#due to... reasons. in CR's development.

[amplexadversary]

I should make a Dr. Temperance Brennan fandragon on Flight Rising.

[centers-for-disease-control]

Alright, due to popular request, I bring you the break down of the Taiwan Disease Personifications. Also, just so y’all know, the official explanations for the designs are not easy to find, so a lot of this is just from what I notice and what I know about the diseases

To start off, we have everyone’s favorite disease: COVID-19

So, this is one of the designs where I could actually find the artist explanation, so I will be including that information plus a couple things I noticed and how I think it fits the disease. So let’s start with to crown. The reason for the inclusion of the crown is the reflect the name coronavirus, corona being the Latin word for crown. The face is partially obscured because of COVID’s tendency to hide itself. The bean bag chair that they are sitting on has many protrusions signifying the spike proteins. The different digital devices represent how the world went virtual during the pandemic and the news channels behind them represent the media’s freak out when COVID was at its height. The floor has an outline of the world because everywhere was affected by the pandemic. Also, if you look closely, they are wearing little Covid earrings.

Next up, we got Zika:

I could not find an official artist statement for this design, so take my explanation with a grain of salt. So first off the red waist band reminds me of the red stripe that goes down the abdomen of the mosquito species that spreads Zika after it has fed. Also, the white markings on the black are also a characteristic of this species of mosquito. In fact, the design is the stripes on the chest look like the markings these mosquitoes have on their back. She presents female because it’s the female mosquitoes that bite and spread diseases. Her sleeves look like mosquito wings once again a reference to mosquitoes being the primary vectors of Zika. The area behind her has palm fronds to represent that Zika is a disease typically found in tropical climates.

Next up we have: Hansen’s Disease (aka Leprosy)

This is one where I could find the artist statement due to it being a pretty recent one, however, I will say that at least the translation was a bit lacking in describing the reasoning of every detail. She is a mask maker because leprosy changes how people perceive those who are infected but it is something that can easily be removed with modern antibiotics. She has different accessories like the lion and crocodile headpiece that implicate the divine involvement because leprosy has been historically thought to be a punishment of the gods. The scales on her arm look like an allusion to the scaling pattern scars that those with leprosy would develop.

Next up: Rubella

After a lot of digging I found the official profile for this design but it didn’t really explain the design choices so we are going to do more analysis on my end. So the pomegranate and the red dots represent the red rashes that come with rubella infections. The glasses I assume are to show how Rubella can lead to Congenital Rubella Syndrome (CRS) which can occur in children if their mother had rubella while pregnant. One of the symptoms that comes with CRS is cataracts.

Next up: the plague

I found the explanation on this and it just confirmed my own suspicions for certain design choices. So her design is very focused on death and mysticism because of how the Black Plague led to a lot of cultural focus on these two ideas. Behind her are old coins because of the economic impact the plague had on the civilizations of its time. The references to death are the skeletal pattern on her dress, and the scythe behind her and on her belt. The references to mysticism include the tarot cards she is holding and the crosses on her hat. On the tarot cards are designs referencing the three different forms the plague takes (bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic) as well as a posey which was used to try to ward of the plague in old times. On her hat is also a collection of plague doctor masks which is pretty self explanatory as to how that connects.

Next up: Ebola

I couldn’t find the official explanation for this disease, so this is mostly speculation based on my analysis. Her outfit is red because of the hemorrhaging that comes with the disease. Specifically he lips are red because one of the more unique characteristics of Ebola is hiccuping up blood. The accessories seem to be inspired by central and western african traditional jewelry. There appear to be tribal masks on the necklace, I am not well versed in African art unfortunately, so any deeper meaning of these accessories are unfortunately lost on me. There are bats on the headdress because of bats being the natural host of Ebola. Her design is rather demonic because Ebola was so terrible for the areas affected, that people thought it could be caused be some great evil. The skulls are because of the extremely high death rate that comes with ebola. The leaves and fruits shown come from the African jungles which is typically where Ebola outbreaks start.

Next up: Novel Influenza A Virus Infections

I actually found the artist explanation for this design! As a disease closely associated with birds, there are many elements linked to birds. There are many bird shadows, the hair that looks like feathers, and the beak shaped mask, feathers on his tie and a feather tattoo on right arm, and the “H-N” pin (H and N proteins of the influenza virus).

Next up: Dengue Fever

Another one with an artist statement! Since only female mosquitoes bite, the character is set as a female. Her dark red lips represent mosquito’s instinct to bite, and she is holding a poisonous thornapple flower. She has mosquito wings tattooed on her back and thornapple flower tattooed on her arm. I have spent a long time looking into how the thornapple flower relates to dengue, but I haven’t had a lot of luck. From what I have seen is that the roots, seeds, and leaves are used in some traditional medicines, including treatments for malaria, but I have not had luck finding how it is connected to Dengue specifically.

Next up: Japanese Encephalitis

I found the artist statement for this disease as well. The disease is visualized into three characters that form a pop group, with their names reflecting the 3 main Culex mosquito species that spread Japanese encephalitis in Taiwan, which are Culex tritaeniorhynchus (Three), Culex annulus (Ring), and Culex fuscocephala (Shiro). They wear black and white, like the colors of the Culex mosquitoes. Red accessories represent their love for blood. I don’t have much to add outside of the artist explanation.

Last one for now is: Rabies

I found the explanation for this one, but it is not descriptive at all, so I am going to be going into every detail because this is Rabies. The spikes on the jacket and pant legs represent the protein spikes rabies uses to infect nerves. The blue jacket and gloves are representing water as one of the unique characteristics of rabies is hydrophobia (physical repulsion to water). The claw marks on the shirt show the animalistic tendencies the virus brings out. The violin players in the animal mask show how the virus can hide in these animals. The personification of rabies is holding a conductor’s wand showing how rabies controls those who are infected. The teeth necklace shows how it spreads through bites and they are standing on the brain because that is what rabies infects. He has a chain with mammal skulls once again tying back to rabies being a fatal mammalian disease. The belt buckle has a bone on it as bone are associated with bones and rabies is associated with dogs.

[utilitycaster]

In the course of a couple of conversations I think I have hit on some of the fandom weirdness this campaign, and it's notable because I realized it when it was my answer to both a question about why the fandom response to "Party of NPCs" was pretty negative at the time but I don't think it would be now; and someone pointing out to me how there was a sudden massive spike of enthusiasm for Ashton and Fearne as a ship without a particularly large corresponding boost in any sort of fan works.

I suspect that many of the people who came to C3 as their first CR campaign came through the avenue of shipping; either because Shadowgast and Beauyasha both broke containment to some extent; because of TLOVM (which as a scripted TV show where they know the relationships and how they shake out, there can be foreshadowing), or because of the influxes of people shipping Imogen and Laudna circa May and September 2022. This is in contrast to Campaigns 1 and 2, where a lot of the fanbase came via D&D fandom, fantasy fandom, voice acting fandom, and more general word of mouth. This time, people showed up to ship; of that segment of the fandom, shipping is a major if not the primary way in which they interact with fiction.

Here's the truth: this is a terrible campaign for shipping, and indeed, one of the worst shows for shipping I've seen in a while. This, to be clear, is not a critique of quality. It's merely an observation that this is a terrible campaign for shipping specifically, but a great one for many of the myriad other reasons why one might watch long-form actual play. It's plot-heavy, with a pretty intricate network of laid groundwork over eight years of storytelling, two past campaigns, and two miniseries finally paying off. It's been heavy on showing the unexplored corners of the world in Marquet, rural Issylra and the Shattered Teeth. It's taken risks with the typical D&D campaign structure and with party composition and splits, to varying degrees of success. It's allowed a revisiting of beloved NPCs and locations from the past. It's the lore campaign! It's extremely not the shipping campaign.

I think most people have picked up on that by now, even if it's only subconsciously, and so those who watch with the express intent of shipping, are grasping at the most tenuous of straws because that's pretty much what they have. Two canon ships and one noncanon but hinted-towards ship are with guest characters who are not present and so are necessarily very quiet. Chetney and Fearne is a lot of fun but it does not fit the usual shipping-above-all preferences of monogamous love to marriage/partnership to babies, plus Chetney is weird and old. (This has always been an issue with this mentality, incidentally; for all I think the popularity of Shadowgast is why some of these people are here, the fact of the matter is that many of the people who like Shadowgast like a completely foreign to canon concept operating under that name that erases the frequent long-distant nature and the almost certain lack of children and the deliberate choice to end the relationship amicably due to different needs.) However you may feel about Imogen and Laudna it is incontrovertible that there's been little to no movement in what is now a calendar quarter. And so: two people doing something that is not explicitly romantic while two other characters say "emperor and empress" is a paltry, miniscule - and I hate to use the word but no other will do - crumb; but it is a crumb to a starving populace.

In case my feelings aren't abundantly clear...I say let them eat cake. I enjoy ships and shipping! I enjoy seeing characters recognize themselves through the other and develop over time as they fall in love with another character; I enjoy seeing a deep romance unfold slowly so that I can savor it. But this campaign just doesn't really have that, and that's never been the most significant reason I watch, let alone the main one. I'd rather have no romantic relationships in a work than rushed ones that strain credibility or lack chemistry, and those who do want romance can either find other shows, or focus on transformative work. For those who came to Campaign 3 on the basis of rumors of the great romances in Campaigns 1 or 2, those are still there for you! And while I think we're too far in for a campaign-length romance, there are plenty of ways for the existing ships to become something more interesting. But I think this explains a lot of the weirder patterns in the fandom conversation as of late.

[grayintogreen]

OKAY SO. I am (and this is obvious for my followers as opposed to this tag), I am currently running headlong towards the ending of my huge CR longfic, but I have started to develop my next project. Not sure when I'll start posting because if I do it too soon it's going to be hard to keep up with it and YCDHN and I do NOT WANT THAT, so I'm gonna poke at it casually while seeing how much of YCDHN I can write before I come back from my posting hiatus in March. If it looks like I'm making a lot of headway in getting the next three chapters written, we'll see.

SO WHAT IS THIS NEXT PROJECT? Glad you asked.

learn that even death may die is going to be a Hazbin Hotel fic that goes AU after 1x06 (due to that being where I started plotting it). The official summary is as follows:

When Lucifer agrees to seal his powers to set an example of humility to buy more time for the Hotel to work, Adam and the Exorcists scheme with the Vees in order to take the Hazbin Hotel down once and for all. Meanwhile, Alastor has a little secret that he'd like to be through with that would change the face of Hell if anyone knew...

