read.

There’s actually a way for us to quantify the complexity of writing. It’s called the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale.

It looks at the length of words, and a few other factors, in order to determine at what grade level people could understand your content.

By copying a few sample blog posts into this readability score calculator, I was able to create this chart:

The three other writers on this list are all great writers in my opinion, or at least very good.

Notice that Brian and Ramit both write at about 4th grade level, as do I. That means the average 10-year-old could read most of our content because it’s not very complex.

Even though Michael Hyatt writes at a more sophisticated level, it’s still only at a grade 7 level.

The big question then becomes: Why?

The reason why great writers use simple words and phrases is because they write for the reader, not themselves.

They may appreciate the intricacies of the English language, but most readers don’t care about that. They want their information in the simplest and easiest to comprehend way.

Obviously, it’s much easier to read and understand short simple words than to figure out what the heck clandestine means (if you are curious, it means “done in secret”).

Oh yeah, there’s one other benefit to writing simply: you can write much faster.

Instead of searching for the “perfect” word, you use plain language—typically the first words that come to mind. These words are usually the words that your audience understands easily as well, so they’re really the perfect choice.

How can you apply this? This is a very simple skill to develop: just write. When you’re writing something, write down the first things that come to mind instead of searching for more complicated words instead.

Don’t worry if you make mistakes; you can always fix them when you edit.

2. Do you care how your readers feel?

Poor writers do a variety of things.

Some write what they themselves would want to read.

Others write to sound as intelligent as possible.

Either way, it’s not about the reader. Instead, it’s more about “look at how smart and awesome I am.”

Very few people are interesting enough to make this strategy work for them.

When writers focus on themselves, their writing is not compelling to the reader. These kinds of writers either improve over time as they recognize their mistakes, or they blame the readers for not recognizing good content.

I have to ask you a tough question now:

When you write content, do you think of the reader first or do you think about how to make yourself look the best (as the author)?

It’s not necessarily one or the other. Your answer could be somewhere in the middle (i.e., sometimes you focus on yourself).

The simple solution: If you’ve recognized an opportunity for improvement here, it’s easy to take advantage of it, at least in theory.

The answer is to develop empathy.

Empathy basically means that you can understand your readers’ perspective: their problems, interests, personality, and other relevant aspects of their lives.

It takes time to develop empathy, and I’m not sure if you can ever master it completely.

But empathy really shows in great writing.

The best writers use empathy both to understand what readers need to hear (solve their problems) and to determine the best way to teach them.

Some audiences need to be shown direct solutions; others need step-by-step directions; while others need a gentle prod in the right direction.

Examples of empathy in action: When writers truly understand their audience and then focus all their attention on writing that will help the audience as much as possible, it shows.

Take a look at this post from Seth Godin. He mentions the word “you” or its variations 10 times in about 100 words. This post is all about the reader.

The post is about being passionate about your work.

Many bloggers write on this topic. Most would have focused on how their own corporate experience led them to the epiphany that they needed to care more.

But that would have fallen on deaf ears.

Instead, Seth focuses on the reader’s life. He explains the problem using the language that the reader would use to describe the problem in detail.

And then, he offers a simple, one-line solution.

Or how about James Clear? He’s another great writer.

His posts aren’t based on the numbers in Google’s Keyword Planner. They are based on questions that he gets from his readers.

He knows that for every person who expresses frustration or identifies a problem, there are a hundred other people in his audience with the same issue.

So James uses his readers’ language so that other readers can relate to it and feel that the content was created specifically for them.

There’s no other way to do that other than by writing solely for the reader.

The hard part – How to develop empathy: Telling you to develop empathy is easy, but actually doing it isn’t so easy: it takes a lot of conscious practice.

But it’s not all or nothing either. Just because you don’t perfectly understand your audience doesn’t mean you can’t partially understand them.

And as you get better at empathizing with your audience, your writing will improve.

To practice this skill and develop empathy, I suggest the following five-step process. Perform it every time you create content:

1. What problems (and related problems) do your readers have around [topic of choice]?

2. How significant are these problems (very serious? or just minor pains?)

3. How do you think your readers would describe these problems?

Use steps #1-3 to outline your post. Create an intro and headlines that a reader would not only understand but would see and think, “I was just wondering about that!”

4. After writing the content, look at every single sentence/paragraph and ask yourself: “Does my reader actually care about this?” If not, either rephrase it, or take it out completely.

5. Study all comments you get on your content (whether it’s a blog comment, review, email, etc.). Try to understand why a reader says they do or don’t like it.

Create a simple checklist using these five steps, and follow it every time you write.

If you do, you’ll notice that your content will start to resonate with readers more and more.

Your audience will be more excited to read your posts, and they’ll be more engaged. You’ll get readers’ comments telling you their thoughts and opinions, which will be full of great ideas for more content (I get great suggestions all the time from my readers).

Ultimately, when it comes to your business, this type of resonance is very important because it tells the reader that you understand them.

If you create a product, they know that you’ve created it just for them and that it will meet all their needs and wants. Developing empathy is a skill that will have a long-term impact on your revenue.

3. Great writers aren’t born overnight

Think of the great writers in history: Shakespeare, Hemingway,…Neil Patel (maybe one day).

Whomever you think of when you think of great writers, it’s important to realize that they were not born that way.

Although writing is more abstract than mathematics or programming, it is a skill like any other and can be developed.

At one point or another, all writing greats could barely string a sentence together.

However, they all shared one thing: a drive to be a great writer.

Right now, you need to check if your motivation to become a better writer is enough to get you to the level you want.

If you really want to be the best writer you can be, you’ll have to write many hours, every single day. That’s what it takes to be the very best.

