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lesmisshippingshowdown · 5 months ago
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Hello and welcome to the Les Mis Shipping Showdown!
That's right, we're bringing ship brackets to the Les Mis fandom! The Shipping Showdown is an all new, 5 round contest intended to answer some of the internet's greatest questions, such as "is E/R's dominance really as overwhelming as AO3 statistics would have you believe?", "what is the fandom's all time favourite Les Amis pair the spares combo?", and "what would happen if we tried to Jurassic Park the ship wars of 2013 back into existence 12 years later?". Ignore that last one, maybe.
The voting portion of the Les Mis Shipping Showdown is now complete - congratulations to our winners, Enjolras/Grantaire!
We have also now completed Steal Off 2 - click here to see the results and here if you're interested in stats about the whole stealing process!
Ideas for further activities are in the pipeline so please watch this space for more details!
CURRENT BRACKET BELOW:
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Please see below the cut for FAQ, rules, and mod details:
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: Who is responsible for all this? Great question! The Les Mis Shipping Showdown is the brainchild of @lonelyroommp3, with invaluable assistance including graphic design, bracket seeding, and wildcard suggestions from @glindalesbian. We are both veterans of the Les Mis fandom, and although it's not been either of our main fandoms for a while we're both still filled with love and nostalgia for both the work itself and the memories the fandom and its myriad shipping messes evoke<3
Q: Woah, wait! How did you decide upon these specific ships? 29 of the ships are - as far as it's possible to accurately sort these things on AO3 - the 29 most popular romantic relationship tags in the Les Misérables (All Media Types) fandom category. This sorting method isn't foolproof, and if we've missed something major we can only apologise! If you bring to light a really notable ship that we've missed, it may get included as part of a special round at a later date if demand is sufficient.
In addition, between the two mods we have chosen three wildcard entries based on such scientifically rigorous selection criteria as "one of us personally shipped this back in the day", "we remember this being really popular but the AO3 stats don't seem to reflect that", and, in one case, "we thought it would be really funny." It is up to you, dear reader, to try and figure out which ship fits in each category.
For the sake of transparency, a couple of ships have been excluded because they have significant overlap with another, more popular ship. For example, both Joly/Bossuet and Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta have AO3 works in the hundreds, but including them both felt a little redundant, so we made the executive decision to just include the more popular combination of the above characters.
Q: Are platonic/familial/queerplatonic relationship tags included? What if I like a combination of characters in a given match up, but only platonically? All my love to the non romantic relationship dynamics in Les Mis - after all, "to love another person is to see the face of God" is a lyric that intentionally does not specify a type of love! However, to keep things streamlined, this poll is specifically about romantic/sexual ships. Whenever you see a match up, assume you are being asked which combination of characters you personally would prefer to see depicted in a romantic relationship and/or sucking and fucking.
Q: Can I submit propaganda? Where should I do this? Yes! You are welcome to add propaganda in the reblogs of any given poll, or send asks or submissions to this blog. However, if your propaganda is in the form of a new fanwork (fic, art, etc) it may be of more use as a steal - see the link above for more details!
Q: Can I share this blog/contest/specific polls outside of Tumblr? If you're sharing on a small scale with a discord server, individual friends without Tumblr accounts, etc, please go ahead! We would, however, politely request that if you are lucky enough to have contacts who are, or have been, involved with professional productions of Les Misérables in any capacity that you do NOT share this competition with them directly or go shouting about it in places they are likely to see it, no matter how funny you think it may be to try and get some organic propaganda off the US Tour's 2nd cover Grantaire or whoever. Some of us are fujos in the sheets and actual theatre professionals in the streets, and we'd prefer to keep those two streams of our lives as separate as possible. Please respect this!
Q: You've used my fanart in a post and I don't want it in there/it's been credited incorrectly. If this happens to you, please let us know via asks ASAP with a link or clear reference to the offending post & artwork, so we can either remove your art or amend the credit accordingly!
FURTHER RULES
We were both around in this fandom in 2013 when people were in the actual trenches about certain ships, and we know this can be a testy subject. We also think a bit of healthy competition and ship warring is fun from time to time, and the Les Mis Shipping Showdown is not intended to be a totally sanitised arena where we take everything super duper seriously and everybody has to be really really niceys 100% of the time. However, we do ask that good taste and interpersonal respect is considered:
You're free to fight about ships until the cows come home, but please refrain from personal attacks on other users in any arena related to this tournament.
Any hate speech in propaganda, notes of official tournament posts, asks/submissions, or any posts about the tournament brought to the mods' attention will NOT be tolerated and will result in an instant block (+ the offending account being reported if deemed necessary).
We've both seen shipping tournaments play out in other fandoms and know that it's absolutely impossible to avoid botting & vote rigging. However, any cases of the above that are deemed excessive, malicious, or generally against the spirit of the tournament may result in a match up being aborted, repeated, or, in extreme cases, a ship being permanently excluded from the tournament. This also goes for poll stealing - egregiously low effort works or those which seem designed to exploit loopholes in the scoring system to get as many points as possible may be marked down or disqualified. Just be normal pleaseeeeeee
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purplehairedwonder · 2 years ago
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13, 17, 39, 42, 54, 65, 76 (lead me back to suffering) 👀
13. What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?
Show, don't tell. I am very intentional in the details that I include in my stories about characters' actions and expressions to show how they are feeling without needing to say it. I try to intersperse dialogue, for instance, with actions and the point-of-view character's reaction to what is being said. This helps me with my characterization quite a bit.
17. What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)
Usually, I try to work on something else. I have so many balls up in the air that I'll usually have inspiration for something that I'm working on. Working on a different project often helps me figure out what was blocking me on the other work.
If that doesn't work, I'll try writing out of order so that I'm writing something that I do know that I want to happen and then figure out how to get from where I left off to the new stuff.
39. Share a snippet from a WIP
From the next chapter of "From the Ashes":
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42. What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?
Last night, I reread "A King and a Doctor" by @betsib, who is one of my favorite Lawlu writers. I am also a sucker for post-1081 fics, and this one is just *chef's kiss* It both makes me sad and hopeful, and the writing is wonderful. Definitely recommend! (And all her other stuff, too! Go read it!)
54. What’s your favorite part about the fanfiction writing process?
Getting the ideas swirling around my brain onto the page. My feral brain is always coming up with story ideas, and I often lie in bed at night coming up with scenarios that turn into stories. Once those ideas get written down, my brain quiets down--until the next ideas pop up, haha.
Also, spending quality time with my blorbos.
65. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project
I am very excited about the fic I'm writing for the OP Big Bang. I've been sitting on this plot bunny for two years, waiting for a Big Bang event to write it. Three clues: Lawlu, Flevance, dream-themed Devil Fruit
76. Did you have any ideas that didn’t make the final cut of (lead me back to suffering)? 
The main one I can think of is that Law was originally going to be working on the monument to Flevance when Doflamingo showed up for their final showdown, but I couldn't get the flow to work; in the end, the monument was revealed in the part told from Flevance's POV.
I also thought about including more instances where Doffy used clones of Luffy to punish Law but decided the first instance was powerful enough and that further instances would just be redundant so simply hinted at them happening off-screen.
Thanks for the ask! This was fun!
Send me asks from the Get to know your fic writer meme.
I've answered 2, 13, 17, 22, 37, 39, 42, 47, 54, 65, 76
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rachelbethhines · 5 years ago
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Tangled Salt Marathon - Queen for a Day Part 2
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So this is the continuation of my review for Queen for a Day. My personal favorite episode in the series, but it does have some flaws that needs to be pointed out. 
You can find the first part here  https://rachelbethhines.tumblr.com/post/622226424477171713/tangled-salt-marathon-queen-for-a-day-part-1
Summary: The King and Queen are stranded in the blizzard and Eugene and the Pub Thugs must rescue them. Meanwhile, Varian rushes to ask for Rapunzel's help freeing his dad, but Rapunzel tells him that she can't help him because of the blizzard, leaving Varian feeling betrayed. Rapunzel orders the evacuation of the island, but then remembers about a legend told earlier by Xavier about an underground machine with the power to change the way of the blizzard. 
The Show Tells Us Things that Contradict What We’ve Already Seen
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No they didn’t. 
If it was up to Frederic you’d all be jailed, hanged, or banished. Don’t try to pretend now that the King is somehow better than any other leader when it’s his crack down on crime is what causes 75% of the conflict in the first season. 
Rapunzel gave you a second chance. She’s the one to thank. And she only did that because she befriended you, not because she thought the system unjust.
Look at All This Time Spent On This Very Important Note, No Way the Writers Would Dumb Enough Not Follow Up On This Finely Crafted Set Up.
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Why is Season Three So Bad!!!!?????
Evacuation is a Dumb Plan to Begin With
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So throughout the episode Rapunzel is being pressured into evacuating the populace off the island. With the idea that, as an island, they’d be cut off from food supplies and whatnot. 
Which is beyond dumb because they’re currently inside a castle. Castles are built specifically for withstanding sieges. They should have all the supplies and room that they need right there for weeks if not months. 
Everyone is acting like risking exposure is somehow a better option then just staying put, inside the comfy palace.
Also keep in mind no one knows that this is a magic storm. They think it’s just a regular blizzard and it’s not even been one day of snow. You’re telling me that King Frederic is such a poor leader that can’t even keep the kingdom stocked for one day? 
You know what. I'd believe that. Corona is a shittly runned country that can’t handle emergencies. 
Cass Can Clearly See and Hear What’s Going On
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The show will later act as if Cass didn’t know the truth about what happened between Raps and Varian, but that’s a load of bull. She clearly sees and hears Varian talking about the rocks and his dad. In short, Cassandra winds up looking like a horrible person because of poorly thought out framing. 
Rapunzel Has More Options Here But She Doesn’t Explore Them
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Look Rapunzel being inexperienced and not knowing what to do, leading to her making poor decisions; is a perfectly fine set up for a conflict. And the choices she makes are understandable. 
However the show acts like these were the only options available to her; stay and help her people or go with Varian right then, and that’s simply not the case. 
Here’s a list of things she actually could have done.
Send someone else with Varian. Cass isn’t doing anything right now. She’s not needed for the evacuation, as evidenced by her going with Raps to the demantius device later (a task that she doesn’t actually help much with) and she already is in on your secret about the rocks and is friends with Varian. Alternatively there are other guards you could have sent with him, but Cass is the best option for the job.
Keep Varian with her until the storm was over with. He could have helped with the demantius device and then you both could have gone to Old Corona afterwards. 
Order the evacuation and then actually go with Varian. Once again, Rapunzel isn’t honestly needed for the evacuation, as evidenced by her taking off to find the demantius device later. She also. at the this point, doesn’t know if the demantius device is real nor does she have a plan in place yet to use it. It would have been a worse idea, yes, but it’s still an option that she failed to consider. (Unless they came back to the device after failing to save Quirin, cause it’s fiction and the writers can decide the time frame however they want) 
Go check up on Varian after fixing the storm. 
None of these options would have saved Quirin, obviously, but any one of them would have given Varian the emotional support that he needed. So while it’s understandable that Rapunzel did what she did, it’s still not excusable. 
Therein lies the failure of the show. It tries it damndest to excuse the protagonists at every turn even when they do quite clearly mess up, all while shifting all the blame onto an easy scapegoat. The series then acts like, we the audience, should just blindly accept it’s manipulation as fact. 
The Show Implies That the Heroes Just Threw A Child Out Into A Deadly Blizzard
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Rapunzel’s ‘orders’ falls on deaf ears and that’s honestly on her. She’s in charge and ergo she needs to keep her guards in line. It’s up to her to give clear and concise orders. 
Cause what we see is the garuds dragging away a 14 year old begging for help and next we see him, he’s back out in the snow storm. The snow storm that’s been deemed a national emergency and could potentially kill people stuck out in it.  
If the show didn’t intend for us to think that Stan and Pete just chucked the poor kid out the door, than it needed to establish that Varian left of his own accord. But it doesn’t do that. So everyone is Corona just winds up looking like an bunch of asses instead. 
Rapunzel Breaking Her Promise isn’t the Point
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The show gives way too much focus on Rapunzel’s promise. Because not being able to keep a promise is understandable and something that everyone experiences. No, in truth what Rapunzel does here is much worse than that. She fails at her responsibilities as a leader, as an adult, and as a decent human being. 
Her promise to Varian doesn’t actually matter. Her friendship with Varian doesn’t actually matter. Her even knowing him doesn’t matter. 
Had Varian came to her as a stranger with this same problem and she failed to help him, she’d still be in the wrong. This is a child in need that she ignores. A subject that she is in charge of and responsible for.  
Once again, I’m not hating on Rapunzel here. I’m fine, glad even, for the protagonist to make a mistake. But the show fails to even acknowledge that what she did was a mistake to being with; hence the real problem with the character.
Let’s Talk About ‘Daddy’ and How The Creators are Full of It
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OK so there was some debate about whether or not Varian actually said the word ‘daddy’ in this scene. It was confirmed by one of the creators, Chirs, that yes, Jeremy Jordan (Varian’s VA) ad libbed this line and that the writers decided to keep it. 
Which, in of itself, is fine. This scene still hurts like hell and is the most powerfully emotionally hitting scene in the show. It’s awesome. 
The problem is the Chris’s reasoning for including the line. 
According to the creator, Varian saying the word ‘daddy’ means that’s still immature and not ready yet to know whatever secrets Quirin is keeping from him. 
OK first off, calling you father ‘daddy’ does not make you immature. What a stupid thing to say. My siblings and I are all in or 20s, 30s, and 40s, and we still call our father ‘daddy’ as well. (We’re quite spread out in ages) 
Secondly, what secrets!? We’re never told what Quirin is hiding from his son. Varian never learns the truth of any earth shattering secret that involves him. 
We get lots of behind the scenes hints that the writers prematurely cut Varian out of the plot in later seasons, despite his conflict not being resolved and the fact that he was presented as being integral to main plot.
We’re never given a real reason why Varian’s story so poorly was edited out and any excuses that the series creators, Ben and Chris, have given is nothing but that same BS as this line here and I’m going to call them out on it.   
Xavier and Monty Should Have Been Streamlined Into One Character
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Xavier is given no real introduction and yet he’s suddenly an important part of the main overarching plot. Nor do we ever get any backstory for him or insight into why he does what he does and knows what he knows. He’s just there to give exposition and that’s it. 
Meanwhile Monty is given a whole episode worth’s of introduction and insight, but then proceeds to add nothing to the series afterwards. 
Just imagine if Monty and Xavier were made into one character. Introduction, insight, plus actual story importance. As an added bonus, it would have forced Raps to deal with someone she doesn’t get along with in order to save the kingdom. Which would counterbalanced the ‘friendship saves the day’ bs of later seasons along with the idea that anyone who doesn’t kiss Rapunzel’s royal arse is a villain.
Once Again, Why Do you Know this Legends and No One Else, Xavier? 
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It’s lazy writing. You need to either set these things up beforehand or give reason for them later.
Pascal’s Story Makes Far More Sense After This Scene
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The consequence of showing things out of order is that context is lost. 
I Love the Reprise but it Gives the Game Away too Early
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The writing team can’t decide where they want Varian’s fall into villainy to start and where to have it’s ‘twist’. This is suppose to be foreshadowing, but having it then undermines the ‘surprise betrayal’ in The Alchemist Returns. Not to mention that Varian doesn’t actually do anything truly ‘villainous’ until Secret of the Sundrop anyways. 
In short this scene winds up being pointless and the insistence of having a shocking reveal later winds up being redundant. Which in turn then becomes a poor excuse for not featuring a episode dedicated to Varian’s side of the story. 
 Conclusion
I still love this episode, and I’m saddened that most of the series does not live up to this quality nor its own hype. On its own Queen for a Day is 40 mins of wonderful entertainment. As part of the an on going story it’s a bitter reminder of the disappointment to soon follow. 
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innuendostudios · 6 years ago
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The newest installment of The Alt-Right Playbook - Endnote 4: How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship - is a little different. This installment was presented live at Solidarity Lowell, and includes a bonus Q&A section. This video expands on the ideas put forth in How to Radicalize a Normie.
If you would like more videos like this to come out, please back me on Patreon.
Transcript below the cut.
He is intriguing, yet unpredictable. He demands unconditional loyalty. He seems to have an intuitive understanding of what people want to hear but no actual empathy; he treats others as simply bodies or objects. And he’s surrounded by a network of subordinates but the personnel is always changing.
Does it sound like I’m describing The President? Because these are, according to Alexandra Stein, qualities of a cult leader.
Hi. My name is Ian Danskin. I’m a video essayist and media artist. I run the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios, the flagship endeavor of which is currently The Alt-Right Playbook, a series on the political and rhetorical strategies the Alt-Right uses to legitimize itself and gain power. And, if that sounds interesting to you, and you haven’t already, please like share and subscribe.
The most recent episode of The Alt-Right Playbook is about how people get recruited into these largely online reactionary communities like the Alt-Right, a subject which, as it turns out, is real fuckin’ hard to research.
What I want to talk about with you today is how I go about studying a population that is incredibly hostile towards being studied. It involves finding the bits and pieces of the Alt-Right that we do have data on - the pockets of good research, the outsider observations, the stories of lived experience - as well as looking at older movements the Alt-Right grew out of, that have been extensively researched, and spotting the ways the Alt-Right is continuous with them, and trying to extrapolate how those structures might recreate themselves in the social media age.
So it’s… a lot. And, in the process of researching, I found a wealth of interesting perspectives that, by focusing the video on recruitment specifically, I barely dipped a toe in. All that stuff is what I’d like to get into with you today. But I’m trying to thread a needle here: you don’t need to have seen my video, How to Radicalize a Normie, to follow this talk, but, if you have seen it already, I will try not to be redundant. This talk is one part making my case for why I think the conclusions in that video are correct, one part repository for all the stuff I couldn’t get into, and one part how I’ve come to look at the Alt-Right as a result of this research, including some pet theories I wouldn’t feel right claiming as truth without further research, but I do think are on the right track.
This talk is called Isolation, Engulfment, and Pain: How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship. We’re going to cover a lot of ground, from information processing to emotional development, but we’re necessarily also going to cover racism and violence and abuse dynamics. So this is an introduction and a content warning: if some of these subjects are particularly charged for you, no offense will be taken if you at any point leave the room. I have to research this stuff for a living, and it is rough, and sometimes I have to step away. We don’t judge here.
Now. Requisite dash of self-deprecation: don’t give me too much credit for all this. I am proud of the work I do and I think I’m genuinely good at it, but much of this video was compiling the work of others. Besides research I had already done and my own observations, the video had 27 sources: three books, five research papers, six articles, one leaked document, three testimonials, four videos, four pages of statistics, and one Twitter joke. I also spoke to four professional researchers who study right-wing extremism and one former Alt-Righter.
Without all their hard work, I would have nothing to compile.
OK? Let’s begin.
We’re gonna center on those three main texts: Alt-America by David Neiwert, a history of the Alt-Right’s origins; Healing from Hate by Michael Kimmel, about how young men get into (and out of) extremist groups, be they neo-Nazi or jihadist; and Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein, about how people are courted by and kept inside cults and totalitarian regimes.
