#during the week there's like one time of the day when we regularly overlap

[dotterelly]

Before I go to sleep, a thought for your death family/pissa AUs. Night shift worker Missa and day shift worker Philza. Missa crashes into bed and falls asleep fast when he gets home in the mornings, and Philza is usually busy getting the kids up to take them to school. And then Missa wakes up early to bring the kids home and make them dinner (which they all call breakfast because it's Missa's breakfast) and then he has to go to work before Philza gets home. They used to hire a babysitter for the hour or two before Philza got home (probably tubbo? He was cheap if they threw in joining them for dinner) but once the kids got to around 8 they started to let them look after themselves a bit.

[mapledaemonism]

30 DAY DAEMIAN CHALLENGE

DAYS 6-17!! Because I'm REALLY bad at keeping up with this! :D

Because this one is literally 11 days it is SUPER long, so be forewarned!

DAY 6: How does having a dae help you, and do you do anything beneficial for your dae?

Having a dae gives me someone to talk to, whenever and wherever I need. He's the support system that helps me hold things together during the hard times. He lets me do my circle-talking habit of repeating the same thoughts over and over until they make sense, and he doesn't complain. Occasionally, he'll point things out, and that's always nice because it helps me figure out my problems, or get back onto the track to figure them out. He keeps me company, so I feel less alone, regardless of where I am. I honestly get a LOT from having a dae around.

I don't know if I do anything for him per se? He feels I also keep him company, "and that's enough."

DAY 7: What's your dae's favorite aesthetic(s) and how do they compare to yours?

I would say we have somewhat similar aesthetic preferences, at least partially. He enjoys the warm reds, oranges, and yellows of autumn, of sunlight through the canopy of not-yet-fallen leaves, golden and honey and warm and cozy. He's very much one who prefers the soft warmth of cozy autumn aesthetics.

I enjoy those, too! But I definitely lean more towards the spooky, campy, Halloween-store aesthetics. So we have some overlap - pumpkins and fall and orange - but where his is an elegant aesthetic, mine is more campy and playful.

DAY 8: What is your relationship with your dae? Do you get along, do you fight sometimes?

I'd say we get along pretty well, actually. We're close friends - we don't always see eye to eye of course, but overall, we get along and I can't say we ever fight. The closest to that would be when we disagree about something, and usually in that scenario, it's me being stubborn and him trying to help, but I'm too set on my thought at the time to listen hah - but he's patient, and eventually things smooth back out.

DAY 9: How often and how clearly do you project them?

I can't say I do it daily, but as close to that as possible. It goes through phases - some weeks I'm projecting him every day, other weeks there's little interaction. It depends on what's going on in my life. When I do project him, if I've done it regularly, it's very vivid. If I'm a bit rusty though he does end up a little blurry. But overall, he's quite clear in my minds eye.

DAY 10: What's your dae's voice like?

It's hard for me to describe his voice, but I'll do my best. It's mellow, fairly low, but not deep or gravely. He has no accent at all, just very clear American English. He speaks precisely and thoughtfully. I'd say there's almost a low purr to his voice, but only barely. His voice is very smooth, like pouring honey. It's golden and warm and fluid.

DAY 11: Describe friends of yours who are also daemians, or if you don't have any, what do you and your dae like to do together? What do you both hate?

I keep my being a daemian very quiet - I have acquaintances I know vaguely are daemians, but we don't talk about it. Not yet, anyway.

As for me and Ace though, we like to spend quiet time together especially. He likes to sit nearby, or curled up against my leg, while I play games or read or watch TV otherwise alone. Those quiet moments of just being around each other are both our favorites. What we're NOT fond of is when those times are interrupted. When we've planned to just enjoy each other's company, and someone else becomes involved - specifically my roommate. Because they don't know about Ace, and they're very opposed to the concept of daemons, I have to sometimes change my plans with Ace to go spend time with them instead. We're not fond of that, but it is what it is for now.

DAY 12: If you're alterhuman, how does being a daemian interact with your kintype identities? Or if you're not alterhuman, do you see your dae in your dreams/nightmares?

So...on a purely psychological level, I would count as alterhuman, yes. I have an identity disorder that makes it very difficult to see myself as human. I think the closest interaction between my dae and my identity would at best be I feel some connection to my dae's forms? Like, I am not a clouded leopard or a cheetah, but I think I could count them as hearttypes. They're like family to me, but they aren't me.

DAY 13: Do you own any items that remind you of or represent your dae?

Not currently, no. I have a couple things in mind I'd like to get when I have the financial leeway to do so, but currently I don't.

DAY 14: What is your best memory involving your dae?

Honestly, it's super simple, but just...apple picking with him and my family. It wasn't a situation my family was aware of, but it was really pleasant all the same. I hope to do it again some day..

DAY 15: Does anyone IRL know about your dae or daemonism? What do they think about it?

No one I know personally knows about my dae, at least, they don't know that's what he is. My roommate knows about him as "an imaginary character" of mine, but that's all they know. They're the only person I personally know who knows anything about daemonism, and they're very opposed to it, so I keep quiet about what exactly I consider Ace to be.

DAY 16: If you've read HDM books, who's your favorite character and why? If you haven't, do you ever plan to read them? If not, why?

I actually haven't read them yet!! But I do plan to, when I can!

DAY 17: Are your personal rules/canons of how daemons work the same as in the books? For example, daemons always being the opposite sex of their daemian?

I think overall, yeah, the personal rules do follow the books, but not necessarily because I was trying to stay close to canon. It just kinda worked out that way. At first, my dae WASN'T male, he was feminine non-binary, like myself. But it didn't feel quite right. However, if I think about folks around me, I think some of them would have same-sex daes, and I don't think that's necessarily indicative of their sexuality or gender. I think that's just kinda something that happens sometimes.

Thanks for takin' time to read, as always! Maybe next chunk of questions will be a touch smaller - we'll see! Have a good one, though!

[azenkii]

A Long List of Trash Fire Lord Zuko Headcanons

...that i couldn't get out of my head:

(warning: SUPER LONG POST i havent figured out how to trim posts yet)

he's the one who unchains azula despite iroh's protests. she doesn't even try to fight him, just cries into his shoulder and keeps mumbling about how father's going to be so disappointed in her. he takes her to her rooms and has her drink a sleeping draught, then stations the best guards he has left outside her chambers.

his first council meeting takes place literally a day after sozin's comet. he hobbles into the council chamber shirtless with his entire torso covered in bandages and every council member just looks at him like '...what'

he does NOT sleep for like,,a week after sozin's comet and then another two weeks after his coronation. katara, aang and suki try to persuade him to sleep and he doesn't listen. eventually sokka, toph and mai team up to literally drag his ass to bed and tell him he's not allowed to get up until he sleeps (does mai pin him to the bed with her knives? yes. is it kinky or sexual in any way? definitely not.)

he drinks So. Much. Tea. at this point it's practically tasteless to him but he drinks it anyway because he just needs something to do and tea is something familiar. he keeps iroh on his toes because he's constantly asking for new tea blends, uncle, i think i actually tasted the last one,

he flat-out refuses to grow his hair for at least a year after ozai's defeat. the second it starts getting close to his chin he shears it off himself, with his knife, and his stylist has a heart attack every single time

when he's tired he'll occasionally jump up when one of his guards moves. it stops after a bit, but for the first month and a half or so he's really twitchy. when sokka asks, the only explanation he can come up with is that he's not used to having people stand behind him silently and not want to kill him, much less want to protect him (sokka immediately takes him out for a shopping trip and makes a point of walking behind him the entire time, but only on zuko's right side, where he can clearly see it if sokka moves towards him)

when the healer declares azula mentally unstable and in need of an institution, he shuts himself in his office for the rest of the night. no one's allowed in, not even iroh. he finally emerges in the morning, eyes red from crying and sleep deprivation, and tells the librarian that he'd like a list of the best mental institutions in the country, please, the best in the world if you can get them

he loves theatre (is this even a headcanon?). unfortunately it practically died out in the fire nation along with the rest of the creative arts, leaving nothing but small troupes like the ember island players. one of zuko's personal goals (meaning things he wants to accomplish that aren't as important as restoring his country) is to bring back theatre; he finally manages to do it after about eight months or so of being fire lord, along with other arts like dancing, music and sculpture

he establishes a national day of mourning, on the first day of autumn every year, to commemorate the genocide of the air nomads. from 100AG onwards, every calendar printed in the fire nation has it marked. at first it was called the day of repentance, but aang persuaded him to have it changed (by arguing that he didn't want guilt to be a literal staple of fire nation culture)

he introduces literally So Many educational reforms, plus a mandatory class that teaches students about the cultures of the other nations (air nomads included) and how some of their traditions overlap

he turns down the offer of having a statue put up of him in the capital. toph ignores him and does it anyway.

he visits azula regularly, makes sure she's (relatively) comfortable and well-fed, and sometimes just sits down outside her door and tells her about everything that's going on right now ('some of the far colonies have developed their own standardised writing, azula, you wouldn't believe it, and i've asked the fire sages to come visit more often—but you never liked them, did you? oh, well; i'll make sure none of them go into your chambers by mistake')

(he doesn't know it, but when he does this azula sits by the door and listens. she wonders what kind of writing the colonists have developed, and whether or not the fire sages have taken on some new recruits.)

he hates being above anyone else. never sits in the throne if he can help it, nor does he sit on the dais in the council room. when he talks to people shorter than him, he finds himself stooping a little bit to talk to them on their level (the exception to this rule is sokka, who he mocks for being shorter all the way up until sokka grows taller than him, the bastard)

the first time he visits the earth kingdom, the earth king's ministers call a toast. he ends up being the only one who has to sit out, because he's too young to drink by earth kingdom law

once his servants figure out he won't kill them for talking to him, they start becoming a lot more bold, telling him off when he doesn't take care of himself. at one point, they force him to let them take care of him so much that he literally just bolts into the gardens and hides there until the staff rope in mai and ty lee

when he needs to escape, he does one of two things: (a) he dresses up as the blue spirit and does some parkour until he calms down, or (b) he goes to work at the jasmine dragon. (b) happens less often bc the jasmine dragon's in ba sing se, but there's been a few memorable incidents when an earth kingdom diplomat walks in and yells, 'LEE?!' when they see the fire lord

the first court artist who draws him also happens to be the one who drew azulon and ozai. he draws zuko without his scar. zuko takes one look at it and tells him, very calmly, that he'd like him to leave, please.

zuko burns the portrait. he doesn't fire the court artist, but he never calls on him again unless he has to. a second court artist is called, and can't help but be a bit confused when the fire lord tells him to be sure to include the scar

he forgets the crown. a lot. sometimes he walks into council meetings in his sleepwear with his hair tied up in a messy ponytail and a bunch of scrolls tucked under his arm. none of his councilmen have the guts (or the heart) to tell him that this is not, in fact, formal council wear

he goes to feed the turtleducks when he's stressed. he thinks he's being subtle. he's not. the entire palace knows, and they consciously give him space when they see him in the turtleduck garden

most of his staff are older than him, so they look at him and see this teeny tiny fire lord who is So Small and who Must Be Protected. the day after zuko's coronation, the head chef holds a meeting where they commence Operation Do-Not-Let-That-Boy-Turn-Out-Like-His-Father (subsection He's-The-Only-Good-Thing-We-Have)

one night he wakes up to find suki sitting in his room, decked out in full kyoshi warrior garb and makeup, and just about screams blue murder. suki tells him there are suspicions of an assassin in the palace, and would you please stop yelling it's very distracting, we won't be able to hear anyone coming over that racket

zuko gets very, very paranoid of random spirits after that. yeah, suki looks like a possibly malevolent spirit when she's wearing her makeup, what about it? (when he tells sokka he's highkey terrified of spirit shenanigans, sokka just looks at him and says, 'man, the stories i could tell...', and THAT'S when zuko remembers sokka spent like six months more than he did travelling with the avatar)

on his first visit to the southern water tribe, he removes his boots and leg guards, rolls up his pants and kneels barefoot in the snow. even though chief hakoda immediately starts trying to pull him up, he's stubborn as hell and stays kneeling for the entirety of his very long, very sincere apology-on-behalf-of-the-fire-nation speech. he nearly loses his toes to frostbite after that, and both sokka and katara never stop giving him shit for it

the first time he grows a 'beard' is completely accidental. he's stressed over some trade miscommunications with chief hakoda, hasn't slept in a few days...and then when sokka arrives as water tribe ambassador to help smooth things over, he takes one look at zuko and says 'man, facial hair does not suit you'

zuko: facial what now

he checks a mirror to find that he's got stubble covering his chin, dark enough that it almost looks intentional, and holy gods how the fuck did he not notice this before

'UNCLE WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME' 'i assumed you were doing it on purpose' 'WHEN HAVE I EVER DONE ANYTHING ON PURPOSE'

he shaves it all off immediately, of course, which prompts a lot of teasing and rib-poking from sokka until zuko finally snaps that he's scared it'll make him look like his father. sokka stops after that.

(the day after sokka leaves, zuko finds that a mysterious someone has scribbled all over ozai's royal portrait, giving him a frankly ridiculous beard and moustache that literally CANNOT be grown in real life. oddly enough, he can't bring himself to care about the defamation of royal property. he's too busy laughing.)

his paths cross with toph and sokka more than any of the others, because sokka is ambassador and toph is technically still a beifong. most of the time, at formal functions, he ends up sequestered in the corner with toph and a hoard of snacks, and they talk and swear much more than they usually do (zuko's ministers once heard him when he was drunk with toph, and the servants swear the older ministers' ears started bleeding)

he restores fire nation cultural festivals, and in doing so subjects himself to learning a lot of complicated dances

during one memorable week, he wrote so many letters and drafted so much legislation that he ran out of paper. he had to go visit the nearest school and ask for some

he keeps up with his firebending and sword training even though it's hard to fit into his schedule. his ministers refrain from reminding him that he has guards to protect him now; it's still hard for zuko to trust his safety with anyone but himself (team avatar is the exception).

he started sleepwalking about two months into his reign. no one knew why. one time, he nearly sleepwalked right off the edge of a balcony, and one of his guards had to grab him by the back of his robes.

the sleepwalking stopped after around a month and never happened again. at this point it's practically palace legend.

after freeing the war prisoners, he went around collecting every single earthbender-proof wooden cell he could find in the capital and surrounding areas. when he'd gotten most of them, he gathered them into a huge pile in the city square and set fire to them with his own hands.

unfortunately he couldn't do that with the waterbender metal cells but he did get toph to come in and bend them all into pretty shapes (well, toph thought they were pretty shapes. everyone else thinks they're meaningless squiggles)

he learned how to write with both hands at the same time out of sheer necessity (he refused scribes until it became clear that he'd be putting some people out of a job; that was when he started letting scribes write very, very minor things, but all important documents/drafts/letters are still written by him)

he once put the wet end of an ink brush in his mouth instead of the wooden end by mistake. didn't even realise until he bit down to keep it in place and ink went oozing everywhere

when his guards rushed in to find him coughing and spluttering black liquid all over his desk they thought he'd been poisoned but no he's just stupid

on his 17th birthday, his first one after being crowned, he got tackled by team avatar in the middle of the ballroom and ended up at the bottom of a cuddlepile for like ten minutes

this cuddlepile happened at an event that was very much public and very much formal. it was a scandal for weeks

just. fire lord zuko, guys. so much potential

[samwisethewitch]

Witchcraft and Activism

The word “witch” is a politically charged label. If we look at how the word was used historically, it referred to someone who existed outside of the normal social order. The people accused of witchcraft in the European and American witch trials were mostly — experts say between 75% and 80% — women. They were also overwhelmingly poor, single, or members of a minority ethnicity and/or religion. In other words, they were people who did not follow their society’s accepted model of womanhood (or, in the case of accused men, manhood).

If you choose to identify with the witch label, you are choosing to identify with subversion of gender norms, resistance to the dominant social order, and “outsider” status. If that makes you uncomfortable or uneasy, then you may want to use another label for your magical practice. Witchcraft always has been and always will be inherently political.

In her book Witches, Sluts, Feminists, Kristen J. Sollee argues that the “slut” label is in many ways a modern equivalent to the “witch” label. In both cases, the label is used to devalue people, most often women, and to enforce a patriarchal and misogynist social order.

Superstitions around witchcraft are connected to the modern stigma around abortion (and, to a lesser extent, contraception). Midwifery and abortion were directly linked to witchcraft in the European witch hunts. Today, women who seek abortions are condemned as sluts, whores, and murderers. The fight for reproductive freedom remains inextricably linked with the witch label.

During the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, the socialist feminist group Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (W.I.T.C.H.) used the image of the witch to campaign for women’s rights and other social issues. They were some of the first advocates for intersectional feminism (feminist activism that addresses other social issues that overlap with gendered issues). They performed acts such as hexing Wall Street capitalists and wearing black veils to protest bridal fairs. The W.I.T.C.H. Manifesto calls witches the “original guerrillas and resistance fighters against oppression.”

