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thedivinefish · 11 months

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TGIWednesday: The summer of "Let It Be"

TGIWednesday News

There is so much stuff that we need to let go of, ignore and as my girlfriend says, “woo saw” meaning Ommmmmmmmm and release. The Beatles created a classic song entitled “Let It Be” and this can be our Summer mantra. Kids won’t get up in time for church? Let them sleep in and “let it be” force nothing and you’ll allow everything good. Didn’t get invited to the neighborhood BBQ? Create your own or go to a BBQ restaurant where it’s cooler anyway and “let it be"! Children or grandchildren won’t return a phone call, text or email? Let it be and do your own thing! There will be an answer. Let it be. In every situation, trial and tribulation there is an opportunity to become more in allowance and acceptance of others and let it be... whispered words of wisdom. ?? I hope those who celebrate had a great 4th of July and for those reading this that don’t know what that is or don’t celebrate it, we’ll let it be. ?? How strong or weak is your Life Force Energy? Well... keep your eyes peeled this month for a profound masterclass that could vastly improve your fishing experience and your overall fishing and outcomes! It’s all about quantifying changes by using numbers and you’ll find it simple FAST and fun to learn and use!

Has it been a minute since our last session? Reach out today and let’s see what we can stir up together with Spirit! Reach out if you need a tune up!... Appointments View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule 15 mins | 30 mins | 60 mins “I’ll meet you in the field” Rumi said. The field of infinite possibility, physics and play.

TGIWednesday Download

~ LET IT BE ~ I believe, think, know and feel that I can just let go and let it be, knowing that there will be whispered words of wisdom by doing so. I am ready, willing and able to accept others for who and what they are and instead of trying to change them, I will change my way of thinking about them. I know, when, where, how and why to be in allowance and acceptance and this brings me both peace and inner harmony. Asking in all languages and throughout all timelines and so it is. Know that by making a little daily progress the rest of your life can be the best of your life!

UPCOMING LIVE ZOOM EVENT

JOIN US WEDNESDAY JULY 26TH at 7:30PM EASTERN Theme: Stress Pre-register at Calendly for $22 (Reminders & Replays included)

I believe STRESS is the #1 one contributor to causing health, body, mind, and spirit dis ease and being out of alignment with your life. Whether you meditate, go to the beach or bike ride or swim, let’s get you immersed in your happy place for an entire half hour!

Personal Wish: I would like to be released from the stress of _____

Wish for others: I would like for my significant other to be released from the stress of __

World View Wish: I would love to be released from the flurry of media bad news, or rumors of war, hunger, or _____

Please Submit your top 3 wishes on this topic using short powerful sentences by Tuesday July 25th to [email protected] or simply reply here. (Keep to one-liners when possible - editing is very time consuming)

Includes replay in BOTH video & audio format

Pre-Register Now - $22

On Deck... Life Force Energy Masterclass

RELEASING THIS MONTH!

Everything can be broken down into the language of numbers and those numbers measure Life Force Energy - positive vs negative, flow vs block. So what Spirit came up with and gave to me to give to you, along with the concept of fishing, is to use numbers as a percentage of strength or weakness. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the percentage of probability? We can change them!

We’re going to simplify and show you how to get even MORE results out of your fishing and show you how to DECREASE taking on blocks and INCREASE your energetic flow. We will address with finger muscle testing, pendulums and of course standing sway testing. Stay tuned for this ingenious way to get even more results and amazing outcomes! It will be in our new Masterclasses Training Center taught in written, audio and video lessons. We're working on getting it just right for you - you're gonna love it!

FREE Live Appearances

Your Divine Uniqueness With host Moncef Akfir TAKING LIVE CALLERSTHURSDAY AUGUST 18TH 2:00PM Eastern Time

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

JULY 5TH "Today I will be open and receptive to the impossible. I will smile in the face of all that is. I will play with the field of all potential and cling to the hope that it will play with me. I will be open to experience that which to some would seem supernatural and I will experience it in the natural."

Come See Me In Tampa

SESSIONS AT SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS

Jimmy Mack will be offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office on the last Friday of each month

The next opportunity for Tampa office sessions: FRIDAY AUGUST 4TH

Please call their office directly at ?? (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

From the Fish Box

I agree and you're so welcome I appreciate everything you have done for us. I also would like to add that when I first saw you in 2018 I had been cohabitating with my abusive ex and couldn't get him to leave within 2 weeks after our second appt he finally left! Also you cleared my blocked tubes on that second appt I had mentioned how I did invitro and you asked why I told you because my tubes were blocked and then fast forward to 2 years later when I was with my new love I got pregnant! I was in shock and in disbelief! This was a blessing and a curse - happy I'm not blocked anymore - but now I have to worry about getting pregnant again." - Christy Florida

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you.

In addition, throughout the full 30-days, Jimmy will be dialing into your energetic signature each day upon rising and make certain that you are a clear yes, unclear to no and running forward before you start your day. He is doing the heavy lifting for you around 3am NY time while most of you are asleep in order to smooth out your way and increase your most favorable life outcomes.

*Upon sending an email request after your purchase, you can receive a one-time sample/example of the software analysis. Most clients have had amazing results and outcomes!

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

You can run this monthly and stop at any time after the 30 days is up, you will have the opportunity to renew and update your list each month but are under no obligation. I believe you will experience magical transformations and make progress every day! SUBSCRIPTION AUTO-RENEWAL ($95/mo - save $5) Purchase a recurring subscription Update your prayers monthly. You can cancel or pause anytime.

Use PayPal for subscription Click here Use Stripe for subscription Click here. Could you use a private session? Are you feeling extra-crispy? If so, you can now Book Appointments... View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins | 30 mins | 60 mins

30-Days of Prayer - $99

?Visit our ?NEW O?nline ?TRAININ?G? CENTER

We have finally completed the migration of the Mastery & Practitioner Certification Courses and are now opening up the BRAND NEW ONLINE TRAINING CENTER! All are welcome to create a FREE account to access the NEW and IMPROVED MLF Basic Training Course and also know that both Mastery & Practitioner courses have been UPGRADED with new information & lessons!

Visit now, Click Here!

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

The Fish Market

Below is list of over 35 titles in the MyBeliefWorks Clearings audio series, monthly Zoom clearing call replays and Guided Energy Processess. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s), click on the link to read more. We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.

Freedom from Abuse Overcoming Addiction Receiving Abundance Body Scan: Head to Toe Healing Bountiful Harvest Igniting Creative Spark Discovering Your Destiny Daily GPS Reset Releasing Dark Energies/Fears Crossroads -Decision Making Diet & Exercise Support Education & Learning Support Empowering the Empath Enthusiasm for Life Financial Windfall Gold Coin: Money in All Forms Healing Family Relationships Healing Body Disorders Joy of Money

IRS Stress & Taxes Relieving Holiday Stress Increasing Intuition Easing IRS Stress & Taxes Lucky 777 Finding Love & Romance Mental Stress Positive Money Mindset Moving Forward from Past Chronic Pain Relief Pet Healing Support Improving Sales & Success Improving Sex Improving Sleep Pro$perity Unlocked Traveling with Ease Treasure Chest Work & Career Success Weight Loss Support Restoring Youth & Vitality

We now offer digital Gift Certificates for gift-giving. Gift a free session, daily prayers or clearing audios/videos to someone special. You simply select the denomination that matches the gift you'd like to give from the options on this page amounts from $19 - $225.

Buy Gift Certificates here

Healing and Grounding Mats for all occasions Yes even Lily my cat uses the pet one! View Grounding Mats here Use code: MyLiquidFishfs for Free Shipping

View Full Zoom Replay Collection

Terahertz Quantum Frequency Wand The power of this frequency seems to reach every corner of the human cell, bringing about "activation" to the human body. The frequency is very effective for working on weak human cells, enzymes and DNA, restoring the body to its normal state. Use code: TSG10 get 10% off (Now back in stock!)

The 5 Anchors Process

The Purple Rain Process

The Magical Golden Key

**We are NOT involved in the sales or shipping process of the 3rd party items, please contact them directly.

TGIFunny

Forward

Jimmy Mack | Appointments ???Transformational Healing of Body, Mind? & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!? ? View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins | 30 mins | 60 mins Search FAQ Create Your FREE MEMBERS Account Clearing Audio Downloads? and eBooks Get Certified in MLF Mastery or Practitioner Watch Free Videos on YouTube Radio Show Archives Healing and Grounding Mats ...enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at checkout for Free shipping! http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com Copyright ©1998-2023 All Rights Reserved

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divinefishingtips · 11 months

Text

TGIWednesday: The summer of "Let It Be"

TGIWednesday News

TGIWednesday Download

UPCOMING LIVE ZOOM EVENT

JOIN US WEDNESDAY JULY 26TH at 7:30PM EASTERN Theme: Stress Pre-register at Calendly for $22 (Reminders & Replays included)

Personal Wish: I would like to be released from the stress of _____

Wish for others: I would like for my significant other to be released from the stress of __

World View Wish: I would love to be released from the flurry of media bad news, or rumors of war, hunger, or _____

Includes replay in BOTH video & audio format

Pre-Register Now - $22

On Deck... Life Force Energy Masterclass

RELEASING THIS MONTH!

FREE Live Appearances

Your Divine Uniqueness With host Moncef Akfir TAKING LIVE CALLERSTHURSDAY AUGUST 18TH 2:00PM Eastern Time

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

Come See Me In Tampa

SESSIONS AT SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS

Jimmy Mack will be offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office on the last Friday of each month

The next opportunity for Tampa office sessions: FRIDAY AUGUST 4TH

Please call their office directly at ?? (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

From the Fish Box

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

*Upon sending an email request after your purchase, you can receive a one-time sample/example of the software analysis. Most clients have had amazing results and outcomes!

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

30-Days of Prayer - $99

?Visit our ?NEW O?nline ?TRAININ?G? CENTER

Visit now, Click Here!

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

The Fish Market

Buy Gift Certificates here

Healing and Grounding Mats for all occasions Yes even Lily my cat uses the pet one! View Grounding Mats here Use code: MyLiquidFishfs for Free Shipping

View Full Zoom Replay Collection

The 5 Anchors Process

The Purple Rain Process

The Magical Golden Key

**We are NOT involved in the sales or shipping process of the 3rd party items, please contact them directly.

TGIFunny

Forward

0 notes

365dailyaffirmations · 11 months

Text

TGIWednesday: The summer of "Let It Be"

TGIWednesday News

TGIWednesday Download

UPCOMING LIVE ZOOM EVENT

JOIN US WEDNESDAY JULY 26TH at 7:30PM EASTERN Theme: Stress Pre-register at Calendly for $22 (Reminders & Replays included)

Personal Wish: I would like to be released from the stress of _____

Wish for others: I would like for my significant other to be released from the stress of __

World View Wish: I would love to be released from the flurry of media bad news, or rumors of war, hunger, or _____

Includes replay in BOTH video & audio format

Pre-Register Now - $22

On Deck... Life Force Energy Masterclass

RELEASING THIS MONTH!

FREE Live Appearances

Your Divine Uniqueness With host Moncef Akfir TAKING LIVE CALLERSTHURSDAY AUGUST 18TH 2:00PM Eastern Time

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

Come See Me In Tampa

SESSIONS AT SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS

Jimmy Mack will be offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office on the last Friday of each month

The next opportunity for Tampa office sessions: FRIDAY AUGUST 4TH

Please call their office directly at ?? (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

From the Fish Box

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

*Upon sending an email request after your purchase, you can receive a one-time sample/example of the software analysis. Most clients have had amazing results and outcomes!

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

30-Days of Prayer - $99

?Visit our ?NEW O?nline ?TRAININ?G? CENTER

Visit now, Click Here!

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

The Fish Market

Buy Gift Certificates here

Healing and Grounding Mats for all occasions Yes even Lily my cat uses the pet one! View Grounding Mats here Use code: MyLiquidFishfs for Free Shipping

View Full Zoom Replay Collection

The 5 Anchors Process

The Purple Rain Process

The Magical Golden Key

**We are NOT involved in the sales or shipping process of the 3rd party items, please contact them directly.

TGIFunny

Forward

0 notes

advancedthetapractitioner · 11 months

Text

TGIWednesday: The summer of "Let It Be"

TGIWednesday News

TGIWednesday Download

UPCOMING LIVE ZOOM EVENT

JOIN US WEDNESDAY JULY 26TH at 7:30PM EASTERN Theme: Stress Pre-register at Calendly for $22 (Reminders & Replays included)

Personal Wish: I would like to be released from the stress of _____

Wish for others: I would like for my significant other to be released from the stress of __

World View Wish: I would love to be released from the flurry of media bad news, or rumors of war, hunger, or _____

Includes replay in BOTH video & audio format

Pre-Register Now - $22

On Deck... Life Force Energy Masterclass

RELEASING THIS MONTH!

FREE Live Appearances

Your Divine Uniqueness With host Moncef Akfir TAKING LIVE CALLERSTHURSDAY AUGUST 18TH 2:00PM Eastern Time

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

Come See Me In Tampa

SESSIONS AT SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS

Jimmy Mack will be offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office on the last Friday of each month

The next opportunity for Tampa office sessions: FRIDAY AUGUST 4TH

Please call their office directly at ?? (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

From the Fish Box

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

*Upon sending an email request after your purchase, you can receive a one-time sample/example of the software analysis. Most clients have had amazing results and outcomes!

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

30-Days of Prayer - $99

?Visit our ?NEW O?nline ?TRAININ?G? CENTER

Visit now, Click Here!

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

The Fish Market

Buy Gift Certificates here

Healing and Grounding Mats for all occasions Yes even Lily my cat uses the pet one! View Grounding Mats here Use code: MyLiquidFishfs for Free Shipping

View Full Zoom Replay Collection

The 5 Anchors Process

The Purple Rain Process

The Magical Golden Key

**We are NOT involved in the sales or shipping process of the 3rd party items, please contact them directly.

TGIFunny

Forward

0 notes

thran-duils · 6 years

Text

A New Sensation

Title: A New Sensation Pairing: Reader/AU!Cas Summary: AU!Castiel captures the reader and Cas in an attempt to get information out of them about their universe. Sex ensues. Castiel is AU!Cas, whereas Cas is our Castiel. Words: 2,802 Warnings: EXTREMELY DUB-CON. Smut, a little angst, language

Masterpost

Chaos was erupting through the camp. The angels had decided to strike back, and you were trying help some of the children get away.