And Husk has caught feelings, which is unrelated to all of the above.

It's a plotty, ensemble piece, featuring Found Family dynamics, Alastor and Lucifer being each others' biggest haters, Husk and Angel in a bodyguard AU for reasons, and the kind of plot you can expect from the idiot who brought you two million words about Cree Deeproots.

Here's an extended preview of the first chapter. Spread the word! Get hype! It's something I'm really excited to work on when I've gotten a lot more progress on my YCDHN backlog.

The last week had been… Harrowing, to say the least. The Extermination had been personal- deeply personal- and while no one at the Hotel had fallen, the line of angelic spears stabbed into the ground outside with demon heads proudly spelling out YOU CAN’T HIDE FOREVER (Vaggie had noted that was such a waste of spears) had made the message clear. This was going to continue and next time they wouldn’t be so lucky.

She didn’t know when the next would come- back to a year or another six months or another week. She had paced, relentlessly, as the Hotel put itself back in order and those who had been injured licked their wounds. Husk, in particular, had survived a scuffle with Adam, himself, and while he didn’t appreciate the warm embrace he got for his bravery, she didn’t know how else to thank him aside from maybe a very expensive bottle of booze at Angel’s suggestion, which he did like and seemed to like even more when she told him it had been Angel’s idea.

That should have been something she lit on! Something that she could really sink her teeth into and do something about! Were Angel and Husk an item? Was there unspoken tension? What would that do for Angel’s suitability to Heaven? Surely, a stable, monogamous relationship could only-

But no. She’d let that thought slide out of her mind with barely more than a hum, never mind a full number about it. Her mind had to be on the Hotel and protecting it. She couldn’t even do a lesson plan in these conditions! Activities had ground to a halt in favor of ‘work together to clean up the corpses.’ She was going to scream or bite or… or something.

Vaggie helped. She always did. The initial shock of learning about her being an angel had passed and while there had been some distance in the month leading up to the Extermination, Vaggie’s dedication to her remained absolute and she had nearly gotten herself killed multiple times to make up for what she felt were her sins in the past.”

”Demons kill each other and that’s different,” she’d said when Charlie told her that no one in the Hotel, save herself, was fully clean of demon blood.”They aren’t killing because they think everyone here deserves to die. It’s different.”

So that was still sort of a whole unresolved thing too, and that was just before her father kicked the door in, ready to throw down because he had one rule when his hand was forced about the Extermination and that was not putting his family in direct harm. Getting him to do more than fume and fuss over it had occupied a lot of time she didn’t actually have, but the end result had led her here… Back to Heaven.

With her father.

Outside the golden gates, he stood ramrod straight, fingers clenched so tightly around the head of his cane she was certain his fingers would grip right to the core. She glanced at his shaking hands and laid her own over them. “Dad, it’s okay.”

“I haven’t been back to Heaven in… Oooh.” He whistled. “Awhile. It’s…” He tugged his collar. “Not actually full of great memories, y’know, sweetie?” He leaned over to whisper. “Maybe we should just go back down and work on this on a lower level. I know some phenomenal wards. You think that dusty radio guy has moves? Your dad has better moves. I invented some of those runes he uses. My wards- pristine.”

She wrinkled her nose and pulled him closer to the front desk. “Daaaad, come on. It’ll be fine. I think things will actually work out this time if you’re here.”

“Really? ‘Cause I feel like they’re gonna go much worse.” As if to prove it, the second the pair strode towards the desk, St. Peter nearly flung the guestbook to reach for something underneath the desk. Charlie had to lunge to stop his hand from hitting a button with a very familiar runic symbol on it- fuck, they had a Lucifer button.

“Wait wait wait! He’s not- we’re not here to cause any trouble. We just need to talk to Sera- or Emily. Actually, I’d rather talk to Emily, if it’s… all the same.” She shot him a winning smile.

Behind her, Lucifer was making what could only be described as a ‘stink face.’ “This is going greeeeat. Are you sure about this, Charlie? It’s not too late to go back.”

“Dad!”

“Charlie!” A winged shape suddenly burst free of the Gates and wrapped tight arms around her middle. Unable to resist, Charlie wrapped her arms around the gray-clad form as well and spun her around. “Emily!”

“Oh my Heavens, Charlie, I’m so glad you’re okay!” Emily pulled away to grip Charlie’s hands so tightly that it was a pleasant kind of crushing. Like a weighted blanket. She leaned forward to whisper, “I’ve been doing all I can. There are angels who truly believe this isn’t right. Sera has told me to give it up, that doubting leads to Falling, because-“

Both girls looked askance at Lucifer, fiddling with the head of his cane awkwardly, that vapid look he got when he was overwhelmed making it clear that he’d stopped paying attention.

Charlie, for the first time daring to doubt, whispered back in a nervous high-pitched lilt, “Iiiis it bad that I brought him here?”

“No! I… I don’t think.” Emily frowned. “I should warn Sera, of course.” She stepped back and approached Lucifer, who flinched like he was about to be scolded- oh dad how badly did the angels hurt you. “Greetings, Morningstar,” she said, bowing a bit. “It is an honor to meet you. I was only a fledgling when you Fell.”

“For the record, I didn’t Fall. I was pushed.” Lucifer, seeing Emily’s own flinch, immediately softened and underneath all the anxiety, Charlie caught a glimpse of the angel her father had been once as he ducked his head and accepted her greeting graciously and with the genteel quality of true nobility. “Thank you for being courteous about this. Tell the High Seraph that we won’t take up any of her time. We… have a deal to renegotiate. It seems Adam’s legions have forgotten what we agreed long ago.”

Emily bobbed her head with a grin and slipped through a portal, leaving St. Peter to anxiously open the Gates without his usual aplomb. Charlie strolled through and Lucifer, feeling somewhat more confident after seeing how Emily treated him, tapped the poor angel’s desk with his cane. “Keep up the good work, Pete.”

The promenade was still full of people dancing about in a joyous display of virtue and peace, but now looking at it, all she saw were people who had somehow gotten lucky. She tried to find a commonality in any of them, something that she could take back and use to prove her point, but there didn’t seem to be a single thing these people had that hers didn’t… besides, you know, the fixation on sin and murder. And, honestly, some of them might have that too, hidden under the surface. Look at Adam.

“Heyyyy, Short Stack! How’s it goin’?”

Speak of the fucking prick.

Every fiber of Charlie’s body reached for Hellfire and only her father’s iron-tight grip on her shoulder kept her from exploding in a rush of demonic energy. Her horns appeared and vanished in the blink of an eye and she focused on deep, healing breaths as Adam, the walking canker sore, swaggered up to them on the promenade.

“They’ll let anyone in here these days, huh?” Adam planted his hands on his hips and grinned. Behind him, Lute bristled.

“Funny. I was gonna say the same thing about you. Hah!” Lucifer barked. All that anxiety he’d worn outside had been cast aside like an old coat- something about Adam had struck the same nerve that Alastor had only in a different key. A beat, and then: “No seriously, how did you get in here? I was there, remember. You also ate the apple. It was a, uh, whole thing, actually.”

“Yeah, but I did it second.” He reached into his ear with his pinky to dislodge a bit of wax and flicked it across the golden streets. “That counts for something.”

Still lingering on the angels’ wishy-washy answer about how precisely one gets into Heaven and with the proof that there wasn’t some actual code to follow right before her eyes, Charlie crossed her arms over her chest and fought the urge to scowl. Scowling gives you lines that make your smiles less effective. Everyone knew that.

“How’s the wifey, by the by, Lucy? Still smokin’?” Adam slammed a hand into a fist. “Oh wait. I forgot. You two are hella divorced, amirite?”

“We are not divorced.” Lucifer began to panic, whipping to Charlie like he expected her to believe any of that shit. There was something in his eyes that spoke volumes about the truth of what was going on with him and Lilith that she would have to unpack later- she hadn’t asked before. It was too painful to bring up. “We- we’re on a break. Yeah, a break. Just a break.” He swallowed, leaned on his cane, and adjusted his stance. “Which is more than I can say for you and yours. How is Eve, by the way? Oh waaaait! She’s in Hell. With me. Just like your first wife. Hah. Man, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say one of us knows how to treat a woman.” Another pause. He leaned into Adam’s space and whispered. “It’s me.”

Adam’s ghoulish face screwed up in disgust. “Yeah, okay, pal, you just drink your ‘respect women’-” are the air quotes necessary? really?, “- juice. You can use it to gargle after you lick my balls.”

“Adam,” Sera’s voice said, coarsely, snapping him to attention with a mumbled aw fuck mom’s home.

She hovered as glorious as ever with her six wings, towering over Lucifer as she landed between him and Adam, shunting him out of her space and into Lute’s. Charlie and Emily both shot him sour looks and held hands in solidarity as they watched the fallen Morningstar engage with the High Seraph for the first time in millenniums.

The seconds ticked on in agonizing awkward silence. Lucifer’s throat bobbed. “High Seraph.”

“Morningstar,” Sera murmured, politely, her shoulders tense. Another long moment of silence followed- clearly she was waiting for Lucifer to explain himself. Charlie’s palms started to sweat, but not Emily’s. Angels apparently didn’t sweat. Her grip alone, however, spoke to her anxiety matching Charlie’s.

Lucifer’s jaw trembled and he finally, finally yanked himself together again. “Maybe we can talk about this somewhere more private? The street is… Open.”

Indeed, they were starting to attract attention. People might not recognize Lucifer on sight these days, but that apple and snake motif was sort of painfully obvious when you thought about it for a moment. Sera gave a nod and circled her fingers in the air to open another portal. “Certainly. Come into my office.”

Adam started to follow and Lucifer thrust his cane to stop him. “No, no. Not you. Seraphs only.”

Adam snarled and lowered the staff. “Your piece of hellsnatch daughter ain’t a seraph, Little Man.”

Charlie saw her father’s eyes light up with a fire she only saw when he had to be in a room with Alastor. “What did you say about my daughter?”

“Dad.”

“You want me to say it louder? Or do you want me to moan it, Daddy?” Adam leered.

“That’s enough!” Emily snapped before Sera could, her small form crowding into Adam’s space, all of her angelic eyes open and glowering daggers at the lesser angel. He shrank back. “There will be no more disrespect in this room. Adam, this concerns you, so you will be allowed entry, but please keep your mouth shut.”

Charlie felt her heart squish as Emily brushed off her dress and then strolled through the portal, nose primly in the air. Sera, lips pressed together, only gave a sober nod and followed.