In her book Revolutionary Witchcraft, Sarah Lyons points out that both witchcraft and politics are about raising and directing power in the world. In a postmodern society, most of our reality is socially constructed — it works because we collectively believe it does. Money only has value because we believe it does. Politicians only have power because we believe they do. Our laws are only just because we believe they are. Like in magic, everything in society is a product of belief and a whole lot of willpower — and that makes witches the ideal social activists.

Lyons argues that witchcraft is inseparable from politics, because witches have always opposed dominant political power. She makes a connection between the witch trials and the rise of capitalism and classism. She connects the basic concepts of magic to historic activist groups like the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), who used ritual as an act of protest.

Not every witch is a hardcore activist, but every witch should have a basic awareness of political and social issues and be willing to do what they can to make a difference.

Ways to Combine Witchcraft and Activism

Perform a ritual to feel connected to the earth and her people. Activism should come from a place of love, not a place of hate. Make sure you’re fighting for the right reasons by frequently taking time to reconnect with the planet and the people who live here. This can be as simple as laying down on the ground outside and meditating on all the ways you are connected to other people, as well as to the ecosystem, animals, and the earth herself. If getting up close and personal with the grass and dirt isn’t your thing, try to find a beautiful place in nature where you can sit and journal about the interconnected nature of all things.

Unlearn your social programming. This is the most difficult and most important part of any activism. Before you can change the world outside yourself, you have to change your own psyche. Think about how you have been socialized to contribute to (or at least turn a blind eye to) the issues you want to fight against. For example, if you want to fight for racial justice, you need to understand how you have contributed to a racist system. You can do this in a variety of ways: through meditation, journaling, or divination, to name a few. Note that whatever method you choose, this will probably take weeks or months of repeated work. Rewriting your thought and behavior patterns is hard, and it can’t be done in a single day. Also note that if you are a victim of systemic oppression or prejudice, this work may bring up a lot of emotional baggage — you may want to involve a professional therapist or counselor.

Go to protests. Sending energy and doing healing rituals is great, but someone has to get out there and visibly fight for change. If you are able to do so, start going to protests and rallies for causes you care about. Don’t just show up, but be an active participant — make signs, yell and chant, and stand your ground if cops show up. Be safe and responsible, but be loud and assertive, too. If you want to go all out, you can don the black robes, pointed hats, and veils of W.I.T.C.H.es past, which has the added bonus of concealing your identity.

Turn your donations into a spell for change. When you donate to a cause you care about, charge your donation with a spell for positive change. You can do this by holding your cash, check, or debit card in both hands and focusing on your desire for change. Feel this desire flowing into the money, filling it with your determination. From here, make your donation, knowing that you’ll be sending an energy boost along with it.

Organize an activist coven. Do you have a handful of friends who are interested in witchcraft, passionate about activism, or both? Start a coven! Go to protests together, hold monthly rituals to raise energy for change, and collect money for donations. Being part of a group also means having a support system, which can help prevent burnout. Make a plan to check on each other regularly. You may even choose to do monthly group rituals for self care, which may be actual magic rituals or might be as simple as ordering takeout and watching a movie. Activism can be intensely draining work, so it’s important to take breaks when you need them!

Hold public rituals with an activist slant. Nothing gets people’s attention like a bunch of folks standing in a circle and chanting. Holding public rituals is one of the best ways to raise awareness for a cause. You might hold a vigil for victims of police brutality, a healing circle for the environment, or some other ritual that is relevant to the issue at hand. These rituals serve a double purpose, as they both bring people’s attention to the issue and give them an opportunity to work for change on a spiritual level. Use prayers, chants, and symbolism that is appropriate to the theme, and ask participants to make a small donation to a charity related to your cause.

Begin your public rituals with a territory acknowledgement. If you live in the United States, chances are you live on land that was taken from the native people by force. If you seek to have a relationship with the land, you need to first acknowledge the original inhabitants and the suffering they endured so you can be there. Use a website like native-land.ca to find out what your land was originally called and what indigenous groups originally lived there. Publicly acknowledge this legacy at your ritual, and publicly state your intention to support indigenous peoples. (Revolutionary Witchcraft has an excellent territory acknowledgement that you can customize for your area.)

Make an altar to your activist ancestors. If activism or membership in a marginalized group is a big part of your life, you may want to create a space for it in your home. Like an ancestor altar, this is a space to remember influential members of the community who have died. Choose a flat surface like a tabletop or shelf and decorate it with photos of your “ancestors,” as well as other appropriate items like flags, pins, stickers, etc. As a queer person, my altar to my LGBTQ+ ancestors might include images of figures like Sappho, Marsha P. Johnson, and Freddie Mercury, as well as items like a pink triangle patch, a small rainbow pride flag, and dried violets and green carnations. You may also choose to include a candle, an incense burner, and/or a small dish for offerings. Just remember to never place images of living people on an altar honoring the dead!

Do your research. Staying educated is an important part of activism — not only do your actions need to be informed, but you need to be able to speak intelligently about your issues. Read the news (on actual news websites, not just social media). Read lots of books; some I personally recommend are Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, Love and Rage by Lama Rod Owens, and (as previously mentioned) Revolutionary Witchcraft by Sarah Lyons. If you can get access to them, read scholarly articles about theories that are influential among activists, like the Gaia Hypothesis or Deep Ecology. Read everything you can get your hands on.

VOTE! And I don’t just mean voting for the presidential candidate you like (or, as is often the case, voting against the one you don’t like). Vote for your representatives. Vote for city council. Vote for the county sheriff. Voting gives you a chance to make sure the people in office will be susceptible to your activism. Yes, your side might lose or your electoral college representative might choose to go against the popular vote. Even so, voting is a way to clearly communicate the will of the people, and it puts a lot of pressure on the people in charge. It’s important — don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

In my experience, combining activism with my witchcraft is a deeply fulfilling spiritual experience. It strengthens my connection to the world around me, with helps grow both empathy and magical power. I truly can’t imagine my practice without the activist element.

Resources:

Witches, Sluts, Feminists by Kristen J. Sollee

Revolutionary Witchcraft by Sarah Lyons

The Study of Witchcraft by Deborah Lipp

The Way of Fire and Ice by Ryan Smith

[ginkgomoon]

Gavin’s Mini House In Detail 🏡

During the Mini House special events, I obtained all the furnishing items and had already unlocked all the furniture in the home so I thought for Gavin’s Birthday Week, I would share all of the little secrets it contains! 

Gavin has four sections of the house including-

Living Room

Loft 

Courtyard

Basement

This post also includes MC’s commentary and quotes from special happenings associated with Gavin. Special furnishes will have the coziness points indicated next to its name.

Please enjoy! 

Living Room

Soft Stool 

The white soft stool next to the tea table.

This stool is a must when Gavin watches soccer games.

The leather surface is very soft, and its height is just right for watching TV on.

Want to know the trend of the soccer lottery recently? How about asking about it? 

It seemed to have won all the recent games, and is both happy and lonely.

If his favourite team loses, Gavin will sit here alone. (#sad) 

White Sofa 

With so many pillows, you don’t have to worry about having no support behind you.

Is the white sofa difficult to clean? 

The bolsters are very comfortable.

Curled up on the sofa with soft ginkgo aroma.

“Gavin, do you remember what you told me?”

“I just want to be with you, just like this...”

“You still remembered!” 

“I won’t forget what I’ve told you.” 

“Then... Do you have anything you want to tell me this time?” 

Gavin kissed MC’s forehead gently.

- This special happening (Starry Sky) refers to the Furniture City Date!

White Table 

“Gavin’s Pad is placed here too.”

(It has a photo of MC and she says she will change it into the both of them next time.)

“I can add a snack box, but Gavin doesn’t really eat snacks.”

Hallway Cabinet

“Gavin waters the plants regularly.”

“These are often loose change on the cabinet which we can take before going out.”

“The silver ornament is a souvenir I bought when we went to Disneyland.”

The “Wavy Thing”

“I noticed a little “go for it” written on the most recently scrawled page of the notebook.” 

“I found a magazine that puts people to sleep in a second, which was necessary for insomniacs.”

Zoombot 

The black Zoombot.

Today I’m again busy all over the place saving Zoombot.

It’s a bit stupid and often gets stuck after hitting the furniture.

Makes a buzzing sound when working.

You threaten it: If you hang again, I’ll replace you!  

Music Stand

The music stand bought by Gavin.

On it are sheets of music scores printed by Gavin.

It will sometimes think that the small black table next to it is a bit short.

Sometimes Gavin uses in in the hanging chair to record melodies.

Gavin will print the music scores and put them on it to practice.

Flowers on the Wall 

Each flower is carefully selected by Gavin.

The front wall stores a variety of flowers.

The flowers on the entire flower wall are all preserved fresh flowers. 

Black Table and Seat 

Looking at it closely, it is the song that Gavin played last time. (Music score sheet on table.) 

It is also very comfortable with the little black seat cushion next to it.

The soft black cushion stuffed with cotton.

My exclusive seat for Gavin’s recital.

I bought it with Gavin when we were shopping at the furniture market.

Hanging Chair/Rose Hanging Chair (Coziness 88)

A great napping spot.

Here in the Leisure Time special happening, MC and Gavin talk about the swing they had in high school. MC is surprised that Gavin knew about the view of the sunset when being on it. He says he “passed by” sometimes. MC notes how the ginkgo leaves danced in the wind. He says, “they were gifts from another person”.

Heart-Shaped Chair (Coziness 28)

A cute small stool and a convenient storage box.

Gavin’s expression was a bit subtle while he sat on it first.

Alternating blue and pink hearts, as it’s a Valentine’s Day limited edition.

Surfboard Cabinet (Coziness 42)

It’s a new surfboard. Bring it next time we travel.

There are also other surfboards. Guess where they are? 

It says fly on the surfboard, like I can leap through waves with it.

(THEIR CUTE SHOES ARE NEXT TO IT AHHH)

Blue Lamp

A lamp that always blows bubbles from the bottom to top.

It’s beautiful and dreamlike when switched on at night.

Black Table on the Left 

“This looks like the score that Gavin played on the beach last time. I suddenly feel a bit nostalgic.”  - This refers to the Slightly Drunken Date!

“I found a picture of an asleep Gavin. He was sleeping soundly.”

Claw Machine and Carpet 

A dream-like claw machine. Gavin will add new dolls in it.

The inserted game coins can be taken out from the back of the machine and then reused.

A small black carpet in front of the claw machine.

I bought it together with the large carpet.

Red Bunny, White Bunny, Pink Bunny, Red Bunny, Grey Bunny.

Motorcycles 

The blue motorcycle sometimes want to compete with the opposite motorcycle.

The colour of the motorcycle displayed is sky blue. 

Maybe its name will be “Azure”? (because Gavin uses colours to individually name items.) 

Spring Landscape Display 

The landscape has been embedded into the window, like beautiful paintings.

Maybe there is a new world inside.

I can't help stopping to enjoy the view each time I pass.

Is designed for a wider view, improving your mood even when you're tired.

Winter Landscape Display (Coziness 61)

A corresponding landscape should be changed into winter.

Such heavy snow! Frozen river! Unfortunately, they are all fake. 

You can enjoy the red maple leaves and snow even at home, isn’t it wonderful?

Loft 

Painting

This is a word map that covers the entire wall.

Looking at it, Gavin and I have already been to so many places.

If you want to travel, you can find the destination on it in advance.

I'm willing to create memories with him in many more places.

Chandelier

The current iron style design is really cool.

Shines warm yellow when turned on, warming our hearts.

Display Cabinet  

It should have been a wine cabinet, but Gavin doesn’t drink, so it became a display cabinet.

The ‘little things’ between me and Gavin are displayed inside.

It looks empty now, but it will slowly be filled up in the future.

Black Tea Table

A black low table in front of the sofa.

I occasionally work here.

The star and moon deco piece is very beautiful, I picked it with Gavin.

You can put fruits and snacks on it while reading.

The wood texture had a matted quality with the black coat of paint.

Art 

Looks cold but is artistic.

Seems useless, but also seems cool.

Greenery

A corner with blooming flowers all seasons, is warm and restful to the eye.

Outside the window is a huge ginkgo tree, and the fallen leaves are like brocade.

I feel like it’s always spring with all these flowers around.

It compliments the scenery outside the window. (They have a ginkgo tree right outside their home!) 

Cabinet 

Photo framed have karmas from the Starry Date and the Romantic Date!

Decorative Cabinet/Snowman Closet (Coziness 49)

The two little snowmen stared at each other throughout the winter. (Cute little reference to the CN Recovery ASMR.)

It looks like a window at first glance, but it’s actually a cabinet if you look carefully.

And you could open it. Didn’t see that coming right? 

Starry Sky Wall (Coziness 52)

Today’s wish… I hope that Gavin…

I will accompany you to see the meteor rain which falls on this Earth.

Every moment a wish is realised, there will be a meteor streaking across the sky.

Dandelion Lamp (Coziness 43)

The lamp looks exactly like the grapefruit during Mid-Autumn Festival.

Like a burning sparkler, shining brightly.

Six light sources, not too dazzling nor too dark.

Festive Decoration Table (Coziness 57)

Although there are two cups of drinks, we can still drink from the same cup.

The sofa in the corner always makes people feel safe. 

Although we are only two people, I still chose two long couches.

The letter under the ginkgo biloba leaf, writes a love poem.

All the shopping bags represent his most flawless love.

The wide view allows you to see the scenery in the yard.

The soft white mat was added afterwards.

But it’s always hot under the sunlight, so the curtain is often pulled down.

Basement

Security Camera 

You are in a monitored area, please mind your actions.

Bulletproof Glass 

It’s not a normal screen, it’s bulletproof.

It's not often that one gets to see such a cool and HARD-CORE transparent screen.

Anyways, curious what’s in this wall.

Sci-fi glass wall in the movies.

The engraved badge is Gavin’s silent pride.

1-2-3... still shorter than it!

Gingko Tree

Seasons slip by soundlessly.

No matter how small their wishes are, they will become seeds and eventually bloom in gold.

All life’s little joys turned into gold.

It guards the serene life here quietly over in the corner.

(Gavin makes ginkgo bookmarks with them for MC. CRIES.)

Corner Resting Area 

These action figures are actually pretty fun!

The puzzle is all grown up. It should be able to piece itself back together. (LOL)

(Puzzle) Maybe finish it while Gavin’s gone? 

(Table) It sometimes thinks the table is a bit short.

(Chair) It looks hard but it’s actually comfortable to sit on.

Very spacious, but looks a bit empty.

Some decorations should be displayed here.

Sitting on a blanket is also very comfortable. You can also lean on the small pillow. 

(Carpet) This is a carpet. You can’t tell, right? 

The advanced smart carpet that is warm in winter and cool in summer is awesome.

(The book on the table is called ‘Kritik Der Urteilskraft’- The Critique of Judgement by famous German philosopher Immanuel Kant. It follows after the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason- the First and Second Critiques, respectively. The Critique of Judgment constitutes a discussion of the place of Judgment itself, which must overlap both the “understanding” and “reason”.)

“You need to take better care of your health.”

“Who was the one working overnight over the proposal the other day?”

“Alright, we’re birds of a feather, so... so both of us should look after ourselves for each other!” 

“Rest assured, I will. After all, it’s different now. I have you by my side.”  -Harmonous Compa Special Happening

Gavin’s Workspace

Accompany Gavin though every sleepless night.

This seems… No, I’m seeing things.

All folders are neatly organised and arranged.

A spacious table, with files and reports spread all over when busy.

I no need to worry about waking up from naps due to cold late at night.

I was reminded of some criminal investigation shows I have watched. Come on, Officer Gavin!

If this complicated case is made into a movie, it will be an exhilarating one. 

(Computer) A customised large-screen UHD model customised for work purpose.

(Computer) Work exclusive computer, only connected to intranet.

(Computer) The three auxiliary monitors can help keep the data safe.

(Chair) If you want to protect your waist, you should first have a comfortable cushion.

(Chair) if you work long hours, be sure to work in a comfortable chair.

(Board Area) What does it say? Ermm… Cats have nine lives? 

“Found a girl crookedly drawn next to a work record when he reached a bottleneck.” 

Airplane

This airplane model was assembled by Gavin himself.

The computer says-  Agent B-7

Team Operator S.T.R.I.K.E

Location Tracker 

S.P.Y Camera 

U4V Commando

Gunship Operation 

Motorcycle Repair Area 

Every vehicle is so cool in its own way! 

Hello, you are... Little… Erm… Let me think… 

With the strength to lift mountains and the spirit to take on the world! Ha! 

The robot arm is actually a simple robot.

For your safety, please don’t linger below it

(Motorcycle) I would like to greet my seniors.

Electronic Control Pad

Responsible for controlling the rising, descending and switches of the entire area.

On Spring Festival, it will say: Happy New Year, Sir!”

Sooner or later, fully automated smart management will be achieved.

Radio Office 

It’s an important communication device, and the only disadvantage is that it’s a bit heavy.

It’s actually a satellite phone, and it can receive signals everywhere.

Looks like the palm phone in the 90s. Oh no, I’ve exposed myself.

It looks like an electrocardiogram.

Don’t know how to use this weird device.

A thick laptop that it’s properly shut when not in use.

A cool eagle logo is printed on it.

Gavin used it only for special tasks and it will not be brought out.