“Go!” you yelled to the two girls, moving quickly with them.

Why had you come along on this mission, you thought to yourself furiously. You should have stayed with Rowena. You could have stopped her from giving into Lucifer’s taunts and he would not have been banished in here. You had to blame him for drawing in so many of these angels. His power was great and his mere presence a threat.

A hand landed on your arm, and instinctively you jerked away. The grip was strong though, yanking you in the opposite direction from your momentum. You came face to face with Castiel. For a moment, you had relief, but it melted instantly seeing the malice in his eyes. Something was wrong. This was not your Cas.

His lips twitched, and he purred, “I won’t leave empty handed.”

Over your shoulder, you saw the girls had froze, and you exclaimed, “Run!”

Castiel’s eyes landed on them and they did as you said, running away before he could get his hands on them too. “They’ll die on their own,” he drawled, and you spat in his face.

His eyes closed as he felt it land on his face, his mouth twitching. Reaching up with his free hand, he wiped away at the spit with his glove, flicking his hand off to the side. When he opened his eyes again, his calm demeanor was more unnerving than him becoming enraged. Evenly, he told you, “You’ll pay for that, human.”

“Y/N!” Cas shouted from down the road, dropping the body of an angel that had ambushed him.

Castiel shifted his gaze toward him, an amused smirk on his face. His eyes found you again as Cas advanced, but he was attacked again, caught off guard by an angel appearing out of thin air. You cried out as he was knocked out, trying to get free of this Castiel’s grip. He held tighter, laying his free hand on the side of your head and you grimaced as you felt him extracting something from you. Castiel simpered, “I see you are quite important to this other me…” Against your ear, he said, “I’ll take you both it seems.”

<> <> <>

You were tied to a chair, in the middle of a room. Cas was inside a sigil, rendered defenseless. Castiel’s hand ran up your arm, tantalizing. His eyes were fixated on Cas though, not paying attention to you shivering underneath his touch. You saw Cas struggle against his bonds, snarling at this cruel version of himself laying a hand on you.

His fingers closed around your throat, and Cas exclaimed, “Get your hands off of her!”

Castiel’s smile was malevolent, his fingers moving up to caressing your jawline. “I will admit, she is pretty for a human.” He leaned down, inhaling deeply, nuzzling his nose against your cheek. You tried to move away but his hand moved back down, tightening on your throat again and you stilled. “And she smells just delightful.” He threw Castiel a taunting smile. “She must get you going something fierce. It insults me to admit I am a little jealous.” His tone turned harsh, “Which is a little infuriating because humans have rebelled against us. She is the enemy and it’s… disappointing you seem to align yourself with them.”

“I vastly prefer them to angels,” Cas spat out.

Castiel’s eyes flashed, “Don’t think that you are better than me. Well, we are the same.” His hand moved back up to the side of your head, his fingers ghosting across your hair. Twitching, his expression melted into one of satisfaction, his hand coming to rest down. “We are the same. Very much so. The exact same I should say…”

You felt like your head was being torn apart. You knew you were screaming but you could not hear it, only feel your throat tearing with the effort. Then nothing.

<> <> <>

“Y/N!” Cas shouted again. Her head had dipped to her chest when this bastard version of himself had removed his hand. His heart was hammering in his chest, the echoes of her screams still moving around him. He could not do anything to help, he was powerless in this damn sigil. His face hardened, snarling at Castiel, “What the hell did you do?”

Exhaling, grinning, Castiel said, “I messed around. Don’t worry, traitor. She’ll come to. And I’ll get the information I need about the human resistance.”

“She doesn’t know anything!” Cas snapped. “We’ve only just arrived!”

Castiel waved his finger annoyed. “No, you know exactly where the camp is at. And I know you are not from here. I can sense it on you. You’re the ones Michael is looking for. And I’ll get that information out of you too.” Cas furrowed his brow and Castiel grinned once more, twitching, “Oh, you thought I was going to ask her? No, I would not have as much fun with that. I would like to see what you look like struggling. How long it would take you to break, quisling.”

“Then just torture me and leave her alone!”

“I need her. So that’s going to be a no.” Y/N stirred, and he clasped his hands together. “Now, the fun will start.” He dipped down in front of her as her eyes opened and he purred, “Honeybee…”

Cas’ eyes widened, realizing he had seen her memories. “Y/N, no! It’s not me!”

Y/N squinted, looking confused before looking at him past Castiel.

“No, no,” Castiel scolded, snapping his fingers in her face and she paid attention to him once more. His hand rested on her cheek and he said, “Mhm, this is going to be fun, isn’t it?” Y/N closed her eyes and Cas knew Castiel was sending his grace through her. He tried to walk out of the sigil but hissed when he hit the barrier of it, a shock jolting through him.

When Y/N opened her eyes again, a sensual smile came across her face as she locked eyes with Castiel. His grin widened, and he traced his thumb across her lips. Her tongue flicked out, wetting his thumb and he chortled, “That was quite easy to get you riled up.”

He stood up and her eyes followed him, her expression desperate. Moving behind her, he pulled out a knife and cut through her ropes, letting her hands fall. She stood immediately, pressing herself against him. This drew another laugh out of Castiel, his hands moving to push her away. She frowned disappointed.

“Stay,” he ordered her, and he moved the chair around to sit a couple feet away from her. She was anxious, her hands flexing closed and open. Slipping out of his dark jacket, he pushed it over the back of the chair. He removed his gloves, placing them on the ground beside the chair.

Tossing a look at Cas, Castiel asked, “Are you ready to talk yet?”

Cas snarled, “No.”

“That’s what I thought.” Castiel’s eyes moved to Y/N standing in front of him and he purred, “Honeybee, undress.”

Eyes widening, Cas exclaimed, “What! No! Y/N, don’t listen to him!”

He drew her attention again and Castiel snapped loudly, her eyes coming back to him. He tsked, “If you look over there again, Y/N, I’m not going to give you what you want. Do you understand me?” Y/N nodded and he relaxed back into the chair. “Good. Do as I asked.”

Cas tried to leave the sigil again and grunted when the shock hit him twice as hard as last time. Lazily, Castiel told him, “The more you do that, the more it’s going to hurt, traitor.”

“I will kill you. Do you understand me?” Cas snarled.

Waving at the other angel in the room, “Keep him quiet. I’m busy.”

The other angel moved forward as Y/N, kicked her bottoms off, leaving herself bare in front of Castiel. Cas watched her apprehensively as she came to the edge of the sigil and wrote something in Enochian.

Cas started to protest but his voice was cut off. She smirked at him and he shouted, no sound leaving his throat.

“That’s better,” Castiel approved, before gesturing for Y/N to come closer. She did so eagerly as he reached down, unzipping his slacks. He freed himself, his cock already erect, no doubt forcing arousal in himself.

She sunk down his length, biting her bottom lip, her eyes locked with his.

Castiel grunted, smirking wickedly. “Well, that is a new sensation…”

His hands came to rest on her hips, letting her take the lead slowly at first, then increasing her pace as she went on. Cas’ mouth was open, shouting with no sound. He did not heed Castiel’s words and again, tried to exit the sigil, actually bending forward with the pain this time.

Y/N whimpered, soft noises of pleasure escaping her lips as she rode Castiel. He watched her lasciviously, his fingers digging into her skin. He was enjoying it more than he had intended, which the intent had been to not enjoy it at all. It was supposed to be a tactic to get information, nothing more. But he had never been buried deep like this, constricted by tight walls and pleasure coursing through him. He usually only felt pleasure digging into people’s minds, rendering them helpless and useless.

Castiel threw his head back, grunting as Y/N worked herself towards her climax.

He remembered Cas and turned his head, smiling at Cas looking in distress. What a broken thing. An angel caring that much for a single human. Castiel suspected the disgusting thing might even love this human.

Panting, he asked, “Are you ready to speak yet?”

Cas’ mouth was clear when he shouted soundlessly, “YES!”

Castiel chuckled and said, “Unmute him.” The other angel did as he asked, turning towards the sigil. She had turned her back when the human had crawled on top of Castiel, an urge to give him some sense of privacy overcoming her for some reason.

As soon as he was able, Cas shouted, “Stop it! I’ll talk! I swear! Just stop!”

Hesitating for a few moments, Castiel watched him before gripping Y/N’s hips and ordered, “Honeybee, stop.” She whined in protest and his lips twitched, irritated she did not stop immediately. He gave her a rapt smack on her ass, barking “Now!” She did so reluctantly, resting with him still fully seated inside her. She looked at him, pleading with her eyes for permission to start again. He gave her a mocking frown, “Maybe we can finish if the prisoner decides to not speak to me.”

“I am speaking to you!” Cas protested.

“I can hear that. But, are you going to tell me what I want to know is the question,” Castiel intoned.

“You’re right. We’re not from here! We… we came through a rift.”

“I know that.”

“There’s no apocalypse in our world. It never happened.”

“Hmm. I think Michael knows that too. Come on, worm. I know you can do better than that.”

“It never happened because I helped to stop it!”

This seemed to perk Castiel’s interest, his eyebrows raising. “You seem to be a traitor all the way around. Fascinating. How do we make a rift that will stay open?”

“Angel grace.”

“Obviously. But that didn’t work last time for Michael.” He focused his attention on Y/N who was fidgeting impatiently, grinding ever so slightly. “You do not follow orders very well, honeybee. But, I suppose I’ve stalled you long enough. Go.” He gave her an encouraging tap on her ass.

Cas protested, “I’m talking to you! Make her stop it!” as Y/N resumed fucking Castiel, elated he had allowed her to again.

Grunting, holding Y/N firmly as she worked, Castiel said, “It’s not good enough.”

“I don’t know the spell!” Cas said exasperated.

“Ah, a spell. There we go. That’s better,” Castiel husked, before telling Y/N, “You’re very close to something. I can feel it.”

This only infuriated Cas further. “I… I can try to find it!” He exclaimed.

Laughing, Castiel said, “Oh, so you would betray your friends as well. All for her…” He locked eyes with Y/N, seeing her panting, anxious to finish. “As pleasurable as this is, I don’t see why you would betray anyone for her. Seems like you could get – “ He cut off, a strangled noise leaving his mouth, his eyes widening up at Y/N.

Y/N shook above him, stilling her movement, a cry leaving her mouth. Cas knew she had climaxed and was convulsing around Castiel, who had been caught unaware of how it was going to feel. He groaned, rutting his hips this time, unable to help himself. Y/N whimpered through her orgasm, sensitive as he began fucking her, trying to draw the sex out longer.

Suddenly, the door blew off its hinges, causing Castiel to stop mid motion. The angel near Cas exploded, blood splattering over Cas inside the sigil. Castiel snarled, throwing the reader off of him carelessly. She gasped when she hit the floor, her shoulder hitting the wood hard. He grunted when he stood, still fully erect, not expecting that sensation.

Lucifer appeared in the doorway and his eyes zeroed in on the dick in front of him. His eyes flicked up to meet Castiel’s, and he said, “Uh, okay, awkward. This is extremely phallic but if that’s the hand I’ve been dealt… If I knew you two were just doing that, I wouldn’t have interrupted –”

“Lucifer! It’s not me!” Castiel shouted from the other end of the room, stuck in the sigil.

“Of course you have the serpent on your side,” Castiel snarled at Cas.

Looking between the two of them quickly, Lucifer said slowly, “Uh. Alright. So, this is extremely messed up. Wow.” To Cas he said, “There’s two of you? That’s not fair. There’s not two of me.”

“LUCIFER! KILL HIM!” Cas shouted, tired of Lucifer stalling as Castiel tried to shove himself back in his pants.

“Alright, alright,” Lucifer muttered before snapping his fingers, the other Castiel disappearing into a cloud of smoke. Y/N stared at the empty space in shock, before blinking her eyes, them beginning to clear. Strolling over to Cas, whistling, he pulled out an angel blade, and scratched a hole in the sigil, allowing Castiel to escape.

He was at Y/N’s side immediately, snapping his fingers and her clothes appearing back on her body. She was still looking around confused, and he grabbed her face, forcing her to look at him. “Y/N?”

From behind him, Lucifer suggested, “A thank you would be nice.”

Cas ignored him, repeating, “Y/N?”

<> <> <>

“Cas?” you asked drowsily, finding his face. He sighed relieved and hugged you close. “What happened?” You winched, your head hurting something fierce. Seeing your pain, he reached out and touched the side of your head, sending grace through you. You felt relief and breathed, “Thanks.”

“It’s okay. We got captured and the other me knocked you out. He hurt your head pretty bad. But… Lucifer saved us,” Cas said the last part reluctantly.

“Still haven’t heard a thank you, by the way,” Lucifer chimed in.

“Thanks,” you said weakly, moving to stand, Cas helping.

Lucifer gestured, smiling, “See, Castiel. She’s got more manners than you.”

Cas turned to him, “Why did you come? And why are you alone?”

Shrugging, Lucifer said, “They were taking forever, going in the wrong direction. And honestly, Jack would never forgive me if I let you die. He likes you much to my annoyance. But, I did it for him.”

Narrowing his eyes, Cas came closer, peering at Lucifer threateningly. In a low voice so only Lucifer could hear, he told him, “Not a word to her about what you saw. Do you understand me?” Lucifer was quiet for a few moments and Castiel growled, “Lucifer!”

Putting his hands up, Lucifer said, “My lips are sealed.”

“Thank you.”

Smiling, Lucifer clapped Castiel on the shoulder, “Look. Finally. I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Cassie.”

Throwing him a glare, Cas moved closer to you again, taking you into his arms. He held you there, breathing deeply and you said quietly, “Are you alright?”

Cas swallowed before pulling away and looking at you. He forced a small smile, nodding. “Yeah. I’m glad you’re okay. That’s all.” He caressed your cheek, staring into your eyes.

“Alright, sap fest over. We gotta go. We know there’s a time limit on the rift right?” Lucifer said hurriedly, interrupting the moment, much to Cas’ annoyance.