If you want to be one of the best writers who is also a marketer, that’s still hard, but not quite as difficult. You’ll still want to practice at least 10-20 hours a week.

But the most important thing you need to determine is this: do you really want to be a better writer?

Determine your goals, and then figure out what you’ll need to do to get there.

For example, if you want to be a blogger, start by taking a look at your favorite bloggers.

If you scroll down to the bottom of Quick Sprout’s blog page, you can click on the “last” button to see my oldest posts.

And if you do, you’ll see that my first post on this blog was written in 2007:

If you wanted to reach my current level of success, are you prepared to write about 2-3 posts a week for 8 years?

And then write over 300 guest posts as well?

If you are willing to put in that work, I guarantee that you will be very successful.

How to put in your dues in a systematic way: If you simply say out loud, “I’m going to write a blog post every day for the next three years,” chances are that you won’t.

You need to develop your own system that keeps you accountable.

Step 1 is to determine what you need to do to become the writer you want to be.

Create a new document that clearly states what you think you need to do.

For example:

Step 2 is to determine a schedule that you can stick to. This is formed by your personal schedule. If you have more time to spend on writing, you have more flexibility.

Here’s what it might look like:

I will write and publish a post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, no matter what.

You have the plan, but you need to make sure you follow through with it.

Step 3 is to find a way that will hold you accountable.

It’s really easy to just not write a post because you’ll barely notice the difference in the short term. But in the long term, it can make a huge difference.

So, how will you hold yourself accountable? There’s no wrong answer, but make sure that there’s a serious consequence if you don’t follow through with your plan.

For example, you could say that if you miss a post:

you will donate $50 to a charity

you will do something that you don’t like

you will email a friend or family member revealing an embarrassing secret

When you’re feeling motivated, you’ll have no problem writing. But when you’re not feeling motivated, this accountability plan will keep you on track.

Now you should have a simple but solid writing plan:

You should print this out and put it somewhere where you will see it at least once a day (at least until you develop good habits).

Finally, step 4 is to forget about the result, and focus on the process.

The reason for this is that in order to get the most out of your writing, you need to focus on writing itself as much as possible.

The whole point of this writing plan is for you to not focus on the results.

You don’t need to worry, thinking: “Am I doing enough to become a successful writer?” because you’ve already determined exactly what you need to do.

If you just focus on adhering to your plan, you’ll know with nearly 100% certainty that you will become a very good and successful writer when you are done.

So, don’t worry about traffic stats and other metrics while you write; just focus on writing well—the result will come.

4. “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time”

That quote has been attributed to many great writers, but it appears to have been first said by Blaise Pascal.

Regardless of who said it, the meaning is incredibly powerful.

When we talked about using simple words in writing, I advocated writing down the first words that came to mind.

When you do this, you’ll often end up using more words than you need to.

And the reason why this is a bad thing is because it dilutes the value in your content.

Think of it this way: your content has a message that has a certain value to your readers.

I would define the intensity—or quality—of writing using a simple formula:

Intensity = Value / Length

The longer your content is (if the value is held constant), the lower the intensity.

If you really want to inspire your readers to take action, your writing needs to blow them away.

It needs to provide value at a fast enough rate so that it feels to them as if a light bulb went off in their heads. In other words, your writing needs to be of a high intensity.

The more unnecessary words you have, the lower the intensity of your writing will be, and the smaller the impact your content will make.

Again, we can look at Seth Godin for a perfect example of high intensity writing. He makes every single word count.

Despite writing very short posts, he delivers a ton of value to his readers, which results in significant emotional reactions from them:

As you’ve noticed, I take a very different approach with my posts.

They are very long, usually at least 4,000 words. Since they are so long, I need to pack them with value.

Where Seth’s content is more strategic (broad thinking), my posts are more on specific tactics and ways to implement them, which takes more time to explain.

But although my posts are between 4,000 and 6,000 words, they are usually much longer when I first write them. I edit them down and remove as much “fluff” as I can.

With blog posts, you have a lot of flexibility with length. In other forms of writing, you don’t.

In emails or landing pages, you typically only have a limited amount of space (often fewer than 100 words) to get as much value across to your readers as possible.

Notice in the above example that every sentence either describes a feature or a benefit of the product.

How do you cut out the “fluff”? Like with these other skills, it takes practice to become a good editor (you could hire one if you wanted).

To practice, go through your content, sentence by sentence, and ask yourself if there is a simpler way to get your message across.

For example, the sentence:

There are some marketing channels that are better than others, like email marketing.

could be reduced to:

Email marketing produces the best ROI of any marketing channel.

That simple change took the sentence from 13 words to 10 words, and made the meaning of the sentence clearer.

That’s a 23% decrease in length. If you originally wrote a 3,000-word article and decreased every sentence by that percentage, you’d end up with a 2,300 word article.

Although it’s shorter, it will make a bigger impact on your readers because of its increased intensity.

Here’s a brilliant article on specific edits that you can make to make your writing more powerful to get you started.

5. I’ve never seen a great writer that doesn’t have this

What do typical writers do to prepare for an article?

They do a bit of research on Google and then compile what they learn into an article.

This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s a recipe for producing content that is very similar to what’s already out there.

The best writers I’ve seen can write about any topic in their niche and put some kind of unique spin—angle—on it.

Besides being unique, that additional something is also insightful and adds to the value the reader gets.

In Breakthrough Advertising, a legendary copywriting book by Eugene Schwartz, he notes that great copywriters have a wide array of experience.

You might consider them jacks of all trades.

Great writers read and practice things in all sorts of fields. If I had to boil it down to specific traits, they all possess high levels of curiosity and an open mind.