LMAO MC DOESN’T HAVE ACCESS-

Courtyard 

Corner Seating Area 

A courtyard in sunny or snowy days are interested in their own ways.

Sometimes the unfrequented bolsters will envy the knee pillow.

It's’ wonderful when two people are sitting here reading, even if they don’t talk.

Standing barefoot on the soft lawn is very comfortable.

There's nothing nicer than basking ourselves when its sunny.

Binoculars

The white binoculars which you can see things several miles away.

You can use it to watch the stars when it’s not too cloudy.

But star-watching is clearer mid-air.

Seems to be the same binoculars as those in the scenic area.

The binoculars in the scenic area require coins, but this one doesn't.

Outdoor Lounge Chairs 

The new furniture I asked Gavin to buy.

Can enjoy the sunlight spa comfortably when relaxing. 

Closing my eyes, I feel like I’m lying on a beach.

The soft breeze and warm sunshine. This is life. 

Lying on it and looking at the blue sky and white clouds, your mind goes blank easily.

The blue and white clouds-

Leisure Table/Romantic Table (Coziness 52)

Lace tablecloth… I can’t imagine that it was chosen by Gavin.

The elaborately prepared dinner and roses, just for today.

A large sunshade on the balcony. (Black large umbrella.)

Bird Nest (Coziness 37) 

Once it was a pair of binoculars, now it’s a bird’s nest.

I bought it just because it was cute, but I’ll consider having pets in the future.

Birds flying by can also have a free meal here.

[anxiouslyfred]

Edited Lesson Plans

for @dukexietyweek‘s day 5 prompt ‘School’

Summary: The science experiments Remus includes in his lessons baffle most of the staff for how he’s able to get them past health and safety concerns. Virgil is just glad he hasn’t been questioned over stealing the plans to add precautions to them yet.

Warnings: elusions to chemical accidents, vauge mentions of bad lab safety, explosion mentions

/\/\/\

“Again? He's managed to get these major experiments in his work plan again?”

“Who the hell is he bribing to be allowed to do this stuff? Even I couldn't get a risk assessment thorough enough to do these things!”

“Remus has to be like dating the headmasters daughter. That's the only way Mr stick-up-his-arse Read would be letting him do these experiments. They're just too dangerous.”

“I think that's why Remus is doing them. Have you seen him mope when one is rejected?”

The talk in the staff room had once again returned to Mr Remus Cethalapod as the lessons plans and class schedules were shared among the teams, including the weeks where teachers should expect delays from students leaving specific classes. Virgil was sat working on fine tuning his own quietly, listening in, but never expected to join in with their talk.

That was the other certainty he knew the other teachers and faculty held, Remus would include science experiments no sane person would demonstrate to their teenage students, and Virgil would only speak up about issues with lesson plans if he saw classes overlapping with his that could be risky. The only exception to his demands to see the risk assessments were Remus's despite those classes following or precluding his own most often.

He smirked, making a few quick notes on a plan for the woodworking module. If the class picked up the skills in a different time period to expected a few classes might be moved around which would help with when Remus had chosen one of the few repeated experiments to be done.

“What is up, Bitches! Have I convinced any of you to give up repeating the same old plans and get something interesting in those classes?” Remus yelled, barging in to check the schedules for next semester.

“Why would we need to include something interesting when your lesson plans could well blow up the school?” Nate scoffed, shaking his head, and clearly unhappy that his classroom designation for the next semester was beside Remus's.

Virgil was tempted to speak up at that, defend his risk assessments except he wouldn't even acknowledge to Remus that he'd regularly steal the other teacher's lesson plans to make sure they're safe, or at a minimum have all possible and extremely necessary safety measures in place. He was certain that his input was known about though.

Remus just beamed at the veiled criticism. “My fairy health and safety agent says every class I do is safe as long as I follow the purple ink. Can you say the same?”

“You're creating fantasy creatures? You're meant to be a science teacher!” Nate's protesting was cut off as the first school bus arrived and everyone refocused back on this semester rather than the next.

/VR\

Teaching Engineering and Resistant materials had always been Virgil's main interest, and a lot of that relied on science not only to improve and progress but to remain safe for the people who practised it. Getting a few journals on Chemistry added to his reading list wasn't too difficult to do after Virgil first met Remus.

He'd loved the passion and energy when he'd heard Mr Cethalapod teaching during a free period in the first year they'd worked together at the school. Discovering that the class had been mixing dangerous chemicals without enough safety precautions however had him basically panicking for 20 minutes before he forced himself calm if only to focus on his next class and the teenagers about to be playing with fire as much as soldering some metal together could be called that.

After that day Virgil would steal Remus's lesson plans, originally just to satisfy himself that they wouldn't be putting students or teacher in danger, but all too soon he was adding sheets with safety instructions and getting risk assessments filled out. Enough of the things he did could cross over, although temperatures in chemistry got higher than they ever would in resistant materials and the chemical element rarely impacted engineering to the degree it would of course inspire a chemistry class.

Remus even seemed to accommodate his lesson plans getting stolen, once when they were first written, once soon before the start of each subject and finally the week before he'd teach the class. When Virgil had first realised that pattern had been deliberately made he tried to hide more, put the things back exactly as he'd found them, terrified there'd be some consequence for his interfering. Remus had after all once made a class where a parent had complained over his teaching style only read their books for a term, conducting the experiments he'd planned to show or have them do silently at the front of class, and another time brought in a mobile lab so he could walk his class around behind the PE class after the teachers were disparaging his class loudly at the end of the day.

Instead nothing had happened, except occasionally his additions would have more corrections added. Of course the corrections were usually only on the severity of the injuries that could occur if one of the safety risks wasn't followed, but it was an acceptance of his guidelines regardless. Even Virgil's students had mentioned feeling calmer and safer during experiments with Remus bringing new precautions in, all of which had been his own additions.

Honestly, being called a 'fairy health and safety agent' had Virgil snickering for the rest of his day. He had the powers of magic and way too much fear on his side and with it would save the school from dangerous experiments. That sounded like a lot more fun than screaming and lecturing the headmaster whenever one of the other teachers blatantly failed to follow even the basic health and safety precautions.

When Virgil gets the lesson plans at the end of that week a tiny part of him was tempted to put fairy wings on of something while taking them. He wouldn't do that for fear of having to explain why if another teacher spotted him, but it was a thought.

A thought that vanished along with everything else that night when in green highlighter, covering the last page of lesson plans Remus had scrawled

Dear H&S Fairy, I'll clap all the times I can to make sure you exist if only you come with me on a date next Friday. Love and other Goopy Stuffs, Remus xoxoxo

Please, Virgil could only pray, please say Remus actually had figured out he was the one doing these plans, because he wanted, but could not face turning up only to find out Remus thought it was some other teacher or administrator.

Before he could worry about that any further he scribbled a reply just underneath the note, signed with a doodle of a fairy.

/VR\

Now it wasn't that Remus had forgotten asking the Engineering teacher out on his lesson plans, or that he hadn't seen the response once they were returned to his desk. It's that he absolutely hated planning ahead any more than was necessary and his dreams were just of inspiration striking for the perfect date the minute they met up at his car.

Only as he was setting out the lesson and getting the students ready to carry it out did he finally think that someone so concerned with safety they'd steal his lesson plans might actually feel better if he had a plan in place. Remus couldn't exactly create a plan while teaching though, so it really would just be up to the evening and the thoughts it might bring to do.

He couldn't imagine a date being as full of risk as playing with low level acids though.

Virgil was already leant against Remus's car by the time he reached it and all Remus could do was beam. “I actually got it right! Damn, and Mr Read always says I can't figure out anything except explosions.”

“Glad to be who you wanted, should I even ask if you have a plan for tonight or just accept you're making this up as we go along?” Virgil snorted, pushing himself up as Remus rounded the car.

“I can at least guarantee lower chances of injury than I might find if you weren't with me.” Remus countered.

Perhaps they'd only really communicated via lesson plans and occasionally crossing paths around the school up until this point, but Remus couldn't wait to see where this first date might take them.

[thebmatt]

FFXIV Write Day 3

Scale– each of the small, thin horny or bony plates protecting the skin of fish and reptiles, typically overlapping one another. - OR - an instrument for weighing, originally a simple balance ( a pair of scales ) but now usually a device with an electronic or other internal weighing mechanism.

(yes there's other definitions, these two are what's relevant for my response)

It was a somewhat chilly morning in the Azim Steppe as Dahkar Darkspear, Warrior of LIght and kahn of the Azim Steppe, strode through Dotharl Khaa, striding in the direction of the khatun's tent.  Hushed whispers seemed to follow him, as every Dotharl Xaela in the settlement could not stop watching him or speaking quietly to each other.

It made little sense to Dahkar. He was a Xaela himself and a regular fixture in the settlement at least once a week. He made sure to check in with all of the major leaders of the Steppe regularly to hear news, arbitrate disputes, and otherwise do whatever he could to ensure the people of the Steppe were mostly doing well.

Well, almost all of the leaders. He ignored Magnai and Daidukul on principle. Esugen, the Oronir's culinarian he'd helped a few times, made sure he was always in Reunion when he knew the khan would be arriving so he could pass on information about the Oronir and the Buduga.

He was a day early in this instance, so perhaps that was the reason behind the whispers. He put it from his mind as he approached the woman standing in front of the khatun's home.

Shar smiled and nodded to him. "Welcome, khan. You're early this week."

He smiled back to her. "That I am, Shar. How's your son doing?"

"He's growing well. The khatun does not yet know who is behind his eyes, but it has been but only a couple of moons. She is confident the soul within will reveal themself soon enough. I'm very excited to re-meet whoever it is!"

"I look forward to the day I can meet them. Is Sadu within? I have some...well let's just say an interesting proposal for her"

Shar smirked at him. "Oh, really now? Very bold of you, khan. Very Dotharl. I hope you're ready for a long fight. When my husband proposed to me, we fought for 10 bells straight!"

A look of shock crossed Dahkar's face, descending into horror. "What? No! Not that kind of-!"

She began laughing, loud and from her belly. "HA! Aahahaha! Oh, khan, the look on your face! Priceless!" In between fits of giggling, she opened the tent's flaps to admit him.

"Pretty sure there's rules against sassing your khan" he muttered to her as he walked past her, into the tent. "And if not, I'm gonna make some." This did nothing to stop her laughter.

The tent's sole occupant, a beautiful white-haired Xaelan woman dressed in her people's blue attire with a horned darkwood staff, turned to him. She smirked at him. Dahkar had often witnessed that smirk directed at him, but it was only now that he noticed Shar had given him a very similar one. Clearly she'd been taking lessons.

"Well, well, our glorious khan graces us with-". She suddently stopped and looked at him, frowning. "What in all the hells are you wearing?" she asked, incredulously.

Dahkar looked down at his attire, a style he'd seen many on the Steppe wearing during his first two trips there. He'd made sure to acquire some before departing that second time, aetherically aligned towards boosting magicks. "What? It's hardly unusual. Hells, I saw many of the Dotharl wearing very similar garb on my way in. Granted, this is white in color, but I didn't want everyone to assume I'd joined the Dotharl or-"

"No no, the garb is fine. But...I have never seen you wear anything other than that heavy black armor you favor. Or carry any weapon other than those slabs of metal you refer to as swords. Now you wear this? And is that the weapon of a conjurer on your back?"

Ah. That explained the stares and the whispers. "Yes, it is." He removed the cane from his back. The white crystal embedded in its head began to glow, a series of green-yellow energy lines shimmering around the head of leaf-covered branches. "Before I ever took up the sword of the Dark Knight, I was a conjurer. Pretty good one, in fact. So good they actually decided to let me train as a White Mage, which...well, you probably aren't aware of what those are or why it's a big deal. Suffice to say, I'm damn powerful with conjury."

"Hmmph", she signed, annoyed. "And what, you just decided that one day, it didn't work for you and took up a giant sword, instead?"

"Not quite that simple, but that's not far off the mark. Bad things happened to me and I changed in response to them in part by taking up the art of the Dark Knight." He shrugged and slung the cane over his back again.

"Oh yes, our glorious khan knows all about change!  You and that Doman. First you win the Naadam, as foreigners no less, then you rope us into this alliance of yours and persuade us to fight those men of metal and machines!" Sadu threw up her hands and turned her back to him. "Tell me, khan, what change will you bring next?"

Dahkar sighed. It was an argument he'd heard from her, and others, many a time. "Are we really doing this every time, Sadu? You know there's no rules against foreigners entering Bardam's Mettle, nor against competing in the Naadam. You agreed to help Hien and I fight the Garleans. Multiple times. You even told me you enjoyed the battle to liberate Ala Mhigo! You aren't actually angry about any of this, because you know what i know. Change is inevitable, stagnation equals decay."

She turns, smiling at him again. There's still mockery in her smile, but not as much this time. "Hrmph. Fine, you are correct. I suppose I just wanted to throw you off balance. As usual, you are hard to break. So what brings you to us a day early? It's too early in the day for you to have gone anywhere else first, so I assume this is important."

Dahkar smiled. "That it is. I want to talk with you about the future of the Steppe, and of the Dotharl, specifically."

Sadu's narrowed and her smile turned downward. She crossed her arms. "Speak. I suspect I will not like this, but you have earned the right, many times over, so I will hear you."

"It's simple, really. Many of the other Xaela fear the Dotharl. They see you as merciless raiders who seek only to deal death to them, who lust only for battle and killing. I would have you change that perception."

"And just how would you have me do that? Moreover, why would I even WANT to? The Dotharl live for battle. How many times have you heard me say it, khan? 'In battle do our souls burn bright, and in death do they sing'. Those are not empty words, they define us."

Dahkar smiled. "I'm well aware. I'm also aware that you very much realize that your way of life is not sustainable to the Dotharl's continued existence. You admitted as much to us, Gosetsu and I, that day we first met." Sadu turned her face away from him, eyes downward. "Hrmph. So I did. What of it? We have endured thus far. I will not compromise our way of life, khan"

"I'm not asking you to. What I propose is not a change to it, but a direction for it. I would have the Dotharl become protectors of the Steppe."

She turned to him again, her face a mixture of shock and rage. "...Protectors??  Have you heard a word I've said?" Dahkar raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Wait, just hear me out. It's not as radical as it seems, and it will solve your biggest problem of numbers in the long run."

Sadu resumed crossing her arms, glaring daggers at him. "...fine."

"Very well. First of all, I ask you what exactly the Dotharl gain in making war on weaker tribes? You yourself told me that only in great battle does the soul burn brightly, so what does it gain your warriors to slaughter those of lesser skill in battle than you? Seems unworthy of you. Turning that strength on the marauders who engage in such unworthy predation? That seems like a far better chance for a real battle. Not to mention the Steppe is crawling with monsters and vicious animals of various types. They may pose no threat to most tribes, certainly, but there are those to whom a monster attack is a death sentence. You can protect them and test your strength and bravery at the same time."

"If memory serves, you told me that it was in a monster attack that your own tribe was slaughtered. Purbols, I believe. I can't help but wonder if this is why you ask this of me."

"Which leads me to the second benefit this would bring to you. What do you suspect would have happened had the Dotharl come to our aid?"

"I imagine you would have been grateful, which is hardly worth anything to us."

"Gratitude is a long-term investment, Sadu. Think on it. If I'd been raised on tales of the tribe of warriors that saved us from vicious monsters, that fought back against other marauding tribes that kidnapped people like the Buduga? There's a very good chance that I would have bid farewell to my tribe and joined you all the day I came of age."

A single eyebrow raised. "You would have?"

"Very likely. I became an adventurer because it seemed like the easiest way to earn a living helping people and making things better. If my tribe hadn't been killed and my mother fled the Steppe? I doubt I'd be so different as to not want to do the same, still. Joining the Dotharl, becoming an undying one, born again and again to fight to save people, to help them? Well, it would have been extremely appealing to me. And I doubt I'm the only one, too. In time, I believe this swell your numbers significantly. Furthermore, when the Naadam comes around again, all those tribes you helped? Seems to me like they'd be more willing to help you as allies. In time, this will tip the scales in the Dotharl's favor and you'll reliably have more than enough numbers to rout the Oronir without question. Frankly, I would rest easier knowing the Steppe was in your hands rather than Magnai's. So long as you don't intend to break your word to the rest of the Othard Alliance, that is.  I'll kick BOTH of your asses for as long as I have to, if that's your intent."

She smirks viciously again. "Is that a challenge, khan?"

All mirth or joy fades from Dahkar. "No, Sadu, it's a promise. I have fought through some hellish things these past few moons, and I know that the worst of it is yet to come, and it's going to affect the entire world when it does. I take it you've heard about that large metallic tower that suddenly appeared off the southern coast of Yanxia? They're all over the world, and they're part of it. The Steppe is going to get caught up in this whether the people want to be or not, and I would rather my people fight what's coming together with all of the Alliance than risk being slaughtered and their culture gone. So yes, if I have to fight you to preserve that, I will. But I'd rather see to it that the Dotharl are in a place to help preserve it and maybe even guide it to a better future without leaving tradition behind entirely."

Shock appeared on Sadu's face. "....very well, I'll admit your suggestion has merit. I will not give you an answer now, however. I will need time to think on this, discuss it with the others."