You took Cas’ hand as he led you towards the door. You were more than ready to go home with your angel leading the way.

~~~

CASTIEL TAGS: @prince-halfblood, @splendidcas, @klaineaholic, @letsthedogpackandthecats, @alexastacio, @winchesterforever12 @seirensou @tacos-and-trenchcoats @the-amaranthine @marisayouass @afanofmanystuffs @greenappleeyes @misscherryberry-blog @too-lazy-for-this-world @moon-and-stars-cas @castiels-broken-fool @musicalraven07 @willowtighe @cnopps3 @xxslytherinprincessxx @thebookisbtr @wayward-hell @heart-of-the-dragon @perseusandmedusa @mottergirl99 @aditimukul @xxmizzlexx @icarus-fell-in-spring @kazuha159 @kristendanwayne @findingfitnessforme @morbid-apricots @mishapanicmeow @roonyxx @willowing-love @waywardmoeyy

#au!cas x reader #au!cas #castiel x reader #spn fanfic #supernatural fanfic #my shit

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joeyrob1 · 4 years

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Essential Singapore Mobile App Buyer's Guide

Essential Singapore Mobile App Buyer’s Guide

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So… you have an idea for a mobile app and you are about to start on your mobile app development journey.

You may be a startup looking to make the next Grab or Carousell, or you may be looking to enhance your business through a mobile app. Either way, making a Mobile App is certainly something that you should at least be considering, in view of the increasing mobile usage in Singapore and around the world. At RobustTechHouse, we have worked with many individuals and companies in similar situations. We often put ourselves in their shoes to think how best to confront the myriad questions that the entrepreneur or business may be facing. In fact, we have gone down the exact same path with our product: Savvee. In this Singapore Mobile App Buyers’ Guide, we answer step-by-step, honestly (we try to be unbiased) and comprehensively (as far as we can ! Please ask us other questions that we may not have answered) (warning: 4000 words ahead !) the key questions that you may be facing based on what we have learnt.

1) Native Mobile App or Mobile Optimized Web Site?

This is one of the first questions you want to ask yourself. There is a great infographic guide here. In our experience, the deciding factor is typically whether you need to use phone functions such as the camera, GPS, the microphone etc. If you do, a mobile app is the way to go. Also, in our experience, from a User Interface and User Experience (UI / UX) perspective, mobile optimized web sites tend to fall short of native mobile apps (i.e. people hate pinching), particularly if you are trying to extend an old website rather than build a completely new one.

2) iOS or Android or both or something more?

In Singapore, Android phones command about 51% market share and iPhones (which use the iOS operating system) command about 42% (source: Netmarketshare). So the common advice is to go for both iOS and Android (and forget others such as Windows and Blackberry) when developing your mobile app. The exception is if you are have a special use case and not intending to get the masses to download your app. For example, if you are going to provide your own devices to users or if you are targeting a very specific niche group of users (e.g. lower income users who may prefer Android phones).

Of course, this does not mean you need to develop on both platforms at the same time. It makes perfect sense to develop a minimum viable product on one platform, iterate on that with feedback from users and then develop for the second platform. The general rule is that less iterations = less cost, so perfecting what you need on one platform and then extending to the other is likely to save you some dough.

3) Native or Hybrid?

This is a topic subject to much debate but we are going to stick our neck out and simply recommend Native (at least for a large majority of cases, exceptions will apply of course). The developers of hybrid mobile app tools (and there are quite a few) will tout its advantages, the key ones being lower cost and faster time to market since you can develop on 2 platforms (iOS and Android) at once. And there are articles such as this which compare various factors you may consider in making this decision.

The reason we recommend Native is based on simple economics (and perhaps also some self-interest but let us explain). Given the number of hybrid tools available (and new ones keep popping up), only very specialized development houses will spend time and resources developing expertise in them. Development houses basically need to take a bet on which hybrid tool will be in demand. The support communities for each of these tools are vastly smaller than the iOS and Android development community so customization and future proofing is hard (we know iOS and Android operating systems will endure but cannot be sure about these hybrid systems). The result for the buyer is less choice (read: less supply of development houses = higher costs for you). From what we have seen, apps developed using hybrid tools also tend to be inferior from a UI / UX perspective because of the customization difficulty.

4) Wireframing

Once you have decided the platform and tools to develop your mobile app, it’s time to “spec it out”. In general, it is best to take time and effort to think through in detail what you want the app to do and the first step is Wireframing.

Wireframing is simply sketching out each mobile app screen as you imagine it to be. It can be a simple hand-drawn sketch (these actually work quite well if you don’t intend to do much iteration). If you want to collaborate with team members and iterate, there are several prototyping tools (most are freemium) that you can use including moqups, balsamiq, fluidui and invision. These tools allow you to create buttons and move through the app as you would when the actual app is ready, so they are great for visualizing the eventual app.

Wireframing also helps you think through details such as

How will the user log in (if log in is required) – through facebook, google or by contributing a new email and password?

Where would the mobile app get necessary data – will it be provided by the user or by the administrator through the backend, or linked from some data source?

What phone functions does the app need – will it use the camera or GPS or microphone?

What integrations does the app need – will it integrate with google maps, customer relationship management systems, data presentation software or in-house systems?

5) Designing, Graphics and UI / UX

Once you are happy with the wireframe, it is time to put the flesh on the bones. Typically, you will need a designer to perform this role. Most development houses in Singapore will be able to do this for you. Of course, you can choose to hire a freelance designer or even an in-house designer. Freelance designers are available from sites such as upwork and freelancer. Behance is also a nice site where you can go through the designers’ portfolio before making your choice. At 99designs, you get to run a contest and get many designs from which you can pick your favorite.

It is useful when briefing the designer to provide some examples of existing app designs that you like. Great app designers will help you by suggesting icons and app design conventions that you may not be too familiar with. Some will even tell you what is missing in your wireframe or suggest UI / UX tips. The latter are advantages of working with the development house to complete the design as they would be able to consider the mobile app from an overall perspective rather than just the design in isolation.

The design process is iterative and may take some time. Therefore, it is tempting to want to start actual coding in parallel with designing. This is not impossible, but you would want at least 80% – 90% of your design finalized before beginning coding. Iterations cost money so as far as possible, you would want to reduce coding iterations.

6) Technical Specification Analysis

Here is where a good development house really starts to earn its keep. While technical specification is the role of the development house (with the buyer commenting and approving), it pays also to take effort to understand the technical specifications prior to the start of coding. The reason, again, is to minimize coding iteration later on. A great development house will try its best to “fill in the blanks” for you while still sticking to your overall vision.

A key component of technical specifications is the entity relationship diagram (ERD). In essence the ERD will detail the database structure; that is, what data will be stored and how it will be organized (in database tables). Going through the ERD is a good way to identify missing pieces of a puzzle (e.g. “hang on, I need to capture the age of the user”). It typically also helps the team to go into the functionality of the mobile app in such depth that it gives rise to new questions and corner cases that your team may not have previously answered (e.g. “so how far away should the user be before I send him the notification?; should this be hardcoded or should I be able to change this parameter at the backend?”).

7) Technology Risks

At the time of technical specifications (or in fact earlier if possible), you would also need to figure out any Technology Risks of the mobile app. Technology Risks arise when your mobile app needs to utilize a technology that is not commonly deployed (e.g. machine vision, indoor positioning, natural language processing). At this point, the development house may need to embark on some research, either assessing whether it can build the technology from scratch or, more often, looking for a suitable software development kit (SDK) or application programming interface (API) that can do the job. Some SDKs and APIs are free, many are not.

8) Hire in-house or use an outsourced developer

We switch gears from the specification process to another key decision set that the mobile app buyer needs to make: Who will build the app? First question: should you hire in-house or outsource? Here are some points to consider.

How well-resourced are you? Hiring in-house is a longer term commitment and in the Singapore context, a much more expensive option. If you are startup which has already raised rounds of funding (Congrats by the way!), then this could be a good option for you. The advantage of hiring in-house is that you will be in control of the process. You can easily cope with future iterations of your product. Your developer could be directly incentivized to create the best product for you. If you are not a well-resourced startup and would like to start with a minimum viable product, then outsourcing usually makes sense.

Are you trying to build a mobile app development capability in-house? If you are an established business and your business is not mobile app development, you are likely not going to need full time development staff and they may became underutilized after the initial mobile app development and the mobile app enters maintenance mode.

Development Risk. The idea of development risk (i.e. spending money on mobile app development only to realize after development that the product is not what you wanted) is going to come up repeatedly. Many believe hiring in-house will reduce development risk because your staff will have the same goals as you. This is not necessarily the case. To hire well, you do need to have a good technical recruitment process to find good development talent. On the other hand, development houses naturally mitigate this risk as they are likely to have refined their technical recruitment process (they know how to ask the right questions) and in time, should have weeded out underperformers (it is in their interest to do so). By having a decent number of development staff, the development house will also be able to mitigate against staff departures and handle advanced technical problems (there usually are senior developers around to help). But that gives rise to the next question: how to choose a reliable development house?

9) Choosing a Mobile App Development Company – Singapore or Overseas?

There are many mobile app development companies available to choose from (just google “Mobile App Development” or search on upwork or freelancer. There are also specialized mobile app development marketplaces such as AppIndex, ContractIQ and Clutch). To narrow down your choice, it is useful to decide whether you will insist on a “Singapore-based” developer or are comfortable with an overseas development company.

If you are comfortable with an overseas development company, you have a lot of choices from companies based in Eastern Europe to India and Vietnam. And given the choice, it is likely that you can get a lower quote than restricting yourself to “Singapore-based” developers. The trade-off for a lower cost is Development Risk. Some sites provide reviews and testimonials which help lower development risk. You can also research on previous work completed by the company and that may provide reassurance.

“Singapore-based” developers would in general have lower Development Risk. To be precise, the development company which you will sign the contract with should be registered in Singapore and be willing to sign a contract with jurisdiction in Singapore and under Singapore law. Legally, therefore, you will have a stronger contractual case against the developer should there be gross underperformance, not to mention reputational risk for the developer in the local context. There are other ways to lower your Development Risks such as tranched payment which we will discuss later.

Now to explain why I have written “Singapore-based” in inverted commas. Most “Singapore-based” development houses may have the actual developers based overseas (such as India or Vietnam). This makes the most economic sense. With a proper recruitment and staff management processes, these development houses should be able to attract and retain foreign developers with technical skills which are on par or even better than developers based in Singapore at a fraction of the cost. The beauty of coding is that it is a skill that can be learnt wherever you are in the world. Lower costs incurred by the development houses should eventually translate to a lower cost for the buyer.

Some buyers will still insist on developers based in Singapore. Clearly, this would mean a higher quote. But the more crucial question is whether this insistence will result in lower Development Risk. In our experience, we would say no. With the communication tools available today, you and the development house should be able to maintain good communication with the overseas developers. Technical capability and work ethic should not, in general, be inferior. Furthermore, if the development house has marketing, sales and project management capabilities in Singapore and is willing to be subject to Singapore contract law (so that you have easy and low cost recourse), that should further mitigate your Development Risk.

10) Choosing a Mobile App Development Company in Singapore – Factors to consider

So you have decided to go with a “Singapore-based” company. Now what factors should you consider in your choice, what questions should you ask?

Cost: Clearly a consideration but not the be-all-and-end-all. It is equally, if not more important to pay attention to non-cost factors as discussed below. (Check out our article on cost here)

Specialization: Certain development houses have particular specializations even within mobile app development. For example, some focus on game creation. RobustTechHouse specializes in mobile commerce and financial technology. We readily admit that we are not very good at game creation, because it takes specialized game design and technical skills to create great games. If the development house has a blog, it may be good to check it out to understand where their interests lie. Also take note of the tone of the blog – is it self-promotional or are they genuinely interested in the subject matter?

Portfolio, Reviews and Testimonials: Do look out for the past experience of the development house. They are a decent gauge for what you can expect to receive. Some development houses will go above and beyond “just development” and throw in (for free) quite a bit of consultation. You may be able to tell from the testimonials.

Partnership model: Some development houses have standard quotation structures that they are reluctant to deviate from (e.g. only time and material quotes). Others may be more flexible and be willing to provide a fee cap. Certain development houses (such as RobustTechHouse) are willing to take equity as part payment, which could be a nice model for startups.

Contract Terms: Look out for such terms as the payment terms (typically 15 days after invoicing, invoicing is likely done monthly as the project is being developed, third party costs (typically pass through, the buyer would pay directly for third party costs) and ownership of data and intellectual property (you would typically want to own the data and intellectual property and would want this clearly stated in the contract).

Timeline: You may be in a rush and would like to launch quickly. Quotes which promise a quick turnaround may look tempting but don’t place too much weight on these. It is often tempting for development houses to promise quick work in order to win the contract, but the truth is that it is very difficult to provide an estimate of the overall development process early on, especially without full specifications.

Alignment: Is the development house interested in the success of your mobile app? This question, although very important, is not easy to consider objectively. There are tell-tale signs though, such as – How responsive is the development house during pre-sales? Do they take time to understand your business? Do they provide value added suggestions and ways for you to reduce cost or optimize your approach? Do they take a robust and long-term view of the technical needs of the project? Is the development house willing to help out in small ways even before signing on the dotted line (help could include simple things like email setup to making useful introductions or links to interesting industry resources)?