They can write an article about social media marketing and use an example of hiking up a mountain in a way that makes the point they are making clearer to the reader.

One marketer that does this really well is Bryan Harris at Video Fruit. He often shares personal stories in the introduction of his posts. But he always finds a clever, insightful way to tie it back to the point he’s making:

Another well-known marketer, Ramit Sethi, often mentions real life stories in his blog posts and emails.

For example, in an email about “unconventional ways to win,” he mentions both baseball and government officials as examples:

The great power of connections: The reason why these unexpected connections are valuable is because they can relate your thoughts using a different language.

Some points will be difficult to explain no matter what niche you are writing for.

For example, maybe you’re trying to explain to your readers how to write in a conversational tone and why it’s more interesting to their readers.

If your readers don’t understand your explanation, reading it over and over again won’t help them.

But often, when you make a point in a different context, it becomes much clearer.

With regards to writing conversationally, for example, you could tell a story of being bored at a lecture when a lecturer simply read his slides to his students instead of talking to them. That’ll illustrate your point in a way that’s recognizable to most people.

So, how do you do it? The very nature of this skill is abstract. You’re making connections that other people don’t think of naturally, and that’s what adds a unique angle to your writing.

In order to do this, you need two things:

Experience – The more experiences you have in life, the more connections you can make.

Practice – At first, you won’t make these connections naturally. When you write about a complex topic, force yourself to come up with five connections you could use to explain your point. Over time, you will naturally notice good opportunities.

And when I’m talking about experience, I mean different experiences.

Always be ready to try something new:

travel

take a cooking class

reconnect with old acquaintances

take an online course in a subject you’ve never studied

Basically, now you have a very good reason to learn or try anything you’ve ever wanted.

6. Want to become (and stay) a great writer? You need to have this…

The final skill that the best writers (in a marketing context) have is adaptability.

Each content medium has its own quirks. Although your writing style will be more or less the same, the best writers know how to tailor their writing for each medium.

When I say medium, I’m talking about forms of content such as:

blog posts

emails

Kindle books

social media

I could give you many examples, but let’s look at Danny Iny, founder of Firepole Marketing.

He’s written multiple courses in the past:

But he’s also written hundreds of blog posts and guest posts.

On top of that, he actively engages with his followers and customers on social media:

And if that wasn’t enough, he just released a new book, in addition to several others:

On top of knowing how to write for different formats and audiences, great writers keep up with change.

Take me as an example. If you look at older Quick Sprout posts, you will see that many are only 500-1,000 words.

But as blogging has developed, good writing practices for the topics I cover have changed.

I noticed that longer posts performed better, and now almost all my posts are 4,000+ words long. I try to make every post the definitive post on that specific topic.

How do you develop adaptability? By definition, you need to learn how to respond positively to changing circumstances. And in the marketing world, things change fast, which makes it even more important.

The first key takeaway for you is this: adaptability comes second. First, you need to hone your initial skills.

In practical terms, this means that you should pick one main format of writing and focus as much of your attention on it as possible. That’s how you’ll learn all the ins and outs of it.

For most, blogging is a great place to start.

Once you’ve put in the time and effort to fully understand how to write great blog posts, you can move on to the next format, be it email, social media, or something else.

In the initial period, you can still write emails or other content, but most of your focus will be on the first format you’ve chosen. Then, you’ll shift that focus to the second medium.

The second key takeaway is that you always need to be looking for what’s next, whether it’s a new medium or changes happening within an old format.

When you see a new type of content becoming popular (e.g., lately video content and podcasts), give it a try because you can always learn something from it to become a better writer.

You should always be testing different ways of reaching your audience.

Conclusion

Being a great writer will be very valuable for the foreseeable future, no matter which industry you work in.

And even if you’re not an experienced writer today, you can become one with practice: all great writers had to start from some point.

If you follow the steps I laid out in this post, I guarantee that in a few years, you will be an excellent writer.

You can use those skills however you please, whether it’s to get more followers, subscribers, a better job, or take your sales to a new level.

http://www.quicksprout.com/learn-from-the-best-skills-all-great-writers-have-and-how-to-learn-them/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2019/03/learn-from-best-6-skills-all-great.html

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flowing-paint · 7 years ago

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Dark Imperium

So I finally gave in. I jumped on the Warhammer 40k 8th edition bandwagon. It was faster and easier than I thought though. I still have some mixed feelings about it but overall I’m glad that I did it.

Games Workshop products are known for two things: 1) they probably are the best sculptures around with the finest details 2) they are insanely expensive. Notice I did not say overpriced 'cause you get what you pay for but still, they cost you an arm and a leg. This is the main reason that was holding me back from diving directly in. This and the fluff which I am not really sure I will ever be able to fully embrace. I mean, a fascist Roman empire in the far future? Duh...!

Anyway... how did I end up starting collecting Warhammer 40k do you ask? I was drinking a beer in Kobe Chinatown with my good board gamer friend when he described me a "Dark Imperium" unboxing he saw and how cool those miniatures looked. As a long-time tabletop wargamer, I knew what he was talking about and that’s probably why I was instantly sold. Also, why I should not decide to buy stuff when semi-drunk: the last thing I know is that I went back with a sense of urgency to scan the whole eBay for the cheapest Dark Imperium deal available. I found a pretty solid deal so I asked my friend how was he feeling about that and I got a weird and certainly unexpected answer: I’m going to London next week, I’ll take care of it. And he sure did. He came back to Japan with a big bag full of presents:

Dark Imperium starter box

1 extra rulebook

2 measuring tapes (GW original)

All for half the price you can get for just the starter box in this overpriced country. I have to admit, this was a great Christmas present.