"I expected no less."

"And I demand another battle with you as payment for even entertaining your presence!"

Dahkar rolled his eyes. "I expected that would be the case as well. You DO know that we're going to be interrupted, right? Magnai and Daidukul and whatever others he decides to bring with him are going to show up and whine about us not asking his permission or something along those lines."

Sadu's vicious smirk was on her face again. "I am counting on it!"

"You don't actually want to fight me at all. You want to fight at my side."

"More than one way for our souls to burn bright, khan."

[maybedefinitely404]

Day 2: Roceit

@tsshipmonth2020

Day 2: There is a timer that counts down to when you will meet your soulmate

Content warning: vague neglectful/bad home life mentions, liquor store mention (no drinking), implied past parental death.

Word count: 2.6k

When they first met, they didn’t like each other. Would they go so far as to say they hated each other? Probably not. But it was no secret that Roman and Janus didn’t get along, even if they traveled in a mutual friend group. If the two interacted at all, it was in snide remarks and gripes that had everyone else in the group groaning in annoyance. They just wanted five minutes of peace, that’s all. Just five minutes.

Roman was too preppy, Janus said. He was loud and abrasive and presumptuous and arrogant, an annoying theatre boy with too much energy. Other’s feelings came second to his dramatic and overplayed grievances. 

Janus was too self centered, Roman retorted. He was untrustworthy and creepy and a compulsive liar, a loner with a mysterious backstory. Everything about him was kept hidden under a mask of indifference.

These things were true to some extent, but the group still loved them both too much to reject either one. So they both stayed, bothered by the other’s presence and unwilling to admit that maybe they disliked the other because they were so similar. They were both extravagant and theatrical and burdened with concealed insecurities, points that all of the rest of the group brought up regularly and they both vehemently denied. 

It all changed one morning during school, on a regular Wednesday with average weather after an uneventful English class, when Roman got overly excited at the cast list for the newest show being put up and dropped his art bag. Without a second of hesitation, Janus crouched to help him collect the supplies that had flown across the hallway. That was when Roman’s sleeve slid up, as he was reaching for a paint pen that had rolled up against a locker, and Janus nearly choked.

00:00

He blurted out his accusation before he could stop himself.

“You said you haven’t met your soulmate! And you call me secretive?”

Roman snarled almost animalistically, covering his completed timer back up and grabbing the now full bag off the ground.

“If you must know, my timer’s always been like that. I don’t know when it ran out; too young to remember. I don’t even know if it was ever counting down in the first place. Defective.” He flicked the numbers on his wrist.

“Does anyone else know?”

Roman narrowed his eyes at the uncharacteristic sympathy in Janus’ voice. “Just Remus.”

“Why haven’t you told them?”

“Why all the questions, Fibber on the Roof? Since when do you care about anything I do?”

Janus was quiet, breathing out a frustrated breath before folding down the bottom of his gloves, the same gloves that Roman taunted daily for making him look like every single Disney villain, the same gloves that made Roman turn to the rest of the group and insist that the guy was hiding something. Turns out he was right.

“My timer’s out too. I was too young to remember as well.”

Roman wasn’t able to respond, and Janus was surprisingly relieved. The silent solidarity in the other’s eyes was enough of an olive branch, just another thing they had in common. It was a pain the others didn’t understand, a frustration that couldn’t be fixed. So if from that point on, the bickering lessened and they finally allowed their shared interests to overlap, they surely wouldn’t be the ones to bring it up.  

That’s how they found themselves, almost half a year later, sitting on the swings of a musty playground near Janus’ house, watching the sunset in an unspoken agreement to put off going back until absolutely necessary. It was just another thing they had in common; shitty home life. They didn’t talk about it much, because they knew how much it sucked to discuss, so they let the facts stand at the forefront and the nitty gritty emotions and smaller mental repercussions stay healthily buried. What did it matter? Their parents were awful, ‘nuff said. 

“I just think it’s ridiculous, the amount of time he spent writing it.”

“He wrote and composed an entire play single handedly, J! Not a single word of it is dialogue, and it all rhymes! You try doing that in seven years.”

“I’m just saying, doesn’t it come to the point where you have to admit it’s too much work? Did he even know for a fact it would be successful?”

“He made it work, didn’t he? That’s what faith is for.”

“I wouldn’t have done it.”

“That’s what makes Lin Manuel Miranda a god, and you, a worm.” 

Janus gasped and raised a mock hand to his chest, drawing a loud laugh from Roman. While the shorter of the two still wore his gloves daily, the other had slowly gained the confidence to wear short sleeves and display his empty timer, though god help the fool who asked him anything about it. The conversation with the group had gone well, though Jan hadn’t admitted that his situation was the same. They hadn’t known him as long, and they both agreed that it was a sensitive topic. Roman didn’t push him. 

“The sun’s setting.”

“I had no idea,” Janus smirked, although the implications of the fast approaching darkness made a pit settle in his stomach.

“We don’t have to leave yet. I just don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“I don’t really get in trouble that often,” The shorter murmured, kicking his feet in the dust under him, “She’s more just... forgetful. Ignorant. I’m not even sure she fully knows I exist all the time.”

Roman raised an eyebrow at the first bit of information he’d learned about Janus’ home life, besides knowing it was just ‘bad’. He was debating between quietly prodding him to continue or to just let it sit when Janus made the choice for him.

“The other day she asked me to go to the liquor store for her and literally didn’t believe me when I said I’m only eighteen. Then again, she’s forgotten my birthday for the last, what, ten years? So I guess she just lost track, got ahead of herself. I don’t know.”

“When’s your birthday?” It was the only response Roman could think of. 

“August seventh,” He whispered, almost like it was a dark secret he was scared to admit.

“Wait, actually?”

Janus turned to him, eyebrows furrowed, “Yeah?”

“You’re joking. This is a joke, right?”

“I can probably find my birth certificate if you need proof. Why are you losing your shit?”

“That’s my birthday too!” 

Janus matched Roman’s face splitting grin with one of his own, his worries slipping away. They’d all been irrational anyways, so good riddance. He quickly settled his face into a more neutral one, the unusual expression hurting his cheeks. A calm air settled between them as their eyes locked, almost in a trance, before Janus snapped out of it and turned his attention to the pink hues of the dimming sky.

“What are the chances?”

There was a lot Roman didn’t know about the newest member of the friend group, he realized after dropping Janus off at home and starting the walk back to his. Usually he’d pop in his earbuds, taking the longest back roads and detours to put off arriving even more, but today his head was lost in his thoughts. What else didn’t he know about the blond boy he was so infatuated with?

Two weeks later, Janus edged the front door of his house open, calling out a tentative “Mom?” before pushing it open all the way and pulling Roman in. There was no answer through the empty halls so he yanked the taller boy upstairs, praying that his mom wasn’t home instead of just ignoring his call. It wasn’t until he shut his bedroom door and leaned heavily against it did he remember to breathe, meeting Roman’s eyes shakily.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I get it. Parent’s are…”

“Yeah. It’s better if she doesn’t know you’re here.”

Roman nodded, finally looking around the room. One wall was completely adorned with old records, some cracked in places or missing pieces entirely. He found himself drawn to it, running a finger down the closest one to him as Janus collapsed on his bed, ruffling the yellow blanket beneath him. He took a moment to pull off his gloves, revealing his soulmark, a secret that only Roman had the honor of seeing. An old jukebox stood proudly in the corner, covered in a fine layer of dust.

“You definitely have an aesthetic,” Roman hummed, taking notes on the implications of the dust and not approaching the old machine. If Janus didn’t touch it, neither should he. Instead he sat down at the other’s desk, spinning himself lazily in the chair.

“It was all my dad’s old stuff. He loved music and antiques a lot. The record player was his, too.” 

He followed Janus’ gaze and nodded, overly tempted to take one of the records from the wall and trying to play it, but knowing that would only end badly. The record player was covered in the same thin sheet of dust. 

“Holy Hera, is that a baby picture of you?” His mind, apparently unable to stay on one topic for more than ten seconds, had decided to focus on the framed picture on the bedside table. He crossed the room and sat next to Janus on the bed, leaning closer to the photo but not daring to touch it. He inspected the woman, who could only be Janus’ mother, holding the tiny bundle and smiling weakly at the camera, her eyes tired and hair tied in a messy bun.

“Yeah,” Janus rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, “That’s the only picture I have with her. She hates cameras, always said she was self conscious and shit. It sucks that the only one I have, I don’t even remember taking.”

Roman knew he should respond to the surprisingly vulnerable statement, but his eyes had zeroed onto the still slightly slimy, wrinkly baby in the photo. Its little fists were tucked against his face, eyes closed peacefully, a moment of bliss that time forgot. That’s not what caught his attention, though. He squinted, edging just that much closer to the photo.

“You were born at Jacob Banks Memorial Hospital? I thought you lived in Chicago before you moved out here.” The tiny golden embroidery in the edge of the blanket was just focused enough to make out, as if he didn’t have an identical blanket at home, stashed under his bed in a box of other memories that were too special to throw away. He’d run his finger over the stitching a hundred times, reread the words and committed the blanket to memory, just for that high of simple childhood. And now, here was Janus as a baby, swaddled in the same blanket.

From the same hospital.

From the same day.

“Yeah. My parents were visiting relatives in town when my mom went into early labor. We didn’t end up actually moving here until a couple years ago.” Janus didn’t seem to notice the gears turning in Roman’s head as he reached forward, plucking the picture off the table and bringing it closer to his face. He tapped the glass, just above baby Janus’ arms.

“Right there, my timer. It’s just a few minutes left. I met my soulmate as a baby and no one cared enough to check who it was.”

“Janus.”

“I called the hospital as soon as I was old enough to comprehend, but they said they couldn’t help me. Didn’t have a record of anything to do with soulmates. Some help, huh.”

“Janus!”

“What? I’m trying to be melodramatic, Roman.”

“That’s the same hospital I was born in.”

“Okay? It’s the only one in town, I’m not overly surprised-” The lightbulb went off, and his head jerked up. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’.”

They both were quiet for a moment, like the whole house was holding it’s breath, before Janus finally spoke, his voice a choked whisper. “Imagine with me, if you will,” he murmured, taking the picture and inspecting it closely. Not so much for sake of searching for details he wouldn’t have missed the hundreds of hours he spent inspecting the photo, more so just to avoid looking at the person beside him. “Two babies, born in the same place on the same day, put into the same small hospital nursery. They see each other, and click, their timers are out. Except both their parents don’t give a flying rat’s ass-”

“And so they never realize they met, and live their entire lives shrouded in mystery,” Roman finished quietly, suddenly terrified of the new ice they were walking on. 

“Hypothetically, of course.”

His head snapped up and the spell was broken, meeting Janus’ pale eyes and jumping to his feet, flapping his hands to dispel his nervous energy. “Okay. Okay! That could… that could make sense! All signs point that way, right?” He began to pace the length of Janus’ room, head tilted towards the ceiling, “And I mean, god, I’ve liked you for how long now? So I’m definitely not upset!”

“You’ve what?”

“Alright, so we can call the hospital, or go there, or something! I’m sure they can tell us how many babies were born that day, that doesn’t seem like confidential information, right? And if it was just us three, you, me, and Remus, then that’ll settle it!”

“Wait, no, Roman, stop!”

Janus launched himself at Roman before he could click the call button on the Google search of the hospital, already dedicated to his plan. He ripped the phone from his grasp and tossed it onto the bed after pressing the power button, grabbing Roman’s hands tightly.

“Jan, what the hell? That’s the only way we’re going to know for sure if we’re-”

“But what if we’re not?!”

The two settled into silence after the outburst, searching each other’s faces intently. They both shared scared expressions, eyes wide with excitement and nervousness, the possibility of years worth of questions finally being answered. The promise that their two soulmarks weren’t dysfunctional, weren’t broken, and fate that had led them together one way or another. 

But what if they weren’t?

“What if it’s a coincidence? What if you find out that your mom checked out before mine even got there, or our paths never could have crossed, or there were twenty babies born that day and there’s no sure way to know that we are each other’s soulmates? What if you find out that your soulmark said two years and mine ran out with someone else completely?”

“You’re starting to sound like Virgil,” Roman said quietly, almost fondly, a gentle smile tugging at his lips.

“Roman, if you’re my soulmate, I’d be elated,” Janus’ hushed tone matched his, “But I don’t know what I’ll do if I build my hope and then find out it’s not true.” They were quiet again, and Janus was suddenly hyper aware that he was still holding Roman’s hands, a furious blush rising to his cheeks. He fought the urge to look away, look anywhere other than Roman’s bright eyes, because this was the closest they’d ever been and he was scared one flinch might break the charm they were in. 

“We don’t have to check,” the taller whispered, “If you are, I’m content just… believing it.”

“You always were a cheesy romantic.” The phrase was meant to be cutting, but the uncontainable grin across his face greatly lessened its impact.

“I’m a Disney lover, what can I say?”

Janus snorted, dropping his head on to Roman’s shoulder, his heart nearly stopping altogether when the taller boy wrapped his arms around him and pulled them a step closer together. “So we’re agreeing on this? That we’re soulmates?” His voice was muffled against Roman’s shirt.

“As far as I’m concerned, yes. Fuck the system, right?”

“Overthrow the government. Commit arson in the name of anarchy. Society is a prison.”

“Dramatic, and that’s coming from me,” Roman drawled, rocking them back and forth slowly, dancing to unheard music, “Hey, Janus?”

“Yes?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” 

[regulusblackfest]

Week 4 Round Up

We finished one last, marvellous week of posting, and you can find all the works beneath the cut. As of now, all creations have been posted! Authors will be revealed on Sunday, and we'll post a complete masterlist! ✨

To Disobey

Main Characters: Regulus Black & Sirius Black

Rating: Teen || Warnings: Alternate Universe || Word Count: 1,246

Summary: Going against everything he knows as a house-elf, Kreacher does something unexpected in Crystal Cave.

Study Sessions

Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black & Lily Evans Potter

Rating: Teen || Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings || Word Count: 11,201

Summary:  No. 85 Pairing: Regulus Black & Lily Evans Prompt: Regulus has a charms assignment and he's going to fail because all the books are checked out of the library. But Lily Evans is a Charms prodigy, and she's in the library on her own, so Regulus has no choice and asks for her help. She kind of starts to tutor him regularly. Then Regulus becomes curious, Lily teaches him about the Muggle world, and it's the start of a beautiful friendship (no romantic interest between them). It also changes quite a few things. Best if the Marauders aren't being assholes to Regulus, at least not once they see that he means no harm, and that it didn't take much to shake his pureblood ideology.

monster, moongazer

Pairing: Remus Lupin/Regulus Black

Rating: Mature || Warnings: Mild gore, mild sexual content, canon major character death, depictions of unhealthy relationships || Word Count: 4.8k

Summary: “I am not content,” murmurs Regulus against Remus’s lips, “to ignore the blood that runs through my veins.” Neither am I, Remus thinks heavily. The dark creature writhes and snarls within him, baying for blood, for just a single taste of the cold, furious violence that hides behind Regulus Black’s vacant grey eyes. I will never be content, says the monster, not until you and I are both dead.

Fear and Determination

Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black & Sirius Black

Rating: Gen || Warnings: None || Word Count: 2,023

Summary:  Once in a while, but definitely on days when he misses his brother most, a big black dog shows up and spends time with him. What happens when Regulus tells the dog he made up his mind and wants to fight Voldemort from now on? And how does Regulus survive?

I Pledge My Loyalty

Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black & Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape

Rating: Gen || Warnings: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Unforgivable Curses (Harry Potter) || Word Count: 30k

Summary: When Severus Snape is infected by lycanthropy during the "Prank", Regulus Black forms an allyship with Lily Evans. Their goal? Create a world where Sev can be happy. Turns out, they make a scarily competent team. But they don't live in simple times, and one day Regulus will have to choose where his loyalties lie: with his family, with his friends, or with the Dark Lord? If only there wasn't so much overlap.

you can set yourself on fire

Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black & Sirius Black, Regulus Black & Kreacher, Regulus Black, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Other(s)

Rating: Teen || Warnings: None || Word Count: 5.6k

Summary: Regulus accidentally on purpose hears the prophecy instead. Things only go downhill form there, but maybe that's for the best.

You Don't Know What It's Like To Lose You

Pairing/ main characters: no pairing, Regulus Black, Lily Evans, Severus Snape, Sirius Black (mentioned), Petunia Evans (mentioned)

Rating: Teen || Warnings: mentions of bullying and child abuse (not extremely graphic, but not very vague either), swearing, abandonment issues, implied self-hatred, Reggie's not so stellar world view || Word Count: 3,156

Summary: Regulus Black won't stand for anyone hurting his closest friend, Severus Snape. Not even Lily Evans. And his anger is definitely purely for Sev's sake, nothing personal. (Otherwise known as the time when one Regulus Arcturus Black caused a huge scene in the middle of Diagon Ally.)