Point of Contact: Are you dealing with a decision maker or sales person? As discussed throughout this article, the nature of mobile app development is fluid and particularly in post development, you would like a development house to be able to exercise some flexibility in helping you, rather than sticking to the letter of the contract. You don’t want to hear “sorry, all my developers are deployed elsewhere, your development period is over and your bug fix has got to wait for 2 months”. Dealing with the decision maker directly helps you assess if the development house will exercise flexibility down the line and indeed if he/she would allow such flexibility to be exercised quickly.

Technical Ability: Ask for the CV(s) of the actual developer(s) that will be assigned to your project to have a sense of his / her experience and technical ability.

11) Quotes and service models

As much as we would like that buyers only consider RobustTechHouse, we cannot in good conscience recommend that you only obtain 1 quote. Obtain at least 2 quotes from reputable vendors, more if you have the time, for comparison. This article contains more details on the topic of cost.

In general, there are 4 partnership models available in Singapore.

Time and Material quotes. Here development houses will quote on a per manday basis (in Singapore, this could range from S$250 to S$800 per manday). The development house should concurrently also provide an estimate of the total number of mandays that it would need to complete the project. Be aware that this is only an estimate, not a cap – so the final bill could exceed the estimate. When under a time and material arrangement, it is crucial to keep track of the amount of time (and hence the fee) that the development house has accumulated. The development house should keep you updated and also alert you as you are approaching the original estimated price.

Development houses prefer time and material quotes as it mitigates the Specification Creep risk for them. Under a time and material arrangement, buyers tend to be more circumspect about specification changes because time extensions mean more costs ! In a way, it is also fair to the development house as their costs are largely also time-based.

The estimated time chart should breakdown each resource that is needed which may typically include iOS developers, Android developers, backend developers and a project manager. As an option, you can also have a dedicated tester included in the estimated time chart.

Capped quotes: To make sure you keep within your budget, you may want to request a cap on the quote. Development houses are generally willing to consider this only if you are very clear in your specifications upfront. Significant changes to specifications may result in post-hoc changes in the cap. As to what is considered a significant change, this is generally a negotiated outcome (read: another reason to get an appreciation of the flexibility of the development house upfront).

Fixed price quotes: Very similar to capped quotes, with the only difference that there is no chance that you will be charged less than the fixed price. Therefore, fixed prices should be lower than what would otherwise be the cap. Again, it pays to have the specifications spelt out in detail before obtaining the quote, otherwise development houses may mitigate their Specification Creep risk by providing higher quotes.

Part equity payment: A few development houses will also be a technology partner in the true sense of the phrase. Particularly for startups, mobile app development is an ongoing process (e.g. how many iterations has Grab undergone?). If you want someone on your side investigating latest technologies and suggesting new builds and features on an on-going basis, this is a good model. In this model, the development house will function much like a CTO. They will be interested in not only your mobile app idea but also your overall business plan since they are sharing execution risk with you.

12) Agile development

The trend in software development has decisively moved towards agile development. In simple terms, this means that buyers should expect the developer to provide interim builds. Agile development reduces Development Risk for the buyer because you can tangibly monitor progress. However, buyers need to be prepared to test and provide feedback on unfinished products. For some not used to this process, it may come as a surprise (“hey, how come you are sending me something which doesn’t work? Are you shabby or a bad developer? Aren’t you supposed to test things rigorously before sending it to me?”).

It is usually in the interest of the buyer to ask for agile development and interim tests. We have come across many horror stories where the buyer waits for several months and then receives something not workable. Having lost valuable time, the buyer then turns to other developers to “continue” the development, only to find that the old code is not useable. In general, it is not easy to “continue” code development, particularly if the old code is badly written and documented. In order to provide a robust outcome, many developers will simply prefer to start from scratch rather than fix someone else’s mess.

13) UAT and Handover

The agile development process places less emphasis on the final User Acceptance Test (UAT). Nonetheless, it is good practice for the buyer to go through one final comprehensive test of the mobile app before signing off on it. In going through the UAT, it helps to have a checklist of all test procedures. Test both the front end and backend simultaneously. Corner cases should be tested to identify bugs.

Once done, the mobile app can be officially handed over to the buyer. This may mean deleting test data and the changing of admin passwords for security purposes to prevent developers from accessing production data. However, in practice, you would still want to allow select developers to have access to the new passwords for quick bug fix and maintenance purposes.

14) Launching the Mobile App

Before the app is ready, you likely want to have a plan to launch the mobile app. The development house should make sure they successfully list it on Google Play and the App Store. Listing on Google Play is pretty much instantaneous but listing on the App Store may take a week or so, depending on how quickly Apple reviews the App and whether the app complies with the Apple App Store rules. There are many reasons for possible rejections, which will add to the timeline. An experienced iOS developer will generally be able to avoid most of these issues.

Beyond simply listing on the app stores, you may need to consider marketing activities to attract mobile app downloads. This may involve submitting to Android app review sites and iOS app review sites. You may also consider app marketing activities. App marketing is generally beyond the purview of mobile app development houses but they may be able to help with some recommendations of reputable digital marketing agencies in Singapore.

15) Maintenance and Post Development Considerations

It is prudent to ask the development house about available maintenance plans early on, but you may not want to sign on the dotted line until you are comfortable with the development house.

Post development, you will want the development house to remain very responsive especially if you have questions or encounter bugs, or even worse, crashes. You will want them to fix these issues as quickly as possible or it may mean lost business to you. Providing good service post development is often what distinguishes a great development house from a not-so-good one. Find development houses who would genuinely want your mobile app to be a success.

16) Hosting Considerations

Unless you are large organization with your own servers or where security is an extreme concern, your mobile app is going to be hosted on the cloud. There are many cloud hosting services around, and the 2 key considerations are cost and scalability. Our favorite solutions which provide pay as you use solutions (reasonable costs when you have low number of users, and easily scalable if you achieve strong traction) are amazon web services and digital ocean. These offer great server management tools and we are able to be informed immediately if and when server-side issues arise and fix them.

17) Data Protection Considerations

For companies in Singapore, since the introduction of the Personal Data Protection Act in 2012, the protection of personal data has been an important consideration when developing mobile apps or website which might collect such data.

We just published a separate blog article on this, which draws guidance from recent decisions by the Personal Data Protection Commission. Rather than going through vague legal jargon or non-specific advise by consultants, we feel examining actual decisions are a better way figure out what steps are needed to comply with the PDPA.

Well, we hoped the above helped ! Feel free to chat with us for further questions or leave comments below. We will be adding more details to this article as we go along so check back sometimes. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed our Singapore Mobile App Buyers’ Guide. All the best with your mobile app development !

Brought to you by the RobustTechHouse team.

Essential Singapore Mobile App Buyer’s Guide was originally published on RobustTechHouse - Mobile App Development Singapore

#android #App Programming Tag #entity relationship diagram #ios #mobile app design #mobile app development #outsourcing #singapore #UI #User experience #User Interface #UX #wireframing #mobile #app #development

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thedivinefish · 3 years

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TGIWednesday and support for mental focus on work/job/career

TGIWednesday News

Well well well, mental health awareness for the whole month? Yep and after all we’ve been through with financial ups and downs, a pandemic with a hot side of greasy politics - we’re going to need this month just to get back to smooth! There is an old Janet Jackson song entitled, “What have you done for me lately?” and I would rephrase that to, “What have you done for YOU lately? Long walk on the beach? Massage? Planning a margarita for May 5th? Let’s at least consider pampering you for a change. I am proclaiming as you read this now, “I am open to receive better treatment for myself, I realize I deserve it and I am most worthy of it! So stay tuned as we delve into mental health awareness this whole month including our live Zoom event the last Wednesday May 26th and we're also highlighting 20% off the MyBeliefWorks for Healing Mental and Emotional Stressors MP3/PDF.

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Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack MAY 5th "Today I will recognize the stillness, comfort, grace and ease in that which is unusual. I will remember that we are a part of the one; that all people, places and things are blended into one and I will endure."

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For those who aren't familiar, below is a list of the 30+ audios in the MyBeliefWorks series.... Find a topic that addresses your issue(s), click on the link to read more. We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better. Don't forget... you can share these with your immediate friends and family.

Receiving Abundance Freedom from Abuse Overcoming Addiction Body Scan: Head to Toe Healing Experiencing Bountiful Harvest Igniting Creative Spark *NEW* Discovering Your Destiny Daily GPS Reset Releasing Dark Energies/Fears Crossroads -Decision Making Diet & Exercise Support Education & Learning Support Healing Family Relationships Attracting a Financial Windfall Gold Coin: More Money in All Forms

Healing Body Disorders *20% OFF* Mental Stress Relieving Holiday Stress Increasing Intuition Easing IRS Stress & Taxes Finding Love & Romance Positive Money Mindset Moving Forward from Past Chronic Pain Relief Pet Healing Support Improving Sales & Success Improving Sex Improving Sleep Traveling with Ease Work & Career Success Weight Loss Support Restoring Youth & Vitality

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The Certificate of Mastery Program includes 2 best-selling ebooks and 2 clearing audios plus written & video instructions, AND one-on-one time with Jimmy ALL for about the cost of a single 1-hr session! This online course is for anyone who is familiar with OR new to "fishing" and is ready to dive into the deep end & get results that are beyond the ordinary! It includes The Tackle Box & The Dowser's Handbook ebooks PLUS 2 MP3s "Clearing Dark Energies" & "Increasing Your Intuition" to help clear, strengthen and prepare your energy field for optimal “fishing” results. This is a work-at-your-own-pace curriculum that will TEACH & CLEAR you at the same time! In under 2wks you will be finished with the program and ready to fish on your own with greater results! Level II offers Practitioner Certification for those who qualify.

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TGIWednesday News

Nothing feels more like stress than trading your time for money (unless it’s a lot of money!) If you’re doing great and making great money - then good for you! If you’re underemployed or unemployed, I am saying prayers that money in all forms finds you as you read this now. Your mental health is so vastly important, that it cannot be overlooked. Are you eating clean? Drinking over 50 oz of quality H2O each day? (think of Adam Sandler in the movie "The Water Boy" carrying that huge bucket of water) How about exercise? Hopefully Yoga, Thai Chi, Qi Gong and any other class that gets you moving! All of these have great impacts on your whole being especially your mental focus and can make a difference in how you handle work/job/career stress, kids, significant others, and bad or good fortune!. Treat yourself like you would a best friend and you won’t just survive through the latest pandemic/economic issue or political foible, you can and will thrive. Remember as I like to say, “make the rest of your life. the best of your life and make progress every day!” As we are delving into mental health awareness this whole month that includes our live Zoom event the last Wednesday May 26th and we're also highlighting 20% off the MyBeliefWorks for Healing Mental and Emotional Stressors MP3/PDF.

TGIWednesday Download

~ MENTAL STRESS & FOCUS~ I believe, think, know and feel that as I release the stress from my work/job/career, I reinvigorate mental focus. I know, when, where, how and why to treat myself like I would a friend and in so doing my mind sharpens. I am ready, willing and able to be fully present in the moment and when I am working, I am all in and the same goes for family, exercise and play! I am asking for all of this in all languages and throughout all time lines and so it is.

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TOMORROW MAY 13th at 4pm ET/1pm PT Taking LIVE callers! YOU WEALTH REVOLUTION hosted by Darius Barazandeh New Energy, New You™! LIVE INTERVIEW Topic: Magical Mystical Atlantean Technology: Energetic Support to Discover Your Destiny It's the biggest energy healing event of the year - best of all it’s FREE from your home!

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May MySwitchWorks Zoom Event

This month’s Zoom event will be all about Mental Health. In this call we will release any and all blocks preventing you from having sound mental health. We have all suffered chaos, drama, upsets in childhood, relationships and abuse in many forms our whole lives and there is no time like the present to release these and download and shift switches for mental stability, balanced moods, brain chemistry, motivation enough to get the F@#%$^ off the couch! And the clarity to release any and all obsessions like the sky falling, the pandemic, political and religious judgement that’s keeping us stuck and circular. Now is the time to release the negative and download more positive and together by us being on a 30 minute call we can actually improve the next phase of our lives!!! Join us on Wednesday May 26th at 7:30pm ET Register Here for $22 https://calendly.com/jmh-calls/may-switches-event Includes live call access & replay.

REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS: Click on the date circled in BLUE. Look for the event time shown in YOUR time zone. SELECT THAT TIME & then click on the BLUE CONFIRM BUTTON then follow through & complete your payment.

From the Fish Box

"Last week’s clearing work on ‘family’ was exceptionally deep and powerful. The group felt like familiar souls coming together in a spirit of oneness to work on deep wounds of family and ancestral patterns. I’ve come to trust the content of the group’s introspective and insightful requests. It takes the pressure off covering all my bases for my own requests. It’s now a week later. I can feel the healing still in process and have a feeling this will continue, possibly until all these lifelong and past-life wounds are intrinsically healed. Immeasurable appreciation, gratitude, and love to Jimmy and team, and all of us participating in these monthly Wednesday healings." - Diane Linn

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SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS

Jimmy Mack will be offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office at Swann Holistic Health Solutions The next opportunity to see Jimmy at Charla's Tampa office is: NEXT FRIDAY MAY 21st from 10-4pm NOTE: previous April date was rescheduled and moved to May

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Please call their office directly at ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $38 or 30-minutes $68. If you’re new to working with me, I suggest you schedule 30 minutes.

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack MAY 12th "Today I will remember that there can be a spider web effect on everything as I work on myself, my family, friends and peers can experience the profound. I will endeavor to be the best that I can working and making progress on myself so that I may be of a greater service to others."

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The 30-day service is now being offered exclusively and you also have the option of selecting an ongoing subscription ($95/month) which is managed through PayPal only.

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divinefishingtips · 3 years

Text

TGIWednesday and support for mental focus on work/job/career

TGIWednesday News

TGIWednesday Download

FREE Live Show Appearances

FREE TO REGISTER and Grab Your Gift ($67 Value) The incredible new Soul Spa 2.0™ and 741 Hz download which works to cleanse your aura and release toxic stress, worry and old anchors.

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives: https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