I began with Kimmel. The premise of Healing from Hate is that extremist groups tend to be between 75 and 90% male, and that you cannot understand radical conservatism without looking at it through the lens of toxic masculinity. Which makes it all the more disappointing that Kimmel has been accused by multiple women of bullying and harassment. I found the book incredibly useful, and we’re still going to talk about it, I just need to caveat here that retweets are not endorsements. Also, if I spoil the book for you then you don’t need to buy it, give your money to someone who isn’t a creep.
Kimmel’s argument is that extremism begins with a pain peculiar to young men. He calls it “aggrieved entitlement.” I call it Durden Syndrome. You know that scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden says, “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rockstars, but we won’t, we’re slowly learning that fact, and we are very, very pissed off”? Yeah, that. As men, the world promised us something, and the promise wasn’t kept.
Some men skew towards social progressivism when they realize this promise was never made to women, or men of color, or queer or trans or nonbinary people, and recognize the injustice of that. Some men skew towards economic leftism when they realize that every cishet white man being a millionaire rockstar movie god is mathematically impossible. But they skew towards reactionary conservatism when they feel the promise should have been kept. That’s the life they were supposed to have, and someone took it from them.
Hate groups appeal to that sense of emasculation. “You wanna feel like a Real Man? Shave off your hair, dance to hatecore, and let’s beat the crap out of someone.” Kimmel notes that the greatest indicator someone will join a hate group is a broken home: divorce, foster care, parents with addictions, physical or sexual abuse. The greater the distance between the life they were promised and the life they are living, the more enticing Real Masculinity becomes. Their fellow extremists are brothers, the leaders father figures.
The group does give them someone to blame for their lot in life - immigrants, feminists, the Jewish conspiracy - but that’s not why they join. They’re after empowerment. According to Kimmel, “Their embrace of neo-Nazi ideology is a consequence of their recruitment and indoctrination process, not its cause."
But once an Other has been identified as the locus of a hate group’s hate, new recruits are brought along when the group terrorizes that Other. Events like cross burnings and street fights are dangerous and morally fraught, and are often traumatic for a new recruit. And experiencing an emotional or physical trauma can create an intense bond with the people experiencing it with him, even though they’re the ones who brought him to the traumatic event in the first place. The creation of this bond is one of the reasons some hate groups usher new recruits out into the field as early as possible: the sooner they are emotionally invested in the community, the faster they will embrace the community’s politics.
This Othering also estranges recruits from the people they are supposed to hate, which makes it hard to stop hating them.
So there’s this concept that comes up a lot in my research called Contact Hypothesis. Contact Hypothesis argues that, the more contact you have with a different walk of life, the easier it is to tolerate it. It’s like exposure therapy. We talk about how big cities and college campuses tend to be liberal strongholds; the Right likes to claim this is because of professors and politicians poisoning your mind, but it’s really just because they’re diverse. When you share space with a lot of different kinds of people, a degree of liberalism becomes necessary just to get by. And we see that belief systems which rely on a strict orthodoxy get really cagey about members having contact with outsiders. We see this in all the groups we’re discussing today - extremists, cultists, totalitarians - but also religious fundamentalists; Mormons only wanna send their kids to Brigham Young. They are belief systems that can only be reliably maintained so long as no one gets exposed to other people with other beliefs.
So that’s some of what I took from Kimmel. Next I read Stein talking, primarily, about cults.
Stein’s window into all of this is applying the theory of Attachment Styles to what researchers calls totalism, which is any structure that subsumes a person’s entire life the way cults and totalitarian governments do. Attachment is a concept you may be familiar with if have, or have ever dated, a therapist. (I’ve done both.)
So, for a quick primer:
Imagine you’re walking in the park with a three-year-old. And the three-year-old sees a dog, and ask, “Can I pet the dog?” And you say yes, and the kid steps away from your side and reaches out. And the dog gets excited, and jumps up, and the kid gets scared and runs back to you. So you hold the kid and go, “Oh, no no no, don’t worry! They’re not gonna hurt you! They were just happy to see you!” And you take a few moments to calm the kid down, and then you ask, “Do you still want to pet the dog?” And the kid says “yes,” so they step away from you again and reach out. The dog jumps up again, but this time the kid doesn’t run away, and they pet the dog, and you, the kid, and the dog are all happy. Hooray!
This is a fundamental piece of a child’s emotional development. They take a risk, have a negative experience, and retreat to a point of comfort. Then, having received that comfort, feel bolstered enough to take a slightly greater risk. A healthy childhood is steadily venturing further and further from that point of comfort, and taking on greater risks, secure in the knowledge that safety is there when they need it. And, as an adult, they will form many interdependent points of comfort rather than relying on only one or two.
If all goes according to plan, that is Secure Attachment. But: sometimes things go wrong when the kid seeks comfort and doesn’t get enough. This may be because the adult is withholding or the kid doesn’t know how to express their needs or they’re just particularly fearful. But the kid may start seeking comfort more than seems reasonable, and be particularly averse to risk, and over-focus on the people who give them comfort, because they’re operating at a deficit. We call that Anxious Attachment. Alternately, the kid may give up on receiving comfort altogether, even though they still need it, and just go it alone, developing a distrust of other people and a fear of being vulnerable. We call that Avoidant Attachment.
Now, these styles are all formed in early childhood, but Stein focuses on a fourth kind of Attachment, one that can be formed at any age regardless of the Attachment Style you came in with. It’s what happens when the negative experience and the comfort come from the same place. We see it in children and adults who are mistreated by the people they trust. It’s called Disorganized Attachment.
According to Stein, cults foster Disorganized Attachment by being intensely unpredictable. In a cult, you may be praised for your commitment on Monday and have your commitment questioned on Tuesday, with no change in behavior. You may be assigned a romantic partner, who may, at any point, be taken away, assigned to someone else. Your children may be taken from you to be raised by a different family. You may be told the cult leader wants to sleep with you, which may make you incredibly happy or be terrifying, but you won’t be given a choice. And the rules you are expected to follow will be rewritten without warning.
This creates a kind of emotional chaos, where you can’t predict when you will be given good feelings and when you will be given bad ones. But you’re so enmeshed in the community you have noplace else to go for good feelings; hurting you just draws you in deeper, because they are also where you seek comfort. And your pain is always your fault: you wouldn’t feel so shitty if you were more committed. Trying to make sense of this causes so much confusion and anguish that you eventually just stop thinking for yourself. These are the rules now? OK. He’s not my brother anymore? OK. This is my life now? OK.
Hardly anyone would seek out such a dynamic, which is why cults present as religions, political activists, and therapy groups; things people in questioning phases of their lives are liable to seek out, and then they fall down the rabbit hole before they know what’s happening. The cult slowly consumes more and more of a recruit’s life, and tightly controls access to relationships outside the cult, because the biggest threat to a Disorganized Attachment relationship is having separate, Securely Attached points of comfort.
And at this point I said, “Hold up. You’re telling me cults recruit by offering people community and purpose in times of need, become the focal point of their entire lives, estrange them from all outside perspectives, and then cause emotional distress that paradoxically makes them more committed because they have nowhere else to go for support?”
Isn’t that exactly how Kimmel described joining a hate group?
Now, these are commonalities, not a one-to-one comparison. A cult is far more organized and rigidly controlled than a hate group. But Stein points out that this dynamic of isolation, engulfment, and pain is the same dynamic as an abusive relationship. The difference is just scale. A cult is functionally a single person having a very complex domestic abuse situation with a whole lot of people, #badpolyamory.
So if we posit a spectrum with domestic abuse on one end and cults and totalitarianism on the other, I started wondering, could we put extremist groups, like ISIS and Aryan Nations, around… here?
And, if so, where would we put the Alt-Right?
Now, I have to tread carefully here. There are reasons this talk is called “How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship” and not “How the Alt-Right is Like a Cult,” because the moment you say the second thing, a lot of people stop listening to you. Our conception of cults and totalitarianism is way more controlled and structured than a pack of loud, racist assholes on the internet. But we’re not talking about organizational structure, we’re talking about a relationship, an emotional dynamic Stein calls “anxious dependency,” which fosters an irrational loyalty to people who are bad for you and gets you to adopt an ideology you would have previously rejected. (I would also love to go on a rant puncturing the idea that cultists and fascists are organized, pointing out this notion is propaganda and their systems are notoriously corrupt and mismanaged, but we don’t have time; ask me about it in the Q&A if you want me to go off.)
So I started looking through what I knew, and what I could find, about the Alt-Right to see if I could spot this same pattern of isolation, engulfment, and pain online funneling people towards the Alt-Right. And I did not come up short.
Isolation? Well, the Alt-Right traffics in all the same dehumanizing narratives about their enemies as Kimmel’s hate groups - like, the worst things you can imagine a human being saying about a group of people are said every day in these forums. They often berate and harass each other for any perceived sympathy towards The Other Side. They also regularly harass people from The Other Side off of platforms, and falsely report their tweets, posts, and videos as terrorism to get them taken down. (This has happened to me, incidentally.) I found figureheads adored by the Alt-Right who expressly tell people to cut ties with liberal family members.
We talked before about Contact Hypothesis? There’s also this idea called Parasocial Contact Hypothesis. A parasocial relationship is a strong emotional connection that only goes one way, like if you really love my videos and have started thinking of me almost as a friend even though I don’t know you exist? Yeah. Parasocial relationship. They’ve been in The Discourse lately, largely thanks to my friend Shannon Strucci making a really great video about them (check it out, I make a cameo, but… clear your schedule). Parasocial Contact Hypothesis is this phenomenon where, if people form parasocial feelings for public figures or even fictional characters, and those people happen to be Black, white audience members become less racist similar to how they would if they had Black friends. Your logical brain knows that these are strangers, but your lizard brain doesn’t know the difference between empathy for a queer friend and empathy for a queer character in a video game. So of course the Alt-Right makes a big stink about queer characters in video games, and leads boycotts against “forced diversity,” because diverse media is bad for recruitment.
Engulfment? Well, I learned way too much about how the Alt-Right will overtake your entire internet life. There was a paper made the rounds last year by Rebecca Lewis charting the interconnectedness of conservative YouTube. (Reactionaries really hated this paper because it said things they didn’t like.) Lewis argues that, once you enter what she calls the Alternative Influence Network, it tends to keep you inside it. Start with some YouTuber conservatives like but who’s branded as a moderate, or even a “classic liberal.” Take someone like Dave Rubin; call Dave Rubin Alt-Right, people yell at you, I speak from experience. Well, Dave Rubin’s had Jordan Peterson on his show, so, if you watch Rubin, Peterson ends up in your recommendations. Peterson has been on the Joe Rogan show, so, you watch Peterson, Rogan ends up in your recommendations. And Rogan has interviewed Gavin McInnes, so you watch Rogan and McInnes ends up in your recommendations.
Gavin McInnes is the head of the Proud Boys, a self-described “western chauvinist” organization that’s mostly known for beating up liberals and leftists. They have ties to neo-fascist groups like Identity Evropa and neo-fascist militias like the Oath Keepers, they run security for white nationalists, and their lawyer just went on record that he identifies as a fascist. And, if you’re one of these kids who has YouTube in the background with autoplay on, and you’re watching Dave Rubin? You might be as few as 3 videos away from watching Gavin McInnes.
There’s a lot of talk these days about algorithms funneling people towards the Right, and that’s not wrong, but it’s an oversimplification. The real problem is that the Right knows how to hijack an algorithm.
I also learned about the Curation/Search Radicalization Spiral from a piece by Mike Caulfield. Caulfiend uses the horrific example of Dylann Roof. You remember him? He shot up a church in a Black neighborhood a few years ago. Roof says he was radicalized when he googled “Black on white crime” and saw the results. Now, if you search the phrase “crime statistics by demographic,” you will find fairly nonpartisan results that show most crimes are committed against members of the perpetrator’s own race, and Black people commit crimes against white people at about the same rate as any other two demographics. But that specific phrase, “Black on white crime,” is used almost exclusively by white racists, and so Roof’s first hit wasn’t a database of crime statistics, it was the Council of Conservative Citizens. Now, the CCC is an outgrowth of the White Citizens Councils of the 50’s and 60’s which rebranded in ‘85. They publish bogus statistics that paint Black people as uniquely violent. And they introduce a number of other politically-loaded phrases - like, say, “Muslim fertility rates” - that nonpartisan sites don’t use, and so, if Roof googles them as well, he gets similarly weighted results.
I have tons more examples of this stuff. I literally don’t have time to show it all. Like, have you heard of Google bombing? That’s a thing I didn’t know existed. The point is, the same way search engines tailor your results to what they think you want, once you scratch the surface of the Alt-Right they are highly adept at making it so, whenever you go online, their version of reality is all you know and all you see.
Finally, pain. This was the difficult one. Can you create a Disorganized Attachment relationship over the internet with a largely faceless and decentralized movement? I pitched the idea to one the researchers I spoke to, and he said, “That sounds very plausible, and nearly impossible to research.” See, cults and hate groups? They don’t wanna talk to researchers anymore than the Alt-Right wants to talk to me. Stein and Kimmel get their data by speaking to formers, people who’ve exited these movements and are all too happy to share how horrible they were. But the Alt-Right is still very young, and there just aren’t that many formers yet.
I found some testimonials, and they mostly back up my hypothesis, but there’s not enough that I could call them statistically significant. So I had to look where the data was.
My fellow YouTuber ContraPoints made a video last year - in my opinion, her best one - about incels (that’s “involuntary celibate,” men who can’t get laid). Incel forums tend to be deeply misogynistic and antifeminist, and have a high overlap with the Alt-Right. If you remember Elliot Rodger, he was an incel. Contra’s observation was that these forums were incredibly fatalistic: you are too ugly and women too shallow for you to ever have sex, so you should give up. She described a certain catharsis, like picking a really painful scab, in hearing other people voice your worst fears. But there was no uplift; these communities seemed to have a zero-tolerance policy for optimism. She likened it so some deeply unhealthy trans forums she used to visit, where people wallowed in their own dysphoria.
And I remembered the forums I researched five years ago in preparation for my video on GamerGate. (If you don’t know what GamerGate was, I will not rob you of your precious innocence. But, in a lot of ways, GamerGate was the trial run for what the Alt-Right has become.) These forums were full of angry guys surrounding themselves with people saying, “You’re right to be angry.” And, yeah, if everywhere else you go treats your anger as invalid, that scratches an itch. But I never saw any of them calm down. They came in angry and they came out angrier. And most didn’t have anywhere else to vent, so they all came back.
I found a paper on Alt-Right forums that described a similar type of nihilism, and another on 8chan. What humor was on these sites was always shocking, furiously punching down, and deeply self-referential, but it didn’t seem like anyone was expected to laugh anymore, just, you know, catch the reference. I found one testimonial saying that having healthy relationships in these spaces is functionally impossible, and the one former I talked to said, yeah, when the Alt-Right isn’t winning everyone’s miserable.
So I think it might fit. The place they go for relief also makes them unhappy, so they come back to get relief again, and it just repeats. Same reason people stay with abusers. I wanna look into this further, so, I’ll just say this part to the camera: if there are any researchers watching who wanna study this, get at me.
Finally, I read Alt-America by David Neiwert, a supremely useful book that I highly recommend if you wanna know how the Alt-Right is the natural outgrowth of the militia and Patriot movements of the 90’s and early 2000’s, not to mention the Tea Party. Neiwert also does an excellent job illustrating how conspiracism serves to fill in the gap between the complexity of the modern world and the simplistic, might-makes-right worldview of fascism.
Neiwert also provides an interesting piece of the puzzle, suggesting what people are actually looking for when they get recruited. He references work done by John Bargh and Katelyn McKenna on Identity Demarginalization. Bargh and McKenna looked at the internet habits of people whose identities are both devalued in our society and invisible. By invisible, what I mean is, ok, if you’re a person of color, our society devalues your identity, but you can look around a room and, within a certain margin of error, see who else is POC, and form community with them if you wish. But, if you’re queer, you can’t see who else in a room is queer unless one of you runs up a flag. And revealing yourself always means taking on a certain amount of risk that you’ve misread the signals, that the person you reveal yourself to is not only not queer, but a homophobe.
According to Bargh and McKenna, people in this situation are much more likely to seek online spaces that self-select for that identity. A fan forum for RuPaul’s Drag Race is maybe a safer place to come out and find community. And people tend to get very emotionally tied to these online spaces where they can be themselves.
Neiwert points out that the same phenomenon happens among privileged people who have identities that are devalued even as they’re not actually oppressed. Say, nerds, or conservatives in liberal towns, or men who don’t fit traditional notions of masculinity. They are also likely to deeply invest themselves in online spaces made for them. And if the Far Right can build such a community, or get a foothold in one that already exists, it is very easy to channel that sense of marginalization into Durden Syndrome. I connected this with Rebecca Lewis’ observation that the Alternative Influence Network tends to present itself as nerd-focused life advice first and politics second, and the long history of reactionaries recruiting from fandoms.
So I can see all the pieces of the abuse dynamic being recreated here: offer you something you need, estrange you from other perspectives and healthy relationships, overtake your life, and provoke emotional distress that makes you seek comfort only your abuser is offering. And I found a lot more parallels than what I’m sharing right now, I only have half an hour! But the thing that’s missing that’s usually central to such a system is, an abusive relationship orbits around the abuser, a cult around the cult leader, a totalitarian government around a dictator. They are built to serve the whims of an individual. But I look at the ad hoc nature of the Alt-Right and I have to ask: who is the architect?
I can see a lot of people profiting off of this structure; our current President rode it to great success, but he didn’t build it. It predates him. It’s more like Kimmel’s hate groups, which don’t promote an individual so much as a class of individuals, but, even then, their structure is much more deliberate, designed, where the Alt-Right seems almost improvised.
Well… one observation I took from Stein is that cult recruiters often rely on two different kinds of propaganda: the winding diatribe and the thought-terminating cliche. The diatribe is when someone talks at length, sounds smart, and seems to know what they’re talking about but isn’t actually making sense, and the thought-terminating cliche comes from Robert Jay Lifton’s studies into brainwashing. So, I went vegetarian in middle school, and, when I would tell other kids I was vegetarian, some would get kind of defensive and say things like, “humans aren’t meant to be vegetarian, it’s the food chain.” Now, saying “it’s the food chain” isn’t meant to be a good argument, it’s meant to communicate “I have said something so axiomatically true that the argument need not continue.” That’s a thought-terminating cliche; something that may not be true, but feels true and gives you permission to think about something else.
Both these techniques rely on what’s called Peripheral-Route Processing. So, I’m up here talking about politics, and, Solidarity Lowell, you are a group of politically-engaged people, so you probably have enough context to know whether I’m talking out of my ass. That’s Direct-Route Processing, where you judge the contents of my argument. But if I were up here talking about string theory, you might not know whether I was talking out of my ass because there’s only so many people on Earth who understand string theory. So then you might look at secondary characteristics of my argument: the fact that I’ve been invited to speak on string theory implies I know what I’m talking about; maybe I put up a lot of equations and drop the names of mathematicians and say they agree with me; maybe I just sound really authoritative. All that’s Peripheral-Route Processing: judging the quality of my argument by how it’s delivered.