The Lion sleeps tonight

Pairing/main characters: Regulus Black, Sirius Black, Walburga Black, Remus Lupin, Severus Snape

Rating: Mature || Warnings: Mentions of self-deprecating thoughts || Word Count: 5k

Summary: The year Sirius leaves, Regulus begins having periodic premonitions/visions of the future. At first, these are just little flashes of things that happen a few days later. Small, but enough to convince him that what he's seeing is real. But as the war intensifies, so do the premonitions until he finally sees what the future holds beyond his own death.

[firespirited]

Blog

Decided to blog even without the internet, I've promised to keep some kind of record after never daring to have diaries and destroying old writings. It not only helps to record memories better but is part of the effort to allow myself to be seen and known even though there's a lot I don't talk about

// Mostly physical issues: you can kind of tell from gaps in creating or gaps in the day in general when i've been incapacitated by pain or exhaustion, so say, the lack of dog walks or cooking is a big tell: in 2019 I was doing them regularly. It's not exactly relatable and can be quite frightening to non spoonies and triggering to others so I record health issues and abilities with initials on a notepad instead. Besides my body steals the focus all the time, i'd like other things to get the spotlight for once! //

So here goes:

read more for super long post!

I should note that the soundtrack for the past week has been Seal: Kiss from a Rose non stop, overlapping, out of order, mostly the acapella stuff. You might think that's torture but it's not a bad song to have on loop considering we're entering the Wham, Mariah and xmas schlock season. Shoutout to the ADHD folks with constant snippets of ad jingles, catchphrases and songs -We all know there's worse to have playing in an unclosable background tab. There have been brief interludes of of the sung parts of Freebird because I can't see the word freebox without thinking "and this bird you cannot tame!" or "won't you flyyyyy-yyy freeeebird, yeah".

Monday: I woke up to a double slap in the face. First: the internet wouldn't work and the box said disconnected. Second postal woes. We'll deal with this part first but both happened simultaneously.

Go to find M, she's half asleep with no answers. her phone will have some mobile data and was the main signup contact info.

I wanted this to be a shared responsibility not on my shoulders alone since i'm tech guy but if things go wrong they want to know why they weren't asked about decisions first, i make the tech decisions all the time. So that's why she's main on this new internet lease. as mentioned before i have an ongoing battle with guilt/shame and tend to spiral when something goes wrong like it's my fault (for doing x or not having a backup plan for x). it's irrational but powerful. I have to spend most of the day thinking *away* from things that are under my responsibility but go wrong no matter how busy things get, the thoughts still weedle their way in.

Okay so she has a text from Orange on *friday* saying they noticed the new company had our phone line details and they're cutting us off, one from Free that morning saying your new line is connected and functional so we just need a box to hook up and we'll have internet.

Second: I was asleep when the postman came: my letter with a few bratz clothes to AustrALIA, printed and carefully stamped with tracking stickers was sent to AUSTRIA, send back and fined 10€. There was a bunch of post so M paid up without asking why or what or even looking at the parcel, didn't think to ask for anything. Now I have to find way of contesting the fine or tax or whatever it was (no receipt!), finding out if post to Oz is going to have this issue again and somehow tell the customer. You can not make this kind of incomptence up. but no internet = no answers. Look at this nonsense:

I spiral for a few hours anyway

I'd really like to do therapy again someday, I need adapted coping mechanisms to redirect thoughts. Going for a walk or body based mindfulness isn't an option.

Watched Colossal (dled in 360px from a streaming site back during the last internet drought). It's a great premise with solid acting, the metaphors are built in and it certainly has you white knuckled for the entirety of the third act but once it was over I found myself wondering if there was a meaning (I don't expect full resolution from stories about addiction or depression, in fact it annoys me if the person is magically better without some serious timeskip and ongoing work). It just sort of gave me 'this story is sort of an indie film and will have a point' vibes and ended up being a thriller, a solid thriller: just not what was expected. Oh wait, did I mention your immersion will be constantly ruined by the fact that Korea is a real place with real people with real lives? and you *will* want to kill the two leads, yes even the heroic one at the end... with no personal ethical problem at all: straight up murder the leads with your bare hands to save people who actually have a working moral compass. I was half hoping they'd have an end scene where there's a reveal and a lynch mob but that would be giving asian people some agency and this movie has no interest in that. Like they chose Seoul !!! of all places, to fill with expendable stupid person-shaped plot drones. Seoul has a quake plan, a nuke plan, a coup plan, a chemical attack plan, all men over 30 have been through military training, people are community minded and organise very effectively. They would leave the town evacuated except for skeleton crews manning the medical areas and military bases within 12 hours. Bet you $10 they have a joke military simulation for kaiju/mechas ready to go. But no they're plot ants going to turn up to be killed by a monster that appears in the same spot at the same hour everyday. What happened to inventing some exotic coded city or country? Why not set the monsters in Dallas or London (trust me, we are not prepared for much)? 

My review, like that of Daredevil on netflix (yes that's an old grudge but I expected better) and The Suicide Squad 2020, is two middle fingers up out of ten stars for 'foreign' people as props: immersion ruined, story loses any impact, I don't care about your protagonists anymore, two hours of my time wasted on dreck that needed five minutes of thought instead of relying on a very tired old racist cliché. Who is greenlighting this 1960s B movie bad storytelling trope over and over again?

Does it not occur to them that a significant part of the audience will empathise with the city dwellers or factory workers or have been to a place that is strange and alien but also *people were still very much people*?

To illustrate: in The Boys (aka the series in the terrible tumblr ads) they had this scene of a bad guy being hunted through a block of flats and you're like ok I know this place, we've seen characters live in similar places, I've lived in places like this and the collateral damage the superhero does is horrifying and it tells you that the superhero is worse than any bad guy but then the superhero has this big scene where they say a slur and enjoy killing the bad guy slowly like 'Dun Dun villain alert' when the correct "oh shit" moment was when civilians were getting tossed out of windows. You know what I mean?  You feel like you're being treated like a total idiot by a story when the person did a bad thing then the story has to double down and have them do a whole bunch more bad things- like you didn't get that it was a very bad thing the first time around. Maybe I'm just sick of the comic book, action hero and cop movies that treat death with no weight. I think I'll watch Rachel's wedding Rachel getting married as a palate cleanser when the internet is back where the damage of addiction is given it's proper levity (even though it's going to be painfully cringeworthy).

I would 100% watch a remake or different version of the Colossal concept done smarter. The superhero facing consequences or with side effects makes for some really interesting media, i mean there are some terrible executions of the genre (avengers civil war) but done with even a little bit of thought? that's some delicious brain food right there!

Dolls on film (looks like Bandai Cutie Honey. set in Seoul 1987)

Lily is bored and being adorable. she's fully fluffy at the moment so she reads as a puppy even more than usual.

Tuesday: Freebox arrives tomorrow. Thank the universe J's skype medical appointment got moved to friday. Today I'm going to watch Chronicle (2012) to compare and contrast. I wonder if the blonde guy's (DeHaan) voice is an affect to sound like a teen or his real voice? Michael B looking both too old for highschool and also so young. Oh nice: rules as soon as there's a mess. Good guys, I love these dorks. Their home movies are 3 idiots playing slap games, if they were brothers they'd have accidentally killed eachother by now. I'm glad they made both cousins awkward and socially isolated with one making a choice to work on connecting to people because the ND being the one to snap isn't true to life. Oh, wow, here we go... OK that was good. Minimal shaky cam considering the medium. Escalation was handled with clues, clarity and a big trigger event so it wasn't a straight 'power corrupts' storyline. I think Jordan should have been the cousin, he's got the better acting chops, but yeah that was 2012 *cough*Not everybody came out of their Friday Night Lights binge with the right conclusions*cough* (still waiting for a certain actress to get her dues). I don't need answers about the nature of how things work but no anime references? it's 2012 and M.B. Jordan how do you pass up such a golden opportunity? LMAO. The comparison to Akira has probably been done to death and The Craft has better lore on about using powers for good and TWO characters with emotional issues.

I'd rate this a solid 7/10 as a variation on the Akira story. Works well as "What if Peter Parker had a terrible uncle and wasn't whip smart?". A teensy bit on the fence about the atypical coding of blonde dude, I'd be less forgiving if they hadn't made his cousin a bit of a social disaster too. I loved that they connected telekenenis to flying, when characters can move stuff and themselves ... but not themselves from the ground it's a wierd thing for viewers/readers to buy into. The big fight was set at night which had me squinting to see who's where, so that lost it a point.

Finished Lagoonafire and yarn rerooted Gigi while listening to 3 "You are good" (formerly "what are dads") podcasts which has Sarah and Alex from "You're wrong about" talking about movies in a very informal not technical way. This was The Mummy, Guardians of the galaxy 2 and Birds of Prey.

I love them because they can take some seriously awful subject matter and do gallows humour that doesn't feel uncaring, they care a lot and take it seriously but life is tough and it's also ok to laugh about the absurdity of it. You've got a good dose of respect for the complexity of humans, lots of empathy but also they don't leave you feeling dirty, it's more like "here's the knowledge and context people had at the time, here's the knowledge we have now, it's ok to be furious at the injustice and let's keep these things in mind as we move forward because setting the record straight even for your one brain is a small step towards justice and that's a positive even though we just gave you twenty more reasons to hate humanity. Like if this was a twitter thread info dump you'd want to take up drinking right now but we're going to let you digest this with a bit of space gently". I don't know how they pull it off but they do. I thought "you're wrong about" was going to be confrontational or, worse, sensational but it's just debunking and education with a spoonful of sugar. Everything properly sourced and balanced like proper journalists not sloppy true crime/docuseries.

Not sure why I rerooted half of Lagoonafire to stick her hair in a ponytail but she looks amazing with her hair down too:

Wednesday:

woke up to find freebox physically set up thanks to J (my heart is bursting!!) now to fine tune the back end. quickly sent emails. client in australia seems understanding (with a full refund).

[socialpracticegrouprca]

‘What do our publics look like now?’

Activity with Sadie Edginton June 16th 2020

‘Here is my lockdown publics diagram developed for a workshop session, which I led with a group of students for the RCA Social Practice Group. I led a session on this again afterwards with a group of art educators and artists for a practice sharing group. Called ‘Writing the Rules for Zoom’ started by Alex Parry it was kick started by Alex’s development of ideas around this topic for a session for the social practice group in May 2020.

The diagram asks questions about different networks, communities and publics that we are communicating with and are in connection with (in the context of the first 3 months of lockdown). I developed mine through a process of creating a few drawings, into this kind of Venn diagram overlapped series of shapes. It was interesting to think about who is ‘the public’ to me, are these people I just don’t know, the ‘unknown’? Or people in various roles, networks or spaces? The process of doing it explored which groups of people I tended to identify as being ‘the public’ or which different publics and communities I was aware of being in contact with, both virtually and physically, at this time.

Putting people into ‘categories’ can of course be problematic, so it was definitely a process of thinking through this. Do publics get reduced or expanded at this time? As the people we are in touch regularly has physically changed a lot, depending where you happen to ‘lockdown’ or which networks or communities you are part of, I wondered how we can analyse and unpick possible and potential new ‘publics’ or communities to interact with, to play with as an audience or to set artwork within, or to communicate with. The delivery drivers, the supermarket workers, the people who walk past your house, these are all potential collaborators, viewers or audiences. Memorable moments in the workshops were: people identifying making regular connections with dogs (not their owners) on the beach, wondering who the people are behind newsletters in email inboxes, having the unnerving ability to ‘select’ online communities and students commenting on the ‘outsourcing’ of care and being able to be in a position of selecting which people or networks they wanted to hear from, speak to, listen to at this time.

It was a process of conceptualising the connections and groups as new communities, to seeing potential works coming out of unexpected daily relationships created by the change in social networks due to the pandemic. To see who or how we communicate in terms of varying distances. One artist commented that it made her think about the varying distances of intimacy that she has now with different people, a shorter distance with a partner, then family members, growing to huge distances, from 1 metre to 2 metre’s, to online distances that stretch across the world.’

More about the session below:

Social Practice Group Session 6, Tuesday 16th June 2020

Notes written: 22/06/2020 by Sadie Edginton

We wanted the last social practice session to be different. After experiencing other practitioners work over the weeks, we wanted the emphasis to be turned onto the students, to create some have room for them to try out their own ideas and to experiment with the format. The group had grown to become a space which felt comfortable, some recognisable faces every week, although there was always a few new people which worked well. Everyone could potentially test out ideas within the safety of the online zoom session format. It seemed to have become important that the group had evolved into a sense of familiarity whilst maintaining the possibility for unexpected things occurring. One student said, that was what she like about this group, that it was one place she could go knowing something surprising might happen. With some students returning often and creating a general sense of being relaxed, the group had created a comfortable sharing space, where people could voice their ideas, share thoughts about where they were, and most seemed open to trying new things out.

We had been playing with this space for the last few months since the beginning of lockdown. This was the sixth session and last (official) session of the school year. We'd had sessions by Louise Shelley, a curator; about group listening and reading processes, Alex Parry led us through a playful workshop stretching the rules for zoom, and Tim tried out his laptop-synthesiser experiment creating collective sounds out of objects in our homes with students now based across the globe overlapping their object orchestras into a magical din.

I had missed a session two weeks before where the group had had an informal conversation about what they'd like to try out. We'd had some interesting feedback too where students had said they felt like this space for sharing and practicing was needed, and it seemed to open-up space for vulnerability (through sharing) and support.

I had planned a vague structure for the last session, I would introduce, do a check-in so that everyone had a chance to speak and do a half hour workshop about mapping the publics and communities we were connecting with now (and how this has changed during lockdown).

There was then time for three students slots; Sally's workshop on confronting the awkwardnesses of online communication, followed by a 5 minute break, then Kats workshop about the taste and other sense. Everything went over time-wise so there was only 10 minutes left for Yuka to play us her experiments with the spatiality of sound.

We started by going around the group using these two questions for a check-in.

'What does 'the public' look like, from where you are now?'

'How are you connecting to a community?'

These questions were borrowed from a recording of a discussion here: http://www.nowandthere.org/blog/2020/4/7/nt-asks-what-does-public-mean-right-now

It was interesting to hear about where the students were based, most in the UK, then China, Japan and Paris. We had seven students and Hannah and I, so altogether it worked well for creating a grid of nine on the gallery view on zoom. As we went around the group I was struck how each student shared with us a detailed picture of how they were in unexpected circumstances and feeling isolated. Some had just travelled to another place, and were stuck living mostly inside and with family, they were not sure about what a local community might look like. One had discovered new communities through volunteering for local mutual aid groups, Hannah mentioned working with existing connections to create networks of in different ways, new connections with animals and birds seeming to be important. Some international students admitted they didn't feel like they had a community, whether they were in London, or back home. One said she felt like there were layers of community, from those close by who were a local support system, then the online groups she was part of, and then her family members who were contactable by phone. Another student said that communities felt ‘chosen’ at the moment; that you could select who you wanted to be in touch with, and it was almost a way of ‘outsourcing care’. Another mentioned that new rituals had emerged in her local village neighbourhood, kicked off by the Thursday clap for carers, leading to local people creating other ways to come together in the street, such as VE day where they set-up tables outside. Another student said it was so long since he had been in Beijing, now that he was back there again, he had to try to find people again who he had known a long time ago.

Next we created 'What do our publics look like now?' diagrams. Attempting to get away from a formal 'pdf' presentation, I sketched out the questions and stages of the diagram drawing onto paper beforehand, and held them up to the screen. I asked everyone to draw a square or circle and inside it to list groups of people, categories of people that they were seeing in real life, in 'physical space'. 

I was interested in what different or new groups of people were identified, in the lock-down. For instance I was not staying where I usually live and discovered that I was coming into contact with; next-door neighbours, people who walk past the house, the vet, the nurse at the GP, dog walker friends and dogs who were our dogs friends, delivery drivers, shop-keepers and the public we see on walks. This changed again when I went back to London.

We drew overlapping bubbles and listed those we connected with through 'virtual' connections, then 'phone calls', emails, social media, and letters.

The idea was to then circle in a different colour, those categories of people who you didn't know. Or who you saw as 'the public'. I was intrigued as to if it could be used to locate a new audience/ public for an artwork, project or workshop.

Practice diagram by my mum, Sue Edginton

Holding up my publics diagram to the screen

Reflection: We did the activity a bit too quickly, as it turned out it takes a long time to think through all of this, and I did not have time to get proper feedback afterwards. I showed a few slides about this idea of the physical public becoming much closer, smaller and local, and then the opposite happening with the virtual public where it really expands to include an international community. The publics or groups I was working working with or had contact with still, had really changed too. From working in schools and care homes with lots of people and children face-to-face, this has changed. Now I was just in touch with people via zoom calls or colleagues via the phone, and all the work with children and elders had been put on hold for now. Where were all the people and how were they right now, what were they doing? A lot of people I talked to who work in the community found themselves asking similar questions.

Museum of the Street by Louise Ashcroft and her local neighbourhood, Walthamstow, London, May 2020

[gargaj]

A breakdown of the Revision 2020 Threeway Battle shader

Those of you who have been following this year's edition of Revision probably remember the unexpected twist in Sunday's timeline, where I was pitted in a coding "battle" against two of the best shader-coders in the world to fend for myself. Admittedly the buzz it caused caught me by surprise, but not as much as the feedback on the final shader I produced, so I hope to shed some light on how the shader works, in a way that's hopefully understandable to beginners and at least entertaining to experts, as well as providing some glimpses into my thought process along the way.