May MySwitchWorks Zoom Event

From the Fish Box

Book A Session in Tampa

SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Please call their office directly at ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $38 or 30-minutes $68. If you’re new to working with me, I suggest you schedule 30 minutes.

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

The 30-day service is now being offered exclusively and you also have the option of selecting an ongoing subscription ($95/month) which is managed through PayPal only.

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

Go deep sea "fishing" with Jimmy!

Level 1 is open to ANYONE at anytime! Click here to watch the Mastery video playlist

LEARN ABOUT CERTIFICATION HERE

TGIFunny

Forward

-------------------------------------------------- TGIW newsletter managed by: Sandy Bidinger Digital Marketing Specialist at SMBeConnected Solutions www.smbeconnected.com

Our mailing address is:

TGIWednesday News

TGIWednesday Download

FREE Live Show Appearances

FREE TO REGISTER and Grab Your Gift ($67 Value) The incredible new Soul Spa 2.0™ and 741 Hz download which works to cleanse your aura and release toxic stress, worry and old anchors.

Free to Sign Up Here

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives: https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

May MySwitchWorks Zoom Event

From the Fish Box

Book A Session in Tampa

SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Please call their office directly at ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $38 or 30-minutes $68. If you’re new to working with me, I suggest you schedule 30 minutes.

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

The 30-day service is now being offered exclusively and you also have the option of selecting an ongoing subscription ($95/month) which is managed through PayPal only.

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

Go deep sea "fishing" with Jimmy!

Level 1 is open to ANYONE at anytime! Click here to watch the Mastery video playlist

LEARN ABOUT CERTIFICATION HERE

TGIFunny

Forward

-------------------------------------------------- TGIW newsletter managed by: Sandy Bidinger Digital Marketing Specialist at SMBeConnected Solutions www.smbeconnected.com

Our mailing address is: Clearwater Florida 33756 USA

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365dailyaffirmations · 3 years

Text

TGIWednesday and support for mental focus on work/job/career

TGIWednesday News

TGIWednesday Download

FREE Live Show Appearances

FREE TO REGISTER and Grab Your Gift ($67 Value) The incredible new Soul Spa 2.0™ and 741 Hz download which works to cleanse your aura and release toxic stress, worry and old anchors.

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives: https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

May MySwitchWorks Zoom Event

From the Fish Box

Book A Session in Tampa

SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Please call their office directly at ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $38 or 30-minutes $68. If you’re new to working with me, I suggest you schedule 30 minutes.

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

The 30-day service is now being offered exclusively and you also have the option of selecting an ongoing subscription ($95/month) which is managed through PayPal only.

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

Go deep sea "fishing" with Jimmy!

Level 1 is open to ANYONE at anytime! Click here to watch the Mastery video playlist

LEARN ABOUT CERTIFICATION HERE

TGIFunny

Forward

-------------------------------------------------- TGIW newsletter managed by: Sandy Bidinger Digital Marketing Specialist at SMBeConnected Solutions www.smbeconnected.com

Our mailing address is:

TGIWednesday News

TGIWednesday Download

FREE Live Show Appearances

FREE TO REGISTER and Grab Your Gift ($67 Value) The incredible new Soul Spa 2.0™ and 741 Hz download which works to cleanse your aura and release toxic stress, worry and old anchors.

Free to Sign Up Here

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives: https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

May MySwitchWorks Zoom Event

From the Fish Box

Book A Session in Tampa

SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Please call their office directly at ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $38 or 30-minutes $68. If you’re new to working with me, I suggest you schedule 30 minutes.

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

The 30-day service is now being offered exclusively and you also have the option of selecting an ongoing subscription ($95/month) which is managed through PayPal only.

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

Go deep sea "fishing" with Jimmy!

Level 1 is open to ANYONE at anytime! Click here to watch the Mastery video playlist

LEARN ABOUT CERTIFICATION HERE

TGIFunny

Forward

-------------------------------------------------- TGIW newsletter managed by: Sandy Bidinger Digital Marketing Specialist at SMBeConnected Solutions www.smbeconnected.com

Our mailing address is: Clearwater Florida 33756 USA

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advancedthetapractitioner · 3 years

Text

TGIWednesday and support for mental focus on work/job/career

TGIWednesday News

TGIWednesday Download

FREE Live Show Appearances

FREE TO REGISTER and Grab Your Gift ($67 Value) The incredible new Soul Spa 2.0™ and 741 Hz download which works to cleanse your aura and release toxic stress, worry and old anchors.

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives: https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

May MySwitchWorks Zoom Event

From the Fish Box

Book A Session in Tampa

SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Please call their office directly at ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $38 or 30-minutes $68. If you’re new to working with me, I suggest you schedule 30 minutes.

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

The 30-day service is now being offered exclusively and you also have the option of selecting an ongoing subscription ($95/month) which is managed through PayPal only.

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

Go deep sea "fishing" with Jimmy!

Level 1 is open to ANYONE at anytime! Click here to watch the Mastery video playlist

LEARN ABOUT CERTIFICATION HERE

TGIFunny

Forward

-------------------------------------------------- TGIW newsletter managed by: Sandy Bidinger Digital Marketing Specialist at SMBeConnected Solutions www.smbeconnected.com

Our mailing address is:

TGIWednesday News

TGIWednesday Download

FREE Live Show Appearances

FREE TO REGISTER and Grab Your Gift ($67 Value) The incredible new Soul Spa 2.0™ and 741 Hz download which works to cleanse your aura and release toxic stress, worry and old anchors.

Free to Sign Up Here

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives: https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

May MySwitchWorks Zoom Event

From the Fish Box

Book A Session in Tampa

SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Please call their office directly at ☎️ (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $38 or 30-minutes $68. If you’re new to working with me, I suggest you schedule 30 minutes.

Fish Food

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

The 30-day service is now being offered exclusively and you also have the option of selecting an ongoing subscription ($95/month) which is managed through PayPal only.

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

Go deep sea "fishing" with Jimmy!

Level 1 is open to ANYONE at anytime! Click here to watch the Mastery video playlist

LEARN ABOUT CERTIFICATION HERE

TGIFunny

Forward

-------------------------------------------------- TGIW newsletter managed by: Sandy Bidinger Digital Marketing Specialist at SMBeConnected Solutions www.smbeconnected.com

Our mailing address is: Clearwater Florida 33756 USA

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sinesalvatorem · 7 years

Text

I was just thinking more about Sam[]zdat’s review and, actually, there’s another quote that seems more valuable. One about how even we today can fail to understand other people’s knowledge of their own conditions, just because half of what they say is actually flatly wrong:

In the [cool kids scene] of the 2000’s, opposition to Christianity was a given. No subject was more likely to unite than a good old bashing of fundamentalists. Marxists, Anarchists, Libertarians, Liberals, Randians – it crossed political borders. (I’m from California, if that helps.)

It was hard not to – it’s not like the fundies had any coherent reasons they could articulate. Every other day some [class indicator] pastor would announce opposition to “the gay agenda” or seek to return to “a Christian nation” as though that were a desirable thing that had ever existed (like, deism duh, etc.). If that wasn’t bad enough, when pressed for an explanation, they’d just read some passage from John or Corinthians. “And? Was that all?” Readers take note: if someone is busy mocking you for your holy book, justifying your actions based on your holy book is a terrible rhetorical strategy.

Standard interpretation: “The olds are lamenting the loss of an oppressive institution that has no objective value, right?” Right?

So this is what churches do in our language: they’re probably the single most important economic institution in rural America. Period.

Here are some obvious economic effects: Nearly every church functions as a community safety net, where tithes collected are distributed to poor members or members experiencing sudden economic shock (disemployment, medical issues, etc.). Depending on the church, this is actually a lot more immediate and a lot larger than government distributions that approximate the same thing. They also function as labor banks, wherein members help one another with projects that they could otherwise not afford (think of home improvement projects coordinated through the church, wherein one can afford to repaint their house or call on the labor expertise of a fellow congregation members [say a plumber] to perform a simple but otherwise costly repair). Hell, one of the biggest things they do is something almost no one seems to think about: most churches provide free after school programs for poor congregation members, which is a humongous cost for parents. “Big deal.” Yeah, but the cost of childcare is actually fucking enormous.

Note that most of those are vastly more important for the old and the retired (“it’s just the olds complaining!”), both in terms of cost (local members helping for free) and autonomy (one is less likely to have to enter the anonymity of a retirement home, etc. if community members are there to help).

Churches have many more nebulous effects that are even larger: they improve social trust, which has a stupidly powerful economic effect. They provide local networking effects, allowing members to find new jobs and move up using church connections. Many studies relate churches to decreased violence and drug problem in communities (although I suspect this is confounded by social trust and the kinds of people who tend toward religiosity). A lot of these aren’t going to have great studies attached, because they’re under the radar and understudied. But want to see something that will knock your socks off?

Gruber’s results suggest a “very strong positive correlation” between religious market density, religious participation, and positive economic outcomes.” People living in an area with a higher density of co-religionists have higher incomes, they are less likely to be high school dropouts, and more likely to have a college degree.” Living in such an area also reduces the odds of receiving welfare, decreases the odds of being divorced, and increases the odds of being married. The effects can be substantial. Doubling the rate of religious attendance raises household income by 9.1 percent, decreases welfare participation by 16 percent from baseline rates, decreases the odds of being divorced by 4 percent, and increases the odds of being married by 4.4 percent.

Source, emphasis mine. Note the most important part of that: one has to live nearby other co-religionists for these effects. “The kids are turning to atheism/the Devil” is a sign that all the coreligionists are going away.

In other words, churches are a cornerstone of local economic activity but they have to be churches. You can replace a Widget Factory with a Zigdet Factory and it’ll be the same, but we have no idea how to replicate church attendance.

This has another effect: any attempt to “stop” these negative effects won’t work. They only work based on the logic of the community. Because metis is both the worldview and the action, undoing one messes with the other. You can literally see this happening right this very moment in the midwest: church attendance collapsing is deleting a lot of those benefits even while the government tries to fill the void. It doesn’t “work” in the same way, because a lot of those effects are based on shared culture and trust that a government agency just can’t replicate. They only come with a shared worldview.

In a weird way, maybe that welfare participation is the (attempted) replacement, but then it’s hard to square the simple economic replacement with this:

And, attending religious services weekly, rather than not at all, has the same effect on individuals’ reported happiness as moving from the bottom to the top quartile of the income distribution.

“Man, this sounds like something everyone should know!” I agree, but also HA! That will never happen. I know how to argue for cultural conservatives to my left-wing, coastal audience. But how do you think the average actual conservative argues for that? “Faith”, “family values”, “God”, i.e., irrationally.

I know this is hard, but imagine actually being a conservative Christian in a dying town. Everything I just described is going away, nothing seems able to replace it, and things are just getting worse. The most noticeable difference by far is going to be “cultural” – what language would you use? “Loss of faith and family” is actually pretty apt. Let’s say that their arguments are identical to mine, just shrouded in local language. Fine – all that means is that In the final analysis, the conservative christian recognizes that they’re being deprived even of the power to complain, which is to say, even of the power to explain their powerlessness.

VII

“Ew. Are you saying-”

No, I’m not saying that the government is oppressing American Christians. That’s stupid. They lost the culture war, but no one is tearing up their actual communities. There’s a broader social pressure now that has, well, social effects. I do think that two hundred years from now when we have a better handle on psychology and economics everyone is going to look back at this time with total confusion. Like – how did no one notice? Didn’t you see this economic and social collapse? They were even yelling at you about it! We will confidently aver: “Yes, but when they were yelling they had the impertinence to quote the Bible, and so we knew that they were wrong.” And the person from the future will, quite reasonably, call us complete fucking twats.

#quotes #religion #society #seeing like a state

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imagine-loki · 7 years

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A Warrior’s Life

TITLE: A Warrior’s Life

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter Twenty-Two AUTHOR: wolfpawn ORIGINAL IMAGINE:

Imagine Viking Loki coming to your village, raiding and pillaging, before deciding there is something about you that intrigues him and deciding to take you back to Asgard with him. There, you are forced to learn a new life and language, and though you hate what has happened to you, you learn that Loki is not as bad as you think.

RATING: Mature.

The day to leave for Midgard arrived. Maebh was nervous and hardly slept the whole week before their departure. All that kept running through her mind was the amount of time she had spent over the years with her father watching the warriors train, learning their techniques, both as an observer and in her own training. She found herself praying to deities she never believed in that she and Loki would be alright. She also began worrying about Thor and in turn Sif. Sif would be doing most of the minding of Nafi, while caring for her own two children, and carrying another, which she still had not told Thor of, knowing the man would be concerned for the duration of their time away. Maebh feared that Thor, who was second in command, would be killed and never even know the secret his wife was keeping from him, never even meet his unborn child. He, like Loki, had been kind to her from the start, sparing her life when so many others would not and their fates all hung on what she had taught them.

Loki noticed her discontent, and assumed it to be their journey ahead, whenever he woke in the middle of the night to see her awake, he would simply wrap his arm around her and try and get her to go back to sleep, it rarely worked, though. Each night before bed he would attempt to tire her out and each morning he would see her even more exhausted than the day before. “It will be fine.” He attempted to soothe her as they got on the cart and headed to the village. “I understand you are worried, but there is little reason to be. We are prepared, they are not. There may not even be any fighting.” Maebh looked to her husband sceptically. “Well there is a large chance of such there being, but it is not a guarantee.”

“These people fight for the most insignificant of reasons; I have seen one man strike another down for trying to buy the same sheep as him, us coming and taking their possessions by force is the guarantee,” Maebh responded, keeping her voice low so not to upset Nafi who was looking from one to the other sadly, though not fully aware of the severity of the situation.

When they arrived at the village there was a palpable tension in the air. Many men were there with their families, saying their goodbyes, wives and children upset, and in some cases distraught at their men leaving for a land so vastly different and seen as wild. Maebh felt one or two glares that were aimed at her, no doubt blaming her for the dangerous journey they were about to take. The cart kept going until they reached Odin and Frigga’s dwelling, at which point, the family dismounted and walked inside. They were met by Thodin and Helga, who were waiting for their father to come back from a discussion with Baldr, Heimdall and Odin, the older child tearful, knowing well that there was a good chance her father would not return. Loki decided to join the other men, Thodin and Nafi decided to bring the hound pup to see its dam wondering would she recognise it. Maebh walked over to Helga. “It will be fine,” she smiled sadly.