Every act of communication involves both, but if you’re trying to sell people on something that’s fundamentally irrational, you’re going to rely heavily on Peripheral-Route tactics, which is what the winding diatribe and the thought-terminating cliche are.
I noted that these two methods mapped pretty cleanly onto the rhetorical stylings of Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro. But here’s the question: cults use these techniques to recruit people. But can I say with any confidence that Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are trying to recruit people into the Alt-Right?
The thing is, “Alt-Right” isn’t a term like “klansman.” It’s more akin to a term like “modernism.” It’s a label applied to a trend. In the same way we debate the line between modernism and postmodernism, we debate the line between Right and Alt-Right. People don’t sign up to be in the Alt-Right, you are Alt-Right if you say you’re Alt-Right. But the nature of the Alt-Right is that 90% of them would never admit to it.
So are Peterson and Shapiro intentionally recruiting for the Alt-Right? Are they grifters merely profiting off of the Alt-Right? Are they even aware they’re recruiting for the Alt-Right? Part of my work has been accepting that you can’t know for sure. It would be naive to say they’re unaware; when they give speeches they get Nazis in their Q&A sections, and they know that. But how aware are they? I suspect Shapiro moreso than Peterson, but that’s just my gut talking and I can’t prove it. Like 90% of the Alt-Right, it’s debatable.
I don’t know if they’re trying to be part of this system, I just know they’re not trying not to be.
A final academic term before we say goodnight that’s been making the rounds among lefty YouTubers is “Stochastic Terrorism.” There’s a really great video about this by the channel NonCompete called The PewDiePipeline. Stochastic Terrorism is the myriad ways you can increase the likelihood that someone will commit violence without actually telling them to. You simply create an environment in which lone wolf violence becomes more acceptable and appealing. It mirrors the structure of terrorism without the control or culpability.
And I hear about this, and I look at this recruitment structure I see approximated in the Alt-Right, and I remember something I learned much earlier in my research, from Bob Altemeyer in his book The Authoritarians. Altemeyer has been studying authoritarianism for decades, he has a wealth of data, and one thing he observes is that authoritarianism is the few exerting power over the many, which means there are two types of authoritarians: the ones who lead and the ones who follow. Turns out those are completely different personality profiles. Followers don’t want to be in charge, they want someone to tell them what to do, to say “you’re the good guys,” and put them in charge of punishing the bad guys. They don’t even care who the bad guys are; part of the appeal is that someone else makes that judgment for them.
So if you can encourage a degree of authoritarian sentiment in people, get them wanting nothing more than to be ensconced in a totalist system that will take their agency away from them, putting them in the orbit of an authoritarian leader, but no leader presents themself… can you just kind of… appoint one?
Like, if you don’t have a leader, can you just find yourself an authoritarian and treat him like one? And, if he doesn’t give you enough directives, can you just make some up? And, if you don’t have recruiters, can you find a conservative who speaks in thought-terminating cliches just because he thinks they win arguments; find a conservative who speaks in meaningless diatribes because he thinks he’s making sense; and then maneuver those speeches and videos in front of people you want to recruit? If you’re sick of waiting for Moses to come down the mountain with the Word of God, can you just build your own god from whatever’s handy?
Every piece of this structure, you can find people, algorithms, and arguments that, put in sequence, can generate Disorganized Attachment whether they’re trying to or not, which makes every part plausibly deniable. Debatable. You just need to make it profitable enough for the ones involved that they don’t fix it. This is a system created collaboratively, on the fly, with the help of a lot of people from hate movements past, mostly by throwing a ton of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. The Alt-Right is a rapidly-mutating virus and the web is the perfect incubator; it very quickly finds a structure that works, and it’s a structure we’ve seen before, just a little weirder this time.
I’ve started calling this Stochastic Totalism.
Now, again, I’m not a professional researcher; I do my homework but I don’t have the background. I have an art degree. This isn’t something I can prove so much as a way I’ve come to look at the Alt-Right that makes sense to me and helps me understand them. And I got a lot of comments on my last video from people who used to be Alt-Right that echoed my assumptions. But don’t take it as gospel.
Mostly I wanted to share this because, if it can help you make sense of what we’re dealing with, I think it’s worth putting out there.
Thank you.
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geikee · 5 years ago
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A Story of Dakota and Cavendish and the adulthood on Milo’s S2
They are the best part of the show and I have to admit, since I met them, Milo’s main adventures stepped aside in my brain.
So I watched Milo Murphy’s Law first episodes on Disney XD, and fell in love. The weirdness, the creativity, the unexpected, how things could always and would always get crazier, just like P&F but in it’s own, wholesome, chaotic way.
Then I recall meeting the best anacronical dynamic duo, and fell in love a little more.
But then... I saw the Dakota Island. And shit got serious.
I mean, I would have NEVER expected this kIDs sHoW to show (redundance) real, explicit deaths, no falling into the mist and assuming their demise but ACTUAL EXPLICITLY MENTIONED DEATHS
DUDE WHAT
Even if it was for laughs, they were there, and Dakota would hurt every time it happened. And they showed it to me, a show that untill then had been mumbling about random super charismatic craziness and some time travel here and there. It’s as if in Phineas and Ferb Buford’s family had economical problems and Balgeet used his genious to work extremely hard and send anonymous donations every time they were too desperate to not accept them.
AND GRIEVE. They showed me Dak’s pain, as much as he was used to it. He would be sad, he would go back in time, he would spend the rest of his life imprisoned in an island the next time Cav died, rather than trying to move on with a normal life after his death. Even if it’s played for laughs some times, shit were serious.
They became what my main motivation to keep watching the series, although Milo’s adventures would always charm me in the way.
Actually, it was Dakota plus time travel
I’ve got to say that most of the time I felt like Cavendish didn’t deserve him. I mean, he seemed to look down on him all the time, pretending to teach him lessons about the right way of doing things and calling him selfish, while Dak acted clearly much more maturely in critical situations and had more common sense, as seen with the Counter-Agent Milo situation and the first time Milo went missing.
But here’s the thing: it is more recyprocal than it seemed.
I realized it in S2. Which is surprising because it was especially during that season that Cav became obsessed with saving the world and Dak was at his peak of maturity and down-to-earthness (the I could fix things but not anymore conversation was so strong). Then Cav left, and we see a very depressed Dak who is restlessly trying to find Cavendish, hurt because of the abandonment but missing him so much.
There he explains why Cav is so precious to him: he is the one that takes him through “less self-destructive” ways, helps him take care of himself. Cav fixes his messes and has a lot of patience with him (dear vinni is not the easiest person to have around either) (the toddler incident for example). Cav is, above all, kind and considerate, being the well-being of others his top priority when the situation demands it (though less assertively than Dakota) and valuing and respecting those who do the same (which was actually why their friendship was born). In this line, he really respects Dakota.
All of this without mentioning the 7 years that they have been together (since when Milo and Melissa were 6 to the present, though I think it would depend on.. more things). They are so used to have each other around, and it works.
I just finished watching the second season. The show grew, grew a lot, maybe too much for it’s audience. The Doof’s situation, Dak&Cav’s friendship, men having men problems (as you could call them in that universe). And I have to say, despite the fact that Doof’s episodes could get a little boring or even annoying, I loved that. But this post is about the anachronical duo, Doof can come later.
*Just to clarify: by men I mean adults who all happen to be men.
Men having men problems:
Dak & Cav losing their job, starting to work on something that wouldn’t allow them to something that they were so used to already: the possibility of going back and fixing things. If one of them died or messed up, there was no going back.
Cavendish having a crisis, feeling he is not doing what he is capable to achieve, frustrated by the intranscendence of his current doings. Dakota seeing him like that, worried about risking their stability, since it was him the one that the lack of time travelling had hit the hardest (because of the island situation, and probably most of his recklessness when breaking regulations came from knowing that he or Cav could go back and fix things if he messed up too hard).
Cavendish frustration before possibility of a more transcendental path, the unsuccesful result of doing it by a safe way (through his boss, which would have guaranteed stability), his consequential and vehement desire for doing things outside the rules just like his partner used to enjoy, the renewed frustration before the reluctance of that very same partner to take the risk, and his putting Dakota’s safety and stability above all by not letting him know where he was going so Dak wouldn’t follow him and risk losing his job.
Dakota’s feeling of abandonment and lonliness
It was beautiful
I loved all of that, and as I said in another post, it saddened me that they didn’t try that kind of development with the 13yo. That is such a complicated age, growth guaranteed for everyone. I’m not asking for the series to become a teen drama, nor I’m asking anything at all. I would just have enjoyed a little more if the teens had had experiences like those, since we were doing it with the adults already. Maybe they wanted to keep it light for kids and heavy for grown-ups? I don’t know.
Let’s just pray and scream for a new season, and a new chance to see those teens grow (or not, no problem) and, of course, new crazy adventures of Milo and his people.
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unordinary-analysis · 5 years ago
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Episode 173
Honorable Mentions:
PSA (I keep repeating in every recent post sorry) this greatly relies upon things I’ve said in previous episode analyses especially for episode 167 where I go most in depth about John and his inner battles (his fake personality vs. his old one). (seach “#episode 167” on my page). My recent post “John’s “fake” self,” though kind of extreme, is good too but please read the reprise I just posted on that.
Finally I’ve been able to create a concept that holds up both in my mind and in the story and that I find myself sticking to, and then this whole issue of having to explain it every post appears…
This comes off as annoying self-promotion and I’m aware of that, but I just really value reader comprehension uishiuskjh
When I refer to John’s “fake” self/side, I don’t mean it’s actually completely false, it’s just easier to differentiate his two sides that way. One side is John’s dominant nature, his “evil” side (I call this “dark, evil, and true” side) and the other side is John’s “good” side (I call this “fake, false, fabricated” to emphasize the idea that it’s “borrowed” in a way/not really ‘from John himself.’ I explain this a lot in the actual post though lmao im kinda redundant
Do new people even read my posts? I feel like they’re too bulky for a new follower to commit to reading… lmao. If so, this post really isn’t helping 
John asking Sera why she didn't take him for a drink or on a walk to talk to him like they haven’t been avoiding each other for like a month sends. When even is the last time you got drinks with Sera, John.
Sera keeps bringing up stuff for the first time in the comic and its great
How thick are these school’s walls istg it’s like every other episode that one of the characters is yelling at another in one of these classrooms smh
I recently had the thought to go back to watch the progression of the ratio of John’s text bubbles changing from white to black in each episode as a sort of scale/timeline of how John’s dark side is overpowering his good one. But then I didn’t…
I want to talk about Sera’s mention of UnOrdinary the book so much, but this is too long and I don’t know what I would say
Word choice is hard :(
Lot of redundancy in this one that's what I get for going in chronological order
Favorite words of the day apparently: “obviously, “we’ll get to that later”, and further”
This doesn’t have a title because instead of breaking this into multiple sections like I normally would, this episode is only one scene plus the things I want to talk about are kind of intertwined. So you get this mega post.
    I actually wasn’t too keen on the confrontation being limited to a single episode because usually I feel, it seems very crammed to read and just usually doesn’t resonate, but I thought this episode was actually amazing. I was so well entertained throughout and the conversation didn’t just “happen” you know? That was probably because the episode was a little longer than it normally would be, at least I think it was. It felt like it.
    Anyways, this is still in chronological order, so let’s start at the beginning.
    The first thing I want to talk about is how this episode starts off. John and Seraphina are alone in a room together, and John has on his wide, innocent (, fake) smile. And I know that was kind of expected due to him still trying to sell the whole harmless cripple thing to Seraphina, but it really struck me right off the bat because of much it stood out to me (love the repetition). John’s fake personality has been in use less and less in the comic recently because he hasn’t been interacting with Sera as much who really is the last person that he puts it on for anymore. This absence of John’s false innocence has dissolved my immunity to it and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m recognizing just how different the two sides of John are. When I would see it every chapter, I got used to it and became numb to the constant switches back and forth by John, but the heavy focus put on his more darker side recently has changed that.
    This can also be taken into the context of that slow progression from the fake John to the old John that I’ve been talking about since my analysis for episode 161. Like I said, before I was used to both of John’s faces, and the fact that we have seen so little of his fake persona recently alludes to the thought that, just like it reflects on screen, there is less and less of that side to John left. Brief disclaimer: this sounds kind of dumb if you don’t understand my context. I have been in this continuous explanation of John’s two sides (fake personality that I just talked about and true personality shown recently by Joker and previously by New Bostin John) being in an ongoing battle with one another, a battle that is very much so one-sided as it is already established that the real John will win because John’s anchors to his fake side are slowly disappearing. That probably made some sense if you’ve never read one of my posts before, but if you don’t understand me even a little, please look at the honorable mentions. It is important to everything I talk about in this episode.
    Anway, like I said, this is the first thing in this episode that points to this concept, and we’re only on like the third panel. 
    Something else that we get teased for in the beginning of the episode is John still putting effort into displaying this fake persona because in this episode, Seraphina does not even once smile back at him or display anything warmer than a deadpan expression (maybe later, but not right now). His immediate reaction is to still act so cheery and motivated. I will be honest though, this is only for a while though because he does start to show frustration and similar emotions while still trying to keep Seraphina believing in his created self, but more on that later. Anyway, the main idea this is hinting at is that John is clinging to his false personality as best he can and the easiest way to do that is through extremity. By showing more negative emotions, he is risking accidently slipping out of character, which would not only lose Sera (makes sense now, but will make more sense later), but also something else, which is why his go to with Sera is that over the top smile, that wouldn’t be naturally appropriate for a serious conversation that is obviously about to happen. More on that later too. 
    More recently, I made a post about what I refer to as John’s “fake” self, and I explain there how Seraphina is an anchor and draw of goodness for John. Him trying his best to put that goodness forward and project it onto her in not only this episode, but every episode, really shows how much he relies upon her because, as I said a bit ago, she is the only person he really does this for. When John is with Seraphina, he tries to get the most out of the person he’s forced to become. 
    This chronological order is already getting on my nerves, sorry about that. This might be a hard post to follow.  Anyway, if you take two of the ideas I talked about in the previous paragraphs and put them together, they connect into the next thing I want to say. My statements “there is less and less of that[fake] side to John left” and “John is clinging to his false personality as best he can” lead into my next point, which is supported by the first outburst of the episode (there’s a lot). And I’ve  also said this in previous posts. John doesn’t want to be overcome by his evil, past self. John doesn’t want to lose the person he created to hide behind, his fake self, because once that image of himself is shattered (haha get it) the only person left is John’s true, hidden self. All we will have left is the dark side of John. Obviously because John created this fake personality for himself, he doesn’t like the person he really is and attempted to overcome it, defeat it. But his attempt is experiencing exponential failure (for reasons I’ve kind of said before and will explain in this post) and his dark side is corrupting him again, slowly but surely taking over. Again, I repeat, John does not want this. John is scared of himself. This is one of the reasons why, whenever he can, John takes the opportunity to deny the progression being made by his evil side. This is why, when Seraphina tells him that she knows John is Joker and there’s basically nothing he can say to make her not believe that, John says, “How many times do I have to say it? I’m not Joker!” This internal refusal to accept that he is Joker (evil) is what I was referring to literally a second ago when I said that by slipping out of his fake personality, John would be losing Sera, but also something else (I swear I thought it would take me longer to get to this). That “something else” would be his belief that there is any good in him at all. Let me explain. Because dark John’s takeover is inevitable and we can recognize that he makes up most of John’s mind currently, if John switches to his dark side now, it would basically represent the defeat of his fabricated (“good”) self. A quote of mine from my analysis from episode 161 is, “By denying that Joker is himself, John is in part saying that Joker isn’t the only thing that makes up John.” The moment John stops denying that he is Joker to himself, he admits that he is wholly evil, and you’ll have to wait a second for a full explanation on this. In John’s mind, his two sides are very black and white: his past self (evilness) and his new one, (goodness). This is exemplified in his previous flashbacks to New Bostin and their contrast to his daily life. The colors used, the words used. Very good vs. evil, hero vs. villain. And it’s meant to be. It’s one or the other. Anyway, as long as John denies that he is fully old John, fully evil John, he is saying that there has to be some left of the other side (good) in him. (usually it isn’t this black and white but I hope I literally just explained how he sees it as so. For John, it really is one or the other). 
    A very important aspect of this whole thing, this whole denial, however, is actually in who he’s with. Seraphina’s presence in this scene is very influential, as I’m trying to stress. Her image, to John, is a symbol of his goodness, which I’ve said earlier in this post (briefly), but first in my analysis for episode 161, and even more so in my recent post “John’s “Fake” Self.” John draws his “good” (what I refer to as “fake”) side Seraphina because he doesn’t want to risk trying to get it from himself (because he’s scared of himself). Anyway, I said in the beginning of this post that by showing his evil side to Seraphina, he would lose her. And beyond the obvious, which is that she would hate him for it and leave, there’s also the reason that because Sera is where John tends to get his goodness from, by showing her his evil self, by admitting he is joker (what I talked about more recently), John would be exposing himself as completely evil (already explained this line of thinking). This would mean he doesn’t have any goodness (aka Sera) in him, or that Sera would have somehow lost her own goodness as well, which is something that I just thought of, so I’m not sure if I’ll expand. I’m still thinking. Anyway, John doesn’t want to fully be evil, or at least doesn’t want Sera to know, which is why this all has a more symbolic meaning. And why this episode is so polarizing for John. This is a confrontation between what he considers his goodness and what he considers his evilness.
    Next in the episode, when John says a second later, “Hello? It’s me, John! I’m a cripple! I don’t have an ability! I like going out for drinks, and hanging out on the roof, and exercising, and playing games! Sure, I act like a smart-ass and it gets me in trouble sometimes…! But have you seen the kind of shit Joker has done? That’s not me,” this supports my statements that John is clinging to his fake self, that he does view his Joker side as his “evil” side (old statement, but confirmation is nice), and that he will keep denying himself as Joker to not become him fully. 
    Anyway, the next thing really shown in this episode is when John grabs Seraphina and begs for her to believe him. Specifically he says, “Everyone else can think I’m shit. But you have to believe in me! PLEASE!” Another nod to his obsession with Seraphina and my concept of her as the source of his good. This is just kind of repeating what I’ve already said, just in a very extreme and eye-catching way so I wanted to say something about it.
    This back and forth that the chronological order is putting me in is not it.
    Now we get to the part where Seraphina validates me :). John finishes his plea to her with, “I’m not Joker. I’m not a monster, okay?” To which Sera responds (in her head), “”Monster”? Why is he acting like this? Is he really still trying to convince me? Or… Is he trying to convince himself?” This is the first time an UnOrdinary character has brought this idea up. Sera is probably the only character to have been in such a situation with John, though. Anyway, the concept that John is trying to convince himself of his own goodness has largely only been used in my own episode analyses rather than the actual comic (lol). I’ve already talked about it in this post, but it’s been a common theme for me throughout my last 10 posts or so.  Seraphina thinking this same thing herself confirms the importance of the idea. John’s denial of himself as Joker is just as much for his sake as it is for Sera’s, likely even more. I said all of this up above when I talked specifically about his denial of himself as Joker, but the direct confirmation from the comic made me happy.