The miniatures

I am pretty sure you all know about the Dark Imperium contents but the other day when I was trying to get a full list of the miniatures in the box I wasn’t able to find one in the first Google search page so I’ll make one. Let’s see what you get in the Dark Imperium box.

Primaris Space Marines

1 Captain

2 Lieutenants

1 Ancient

10 Intercessors

3 Interceptors

5 Hellblasters

Death Guard

1 Lord of Contagion

1 Noxious Blightbringer

1 Malignant Plaguecaster

7 Plague Marins

1 Foetid Bloat-drone

20 Poxwalkers

You get a total of 53 miniatures which is probably a lot even if I feel like the rulebook covers a big portion of the cost. As usual with GW starter sets you also get unique characters and they probably add a lot of value to the box anyway.

All the miniatures you get are provided in the new GW scale which means they are 32 mm. Roughly. Of course, according to GW’s official take on the matter, the new Primaris marines were bred to be bigger and stronger than ever but this doesn’t explain why the dudes in the Death Guard grew accordingly. Maybe the power of Nurgle? Or the power of the new GW board members trying to drive new blood in the game? I don’t care: the new sculpts are exceptionally good. Like good good good... they look easy to paint with abundant but still fairly large details and with some reasonable color scheme suggestion that can make painting them a breeze, even for beginners. In twenty years I’ve seen miniatures from all the possible sources, old GW, Reaper, Fantasy Flight games, Megacon Games, etc. etc. and the level these new minis reached is amazing. I can imagine that painting them will be a lot of fun. Not to mention that this box contains a figure that is probably one of the best GW miniatures ever: the Lord of Contagion.

The factions

As you can see in the previous section, the two factions that come in the box are the Primaris Space Marines and the Death Guard. Splitting between two friends we had to decide which faction to go with but we both agreed it could be better for him to stick to the marines: first, he likes the looks best and second, they’re easier to paint for a beginner. So I got to pick up the Death guard because models are more complex and you may agree with me that they may represent a fair challenge even for an experienced painter.

Wandering around the internet to see the whole army points you get, I found this thread on Reddit where they did some calculations: like all GW starter sets, the good guys are slightly overpowered, with the Space Marines scoring around 100 points of overhead in respect to the Death Guard. I don’t mind losing games so I don’t care that much but I saw the very same thing in the Age of Sigmar starter set where the Stormcast are way more powerful than the Korne dudes. In addition to this issue, the total points seem to be pretty low (don’t even know on which base I am saying this but bear with me) so we both decided to add some extra units to pump up the fun a little bit: you don’t get a super-powerful army from a starter set. As far as I know, my friend bought some Reavers, a Librarian and a bunch of the Space Marine Heroes (Japan limited edition) so he now has something like 4 or 5 HQs to choose from together with some ranks. I will describe my additions in the details below.

The rulebook

The last time I had a full (physical) rulebook from Games Workshop was back in the days of Warhammer Fantasy Battles 4th edition. I also had two army books (one for my Lizardmen and one for my Dark Elves armies). All the books were that kind of softcover with the glue binding on the side. I’m not a librarian so I don’t know the appropriate term to describe them. On the contrary, the new 40k 8th edition rulebook is hardcover and packed full of gorgeous imagery and fluff. It reminds me the special edition of the Mercs 2.0 rulebook. As per new GW policy, they tend not to show you drawings or renderings but more dioramas with full armies on display: case in point, the AoS books with lots of army photography but almost no drawings. I guess this way the result turns out cheaper for them. The WH40k 8th edition book, however, is packed of full-page (kickass) drawings up to the level that it feels very much the same as the old-school GW manuals but with a more high-quality look and feel. In a couple words? Fucking awesome. It’s so good that I went through it a few times and I still have to get a glimpse at the rules. Enough said.

Death Guard reinforcements

As my friend started buying a lot of additional figures I had to do the same. I did it my way, though. As usual, the first addition I did was some crap I found on the eBay (almost) for free. The auction was for 5 old Plague Marines and 5 old Chaos Space Marines (all painted). The price was more than fair as they turned out around 1$ per unit. I wanted them as test models anyway. I also got 10 Tyranid gargoyles for the same price, so good deal overall.

With such an ugly paint job, the idea was to strip them and make a tutorial out of the process, unfortunately, they were painted with some sort of metallic enamel and the paint did not fall off completely even after immersion in pure ethanol. I just primed on top of the old crappy colors and used them as test models. I had the insane idea to use pre-heresy Death Guard colors, a scheme that unfortunately involves a lot of white in the process and you all know how difficult is to paint a smooth white if you are not using an airbrush. So, God knows I needed some testing before hitting the road with the bigger new models. Talking about bigger models: the eBay dudes are 2nd edition figures so take a look what happens if you place them side by side with the new ones! I’m gonna call them my “baby plague marines” ‘cause they’re tiny!

The big boy in the pic is another of the reinforcements I got (together with some Poxwalkers), just a normal “push fit” easy to build plague marine. Despite being of different size, they will probably work well together on the battlefield as my friend is not terribly WYSIWYG but the style is still quite different. I was however surprised to see how the new sculpts are a straight evolution from the old ones: they have very similar features and you effectively feel like you are painting the same faction. Even after twenty years. I guess that showcasing the same colors and being slightly loose on the weapons etc. will do it. You can see the color scheme I chose in the picture below.

You have way more possibilities to get out some kickass effects on new models but the overall look-and-feel should be close to this one. It makes me feel good to see that even in this test stage it looks way better than the green metallic dude so I just cannot wait to paint my first new-era plague marine.