“How come he-“ Adam snarled, but Lute gripped his arm and pushed him into the portal.

“Pick your battles, sir.”

“I wanna pick this one,” he whined as he vanished into the Seraph’s study. Lucifer and Charlie lingered for a moment- one with hope in her heart and the other rapidly descending into the pit of despair after just seconds of glorious, if not damning and futile, wrath. She reached for his hand.

“C’mon, dad. You got this.”

The soft smile melted her heart even more than Emily’s protection had. He stood on his toes to pull her into an embrace and give her a kiss on the head- more to comfort himself than her, she was sure, but she didn’t mind. He hopped through the portal and she followed into an austerely decorated space. Painfully minimalist. Ooh this was not a side of Heaven she liked at all. There wasn’t even art on the walls. Just gray slate with a huge plate-glass window behind the bare desk. Not a single knickknack to distract from its function.

Sera slid into the seat behind the desk, while Emily stood at attention next to her, hands clasped in front of her, eyes still fixed on Adam, daring him to speak. He skulked in the background, intentionally toying with the boring book-laden shelves- also free of knickknacks and personal touches- by running his fingers on the spines or pulling them out and pretending to read them before tossing them at Lute to put back with a bored eyeroll.

Conjured chairs were produced for Lucifer and Charlie, which they took, gladly. With everyone who was going to settle having done so, Sera sighed.

“Let’s talk, Lucifer. What brings you back to Heaven? You were told to never come back.

[thorraborinn]

What's your view on the word 'íviði', from Vǫluspá stanza 2, "níu man ek heima, níu íviði, mjötvið mœran fyr mold neðan." I just encountered this and that the meaning of it seems very contested. Why is it so unclear?

There's a discrepancy between the word "íviði" in the Codex Regius and íviðjur in Hauksbók and which also appears in the singular íviðja (dative íviðju) in Hyndluljóð and a þula of names for troll-women. I think most recent editions/translations accept that the Codex Regius actually did once say íviðjur but that it's faded and become unclear. It certainly wasn't written out in full but it does seem possible that an abbreviation (probably a small "r" above and to the right of the word, in that darkish patch) could have faded with time:

I think it's worth considering that CR and Hauksbók could have different words here, as the two redactions differ in other ways too, but I do think it's more likely that the word was always íviðjur in both, and that the discrepancy is due either to fading with age or just a mistake on the part of the CR scribe. I'm going to treat them as the same.

Since it doesn't come up very often we don't have a lot of context for interpreting it. The fact that it comes up in a list of troll-woman names makes defining it as "troll-woman" straightforward, as its other attestations can more or less easily be interpreted that way, but other interpretations are possible and it could also have ended up on that list of names by misunderstanding. Or it could have a different core meaning, but also be used as a troll name in addition, like how gríðr is a word meaning 'greed' but is also the name of a troll-woman or giantess.

On its surface, the word looks like it describes something that lives 'in the woods': í 'in' + við- 'wood' + -ja (derivational suffix). That probably would have been satisfactory to any Norse speaker, and is a pretty good name for a trollish person.

But meanwhile, there is a widespread Germanic set of words, Old English and Old Saxon inwid, OHG inwit, etc all with meanings related to 'deceit, guile.' This probably occurs in Old Norse in the compound íviðgjarn, though it seems this word only appears once (Völundakviða). An earlier cognate of the Old English adjective inwidda (< *in-widjan-) could, inflected for the feminine, be the direct antecedent to the word íviðja in Old Norse. It's possible that this is the origin of the word, and it just happened to develop into a word that would be subject to interpretation as 'in the woods' later on.

A third interpretation compares it to the word viðja 'withy (flexible shoot or twig)' and emphasizes its context in proximity to the world tree in Völuspá. This seems possible as well, though the í- prefix is hard to explain.

All of these are reasonable, we can probably debate the relative likelihood of one interpretation or another but probably can't declare one definitive. All these interpretations may have been available to the speakers of Old Norse who gave us the word too, so it might have been unclear to them as well, or maybe the multiplicity was a feature and not a flaw. Then again they didn't use the word very often so maybe they had a hard time being precise with it.

[eziojensenthe3rd]

Midnight Gaming: Serious Squidding

So last night I played some Serious Sam past midnight, checked socials later to find... Nintendo takes down Splatoon 3 video for mentioning sex.

So during a time when Half-life and Halo have led fps games away from one-liner spouting, 90s fps games to ones that focused on a narrative, Serious Sam was a series that stood in defiance of the changing tides with hordes of screaming headless mobs running towards you the player.

The hordes arent really an exaggeration as for the time, croteams first game featuring the tshirt wearing warrior, The First Encounter, was notable in pc gaming for having tons of enemies swarming you on screen, across various arenas and an array of explosions.

My first entry though was infact The Next Encounter on the gamecube before I eventually grabbed the HD remasters as well as 2 and bfe on steam. Beaten First Encounter on normal difficulty and sometimes play the other games from time to time. 2 was the one that repelled me the most due to how cartoony it looked. It was presented like a saturday morning cartoon with corny jokes and all whiched clashed with the bloody carnage. It just didnt mesh well and neither did Before First Encounter and that was for opposite reasons.

BFE from what I heard from rumours was originally meant to be just another military shooter that croteam was working on before it got canned and they repurposed a lot of the enviroment assets for a Serious Sam game instead. Its just a rumor but it does explain why it was all in modern Egypt. But yeah that game felt a bit too grounded at times with the story and graphics being a bit drab. Also it has glory kills? You could melee some enemies with a prompt and just kill them outright, without the need to use your guns, just press the melee when your close enough and you'll blink towards an enemy, kill them outright and move on. Also BFE seems badly optimised for Switch since i've seen a lot of graphics pop in whenever I turn around a corner.

So early parts of First and Second encounter? Fine enough, you go through arenas, face several enemies, you run backwards at times, its serious sam... maybe I dont like Serious sam that much? I like it enough and there are times when it becomes tense and yet.. I often just lose interest nowadays. Could be that I often play on Normal since to me it feels.... fair. You want to play Serious Sam in a way that makes you dread every healing item and ammo pickyp you come across? Play them on Serious difficulty, the highest difficulty thats unlocked from the start, and you will definatly develop some new phobias. I tried playing on Serious for TFE and, there is, never a time where you can reliably let your guard down. Every corner, every hallway, EVERY ITEM, there will be a chance of enemies being spawned. Sometimes right in your face. Go watch a playthrough on Serious difficulty or play it yourself and you'll understand why.

Actually, the games story at first was going back in time in order to find and stop Mental right? Thats what the early games before BFE were about, travelling through the timelock to try and stop an alien overlord who is trying to destroy humanity right? Right? Because I dont think time travel is really utilised much as a narrative device in this series. All the time periods you could potentially visit and fight enemies in. The first encounter only had Egypt. The second encounter had some time periods to go through. The next encounter also had that but that wasnt really made by croteam. 2 didnt had time travel instead going by multiple worlds and BFE onwards was just in modern times on earth. Seems like only croteam only did 2 games that barely scratched the surface on time travel and then just dropped it. Isnt that strange.

Just to wrap this segment up, I will say one more thing. I also went and played the two serious sam ports on steam, Classics Revolution and Serious Sam Fusion... beta.

CR seemed to be focused on the classic versions of TFE and TSE while Fusion is based on the HD remasters and BFE, both of course have workshop support. And you know what, its nice to play Serious Sam with mods, playing through a remastered version of TFE's maps with Overwatch weapons was neat.

So moving on to news, Nintendo. That company has garnered a mixed opinion nowadays. On one hand making great games and on the other hand striking down any form of appreciation shown by their fans. This however does come off as a bit silly though in my opinion, A video by Splatoon youtuber Liora Channel was struck down for "Sexual Content"? So Liora did a video called Splatoon Girls which focused on women who played Splatoon and talked about themselves and their personal lives. Some of these women have admitted they dated some high-profile splatoon players and engaged in casual initimacy. Nintendo didnt like that so they struck the video down.

Now, I'm aware the series is rated around 3+, its very much marketed towards kids but, to be honest I dont think the playerbase is mostly just kids. I guess it was more around late teens to early 20's maybe and with the lobbies allowing for miiverse style picture posts allowing anyone to post any drawn image, I wouldnt think the fanbase is that prudish. Then again I dont play Splatoon so I could be very wrong and Nintendo could be right but if this video that Liora made was to interact with women splatoon players and they admit to having initimate relations, is it really right to strike it down because it clashes with intended marketing. I dont know but i'll leave you the article from gonintendo.com and you can decide for yourself.

Thank you all reading, feel free to leave some feedback and game suggestions. Anons are currently on.

[monstersdownthepath]

Demigod Dossier: Asura Rana, part 2

Pictured: Not any of the Rana, but the closest thing we’re likely to get to an image of them: the highest CR Asura, the Asurendra from Bestiary 3, pg. 23. I could have re-used the same pic from last time, but that might be too confusing...

Lawful Evil Mistakes of the Gods The Complete Book of the Damned, pg. 110~111

Aah, the poor Asura Rana... Among fiendish demigods, they’re one of the least developed, having barely any lore in ANY book, not a single representative with a statblock, and most damning? Not a single piece of art depicting any of them. It’s a shame, because they have some of the more compelling lore of any of the fiends, being directly created by the gods’ mistakes and acting as living representations of divine failures and frustrations. If any fiend should have an easy time spreading apostasy and heresy and weakening the overall amount of faith of the world, it should be them. 

As I discussed in the last post that introduced the majority of their lore, Asura Rana are not traditionally ascended from lessers of their kind, but rather born from one specific, apocalyptic tragedy that caused death and trauma across a whole nation, continent, or even an entire planet. This isn’t ALWAYS the case, mind, as some lesser asura can be reborn into greater and greater forms--usually, but not always, with the blessing of another Rana--due to achieving some physical or spiritual apotheosis and blooming into a semi-divine entity... and, rarely, suffering a humiliating but enlightening defeat can see an asura reincarnating into a form stronger than the one before it.

The three we’ll be discussing are one of each: Chupurvagasti, born fully-formed when an entire planet was covered in toxic mists by an enraged god; Gavidya, who ascended over time as he wove lies and apostasies into a hundred different religious groups, causing them to fracture and self-destruct; and Ioramvul, who died thousands of times by his own hand and became stronger with every death until he ascended to the status of a Rana. I also, for many reasons, find each of them amusing or interesting enough to review. So how about we look at what these lore-less fiends offer...