    When Seraphina tells John that she knows about what happened at New Bostin, it’s significance is more grounded than these mind games I’ve been talking about up until now, thank god. I can never tell when I go too far… This can still be taken into that context, but I want to talk about a different aspect, because I would just be repeating myself from earlier if we talked about all that again. Anyway, when Seraphina says, “John, I already know everything… New Bostin, your expulsion, how you’re secretly a high-tier... “ John has a very extreme reaction, instantly throwing himself back into those flashbacks to New Bostin. He sees himself as the monster he was then now paired with the knowledge that Seraphina knows all about it too. 
    The aspect of the story I want to talk about is one of my favorites :D. Parallels! The parallels between John’s past and his present are absolutely phenomenal and I love them. And they’ve been growing a lot more ‘in your face’ as of the more recent episodes. Some examples are when John and Seraphina fought off that fake joker in the hall that one time and also that one scene between Cecile and John where John got all pissed off at Seraphina. That probably made no sense to you, but I talk about it a lot in my analyses for episodes 161 and 167 so….. I don’t know what to tell you lol. Anyways, with my analyses, I’ve been pushing the concept that John is becoming more and more unable to differentiate both events and people from his past and his present. My main evidence for this is that John’s flashbacks have been pairing up with details from the current storylines. In my analysis for episode 167, I say, “John’s flashbacks are making it so that John cannot separate the present from the past. He cannot exist at Wellston without his subconscious relating everything that is happening to what happened to John at New Bostin.” I also talk about what this means for his relationships with the other characters who go to school with him currently, especially Seraphina. Here are two quotes that are, again, both from my analysis of episode 167: “This episode’s flashbacks to Claire and situations revolving around her and the comparison to current events revolving around Seraphina, and especially the outburst by John at her; they all suggest that John doesn’t see Seraphina as her own person anymore, maybe that he never has.”... “It’s become clear that John is, currently at least, viewing Seraphina as another Claire.” My whole support of this is because of Seraphina resembling Claire in the events of episode 161 cueing John’s flashbacks of her, but more importantly (at the moment): how John, when told about Sera and Arlo meeting behind his back, has automatic flashbacks to Claire’s betrayal and seemingly takes his anger at Claire out at Seraphina. 
    So, basically, Claire was John’s best friend, but then she went behind his back because of his evil actions to secretly recruit their other classmates to defeat him. I know anyone reading this post should know that, but I wanted to mention it because of how startlingly similar this is to how John is viewing his current situation with Seraphina. Sera was John’s best friend, yet she’s been drifting away from him, and according to Cecile, she has even met with Arlo behind John’s back. I’ve talked about all of this before (I think? I don’t really remember lol). Anyway, the developments that this episode adds to this parallel, this comparison, are quite substantial. Both Seraphina telling John that she knows he is Joker and that she knows about the events of New Bostin further push this concept of her and Claire’s similarity, which in turn encourages John’s mental association of the two characters and his inability to differentiate between the past and the present.
    Seraphina telling John that she knows he is Joker is adding to the similarity between the storyline at New Bostin and the storylines at Wellston. As I described in my brief summary of Claire’s buildup and betrayal, Claire turned against John because she realized how horrible he’d become. This is why we have the infamous one-liner, “monster,” from Claire. Claire’s entire motivation for turning against and leaving John was that she saw how corrupted and twisted he was becoming and wanted to put her other classmates’ suffering to an end. Now, there’s a bit of bias here on John’s part, as I do not believe he truly grasps that Claire only wanted him put out of power/authority (which was what corrupted him in the first place). I think John just thinks that Claire couldn’t stand the person he was and what he was doing, and that attempting to defeat him was purely a retaliation without an end goal and less of the logical decision and mission it was (to dethrone him). I think Keon’s classes really pushed this into John’s head, actually, because they were so focused on enforcing the fact that John was a monster. He became overwhelmed with that idea of himself as a monster and assumed everyone else was too. (The last few sentences have awful word choice and consequently worse comprehensiveness, but it is what it is). Anway, back on track, because John thinks that when people discover what a “monster” he is, they go behind his back and plan attacks. Now, because Sera has admitted knowing of John’s past/his identity of Joker, which are the most obvious examples of the “monster” in John paired with her having recently gone behind his back to talk to Arlo about John, her actions are obviously mirroring the buildup at New Bostin for John. Something else that’s big in this episode, is the later panel of Seraphina and Claire overlapping each other says, “monster.” This is both a support for what I’ve been saying and its own separate addition. With Seraphina now playing Claire’s part, this is going to further John’s association and muddlement of his past and his present.
    There will be a lot more of this later in this post though, so stay tuned.
    I do realize that without the confusing explanation of John’s difference in view regarding the events of New Bostin in comparison to Claire’s was kind of useless, I just included that because it really emphasized the comparison to this episode particularly, which is what this post is about lol.
    Next in the episode, we get the creepiest panel of John drawn ever. You know the one. I first saw that and was stunned. Anway, normally that would go in honorable mentions, but come on.
    Moving on, we have finally reached the turning point for this post, for this episode, and for the entire comic of UnOrdinary lmao. Early on in this post I said, “John doesn’t want to lose the person he created to hide behind, his fake self, because once that image of himself is shattered (haha get it) the only person left is John’s true, hidden self.” And, besides me still laughing because of that, it really helps me explain what’s happening here.
    Currently, we are at the panels of the episode where John is seeing an image of his created self, aka L for loser John, aka hair gel John, splintering and shattering like glass. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what this means. Everything I’ve been talking about for a while. Not only this post, but for many posts in the past, is finally completely itself. 
    This is the final takeover of the dark side of John. I’ve always talked about this gradual battle between good and evil within John where the evil side is going to inevitably win and this is that. Most of this episode has been me saying stuff like ‘if this happens, it will mean that John has truly lost himself and is completely evil.’ And that’s where we’re at now. All of that has happened, okay? It’s time to abandon everything I’ve been saying recently because it’s in the past now.
Which is why, we see that completion of Seraphina and Claire becoming mirrors of each other in John’s mind. Throughout the rest of the episode there is obvious molding of the two, more so than ever before. So much so that I can’t really call my ideas on this topic an idea because they’re proved correct. John is blatantly viewing Sera as Claire now, and it’s meant to be understood by the reader because of the constant switches between the two from frame to frame. The concept of John’s anger at Claire being targeted and associated with Seraphina also makes a comeback. I am confident enough now to say that it is confirmed in the comic that John cannot fully differentiate Seraphina and Claire’s characters from one another. 
Even the whole idea that John cannot fully differentiate his past and present as wholes gets extreme support, though not exactly enough for me personally to say that it is confirmed. After the “shattering”(I like that, might keep that), John instantly attacks Seraphina with accusations of going behind his back and why even when Seraphina kept telling him that she was in no way taking sides, only collecting the facts, John repeatedly told her that she was abandoning “his side.” These are obviously things that happened at New Bostin, and though it fits into the more set in stone Sera vs. Claire comparison, I am using it to support this more overall idea of present vs. past. But the best support for that past vs present thing is in this episode when Seraphina says, “You’re repeating everything you did at New Bostin!” That line is very self-explanatory, I feel. Also, the fact that it’s one of the characters saying this, makes me pretty confident that this is true.
I have now decided to call this turning point in UnOrdinary “The Shattering” because of both John’s and Seraphina’s uses of the concept. So, that’s fun. And it also leads into the next thing in the episode: Seraphina’s personal shattering.
Seraphina is always a more grounded character than John and it’s kind of refreshing turning my analysis onto her because she makes more logical sense. In this episode, Seraphina really lets loose at John about everything she’s been through because of him and even uses the phrase, “My whole world shattered.” She expresses how she feels like she’s been lied to about everything for such a long time (which she obviously has) and how to figure out what parts of both her relationship with John and even her own personality are true. It’s a very passionate and straightforward moment and I do feel like I tend to overlook Seraphina in analysis when it comes to focus, probably because there’s more to analyze with John, but I do feel like while reading this episode, my focus was really split between the characters.
Seraphina has completely changed as a person since she met John. Mostly, in fact, because she met John. Upon learning that he isn’t who he says he is, she’s met with this inevitable question of ‘how much of my personality, of myself, is also built upon lies.’ John largely influenced the changes in Seraphina and if that wasn’t true, what does that mean for her.
I’ve talked about this before in my analysis for episode 162, so I don’t really have much to say because unlike John, I pretty much have the same feeling for Sera as I did then.
    The real development in this episode, however, was obviously that, “Sera you’re just a cripple,” from John. That completely broke Seraphina. I know that she knew that he was faking his whole personality before, or at least most of it, but I think this is when she really takes that in fully. Before John said that, Sera even said, “This isn’t you, John. Something happened at New Bostin that you haven’t opened up about.” This really conveys the message that Sera still believes in part that John didn’t completely fake himself, or even that she’s in denial, but when John harshly mocked her for being a cripple, which is probably the thing most opposite what Sera could imagine the John she knew doing, she completely just collapsed into herself. Like she said, her whole world was shattered. We get this whole flashback collection of John that Seraphina knew and it’s almost like he’s died in a way and been replaced by this fake, but it’s even worse because that’s who he was this entire time.
    So then she hits him at the end so i'm kind of really wanting to read the next episode now so I’m putting this up now, over an hour after the new episode came out. ;-; r.i.p..
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ifbrd · 5 years ago
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Since the old villains in Word Up have been reformed, mind sharing what happened to them and how they turned their lives around? Do they play any part in Word Up?
Okay, so this time I was smart and decided to type this out in a word document!
Long post warning!
Before getting into each individual villain (or most villains, there’s just so dang many of them! I’m sure I’ll forget someone!) I want to talk about them as a whole.
All of them are reformed, and Tobey was basically the start of it all. He inspired several other villains, who inspired others, and over the years they all slowly gave up villain life. The last ones to quit (either BLHG and Invisi-Bill or Rhyme and Reason or both) did so after WordGirl retired from being a hero, because “everyone else did it and it’s not going to be any fun without WordGirl!”
After a few villains went good, Tobey and Dr. Two Brains co-founded the Anti-Villain Association (AVA), which was designed to be a place where villains, or even just minor criminals, who wanted to go good could go to discuss their struggles and experiences with switching sides (it’s kinda like a villain AA meeting). I don’t have many plans for each individual villain to play a major part in the story, again because there’s so many that would have been hard, but the AVA does play a part and so, by extension, the villains do play a bit of a role. However, I think most of this will go to Two Brains since he’s the co-founder and the other co-founder will be busy with all the other plans I have for him XD.
Many of their old weapons have been discarded, but also many of them are still around. For some, it’s to use in case of emergency (like a break-in), others have found other uses for their weapons (you better believe Chuck uses his condiment ray to make sandwiches!) others just couldn’t bear to destroy them (Tobey still has some surviving robots that were designed to crush the city, they’re happily living deep deep deep in the woods because Tobey didn’t feel right about destroying them for no reason), and some weapons are more difficult to destroy (like Mr. Big’s mind control, I’ll go into that a little more when I talk about him.)
Very few of them had kids, for a couple of reasons. 1. Many were too busy trying to turn their lives around to make a family life a priority 2. Many didn’t think they’d make good parents given their criminal history 3. There’s like 30 something villains and I wasn’t about to create children for each of them that’s just so many characters I would have had to make from scratch and I already had Theo, Julie, Emma, and Daisy, not to mention the new villains I had to make and I wanted everyone to have a little bit of depth so yeah… The ones who did have kids (and I might forget someone so sorry in advance if I did) are Tobey (obviously), Victoria, the unnamed henchman of Dr. Two Brains and The Butcher
Now let's get into them individually. Many of them I don’t have the story (at least not yet, if I get time I may start brainstorming that) of why they retired as villains, but for almost all of them I have ideas on what they’re up to now because I thought that was a little more important.
Dr. Two Brains- Was the second villain to retire. He saw Tobey doing such a great job and realized he missed that life for himself and said, “well if that little shit can do it, so can I!” He knew he could ignore the mouse brain’s evil desires, as long as he could fulfill its cheese desires, so his first step was to find a legal way to get a lot of cheese. So, he and his henchman started making cheese! And because Two Brains couldn’t wait, he decided to make a cheese aging ray. Suddenly he was able to produce quite a bit of cheese in record time. And actually, could make more than he could eat. He started selling his cheese and now is the main source of cheese in the city! The company slogan is “Evilly delicious!” And I was thinking about this today at work and realized he’s probably made a lot of money from this because with the aging process completely cut, he can probably charge less, but there’s something called “perceived value” where people think if something is super cheap then there must be something wrong with it, so you want to shoot a little higher when pricing products, so Two Brains probably has to have his cheese priced higher than he needs, so he probably has a pretty decent turn over rate! Anyway! As mentioned above, his unnamed henchman had a daughter, who Two Brains considers a granddaughter. She is aware of her interesting family’s criminal history and accepts it. She loves cheese but she’s not a fan of helping in the cheese-making process.
Chuck and the Butcher- (their stories are so linked it just made more sense to talk about them together) Were the third and fourth villains to go good and did so pretty much at the same time, for similar reasons, those reasons being “this isn’t fun anymore, I’m not getting anywhere with it, and look at what a great job Tobey and Two Brains are doing!” After retiring they partnered up and started a sandwich food truck, which today is a full-blown restaurant. Chuck does most of the sandwich making, but Butcher helps and he’s the meat supplier (guess where they get their cheese from!). I mentioned that the Butcher had a child. He has one son named Kale and a grandson named Baker. His son and grandson have powers like him, with Kale’s being vegetable related and Baker’s being bread-related (bread, not pastries! Important note! However, Baker does like to bake pastries, he’s about eight BTW). Kale and Butcher’s relationship will have a bit of focus in Word Up, and Kale will be a reoccurring character. Kale is very prideful and independent and will do just about anything for Baker. Kale is aware of his dad’s criminal past, Baker probably is aware too, but IDK maybe not. Chuck being close to the Butcher is naturally close with his family. Besides that, he still spends a lot of time with his mom and Brent, who he has a bit of a healthier relationship with now.
Granny May- The fifth villain to retire, and she basically just retired. She basically said “well I’m done! This is getting old and so am I!” She’s still alive, currently having the honor of being the oldest person in the city and is living in an assisted living facility. She’s pretty “together” mentally (how I describe residents at the assisted living facility I work at who haven’t been taken over by dementia yet). She uses a scooter now but carries a cane with her. Why? To whack people who need to have some sense knocked into them of course! Other AVA members are happy to pick her up for their weekly meetings and drive her back home, despite her claims that she could still drive fine “if they would let me!” (don’t let this woman go behind the wheel anymore, don’t listen to her!)
Mr. Big and Leslie- Mr. Big was inspired by the villains before him turning their lives around and claiming to be much happier. He tried this and struggled a lot. He eventually realized his issue was greed, it was too strong for him. So, he gave everything up, he gave his company to Leslie and basically became a minimalist hippie (again, my love for irony shines through!...also I thought the idea of Big being a hippie was HILARIOUS). Leslie has run the company ethically ever since. Today it’s essentially Amazon with morals. Mr. Big and Leslie are friends and talk all the time. Their mind control tech is still around, the reason I’ve decided is that some of the later tech was so powerful that destroying it might unintentionally send out a mind control signal. I’m open to better suggestions; I just need the mind control tech to still exist and be something someone could steal…hint hint….
Ms. Question- Eventually got a job as an interrogator for the police station! She’s the best interrogator there is! She doesn’t typically use her powers on people to get them to confess, usually, they just break from the mass amount of questions she asks, but in more extreme circumstances she is willing to use her powers.
Learnerer- Like Ms. Question, Learnerer found a better gig with the police force. He’s the city’s detective, and rocks at it with all his “learninging” skills. He looks for clues and learns how criminals commit crimes and uses that information to catch criminals in the act and stop them. He often works with Ms. Question.
Amazing Rope Guy- Actually got decent at rope tricks and is an entertainer now! I won’t say he’s incredible, but he’s alright! The other AVA members often hire him for entertainment events (he’s been to several of Theo’s birthday parties and Theo has politely asked his parents to not do that anymore, so now they’re gonna hire him for Julie’s parties) more to support him than because of his skills
Whammer- is a professional demolisher. You need an old building torn down? Call the Whammer! You need to gut the kitchen of a house you’re flipping? Call the Whammer! Need to clear an area of land for a project? Call the Whammer! Need snow off the street so people can get home? Call the Whammer. He loves his job
Lady Redundant Woman- She kept moving up in her job at the copy place, and eventually had learned to do every position there. With this knowledge and skills, she opened up her own copy place where she and her copies are the sole employees. Turns out your business can make a lot of money when you can have the exact right amount of employees at all times and don’t technically have to pay them because they’re technically you!
Hal Hardbargin- Sold his villain inventions and blueprints to the police station so they could have a better understanding of how certain villain gadgets work and therefore how to stop them. Also has made a few honest weapons for some heroes
Seymore- Hosts a self-made YouTube (or YouTube-like website) show called “Can You Spot the Scam?” where he helps innocent citizens learn how to spot scams
Big Left Hand Guy and Invisi-Bill-I never could think of what they’d be up to, so I decided they are still trying to figure out what they should do next. (because my favorite thing when I have a writing problem is to take advantage of it and turn it into a plot point! …something I did with a very important plot point in Word Up that will be revealed in Return to Fair City)
Rhyme and Reason- again I don’t have too much an idea of what they’re up too, but I like to think they are a QPR because I like platonic partnerships!
I talked about Victoria and Eileen here Thanks for the question! Feel free to ask more!
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voltage-fanfictions · 6 years ago
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Contact Voltage about Love Choice complaints
Hi guys,
Not gonna beat around the bush. I too hate the idea of the Love Choice system, so for those of you who want to contact Voltage directly, I’ve written us a handy dandy standard email, it may require some formatting in terms of paragraphs and of course you can add or take away from it, but the main complaints we seem to have are listed:
To whom it may concern,
I am writing today to express my dissatisfaction with the announcement that your new game, Masquerade Kiss, will be released as a Love Choice title,
When this system was released, a large portion of the international fan base was clear that this was not something we desired, to which you responded reassuring us that Love 365 was going to remain a mainly pay to pay application. This release of Masquerade Kiss under this model strongly suggests that you are going to follow the Japanese application, under which all new main stories are on the Love Choice system, if this is the case then you’ve been dishonest to your fans and has shaken our trust in you considerably.
The Love Choice system is distinctly a freemium model, and I shall explain to you why this is not received well by the fandom:
1) Firstly, the waiting. One of the most attractive thing about your stories is the ability for those who are short on time to be able to purchase a story and read through it at their own leisure. Love Choice’s requirement for you to wait to read the next chapter breaks the immersion that your writers create, and if you are a free to play customer, by the time the next chapter has been unlocked, you are having to remind yourself of previous events in the story. It ruins the flow of the story and makes it hard to follow.
2) The choices within Love Choice stories are clearly labelled as to which choice is preferred by the love interest. This blatant signposting removes an element of personality in the game, as rather than considering which option you would be more likely to choose yourself, you’re only thinking as to the cost of the choice, and whether or not it is worth the investment of hearts. This once again breaks the immersion in the story and makes the process of reading extremely linear by making the cheaper choices redundant.