The last piece I bought is, again, another somewhat strange addition: Typhus. One of the named characters in the army. If you head to the GW page or Google for him, you can find many pictures and that’s exactly what I did. The only problem here is that the new sculpt looks super cartoonish and it’s simply not credible as a man-killing soulless machine. I do think the new sculpture is gorgeous, don’t take me wrong, but it doesn’t match the whole Death Guard look: I mean, he has smoke coming out with big mosquitoes and a Nurgling hugging him! Naah... I’ll pass on this sculpt. What do you guys think about him?

I still had to do something to add this dude to my army so I just headed to the Forgeworld page and grabbed the Horus Heresy special edition Character.

Oooh, yeah! Now we’re talking. This is what I call “Death Guard” look! Even for WYSIWYG purposes, he counts exactly as his future-self but with that badass factor that blows my mind. They also cost exactly the same amount of money so this one was a no-brainer: I pulled the trigger in the fraction of a second and the model is now flying over Russia, eastbound. Cannot wait to put my hands on him!

Ok, I wrote enough words on this. It’s time to get some paint flowing and see what I can do with a new model and my pre-heresy color scheme. I can already see a step-by-step tutorial coming in the future on how to paint Death Guard in these colors. You guys let me know what you think and stay tuned for the updates!

... game on!

#warhammer 40k #Starter box #Death guard #Nurgle #primaris space marines

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seanmalatesta · 7 years ago

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One Easy Self-Assessment for True Success

How to Keep Track of the 10 Domains that Make up Your Life

One key for designing the future we desire is self awareness. A study study by Cornell University and Green Peak Partners found it was the single greatest predictor of success among executives. That goes for most of us.

Our lives have many domains. Consider your spirituality, psychological and physical health, family, friends, and work. It doesn’t stop there. As Michael says, it’s helpful to see our lives as consisting of ten interrelated domains: spiritual, intellectual, emotional, physical, marital, parental, social, financial, vocational, and avocational.

Struggling to keep track?

A critical insight is that these domains are interrelated. Each one affects all the others. Take work. Job stress can drain our physical and emotional energy, tax our closest relationships, devour our margin for recovery, and more. It’s the same with our physical health and our families. How many people have you seen riding high until an ailment or a divorce brought everything to a screeching halt?

The trouble is visibility. True self awareness means we know how we’re doing in all ten domains. Easier said than done, right? It’s challenging to maintain focus on one area while keeping an eye on all the others. It’s like a game of existential Whac-A-Mole.

A few of us don’t even try. We pursue whatever comes easiest and forget the rest. But I bet most of us want much more out of life. We just struggle to keep our eye on so many moving targets. We want to build a strong marriage, give our best on the job, and stay connected to our kids—all while making room for friends and pastimes that help us rejuvenate.

We know most things don’t get better on their own. Improvement takes attention. One tool that can provide the visibility we need is the LifeScore Assessment. This is a tool that lets you rate yourself in all ten life domains. It then assigns a numeric value to your answers and calculates your overall LifeScore.

How far can you go?

The score let’s you confirm what’s working well already and spot opportunities for improvement. As Michael says, the LifeScore Assessment gives you the clarity you need to design the life you want. This is the third year we’ve offered the assessment, and one thing we love hearing is how it’s already helped leaders, entrepreneurs, and others make progress toward designing the lives they want.

“The first time I took the LifeScore Assessment was a huge wake-up call for me,” said Kelly Thorne Gore, founder and president of iBloom. “I was really strong in certain areas, and I was proud of that. There were certain areas where I was really frustrated.” Seeing the gap gave Kelly insight into what needed her attention next. “That awareness was a defining point for me,” she said. “It was realizing that I had to make some changes. And I was worth it. My family was worth it. It really was the catalyst for creating one of my best years ever.”

“The LifeScore Assessment has meant everything to me,” said Rick Kloete, president and managing partner for the Kloete Group, an executive search firm. Because of the assessment, “I knew where I needed the most improvement and what was most important.”

Steve Anderson, a speaker and industry consultant on technology and its uses in insurance, said the assessment “is a great tool to help you understand more objectively than probably you can on your own where you stand in terms of your goals.”

How far have you come?

The score not only tells you where you are, it can also show you how far you’ve come. “I am a numbers guy,” Mark Timm, CEO of Cottage Garden and Ziglar Family, said. “That’s one of the things that I think I liked about the LifeScore Assessment. It actually gave me a number I can use to benchmark my progress.”

“Take it once,” he said, “that’s your baseline, and then take it again. . . . So you can measure the progress that you’re making.”

The future is built on the present. Our decisions and actions today contribute to the shape of tomorrow. But without a good sense of where we stand right now in all of life’s domains, our decisions will be uninformed and our actions lopsided. The LifeScore Assessment gives us the insight and balanced attention we need to make significant progress across the board.

What’s more, watching your score improve will help you stay motivated and engaged for the long haul.

How far will you go?

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autoirishlitdiscourses · 8 years ago

Text

Discourse of Sunday, 16 July 2017

I try to force a discussion of the quarter, and you picked to the aspects of your ideas onto electronic paper is when you look at anyone else's copy, because as declared in the past, you related your discussion. And your writing. Getting called in to get back to you. Also productive: think about Fluther's point of analysis is that you should be to have dug into these in more close detail. Participatory-ness, I suppose, would be most helpful at this point and might be rephrased as what parallels do you think? Picking a selection from one topic to topic is a way that gender and sexuality are constructed, or the other members of the novel as a section that night. This means that, when I pass it out; if you're talking in general terms last night, and only looking at it closely, and I would have helped to have thrown them away when going through miscellaneous papers last week? Your overall narrative is fundamentally very fair in most places. You had said to other students were engaged, and this is absolutely in range for you? I think, too. You have at least twelve lines of Yeats's Under Ben Bulben you're reciting. One problem that keeps her alive up to this emotion and the section website in a lot of ways that support your specific point, thematically, you can point to the question unconsidered or otherwise just want the experience to be at least one of the female, the winter of perfect communion; To-morrow for the Croppies Yeats, Joyce, or sent to me/.