The Asura Rana work freely with mortals, seeing them as potential allies and tools in their battles against the divine… if only to destroy them once they’ve outlived their usefulness. Worshipers receive Boons that are are relatively simple: a trio of spell-like abilities, each of which may be used 1/day. Boons are normally gained slowly, at levels 12, 16, and 20, however entering the Evangelist, Exalted, or Sentinel Prestige Classes can see the Boons gained as early as levels 10, 13, and 16. Note that while they are Lawful Evil fiends that live in Hell, they are not devils, thus you cannot enter the Diabolist Prestige Class to obtain their Boons without DM fiat.

Chupurvagasti, the Lady of Poison Mist Rana of Mists, Poison, and Veils Domains: Air, Evil, Law, Trickery Subdomains: Cloud, Deception, Fear, Wind

Obedience: Meditate while wearing a veil soaked in acrid, toxic chemicals that induce minor rashes. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws against poison effects.

Off to a rough start! While the chemicals are stated to only be foul enough to cause ‘minor rashes,’ you can bet that over time, that nastiness will build up. Good thing your chosen goddess also gives you protection from poison! And that most DMs won’t bother with tracking your long-term exposure to dangerous chemicals. It’s hard to be scared of anything that’d take 20~30 years to start having side-effects, especially when Neutralize Poison (or Lesser Restoration) will likely be available to you within a year or two at most.

Like most of the Rana, this Obedience is quite subtle and easy to hide, despite the awful first impression it’ll probably leave on anyone seeing you do it for the first time. Even the resulting rashes can be explained away if you wave off the ritual as some sort of esoteric skin-cleansing or beauty regimen. Or the precursor to one, as you apply ointment and balm to the rashes to soothe them! One whiff of the Narsty coming off your rags, and few people will likely stick around to actually investigate further and figure out you’re worshiping a nihilistic destroyer deity. It’s even easier if you’re an Alchemist, or even just a regular chemist, as you can synthesize your own mixtures to minimize their potential damage to you and remove the complications of getting them in the first place! All in all, quite simple... but, of course, impossible to do if your belongings get stolen, which I always ding points off for.

The benefit isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. Extra protection from poison is good at all levels and in every campaign (except Evil vs Good, as goody-goods are unlikely to wield poison), and while poisons are rarely dangerous to a given party after level 8 or so, they can certainly be a resource-drain when trying to handle them and especially when trying to undo their damage before it begins to stack up. If nothing else, having a bit of a buffer between yourself and needing to waste a party spell slot on Neutralize Poison is good.

Boon 1: Displacement Boon 2: Quickened Stinking Cloud Boon 3: Quickened Cloudkill

And here we are in the meat of it! Chupur gives quite the handy selection of spells to her followers as they level, all three of them being excellent defensive tools. Displacement is a one-size fits all buff for anyone expecting to be attacked a lot, imposing a 50% miss chance to attacks against yourself or another character expected to go into the front line. While the duration leaves much to be desired, it’s hard to hate a free cast of Displacement saved for a particularly gnarly fight with an enemy that has a lot of attacks. That it lets you cast it on someone else instead of just yourself is a nice ribbon, as it lets you pick whether you want to save your tank some HP, or your backline from any stray blows that get through.

Next-- hey! HEY! HEY!!! That’s CHEATING, you little rat! It’s spell level 3, 6, and 9 for Boons 1, 2, and 3 (respective) for Asura Rana! You thought you were being sneaky, didn’t you? But I caught you right in the act! Trying to get your followers a level 7 spell when you thought no one was looking! Well I’m onto you!

... anyway. Yes, while Chupur may be [through gritted teeth] breaking the established rules to get her followers Quickened Stinking Cloud, she at least broke them to get them a great spell. I can’t think of any reason you WOULDN’T want a Quickened spell of any sort, least of all a spell that not only breaks line of sight between you and hostiles, but can outright stop entire groups of enemies from fighting back at all once it’s used. Anything not immune to poison that gets caught in a Stinking Cloud has to save versus nausea that lasts for as long as they remain in the fog, and then for 1d4+1 extra rounds on top of that once they exit, so even if they managed to stumble out and spot you, they won’t be able to do anything for--at the very least--two more entire rounds. And because it’s Quickened? You can lob a Fireball into a crowd, then fart all over whoever survived to keep them from firing back.

Worst case scenario, it’s a more expensive Obscuring Fog, which itself is already a great defensive spell. I can’t be angry at this, no matter how much it breaks the rules. [grumbling] lawful evil my ass... 

This, of course, leads nicely into Cloudkill. Take everything I said about Stinking Cloud and put it here as well, but add in the caveat that instead of just nauseating everyone inside, Cloudkill... well, kills them. Innocent commoners and weaker minions are slain outright, while moderately stronger ones must save every turn or die. Anything with more than 6 HD takes 1d4 Con damage every round they remain in the cloud, which builds quickly since there’s no actual way to resist the Con damage unless you’re immune to poison (making the save only cuts the damage in half, min 1).

Perhaps to keep down potential cheese strats with Forcecage, the cloud automatically moves 10ft forward each round until it can simply go no further, preventing you from using the Quickened nature of the spell to perform a one-two punch of locking an enemy in a box and then spraying them with RAID... but you CAN enclose an enemy (or enemies) in a U-shaped Wall of Force (which unlike Forcecage, doesn’t allow a save), as the cloud cannot move past the Wall and will simply stop once it touches it. If you or an ally can coordinate your spells, you can Wall of Force, then Quickened Cloudkill into the gap, then another ally can seal the remaining exit point with another Wall spell of any sort to assure the deaths of all creatures inside.

While this can work with Wall of Stone or similar spells, it’s up to the DM how they interpret the cloud’s inexorable movement; I specifically chose WoF because it says ‘spells cannot pass through it,’ so the cloud would stop moving once it reached the wall. If the DM states, reasonably, that the cloud stops if it cannot penetrate a substance, you can get away with Wall of Stone, Ice, Bone, or similar. Or you can eschew lethal combos and just spray it over a crowd of enemies to mop up everyone not worth your time! Much like with stanky cloud, it’s hard to not be excited for Quickened Mass Extinction.

------

Gavidya, the Numberless Rana of Corruption, Indoctrination, and Lies Domains: Community, Evil, Law, Trickery Subdomains: Deception, Family, Slavery, Thievery

Obedience: Count the bearings inside a sap, assigning each the name of someone you know and intend to indoctrinate or deceive. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on Bluff checks to tell lies and on saving throws against Divination effects.

Again, continuing the trend Asura Rana tend to have of making an Obedience subtle, if odd. Your behavior is likely to come off as obsessive-compulsive rather than any level of Evil, especially since you don’t have to state aloud the names on your list. I enjoy the idea of a character starting out with a single name on their list, but over the course of the campaign, they eventually acquire a name for every individual bearing inside their sacred weapon (note, Gavidya is one of THREE whole deities whose sacred weapon is the sap!). So, yes; easily concealed Obedience which requires very little investment--a sap can be replaced if stolen for a measly 1 gold in anything but a desolate dungeon--only minorly complicated by the fact that saps in Pathfinder tend to be metal or wood beatsticks, not socks full of beans, stones, or ball bearings, as the Obedience implies. Still, a sack of ball bearings isn’t exp-- wait

wait what?

hold on, am I blind? Am I crazy?? Am I stupid??? where on earth in equipment are the ball bearings?! I could have SWORN...

... huh. I guess they don’t exist in Pathfinder! This is odd, considering the modernity of some of its tech. I suppose you could get away with filling a leather or burlap bag with wooden bearings, which should absolutely exist on Golarion, or marbles, which not only exist but are statted out (costing 1sp for a bag, adventurer pocket change), in place of metallic bearings to replace a lost or stolen sap.

Anyway, the benefit. Benefit’s good, because any Divination spell that has a saving throw is typically one you really want to save against to keep an enemy from having an easy time analyzing you, especially if you’re going to be living up to your Rana’s standards of lying at every available opportunity. Top contenders are Scrying and the entire Detect Thoughts family along with their imitators, but there’s also the niche case of Mind Thrust and its line of Except Bigger versions being incredibly rare cases of offensive Divination spells. It’s not as valuable in a battle as having saves against Necromancy or Enchantment, but it’s very valuable OUT of battle whenever someone out there is trying to get a read on you.

Boon 1: Glibness Boon 2: Create Greater Mindscape Boon 3: Microcosm

Well, this first one’s easy! Glibness should be a spell familiar to anyone who’s ever played as, with, or against a Bard. The absolutely divine +20 bonus it gives to make your lies believable cancels out the -20 penalty associated with telling impossible lies, allowing you to gaslight and girlboss (gender neutral) your way past pretty much anyone trying to gatekeep you. Even if your lie contradicts everything they know, they’ll at least give it some thought and sometimes even a take a moment to double-check their own knowledge, which gives you enough time to think of something even more convincing (or just run). If you’re not brave enough to go around trying to convince people you’re Aroden reborn, the +20 bonus is quite handy even if you’re not the party’s face, turning you into one for the absolutely monstrous duration of 10 min/level. If you ARE the party’s face it’s practically unnecessary overkill, but if you’re going to be lying ANYWAY, you may as well lie in style.

This second one, though? This one requires a bit more explanation than I could ever fit into a single article, but I’ll do my best: So long as you have a vague idea about who you’re going to aim the spell at, it’s a Save-or-Suck sleep effect on upwards to 13 creatures at once (+1 per level)... and you don’t need line-of-effect. The Mindscape spell operates similarly to Dimension Door, in that you need only paint an area and the spell locks onto whatever target falls into that area, without you needing to be able to draw line-of-effect or even know what you’re shooting at. If you need a room cleared, you can target a soldier garrison and say you’re affecting as many people as possible... but if, say, you saw someone of high rank enter that same garrison, or if you know the king is in his chambers, or the big bad evil guy is in the hall next door, or have any other sort of firsthand knowledge that there’s a specific target or targets you want to pick for this spell (as in, you must have seen or heard that they’re within the spell’s area), the spell automatically and unerringly seeks them out even among a crowd.