“You don’t believe it either.” Helga allowed the tears to flow. “What are the chances if that place is so dangerous of all three of you coming back, even if father returns, what of you and Uncle Loki?” Maebh felt an intense knot in her stomach at the idea. "What if he perishes and never knows?”

“That is for your mother to tell him, not you or I.”

Helga looked at her aunt with red swollen eyes. “You know?”

“Aye, and I will say nothing, I agree with Sif, Thor does not need to think of anything other than getting home to you all. Men are renowned for their foolishness, why add to your fathers?”

Helga broke out a small laugh. “You are harsh.”

“I am truthful. Nothing is more foolish than a man, least of all a man with power. Now let us go and find your mother, I wish to speak with her before I leave.”

“Are you not frightened?” Helga wondered.

“Terrified, but only a fool would not be.” Maebh decided to be honest with the girl.

“Father is not.”

“What did I just say of fools?” Maebh asked; Helga giggled again.

“What did you just say of them?” Sif’s voice called out as she entered the room behind them.

“That men are fools.”

“Listen to your aunt, she speaks wisely for one as young as she.” Sif pointed with a smile. “Now go and make sure your brother and Nafi do not irk the hound too much.” Helga obeyed her mother and went to the boys.

“You are growing big,” Maebh noted.

“Yes, poor Thor cannot fathom my recent aversion to his advances. I fear he thinks I do not care for him as much these days. Maebh, if need be, will you tell him, if his worry becomes too great? I rather he mad at my secrecy than him questioning of my love. The latter would get him killed before the former.”

“Or you could tell him yourself before we leave?”

“I don’t want him mad at me.” Sif looked at her hands and spoke in the tone of a child. Maebh looked at her slightly amused; Sif was a strong woman, to see her act as a child was somewhat odd. With a sigh, Maebh agreed, but only if it was warranted.

Finally, the men emerged from the room, Baldr nodded to the women and walked outside, Heimdall and Odin followed a few moments after. Thor seemed to be looking worriedly at Sif, who almost seemed on the verge of tears.

“Maebh, come, I need to discuss something of great importance with you. Brother, we shall meet you in a few moments.” Thor nodded that he heard, but was still staring at Sif, then at Maebh, who was avoiding his gaze, wondering what had transpired between the women. Maebh walked off hastily behind her husband, not wanting to bring any more notice to the awkward situation.

Loki guided Maebh through his parent’s home and into his old room, which had changed little since their wedding a few weeks previous. He then spun Maebh around and pulled her into a deep kiss. “Really? This is why you called me aside?” She smiled into the kiss. Loki then began to pull at the tie of her dress, loosing the strings that held it tight against her. “Loki, is this really the time for such things?”

“My dear, we are about to spend the next few weeks of our lives stuck not only on a boat with nothing but men, but also travelling around Midgard with them also, I will not be able to touch you as I please, so we really have no other time but now.” He justified himself as he pulled the dress down off her shoulders. “Is it so wrong to enjoy you one last time before we go while also doing something that requires undressing you anyway? Though we may have to forego some of the niceties.”

Maebh became conflicted, she had grown to adore their being intimate and found herself craving it every chance they had. As Loki slid his hands down her body with the dress, Maebh was unsure was she becoming impatient was for his touch or in worry of them being in someway late for their departure.

“I have good reason for this I assure you, though it eludes my mind somewhat at this particular moment.” He was staring at every mound and bump of her body before finally settling on looking at her ample breasts, wanting nothing more than to caress them. Maebh noticed his stares and decided to hurry things along as to ensure they were not tardy by taking her breasts in her hands and fondling them. “My dear, I fear you are turning somewhat deviantly minded, and that I alone am entirely to blame.” Loki smiled wickedly, moaning deeply in lust as she continued to touch them.

Unable to just watch any longer, Loki placed his hands on hers, allowing Maebh to remove her own and use them to untie the armour that tied at his waist, biting her lip and sighing as Loki allowed one hand to glide down her body. “Already wet for me, my love.” He smiled, pushing a blushing Maebh back until she hit the side of the bed, causing her to fall onto it in a seated position. Without wasting time he helped Maebh to untie the last of the armour that was in the way before leaving out a deep moan as she caressed his already hard shaft.

She lay back and guided the thick muscle to her core, aligning it with her already wet folds. Loki pushed forward slowly, allowing her to accept him as he entered her. Both leant in and kissed the other hungrily. Loki let one hand fall to Maebh’s hip, gripping it tightly as she thrust up in eager search of friction, wrapping her legs around Loki’s waist as an anchor as he became fully sheathed within her.

It was almost aggressive as they continually moaned and gasped at their increasing pleasure, neither wanting it to end. Maebh’s hands made their way into Loki’s hair, running through it roughly and gripping it as she focused on how each thrust was well aimed within her to hit the sensitive nerves that drove her insane with pleasure.

Each sound that escaped Maebh’s lips added to the physical pleasure of her tight walls and her hands roughly pulling at his skin which drove Loki closer and closer to his release. He slipped his hand between them and began to rub at her clit, causing Maebh to jolt forward into his touch. “That’s it, my love.” He whispered into her ear. “Show me how much you love it.” Maebh was unable to respond with anything other than his name as she felt herself coming closer to her end. She gripped his shoulders, which had become her usual manner of warning Loki, causing him to increase his pace while doing everything he could to stave off his own release just a little longer.

After a few more thrusts, he felt Maebh’s body constrict tightly around him as she gasped for air. As soon as he felt the last pulses of her orgasm, he pulled himself from her and took his shaft in his hand, pumping it until he released his thick fluids onto her thigh, groaning loudly into her shoulder as he did.

It took the couple a few minutes to settle their breathing again, Loki still leaning over Maebh, neither wanting to move away from the other. “So, is there really another reason we are here, not that I am complaining, or was this truly about one more time together before the boat? Just curious.” Maebh smiled, playing with a couple of strands of hair that had fallen into her face during their coupling, before placing them behind his ear once more.

“No, there was actually another reason I brought you here, and yes it did require you to disrobe.” Loki pulled away from her, looking for a moment at the small string of fluid that connected his cock to her thigh, before pulling her up from the bed to stand. “Wait here.” He ordered as he handed her a rag to clean herself with.

Maebh stood and waited obediently as Loki brought clothing to her, placing each piece on her before retrieving the next. It took a few pieces for Maebh to realise what it was that Loki was placing on her. As he tied the leather and metal sleeves over the plain cloth shirt she was now wearing, she looked at him. “When did you have this made?”

“As soon as I realised that you were serious about your return to Midgard.” He fixed the leather ties at her hips that would protect her thighs. “I tried to get it made to be as comfortable as possible, but armour was never renowned for having such features.” He smiled sadly as he looked at her.

“You do not want me to go to Midgard.” It was not a question.

“I do not want you in danger. I cannot lose you, I will never forgive myself. You are everything to me.” Loki pulled back what hair of hers was not tied in braids so that it fell down her back.

“Do you think I want to return to Midgard to flee Asgard?” she asked, noting the way he referred to her as returning there.

“I truly hope not, I very much doubt it, but I could be wrong, so short a time ago you were adamant about trying to return.” He recalled the conversation she had with him and Thor the night they discussed the necklace with her and revealed the abuse she suffered from Aslaug.

“You need not worry. I only have interest in being where you are.” She smiled reassuringly.

“I have one last piece for you.” Maebh watched as Loki went to retrieve whatever it was he was looking for. When he returned her asked her to turn and placed a necklace around her neck. Maebh took it in her hands and studied it, it was made of gold and gems of emerald and jade, on each gem she recognised the symbols from the story stones Nafi had.

“You think I require the help of all the gods to get through this?” she asked as she read the symbols for Freya, Sif, Thor and Eir. She assumed more of the symbols were of the other gems that circled her neck.

“I think I rather not take any chances,” Loki said as he wrapped his arms around her.

“We shall persevere.”

“You have not slept in a week worrying about this, how can you be so confident now?”

“Because I have to be, we need to come home, Nafi needs us. If we do not return, do you think Odin will allow him to remain in the home, he will be cast out and sent back to that witch; I will not allow it, not so long as there is breath in me.” Loki’s eyes widened, signifying that he had not thought of such an outcome. “Speaking of Nafi, I would actually like to see him before we depart.” She grabbed Loki by the hand and dragged him from the room. “And thank you for the armour and necklace. I like how you put your colours through them.” she smiled.

“I had little choice; I could not have you gallivanting around Midgard with no protection. And I think you mean our colours.”

“I prefer blue, but as I am your wife, I suppose green will just have to suffice.” She sighed jokingly.

“Such are the sacrifices of marriage.” Loki laughed.

“Between that and having to tie my hair constantly I really should have out more thought into this whole marriage idea.” They had walked through the building before Loki barely remembered to tie up his belt once more as they joined the others.

The tension between Sif and Thor was clear. Sif was avoiding Thor’s gaze and Thor was unable to stop looking at her sadly. Maebh was barely able to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Those who occupied the room turned to look at her in her armour.

Odin was the picture of indifference. He had expressed more than once to them both together and separately that he disapproved of Maebh’s going to Midgard for no other purpose other than her swearing to be with child and her failing to do so to instead go to Midgard. Frigga smiled sadly, her worry written all over her face. Sif smiled and Thor gave a weak smile.

“It must be said you look like the most formidable of warriors.” He declared.

“Indeed, and make sure to fight as such and return to us,” Sif said as she embraced her. “I have wished for a sister for so long and now that I have one, I do not want to lose you.”

“Please tell him, you both are the embodiment of misery,” Maebh whispered back.

Sif had barely let go of her when she was immediately replaced by Frigga. Maebh stared in disbelief. The queen had embraced her as a daughter, but her most tender embraces were ever only given to her sons. “I agree with Sif, do not let us lose you. How can you make good on your promise to be round with child trying to avoid my workings at Thor’s coronation otherwise?” Maebh laughed at the queen’s words, as she pulled away, she could see the tears in Frigga’s eyes. For a moment, she almost felt guilty for choosing to leave, but as she looked at her mother’s necklace that still hung around Frigga’s neck, she was reminded of Cathal, and her need to destroy him.

Frigga moved onto her sons in turn and Maebh noticed Nafi in a far corner, looking at her from behind the doorway with his cousins. She indicated for him to come forward and he ran straight into her arms. “Promise you’ll come home.”

“I promise to do my best to.”

Her choice of words did not escape the boy’s notice. “I don’t want you to go.” She could hear the tears in his voice as he held onto her.

“Hey, look at me.” She pulled back and looked at the boy in large brown watery eyes. “I must do this, but upon my return, I cannot envisage ever having to leave you like this again, alright? When your father leaves from now on, you and I will have to await his return together.” Nafi nodded.

At that point, Heimdall entered the room. “My lord, the boats and crews are readied. Baldr has asked that their highnesses join them so that they may depart.”

Odin nodded. “Very well” and walked to the door, before turning to look at Thor and Loki. “My son’s, you have yet to disappoint me in you voyages, I have little reason to think you would start now.” The men smiled and nodded to their father. Odin was not a man of sentiment or tenderness, so to them, that was as close as they would receive. As Maebh passed, he took her arm; she halted and looked at him. “If you care for my son as you declare you do, you will not lead him or any other of my men knowingly to their deaths and will do what is expected of someone of your position and bring all you can home.”

“I shall,” Maebh swore, looking the old king in the eye. “And on our return, I will give him the heir you covet him to have so much, and give you your treasure and new lands, and in return, you will never question my loyalties again.”

Odin released her arm, somewhat shocked at the nerve she held as she spoke to him. Maebh seized the moment and escaped him to walk alongside Loki. “What did he say?”

“To ensure your return, and if it is the last thing I do, I will do everything I can to do so.” She looked Loki in the eye as she said it.

“And I you.” He took her gloved hand and pressed his lips to it. “I pray this is the only time we will have to do this together.”

“Scared I will strike down more of them than you and make you look bad in front of your brother and friends my dear? She smiled jokingly.

“I wish we did not have to strike down anyone.”

“As do I, but that is not in the nature of what we are about to do.” Maebh looked straight ahead with her head high as they walked the small journey from the dwelling, through the village, to the boats. People had lined the road on either side and looked at them as they passed. Some were making comment at the warrior appearance of the young princess, many others questioning the strength of her loyalty to Asgard and if the rumours of Midgard were true. The three royals entered the boat they were travelling in and settled themselves, Maebh sitting across from Fandral, Loki and Thor across from Hogun and Volstagg as they all took their place, the sail was released and allowed catch in the wind, bringing them away from the village and toward the sea.

Maebh thought it odd, a year before she had watched Midgard disappear into the distance, wondering if she would ever return, now she was looking at Asgard, wondering the same thing.

#loki #other #lover #submission #chapter 22 #a warrior's life #wolfpawn #viking #au #village #pillaging #raiding #invading #intriguing

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ciathyzareposts · 4 years

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The Shareware Scene, Part 5: Narratives of DOOM

Let me begin today by restating the obvious: DOOM was very, very popular, probably the most popular computer game to date.

That “probably” has to stand there because DOOM‘s unusual distribution model makes quantifying its popularity frustratingly difficult. It’s been estimated that id sold 2 to 3 million copies of the shareware episodes of the original DOOM. The boxed-retail-only DOOM II may have sold a similar quantity; it reportedly became the third best-selling boxed computer game of the 1990s. But these numbers, impressive as they are in their own right, leave out not only the ever-present reality of piracy but also the free episode of DOOM, which was packaged and distributed in such an unprecedented variety of ways all over the world. Players of it likely numbered well into the eight digits.

Yet if the precise numbers associated with the game’s success are slippery, the cultural impact of the game is easier to get a grip on. The release of DOOM marks the biggest single sea change in the history of computer gaming. It didn’t change gaming instantly, mind you — a contemporaneous observer could be forgiven for assuming it was still largely business as usual a year or even two years after DOOM‘s release — but it did change it forever.

I should admit here and now that I’m not entirely comfortable with the changes DOOM brought to gaming. In fact, for a long time, when I was asked when I thought I might bring this historical project to a conclusion, I pointed to the arrival of DOOM as perhaps the most logical place to hang it up. I trust that most of you will be pleased to hear that I no longer feel so inclined, but I do recognize that my feelings about DOOM are, at best, conflicted. I can’t help but see it as at least partially responsible for a certain coarsening in the culture of gaming that followed it. I can muster respect for the id boys’ accomplishment, but no love. Hopefully the former will be enough to give the game its due.

As the title of this article alludes, there are many possible narratives to spin about DOOM‘s impact. Sometimes the threads are contradictory — sometimes even self-contradictory. Nevertheless, let’s take this opportunity to follow a few of them to wherever they lead us as we wrap up this series on the shareware movement and the monster it spawned.

3D 4EVA!