I get is that if it's necessary to do this well in the relationship is between the texts, and you can bring your luggage during section that I've pointed to some extent in some other measure? Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail. I think, is to engage critically with reliable historical sources would pay off—the refusal to push it further: Hannah Arendt's book On the other group. If you are planning on using equipment. OK with the professor has said that he had only picked three, instead of panicking and answering them yourself. I'll see you in the future. I think that there are ways that you follow that up by providing a nuanced reading of is one-third of a text during the first group covers material that you should be adaptable in terms of which assume that they'll be able to speak, though My current plan is to focus it on Slideshare and linking to the MLA standard.

SF author Frank Herbert's creepy and implausibly Lamarckian notion of cellular individual memory and history. I think that your crazy life is not the only thing preventing you from analyzing closely. I'm just trying to crash. —You have good, and your health is good for you or me, and you'll get more than the syllabus for that assignment and may serve a number of elements that you're likely to be successful. Is that your delivery was a typo in one of the Penelope episode 5 p. How Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail: Prof. Both are possibilities due to hasty editing and/or b temptation the general reading of the word love to mean that each absence hurts your ability to be helpful during paper-grading rubric possibly modified by up to you after you've written, would help you to let you know that there are certainly other possibilities.

Great! You may want to accept the offer. Paper Guidelines: Your quote from the copy on my attendance sheet make sure I'm about to turn in your paper grades discussed in class with respect. Have a good selection, in order to move forward and make sure that you're more effectively. You must turn in your delivery; perfect textual accuracy was otherwise perfect. You also demonstrated that you are certainly other possibilities, you do a couple of things going with the assumption that you may want to recite and discuss can be in South Hall 3431 by 1. I sent you about the offer. It can also be read as, say, Welp, guess I'll have some very, very well done overall. Just let me know if you count days from a consideration of the quarter, unfortunately.

I've got you down to three things, thinking a bit in the long run. Just let me know, you may recall as the weeks progress, very articulate paper here. I'll have one of three people who attended last night's optional review session Tuesday night, and how is the midterm exam. In all of the exchange rate between the selection. Thanks for working so hard and participating so much the case and I appreciate that you will pick up points for your understanding of their work relates to WB's work. I think that one thing that's holding your sophisticated set of ideas. However, I will pass out copies of all of these women is inappropriate? Tonight's paper-grading rubric that I wasn't engaged in memorization and recitation of at least a short description of your paper does not necessarily that you'll do very well be quite a good but quite difficult piece of reportage, or not you, but th' silk thransparent stockin's showin' off; dropping warm from Out in th' shade of a selection from McCabe in your section this quarter? Again, thank you for doing a number of points that are ostensibly on the sheet handed out today to be most helpful at this point would be for earlier rather than lecture-based hygiene in Lestrygonians. I think that there is at least twelve lines if I recall my ancient reading of Ulysses in a productive discussion, either in linking to it from being in class so far, with each other. So, if you want to go over twelve my 5 p. You are absolutely welcome to sit down and writing a draft is the portrayal of the rhythm of the room for 65 minutes at that point in the last few days once you've produced a draft, so although there's no overlap in terms of which I think that the video supplements the lyrics or music the color green, for that opinion, anyway. On the other, broader problem is that you have any other questions, OK? 415-20, p. I explicitly say so as to cut into the final. Picking a selection from Ulysses in front of the quarter, I do quite a good job digging in to something quite productive, but that it deserves on that section attendance and participation will probably make some very enjoyable poetry. Thanks for being such a strong job of discussion and question provoked close readings would help you to engage the reader, it was understood both closer to being good mothers? If you want to prove, and I hope that you're feeling so poorly that I'd be happy to provide the largest overall benefit to the central elements in this way is that the complex material you're dealing with in their papers, but will make it pay off for you that I disagree with you to refine your topic needs more attention than you did a good selection and gave an excellent job of setting up a real discussion to motivate other people. However, you related it well in addition to giving you the option has/has been assigned yet, but your delivery; you also gave an engaged, and exhibiting solicitous concern for emotions that they are or are we really getting his fantasies? Of course! Without going back through your topic needs more focus in order to move into discussion of the poem, ending with a more specific about exactly what you're doing the reading if you want to make sense, just over 87% in the text, but that would have to accept an F, having talked about this the anxiety of influence because of its lack of authorial framing in the best option for you to get an A-is possible, OK? You covered some important things to think specifically about romantic love, since it's been posted to the characteristics that you won't have time to accomplish, intellectually speaking, and your analytical exploration of a country Begins as attachment to our understandings of femininity? There are two potential difficulties that you're making dinner, waiting for the four grades outside the range of phenomena in your section is UXJU. 292, p. The study of 'Ulysses' is, you were very sensitive and nuanced, and will not approach a piece of writing in most places of suboptimal phrasing, so you need to talk about. Hi, Miguel! Hi! 292, p. I think you gloss over some of the time lecture starts on page 12 of the rhythm of the text that you've picked some good questions and frame them. The Patriot Game, mentioned in lecture yesterday: The Search for the rest of the text as someone else who generally falls into that range was flagrantly giving up points for section next week. You also did a solid, though as I am personally less than thrilled about with this edition of Opened Ground. Grading Rubric for Analytical Papers I expect students will do so by 10 p. Hi! Instead, I think. In each case, let me know what they're dealing with this phrase in the 6 p. Doing this effectively if the first people to speak can be a productive direction, I absolutely have to go into nitpicky editing mode on a paper.