I’m actually going to take a second paragraph here to explain what Greater Create Mindscape does in the simplest terms I can: You pick the area of the spell, pick how many targets (or specify targets) you want to affect, and then any target that fails their save AS WELL AS YOURSELF are drawn into a mindscape of your design. The mindscape is essentially a temporary dream demiplane; you choose what it looks like, how big it is, if certain magics are empowered or suppressed (as though it were a proper plane), what sorts of monsters or beasts are inside (you can directly control a number of those monsters equal to your caster level; all others are mindless constructs), whether or not damage taken within the mindscape translates to the victim’s actual HP bar, and the method by which the mindscape can be escaped, which must be possible for all creatures within the mindscape (”Make it to the edge of the forest,” “open the front door of the manor,” “defeat this boss monster,” “catch this rabbit,” etc).

Already a hell of a spell! Snare an entire crowd of enemies in your imagination zone, putting them through a gauntlet of deadly traps and hostile monster encounters... while also being there yourself, as your mental avatar must also be present. Tempting as it may be to lock away dozens of foes at a time in your mind palace where damage done to them is also dealt to the real them, the reverse is true for you as well, and now suddenly you have 13+ people who want you gone. While you possess your full retinue of abilities, so do they, and while YOU’RE probably extremely powerful, your mental constructs can’t be so overpowering that your victims have no hope of defeating them; victory must be possible, even if it’s difficult. No conjuring 20 mental Tarrasques (okay, you can, but they’ll only be strong enough to challenge your weakest enemy)! The most generically good use of this spell, in my opinion, is akin to a Mass Hold Monster, as any creature trapped in a mindscape becomes effectively catatonic and cannot be awoken even if their body takes damage, allowing your allies to execute them one at a time... or defend your carcass from everyone who made their save.

Whoof, that was long, and we’re still not done talking about the power offered by the Numberless! Microcosm is a hell of a spell to give out, only otherwise being available to Psychics, and for good reason: it’s a rare example of a Save-And-Suck. It can affect only 30 HD worth of creatures (significantly less than you’d think, especially if you’re fighting anything but Humanoids and Monstrous Humanoids), but any creature with less than 10 HD gets no saving throw to avoid being trapped in a permanent mindscape. Anything with 11 to 15 HD is trapped for 10 minutes per level even if they successfully save, and permanently if they fail, so it’s basically a confirmed kill on anything not immune to the spell no matter what. Anything with 16 HD or higher--like any boss or even midboss-level threat you’ll be facing at the level you get this power--avoids the effect if they succeed their save. Microcosm is an off-switch for combats with creatures that would waste your time, and an extremely potent Save-or-Suck against anything worth your time.

Of all the Rana we’ve seen so far, Gavidya has the best record so far, with all three of his spells being extremely useful!

------

Ioramvul, With the Mouth Full of Boulders Rana of Caverns, Cliffs, and Premature Burials Domains: Death, Earth, Evil, Law Subdomains: Caves, Fear, Murder, Undead

Obedience: Partially bury yourself in dirt or gravel while meditating. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws against earth effects and petrification.

Three for three on the ‘easily hidden Obedience ritual’ front (two for three if you consider Chupur’s acrid facemask routine difficult to hide), and probably one of the simplest and easiest Obediences ever. Dirt and gravel are all over the god dang planet, so unless you’re in space, in the arctic, in an Elemental Plane besides Earth, or are somehow in a dungeon made of plastic or metal, you can perform this Obedience. “partially” is also a key phrase here, because it means you don’t need a full covering; in a pinch, enough to cover your feet or both hands (or, in the tradition of your Rana, half your face) will satisfy the conditions. 

Simple, easy, and can be performed in just about any condition. What more could you want? A good benefit, perhaps. Earth effects aren’t the most common thing on the planet--if something’s demanding a saving throw, it’s probably Fire or Water--so the majority of this time, this effect will probably just be sitting pretty and unused on your character sheet. The extra protection against petrification is welcome, at least; any protection against a Save-or-Suck as damning as petrification is a good ribbon, even if it IS uncommon.

Boon 1: Spiked Pit Boon 2: Statue Boon 3: Clashing Rocks

I will sing the praises of the Pit spells all the live-long day if I have to. I won’t stop until I see them on the list of every caster who wants control of the battlefield! The Pit spells work on everything, are useful even if the target makes their save (because they linger, and thus more enemies can be pushed in), shaft any enemy without a climb or fly speed, combo well with anything that can take advantage of shooting fish in barrels, and with a bit of creativity can be used to temporarily remove traps or other obstacles. Their major downside is that they’re useless against enemies that can fly, but that’s what the rest of your repertoire is for (or a well-placed tanglefoot bag when they’re hovering over the hole). As battlefield control goes, there’s little better than narrowing where your enemies can move by opening a pit of spikes on part of the map, and Rangers and Hunters love few things more than enemies they have the high ground over. The extra damage from the spikes is more of a ribbon on top of this present than anything else.

I will be first to admit, though, that for all the good I see in making pits, Statue took a while to grow on me. I never saw it as ever worth preparing or even having, considering that using it optimally locks you out of AoOs and immediate actions, but if you’re going full-caster? Why not have 8 Hardness between you and whatever your enemies are doing? Not like you’ll miss the loss of AC since you barely had any anyway. It also--and this is the part that turned me around on the spell--renders you immune to an enormous variety of spells and effects, because the majority of offensive magic only affects creatures, and while you’re in statue form, you’re considered an object. No mind-affecting effects for you, thanks! Just watch out for enemies with heavy picks or warhammers...

Oh, also, even if you’re not the party’s caster, you can just hand the spell over to them anyway. It affects whoever you touch!

Speaking of stone, though, we end on one of the funniest spells in Pathfinder. Possibly the most ‘unga bunga’ level 9 spell you could have on your list, and one of the most effective to boot. High-level enemies tend to have immunity to enormous lists of status ailments, wide elemental resistances and some protection from Save-or-Sucks... but do you know what few enemies have defenses against? Being hit with a huge rock. Let alone two huge rocks! Clashing Rocks conjures two enormous boulders on either side of the target and then sandwich-smashes them, dealing 20d6 damage and knocking the target prone with nothing but a successful ranged touch attack to hit; this averages to about 75, so it’s not especially jaw-dropping, but it’s an attack instead of a save and knocks them prone... and, if they fail a Reflex saving throw, they take an additional 8d6 bludgeoning damage (Reflex DC 15 half) and get buried under tons of stone. potentially taking them out of the fight entirely or even killing them via suffocation if they can’t make the DC 25 Strength check to escape. 

Even if the attack misses, the stones still deal 10d6 damage and knock the victim prone (Reflex save for half and avoid being knocked over), and the same damage/knockdown effect occurs to every creature and object in the 30x30 space of the stones when they appear and the 30ft distance they travel to smash into the target. That’s a lot of sure damage over a wide area to a lot of potential targets, but also there’s just something special about hitting something like a dragon or a vampire with enormous rocks. Like how I complimented the Pit spells, Clashing Rocks works on everything and alters the battlefield when it’s used, because those rocks don’t go away after the spell ends. Now there’s a 30x60 mound of difficult terrain smack dab where an enemy used to be, and everyone has to deal with it.

... also, even if you didn’t need it for the damage, a creative player could come up with at least three or four uses for 80 tons of earth and stone that can just be waved into existence as needed.

[lavenoon]

early morning blorbo thoughts here we go

have there been any instances where Dusk/Dawn/Robin have been 'grounded'? whether due to a near-miss with their identity on a mission, a need for HQ to fill in some vital paperwork, because someone in command said "hey this guy/these guys did 3 missions in 3 days, they're at risk of burnout", or some other reason - one or all of them are now off missions for a few days to a week.

how would Dusk/Dawn and Robin deal with being kept off missions for that long? do they even go into the agency, or does it end up with Sun, Moon and Y/N hanging out in the apartment until they get a call in? - @clxckwork-sun-n-moon

It's not quite common practice, at least in regards to overworking. The agency pays per gig - of course the paperwork gets considered, too, but how long an agent takes is not really their business. They only start caring when it gets really concerning, supervisors reaching out to higher ups to demand some executive power and keep agents off the field (and out of their offices, if need be).

What does sometimes happen, adjacently to this, is when agents overdo it on the action and neglect the paperwork - then they get grounded to their office until the backlog is taken care of. Boring, but not quite as maddening as being stuck at home!

If they get a near miss however? Almost get caught, or get injured on the job? Nope, that's when the agency develops some common sense (for selfish reasons), and keeps them home for a while as paid time off. The pay isn't good, and only trickling in as long as the absence is justified in the agency's eyes, but it's something to keep them afloat while they recover/ lay low.

If it's just to lay low there is some paperwork to take care of usually, but after that? Just stay home, and wait until you get the okay to come back in again. You get no timeline. Good luck, have fun.

Robin had that after the stabbing. They had to stay home for a good while, and even upon return were limited to paperwork only before getting only easy missions requiring barely any parkour.

For them, that was near unbearable. Sun definitely noticed his neighbor getting antsy, and it's about the most information he got on their job - something physical then, if they still can't work? Y/N is frustrated, their job is the one thing they feel proud of, and now they can't even do that because of their own mistake! It's maddening, and I can honestly see the outings with Sun picking up here as he takes pity on them, getting them out of the house and out of their own head. There's so much time in the day without work! And there's this new craft store, or market in town, and why don't they join him as he checks it out? And as much as they appreciate it, and even though it does help, the fact remains that they messed up and are now reaping the consequences, all while they can't even let Dusk know they're fine. (Agent River tells him they're grounded until they're recovered. The blasé way she relays the information assures him they are recovering)

In the end, they do go back to work, and by then they have a lot of restless energy to get out. Dusk "helpfully" comes by after his field missions to keep them from doing something stupid, and offers them his paperwork if they ever get bored <3 Directs their ire towards himself and distracts them, and it makes the rest of the wait a bit more bearable

Dawn may run into the issue of his reverse psychology "no one will suspect me if I look like the flashiest guy around" backfiring into almost being discovered. On the outside, he may seem fine, and takes the order to lay low in stride. Goes home, and gets busy in the workshop - but really, it's just a ruse. He's very proud of his job, too, and now has to deal with the sting of having messed up and being pulled from said job until someone else declares the risk as low enough again.

So he gets all that time to ruminate and at some point runs out of gadgets to fix or build, and then he just does so many craft projects that even Y/N has to take notice. They're a little concerned, but he promptly assures them his leave of absence at work is temporary, and he'll have enough for rent - not that that's what they're concerned about.