Recorded video of the event

But before we dive into the math and code, however, I think it's important to get some context by recounting the story of how we got here.

A brief history of demoscene live-coding

Visual coding has been massively opened up when graphics APIs began to introduce programmable fragment rendering, perhaps best known to most people as "pixel shaders"; this allowed programmers to run entire programmable functions on each pixel of a triangle, and none was more adamant to do that than a fellow named Iñigo Quilez (IQ), an understated genius who early on recognized the opportunity in covering the entire screen with a single polygon, and just doing the heavy lifting of creating geometry in the shader itself. His vision eventually spiraled into not only the modern 4k scene, but also the website ShaderToy, which almost every graphics programmer uses to test prototypes or just play around with algorithms. IQ, an old friend of mine since the mid-00s, eventually moved to the US, worked at Pixar and Oculus, and became something of a world-revered guru of computer graphics, but that (and life) has unfortunately caused him to shift away from the scene.

His vision of single-shader-single-quad-single-pass shader coding, in the meantime, created a very spectacular kind of live coding competition in the scene where two coders get only 25 minutes and the attention of an entire party hall, and they have to improvise their way out of the duel - this has been wildly successful at parties for the sheer showmanship and spectacle akin to rap battles, and none emerged from this little sport more remarkably than Flopine, a bubbly French girl who routinely shuffled up on stage wearing round spectacles and cat ears (actually they might be pony ears on second thought), and mopped the floor up with the competition. Her and a handful of other live-coders regularly stream on Twitch as practice, and have honed their live-coding craft for a few years at this point, garnering a considerable following.

Just a sample of insanity these people can do.

My contribution to this little sub-scene was coming up with a fancy name for it ("Shader Showdown"), as well as providing a little tool I called Bonzomatic (named after Bonzaj / Plastic, a mutual friend of IQ and myself, and the first person to create a live coding environment for demoparties) that I still maintain, but even though I feel a degree of involvement through the architectural side, I myself haven't been interested in participating: I know I can do okay under time pressure, but I don't really enjoy it, and while there's a certain overlap in what they do and what I do, I was always more interested in things like visual detail and representative geometry aided by editing and direction rather than looping abstract, fractal-like things. It just wasn't my thing.

Mistakes were made

But if I'm not attracted to this type of competition, how did I end up in the crossfire anyway? What I can't say is that it wasn't, to a considerable degree, my fault: as Revision 2020 was entirely online, most of the scene took it to themselves to sit in the demoscene Discord to get an experience closest to on-site socializing, given the somber circumstances of physical distancing. This also allowed a number of people who hasn't been around for a while to pop in to chat - like IQ, who, given his past, was mostly interested in the showdowns (during which Flopine crushed the competition) and the 4k compo.

As I haven't seen him around for a while, and as my mind is always looking for an angle, I somehow put two and two together, and asked him if he would consider taking part in a showdown at some point; he replied that he was up for it - this was around Saturday 10PM. I quickly pinged the rest of the showdown participants and organizers, as I spotted that Bullet was doing a DJ set the next day (which would've been in a relatively convenient timezone for IQ in California as well), and assumed that he didn't really have visuals for it - as there was already a "coding jam" over Ronny's set the day before, I figured there's a chance for squeezing an "extra round" of coding. Flopine was, of course, beyond excited by just the prospect of going against IQ, and by midnight we essentially got everything planned out (Bullet's consent notwithstanding, as he was completely out of the loop on this), and I was excited to watch...

...that is, until Havoc, the head honcho for the showdowns, off-handedly asked me about an at that point entirely hypothetical scenario: what would happen if IQ would, for some reason, challenge me instead of Flopine? Now, as said, I wasn't really into this, but being one to not let a good plan go to waste (especially if it was mine), I told Havoc I'd take one for the team and do it, although it probably wouldn't be very fun to watch. I then proceeded to quickly brief IQ in private and run him through the technicalities of the setup, the tool, the traditions and so on, and all is swell...

...that is, until IQ (this is at around 2AM) offhandedly mentions that "Havoc suggested we do a three-way with me, Flopine... and you." I quickly try to backpedal, but IQ seems to be into the idea, and worst of all, I've already essentially agreed to it, and to me, the only thing worse than being whipped in front of a few thousand people would be going back on your word. The only way out was through.

Weeks of coding can spare you hours of thinking

So now that I've got myself into this jar of pickles, I needed some ideas, and quick. (I didn't sleep much that night.) First off, I didn't want to do anything obviously 3D - both IQ and Flopine are masters of this, and I find it exhausting and frustrating, and it would've failed on every level possible. Fractals I'm awful at and while they do provide a decent amount of visual detail, they need a lot of practice and routine to get right. I also didn't want something very basic 2D, like a byte-beat, because those have a very limited degree of variation available, and the end result always looks a bit crude.

Luckily a few months ago an article I saw do rounds was a write-up by Sasha Martinsen on how to do "FUI"-s, or Fictional User Interfaces; overly complicated and abstract user interfaces that are prominent in sci-fi, with Gmunk being the Michael Jordan of the genre.

Image courtesy of Sasha Martinsen.

Sasha's idea is simple: make a few basic decent looking elements, and then just pile them on top of each other until it looks nice, maybe choose some careful colors, move them around a bit, place them around tastefully in 3D, et voilà, you're hacking the Gibson. It's something I attempted before, if somewhat unsuccessfully, in "Reboot", but I came back to it a few more times in my little private motion graphics experiments with much better results, and my prediction was that it would be doable in the given timeframe - or at least I hoped that my hazy 3AM brain was on the right track.

A bit of math

How to make this whole thing work? First, let's think about our rendering: We have a single rectangle and a single-pass shader that runs on it: this means no meshes, no geometry, no custom textures, no postprocessing, no particle systems and no fonts, which isn't a good place to start from. However, looking at some of Sasha's 3D GIFs, some of them look like they're variations of the same render put on planes one after the other - and as long as we can do one, we can do multiple of that.

Rough sketch of what we want to do; the planes would obviously be infinite in size but this representation is good enough for now.

Can we render multiple planes via a single shader? Sure, but we want them to look nice, and that requires a bit of thinking: The most common technique to render a "2D" shader and get a "3D" look is raymarching, specifically with signed distance fields - starting on a ray, and continually testing distances until a hit is found. This is a good method for "solid-ish" looking objects and scenes, but the idea for us is to have many infinite planes that also have some sort of alpha channel, so we'd have a big problem with 1) inaccuracy, as we'd never find a hit, just something "reasonably close", and even that would take us a few dozen steps, which is costly even for a single plane and 2) the handling of an alpha map can be really annoying, since we'd only find out our alpha value after our initial march, after which if our alpha is transparent we'd need to march again.

But wait - it's just infinite planes and a ray, right? So why don't we just assume that our ray is always hitting the plane (which it is, since we're looking at it), and just calculate an intersection the analytical way?

Note: I would normally refer to this method as "raytracing", but after some consultation with people smarter than I am, we concluded that the terms are used somewhat ambiguously, so let's just stick to "analytical ray solving" or something equally pedantic.

We know the mathematical equation for a ray is position = origin + direction * t (where t is a scalar that represents the distance/progress from the ray origin), and we know that the formula for a plane is A * x + B * y + C * z + D = 0, where (A, B, C) is the normal vector of the plane, and D is the distance from the origin. First, since the intersection will be the point in space that satisfies both equations, we substitute the ray (the above o + d * t for each axis) into the plane:

A * (ox + dx * t) + B * (oy + dy * t) + C * (oz + dz * t) + D = 0

To find out where this point is in space, we need to solve this for t, but it's currently mighty complicated. Luckily, since we assume that our planes are parallel to the X-Y plane, we know our (A, B, C) normal is (0, 0, 1), so we can simplify it down to:

oz + dz * t + D = 0

Which we can easily solve to t:

t = (D - oz) / dz

That's right: analytically finding a ray hit of a plane is literally a single subtraction and a division! Our frame rate (on this part) should be safe, and we're always guaranteed a hit as long as we're not looking completely perpendicular to the planes; we should have everything to start setting up our code.

Full disclosure: Given my (and in a way IQ's) lack of "live coding" experience, we agreed that there would be no voting for the round, and it'd be for glory only, but also that I'd be allowed to use a small cheat sheet of math like the equations for 2D rotation or e.g. the above final equation since I don't do this often enough to remember these things by heart, and I only had a few hours notice before the whole thing.

Setting up the rendering

Time to start coding then. First, let's calculate our texture coordinates in the 0..1 domain using the screen coordinates and the known backbuffer resolution (which is provided to us in Bonzomatic):

vec2 uv = vec2(gl_FragCoord.x / v2Resolution.x, gl_FragCoord.y / v2Resolution.y);

Then, let's create a ray from that:

vec3 rayDir = vec3( uv * 2 - 1, -1.0 ); rayDir.x *= v2Resolution.x / v2Resolution.y; // adjust for aspect ratio vec3 rayOrigin = vec3( 0, 0, 0 );

This creates a 3D vector for our direction that is -1,-1,-1 in the top left corner and 1,1,-1 in the bottom right (i.e. we're looking so that Z is decreasing into the screen), then we adjust the X coordinate since our screen isn't square, but our coordinates currently are - no need to even bother with normalizing, it'll be fine. Our origin is currently just sitting in the center.

Then, let's define (loosely) our plane, which is parallel to the XY plane:

float planeDist = 1.0f; // distance between each plane float planeZ = -5.0f; // Z position of the first plane

And solve our equation to t, as math'd out above:

float t = (planeZ - rayOrigin.z) / rayDir.z;

Then, calculate WHERE the hit is by taking that t by inserting it back to the original ray equation using our current direction and origin:

vec3 hitPos = rayOrigin + t * rayDir;

And now we have our intersection; since we already know the Z value, we can texture our plane by using the X and Y components to get a color value:

vec4 color = fui( hitPos.xy ); // XY plane our_color = color;

Of course we're gonna need the actual FUI function, which will be our procedural animated FUI texture, but let's just put something dummy there now, like a simple circle:

vec4 fui ( vec2 uv ) { return length(uv - 0.5) < 0.5 ? vec4(1) : vec(0); }

And here we go:

Very good, we have a single circle and if we animate the camera we can indeed tell that it is on a plane.

So first, let's tile it by using a modulo function; the modulo (or modulus) function simply wraps a number around another number (kinda like the remainder after a division, but for floating point numbers) and thus becomes extremely useful for tiling or repeating things:

We'll be using the modulo function rather extensively in this little exercise, so strap in. (Illustration via the Desmos calculator.)

vec4 layer = fui( mod( hitPos.xy, 1.0 ) );

This will wrap the texture coordinates of -inf..inf between 0..1:

We also need multiple planes, but how do we combine them? We could just blend them additively, but with the amount of content we have, we'd just burn them in to white and it'd look like a mess (and not the good kind of mess). We could instead just use normal "crossfade" / "lerp" blending based on the alpha value; the only trick here is to make sure we're rendering them from back to front since the front renders will blend over the back renders:

int steps = 10; float planeDist = 1.0f; for (int i=steps; i>=0; i--) { float planeZ = -1.0f * i * planeDist; float t = (planeZ - rayOrigin.z) / rayDir.z; if (t > 0.0f) // check if "t" is in front of us { vec3 hitPos = rayOrigin + t * rayDir; vec4 layer = fui( hitPos.xy, 2.0 ); // blend layers based on alpha output colour = mix( colour, layer, layer.a ); } }

And here we go:

We decreased the circles a bit in size to see the effect more.

Not bad! First thing we can do is just fade off the back layers, as if they were in a fog:

layer *= (steps - i) / float(steps);

We have a problem though: we should probably increase the sci-fi effect by moving the camera continually forward, but if we do, we're gonna run into a problem: Currently, since our planeZ is fixed to the 0.0 origin, they won't move with the camera. We could just add our camera Z to them, but then they would be fixed with the camera and wouldn't appear moving. What we instead want is to just render them AS IF they would be the closest 10 planes in front of the camera; the way we could do that is that if e.g. our planes' distance from each other is 5, then round the camera Z down to the nearest multiple of 5 (e.g. if the Z is at 13, we round down to 10), and start drawing from there; rounding up would be more accurate, but rounding down is easier, since we can just subtract the division remainder from Z like so:

float planeZ = (rayOrigin.z - mod(rayOrigin.z, planeDist)) - i * planeDist;

And now we have movement! Our basic rendering path is done.

Our little fictional UI

So now that we have the basic pipeline in place, let's see which elements can we adapt from Sasha's design pieces.

The first one I decided to go with wasn't strictly speaking in the set, but it was something that I saw used as design elements over the last two decades, and that's a thick hatch pattern element; I think it's often used because it has a nice industrial feel with it. Doing it in 2D is easy: We just add X and Y together, which will result in a diagonal gradient, and then we just turn that into an alternating pattern using, again, the modulo. All we need to do is limit it between two strips, and we have a perfectly functional "Police Line Do Not Cross" simulation.

return mod( uv.x + uv.y, 1 ) < 0.5 ? vec4(1) : vec4(0);

So let's stop here for a few moments; this isn't bad, but we're gonna need a few things. First, the repetition doesn't give us the nice symmetric look that Sasha recommends us to do, and secondly, we want them to look alive, to animate a bit.

Solving symmetry can be done just by modifying our repetition code a bit: instead of a straight up modulo with 1.0 that gives us a 0..1 range, let's use 2.0 to get a 0..2 range, then subtract 1.0 to get a -1..1 range, and then take the absolute value.

vec4 layer = fui( abs( mod( hitPos.xy, 2.0 ) - 1 ) );

This will give us a triangle-wave-like function, that goes from 0 to 1, then back to 0, then back to 1; in terms of texture coordinates, it will go back and forth between mirroring the texture in both directions, which, let's face it, looks Totally Sweet.

For animation, first I needed some sort of random value, but one that stayed deterministic based on a seed - in other words, I needed a function that took in a value, and returned a mangled version of it, but in a way that if I sent that value in twice, it would return the same mangled value twice. The most common way of doing it is taking the incoming "seed" value, and then driving it into some sort of function with a very large value that causes the function to alias, and then just returning the fraction portion of the number:

float rand(float x) { return fract(sin(x) * 430147.8193); }

Does it make any sense? No. Is it secure? No. Will it serve our purpose perfectly? Oh yes.

So how do we animate our layers? The obvious choice is animating both the hatch "gradient" value to make it crawl, and the start and end of our hatch pattern which causes the hatched strip to move up and down: simply take a random - seeded by our time value - of somewhere sensible (like between 0.2 and 0.8 so that it doesn't touch the edges) and add another random to it, seasoned to taste - we can even take a binary random to pick between horizontal and vertical strips:

The problems here are, of course, that currently they're moving 1) way too fast and 2) in unison. The fast motion obviously happens because the time value changes every frame, so it seeds our random differently every frame - this is easy to solve by just rounding our time value down to the nearest integer: this will result in some lovely jittery "digital" motion. The unison is also easy to solve: simply take the number of the layer, and add it to our time, thus shifting the time value for each layer; I also chose to multiply the layer ID with a random-ish number so that the layers actually animate independently, and the stutter doesn't happen in unison either:

vec4 fui( vec2 uv, float t ) { t = int(t); float start = rand(t) * 0.8 + 0.1; float end = start + 0.1; [...] } vec4 layer = fui( abs(mod(hitPos.xy, 2.0)-1), fGlobalTime + i * 4.7 );

Lovely!

Note: In hindsight using the Z coordinate of the plane would've given a more consistent result, but the way it animates, it doesn't really matter.

So let's think of more elements: the best looking one that seems to get the best mileage out in Sasha's blog is what I can best describe as the "slant" or "hockey stick" - a simple line, with a 45-degree turn in it. What I love about it is that the symmetry allows it to create little tunnels, gates, corridors, which will work great for our motion.

Creating it is easy: We just take a thin horizontal rectangle, and attach another rectangle to the end, but shift the coordinate of the second rectangle vertically, so that it gives us the 45-degree angle:

float p1 = 0.2; float p2 = 0.5; float p3 = 0.7; float y = 0.5; float thicc = 0.0025; if (p1 < uv.x && uv.x < p2 && y - thicc < uv.y && uv.y < y + thicc ) { return vec4(1); } if (p2 < uv.x && uv.x < p3 && y - thicc < uv.y - (uv.x - p2) && uv.y - (uv.x - p2) < y + thicc ) { return vec4(1); }

Note: In the final code, I had a rect() call which I originally intended to use as baking glow around my rectangle using a little routine I prototyped out earlier that morning, but I was ultimately too stressed to properly pull that off. Also, it's amazing how juvenile your variable names turn when people are watching.

Looks nice, but since this is such a thin sparse element, let's just... add more of it!

So what more can we add? Well, no sci-fi FUI is complete without random text and numbers, but we don't really have a font at hand. Or do we? For years, Bonzomatic has been "shipping" with this really gross checkerboard texture ostensibly for UV map testing:

What if we just desaturate and invert it?