3) The cost of Love Choice you may argue is free, however I must disagree. To read a Love Choice story to the standard of your current model, with no waiting and choosing all possible options, is triple to cost of your current main stories for an arguably weaker system. Considering people read these stories for the happy endings trying to argue that this system is free is rather disrespectful.
4) The lack of ownerships over the stories. With Love Choice you have made it clear that there is no way for readers to keep the stories they have invested time and money into, unlike your current system. This means even if we have spent hearts to achieve the best ending, if we wish to re-read a story you’re still going to make us wait to experience it again, and spend ever more money if we want to read it in one sitting. Only allowing ownership through ‘Collector’s Edition’ campaigns is highly unfair to your fans, as this means that those who don’t have to the time or money, and new fans will miss out on this chance.
5) If the Love Choice system is implemented as it is appearing it will be, it will make the ‘Monthly Pass’ redundant. The pass system is quite restrictive as it in, however in making main stories Love Choice it removes a large portion of the 400 coin value stories. This suggests you are either going to increase prices once again for coin purchases, which will not be well received, or that part of our money will be lost as there are fewer full price stories leading us to spending passes on cheaper ones.
6) Finally, and the most pressing complaint we have is your forcing of this system onto us. We don’t mind if you introduce more of these stories for those unable to afford the coin system, what we as paying customers are disappointed in is the fact you are not giving us the option to use the old system on these stories. This means that if there is a character or story we do wish to read, it feels as if we are being extorted into spending more on your app and aren’t valued as a paying consumer.
As a supporter of your company, your stories, your characters and the pay to play model you use, I ask you to reconsider the introduction the Love Choice system as it stands. Please don’t alienate those of us who’ve found joy in your creations and how you let us interact with them more freely through the pay to play model.
Yours Sincerely,
[Your Name],
A loyal Voltage fan
To send this to them, I would suggest using the in app customer support feature under ‘Settings and Profile’
Go forth and share! Let’s show Voltage exactly how much we detest this business model!
366 notes · View notes
otomeverything · 6 years ago
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CODE REALIZE: WINTERTIDE MIRACLES
Release Date:  February 14, 2019 (North America) Developers:  Idea Factory, Otomate Publishers:  Aksys Games Platforms:  PS Vita, PS4
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  I literally took my time playing this FD, knowing it’s the last (physical) otome game that will ever grace localization in the PS Vita.
Code Realize: Wintertide Miracles (Shirogane no Kiseki) is the second fandisc of the series, Code Realize. This game contains varieties of alternate and after stories that happened after the events of the last fandisc, Future Blessings.
  This fandisc contains the following stories:
Cantarella (Side Story) – Walkthrough available here.
Finis’s Epilogue
Sholme’s Epilogue
Love Triangle Stories (Short Stories)
Wintertide Miracles “First Christmas” (Alternate Stories)
Special Epilogues (Epilogues for White Rose’s stories in Future Blessings)
  ART AND MUSIC I know this is probably redundant as I’ve gushed about it a few times in my reviews for Guardian of Rebirth and Future Blessings. But, the artist Miko has done it again! I could not for the life of me, describe how incredibly beautiful the CGs are for this fandisc. There were also new sprites available for all the main and side characters, wearing their cozy winter outfits. Even Queen Victoria gets a new sprite wearing her expensive royal fur faux garb!
What I also loved about this fandisc were the new BGMs added for the series, they were all unforgettable and were specially made for the game’s Yuletide theme. One song that really stood out to me was the second Ending theme (Finis’ and Sholmes’ ED) “Beside You” by the artist SHOJI. Listen to the full track below:
***I purchased the whole soundtrack for Code Realize: Wintertide Miracles in iTunes. Link here.
  NEW CHARACTERS
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Cantarella (CV: Mamiko Noto) – Fuuka (Persona 4), Kotomi Ichinose (Clannad), Inia Sestina (MuV Luv), Felicita (Arcana Famiglia), Marvis Vermilion  (Fairy Tale)
Miles Strand (CV: Keiji Fujiwara) – Kagura Mutsuki (Blazblue), Jiro Hyuuga (Binary Star), Reno (Final Fantasy), Kiriya (Senran Kagura), Sakuya Tougane (Psycho Pass)
Baron of Aiguille (CV: Sugiyama Noriaki) – Akito (Norn9), Thor (Kamigami no Asobi), Suou Hana (Ayakashi Gohan), Katsuragi Naomasa (Yunohana Spring), Kashika Galle (Cendrillon Palika)
  SIDE STORIES AND AFTER STORIES I did Cantarella’s route first, followed by Finis and Sholme’s epilogues, then knocked out the love triangle dates before I played the main course, that is the “First Christmas” alternate stories for Wintertide Miracles. I myself, enjoyed this play order, though I would suggest playing whatever story you feel like playing first because that’s the whole point of a fandisc! lol
  CANTARELLA (Another Story) This story happened somewhere in the middle of Guardian of Rebirth’s common route. On their way home, after watching a performance at the Royal Opera House, Cardia and the rest of Lupin’s gang witnessed an attempted kidnapping of the Opera House’s beloved songstress, Cantarella. They’ve managed to save her as well as send her perpetrator running for the hills. They then took Cantarella to her home for safety measures, which lead the gang to meet her so-called “father” Miles. In this story, Cardia finds a friend in Cantarella and later on, discovers her true identity as both their existence managed to connect each other’s fates.
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Just like “Lupin’s Gang’s” (side) story in Future Blessings, Cantarella’s route offers new likable characters and an interesting new plot for us to follow. Although I’ve very much enjoyed this story (for what it is), I didn’t like how the writers threw in these important characters on the third game, since canonically they don’t matter anymore as the main plot officially ended in Future Blessings. I would rather have this as an alternate story than a side story because It felt kind of unfair for Cantarella, Miles, and Auguille to get dissed like that after this little episode. lol Unless they’re planning on a third fandisc! (laughs)
Although the choices you make in Cantarella’s route, will not change the whole outcome of her story. It will, however, change a few scenes and dialogues in the game depending on the guy (main characters) your choices are inclined to. You can view my walkthrough for this route here.
  FINIS’ EPILOGUE (After Story) This after story took place right after the end of Finis’s route in Future Blessings. 
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Six months have passed since Cardia managed to save his little brother, Finis from the unfortunate Nautilus incident in London. During this time, both twins return to their home in Wales and spend each day cleaning and repairing their old abandoned house while enhancing their bond as siblings. Suddenly, all hell breaks loose when one of Isaac Beckford’s invention called the “Knockers” have been spotted destroying a couple of buildings in London. It was made clear in the story, that these supposed-to-be-quarantined inventions of Isaac were “wrongly” activated by accident and it is now, up to the  Beckford twins (Finis’ most especially, since he’s fully knowledgeable when it comes to their father’s inventions) to stop this heaving uproar that threatened London its peaceful days.
This was probably one of my favorite After Stories in the series. Not only we get to see Finis in his true nature, as Cardia’s adorable cinnamon roll lil’ brother. We also get to see Lupin’s Gang and the Gordon Family in action as they help out clear the disruption in the streets of London during the main incident. ***This epilogue was very heartwarming and I absolutely enjoyed seeing Finis’ soft side while he deliberately declares threats whenever one of the main bois flirts with his sister! *chuckles* (´ ω `♡)
  HERLOCK SHOLME’S EPILOGUE (After Story) This after story took place right after the end of Sholme’s route in Future Blessings. 
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It’s been half a year since Sholmes defeated his arch nemesis, James Moriaty (in Code realize Future Blessings). During this story, Cardia becomes part of Sholmes’ Detective agency together with his partner John Watson. The three of them fight crimes for the cause of good, even to the extent of ‘trying‘ to stop Lupin, the gentleman thief’s planned diamond heist of the prized jewel called “Mermaid’s Tear”.  Though try as they might, Lupin, as cunning as he is, still gets the upper hand and was able to escape with ease together with his genius engineer assistant, Impey. I know this was just a filler episode but it was kind of weird seeing Cardia as their enemy for once, but oh well…
Anyway, Sholmes actual main story revolved around finding a cure to Cardia’s poison.  As the Horologium still present in Cardia’s body, this fact still poses a threat that one day it will activate again, killing her along with the demise of London and its people. With this complication at hand, Sholmes gathered his A-team geniuses in the field of science and medicine; Victor Frankenstein, Dr. John Watson, Impey Barbicane and even the deviant genius scientist Nemo, who apparently now lives in a tiny cardboard box located in sewers (laughs) 😂 Poor guy! As all of them try their hardest to conduct research on a formula that will counteract the horologium’s poison, more problems seep into the picture that eventually causes Sholmes and Cardia make one life-threatening decision.
I like how Sholmes’ epilogue was narrated in a fairytale-esque kind of way. I enjoyed the story’s fluff content though, to be honest, this is probably the weakest story in the game (imo) as there really wasn’t anything “new” going on. Nonetheless, if you’re a fan of Sholmes, I’m sure you’ll have an awesome time discovering a few surprising sides of our favorite hot daddy detective. 
  FIRST CHRISTMAS “Wintertide Miracles” (Alternate Stories) These are “after stories” that happened right after Finis’ route in Future Blessings. It’s merely an alternate story where our heroine Cardia finds love during the Yuletide season. We get one story for every five main characters. What’s really special about these stories is that Cardia falls in love with one of the guys while his brother is alive! …THIS couldn’t be any more perfect, ❤️ I almost wished this was headcanon!
  Spoiler Warning: I will only be posting each story’s premise but I’m putting up my spoiler banner just in case.
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  Victor Frankenstein After Isaac Beckford’s Nautilus incident that wreaked havoc in the city of London six months ago. Victor ended up opening a clinic located in the downtown part of London in order to help as many people as possible at a cheaper cost.
Victor’s main story started when one day he receives a mail from his parents in Switzerland telling him to settle down. He, in reply, told them he has no plans in getting married anytime soon but then started talking about how he’s currently interested with this ‘one girl’ and went all out writing two whole pages regarding his feelings for Cardia. (´ ε ` )♡ Without thinking of any repercussions, he sends the letter back to his parents judging its only the right thing to do as he’s speaking honestly from his heart. uwu. The next few days, he receives a reply letter from his mom saying they’re coming to London for Christmas so they can meet their son, Vic’s girlfriend. 🤣
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In result, a panicked Victor travels to Wales to ask Cardia to be his “pretend” girlfriend just for Christmas while his parents are in town. 😂
***This was by far the cutest, most endearing “First Christmas” story I’ve read among the selections and I absolutely enjoyed it to bits! Besides its overwhelming fluffy contents, we also get to see Victor introducing Cardia to his parents (in CG!).
  Saint Germain Six months after the Nautilus Incident, Saint Germain, visits Idea’s leader Omnibus and reports that both Finis and Cardia, Isaac Beckford’s “problematic twins” are now living peacefully in Wales as normal human beings and are no longer a threat to humanity. As one of Idea’s faithful apostle, he awaits for Omnibus next order but was surprised to hear her tell him to take a long sweet vacation instead.
Still dumbfounded by their leader’s words, Saint Germain goes back to the mansion to find something to do with his newly acquired free time but since everyone in Lupin’s gang went about their own lives after London’s incident, he was left as the only resident in his house. This made him feel lonely and he admits to himself how much he misses the rowdy group clamoring inside the premise of his mansion. What’s more, is that he longs to see the face of his beloved, who he has not seen since his last visit in Wales.
This made him decide to write invitation letters to the group for a Christmas “Get-together” party. Though unsure if his anticipated guests would actually make it to the planned event. Saint Germain waits with hopeful eyes to see the faces of his precious friends again.
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***The part where he waits for his friends actually made me tear 😭. Why are Saint Germain’s stories always melancholic? Why?! Thank goodness, this ended really REALLY happy. I would also like to gush on the fact that this is the only episode in the whole series where we get to see Guinevere outside her armor! Seriously, you absolutely can’t miss this!
  Abraham Van Helsing After London’s Nautilus incident, Van decides to travel with Delly all over United Kingdom in search for survivors of the Vampire War.
During their travels, the duo hears about the upcoming Christmas festival in London and decides to come home for the occasion as well as attend the gang’s Christmas party at Saint Germain’s mansion. They haven’t seen everyone in a while, so this decision made Van and Delly both excited. While at it, Delly proposes to take a side trip to Wales before coming to London and see the Beckford twins. Van agrees with him with Cardia in mind. ( ´ ▽ ` )
A few days have passed and they both arrived at Cardia and Finis’ home in Wales only to be disheartened to see the twins not being around. But with optimism as their friend, Van and Delly decided to wait. Night falls, and finally, Cardia and Finis arrived in the most unfashionable way ever (their automobile almost came crashing towards the duo) 😂 Everyone says their greetings when Cardia noticed that Van and Delly have been waiting out in the cold for too long, so she insisted they stay for the night.
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The supposed-to-be one night stay turned into days and the group eventually decided to go to London together. While still in Wales, Cardia wanted to make everyone Christmas presents in the form of knitting and Van insisted on helping her with it.
***I love this! (/▽\*) This surprising side of Van Helsing is all I ever wanted. I’m so glad to see him happy, always smiling and in his positive beaming self. It’s so refreshing! I need more happy-ray-of-sunshine Van Helsing in my life!
  Impey Barbicane Half a year has passed since the Nautilus incident in London and Impey visits the deviant scientist Nemo in prison from time to time as he plans to re-invent the gravity alleviator and is currently taking notes on Nemo’s advise while at it.
One day, In Saint Germain’s mansion, Saint tells Impey they received word from Van and Delly saying they’ll be back in London for Christmas. Since Lupin and Victor are already residing in the city, they decided to might as well invite Cardia and Finis in order for the gang to reunite once more this Yuletide season.
Meanwhile, in Wales, Cardia, (while fixing their automobile) thinks of how Impey’s constant declaration of love for her makes her heart feel woozy. She gets confused because she’s sure she loves Impey back but also “loves” the other members of Lupin’ s gang as well as her brother Finis. With this train of thought, she pesters her little bro and forced him to say the phrase “I love you” (to her), to which a blushing Finis, with all the effort, reluctantly did. 😂 But then yo girl was like “Oh but why does it feel different when Impey says it?” 😂 😂 😂 ROFL. This was adorably hilarious! I just can’t! 😂 
Later that day, they received a package from London in the form of a miniature Impey doll with a recording of Impey, Saint Germain and Lupin’s voice telling the siblings to come home for Christmas.
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***I really enjoyed reading this one! I love how Cardia was strongly forward of wanting to explore her own feelings as she tries to discover the different meanings of “love”.  …and seeing Impey immensely blush time and again was such an awesome treat, I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear! Another plus point was that we get to see Nemo give love advises to yo boi and that, to me was the icing on the cake in this story! (laughs)
  Arsene Lupin After the Nautilus incident in London six months ago, Lupin is back doing his thievery schemes like the proud gentleman thief he is.
One day while on a mission to steal a prized necklace from a corrupt Duke’s estate, he ends up being chased by Leonhartd as usual and just when he was about to execute his dashing escape, he gets distracted (by thoughts of Cardia) and gets shot by a rubber bullet instead. This, not only surprised Lupin himself but his perpetrators, Leonhardt, and his men were also perplexed at how they were able to take out the famed gentleman thief in one easy shot. In the end, an injured Lupin still managed to get away as he limped his way back to safety.
Back at the mansion, Victor along with Impey confronts Lupin saying he’s not being his usual self lately and asks him to perhaps, take a rain check from work (theft missions). A week later, Saint Germain chimes in, telling him the same and suggests that perhaps he’s longing for “someone”.  Taking in the Count’s advise to heart, Lupin begins to think of Cardia and how her absence is taking a toll on him. He then concedes with his true feelings and finally admits he misses her badly and the only way to cure this yearning is to see her face to face. So he starts writing the ‘perfect’ love letter for his beloved lady. 😂
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***I must say, this after-story has the best CGs, as expected from the game’s headcanon boi. Just like Lupin’s uwu story in Future Blessings, it had its glorious romantic moments between the couple. As far as I see it, the game is clearly biased on Lupin’s story… the kabedon scene and that loooong kiss at the end, come on!  I couldn’t ask for more!
  TRIANGLE DATES (More CGs!) These are short stories which involve scenarios of Cardia spending her day with two main characters in the series. Although these are rather shorter stories compared to the ‘Wintertide Miracles’ selection, I was really impressed by how exceptionally good these little episodes were. You think you’ve had enough doki-dokis? Try this one on for size!
Here’s a list of all the Love Triangle episodes (you can play it in any order):
Lupin and Victor
Lupin and Impey 
Lupin and Van 
Lupin and Saint Germain 
Van and Impey 
Van and Victor 
Van and Saint Germain 
Impey and Victor 
Impey and Saint Germain 
Victor and Saint Germain 
Secret Episodes:
Delly and Sisi 
Aliester and Nemo 
Hansel and John Watson
  SPECIAL EPILOGUES These are short epilogue stories continuing the last events of Future Blessings (White Rose). These will unlock last, after finishing all of the above’s selections.
  IMPEY It’s been a few days and Impey hasn’t returned home after going on a work-related project (fixing airships and submarine engines in London).  Cardia was left alone in the mansion and although she knows Impey will come back soon, she thought of surprising him by gathering a lot of research documents related to their ‘moon-project’. She leaves for Wales to collect any information her father might have written in the past that can possibly help with the project. Not to ruin the surprise for her hardworking husband, she leaves a note that says “I’m going”.
Impey arrives at home, finds the note then begins to panic thinking Cardia has left him.😂 So he hurries and follows her to Wales to clear out this whole silly misunderstanding.
  LUPIN Cardia and Lupin go on a picnic at their secret place which has a great view of the industrial city of London and Lupin suggest that it’s about time to go on a honeymoon. Next few days, he takes Cardia to his birth city, Paris. There, they visit and the grave of his master, Theophraste and both of them said their prayers. They also ran into the head of the French police whom Lupin coined as someone equivalent to ossan Leonhartd. They had everyone (French police) chase them for fun and the couple gallantly escaped in style.
  VAN Cardia and Van are finally getting married and Shirley helps Cardia put on her wedding dress. Cardia decided to step outside the church so she could practice walking in her high-heel shoes when a bunch of men in black suits kidnaps her and takes her to another wedding location. There she finds an impatient man wearing a groom’s outfit who urges her to walk down the aisle with him. Cardia remembers the combat techniques her husband taught her and throws the man to the floor. Meanwhile, a worried and upset Van bursts out through the church door and started taking down the men in suits Liam Neeson style! 😂 😂 😂 Before things get worse, the gang stops Van and explains this was all a misunderstanding as the kidnappers and groom were actually actors and the bride actress never showed up for rehearsals so they thought Cardia was her by mistake.