Sun needs to feel competent and useful. At this point, he thinks he's neither. It's not a good time for him in any way, though he doesn't show it/ refuses to acknowledge it. Moon can't help much - but then Y/N invites him out for their grocery runs, and asks him for advice on a couple repairs/ renovations they planned for the duplex. He's smart enough to realize it's a ploy - but they shrug and explain that sure, they want him to feel better, but also they have been up for like one hour and cannot be trusted to make a decision right now, so which brown for the new coat of paint on the porch?

He's easy. He gets into it, and it keeps his mind off things for the time he's with them and after, when he has that to think about. The first few hours of the day when they're asleep however just aren't fun until he can actually work again, and not just play helpful tenant doing the landlord's jobs (he offered, once he ran out of craft projects)

Dusk almost being discovered honestly handles it the best out of these three. It's not that he isn't proud of his job - but he doesn't make it his identity. He's miffed, and bored, but all in all shrugs it off as "Well, this is bound to happen at some point, it's gonna happen again, I wasn't fired, so it'll be fine."

That is, until he spends extended time alone in a house where the neighbor/ landlord doesn't even know him and frankly, this is not the time for introductions, he's really not feeling up to that right now. So he's bored, thinking of all the fun he's missing out on, and slowly there's some doubt cropping up, mostly regarding his rivalry with Robin. What if they think he's an idiot for the near miss? They wouldn't, right?

... Right?

And so when being confined to his home is driving him too crazy, he starts parkouring at night. Purely his hobby! He's not working! But he knows a certain someone's favorite leisure routes, too (at least, some of them), and Robin spots him easily, as bewildered as they are. Roof hangouts for them, then - Robin starts pressing him for the reason of his absence, as they only got the memo he's been grounded to ensure his identity is safe. They maybe laugh a little when he admits to the details, but then remind him that hey, they were grounded for much longer. He's got a lot of catching up to do to reach their level of house arrest!

Until he's allowed back for paperwork and then missions again, that becomes routine. Robin spends a little while every night with him, moving their hangouts to the roof of the agency, and he's reassured that even grounded he hasn't lost what's important, so really, all is well. Will be much more of a menace still once he's allowed back in the field, he's got a lot of shenanigans to catch up on!

(They all do semi well when just confined to paperwork - getting restless and bored, but at least it's work, and already something they're used to doing, so it's bearable. They're still gonna be happy once they return to missions though, it'll feel like finally stretching your legs at your destination after spending hours sitting cramped in a car <3)

[beadyeyes]

stg these shows sayin made up terms for zombies instead of jus saying zombies only help make them feel corny af to the point that schmovers dsnt even phase me anymore

So I did some reading to renew my knowledge around the word. Marvel owned the term zombie from the mid 70's to the late 90's, though it was mostly only reinforced through comics and other formats seemingly had a bit more leniency. Zombies used in this very specific sense apparently didn't show up as much between those decades due to a mixture of legal reasons but also a lack of the pop culture around the genre. They just weren't as developed in the public mind!!

The reason Marvel gave up on the terms usage was due to the larger cultural development & acknowledgment that grew around "zombies." They still own 3 lesser cr terms involving zombies. Any ways it just became harder to enforce the same way taser was lost: genericization. It's generic! It's a word with a lot of tropes and preconceptions behind it. It's STILL avoided by some medias now, because if your worlds separated from the existence of the zombie genre, than you get a lot more creative freedom. People can call your creatures based on zombies, a zombie, but it's still different.

It's like calling every tubed lip balm a chapstick, "chapstick" while generic now is the name of a brand; chapstick doesn't produce every single tubed lip balm in the world (The company that owns the brand is called Haleon btw (their partially owned by Pfizer! What !!)). Anyways you can't assume every tube of lip balm is a ChapstickTM because SOME of those tubed lip balms don't use slave labor! That's a tangent. I don't care about zombies any more. Good bye.

[delightfuldevin]

To be fair, it seems that Legendaries can be created either naturally ( if that's how the flow of life goes according to Frost Queen) or made so through tragic means (darkness, severe corruption in pursuit of forbidden knowledge etc). Not to mention both were had a personal connection to Sea Fairy: Abyss Monarch being the former regent over Sugarteara as a placeholder ruler and Black Pearl blessed with the power of the sea. Octopus' costume is a "before" everything went awful hence its Epic status. If crimson Coral turns out to be the super epic then it's to be assumed that the mermaids were to. So yeah they WERE different ranks until they gained power and turned into monsters due to their own grief/hurt from the situations as those they cared for betrayed them severely. Looking at white lily going from Ancient to legendary as dark enchantress

Octopus took on all the darkness corrupting the pearl and that turned them into the "Legendary Abyss Monarch" which has been a major player in undersea lore so technically a legend. They struggle to control it so they try to keep away from others. If anything, they symbolize the eldritch horrors of the deep which are known for being fishy n mind breaking.hence abyss

BP reveled and embraced the darkness after what happened. Took over a portion of the sea for her own. Becoming an ancient sea beast that happily drowned cookies in bitter grudge yet the longing is there. Given how she was blessed personally by her goddess, it would seem that she was bestowed a piece of SF. Her element is storms which is notorious in ending voyages at sea

If that makes sense? All the legendary cookies are created in some way for various reasons so they fit into whatever the criteria is placed. It's over time that they develop these legends about them so pretty much par for the course I think. The flow of life energy n all that

These are very interesting points you bring up. I guess it depends on how we’re defining “legendary”. In the real life sense, a legend can be anything that is told enough times to become well known by large groups of people. The way I’ve been using it in relation to the world of CR is that it’s a title that only powerful beings of nature have. The way I see it, legendaries can only be created naturally. The exceptions to this would be Moonlight and Dark Enchantress, as they were created directly by the Wizards and Witches respectively (Moonlight being actually created, while DE was simply a normal cookie corrupted by the Witches’ magic).

In my headcanon, the world of Earthbread was imbued by the Witches’ magic when it was created. All lifeforms in the world were born from that magic, but the legends were imbued with the highest concentration of it. Sea Fairy and the other fairies are the personified forms of the oceans. The legendary Dragons were born from the magic of the world as well, and so was the Millennial Tree. Timekeeper’s legendary power comes from their scissors, the Sonic Embroider, which is an artifact created by the Wizards. Frost Queen was chosen to fulfill the role of guardian of the flow of life energy, which I think is separate than what the other legends do. But the key here is that they were all born from the world itself to fulfill a certain role bestowed upon them.

Now, following this headcanon, Wind Archer and Fire Spirit are also more on the level of super epics than legends, but since Windy was created by one of the strongest forces in the world and has the role of purifying fallen spirits, and Fire Spirit is described as being the bridge between cookie and dragon, I think they can still be justified. I mean, I get that all of this is just my headcanons and nothing more, but I feel like the idea that those with legendary power are beings of nature makes sense. If an intense and tragic event was enough to create legendary power, I feel like Dark Choco should’ve become one as well since his is possibly one of the most tragic stories we know. Plus, his sword ties him directly to Dark Enchantress.

But yeah, going off of the actual definition of what a legend is, BP and AM fit it because their stories have been told until they became so well known that they became legends. I just meant in terms of their powers and the origins of their powers, they feel more like super epics (on the level of Capsaicin or Sherbet). And even going by the true definition of a legend, there are others who fit it too. Capsaicin is a legend in the Dragon’s Valley for being as powerful and dangerous as he is. And Squid Ink is a legend too, being a giant sea monster that has sunk many ships in pursuit of treasure. Dark Choco is even kind of a legend for betraying his kingdom.

I hope this makes sense, I think I might’ve been going in circles with my explanation of the difference between an actual legend and legendary power ^^”

[seeraven]

. find glory in the shadows .

. CARRD , PLAYLIST , PINTEREST

independent roleplay blog for vax'ildan vessar of critical role's vox machina . portrayal inspiration will be pulled heavily from the tv show , the legend of vox machina , the first campaign , kith and kin , and the vox machina origins comics . note : i am still making my way through the first campaign and am pretty early on , though , i am cool with spoilers .

. please read below for my rules until i get my carrd up !

I . i am mutuals only! Please be patient with me IC and OOC . that means writing-wise, IMs, discord, asks, etc. I am not and will not always be in the mood for chatting or even writing. I appreciate the understanding on this!

II . there is a lot of content i won't interact with for my own comfort / triggers / etc . please don't be offended if i don't follow back, as the reason could be something as simple as i don't jive with the series you write from !

III . i will be primarily writing in the first campaign of cr and in the legends of vox machina timeline ! i will be updating my progress through the campaigns in my tags here !

IV . in regards to shipping, i am multi-ship and open to being ship - exclusive . i like to be friends with my ship partners and put a lot of work and development into my ships , and really wanna dig into what love means for vax in different aspects of his life ( romantic or otherwise ) . that being said, if you're interested in a genuine romantic ship with vax, he can be a tough nut to crack, so it'll definitely take some time and development there! i portray him as bisexual.

V . there WILL be triggering content on this blog ! i will tag everything that I can think to tag , but if you'd like something specific tagged , please just shoot me a message ! i'm not here to make anyone uncomfortable .

VI . ultimately i'm here to hang out and have fun and not take things too seriously . thanks for reading , and i hope we can get to interacting soon !

VII . also just an add-on rule, i don't really do affiliates ! i have mains and honestly don't really have a specific number cap for duplicates of a main anymore haha. mains to me are just portrayals/writers i've plotted with more extensively and will, at times, have priority due to my writing muse gravitating in the direction of our development. that being said, my current mains are leif's vex'ahlia & shadowheart and prince's keyleth & tifa lockhart.

[tcw-immigration]

Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) for Canada PR

The Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) is one of the most popular pathways for skilled workers to obtain Permanent Residency in Canada (PR). Each of Canada’s provinces and territories (except Quebec) runs its own PNP to meet their unique economic and labor needs. The program allows provinces to nominate individuals who wish to settle in a specific province and contribute to its economy.

What is the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP)?

The PNP enables Canadian provinces and territories to nominate individuals with the skills and experience needed in their local job markets for Canada immigration. After being nominated by a province, applicants can apply for PR through Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

Each province has its own set of criteria and specific immigration streams targeting different categories, including:

- Skilled workers

- International graduates

- Entrepreneurs

- Workers in sectors with labor shortages

Provinces can invite candidates from the Express Entry pool or allow them to apply directly through their PNP streams.

Why Choose PNP for Canada PR?

Here are a few reasons why the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) is a great option for those seeking Canada PR:

- Higher Chances of Selection: A PNP nomination adds 600 points to your Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score in Express Entry, virtually guaranteeing an Invitation to Apply (ITA) for PR.