We can then "slice" it up and render little sprites all over our texture: we already know how to draw a rectangle, so all we need is just 1) calculate which sprite we want to show 2) calculate the texture coordinate WITHIN that sprite and 3) sample the texture:

float sx = 0.3; float sy = 0.3; float size = 0.1; if (sx < uv.x && uv.x < sx + size && sy < uv.y &&uv.y < sy + size) { float spx = 2.0 / 8.0; // we have 8 tiles in the texture float spy = 3.0 / 8.0; vec2 spriteUV = (uv - vec2(sx,sy)) / size; vec4 sam = texture( texChecker, vec2(spx,spy) + spriteUV / 8.0 ); return dot( sam.rgb, vec3(0.33) ); }

Note: In the final code, I was only using the red component instead of desaturation because I forgot the texture doesn't always have red content - I stared at it for waaaay too long during the round trying to figure out why some sprites weren't working.

And again, let's just have more of it:

Getting there!

At this point the last thing I added was just circles and dots, because I was running out of ideas; but I also felt my visual content amount was getting to where I wanted them to be; it was also time to make it look a bit prettier.

Post-production / compositing

So we have our layers, they move, they might even have colors, but I'm still not happy with the visual result, since they are too single-colored, there's not enough tone in the picture.

The first thing I try nowadays when I'm on a black background is to just add either a single color, or a gradient:

vec4 colour = renderPlanes(uv); vec4 gradient = mix( vec4(0,0,0.2,1), vec4(0,0,0,1), uv.y); vec4 finalRender = mix( gradient, vec4(colour.xyz,1), colour.a);

This added a good chunk of depth considerably to the image, but I was still not happy with the too much separation between colors.

A very common method used in compositing in digital graphics is to just add bloom / glow; when used right, this helps us add us more luminance content to areas that would otherwise be solid color, and it helps the colors to blend a bit by providing some middle ground; unfortunately if we only have a single pass, the only way to get blur (and by extension, bloom) is repeatedly rendering the picture, and that'd tank our frame rate quickly.

Instead, I went back to one of the classics: the Variform "pixelize" overlay:

This is almost the same as a bloom effect, except instead of blurring the image, all you do is turn it into a lower resolution nearest point sampled version of itself, and blend that over the original image - since this doesn't need more than one sample per pixel (as we can reproduce pixelation by just messing with the texture coordinates), we can get away by rendering the scene only twice:

vec4 colour = renderPlanes(uv); colour += renderPlanes(uv - mod( uv, 0.1 ) ) * 0.4;

Much better tonal content!

So what else can we do? Well, most of the colors I chose are in the blue/orange/red range, and we don't get a lot of the green content; one of the things that I learned that it can look quite pretty if one takes a two-tone picture, and uses color-grading to push the midrange of a third tone - that way, the dominant colors will stay in the highlights, and the third tone will cover the mid-tones. (Naturally you have to be careful with this.)

"Boosting" a color in the mids is easy: lucky for us, if we consider the 0..1 range, exponential functions suit our purpose perfectly, because they start at 0, end at 1, but we can change how they get here:

So let's just push the green channel a tiny bit:

finalRender.g = pow(finalRender.g, 0.7);

Now all we need is to roll our camera for maximum cyberspace effect and we're done!

Best laid plans of OBS

As you can see from the code I posted the above, I wrote the final shader in GLSL; those who know me know that I'm a lot more comfortable with DirectX / HLSL, and may wonder why I switched, but of course there's another story here:

Given the remote nature of the event, all of the shader coding competition was performed online as well: since transmitting video from the coder's computer to a mixer, and then to another mixer, and then to a streaming provider, and then to the end user would've probably turned the image to mush, Alkama and Nusan came up with the idea of skipping a step and rigging up a version of Bonzo that ran on the coder's computer, but instead of streaming video, it sent the shader down to another instance of Bonzo, running on Diffty's computer, who then captured that instance and streamed it to the main Revision streaming hub. This, of course, meant that in a three-way, Diffty had to run three separate instances of Bonzo - but it worked fine with GLSL earlier, so why worry?

What we didn't necessarily realize at the time, is that the DirectX 11 shader compiler takes no hostages, and as soon as the shader reached un-unrollable level of complexity, it thoroughly locked down Diffty's machine, to the point that even the video of the DJ set he was playing started to drop out. I, on the other hand, didn't notice any of this, since my single local instance was doing fine, so I spent the first 15 minutes casually nuking Diffty's PC to shreds remotely, until I noticed Diffty and Havoc pleading on Discord to switch to GLSL because I'm setting things on fire unknowingly.

This is fine.

I was reluctant to do so, simply because of the muscle memory, but I was also aware that I should keep the show going if I can because if I bow out without a result, that would be a colossal embarrassment to everyone involved, and I only can take one of those once every week, and I was already above my quota - so, I quickly closed the DX11 version of Bonzo, loaded the shader up in a text editor, replaced "floatX" with "vecX" (fun drinking game: take a shot every time I messed it up during the live event), commented the whole thing out, loaded it into a GLSL bonzo, and quickly fixed all the other syntax differences (of which there were luckily not many, stuff like "mix" instead of "lerp", constructors, etc.), and within a few minutes I was back up and running.

This, weirdly, helped my morale a bit, because it was the kind of clutch move that for some reason appealed to me, and made me quite happy - although at that point I locked in so bad that not only did I pay absolutely not attention to the stream to see what the other two are doing, but that the drinks and snacks I prepared for the hour of battling went completely untouched.

In the end, when the hour clocked off, the shader itself turned out more or less how I wanted it, it worked really well with Bullet's techno-/psy-/hardtrance mix (not necessarily my jam, as everyone knows I'm more a broken beat guy, but pounding monotony can go well with coding focus), and I came away satisfied, although the perhaps saddest point of the adventure was yet to come: the lack of cathartic real-life ending that was taken from us due to the physical distance, when after all the excitement, all the cheers and hugs were merely lines of text on a screen - but you gotta deal with what you gotta deal with.

A small sampling of the Twitch reaction.

Conclusion

In the end, what was my takeaway from the experience?

First off, scoping is everything: Always aim to get an idea where you can maximize the outcome of the time invested with the highest amount of confidence of pulling it off. In this case, even though I was on short notice and in an environment I was unfamiliar with, I relied on something I knew, something I've done before, but no one else really has.

Secondly, broaden your influence: You never know when you can take something that seems initially unrelated, and bend it into something that you're doing with good results.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, step out of your comfort zone every so often; you'll never know what you'll find.

(And don't agree to everything willy-nilly, you absolute moron.)

[studentville-struggles]

A Double Life

A self-indulgent Daniel Ricciardo fic.

Summary: Returning to old passions results in the start of chaos and living a double life. We say we hate chaos, but the thrill is unlike anything else. 

Word count: 2698

Masterlist

It was supposed to be a simple celebration, a week's retreat for all of you who were starting your four-year journey in the centre for doctoral training programme. It was merely a chance to get to know one another, have some fun, go hiking, go-karting, discuss your PhD projects and talk about the conferences you dreamed of attending.  

 It was all that and more, you made a lot of friends, ate a lot of food and had many an intriguing discussion regarding projects. It was fun, it was a celebration. However, it also turned into the start of the strangest season of your life.  

Obviously, with there being a large group of 20-somethings, a majority of the week was spent on the karting track. With the number of people in your cohort, you could only go onto the racing track a group at a time, meaning there was a healthy amount of watching and betting who would be fastest around the track. Now you had always loved go-karting; you’d raced pretty seriously until you were around ten years old but having to move for your dad’s job meant stopping. After a few years, all you could manage was going with your friends and family on the odd occasion. However, after that move, your parents had always pushed you into other sports like martial arts and swimming.  

 Being back on the track for the week was invigorating and you were loving every second of it. It was like muscle memory to you, you could feel the addictive feeling of speeding round the track trying to beat your previous times rushing back. That, and you were consistently seconds, tens of seconds, faster than everyone else. An ego boost was always welcome, you hadn’t lost the knack for driving then. 

 It didn’t take long for the track staff to take notice of this high-speed consistency you had been producing. As was customary in such an occasion, the ‘emergency scout signal’ was sent out to racing team. Any time new talent arrived, the so-called bat signal went up for the scouts to come and investigate.  

 Scout they did. They came to lurk around the track and see if there was a fuss to be made. Day after day, a larger crowd of people in suits and various uniforms, carrying clipboards, huddled at key corners of the track and by what you could call the ‘stadium section’. Every time you were stood trackside you had a clear view of their furious note taking, a curious sight you thought.  

 Apparently, they were impressed enough by what you could do in a standard hire go-kart that you were approached for a drive assessment. At least that was what they said. You, being naïve, gave them your number anyway – reasoning the worst thing to come of it is some dodgy cold calls.  

 At the end of the week you went back to university. You went to classes, you started reading up on your project, you did your lab training. Life, initially, carried on as normal.

 Until it didn’t. 

 They did phone you, and they were really looking for you to do a driver’s assessment. They booked a time for you to come down to Silverstone, organising for a range of cars being brought down for you to test on the track of your home grand prix. They sent you a pack of documents to read, health forms and things of the like. You had six weeks to prepare.  

 In those six weeks you also had four assessed presentations and a draft project introduction to write for your confirmation paper. By the time your trip to Silverstone was near, you had been in overdrive trying to cram the information packs they’d sent, hoping and praying you’d remember enough.  

 You couldn’t believe the number of people who had come to watch you drive in circles in a simulator and then on a track.  Apparently ‘a scout’ meant all the teams that wanted to watch, and if they liked you, try to out-bid the other teams. You thought all this for one person seemed excessive. You met so many people, you couldn’t possible keep track of names and who was who. There were actual talent scouts, team principals, radio engineers, mechanics and random people whose job was a mystery. Everyone who was anyone seemed to be there. Was this normal? 

 Once you got the hang of the simulator and remembered which button did what, you grew to really enjoy the race simulator. Getting to wear all the kit was extremely exciting, as it had been so long for you and after an hour or so on that, you were grinning from ear to ear. You couldn’t help but think that no matter what happened at the end of the day, you were having the time or your life right now. You felt like that ten-year-old winning her karting league, all over again.  

 You were experiencing a sort of déjà vu as turned to look at those sat around you. Just like at the karting track, people were furiously scribbling notes onto clipboards, motioning to team members and communicating in hushed voices. You sat patiently waiting for your next instructions. Finally, someone had a new task. 

 “Get her in a Formula 3 car. Let’s see her on the track.” You recognised this man from the track but you were still somewhat confused as to who he worked for. 

 Still in your borrowed gear, they helped you into the car, double and triple checking you knew what was where, even though you had been cramming this information for weeks. With a final nod they wheeled you out the garage and onto the track. The lights went out and you were off. 

 "Incredible.” The most common comment uttered, repeated over and over again. You had collected several impressive lap times.   

 “Get a few drivers out there, see how she copes.”  

 With his command, three test drivers that were here for a nosey suited up as quickly as possible, getting out on the track to provide a comparison to your driving and see how you reacted to sharing the track. It’s all well and good being a good driver but if you can’t compete, you won’t get a seat. 

 “I was not expecting this.” 

 You obviously weren’t leading the pack, no one expected you to given your experience. However, you were holding your own in the group, something that wasn’t a guarantee. 

 “Do we have an F1 test car?”  

“You’re kidding.”  

“No, do we have a car?”  

“She’s not even got a super licence!” 

“Look at those corners – she’s not driven competitively in a decade and she’s making those, imagine what she could do with coaching.” 

A voice was raised from the back of the crowd.

“Why bother, there’s not been a female driver at that level for 40 years, there won’t be one now. She might make F2 with a lot of help, but she’ll go no further.” 

“Talent has no gender. If she can drive, and there’s a seat, she will.”  

 You were no less shocked than the others at being given a shot in an F1 test car, and knew this was going to be a once in a lifetime drive. You knew you had to pull out a good few laps, take some risks, and that you did.  

 After that drive, many teams were interested in you, unfortunately not many had seats for the next Formula 3 season. With a seat becoming available unexpectedly, you began discussions with Prema racing, as well as being welcomed onto the Mercedes development drivers’ squad. There had been the need initially to have a conversation with both the team and your university speaking about the commitments each required and seeing very few instances for overlaps, agreed to support you.

 That was the start of the chaos. 

 What you soon discovered was that doing a PhD and training to become a Formula 3 driver at the same time was no joke. And by no joke you meant two more-than-full-time jobs at the same time was exhausting. You joked that you barely had time to sleep but that wasn’t too far from the truth. Routine was your new best friend. Every minute of every hour of every day was planned and had to be kept to as much as possible. If you didn’t stick to your routine at all, you genuinely didn’t feel like you had time to sleep. 

 With the size of cars used in track racing, a normal driver’s licence wasn’t going to cut it, as you discovered during one of the initial meetings with your new team. 

 “You need a super licence before we can get you legally on the track to race.” 

“Do I need to parallel park?” Was your immediate response. 

“No?” Several of the team management seemed confused. 

“Awesome when can I do it then?” 

 You’d proved you could drive the cars, you just needed to do it with the right person watching now. 

 --- 

 With your contracts signed rumours began to circle. With your new-found team being one of the best, regularly the best, in formula 3, there was a large interest in how you would fair. Would you crash and burn under the pressure? How could you just jump back into racing? It was uncommon, if not unheard of, to have a racer re-join after a decade of being uncompetitive, let alone a racer who had a second job. Your own team wondered if would you be able to balance the two lives?

 In an attempt to raise more publicity for the formula 3, potentially the formula 2 circuits, as well as capitalise on the interest shown in your career as a driver, a show was going to be produced. You had always hated reality TV shows, and yet you were now set to be the star of one. Oh, the irony. 

 Formula three has eight rounds between May and September, so the first, and potentially only depending on how this year goes, season of ‘your’ show, would focus on the changes needed to turn you from PhD student to racing driver. It would join you at the start of your training, finding a performance coach come personal trainer, finding your feet in racing politics, learning the ins and outs of your car better than you knew yourself, and then when May came around, follow you through your races. 

 With the amount of time you were due to spend being filmed, which was effectively your entire life, it was impossible to not become close friends with the crew. At times you weren’t sure what you would’ve done without them. You would occasionally have moments of feeling swamped and overwhelmed. With the amount of lab work you had on, as well as physical training and everything else that came with preparing for the upcoming season, you were constantly running from city to city and track to track for testing. 

 You’d always been a big believer that friendships that didn’t need constant contact were the true lifelong ones, but it became your reality. You simply couldn’t text people at all hours of the day and you could feel a few people dropping out of your circle of friends and there was little you could do about it. Your crew was like a little family and they were your constants, your rock.  

 One of the weirdest things for you was having no one at the university, with the exception of your supervisors, have any clue what your other job was, and no one in F3 outside of your team knew that you had a second job. Both knew you were being filmed for a show but neither fully understood the extent or reason why. With that meant that both were complaining about you ‘not taking things seriously enough’. If only they could see your schedule you thought every time you overheard one of those comments. You had originally thought it easier to keep things separate, wanting to succeed on merit over anything else.

  Whilst you were so very close to your crew, there were times you needed a different perspective on things, especially with how people were talking. Frequently you would complain about those comments to your mentor, a luxury you had as a result of being a part of the Mercedes development drivers’ squad. It was one of the less well-known perks, with the aims to support drivers in all areas of the racing world with someone who’s been through it all. That was yet another whirlwind for you. Your mentor, one who’s definitely been round the ringer, was THE Lewis Hamilton. Like world champion Lewis Hamilton. Lewis Hamilton had the time of day (or night as it often was) to let you complain to him about people being bitchy. Initially, you were terrified; who were you to bother him and ask silly questions? Lewis seemingly knew this and kept organising times to meet with you on your off weekends.  

 Some weeks he would just have you over to his place in London for dinner, others it would be karting trips or fashion shows. All sorts of activities to connect with you. Lewis made it clear that he wasn’t here to be a middle man for management, keeping an eye on you, he was here to be a friend and to help you to be the best person you could be. Honestly, he had a lot of older brother vibes and you were very on board with it. You could ring him late at night, stressed about lab work and he would sit and listen to you – nothing to do with racing, but it was a part of your life and he was there to support you. Your friendship with Lewis was natural, almost like kindred spirits. The two of you were very in tune with each other and it wasn’t long until you were welcomed in as a part of the family.  

 After eight months of intense studying, training and testing, you boarded a flight to Spain, ready to take your maiden drive in a supercar. As fate would have it, being scouted in September just prior to the end of the last season, seemed to provide you a good, if slightly tight, amount of time to prepare and allow them to get you into the car for the next season. You were obviously nervous but feeling ready to get out there and prove that you deserved that seat, deserved to be driving for Prema. You’d been spending a lot of evenings in the simulator so you were feeling okay with knowing your racing lines so the main source of your nerves now was what the other drivers were like. You were happy with your teammates having met them at testing over the summer, you knew the three of you would have fun throughout the season. Lewis was there to remind you that friends were a by-product of racing and bonus, you just had to do your job first.  

Lewis’ impact on your racing experience was invaluable. He was so supportive of you throughout those last few months of pre-season training and really helped to give you the best start to your season. Lewis was also sweet enough to come and see how you were getting on throughout the weekend, with the F1 Spanish Grand-Prix being the same weekend, although it was well into his season. You really appreciated his support, especially with all the extra pep talks he was giving you.  