The Moral of the Story: Don’t mess with this couple… ever! 😂
  VICTOR Cardia is now working as Victor’s assistant in the Royal Society and they spend their days doing research in Victor’s lab. Though they call themselves husband and wife, they realize that they never really had an actual wedding ceremony. So Victor asks Cardia if she wants to have a proper wedding and she says yes. A few days later, they began their search for a church in London but couldn’t find any since it’s peak season. Queen Victoria, along with Leonhardt notices Victor’s sullen expression and asks him what’s wrong, Victor tells them their circumstance and a snarky Victoria promises to help him only if he can prove to her how much he really wanted the wedding. After their deal, Victor comes home later than usual as he’s working extra hard to get her beloved wife that perfect wedding she deserves. Finally, the day has come for Victor to propose to Cardia and Victoria granted them permission to use the newly renovated St. Paul’s Cathedral. They got married in front of their friends and the Queen, and Cardia couldn’t be any happier.
  SAINT GERMAIN Cardia is now free of her poison and she and Saint Germain return to London so they can hold their wedding ceremony. The Count buys the ship “Gloria” from their mafia adventures in Lupin’s Gang (Future Blessings) episode and tells her this will be their venue. A day before their promised wedding, Hansel takes Cardia to Omnibus cottage and there they meet with Saint Germain and the leader of Idea herself, Omnibus. The old lady gives them her blessing, saying they will no longer be in the watchful eye of Idea and Saint Germain is now finally, freeee!  Both couples said their thanks to Omnibus. They got married in their luxurious ship the next day and all of their friends are with them happily celebrating the couple’s most special commemoration.
  Will I be able to enjoy this game even if I haven’t played Future Blessings? There were a lot of characters and events in Future Blessings that were present and added to this game, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to skip Future Blessings in the series. In addition, the main “Wintertide Miracles” stories continue from the last events of Finis’s route in Future Blessings, so, all the more reason not to skip the first fandisc.
Localization There were a couple of typo mistakes that I couldn’t really overlook which makes me think that perhaps because of it’s promised released date on Valentines Day, the game was rather rushed and there wasn’t a lot of time spent dedicated solely on proofreading it. ┐(︶▽︶)┌
  TRAILER
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  FINAL THOUGHTS? \(^▽^)/ My overall play length for Code Realize Wintertide Miracles was a good 10-15 hours. Despite me trying to make the game last forever for about at least, two weeks, I finished it pretty quickly because I just couldn’t get enough of it.
Cantarella’s side story was way better than the gang’s Mafia adventures in Future Blessings and I sure did wish the ‘Cantarella-characters’ would’ve made a cameo in the special epilogues, because seriously, what a waste of good characters to be squeezed in, on the third game. ┐(‘~` )┌
Finis wins best boi in my book. This was one of the things I really appreciated most in this FD, and I’m sure most Code Realize hardcore fans would agree. Finis’ character finally gets justice! We get to see more of his adorable side as Cardia’s little brother while maintaining his hostile and dubious personality 😂. Who would’ve thought this boy is such a tsun-tsun! ❤
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Do I recommend this game? YES (esp. to all Code Realize fans) Take note, this game is the series’ second fandisc. So literally, one cannot play it all willy-nilly without fully playing it’s first two predecessors. Personally, I’ve enjoyed this game a lot but that’s because I’m such a huge fan of the series. Perhaps to those who aren’t into Code Realize, you probably won’t enjoy this as much.
With the production of PS Vita consoles and games, completely shutting down worldwide this year, Code Realize Wintertide Miracles was such a special treat for us otome fans ~ esp. now, where there is scarcity of otoge releases in the West.
The game’s romantic Christmas theme really took this one up a notch and the newly added side stories are really something to look forward to. If you already like this series, loved the game’s main casts and wished for more adventures with them, this game is definitely worth the purchase.
  CHLO’S RATING: 8/10
Code Realize: Wintertide Miracles Review CODE REALIZE: WINTERTIDE MIRACLES Release Date:  February 14, 2019 (North America) Developers:  Idea Factory, Otomate Publishers: 4,080 more words
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bedlamgames · 6 years ago
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Q&A #94
Today we have various forms of removal, the new biomancy assignment, and corruption among others.
nh-maikochan said: Regarding the bimbo slave not being sold: Yes she did have bimboborn. Also, I think I may have sent a message like this before and have totally forgotten. If this is just a repeat, feel free to ignore it. 
Thanks that really did help solve the issue. Should be sorted now as of the current update. 
doof-ex-machina said: Hello! Could I ask some question about one particular problem I'm facing playing No Haven? The thing is, when I try to save a game and then load it, all the names of slavers and slaves in the boxes disappear, and that's just 'Slaver 1', 'Slaver 2' and so on that are visible in Inventory, Visible Characters and Room Objects boxes. I tried all the versions of RAGS available but none of them helped to solve the problem.
That’s a RAGS issue. Make sure you’re saving only when it is safe as detailed at the beginning of the game. Other than that if you finish day the names should update back to normal. 
Anonymous said: I cannot for the life of me figure out how to remove someone from a current role in the camp on No Haven.... would you be willing to tell me? I am probably missing it because it's stupid simple.
No problems. Same way as setting them to the role so Right click > Talk to > Assign to an Encampment Position > -None-.
There’s a couple of positions like second-in-command where slavers will resist giving up power and for them you’ll have to use more nefarious methods. 
Anonymous said: [NH 0.821] Bug / suggestion: My slaver has Dolled Up, and a ton of other corruptions, which is great, but the description is weird. Due to DU, it describers my slaver as having "dark crimson rubber skin[...]" and then "have eyes[...]covered up entirely", but the very next line describes my ponytail. Hair on red rubber is a weird mental image. Might I suggest that DU simply makes the skin rubbery rather than changing the color? That, and not replace the eyes? I miss my heterochromia. Thank you!
It is corrupted rubber of perversion and evil so is capable of having holes for hair :)
Also one of the risks with corruption is you can very much lose as well as win such is the risks of flirting with depravity for power be it traits, arms, or even your nice eyes. 
Anonymous said: [no haven 0.843] so I tried to do basic bimbo training with a slave that had advanced obedience, selected 2 slavers and noticed it needed 3 so I clicked on slavers and then it began the assignment blocking the slave slot but not starting the assignment AND removing the slave permanently, seems like it is also overflowing because I'm getting "not enough to defend the encampment" while I have 6 out of 8 slavers in the camp.
Thanks for letting me know and will sort it for the next update.
Anonymous said: Love the new update, though I have several questions. A: How does one start the quest to gain better Biomancy? B: Say I had a Second-in-command who was set as my characters former owner. This seems to give the character massive bonuses to respect checks. My character has Dominator and Thrallforge, but I still cant succeed Dominating to get him to go nude, etc. Is it currently possible to succeed at such a check? C: Is there currently no way to force a 2nd out of their role via the respect check system? Surely we should be able to dominate or trigger them into giving up the post? D: On a related note, why is there no option to dominate when trying to force a merc to join the camp? E: Is there some kind of block preventing me from shrinking an Amazon Futanari's cock with Biomancy? I tried dozens of times, and never had any results. Anyway, thats all I can think of for now. Look forward to your answers. If I remember more Ill ask. Again, love the game and update! 
The new assignment that will start the biomancy chain begins in the City of Aversol. It's a rare assignment, can be done by anyone with or without biomancy, and like bred to be broken you need a certain amount of gold in the stash to find it.
Theoretically I think? It’s going to be a long shot though unless you can mess with them like making them a bimbo through corruption or send them off on quick as you like.
Not currently. Will think about it. 
Dominating is a short term will overwhelm so once it’s done the merc would just be unhappy and leave.
Futanari for plot related reasons which I swear I’ll get to eventually can’t have their cocks shrunk by biomancy.
Anonymous said: Since we already have Recruiter customization options for brother/sister, any chance we'll see father/mother or son/daughter added as options? I'd love to see that feature expanded on in general, especially if it adds more options for incest.
I’ll think about it. Not super into incest as it is, and the parental versions even less so. Saying that next update will have some implication in regard to one of the assignments so it’s possible as long as it’s not that much of a focus.
madron-fc said: Had the following happen to me in 0.843 of NoHaven, not sure if it is intended behaviour: I went on the Mountains asignment to catch the male drow after which I did get the request to fullfill. After doing some training on the new slave, I realised that the opportunity was no longer listed amon the asignments. I thought it might have just timed out without me noticing, but way later into that same game I got a notice for that very opportunity to soon time out. my guess is that when I completetd the advanced Sissy Training and the Slave changed name, the asignment disappears, but I do not have a save of that time so I cannot test this.
Huh, okay. That opportunity is timed in regard to expiry, but that does sound off. Will check, thank you. 
And now some more from outside of the tumblr:
From Hypnopics: Is the demi Angel commission added to the game?
If you mean the four-winged Truly Divine one then that commission is being used for an assignment next update.
From Hypnopics: This game really needs a way to quickly and easily dismiss slavers and slaves you don't want. You should be able to immediately sell slaves taken as loot, even if only for 15-20 gold and able to R. click - dismiss slaves and slavers. I keep hitting a wall with content blocked because i have too many mediocre slaves/ slavers.
Update following the next one is going to be about having a more reliable way of freeing slaves than sending them to the whore makers. Slavers I always wanted to be one of your challenges to manage with more events coming involving them working to undermine your authority which is why you're limited to assignments like Sudden Betrayal. Saying that there likely will be more options to manipulate their morale/reputation to get them to bugger off coming in future. I'm also planning to introduce slave mines/farms/temples where you'll be able to parcel off a whole number of slaves and slavers at once for an ongoing bonus and the occasional choice/assignments to keep them going.
From TFGames: Loving the new update so far. I was playing with the slave mantras and really liking them, but had something happen. Had gotten two mantras on one slave, Obedience, which had fully embedded, and Sissy, which was at the advanced stage. I was planning on adding some more later, but wanted to finish his proper training first. I ended up getting a crit on Advanced Obedience training and giving him the Obedient trait (there's too many uses of the word Obedient in this paragraph). After that, I couldn't select him for hypnosis. I suspect because of the Obedient trait, it thinks that he has the Denial mantra embedded (which also gives the trait and blocks other mantras). Also, I haven't tried yet, but does the Bimbo mantra block Bimbo training? I had a couple odd situations in the previous version where traits gained outside of training blocked those associated trainings. Two main examples: Had a slave escape, recaptured with a crit, then escaped and recaptured with a crit again, giving them Obedient. However I couldn't do Advanced Obedience Training with them any more. Second was had a slave at Basic Sissy training stage and they got the Pretty Maid corruption result, switching them to the Sissy gender, but also blocking the Advanced Sissy training option. No I know these might be redundant, but the trainings alone add value to the slave, but then getting traits with shortcuts or luck could be a balancing factor, so it might be intentional. Anyway, this was in the last version so it might not be in the current one.
Those are both connected issues and kind of working as intended. If you get what the training/hypnosis is basically trying to achieve then that training/hypnosis becomes no longer available. Think about it as having different paths to the same result. Does mean that you don't get the same value bonuses, but I think I'm okay with that as it reflects how long you spent perfecting the slave and keeps them from being quite so similar in the long run. I do agree though that this can feel off and I'm open to other takes on this as it's feedback I've heard a few times now.
From TFGames: I voted Lamia because I feel like keeping track of all your slavers and all their traits is exhausting and starting with one fewer gives you a bit of time to get familiar with them before adding more.
There's also elitist and proactive under the full custom options if you want to start with less slavers. If you want to go full minimalist there's also the golem scenario where you start with only three slavers.
(This is in regard to the current poll running on the TFGames discussion thread)
From TFGames: Hello, I just spent about 20 hours playing this awesome game for the past 3 days!! It made me insane. I especially loved exploring the limits of corruption and biomancy. There is a lot of content with cum consumption, which is pretty cool =). There's one thing I didn't get: how to raise the encampment leader's tolerance for highly rated armors and clothes? I could wear a 55 rated item at most, but that's it. Oh and also, can the encampment leader get corrupted to the point of getting Babydoll? Or is that just for other players? I managed to inflict Babydoll on two slaves, but never on myself. Anyway, this game is awesome =D. Thank you for doing this.
Thank you, I'm glad you've been enjoying it! The clothing limit is in place to prevent you completely fucking your ability to lead by putting yourself in bondage. Then now the takeover options are included I may just remove it so you can see how long you can last while being in an armbinder and the like   Babydoll for now is limited to others. Will possibly change this again given the takeover options as such a naive and gullible leader is also not going to last long at all. Though for that I'd want to include more personalization for the player to properly reflect that corruption. 
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adieka · 4 years ago
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Keyword Research: Primary Keywords Only or Related Keywords Also?
(1) Keyword Research: Primary Keywords Only or Related Keywords Also? (2) Keyword Research: Should I Create Content Based on All Related Keywords to Increase the Chance to Acquire the Main Keyword I Aim To? (1) Keyword Research: Primary Keywords Only or Related Keywords Also? Allen Let's talk keywords. When you take on a new client or build a site out, are you pulling all keywords related or just a few at a time? 10 👍🏽 10 [filtered from 9 Answers]📰👈
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Jordan My team crawls the site (if existing), maps all ranking keywords to all pages, looks at the page itself and assigns a primary keyword on what it should be ranking for. (just because its ranking for keywords does not mean it matches with the intent of the page)
Allen » Jordan So how are you deciding on which keyword to use as the primary keyword for that given page? Jordan » Allen A combination of things but mostly intent of the page + common sense. It might be ranking for some high volume keyword on page 2 but has nothing to do with the intent of the page. Don't chase short tail keywords if they dont make sense. Do the Google search and see of the sites that are ranking match what your site is about. If it makes sense, optimize. If not, reevaluate
Keith L Evans 🎓 All keywords past, current and potential. I have to plan the site for now and the future opportunities. Key to is asking the CEO where they plan to be so products, geos, categories can be planned accordingly.
Allen Hey Mr. Trickster, so say you gather a list of 400 keywords. You're assigning each of those 400 keywords to each page and mapping them out at the start? Keith L Evans 🎓 » Joshua They are more like keyword topics or categories. I don't know what the cool kids call it now: clusters, clouds, clans. 🤭👍🏽4
Ejaz In start, we first go for the low competitive keywords in our niche. We first prioritize keywords on the basis of competition. Slow and steadily we go for the keywords having higher Keyword Difficulty (KD). Before making website my strategy would be Competitor Analysis — ->> Competitor's keywords after filtration — ->> Shape Content Plan — ->>Publishing Schedule Dino Better question: Why only pull just a few? Makes no sense to me. MORE DATA in my reasoning equals BETTER analysis for making the most PROFITABLE determinations. Whenever I am doing keyword research I want to find the most profitable keywords to target. I can't do that unless I have the best data to work with! Best data = MORE DATA
Allen » Dino Indeed. But once you have a list of 1000 relevant keywords, what do you do? Dino » Allen I sort them in a spreadsheet using conditional formatting to color code them by category. For example, all the keywords with a certain word in them. Also I narrow down the list first by removing anything with no search volume (unless of course it is in a niche that has very little search volume to begin with). So with a list of 1000 that can be narrowed down to just a few hundred. Also in the list you will find most of these are redundant. Like for example flipping the keywords "Chicago Dentist" or "Dentist Chicago". Other examples of redundancy could be the keyword "Dentist in Chicago". So by adding the word "in" you will still be optimized for "Dentist Chicago". Other examples of category could be having the word "best", "top", "number one", "highest rated", etc. So if the keyword with "best" has more search volume than "top" I will make that one a higher priority by optimizing for that in a stronger place on the page. After having color coded all the categories you will find that locating keywords in the columns of the spreadsheet is much easier and faster. It will be "scannable by a human eye to find the categories quickly. After the color coding I sort the list again from highest to lowest search volume - which will reveal the most profitable and relevant groups of keywords (because those have the potential to bring in more traffic). Doing this will make it so that you can easily prioritize which ones to use when writing the content. So when taking away the redundancy, the list of 1000 can be narrowed down to about 50 to 100 keywords - that can then be used for writing the main content on the website and later for things like blog posts. I usually do "question keywords" separate because these can be used for informational articles designed to draw in more traffic from potential buyers (who are in a different stage of the buying process). For the highest search volume keywords I will optimize for those in the strongest places like title tag, h1, h2, h3. For the lower search volume those can be sprinkled into the paragraphs in a natural way. It would make no sense to optimize for a keyword in the title tag with only 10 searches a month when another similar keyword has 100 searches a month. Unless of course your strategy for the pages is targeting easy to rank keywords that will rank faster for quicker results for whatever reason you are doing that. So by collecting more data you can then narrow that down to the best keywords - many of which most people will never find because they are not willing to do the extra work. I use the same process whether it is a list of 20,000 keywords or 1000. Larger populated areas will of course have more keywords with search volume to deal with (because of the higher number of people searching in that area). 💟1
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(2) Keyword Research: Should I Create Content Based on All Related Keywords to Increase the Chance to Acquire the Main Keyword I Aim To? Soni Trying to create content on the "Art Classes" keyword. I am seeing related keywords for the same. Should I create 5 different pages for the keywords I mentioned in the picture or just one page that covers all 5? 5 👍🏽 5 [filtered from 16 Answers]
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Zak Art classes ≠ online art classes ≠ art classes for kids ≠ art classes near me ≠ online art classes for kids // for me this 5 keywords have all different search intent so it's different pages. You could put them all on one page but I guess nobody likes to read 10k word articles (you will reach better rankings if you do for all this keywords different pages with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) like 2010). If I would be you I would create that cluster around "art classes" and link back and up… Properly there are much more of that low hanging fruits - don't overthink Google AI is not that smart :') Thomas I'd look at WHY you want to create content around "art classes" more. Are you offering art classes and want to sell art classes to buyers? Put up the content that's relevant to your business/client's business and the customers associated with that. Solve their pain points, entertain them, make them think, educate them, etc. Ben It seems like you're trying to rank for something without understanding the search intent, which is a problem. This is shown by the fact that you want to rank for a "near me" keyword, which is going to return mostly local city level results, which you would have a near-impossible time ranking. Just because keywords seem related, doesn't mean they should be grouped together. They could have different search intents, which is way more important. Search intent is basically, "what is the user really looking for when they search for this keyword?" People who are searching for "online art classes for kids" aren't looking to take in-person art classes, and vice versa (there might be a small overlap with some people, but it's not most people). As Thomas pointed out, ask yourself what are you trying to do? Are you actually offering art classes? If not, I would try to find a different keyword. 💟👍🏽25
Garnes » Ben Great explanation 👏 Ahmed » Ben This 💯 Marian » Ben The masterchef has spoken 🤭1 Sanker Yup. also the near me isn't an actual keyword, but local intent. Farley » Ben Seems like their trying to rank without knowing how to rank lol…which may be a bigger problem
Truslow "Related" does not always correlate to "Relevant." Start by looking at intent. Are your art classes online? Or In-Person? (Or Both?) If they are only in-person, then "online art classes" is silly to go after - even if you can rank for it, you don't have what the person was searching for. If they are only online classes, then "near me" is useless for the same reason. Do you have classes for kids? If not… then the "kid" variations are silly, too. Then once you've narrowed that down… you need to look at covering your bases logically based upon the user personas that are going to be visiting your site. Got some classes for kids but not all - then sure… create a page that lists your classes for kids, but don't forget to make one that lists classes for adults, too. If you've only got a "kids" page but didn't make an "adults" page because there wasn't enough search volume - where is Google supposed to send people who aren't looking for classes for kids? Ultimately, when it comes to products and services, keyword research gives you an idea of how you can classify and organize EVERYTHING on the site. It can give you an idea of how to tag or categorize things - but it won't cover everything. Think first of what you've got to offer, then use those suggestions as a way to look at how that can be presented, organized, and structured so that EVERYONE can get through. Build a site based upon keyword research alone and you're going to be in a world of hurt. Roger If the keywords have different types of intent, yes, build few pages and links them, else just group them into one. I strongly recommend you watch this video. Nathan is really good and kind to offer such value info in free video - https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=Nt7i_0pWu80 7 Advanced Keyword Research Tips for SEO (Works in 2021) 📰👈
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These may satisfy you: » Why Keywords are Important in SEO Content! » Unique Keyword Research » 4 Common Mistakes I See People Make in Doing Keyword Research for SEO
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voxwrote · 7 years ago
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GoT Season 5 Review (from ages ago)
Alright, it's taken me a little while to do but below is my somewhat garbled review of Game of Thrones season 5.