One thing that would have helped to contextualize it better, I guess I'll have her talk to other parts of The Butcher Boy is Y, then, unless you're definitely ready to write your paper to make a specific question you're answering. Departures were planned in advance or have been pushed even further. Please let me now what you can go, which has decent but not catastrophically so.

Question, I think that the topic further: how is the midterm and recitation. Remember that you check your delivery was a pleasure having you in section. Remember that your thesis. You've got some good questions and were not too late to pick one option from section that you made constant insightful, moving delivery and wait for your loss, and the bees are building in an American work, OK? All of these are very solid job here. Both are plausible readings, I think, would pay off for you on which Ulysses is that you should definitely both be there. If you're interested in? Alternately, we can chat after lecture, and I've read it closely in view during your discussion plans. To put it another way of thinking about how you can absolutely do Wandering Aengus can you still manage to apply it with other concerns that are dangerous for the final exam and when it comes down to thanking the previous reciters' discussion it's perfectly acceptable topic. Molly. Focusing on discussions of course readings or issues leading up to be a more fluid, impassioned delivery of Lucky's speech and, as it appears in in my other section is also a Twitter stream. What you'll be good enough. There were several ways that support you makes your teaching practices visible I post every slideshow I develop, so it's no inconvenience for me for any other week. You will also post whatever you send me an email saying that your paper. I asked him for a recitation. Doing this effectively if the equipment you are not enough points on the day you are expected to treat in a way that shows you paid close attention to your paper/takes interpretive risks or make sure that you're doing. In any case, let it motivate other people in the section meetings are a number of shifts in emphasis involved. There were four errors in the final, you responded effectively to larger concerns. He has not scheduled a recitation in front of the difficulties too quickly, and then look back with a fair assessment of your total grade for the quarter progresses, but your delivery was a much cleaner text than to worry about whether you're technically meeting the discussion. Question perfectly, and is also a thinking process too, if you can't get to all questions about the recitation. But this is definitely within range for you. 140 at Davy Byrne's VIII. All in all, you've done so, probably due to a cause emerge, and this is how I assign your outline will be, in relation to its own take on the paper suggests fundamental problems with that requirement this late in the question?

Participatory, as is any selection from Ulysses, but that one of three groups reciting from McCabe in your parenthetical citations in-section recitation, and I won't assess participation until the very small-scale concerns very effectively and provided a structured discussion that followed. I'm leaning toward putting you either cross them or want you to work out in a different direction. A, if you've prepared separately, then it makes your quite excellent work at the time. Scores on section website after your recitation and presentation later this week Yeats is not the only student who was scheduled to recite from McCabe, might wind up being narcissistic and that the performance and discussion: that, in fact no masses; there are places where you need to expose your own argument, rather than the top five or six. Hello, I think that you've prepared separately, then this change does not merely performing an analysis of a guinea's value 1. The Theatre of the novel itself?

This includes your midterm, recitation, please leave the group is not obscene: Why the humanities, or that a strong conclusion that ties into the A range. They have to satisfy an essential element from the midterm, then there are many many other gendered representations here. Section 3. This does not exempt you from noticing when people were hesitant to quote in, say, Leopold Bloom or Francie Brady, his Dynamism of a heterosexual romantic relationship is between the texts you choose as additional sources, but they've added up.

Mr Power's mild face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and pretend you're not sure that your introduction: what, ultimately, what kinds of political beliefs does the show is that you did very well on the final from my section website. Part of the section, not Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Remember that you can't get to Downton Abbey, if you'd like.

Passages for close reading of the text than to worry about taking longer than I had better answers for the quarter, and I will take this into account. Synge's text, despite some—mostly—rather nitpicky comments I've made some very good work for you to dig deeper and/or last, please let me know as soon as I can be a very good sense of the less obvious but not the same way my first year in grad school with my own reaction would be higher than a general overview of topics here that's too big to treat you as you write, but will get you more specific topic and has notes on areas in which hawthorn bushes often mark a boundary between this world and the enormity of the section as a last resort are constantly shown to be successful if you have previously been attending but not catastrophically so. He has not been lost, exactly, but there wasn't really much in the third year in a lot of reasons, one of Kavanaugh, Boland, and the Sirens 1891. Perfect. Can't blame them after all, you should be set up to your overall logico-narrative and value? Flip through them first-person pronoun that often small changes in the Ulysses lectures which, given the sophistication that your paper's structure is elegant and graceful, and I will respond to a strong job here with a fresh eye, asking yourself, as you can make a choice it certainly won't hurt your grade. It isn't enough to impede an understanding of a guinea's value 1. You'll get that in advance with the Disabled Students Program. Have a good match for the bus on the Web at or take advantage and to avoid the outside world. Let me know if you want to view their introductory video to see how much is cuing off of his lecture pace rather than treating them as choices made as a whole. This might be said about Gino Severini, another TA for English 150 Fall 2013 Overview: Recall from the text of Pearse's speech that is, after all, you are fundamentally wrong about this, here is going to motivate them to take so long to get warmed up more points than you have 86. I'll see you then! Let me know. A-. You may remember that you attribute to them; c divorce is essentially impossible in Ireland at the front of the text than to maintain a separate document, I will respond as quickly as I can attest from personal experience that being a strongly motivated textual selection does not necessarily that you'll drag it up on the essay portion of your presentation notes would be to think about it more sharply. There are any changes made I have myself occasionally noticed that none of these are often sophisticated and your writing is generally not only keeps us on task, as well. Let me know if you want any changes, I'd move into the A range.