The least controversial, most incontrovertible aspect of DOOM‘s impact is its influence on the technology of games. It was nothing less than the coming-out party for 3D graphics as a near-universal tool — this despite the fact that 3D graphics had been around in some genres, most notably vehicular simulations, almost as long as microcomputer games themselves had been around, and despite the fact that DOOM itself was far from a complete implementation of a 3D environment. (John Carmack wouldn’t get all the way to that goal until 1996’s Quake, the id boys’ anointed successor to DOOM.) As we’ve seen already, Blue Sky Productions’s Ultima Underworld actually offered the complete 3D implementation which DOOM lacked twenty months before the latter’s arrival.

But as I also noted earlier, Ultima Underworld was complex, a little esoteric, hard to come to terms with at first sight. DOOM, on the other hand, took what the id boys had started with Wolfenstein 3D, added just enough additional complexity to make it into a more satisfying game over the long haul, topped it off with superb level design that took full advantage of all the new affordances, and rammed it down the throat of the gaming mainstream with all the force of one of its coveted rocket launchers. The industry never looked back. By the end of the decade, it would be hard to find a big boxed game that didn’t use 3D graphics.

Many if not all of these applications of 3D were more than warranted: the simple fact is that 3D lets you do things in games that aren’t possible any other way. Other forms of graphics consist at bottom of fixed, discrete patterns of colored pixels. These patterns can be moved about the screen — think of the sprites in a classic 2D videogame, such as Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. or id’s Commander Keen — but their forms cannot be altered with any great degree of flexibility. And this in turn limits the degree to which the world of a game can become an embodied, living place of emergent interactions; it does no good to simulate something in the world model if you can’t represent it on the player’s screen.

3D graphics, on the other hand, are stored not as pixels but as a sort of architectural plan of an imaginary 3D space, expressed in the language of mathematics. The computer then extrapolates from said plan to render the individual pixels on the fly in response to the player’s actions. In other words, the world and the representation of the world are stored as one in the computer’s memory. This means that things can happen there which no artist ever anticipated. 3D allowed game makers to move beyond hand-crafted fictions and set-piece puzzles to begin building virtual realities in earnest. Not for nothing did many people refer to DOOM-like games in the time before the term “first-person shooter” was invented as “virtual-reality games.”

Ironically, others showed more interest than the id boys themselves in probing the frontiers of formal possibility thus opened. While id continued to focus purely on ballistics and virtual violence in their extended series of Quake games after making DOOM, Looking Glass Technologies — the studio which had previously been known as Blue Sky Productions — worked many of the innovations of Ultima Underworld and DOOM alike into more complex virtual worlds in games like System Shock and Thief. Nevertheless, DOOM was the proof of concept, the game which demonstrated indubitably to everyone that 3D graphics could provide amazing experiences which weren’t possible any other way.

From the standpoint of the people making the games, 3D graphics had another massive advantage: they were also cheaper than the alternative. When DOOM first appeared in December of 1993, the industry was facing a budgetary catch-22 with no obvious solution. Hiring armies of artists to hand-paint every screen in a game was expensive; renting or building a sound stage, then hiring directors and camera people and dozens of actors to provide hours of full-motion-video footage was even more so. Players expected ever bigger, richer, longer games, which was intensely problematic when every single element in their worlds had to be drawn or filmed by hand. Sales were increasing at a steady clip by 1993, but they weren’t increasing quickly enough to offset the spiraling costs of production. Even major publishers like Sierra were beginning to post ugly losses on their bottom lines despite their increasing gross revenues.

3D graphics had the potential to fix all that, practically at a stroke. A 3D world is, almost by definition, a collection of interchangeable parts. Consider a simple item of furniture, like, say, a desk. In a 2D world, every desk must be laboriously hand-drawn by an artist in the same way that a traditional carpenter planes and joins the wood for such a thing in a workshop. But in a 3D world, the data constituting the basic form of “desk” can be inserted in a matter of seconds; desks can now make their way into games with the same alacrity with which they roll off of an IKEA production line. But you say that you don’t want every desk in your world to look exactly the same? Very well; it takes just a few keystrokes to change the color or wood grain or even the size of your desk, or to add or take away a drawer. We can arrive at endless individual implementations of “desk” from our Platonic ideal with surprising speed. Small wonder that, when the established industry was done marveling at DOOM‘s achievements in terms of gameplay, the thing they kept coming back to over and over was its astronomical profit margins. 3D graphics provided a way to make games make money again.

So, 3D offered worlds with vastly more emergent potential, made at a greatly reduced cost. There had to be a catch, right?

Alas, there was indeed. In many contexts, 3D graphics were right on the edge of what a typical computer could do at all in the mid-1990s, much less do with any sort of aesthetic appeal. Gamers would have to accept jagged edges, tearing textures, and a generalized visual crudity in 3D games for quite some time to come. A freeze-frame visual comparison with the games the industry had been making immediately before the 3D revolution did the new ones no favors: the games coming out of studios like Sierra and LucasArts had become genuinely beautiful by the early 1990s, thanks to those companies’ rooms full of dedicated pixel artists. It would take a considerable amount of time before 3D games would look anywhere near this nice. One can certainly argue that 3D was in some fairly fundamental sense necessary for the continuing evolution of game design, that this period of ugliness was one that the industry simply needed to plow through in order to emerge on the other side with a whole new universe of visual and emergent possibility to hand. Still, people mired in the middle of it could be forgiven for asking whether, from the evidence of screenshots alone, gaming technology wasn’t regressing rather than progressing.

But be that as it may, the 3D revolution ushered in by DOOM was here to stay. People would just have to get used to the visual crudity for the time being, and trust that eventually things would start to look better again.

Playing to the Base

There’s an eternal question in political and commercial marketing alike: do you play to the base, or do you try to reach out to a broader spectrum of people? The former may be safer, but raises the question of how many more followers you can collect from the same narrow slice of the population; the latter tempts you with the prospect of countless virgin souls waiting to embrace you, but is far riskier, with immense potential to backfire spectacularly if you don’t get the message and tone just right. This was the dichotomy confronting the boxed-games industry in the early 1990s.

By 1993, the conventional wisdom inside the industry had settled on the belief that outreach was the way forward. This dream of reaching a broader swath of people, of becoming as commonplace in living rooms as prime-time dramas and sitcoms, was inextricably bound up with the technology of CD-ROM, what with its potential to put footage of real human actors into games alongside spoken dialog and orchestral soundtracks. “What we think of today as a computer or a videogame system,” wrote Ken Williams of Sierra that year, “will someday assume a much broader role in our homes. I foresee a day when there is one home-entertainment device which combines the functions of a CD-audio player, VCR, videogame system, and computer.”

And then along came DOOM with its stereotypically adolescent-male orientation, along with sales numbers that threatened to turn the conventional wisdom about how well the industry could continue to feed off the same old demographic on its head. About six months after DOOM‘s release, when the powers that were were just beginning to grapple with its success and what it meant to each and every one of them, Alexander Antoniades, a founding editor of the new Game Developer magazine, more fully articulated the dream of outreach, as well as some of the doubts that were already beginning to plague it.

The potential of CD-ROM is tremendous because it is viewed as a superset not [a] subset of the existing computer-games industry. Everyone’s hoping that non-technical people who would never buy an Ultima, flight simulator, or DOOM will be willing to buy a CD-ROM game designed to appeal to a wider audience — changing the computer into [an] interactive VCR. If these technical neophytes’ first experience is a bad one, for $60 a disc, they’re not going to continue making the same mistake.

It will be this next year, as these consumers make their first CD-ROM purchases, that will determine the shape of the industry. If CD-ROM games are able to vary more in subject matter than traditional computer games, retain their platform independence, and capture new demographics, they will attain the status of a new platform [in themselves]. If not, they will just be another means to get product to market and will be just another label on the side of a box.

The next couple of years did indeed become a de-facto contest between these two ideas of gaming’s future. At first, the outreach camp could point to some notable successes on a scale similar to that of DOOM: The 7th Guest sold over 2 million copies, Myst sold an extraordinary 6 million or more. Yet the reality slowly dawned that most of those outside the traditional gaming demographic who purchased those games regarded them as little more than curiosities; most evidence would seem to indicate that they were never seriously played to a degree commensurate with their sales. Meanwhile the many similar titles which the industry rushed out in the wake of these success stories almost invariably became commercial disappointments.

The problems inherent in these multimedia-heavy “interactive movies” weren’t hard to see even at the time. In the same piece from which I quoted above, Alexander Antoniades noted that too many CD-ROM productions were “the equivalent of Pong games with captured video images of professional tennis players and CD-quality sounds of bouncing balls.” For various reasons — the limitations inherent in mixing and matching canned video clips; the core limitations of the software and hardware technology; perhaps simply a failure of imagination — the makers of too many of these extravaganzas never devised new modes of gameplay to complement their new modes of presentation. Instead they seemed to believe that the latter alone ought to be enough. Too often, these games fell back on rote set-piece puzzle-solving — an inherently niche activity even if done more creatively than we often saw in these games — for lack of any better ideas for making the “interactive” in interactive movies a reality. The proverbial everyday person firing up the computer-cum-stereo-cum-VCR at the end of a long workday wasn’t going to do so in order to watch a badly acted movie gated with frustrating logic puzzles.

While the multimedia came first with these productions, games of the DOOM school flipped that script. As the years went on and they too started to ship on the now-ubiquitous medium of CD-ROM, they too picked up cut scenes and spoken dialog, but they never suffered the identity crisis of their rivals; they knew that they were games first and foremost, and knew exactly what forms their interactivity should take. And most importantly from the point of view of the industry, these games sold. Post-1996 or so, high-concept interactive movies were out, as was most serious talk of outreach to new demographics. Visceral 3D action games were in, along with a doubling-down on the base.

To blame the industry’s retrenchment — its return to the demographically tried-and-true — entirely on DOOM is a stretch. Yet DOOM was a hugely important factor, standing as it did as a living proof of just how well the traditional core values of gaming could pay. The popularity of DOOM, combined with the exercise in diminishing commercial returns that interactive movies became, did much to push the industry down the path of retrenchment.

The minor tragedy in all this was not so much the end of interactive movies, given what intensely problematic endeavors they so clearly were, but rather that the latest games’ vision proved to be so circumscribed in terms of fiction, theme, and mechanics alike. By late in the decade, they had brought the boxed industry to a place of dismaying homogeneity; the values of the id boys had become the values of computer gaming writ large. Game fictions almost universally drew from the same shallow well of sci-fi action flicks and Dungeons & Dragons, with perhaps an occasional detour into military simulation. A shocking percentage of the new games being released fell into one of just two narrow gameplay genres: the first-person shooter and the real-time-strategy game.

These fictional and ludic genres are not, I hasten to note, illegitimate in themselves; I’ve enjoyed plenty of games in all of them. But one craves a little diversity, a more vibrant set of possibilities to choose from when wandering into one’s local software store. It would take a new outsider movement coupled with the rise of convenient digital distribution in the new millennium to finally make good on that early-1990s dream of making games for everyone. (How fitting that shaking loose the stranglehold of DOOM‘s progeny would require the exploitation of another alternative form of distribution, just as the id boys exploited the shareware model…)

The Murder Simulator

DOOM was mentioned occasionally in a vaguely disapproving way by mainstream media outlets immediately after its release, but largely escaped the ire of the politicians who were going after games like Night Trap and Mortal Kombat at the time; this was probably because its status as a computer rather than a console game led to its being played in bedrooms rather than living rooms, free from the prying eyes of concerned adults. It didn’t become the subject of a full-blown moral panic until weirdly late in its history.

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, a pair of students at Columbine High School in the Colorado town of the same name, walked into their school armed to the teeth with knives, explosives, and automatic weapons. They proceeded to kill 13 students and teachers and to injure 24 more before turning their guns on themselves. The day after the massacre, an Internet gaming news site called Blue’s News posted a message that “several readers have written in reporting having seen televised news reports showing the DOOM logo on something visible through clear bags containing materials said to be related to the suspected shooters. There is no word yet of what connection anyone is drawing between these materials and this case.” The word would come soon enough.

It turned out that Harris and Klebold had been great devotees of the game, not only as players but as creators of their own levels. “It’s going to be just like DOOM,” wrote Harris in his diary just before the massacre. “I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy. I will force myself to believe that everyone is just a monster from DOOM.” He chose his prize shotgun because it looked like one found in the game. On the surveillance tapes that recorded the horror in real time, the weapons-festooned boys pranced and preened as if they were consciously imitating the game they loved so much. Weapons experts noted that they seemed to have adopted their approach to shooting from what worked in DOOM. (In this case, of course, that was a wonderful thing, in that it kept them from killing anywhere close to the number of people they might otherwise have with the armaments at their disposal.)

There followed a storm of controversy over videogame content, with DOOM and the genre it had spawned squarely at its center. Journalists turned their attention to the FPS subculture for the first time, and discovered that more recent games like Duke Nukem 3D — the Columbine shooters’ other favorite game, a creation of Scott Miller’s old Apogee Software, now trading under the name of 3D Realms — made DOOM‘s blood and gore look downright tame. Senator Joseph Lieberman, a longstanding critic of videogames, beat the drum for legislation, and the name of DOOM even crossed the lips of President Bill Clinton. “My hope,” he said, “[is] to persuade the nation’s top cultural producers to call a cease-fire in the virtual arms race, to stop the release of ultra-violent videogames such as DOOM. Several of the school gunmen murderously mimicked [it] down to the choice of weapons and apparel.”

When one digs into the subject, one can’t help but note how the early life stories of John Carmack and John Romero bear some eerie similarities with those of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. The two Johns as well were angry kids who found it hard to fit in with their peers, who engaged in petty crime and found solace in action movies, heavy-metal music, and computer games. Indeed, a big part of the appeal of DOOM for its most committed fans was the sense that it had been made by people just like them, people who were coming from the same place. What caused Harris and Klebold, alone among the millions like them, to exorcise their anger and aggression in such a horrifying way? It’s a question that we can’t begin to answer. We can only say that, unfair though it may be, perceptions of DOOM outside the insular subculture of FPS fandom must always bear the taint of its connection with a mass murder.