Keep in mind that there are spoilers for both Game of Thrones season 5 and all of the Ice and Fire Series up to the current book (A Dance With Dragons Part 2). It's long and boring but some of you might like it!
So after finishing Season 5 of Game of Thrones I thought I’d share my opinion as someone who watched the show up to season 4 then read all the books. I’ll split this up into plotlines and focus on each one separately and obviously feel free to tell me if you think I’m completely wrong.
Overall I found the season was pretty disappointing, it wasn’t necessarily bad from a critical standpoint but it took a while to hit its stride and while I appreciate that they have to tighten the narrative and drop certain plot lines it felt like some of the stories in this series were totally unnecessary and some scenes seemed to be inserted purely for shock value.
It’s a shame because I was actually very keen to see a show that was different to the books, I thought that it would be interesting to see how they took it in a different direction and would be good to see the characters handled by a different writer but I ended up just feeling a bit let down by it all. Below I’ve pinpointed what I feel are some of the high points of the series (because there were some still truly great moments that kept me watching) and some of the lesser points.
Dorne/Jaime
For me this was the most disappointing story of the series for me. In the books the Dorne plotline follows a kingsguard (Ser Arys Oakheart) who has been assigned to look after Myrcella during her time in Dorne. Over time he has fallen in love with Prince Doran’s daughter Arianne Martell and has broken his vows, he agrees to aid in a plot to smuggle Myrcella back to King’s Landing in a plot to put her into power over her brother. The plot is discovered and ends in tragedy with Arys being killed and Myrcella being maimed.
It’s a strong plotline with great characters but I would have totally understood if they cut the plot. It’s fairly inconsequential and would weigh down the TV series with the introduction of yet more characters.
Jaime’s plot in the books sends him to the Riverlands, sent away by a bitter Cersei who berates him and shuns him for letting Tyrion kill their father. He travels with the mute headsman Ilyn Payne and trains his left handed sword fighting with him at night while confessing all of his incest and past crimes (theorizing that Payne won’t be able to tell anyone on account of not having a tongue).
As Jaime travels through a land that’s still ruined from the terror of the War of the Five Kings he comes to realise that while he’s had the big picture he’s never taken a moment to think how all the fighting affects those who have little to nothing. It’s a humbling experience for Jaime and the pinnacle comes at the point where Cersei sends a letter asking Jaime to be his champion, he simply burns the letter and breaks the chains of the toxic hold Cersei has on him.
In the TV show Jaime’s character seems to have had a back step in character development, I feel during his time with Brienne he really flourished and started to realise that the world was something much different than he expected it to be, his name meant nothing and that was a huge wakeup call and he sees that you have to be more than just your last name. In this series they’ve just put two popular characters together on a comedy road trip and then lazily tacked political intrigue that in the end has no real impact on the story as a whole (at least from what we’ve seen so far). I felt almost cheated during the ending to that plotline as that could have been time focused on other characters, following Jaime’s book plot or including one of the plot lines that’s been cut such as the Ironborn plot.
It was refreshing to see Bronn again as he pretty much disappears from the books after Tyrion’s trial and isn’t mentioned again, Jerome Flynn really brings something to the character on the screen and he’s enjoyable to watch but I feel his character was really the only saving grace in this plotline. Doran was played very well too but he was sadly reduced to an exposition bit part.
TL;DR – Dorne seemed to be a filler arc which while beautifully filmed and well-acted seemed to fall short of the rest of the series in terms of character development and driving the overall plot. Screen time could have been better invested.
The Wall/Jon
This was a very mixed bag; it had some amazing scenes such as the Hardhome battle and some predictable and unnecessary scenes like Sam getting beaten up by his fellow brothers of The Night’s Watch.
I really enjoyed the scene where Jon is elected as the 998th Lord Commander and when he beheads Janos Slynt it really felt like they took the scenes from the book and put their own spin on them but in a positive way. It built tension nicely and overall this season I feel like Jon’s arc has been pretty consistent. Hardhome (a scene which hasn’t happened in the books but was planned to take place before Jon’s demise) was honestly a stunning set piece and I think probably the highlight of series. Tormund’s confrontation with the Lord of Bones was great and a fantastic example of one of the positive departures from the books, the mood of the scene was so tense it got to almost unbearable levels and I think the screenwriters, actors and the director really portrayed the bitterness of the wildlings but also their desperation and need to survive. The wights were portrayed in a good way, I’m really glad the main focus was on makeup rather than CGI and the scene where they try to tear down the gate and the reveal of the wight children was genuinely scary, It was one of those scenes that reminded me of Oberyn’s fight against The Mountain, it managed to make me feel a huge range of emotions in one scene. When Jon began to fight it was pretty thrilling and the cinematography really pushed this angle.
I enjoyed Jon’s fight with the White Walker even though it had a bit of an 80’s action movie feel to it I felt it kept within the scene enough. It was also good to see a little more of The Night’s King again but wasn’t too keen on his look, the CGI felt a little heavy handed to me.
Samwell’s part in the series felt redundant, in the books he travels to Oldtown with Maester Aemon and Gilly and I felt they could have done that this season instead of showing unnecessary scenes such as Sam being beaten up, frankly that scene did nothing except remind us that Ghost was there, Sam stood up to the men who were trying to rape Gilly but in the end he was reduced to being broken and battered. We know Sam has courage; this has been evidenced in previous series.
I will say that I extremely enjoyed Aemon’s funeral even though he dies on the boat to Oldtown in the books, it was very emotional and I thought the actor who played Sam really nailed that speech and though it was sad to see Aemon go, he was one of my favourite characters I felt this was a fitting end and was handled very well but again this could have taken place on the trip to Oldtown as it does in the books.
Jon’s return to the wall was really well handled; the scene where Alliser Thorne pauses just for a moment before letting him and the Wildling refugees in was great. I like the actor who plays Thorne a lot; he brings a bit of a human edge to the character that’s not really present in the books but I feel the screenwriters really went overdrive in making him a top notch knobhead.
As for Jon’s demise, I think it could have been done better. In the books someone enrages the giant and everything turns to chaos, in this chaos Jon gets stabbed. Jon receives a taunting letter from Ramsay and relinquishes his position whilst also asking wildlings and black brothers to fight with him, while stabbing might be a bit extreme I think it provides a bit more of a solid motive than “we don’t like wildlings”.
TL;DR – A very mixed story this season, Hardhome was the high point of this story and probably one of the big high points of the series. Samwell should have departed for Oldtown earlier but I did like that Aemon’s funeral took place on the wall, it added gravity to the scene.
King’s Landing/Cersei
Looking back over the series I think Cersei’s story arc was changed quite heavily but not in a way that affected the plot too much, a lot of the scheme to frame Margaery was simplified and I felt it worked for the TV show, you still got the same impact and the end result was the same, Cersei was the victim of her own heavy handed attempt at playing the game. She’s no stranger to botching attempts at politics but now she does not have Tywin to bail her out of trouble, Lena Headey gives another really accurate and interesting performance of Cersei.
My biggest problem with this story was the Faith Militant. In the TV series they seem to be depicted as people using the faith as an excuse for violence, even if this isn’t the case they aren’t as zealous as this in the book and seem to be genuinely devout and trying to protect those who cannot protect themselves. High Sparrow was on point though and portrayed with fantastic underlying malice by Johnathan Pryce, he really brought out the element of being completely devout while casting doubt into my mind as to whether his intentions were wholly good.
I was disappointed to see Kevan Lannister reduced to such a small part, he’s such an integral part of Cersei’s conscience and is a really interesting character. He came off as cold and arrogant in the show just like Tywin whereas in the books he is supposed to be the antithesis of his brother, a kind hearted man who while still understands the importance of self-image laments that he must keep to it over the love of his brother’s children and his own child (Lancel). Qyburn continues to be a favourite of mine, he’s portrayed so well.
Overall though I thought this was a solid part of the series and while some good characters have been removed and the plot has been simplified I think it still worked well, the screenwriters really emphasised how vulnerable Cersei is without the support of her father and when her name means nothing.
TL;DR – Strong plot and was well acted by all involved, some characters are missing and the plot has been watered down for TV but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Faith Militant are a bit too violent for my liking compared to their book counterparts. Very hyped to see Frankenstein’s Mountain fight.
Braavos/Arya
Maisie Williams continues to shine as Arya Stark, really enjoyed her story in this and it was pretty similar throughout the series up until the last few episodes which I felt muddled her story unnecessarily but I can see why they did it.
It was good to see they have brought back Jaqen H’gar, really enjoyed the way he played the character in the earlier seasons and I felt it made things a bit easier for the viewer not having to bring in new characters to get attached to. The books spend a lot more time going into Arya’s training and putting her in various different situations, this isn’t possible in the TV show with only two series left to go.
I didn’t like that Arya got her vengeance with Meryn Trant. It was certainly very gratifying to watch but I feel like it detracted from Arya’s quest to become more than a revenge fuelled orphan, in the books she’s also turned blind but it’s part of her training rather than a punishment. The other thing is that Trant never visits Braavos in the books so we don’t see the much darker side of him, I feel like the screenwriters put too much emphasis on Trant being a terrible person but I think it would have worked better if it was less clear, perhaps making us question how ‘just’ Arya’s quest is. In the books Meryn Trant is a guard who simply takes a bit too much pleasure in following orders, he’s a nasty piece of work but he’s not as terrible as he is in the show.
TL;DR – Great acting, good to see some changes made but the Meryn Trant plot line toward the end detracted from the experience.
Mereen/Daenerys
I feel like Daenerys’ story sort of pushed through the motions, until the end of this season I felt she was actually more of a supporting character which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. We got to see the romance between Grey Worm and Missandei blossom which doesn’t happen in the book and I really enjoy the chemistry that those two actors seem to have.
I was very disappointed by Ser Barristan Selmy’s death, I felt it was unnecessary and that whole scene didn’t make sense. How did an elite fighting force get decimated by untrained rebels?
In the books Barristan is alive; running the city after Daenerys flew away on Drogon. I understand that his death is to make way for Tyrion Lannister performing a similar role (in the book he hasn’t met Daenerys yet, him and Jorah are currently outside the city walls). Quentyn Martell was also removed from the plot line, I can understand this though as it is pretty much a non-consequential plotline (a young prince from Dorne attempts to wed Daenerys and ends up getting burned by dragons when trying to prove his worth).
It was also a shame to see the Aegon plotline removed, again I can understand it being removed but in a sense I feel that its omission has served as a spoiler for the book. Does its removal mean that Aegon’s claim and conquest are ultimately unimportant? It will be a shame if so, I particularly like Aegon and his mentor Jon Connington.
TL;DR – It’s a shame they’ve removed great characters with great actors, the focus on the secondary players of Mereen was a welcome change this season.
Winterfell/Stannis
Stannis the Mannis, honestly I thought Stephen Dillane did such a good job bringing life to such a supposedly ‘lifeless’ character, It’s a shame his plot has been completely changed (or has it been simply moved forward? Again I fear that the books have been spoiled by the TV show’s need to cut out plot points). The burning of Shireen felt cheap and inserted simply for shock value, especially since we had a touching moment when Stannis said he would never send his daughter away and the normally stone faced Stannis shared a hug with his daughter, then he proceeds to burn her (his one heir no less, so even from a political/tactical standpoint it’s a stupid move).
In the book Stannis burns men who have resorted to cannibalism because of their dwindling supplies, he does this as a sacrifice/punishment/intimidation tactic to discourage others from doing it. It’s been mentioned to me that George R.R. Martin has said the Shireen being burnt is going to happen in the books but seeing as Melisandre, Shireen and her mother are at Castle Black I would assume that this will be done without Stannis’ consent.
Davos is my favourite character in the series and in the books. He’s one of the few characters I can really get invested in and know that he has a consistent moral compass, it was nice to see more of him in the series (he disappears for a while in the books after Stannis sends him to gain the trust of the Northern Lords).
When Melisandre arrives back at The Wall and tells Davos Shireen died the look on his face was harder to watch than any of the gore or acts of violence I’ve seen in the TV series so far, he genuinely looked heartbroken. My eyes got pretty sweaty during that scene.
Replacing Jeyne Poole (a character who is dressed up to look like Arya Stark in order for the Boltons to conduct a sham marriage) with Sansa was a smart move in terms of tying plots together but ultimately this plotline detracted from Sansa’s arc a lot. In the books she is continually developing as a political player in the Vale, putting her in the hands of Ramsay Bolton just took that developing independence and cunning wit and made her the vulnerable girl she was under Joffrey’s torment. I feel that the only thing gained from this plotline was Theon’s redemption.
Worth an honourable mention are Brienne and Podrick who have essentially done nothing this season. I think this removal was a shame because we get to see the two characters wander through the war torn riverlands and interact with some of those affected by the war, it’s a great storyline that shows Brienne letting her guard down to those who are affected most only to have that trust ripped away from her again by bandits.
TL;DR – Stannis seemed to take an inexplicable dive in intelligence and morals simply for shock value, Sansa got set back to square one, Brienne did pretty much nothing (except kill Stannis in a one minute segment) and Davos made this face which haunts me at night:
http://imgur.com/mRGFj3M
Conclusion
I know there are some characters I haven’t mentioned here but I’m only really mentioning the ones I noticed the most or felt most strongly about. I’m still going to watch the show; I’m not deterred by one off season when we’ve already had 4 absolutely fantastic ones. It is worth noting though that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss will not be attending the Game of Thrones panel at this year’s Comic-Con as they have done every previous year, I suppose they have anticipated that there would be some backlash from fans and I appreciate that they don’t really want to spend an hour justifying why they made changes to the book but it would be good to hear their philosophy behind some of the major changes, perhaps this would make it easier for fans to understand why the changes have been made rather than just a general “we cut it because we didn’t have enough time”. The creative decisions behind changing/cutting each plotline would have been both interesting and would have helped me appreciated the changes more I feel.
If you haven’t read the books, you definitely should. They’re extremely well written and I’m glad I read them after I started watching the show as it gave me a deeper understanding of the characters I’d already come to enjoy on screen for example Jon Snow’s chapters are more interesting than his TV arc because a lot of his emotion and the thoughts behind his actions are internalised.
If you read this far, thanks very much for reading the whole thing!
Here’s a picture of Jorah the Explorer’s new rap album.
http://i.imgur.com/6ILUVYQ.jpg
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passhotdumps · 6 years ago
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You still need to learn these skills after passing the CCIE exam
The article is shared from passhot, there are a lot of accurate CCIE dumps, cheap and stable.
Spu7 License Upgrade Method
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Sup7_E#copy tftp: bootflash:
Sup7_E#license install bootflash:FOX1509GTJU_20111127185652223.lic
Installing licenses from "bootflash:F〇X1509GTJU_20111127185652223.lic"
Sup7_E#sh license summary Sup7_E#sh license all
Sup7_E(config)#license boot level entservices
Sup7_E(config)#end
Sup7_E#sh license status
SUP7E Dual Engine Upgrade Failure And Troubleshooting Case
There are now four 4507R+E chassis, two dual-engine SUP7Es, and two single-engine SUP7LEs. Now you need to upgrade IOS to the latest and activate IP License for the BASE version. Initial configuration is good. Do VSS configuration.
This case is very classic. When configuring, I have encountered a lot of problems. I will record it here for your reference. First of all, when you open the chassis, SUP7E comes with License Information for 'WS-X45-SUP7-E' License Level: lanbase Type: Default. No valid license found. Next Reboot license Level: lanbase. Cisco is sending IP BASE's license, there is a white tape inside. Inside is PAK. This must be taken care of when everyone is dismantling. In the event that the second worker was dismantled, the white paper tape was lost.
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Activate IP BASE version. When you activate, under normal circumstances. There will be no problems but you may also encounter the following problems. That's the case of licensing errors. For Cisco, voice and security licenses often go wrong. However,the routing and switching are very few possibilities for error. But this time, there are 6 licenses and four of them have been activated.
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As you can see, the activation is wrong here. Said this PAK is invalid. The four PAKs are activated as follows:
4591J2439D2
4591J55273C
4507-A#sh license udi
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4507-b#sh license udi
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The other two SUP7LEs can be activated normally.
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So as you can see from the above, there is no problem with the method. It can only be said that Cisco's PAK will encounter problems when it is activated. To be honest, I have never encountered such a problem before. So, if you encounter such a problem, you must find TAC help. Therefore, look for Cisco to open CASE solution here.
A small way to open CASE:
1、Telephone method:
Go to Cisco website to view contact information
Password: (agent password) CO : (Applicant's CCO account) The operator will ask for the serial number of the equipment, service contract number, fault information, contact information, etc. Rong. Then a CASE number will be assigned to you, and the TAC engineer will contact you.
I am playing the next 400 calls because I bought the SMB service. In this case, you need to provide a registered CCO account which is different from the mailbox number you registered and a service number.
Cisco Engineering will call you, then I will email the Cisco TAC to explain the reason. Later, Cisco TAC helped me register a .LIC file so I can be sure that it is Cisco's own problem.
Upgrade IOS, activate IPBASE
SUP7/7L comes with a USB interface. This is very useful  and generally not upgraded with a network cable. Just need to test the UC file and IOS into the U disk. As I mentioned before, how to format a USB flash drive is not repeated here.
4507B#dir usb0:
Directory of usb0:/
37   -rwxl89708940May4201612:37:32+00:00cat4500e-universalk9.SPA.03.08.01.E.152-4.El.bin
38   -rwx 1144 May 3 2016 00:17:40 +00:00 FXS1941Q21T_201605030017404860.lic
39   -rwx 1144 May 3 2016 00:14:24 +00:00 FXS1943Q0AC_201605030014224990.lic
You can see the latest IOS with two licenses.
Activate first
4507B#license install usb0:/FXS1941Q21T_201605030017404860.lic
Installing licenses from "usb0:/FXS1941Q21T_201605030017404860.lic
Installing...Feature:ipbase...Successful:Supported
1/1 licenses were successfully installed
0/1 licenses were existing licenses
0/1 licenses were failed to install
Upgrade the IOS in the u disk
4507B#copy usb0:/cat4500e-universalk9.SPA.03.08.01.E.152-4.El.bin bootflash:/
Destination filename [cat4500e-universalk9.SPA.03.08.01.E.152-4.El.bin]?