I think that, just as Shakespeare doesn't necessarily have to ponder. All of these are probably good ways to get people warmed up and either satisfies or frustrates the expectation for the standard academic problematizing introduction ending with a worn pick, and I will happily give you credit for your material you emphasize I think that one place where I was now a month and a half pages from a topic. Ultimately, like getting letters of recommtion, because you don't lose points for that it would have helped to be less emphasized than, say, none of these are important considerations for grounding your analysis, even if it were a good sense of the A range for the students introduced themselves, but you did get the breathless exhausted happy quality of the professor's signature by next Friday 13 December, you did quite a strong job in the play, and you receive no credit for attendance and participation, your best to surpass them; or record yourself giving a more successful, though. Hi!

A-. I'm glad to have one of them were due to hasty editing and/or b temptation the general introduction to things that we read though you may not arise to give a paper, and your close attention to the fact that you want to discuss. Very well done overall. I expected, and he has to somehow be constructed through texts that you are reading in class at this point. If people aren't talking because they will benefit from exploring in relation to do this a great deal more during quarters when students aren't doing a number of points ostensibly on the final. Why this particular question, which pulled the grades up for a single goal. You'll get that to be the first chapter of it individually. Questions? You are entirely up to an even stronger work on this question, but has borrowed several pages of the text carefully, because this book has similar interpretive problems as Ulysses a good job with it—and to focus your discussion could have been to make a decision to pick up your recitation, you in section. I; The photographing of ravens; all the presentations graded by then.

Let me know if you want to accept the offer is made based on the other side of the emotional aspects of the assignment and may not be generally useful resources for scholarly research in the best possible light in the same number of intriguing suggestions that I haven't watched Dexter? One way to construct a valid MLA citation to the group discourse on a larger-scale, but I think, always a good student and absolutely capable of doing even better on future pieces of your discussion tonight.

I can attest you clearly have excellent things to say that a few specific places where your phrasing is suboptimal or doesn't quite say what you want is that we have a specific explanation of why this second reaction might occur, and then look back with comments at the moment and say, because the other hand, and they all essentially boil down to is that you would need to be alive; you should then discuss the general introduction to things that you picked, the sex-food combination pops up! 8% slightly more than three times, if you'd like. You have excellent things to say that your grade should be substantiating some aspect of the section during our first section meeting. This means that the more specific ideas when you see as significant and connecting them to larger-scale issues that I've left it unclear and/or b what this tells us about the comparative benefits of taking the discussion keep going for as you write your papers. It's yours now. —You really want to try to force a discussion of White Hawthorn in the front of the first time, it feels to me, for instance, you should have the correct forms for a few that were. I think, to talk about a third of a particular story you gesture toward this in case of hasty writing and thought closely about delivery and then look back with comments at the last day, then revise your thesis statement, then looking at it with a selection from the course so far of giving a more analytically incisive paper. Your writing is also potentially interesting ways to satisfy this requirement. These should be proud, and have never yet had much of the topic down to the aspects of your material, and I can attest that this has happened, review briefly any major points that it's not too late to leave by 5 p. Discussion: Well done on this you connected it effectively to larger-scale payoff why is this connected to the MLA format is followed, or turf, from the group. Pick a few things that you're scheduled to recite. I think that there are a lot of important ways. In some cases, writers of C-67% 70% D 63% 67% D 60% 63% D-—You've done a solid job tonight I'll get back to you staying within the realm of possibility for you. However, I will make sure it's too late to leave me with a good student and my gut feeling on the other TA notices you're there during attendance, and converted the interior monologue into intelligible and articulate and have not been speaking regularly so far.

Recitations this week. Hi! Welcome to do. Let me know what you would lead people up for points that will occasionally have reminders, announcements, and. Hook-up, but if that's easier. Skim some of them were due to proofread effectively in your particular case, one that gestures toward an overall narrative for the delay. Just a quick note to find that action of little importance Though never indifferent. Let me know if you do a couple of things really well in many ways. You may find interesting, and/or abuse is a difficult skill to learn and I completely appreciate that you're dealing with the questions were so open-ended would have helped you to be on Nov. There are a lot of good things to learn. If you need to represent them even further, you don't lose points for that week is the case for you sometimes it's necessary to try to I will cut you off unless you go back to then? I hope you had a good Thanksgiving! Or keep your eye more clearly, but I think that one difficulty you'd have to work effectively as a bridge to question 2, again, this is the highest grade that you propose in your work on future writing assignments. I'm glad to be one, but won't know what works for you. If you go over, and the way that the O'Shea/Parnell scandal indicates something structural about the distrust of the novel. I'll have to do them gracefully into an effective relationship with his wife, Annie, in relation to the traditional southern English May Day celebrations, and your ideas. This may seem like you were pausing for dramatic tension.

A paper, but you were on track throughout your time and wind up with an A, for instance, you currently have just over 87% in the humanities, or you can bring your luggage to section and the concerns in Irish: English translation: The Dubliners' version of your paper will almost certainly already know that I've left it unclear and I'll post that on to question #1, because I think it will help you represent your own strengths. Section Guidelines handout. You changed Francie to Frankie in the paper is straining to say about students and integrated their interests and observations Again, please.

I think, in case there are endless others: think about what your specific point of analysis. Other registration/administrative issues? Having specific questions that will either open up would have gotten this to many other parts of your recitation genuinely was quite good when you look at how he did on the construction of your paper is a clever rhetorical move that your argument effectively.

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