And yet the public controversy over DOOM and its progeny resulted in little concrete change in the end. Lieberman’s proposed legislation died on the vine after the industry fecklessly promised to do a better job with content warnings, and the newspaper pundits moved on to other outrages. Forget talk of free speech; there was too much money in these types of games for them to go away. Just ten months after Columbine, Activision released Soldier of Fortune, which made a selling point of dismembered bodies and screams of pain so realistic that one reviewer claimed they left his dog a nervous wreck cowering in a corner. After the requisite wave of condemnation, the mainstream media forgot about it too.

Violence in games didn’t begin with DOOM or even Wolfenstein 3D, but it was certainly amplified and glorified by those games and the subculture they wrought. While a player may very well run up a huge body count in, say, a classic arcade game or an old-school CRPG, the violence there is so abstract as to be little more than a game mechanic. But in DOOM — and even more so in the game that followed it — experiential violence is a core part of the appeal. One revels in killing not just because of the new high score or character experience level one gets out of it, but for the thrill of killing itself, as depicted in such a visceral, embodied way. This does strike me as a fundamental qualitative shift from most of the games that came before.

Yet it’s very difficult to have a reasonable discussion on said violence’s implications, simply because opinions have become so hardened on the subject. To express concern on any level is to invite association with the likes of Joe Lieberman, a politician with a knack for choosing the most reactionary, least informed position on every single issue, who apparently was never fortunate enough to have a social-science professor drill the fact that correlation isn’t causation into his head.

Make no mistake: the gamers who scoff at the politicians’ hand-wringing have a point. Harris and Klebold probably were drawn to games like DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D because they already had violent fantasies, rather than having said fantasies inculcated by the games they happened to play. In a best-case scenario, we can even imagine other potential mass murderers channeling their aggression into a game rather than taking it out on real people, in much the same way that easy access to pornography may be a cause of the dramatic decline in incidents of rape and sexual violence in most Western countries since the rise of the World Wide Web.

That said, I for one am also willing to entertain the notion that spending hours every day killing things in the most brutal, visceral manner imaginable inside an embodied virtual space may have some negative effects on some personalities. Something John Carmack said about the subject in a fairly recent interview strikes me as alarmingly fallacious:

In later games and later times, when games [came complete with] moral ambiguity or actual negativity about what you’re doing, I always felt good about the decision that in DOOM, you’re fighting demons. There’s no gray area here. It is black and white. You’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys, and everything that you’re doing to them is fully deserved.

In reality, though, the danger which games like DOOM may present, especially in the dismayingly polarized societies many of us live in in our current troubled times, is not that they ask us to revel in our moral ambiguity, much less our pure evil. It’s rather the way they’re able to convince us that the Others whom we’re killing “fully deserve” the violence we visit upon them because “they’re the bad guys.” (Recall those chilling words from Eric Harris’s diary, about convincing himself that his teachers and classmates are really just monsters…) This tendency is arguably less insidious when the bad guys in question are ridiculously over-the-top demons from Hell than when they’re soldiers who just happen to be wearing a different uniform, one which they may quite possibly have had no other choice but to don. Nevertheless, DOOM started something which games like the interminable Call of Duty franchise were only too happy to run with.

I personally would like to see less violence rather than more in games, all things being equal, and would like to see more games about building things up rather than tearing them down, fun though the latter can be on occasion. It strikes me that the disturbing association of some strands of gamer culture with some of the more hateful political movements of our times may not be entirely accidental, and that some of the root causes may stretch all the way back to DOOM — which is not to say that it’s wrong for any given individual to play DOOM or even Call of Duty. It’s only to say that the likes of GamersGate may be yet another weirdly attenuated part of DOOM‘s endlessly multi-faceted legacy.

Creative Destruction?

In other ways, though, the DOOM community actually was — and is — a community of creation rather than destruction. (I did say these narratives of DOOM wouldn’t be cut-and-dried, didn’t I?)

John Carmack, by his own account alone among the id boys, was inspired rather than dismayed by the modding scene that sprang up around Wolfenstein 3D — so much so that, rather than taking steps to make such things more difficult in DOOM, he did just the opposite: he separated the level data from the game engine much more completely than had been the case with Wolfenstein 3D, thus making it possible to distribute new DOOM levels completely legally, and released documentation of the WAD format in which the levels were stored on the same day that id released the game itself.

The origins of his generosity hearken back once again to this idea that the people who made DOOM weren’t so very different from the people who played it. One of Carmack’s formative experiences as a hacker was his exploration of Ultima II on his first Apple II. Carmack:

To go ahead and hack things to turn trees into chests or modify my gold or whatever… I loved that. The ability to go several steps further and release actual source code, make it easy to modify things, to let future generations get what I wished I had had a decade earlier—I think that’s been a really good thing. To this day I run into people all the time that say, whether it was Doom, or maybe even more so Quake later on, that that openness and that ability to get into the guts of things was what got them into the industry or into technology. A lot of people who are really significant people in significant places still have good things to say about that.

Carmack speaks of “a decade-long fight inside id about how open we should be with the technology and the modifiability.” The others questioned this commitment to what Carmack called “open gaming” more skeptically than ever when some companies started scooping up some of the thousands of fan-made levels, plopping them onto CDs, and selling them without paying a cent to id. But in the long run, the commitment to openness kept DOOM alive; rather than a mere computer game, it became a veritable cottage industry of its own. Plenty of people played literally nothing else for months or even years at a stretch.

The debate inside id raged more than ever in 1997, when Carmack insisted on releasing the complete original source code to DOOM. (He had done the same for the Wolfenstein 3D code two years before.) As he alludes above, the DOOM code became a touchstone for an up-and-coming generation of game programmers, even as many future game designers cut their teeth and made early names for themselves by creating custom levels to run within the engine. And, inevitably, the release of the source code led to a flurry of ports to every imaginable platform: “Everything that has a 32-bit [or better] processor has had DOOM run on it,” says Carmack with justifiable pride. Today you can play DOOM on digital cameras, printers, and even thermostats, and do so if you like in hobbyist-created levels that coax the engine into entirely new modes of play that the id boys never even began to conceive of.

This narrative of DOOM bears a distinct similarity to that of another community of creation with which I happen to be much better acquainted: the post-Infocom interactive-fiction community that arose at about the same time that the original DOOM was taking the world by storm. Like the DOOM people, the interactive-fiction people built upon a beloved company’s well-nigh timeless software engineering; like them, they eventually stretched that engine in all sorts of unanticipated directions, and are still doing it to this day. A comparison between the cerebral text adventures of Infocom and the frenetic shooters of id might seem incongruous at first blush, but there you are. Long may their separate communities of love and craft continue to thrive.

As you have doubtless gathered by now, the legacy of DOOM is a complicated one that’s almost uniquely resistant to simplification. Every statement has a qualifier; every yang has a yin. This can be frustrating for a writer; it’s in the nature of us as a breed to want straightforward causes and effects. The desire for them may lead one to make trends that were obscure at best to the people living through them seem more obvious than they really were. Therefore allow me to reiterate that the new gaming order which DOOM created wouldn’t become undeniable to everyone until fully three or four years after its release. A reader recently emailed me the argument that 1996 was actually the best year ever for adventure games, the genre which, according to some oversimplified histories, DOOM and games like it killed at a stroke — and darned if he didn’t make a pretty good case for it.

So, while I’m afraid I’ll never be much of a gibber and/or fragger, we should continue to have much to talk about. Onward, then, into the new order. I dare say that from the perspective of the boots on the ground it will continue to look much like the old one for quite some time to come. And after that? Well, we’ll take it as it comes. I won’t be mooting any more stopping dates.

(Sources: the books The Complete Wargames Handbook (2000 edition) by James F. Dunnigan, Masters of Doom by David Kushner, Game Engine Black Book: DOOM by Fabien Sanglard, Principles of Three-Dimensional Computer Animation by Michael O’Rourke, and Columbine by Dave Cullen; Retro Gamer 75; Game Developer of June 1994; Chris Kohler’s interview with John Carmack for Wired. And a special thanks to Alex Sarosi, a.k.a. Lt. Nitpicker, for his valuable email correspondence on the legacy of DOOM, as well as to Josh Martin for pointing out in a timely comment to the last article the delightful fact that DOOM can now be run on a thermostat.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-shareware-scene-part-5-narratives-of-doom/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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thestrategicmom · 4 years

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Lessons From Solitary Confinement: Nurturing Self and Child Development at Home During Coronavirus

Anxious. Overwhelmed. Fearful. Powerless. These are just a few of the emotions I’ve experienced during this period of social distancing caused by the aptly named coronavirus crisis. I’m incredibly fortunate and grateful to be surrounded by my immediate family during this time; however, as an extrovert and self-proclaimed ‘people person,’ I’ve been both haunted and intrigued by the question of how to successfully cope with and manage my time, and more importantly, my mind, when faced with chronic social isolation.

While social isolation is a new phenomenon for many of us, it’s a soul-crushing, enduring reality for 80,000 to 100,000 people who spend months and even years in solitary confinement as inmates in our U.S. prison system. In a recent Mother Jones article, Keith LaMar, an inmate who’s spent his last twenty-seven years confined to a space the size of a small bathroom, shared insights on how to maintain a sound mind amid extended physical confinement.

What’s Keith’s secret you ask?

Education...

When Keith speaks of education however, he isn’t talking about education in the traditional sense of the word; instead, he’s talking about a form of self discovery that’s demonstrated in education’s root word, ‘educe’, which means “to bring forth that which is already there.” Keith shares that solitary confinement, and consequently, social isolation, is an opportunity for introspection, growth, and personal development.

While you and your family should feel content with just being during this time, or better yet, just being healthy, it’s a great opportunity to use this societal pause to more intentionally push play on your own as well as your family’s development.

Below are a few easy ways to better get to know, nourish, and grow yourself and those closest to you in the coming weeks:

Carve Out Time to Focus On You

The road to self discovery starts and ends with you, so spend some of your socially distanced time getting to know YOU. How often do you take the time to really think about what you enjoy, to explore your interests, passions, and needs, or to work toward your dreams?

Close your eyes and think about three things that, despite coronavirus, you’re insanely grateful for, or better yet, think of three things that you currently possess that you would be incredibly empty and lost if you woke up tomorrow without. Examples include family relationships, peace of mind, physical health, etc.

Now consider one change you can make over the course of a week to more intentionally operate or improve upon each of those three areas. This could be as simple as daily commitments to carve out at least an hour of quality time with your significant other, dedicate 30 minutes to some form of physical activity, or make time daily for meditation or prayer. It doesn’t have to be grandiose, lucrative, or insanely productive; it just needs to be valuable to you and intentional to serving the values that matter most.

Start by focusing on one of these areas each week, adding more as you feel comfortable.

This exercise has allowed me to define and spend my energy on values and goals that are uniquely personal and meaningful, values and goals that I’ve previously allowed others to define for me.

Foster Your Personal Growth and Development

If you’re feeling up to it, use some of this time to develop skills and explore interests you didn’t have the time to previously explore.

Use e-learning resources and youtube to learn something new.

Always dreamed of learning to code? Do it. Want to learn a new language? Go for it.

Or maybe you’re just trying to add a few new recipes to your dinner arsenal? Now is a great time to lean on Pinterest and Blue Apron and nurture your inner Top Chef.

Embrace the immense possibility that accompanies times of uncertainty like this, and use today to hone and develop skills that can set you and your family up for success tomorrow. No matter how bleak things might seem today, it’s a chance to get better and be better, so seize the day.

Get to Know Your Children… as People

As parents, we’re constantly challenged with molding, shaping, and shepherding our children into adulthood. It’s an amazing feat, and a challenge we typically don’t have the time or space to truly think about and focus on. From getting everyone ready each morning, and school drop-offs and pick-ups, to extracurriculars, dinner, and bedtime, we typically fast forward through life, doing lots of things for our children but not necessarily spending quality time with our children.

Spend this time of seclusion and social isolation to change that by getting more in touch with your children’s personalities, interests, pet peeves, and idiosyncrasies.

Who are they? Depending on their age, they could be vastly different than they were a few months ago.

Any new traits you haven’t previously noticed?

Any new interests or dislikes?

What’s something they’re really good at?

What’s their favorite thing that you do together?

What new things can you do together?

Unplug. Set aside some time without your devices to talk, play cards, or play a board game.

If you have multiple children, spend time together, but also carve out quality time to engage one-on-one with each of them. Every child shares themselves and bares their souls differently, but being able to use this unprecedented time to learn more about them will make this time more precious for both of you.

Since all we have is time at the moment, make those seconds and minutes count!

Embrace the Digital Age of Education

With schools closed, moms and dads across the globe are now the sole stewards of their children’s learning and development. The good news is, we have more knowledge at our fingertips than any other time in history; so embrace online learning tools, websites, and virtual resources. Moreover, since traditional K-12 classrooms tend to disproportionately emphasize content memorization as a result of our increased focus on test taking,

Use this as an opportunity to create a more open, personalized environment for your child that’s conducive to deep learning, practical skill-building, and critical thought.

Make it fun, make it practical, and focus on mastery of skills over content.

Use digital resources -- audio books, YouTube videos, and even Netflix movies -- to empower your child to learn more independently and autonomously, with you merely assisting and facilitating their quest for knowledge.

One of the greatest joys, but also greatest challenges in life is self discovery. Truly discovering who you are -- good, bad, beautiful, and ugly -- can be painful, but also extremely enlightening. As parents, we’re also trying to discover who our kids are and help mold them into their highest potential. Use this time, as Keith LaMar recommended, to bask and explore the self discovery uniquely suited for this type of isolation, and empower your children to do the same.

While there are feelings of confusion and loss that accompany no longer having the routines, social interactions, and community we took for granted prior to coronavirus, I truly believe that although there are many things we’ve individually lost, greater things can be found -- deeper familial bonds and connections, more intimate awareness of self, more individualized and personalized development and growth. And wouldn’t that be the most beautiful silver lining to it all?

If you enjoyed this post and would like more information on being intentional with your life, check out my posts on value and goal-based living, intentional self-care, childcare and development, and relationships.

#The Strategic Mom #Development #Child Development

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