- Diverse Pathways: Different provinces target specific occupations or skill sets, so you can choose the province best suited to your experience and career.

- Faster Processing: In some cases, PNPs offer a faster processing time for those outside the Express Entry system.

How Does the PNP Process Work?

1. Choose a Province: Each province has different immigration streams targeting specific skills or jobs. You need to choose a province where your skills match labor market needs.   

2. Submit Your Application: Apply through the province’s specific PNP stream. Some streams are aligned with the Express Entry system, while others operate independently.   

3. Receive a Provincial Nomination: If selected, you’ll receive a Provincial Nomination Certificate, which adds 600 points to your CRS score, making it likely you'll receive an ITA for PR.

4. Apply for Permanent Residency: Once you have your provincial nomination, you can submit your PR application through the IRCC portal. Your application will be processed under one of the fastest streams due to the additional points from the provincial nomination.

Top Provincial Nominee Programs (PNP)

1. Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP): Ontario’s PNP is popular due to the province’s economic opportunities, targeting skilled workers in tech, healthcare, and other in-demand sectors. 

2. British Columbia Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP): Known for its tech and healthcare sectors, BC PNP has several streams for skilled workers and graduates. 

3. Alberta Advantage Immigration Program (AAIP): Alberta focuses on skilled workers and entrepreneurs, offering opportunities in agriculture, energy, and tech industries.

4. Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP): With a focus on agriculture, healthcare, and trade, Saskatchewan is an excellent option for workers in these fields.

Benefits of Applying Through PNP

- Increased CRS Points: A provincial nomination gives you an additional 600 CRS points, improving your chances of getting an ITA for PR.

- Tailored for Job Market Needs: Each province nominates individuals based on local labor market shortages, ensuring higher chances of employment post-immigration.

- Flexible Immigration Options: Even if your CRS score isn’t high enough for Express Entry, PNP offers a more tailored route to Canada PR.

Stay Updated with Immigration News

With constant changes in Canada immigration policies, it’s essential to stay updated with the latest developments. Provincial programs and nomination criteria can shift based on labor needs and economic conditions. Consulting the best immigration consultants in India is a wise step to navigate this process smoothly and avoid common pitfalls. By staying updated on the latest immigration news, you can make informed decisions on which PNP stream to target and increase your chances of success.

Why Consult the Best Immigration Consultants in India?

Navigating the PNP process can be complex due to the varying requirements of each province. The best immigration consultants in Delhi & India can guide you through the intricate application process, helping you choose the right province and ensuring your application is accurate and competitive. Their expertise in handling diverse cases makes the entire process more efficient, reducing the chances of delays or rejections.

Conclusion

The Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) is an excellent pathway for skilled workers, international graduates, and entrepreneurs looking to gain PR in Canada. With tailored programs for each province, the PNP offers more opportunities and flexibility in your Canada immigration journey. To ensure you’re on the right track, seek assistance from the best immigration consultants in India, and stay updated with the latest immigration news for a successful application process.

[dubai-car-import]

Why Import Japanese Cars to Dubai: Benefits and Popular Models

Dubai’s automotive market is known for its luxury vehicles, but Japanese cars have carved out a significant niche. Renowned for their reliability, advanced technology, and affordability, Japanese cars offer compelling reasons for import. This article explores the benefits of importing Japanese cars to Dubai and highlights some popular models that have captured the interest of Dubai’s car enthusiasts.

1. Reliability and Durability

One of the foremost reasons for importing Japanese cars to Dubai is their exceptional reliability and durability. Japanese manufacturers like Toyota, Honda, and Nissan have built a reputation for producing vehicles that stand the test of time. Their cars are engineered to perform consistently well, even under challenging conditions. Benefits: Lower maintenance costs and fewer breakdowns contribute to a more enjoyable ownership experience. For Dubai’s hot climate and heavy traffic, a reliable car can make a significant difference.

2. Advanced Technology and Features

Japanese cars are known for incorporating cutting-edge technology and features. From advanced safety systems to innovative infotainment solutions, these vehicles often come equipped with the latest technology. Benefits: Modern features enhance driver comfort, safety, and convenience. For example, models like the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord offer state-of-the-art driver assistance systems and entertainment options that are highly valued by Dubai’s tech-savvy consumers.

3. Fuel Efficiency

Fuel efficiency is another compelling reason to import Japanese cars. Many Japanese models are designed to offer excellent fuel economy, making them cost-effective choices for daily commutes and long drives. Benefits: Reduced fuel costs and lower environmental impact align well with Dubai’s efforts to promote sustainability and reduce emissions. Vehicles like the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic are particularly noted for their fuel efficiency, making them popular among eco-conscious drivers.

4. Affordability and Value for Money

Japanese cars often provide great value for money. They are generally priced competitively, and their resale value remains high due to their reliability and reputation. Benefits: Lower initial costs and higher resale values make Japanese cars an attractive investment. Models like the Nissan Altima and Mazda3 offer a balance of affordability and high-quality features, appealing to Dubai’s budget-conscious buyers who still seek premium performance.

5. Wide Range of Models

The variety of Japanese car models available allows buyers to find a vehicle that suits their specific needs and preferences. Whether you’re looking for a compact car, an SUV, or a luxury vehicle, Japanese manufacturers offer a wide range of options. Benefits: Greater choice ensures that you can select a model that fits your lifestyle and preferences. Popular models such as the Toyota Land Cruiser, Honda CR-V, and Mazda CX-5 cater to diverse needs, from family-friendly SUVs to sporty sedans.

6. High Safety Standards

Japanese cars are renowned for their high safety standards. Manufacturers invest heavily in research and development to ensure their vehicles meet stringent safety criteria. Benefits: Enhanced safety features provide peace of mind for drivers and passengers. The Subaru Outback and Toyota RAV4, for example, are equipped with advanced safety systems that include adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, and automatic emergency braking, making them ideal for Dubai’s busy roads.

7. Strong After-Sales Support

Japanese car manufacturers offer robust after-sales support, including comprehensive warranty programs and extensive service networks. Benefits: Reliable after-sales service ensures that any issues are promptly addressed, contributing to a hassle-free ownership experience. In Dubai, authorized service centers for Japanese brands are widely available, providing convenient maintenance and repair options.

8. Compliance with Local Regulations

Japanese cars are often designed to comply with international standards, which can ease the import process. Many models already meet Dubai’s emission and safety regulations, reducing the need for extensive modifications. Benefits: Simplified compliance processes save time and money. For instance, vehicles like the Toyota Corolla and Honda Jazz are known for their adherence to global standards, making them easier to import and register in Dubai.

9. Positive Resale Value

Japanese cars typically retain their value well, which is advantageous if you plan to sell or trade in your vehicle in the future. Benefits: High resale value maximizes your return on investment. Models such as the Lexus RX and Toyota Hilux are particularly well-regarded in the used car market, ensuring that you get a good return if you decide to upgrade or sell your vehicle.

10. Success Stories and Popular Models

Many Dubai residents have successfully imported Japanese cars and are highly satisfied with their choices. Popular models such as the Toyota Land Cruiser, Honda Accord, and Mazda MX-5 have garnered praise for their performance and reliability. Benefits: Real-life success stories and positive reviews reinforce the value of importing Japanese cars. These models are celebrated for their durability, advanced features, and overall driving experience, making them popular choices for Dubai’s automotive enthusiasts.

Conclusion

Importing Japanese cars to Dubai offers numerous benefits, including reliability, advanced technology, fuel efficiency, and affordability. With a wide range of models available, high safety standards, and strong after-sales support, Japanese vehicles meet the diverse needs of Dubai’s drivers. By choosing popular models like the Toyota Land Cruiser, Honda Accord, and Mazda CX-5, you can enjoy a vehicle that combines quality, performance, and value for money. As Dubai continues to embrace a diverse automotive landscape, Japanese cars remain a top choice for their exceptional overall value.  Read more

[dubai-car-imports]

Why Import Japanese Cars to Dubai: Benefits and Popular Models

Dubai’s automotive market is known for its luxury vehicles, but Japanese cars have carved out a significant niche. Renowned for their reliability, advanced technology, and affordability, Japanese cars offer compelling reasons for import. This article explores the benefits of importing Japanese cars to Dubai and highlights some popular models that have captured the interest of Dubai’s car enthusiasts.

1. Reliability and Durability

One of the foremost reasons for importing Japanese cars to Dubai is their exceptional reliability and durability. Japanese manufacturers like Toyota, Honda, and Nissan have built a reputation for producing vehicles that stand the test of time. Their cars are engineered to perform consistently well, even under challenging conditions. Benefits: Lower maintenance costs and fewer breakdowns contribute to a more enjoyable ownership experience. For Dubai’s hot climate and heavy traffic, a reliable car can make a significant difference.

2. Advanced Technology and Features

Japanese cars are known for incorporating cutting-edge technology and features. From advanced safety systems to innovative infotainment solutions, these vehicles often come equipped with the latest technology. Benefits: Modern features enhance driver comfort, safety, and convenience. For example, models like the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord offer state-of-the-art driver assistance systems and entertainment options that are highly valued by Dubai’s tech-savvy consumers.

3. Fuel Efficiency

Fuel efficiency is another compelling reason to import Japanese cars. Many Japanese models are designed to offer excellent fuel economy, making them cost-effective choices for daily commutes and long drives. Benefits: Reduced fuel costs and lower environmental impact align well with Dubai’s efforts to promote sustainability and reduce emissions. Vehicles like the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic are particularly noted for their fuel efficiency, making them popular among eco-conscious drivers.

4. Affordability and Value for Money

Japanese cars often provide great value for money. They are generally priced competitively, and their resale value remains high due to their reliability and reputation. Benefits: Lower initial costs and higher resale values make Japanese cars an attractive investment. Models like the Nissan Altima and Mazda3 offer a balance of affordability and high-quality features, appealing to Dubai’s budget-conscious buyers who still seek premium performance.

5. Wide Range of Models

The variety of Japanese car models available allows buyers to find a vehicle that suits their specific needs and preferences. Whether you’re looking for a compact car, an SUV, or a luxury vehicle, Japanese manufacturers offer a wide range of options. Benefits: Greater choice ensures that you can select a model that fits your lifestyle and preferences. Popular models such as the Toyota Land Cruiser, Honda CR-V, and Mazda CX-5 cater to diverse needs, from family-friendly SUVs to sporty sedans.