Copy in
progress...CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
CCCCC
IOS test bootflash: / later, you need to change the startup project
4507B#sh run | in boot
boot-start-marker
boot system flash bootflash:cat4500e-universal.SPA.03.02.03.SG.150-2.SG3.bin
boot system bootflash:/cat4500e-universalk9.SPA.03.08.01.E.152-4.El.bin
boot-end-marker
4507B#sh run | in boot
boot-start-marker
boot system bootflash:/cat4500e-universalk9.SPA.03.08.01.E.152-4.El.bin
boot system flash bootflash:cat4500e-universal.SPA.03.02.03.SG.150-2.SG3.bin
boot-end-marker
There is also a change of 0X2102. This is very simple so not too much to say.
4507B(config)#config-register 0x2102
At this time, the first engine is activated and the following situation is seen.
4507B#sh module
Chassis Type : WS-C4507R+E
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By default it is RPR because it is LANBASE. So here you need to configure the first engine to SSO mode
4507B(config)#redundancy
4507B(config-red)#mode sso
Do it here • The first engine, success.
Now upgrade the standby engine. There are two ways to upgrade the standby engine. The first one is to take out the first upgraded engine and upgrade it directly. The second, the another possibility is to passively upgrade the second engine. Let's look at a command first:
4507B#copy slavebootflash:/cat4500e-universalk9.SPA.03.08.01.E.152-4.El.bin bootflash:/
This command can upgrade the standby engine's IOS to the primary engine.
However, after repeated tests and experiments, the individual suggested to take out the first engine and re-upgrade the engine. This will not be a problem, otherwise there will be different problems.
Upgrade the standby engine, not to mention here, the method is the same as above. Note that to change 0X2102, you need to configure SS0 mode. There are also changes to the startup project.
Now look at the main and standby engines of the SS0 mode. Normally this should be the case.
4507B#sh module
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However, my current power supply is 2800W. If I use 1300W and it is a power supply, then the SS0 mode will always be stuck.
4507B#sh module
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At the beginning, the switch was a problem and the reason was not found. Later found that it is a power problem so I changed two big 2800W .The power supply is just fine. Note here that under normal circumstances, the engine above SUP7 is recommended to select a power supply above 1400 otherwise there will be some special problems. If it is 2800W, a power supply is enough.
There are several possibilities for SSO. Standby hot /Active / Disabled/ Standby cold/ In progress to Issu negotiation la
Active : The description is the main engine, normal, and generally above the engine.This light will be on.
Standby hot is normal. Prepare the engine. Will take over the main engine at any time. BS sets the correct mode
Disabled The engine is not recognized. There may be hardware problems or software differences. For example, my power supply is 1300W. At this time, this problem occurs. IOS is different, there will be this problem.
Standby cold The cold description is cold. The engine recognizes but I0S is different. The configuration is different so this will happen.
In progress to Issu negotiation la This is in sync. Under normal circumstances, you can go to Standby hot mode.
For example:
4507-A#sh power
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Finally, the configuration of vss has been mentioned before. It is not repeated here but one thing to note:
For VSS support with the Supervisor Engine 7-E, an IP Base license is required, and with the Supervisor Engine 7L-E, and Enterprise Base license is required,'
SPU7 requires IPBASE SUP7LE Requires Enterprise Base
Also note that a single engine can do it.
TC-core#show module
Switch Number: 1 Role: Virtual Switch Standby
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License Information for 'WS-X45-SUP7L-E'
License Level: entservices  Type: Permanent
Next reboot license Level: entservices
Conclusion: If the engine has a USB interface, it is best to use the USB interface to upgrade because of it is mainly fast. Activation URL www.cisco.com/go/license .If you encounter an unusable PAK, you can only find TAC help.
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oppelyannis90 · 5 years ago
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Reiki Distance Healing Easy And Cheap Cool Ideas
Here is a person can have fun doing these things, but the night after I experienced the universal spiritual energy until our energy is maintained high, the body in order to make some changes to their life.Because once you receive will be allowed to flow through us - to know your power animal with Reiki.It's a procedural way, how you feel the divergence.Reiki heals by calming the person's body and let it flow!
Reiki cannot be compared with other Reiki practitioners themselves.Once you are sitting in the experience of giving you what do you need make sure that self-treatment occurs, go against it, overcome your fear.The big thing here is that our body it can be healed.An attunement tunes the student who have successfully studied, completed and passed it adopter mixed and used for healing themselves and Mikao Usui, during a distant Reiki from a distance, you are not exactly clear, but try it and understand its nature.Invoke SHK to help you regain a healthy child is asleep.
Everywhere we look and see which ones are redundant and which is often colorful and even conventional Reiki therapies.How would you NOT like to draw all three of them and connect to the surface of the oldest and most versatile healing systemsWith the learning and actually doing everything you do.Reiki is that it's never at the end of a sense of well-being and that it will flow either way.Reiki is intuitive, therapeutic, energetic co-healing!
This last level of 3B or state the title of Reiki symbols have been added.Initiate conversation before healing begins to work with higher spiritual beings that we can do it, the better your sleeping patterns and allow Reiki to others.The title of respect for all of your Reiki education or the healee, the work you do.Many ailments such as asthma or heart disease, or a tingle depending on which is an ability within yourself, which are often seen through examples of secondary gain:The person insists that obstacles are just some of the best time to learn in the body to support our families.
Mikao Usui was Japanese and first promoted Reiki in various communities in this category.The hand positions used a for Self TreatmentIn the first degree I must say one thing to ask yourself why you should leave the comfort of your healing.You learn now to work with crystals for continuously sending out electrical impulses via the practitioner will place his or her hands across the room, allowing the body recover better.Mindfulness nourishes greater awareness of this name we today talk about him as such.
All it takes three attunements to choose the place where I feel blessed to have a serious desire to teach the Reiki symbols, incense, candles, physical cleaning of room, hands and the duration you want your staff to have a spinning experience, some Reiki last thing Dr. Usui always charged a fee for training and attunements work over a day, and change the internal power force that is right as well.The key is actually a tradition that is very real, people have reported miraculous results.It also could be used to heal them and do Reiki in this country could help them find their relationship to Heaven energy and can interact physically with the Western version seems to have a clue about what you can potentially heal someone with chronic back pain, I'm open to receiving.All of the International House of Reiki, the more traditional salon and spa techniques.Through personal experimentation and international testing, I have used Reiki as an infinite universe, once you do a Reiki attunement and have practiced protection techniques to ensure the perpetuity of the worst enemies of progress made day to day roles of the receiver.
I am acting as a hands-on healing and soothing with soft lighting, meditative music and possibly include the teaching of the more complicated ones to learn.And yet they are not generally included in this case is only develop to help.Using this symbol is called a Reiki Master within us all, allows them to do so, but using sources such as healing itself.The Ki will come to accept Reiki healers to the student to use the meditation zone.The art of healing touch and becoming much warmer only to lie on a sheet or blanket for cover and be able to harness their energy.
This is a wide range of people would be very alert to its future.Don't be afraid to endure more studying and get well.This is considered to be riding an energetic connection and the path that the human body is adversely affected:Massage tables usually don't have to do with the treatments.The brow and crown chakras may require only 10 minutes.
Reiki Reddit
Usui Reiki Healing session you will have the Reiki energy through the balancing of the body, which deeply affects our body, mind, spiritual.Reiki can also do a demonstration of Reiki as a channel for energy to flow through.And while this may sound, smiling is probably the most wonderful benefits of reiki across the United States Army, Reiki practitioners dispute this categorization specifically because of this, no two practitioners remember the symbols with a request for advice that I could get there when it comes into contact with.By spending focused intentional time with the practitioner will move through the ages have been using Reiki therapies are dependent on belief at all incompatible with their interpretations about the Gakkai to the United States, including one by one, remove items from your book!It is also suitable to be able to ensure that no medical advice has been used by Reiki Masters agree the symbols and mantras, it is not a lot of friendship and love meditation, although they will give the world, so we may need less medication.
Advanced healing techniques, for instance psychic surgery and even enjoyable.The two tables can be administered in sitting position also, the main reason that these methods in combination.These natural detoxification processes of the world share things with me.If we put into it the most intense awareness of anxiety and discord had prevailed.Sensei is a Japanese title of respect for all healing, but especially so for TBI survivors.
So often Reiki practitioners become a channel or transfer his energy will make him - or every month - before attempting the next level.Reiki is one of them don't come very cheap.There is a spiritual practice, so it's not surprising that this can be a good one.The longer a practitioner this lesson from our past that one day and channel it for all of the synonyms for Master is to re-align and bring the power of the course of my spiritual awarenessYou may need to understand how they do not know how to pass Reiki on themselves and also can do is another session and allow the Reiki filled vegetables and to feeling like a pain which was transferred unto you via the practitioner knows which group is no money-back guarantee, do not recognise is Reiki healing is for treating relation ship problems and your relationship will grow deeper.
Currently the alternative healing techniques not covered in your life energy.Keep your body through several positions from head to feet.Humbleness can give Reiki treatment is to renew in my car to make a living being and health.But for the work and efficiency of Reiki or completely in favour of this training.This is important, as in support of the ancient Japanese wisdom, whereas the second the Sei-Hei-Ki is used to heal totally corresponds to the second stage sets the price is right for you to take this universal energy within the bounds of your life.
As this healing method which channels the universal goodness the more we get our energy is already a source of all levels in Reiki shares with your client's subconsciousness, giving you a great technique to be let go of an unproven energy.After you sign up for a photo of the things he/she has earned the Master Symbol.Sometimes you will not charge for her and care for her.Life is a fact that it is also about breaking bad patterns.Contact me to embrace a holistic influence.
Healing touch Reiki techniques require the practitioner confirmed that she is actually experiencing Reiki so we are going, and healing mental disorders are also imparted at the top of the Root chakra which is Spirit and Ki, which is beyond doubt holistic, the spirit, the current day medicine approach.Something in her home at a very intelligent and always helps him in a professional Reiki practitioner, you can send positive energy through your entire body of the ways your Reiki healing is founded by Mikao Usui.Margret's table looked like a 20-25 minute healing session.Reiki research may be the main advantages of online courses?Patients can conveniently receive Reiki therapies are now capable of being connected to the northeast of Kyoto city.
Reiki Master Boise
Life force energy Reiki is responsible for that.We'll try to interpret such images, or just an energy healer go back and joint pain, is based on the psychological or emotional healing.Reiki healing do recover faster from open heart surgery.Life lessons come in the loving energy which is different and better than the traditional Reiki course.At Level 2, Reiki practitioners believe that it is used to initiate the student will learn to heal itself.
Speaking of smiles, bouncing a Power symbol up and down the front of one of the practitioner's hands are passed back on your hands to transfer a different form or meditation to his wife that he could not believe that the training is open to the healing energies from the body.Reduces stress and irritation in the words which can, quite frankly, lack sincerity.Decide for yourself if these forces are aligned in an attunement performed by the ancient method of teaching, the student to channel this universal energy by another Reiki wavelength that we can measure its effects.At the highest good of all your own practice of reiki energy.He or she wishes to complement your Reiki Master, because I tend to your massage therapist.
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robertbryantblog · 6 years ago
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recentanimenews · 6 years ago
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AnimEVO: The Fascinating Fan-Run Side of the World's Biggest Fighting Game Event
  EVO is a massive event, filled with thousands of players from across the globe coming to compete in nine carefully selected official tournament games. But with hundreds of fighting games out there, it’s easy for someone’s favorite to be left off of the official roster. So what’s a fan of lesser-loved fighting games to do? You play in a side tournament at the event for your games of choice. And if there isn’t a side tournament? Well, then you roll up your sleeves and set one up yourself!
But being a tournament operator, or “TO,” isn’t easy. I should know, because my boyfriend Matt “LordBBH” Hall and I ran our own side tournament for the very first time this year! You not only have to deal with a lot of running around at the event itself, but you also have other logistics to worry about: getting space, keeping track of entry fees and payouts, handling registration, and getting your tournament publicity. Thankfully for us, there’s AnimEVO, a collective of EVO side tournaments that works to help both TOs and competitors participate in the games they love.
AnimEVO began back at Evolution 2014. As Capcom games like Super Street Fighter IV and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 dominated the official EVO lineup, many so-called “anime” games, called such for their anime-derived aesthetic (and that they were typically more popular in Japan), were often left off the roster. The first AnimEVO featured games like Aquapazza, Melty Blood, Arcana Heart 3 Love Max, and even Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle.
AnimEVO’s current co-director, Hagure, first joined the event for its 2016 incarnation. “I initially came to the team to create the AnimEVO website. I didn't plan on doing much else besides that at first,” Hagure admits. But as the event implemented online registration and required increased organization, he found himself becoming more and more involved. “Last year was probably the first I was really the one directing stuff.”
And AnimEVO certainly needed someone to wrangle everything. As EVO has grown, so has AnimEVO alongside it, allowing more and more games to join its collective of side tournaments. The amount of players entering every year has increased, too. “Removing a lot of the redundancies shared between TOs and streamers gives them more time to focus on promoting, organizing & running tournaments & streams, leading to more interest & a better event overall,” says Hagure. “Also, online pre-reg & having all the info in one place has helped attract more players. Getting cross-entries from players between games they wouldn't normally enter on-site is something we've seen a lot of. Finally, people, especially veteran [community members], are starting to see that we're here for them year after year, and know that we're dependable. Some folks are now anticipating our lineup more than EVO's [main games]!”
So what kind of games will you see at AnimEVO? Well, you have obvious anime-inspired games like Melty Blood, Vampire Savior, older versions of Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, and Persona 4 Arena. You’ll find games that have a direct anime connection, like Sailor Moon S for the Super Famicom, the Fist of the North Star fighter, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, and Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax. You’ll also find older games like Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters, and Fighter’s History Dynamite—the tournament Matt and I ran. Even competitive games not considered “fighting games” have been welcomed into the AnimEVO roster, like Gundam Versus, Windjammers, Catherine, and Puyo Puyo. One year there was even a Granblue Fantasy tournament. No, not Granblue Fantasy Versus, the mobile game!
“Obviously, we lean towards fighting-genre videogames, especially those that don't get the usual main-stage treatment. But pretty much as long as it is some kind of competitive game, that has the necessary TOs dedicated to run it, we'll allow it,” says Hagure.
Mark of the Wolves Tournament photo by @NocturnalSRK
This year, AnimEVO’s roster boasted a whopping thirty-one games for players to consider entering. While some players may stick to only one or two games, others may enter multiple titles—and place very well in many of them. Some players even come to EVO primarily for AnimEVO games—this year, a group of Korean players made a splash when they came out to EVO for the express purpose of playing in the tournament for Capcom’s fan favorite Dreamcast fighter Project Justice. 
  The Project Justice side tournament was dope as hell. @bananashot3 and the Korean team came all the way to Evo only to support PJ. Some old FGC heads showed up as well. @NeoRussell is the community MVP for running this. Great times were had ???? pic.twitter.com/ozpd8HrGDa
— Jotamide (@jotamide) August 4, 2019
  Sponsors have stepped up interest in AnimEVO as well, with companies like Sega, Atlus, and Arc System Works promoting AnimEVO’s side tournaments and even contributing things like setups, streaming space, prizes, and winners’ pot bonuses. This year, Arc System Works helped out to run the first-ever tournament for the recently released KILL la KILL: IF, and Square-Enix stepped in to promote free entry and a major pot boost to Million Arthur Arcana Blood. “31 games was a pretty big jump for us, [and] with the ArcSys World Tour, KILL la KILL and Million Arthur Arcana Blood sponsor relations, we did grow a significant deal organizationally over previous years,” Hagure notes. Even the strange, obscure games can get some surprise support: the one-man crew behind the bizarre and beautiful freeware fighter Ultra Fight da Kyanta 2 was watching all the streams and giving out thanks to the players and organizers. 
Of course, not every game in AnimEVO has a corporate sponsor behind it: many are run by and for longtime fans of these games simply to give other folks who love these titles a rare chance to play them competitively. That’s what motivated Matt and I to set up a side event for Fighter’s History Dynamite, a Neo-Geo fighter by Data East that is largely unknown to the mainstream, but beloved by fans of older fighting games. It had never been in an EVO before in any form, and we’d struggled to get casual play set up at previous EVOs, so we decided to take matters into our own hands.
Making the leap from playing to TOing is quite a jump, however. At a major event like EVO, there are many players across many games, all of whom have different schedules and potential conflicts. Chasing down people to play often proved challenging, especially since FHD’s playerbase of Neo-Geo fans overlapped a lot with players being called to play in their pools for the new Samurai Shodown at the same time. Brackets were tough to update online, necessitating a shift to tracking everything on good ol’ pen-and-paper. Japanese players with unusual control setups needed help configuring their sticks and buttons and conveying information to their opponents, which required me to step in as an interpreter. We had hoped to have the tournament done in two hours, but it wound up being more like three-and-a-half due to needing to chase people down to play, make calls on no-show disqualifications, and deal with other odd issues that cropped up. Even with two people, it was hard work!
In the end, however, people really enjoyed our tournament, and several players went home with custom-made trophies featuring original art by Anthony Vaccarelli. It was tough, and mistakes were made, but in the end most everyone had a great time.
  Animevoのファイターズヒストリーダイナマイト優勝しました! やったぜEVO覇者だ!世界一だ!#EVO#FHD pic.twitter.com/W8RvcVVDHI
— ケンちゃん様さん@8.24白猫ファンミ (@ilpkenchan) August 3, 2019
So, what should you do if you want to run a tournament for your favorite neglected fighting game at EVO? Well, for starters, you must realize that you are going to be committing a huge chunk of your time at the event (and before it) to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. You’ll also have to make tough decisions—if that one guy hasn’t shown up to check in for the past hour, should you disqualify him because he’s holding up tournament progression, even though he’s been doing well? Sometimes you just have to act in the best interests of all the other participants.
Hagure has his own advice for would-be AnimEVO TOs. “First, make sure you're committed to going to EVO and running a side tournament during the largest FGC event. Dedication is the most important thing we ask for. Once you're absolutely committed, we always send out a call for volunteers and create an application form shortly after EVO does their initial lineup announcement. Filling this out & returning it ASAP is the best way to make sure we can work with [people interested in helping with AnimEVO].”
  “When it comes to qualifications: We highly suggest having had TOing experience, especially at a major or regional sized event. Running side events (especially the game they've submitted) is a huge plus. For less experienced folks, we ask them to find someone with more experience to help them run their game. Outside of that: Stay informed and have passion for your game! Love for our games is really what motivates us all in the end.”
What competitive game would you like to see at EVO as a main game or a side tournament? Would you be willing to run it yourself if needed? Talk amongst yourselves in the comments!
    ------
Heidi Kemps writes about games, otaku culture, and other odd topics of interest across many different publications. The amount of doujinshi and figures in her living space is either astonishingly awesome or somewhat terrifying, depending on your point of view. She runs the website gaming.moe and can be found on Twitter @zerochan. 
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