6. High Safety Standards

Japanese cars are renowned for their high safety standards. Manufacturers invest heavily in research and development to ensure their vehicles meet stringent safety criteria. Benefits: Enhanced safety features provide peace of mind for drivers and passengers. The Subaru Outback and Toyota RAV4, for example, are equipped with advanced safety systems that include adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, and automatic emergency braking, making them ideal for Dubai’s busy roads.

7. Strong After-Sales Support

Japanese car manufacturers offer robust after-sales support, including comprehensive warranty programs and extensive service networks. Benefits: Reliable after-sales service ensures that any issues are promptly addressed, contributing to a hassle-free ownership experience. In Dubai, authorized service centers for Japanese brands are widely available, providing convenient maintenance and repair options.

8. Compliance with Local Regulations

Japanese cars are often designed to comply with international standards, which can ease the import process. Many models already meet Dubai’s emission and safety regulations, reducing the need for extensive modifications. Benefits: Simplified compliance processes save time and money. For instance, vehicles like the Toyota Corolla and Honda Jazz are known for their adherence to global standards, making them easier to import and register in Dubai.

9. Positive Resale Value

Japanese cars typically retain their value well, which is advantageous if you plan to sell or trade in your vehicle in the future. Benefits: High resale value maximizes your return on investment. Models such as the Lexus RX and Toyota Hilux are particularly well-regarded in the used car market, ensuring that you get a good return if you decide to upgrade or sell your vehicle.

10. Success Stories and Popular Models

Many Dubai residents have successfully imported Japanese cars and are highly satisfied with their choices. Popular models such as the Toyota Land Cruiser, Honda Accord, and Mazda MX-5 have garnered praise for their performance and reliability. Benefits: Real-life success stories and positive reviews reinforce the value of importing Japanese cars. These models are celebrated for their durability, advanced features, and overall driving experience, making them popular choices for Dubai’s automotive enthusiasts.

Conclusion

Importing Japanese cars to Dubai offers numerous benefits, including reliability, advanced technology, fuel efficiency, and affordability. With a wide range of models available, high safety standards, and strong after-sales support, Japanese vehicles meet the diverse needs of Dubai’s drivers. By choosing popular models like the Toyota Land Cruiser, Honda Accord, and Mazda CX-5, you can enjoy a vehicle that combines quality, performance, and value for money. As Dubai continues to embrace a diverse automotive landscape, Japanese cars remain a top choice for their exceptional overall value.  Read more

[sachiyasteel]

Wear Plate Manufacturer in India - Sachiya Steel International

Wear Plates are critical components in various industries, ensuring machinery durability and reducing downtime. They are designed to withstand extreme conditions such as abrasion, impact, and erosion. 

Leading Wear Plate Manufacturers in India

Sachiya Steel International Private Limited

Sachiya Steel International is renowned for producing high-quality wear plates that cater to diverse industrial needs. Their plates are known for their exceptional durability and performance, making them a preferred choice across various sectors.

Key Features:

Superior Materials: Use of high-quality materials ensures high resistance to wear and tear.

Advanced Manufacturing: State-of-the-art processes including open arc welding with flux-cored wire.

Custom Solutions: Tailored overlay compositions to meet specific requirements.

In-House Capabilities: Comprehensive in-house facilities for design, engineering, and testing.

Types of Wear Plates

Borodur Wear Plates

Description: High C-Cr alloyed weld metal offering excellent abrasion resistance with mild impact.

Applications: Pumps, mixer parts, tracks hoppers, pipes, impellers, conveyor screws, coal and cement mill tyres, and liners.

Hardness: 56 – 62 HRC

Chromadur Wear Plates

Description: High C-Cr alloyed stainless weld metal with superior abrasion resistance.

Applications: Pumps, impeller screws, track hoppers, and bucket teeth.

Hardness: 55 – 64 HRC

Colmodur HT Wear Plates

Description: Highly alloyed C-Cr-Mo-Nb-W-V weld plate with extreme abrasion resistance at high temperatures.

Applications: Blast furnace bells, fire grates, crushers, sinter wheel breakers, and smelter loading chutes.

Hardness: 62 – 65 HRC

Colodur Wear Plates

Description: High C-Cr-Nb alloyed weld metal with excellent resistance to extreme abrasion wear.

Applications: Parts of coal mining equipment, steel industry, cement industry, and mineral industries.

Hardness: 58 – 62 HRC

Erodur 801 Wear Plates

Description: High alloyed deposit of Fe-C-Cr-Ni-B with excellent resistance to severe erosion and moderate impact.

Applications: Hardfacing on parts of coal mining equipment, cement, steel, and mineral industries.

Hardness: 60 – 67 HRC

Impactodur Wear Plates

Description: High C-Si-Cr alloyed hardface weld deposit with moderate resistance to abrasion under high impact.

Applications: Build-up of crusher parts, bucket teeth, and lips.

Hardness: 48 – 55 HRC

Diffusion Cordiff TT 400 Wear Plates

Description: Highly alloyed special metals for hardfacing parts subjected to extreme wear and impact.

Applications: Screens, wear plates.

Hardness: 48 – 58 HRC

Critical Wear Components

Sachiya Steel’s wear plates are integral to numerous critical components across industries, ensuring enhanced durability and reduced downtime. These include:

Grizzly Bars: Used in the steel industry to handle red hot sinter, enhancing life span by 300%.

Guide Vanes: Critical in cement plant separators for directing the material flow.

Rotor Wheels and Bearing Arrangements: Essential for cement plant separators, ensuring smooth and efficient operation.

Grit Cones and Separator Parts: Offering superior wear resistance and longevity in harsh environments.

Why Choose Sachiya Steel International Private Limited?

Sachiya Steel stands out due to its commitment to quality and innovation. Our wear plates are designed to deliver superior performance and longevity, reducing maintenance costs and downtime. Here are some reasons to choose Sachiya Steel:

Innovative Solutions: Custom overlay compositions developed by an expert RD team.

High-Quality Standards: In-house facilities for comprehensive testing and quality assurance.

Customer-Centric Approach: Solutions tailored to meet specific industrial needs.

Wear plates are indispensable in industries where machinery is exposed to severe wear conditions. Choosing the right manufacturer is crucial to ensure the longevity and efficiency of your equipment. Sachiya Steel International Private Limited, with its innovative solutions and high-quality products, is a leader in the field, offering reliable and durable wear plates to meet your industrial needs.

Read More - Wear Plate Manufacturer in India

[terkar-capital]

Master Working Capital Cycle Management for Business Success

Introduction to Working Capital Cycle Management

As a business owner, strategic working capital cycle management is crucial. Your ability to effectively navigate multiple working capital cycles demonstrates your execution power. The more working capital cycles you can complete, the higher the churn, leading to lower indirect costs (with fixed costs remaining proportional) and increased margins.

To achieve this, it is essential to align all stakeholders towards the common goal of accelerating and optimizing the working capital cycle. By doing so, you can enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and boost profitability.

Understanding the Working Capital Cycle

Generally, the working capital cycle varies from industry to industry.  For the manufacturing and service industry may be around 30-90 days; for the trading industry, it may be around a day only. So shorter the working capital better the churning of the funds and the churning higher the margin in the business.

Explore the working capital cycle in service business here

Nowadays getting work orders may be easy but delivery on time is tough and may get tougher every day. And one of the many reasons for it is the working capital arrangement. Most of the time, instead of using your bank credit facility, your customer wants to use your credit facility with the bank. So, keeping a close eye on working capital is one of the important parts of financial management.

Learn Effective Management of Working Capital Cycle from the Insights, here.

Factors impacting your working capital

1) Convenient and clear Payment Terms

You should have a very clear understanding of the payment terms with your customers because you’re also a customer of your suppliers.

In a scenario, where you misunderstood your payment terms with your customer, it will not only impact your working capital cycle but also impact your supplier’s working capital cycle. Your debtors will pay you late, so you may pay late to your suppliers.

2) Long-term association with all stakeholders

This is a very important aspect. Choose all the stakeholders wisely and stay with them for a long time. Including your raw material suppliers to your daily utility supplier.

Over the period these suppliers/stakeholders know you and your business well. And once they get confidence in you (as a promoter) and your business, these stakeholders stand by your side in tough times.  While raising the funds, we have seen many businesses rebuild their business only because their stakeholders supported them in the tough times.

3) Delivery Time

India has two major reasons to compete with China – faster delivery time and economies of scale. Due to these two factors, Indian manufacturers cannot sell cheaply. In most cases, the credit period starts after the delivery of the products. So faster delivery will help you reduce your working capital.

You can also understand that – due to better road quality, there has been a significant increase in the last-mile delivery of products. This will be applicable only for manufacturing and trading

Learn the working capital cycle for manufacturing business, Here.

4) Short on Debtors and Long on Creditors -

We’re not suggesting you squeeze your creditors, but you can always check if you can get an extended credit period from your suppliers. and faster payment from your creditors.

5) Timely Payment

Keeping your word is always important. This should always be your moral obligation. You can ask your borrowers for an extension, but ensure the payment is not delayed by a day.

This helps you gain the confidence of a “person of words”. This helps in developing and maintaining smooth relationships with all your suppliers.

Apply for Working Capital Finance at ease, Here.

Understand Your Working Capital Supporters

Let’s say you have a working capital limit of Rs. 5 cr from your banker and the available facility is getting exhausted with your existing work orders, then you should be very careful while taking the new orders. There are multiple ways to deal with this scenario.

First, you can ask your existing customers if they can pay you early. If yes, you can use these funds to procure the material for a new order.

Second, you can check with your existing bankers if they can enhance your working capital limit (this may be a time-consuming part).

Third, check with your creditors, if they can allow an extra credit period.

Fourth, You can also explore if you can get some advance (proportionate to your raw material purchase) for a new order and the remaining can be paid on a milestone basis.

Many other factors need to be considered – some of which are industry-specific and some of which are company-specific. But you should know your working capital cycle well set some rules and follow them.

Unleash business potential with Unsecured Working Capital at Ease.

Conclusion

Effectively managing working capital is crucial for maintaining a healthy cash flow, optimizing margins, and ensuring the smooth operation of your business. By understanding key factors such as payment terms, stakeholder relationships, and timely deliveries, you can navigate the complexities of working capital cycle management and position your business for sustained success.

At Terkar Capital, we specialize in helping businesses facilitate working capital solutions tailored to unique needs. Our expertise and customized approach ensure that you have the financial support necessary to thrive in today’s competitive market. So, Let Terkar Capital work with you in achieving optimal working capital cycle management and propel your business growth.