 What a start to the season it was as well, race 1 saw you enter the points and race 2 had even larger improvements with a top-five finish. You were thrilled, Lewis was chuffed for you and your bosses were certainly happy with the start of your season.  

 Things looked good. Your season was off to a great start and thankfully it didn’t overlap with any studies; plenty of time to memorise data and racing lines and plenty of times to prepare for your confirmation paper. Your double life was finely balanced but you seemed to have the will to keep things in check. 

Part 2

[kbeeds]

Pre-Assumptions and Post Mortem

Pre Assumptions - Your pre-assumptions (what you thought about the brief, team, lessons from last semester both good and bad)

  This semester the brief requires us to create a 3rd Person Game in 3D, and after some voting, the genres available were racing and platforming. I thought that developing a racing game would be boring and uninspiring so I was really looking forward to making a platformer because you have so much more creative freedom. 

  Since it is a 3rd Person game, there is a lot of work that needs to be done in comparison to a 1st Person game because your character needs a model and animations, but since I am a programmer I started shifting my focus towards taking what I knew from the 3D 1st person game and applying it to a 3rd person setting. There were a couple of other things I was worried about such as AI agents which was something I never learned before but I was looking forward to it because it would be challenging. Despite this Brief being a little bit more challenging, it was also very exciting because as a team we could develop anything as long it was a platformer.

  When it came into assembling a team, we were allowed to work with who we wanted, and this was the best part because it meant that you could assemble a balanced team of people who you can trust to work on the game with you. Our group was made up of Me, Harry, Will, Thomas and Jay. Our group was really solid because some of us had worked together in previous modules and previous year but we also all specialised in different areas of game development. Me and Harry were both programmers, however we liked to write scripts for different things, for example I like working on parts of the game like collectables, and minimaps and some of the programming side UI elements, and I also volunteered to develop the Enemy AI. Whereas Harry likes to work on character movement and setting up Interactables. He also likes to be involved in level design which is very helpful. Jay specialises in 2D UI Art and 2D Animations which are crucial for the game. Finally Thomas and Will are both Environmental Artists so they can work on developing the level in which our game would take place by modeling various assets.

  This time around we essentially had all of the tools to make a great game to submit at the end of the semester and there were definitely lots of aspects of game development that we wanted to avoid and improve upon. For example, more people should have access to the Unity collab so that sharing work would be easier, but also if one of our versions encountered any problems then we had multiple ways of backing it up. Also Time management is a big one, I wanted to manage my time more efficiently so that I can also help the people in my group if they needed help. This was great, because we had people specialise in what they liked doing so that everyone could be as efficient as possible

  There were lots of lectures that I found helpful last semester such as the week 3 lecture where we did a workshop where we had to create a theoretical game on pen and paper, and at first we had these rules that we were supposed to follow and we had 15 minutes to create this game. Once the publisher looked at the game, they then wanted to add lots of different features and we as game designers had to meet their requirements by adding various things to the game, and removing others. This lecture helped me get a better understanding of how when you are developing a game you have to account for a variety of different things and you have to be ready to adapt if something does not work, but if you have a solid foundation then you can change parts but keep your integral idea.

  The other lecture that I found quite useful was the developing mistakes lecture. This lecture was very useful and helped me understand what makes a good game and what traps to avoid. For example, it doesn't matter how good the story of a game is if the gameplay is lacking and this is something a lot of people end up doing. A lot of the time developers are worried about aspects of the game that are not the core game itself and the game sufferers because of that.  

Post-Mortem - (your reflective analysis on the project, looking back at your pre-assumptions and comparing with reality)

Looking back on this project there is a lot that I learnt from but there is a lot that given different circumstances, I would like to improve on.

Starting off with the Covid-19 Pandemic, this was something that nobody could have predicted that it would have happened or planned around it, but this really impacted my work in a multitude of ways. Firstly I was not able to work on scripts for a long time which put a bit of a break on the game, however it also meant that I had to adapt and change what I was doing to make sure that I could keep working, so I started working on documentation. Since I lost the majority of the resources available to me at Uni I also had to account for that and we as a group made a few changes to the game to help us continue to work on it even during the lockdown. Despite this, I think we created a game that we were all happy with and whenever a new problem surfaces we as a team would figure out a way to work around it.

As for group choice, I was really happy with the people I worked with. Having another programmer by my side at all times sped up the development process a lot, and if I had any issues or he had any issues we helped each other trying to fix the code. We also had 2 Environmental artists and this helped a lot in terms of creating new assets and building the scene. Because we also had a dedicated 2D UI artist who also specialised in animation, assets like menus and various animations were created with no issue. This was only possible because we had a team that covered a lot of groups, rather than having a team made up of random people who’s skills can overlap with someone meaning that sometimes you could have somebody working on something that wasn't their specialty,worst case scenario would be an artist who is forced to do programming. There were some other advantages of allowing us to pick our group of people, in our case because we are all part of the same friendship circle, communication was very easy because we all spoke to each other regularly and it was quite rare when we were not talking about the development of the game at some point in the day.

Finally looking back at the Pre Assumptions, we wanted to make sure everyone had an updated copy of the game at all times and that we had back ups, and I think we all delivered on that aspect, despite this not seeming like a huge deal, I believe that if the fear of losing your work at some point because a program decided not to work in the way that you expected it to is eliminated, people can be more productive and focus on working part of the development work for the game. As for Time management, I would say it was really good minus the weeks where the health crisis was at its peak, but not counting that I would say that I was able to manage my time quite well, and I feel like this applied to my group as well since we all had assigned roles so we were able to be efficient. Overall I was happy with the work i put out, and I was not only happy with the group I was able to work in, but also the game we made as a team.

[yogaposesfortwo]

The Yoga Rx for Dementia, Alzheimer's, and Memory Loss

New research on the practice's ability to improve brain health and stave off dementia has us running to our mats. Michael Trainer’s father, John, was diagnosed with dementia in 2012, shortly after he’d finished chemotherapy for prostate cancer. “Cancer was treatable, but dementia felt like a devastating diagnosis,” Michael says. Leaving his job to spend time with his dad, Michael first traveled with him to South Africa to forge new memories. Then, staying at home with him, Michael devoured every book and study he could find on Alzheimer’s disease—desperate to help his father retain those memories for as long as possible. He considered everything: “What doctors to see, what supplements to take, how to change his diet,” Michael says. Asana and meditation were already part of Michael’s daily routine. He had studied both, along with Ayurveda, when he was on a Fulbright scholarship in Sri Lanka in 1996. Based on his own experience with yoga and what he was learning about cognitive decline and repair, he thought these practices might help his father. But his dad—a “meat and potatoes” kind of man—was 75 and set in his ways. “It was a challenge to implement new behaviors, especially amid the cognitive decline,” Michael says. “I had to learn to surrender.” But his dad did love classical music, and Michael came to think of it as meditation. “I started to see that it was serving as an anchor in his mind, like mantra; it had the power to bring him back to a calm place.” Sitting side by side on a white loveseat in his parents’ sunny living room, Michael and his father now spend hours in silence listening to the local classical music station. They breathe together, slowly, and Michael can see his father relax—closing his eyes, leaning his head back, and occasionally reaching out for Michael’s arm. John’s cognitive decline was slow, starting with subtle forgetfulness—people’s names, where he’d put his keys—and exhaustion, coupled with restless sleep. And now, eight years in, “he’s sailing much farther from the shore,” Michael says. “We no longer share words, but we find home together in a loving touch or smile. I can see and feel that the music puts him at ease. It brings him joy.”

The Mind-Body Connection

Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia can start several decades before an official diagnosis, so now is the time, according to the experts, to optimize your life for better brain health. The benefits will help you feel grounded and ready for anything, at any age. And yoga can help (of course). We’ve long known that practicing asana, meditation, mantra, and mindfulness can improve health and happiness. Now, scientists are uncovering how these practices can help prevent memory loss and delay the onset of more serious and scary cognitive impairments that often come with aging.

See also The Benefits of Yoga and Meditation for Alzheimer’s and Dementia For more than a decade, Helen Lavretsky, PhD, psychiatry professor and researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, has managed some of the longest-running studies of mind-body interventions for depression and cognitive decline in older adults. Day after day, a constant stream of people pour into her office. They are scared. They feel paralyzed and unable to cope as their loved ones slip away—or worse, they face forgetfulness themselves, regularly losing track of where they’ve parked or having to read words a dozen times over to comprehend them. Over the course of her career as a geriatric psychiatrist, Lavretsky has worked with hundreds of dementia patients and their caregivers who are stressed and depressed. In 2008, she started studying how meditation, yoga, and other gentle-movement practices, such as tai chi and qi gong, affect both mood and memory. “We’ve found that these movement practices help improve mood, resilience, and cognition; reduce inflammation; and positively affect brain health,” she says. In a 2016 study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Lavrestky and her colleagues found that participants (adults older than 55 and with mild cognitive impairment—a risk factor for dementia and Alzheimer’s) who practiced yoga over a 12-week period experienced improvements in mood and in visual and verbal memory for up to six months. Through brain scans, she was able to identify increased neural connectivity in the default mode networks (DMNs) of their brains—where complex decisions are made; awareness, focus, and empathy emerge; and memories are stored. Lavretsky says these changes occur when we practice unfamiliar movements. When we learn new skills, we create new neural pathways, improving neuroplasticity, or the brain's ability to rebuild, she says.

Our brilliantly complex brains are made up of billions of neurons that form trillions of connections with one another. These connections create electric and chemical networks that shape our experiences and help us learn and evolve. If we stop doing things that build and strengthen these connections, our brains will atrophy and lose plasticity, and we’ll start losing memories and our ability to function in the world. “Creating new neural pathways is a way of recovering and improving cognitive capacity, including processing speed and memory, that may decline with aging or brain diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s,” Lavretsky says. Furthermore, spiritual practices, such as meditation, also improve the ability for self-regulation during stress, meaning your mind and body learn to not react immediately to stressors. Instead you can take a breath, get centered, and respond in a healthier way. Meditative practices may also change neural activity and connectivity in the DMN. “Individual preferences for relaxation can play a role in what works for reclaiming bits of their old selves and memories.” —Helen Lavretsky, PhD And as for what is happening in the mind of John Trainer as he listens to complex classical music, there may be a connection to meditation. Studies focused on music and brain health have shown that listening to your favorite songs also improves connectivity among parts of your DMN and strengthens connections between the sections of your brain responsible for hearing and memory. Jonathan Burdette, MD, works at the Laboratory for Complex Brain Networks at the Wake Forest School of Medicine and studies the effects music has on the brain. His research has shown that listening to your preferred tunes—whether Mahler or Eminem—lights up your DMN. Other studies have shown that chanting, practicing mantra, and listening to music can help develop new neural pathways. While research hasn’t been amassed on how music and meditation may compare, or whether music as the object of attention during meditation is the same as other focal points, such as your breath, Burdette says, “it wouldn’t be surprising if there was overlap between them: Music is a huge encoder of memories.” And maybe we don’t need all of the science to be in; the observations are powerful. “I’ve seen people with Alzheimer’s, who haven't spoken in years, listen to a song from their teenage years and come back to life, singing and dancing,” Burdette says. There are even nonprofits, such as Music & Memory, that bring music to people in assisted living to help them reconnect to themselves and the world. “Individual preferences for relaxation can play a role in what works for people in terms of reclaiming memories and bits of their old selves,” Lavretsky adds. As we age, we continue to form neural connections, but the brain’s processing speed slows down, causing those “senior moments”—such as when you walk into a room and forget why you’re there or can’t recall someone’s name. But something more severe happens in the minds of people with Alzheimer’s. Normal processes go haywire and eventually an overabundance of a peptide called beta-amyloid is produced, damaging healthy synapses and creating holes in the brain—literally and figuratively. The loss of memory, decision-making skills, and speech ensues. Unfortunately, this scenario is becoming increasingly common. Around 75 million, or 25 percent, of Americans carry one copy of the ApoE4 gene variant—a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s, and 5.8 million people in the United States are already living with the disease—a number that is projected to grow to 14 million by 2050.

Plaques and tangles are found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Plaques are clusters of protein fragments that form when beta-amyloid clumps together. Tangles are made when a protein within nerve cells collapses into twisted strands and can no longer do its job, essentially killing brain cells. Researcher Dale Bredesen, MD, author of the New York Times bestselling book The End of Alzheimer’s, believes that the out-of-control amyloid response detected in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients is most often a reaction to inflammation, suboptimal levels of nutrients and hormones, insulin resistance, and toxic exposure to mold or bacteria (try Ayurvedic oil-pulling to prevent some harmful bacteria from migrating from mouth to mind) or to chemicals (think off-gassing from paraffin candles)—factors that we can mitigate with diet and lifestyle changes. “You can think of plaques and tangles like unpaid bills. You can remove them, but if you don’t fix the cause, you’ll continue to decline," Bredesen says. Bredesen and other experts say there are four key areas that you should optimize now, so that you can stay sharp as you age and stave off more serious cognitive impairment later in life: sleep, stress levels, exercise (physical and mental), and diet. And yogic practices can help in almost all of those areas. Here, your four-part plan for maximum brain health.

Manage Stress

Chronic stress is really bad for you, as you know, and the research shows that it’s potentially noxious to your brain. High levels of the stress hormone cortisol, often a response to inflammation, are associated with brain atrophy. “It is critical that you find a way to balance your nervous system, and one way is through yoga, meditation, and relaxation,” says Bredesen, who refers to Alzheimer’s as a 21st-century disease that requires a total-body approach and the combination of Eastern and Western medicine to treat. The emphasis on the dangers of chronic inflammation can’t be overstated. It has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and autoimmune disease, and in a study published in the August 2018 issue of Neurobiology of Aging, researchers tracked more than 12,000 people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s and found that those with high levels of inflammation had more memory problems later in life. See also Improve Your Memory By Reducing Stress There’s also a strong correlation between acute stress—such as your response to a sudden death in the family—and the onset of Alzheimer’s, says Henry Emmons, MD, author of Staying Sharp: 9 Keys for a Youthful Brain through Modern Science and Ancient Wisdom. But meditative practices and movements can help dampen stress, he says. Restorative yoga, for example, can balance the autonomic nervous system, shutting down the fight-or-flight response and bringing the body back to rest-and-recovery mode.

Sleep Soundly

The most important thing we can do for our brains as we age is sleep, Emmons says. Deep sleep, in particular, impacts learning and memory: When we’re in it, chemicals transfer memories for long-term storage in the brain. A study published in Science several years ago shed light on how our brains clear out waste products, such as beta-amyloid, through a series of channels (called the glymphatic system) as we sleep. The process that goes haywire in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients doesn’t allow for the normal clearing of waste, so any extra help could go a long way. “During deep sleep, when the brain is quiet and brain cells literally shrink, waste channels open up, allowing metabolic byproducts and toxins to drain from the brain,” Emmons explains. Plus, research suggests that deep sleep may also help reduce stress hormones and improve glucose metabolism, both of which impact inflammation levels.

Yoga can help you get better Zs, and practicing asana during the day promotes better sleep at night. Emmons also suggests taking regular breaks to do a few rounds of what he calls calming breath: Inhale to the count of three or four, pause briefly, then exhale to the count of five or six. This exercise helps turn off the body’s stress response and promotes uninterrupted sleep, Emmons says.

Move Your Body and Mind

Physical exercise has a plethora of brain-boosting benefits. Activities that get your heart rate going help get rid of stress hormones and help you develop a more resilient relaxation response—one you can call on in most any situation to calm down (and one that can help you recognize that 18,000 emails in your inbox is not the same as being stalked by a lion), Emmons says. Exercise also improves insulin sensitivity (one of up to 25 contributing factors to Alzheimer’s, according to Bredesen) and increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)—a protein that controls the growth of new neurons. Running and tennis are great, but asana can do the trick, too. Lavretsky’s yoga studies have shown that a 60-minute Kundalini Yoga class once a week, involving movement, chanting, and meditation, accompanied by a daily practice of a 12-minute Kirtan Kriya meditation, can improve connectivity in the default mode network of the brain. Try Kirtan Kriya for yourself.

Why Kundalini? Well, Lavretsky is a longtime teacher of the practice, and it’s easier to perform than hatha or vinyasa, she says, because it can be done mostly from a seated position. Sixty-five-year-old Sylvia Mendoza, one of Lavretsky’s subjects, started the Kundalini Yoga protocol feeling as if she couldn’t organize her thoughts like she used to. She had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment and was scared to speak in front of people, fearing she wouldn’t be able to recall words or might lose her train of thought. After practicing Kundalini for 12 weeks, she says she felt more like herself. “I went from having marbles in my head to being able to organize my thoughts into files: I regained perspective,” she says. Four months after participating in Lavretsky’s study, she still practices Kundalini Yoga almost every day. “I’ll continue for the rest of my life,” she says. “Yoga has given me confidence and peace.” The next step in Lavretsky’s ongoing work is to include larger sample sizes by studying up to 100 women at risk for Alzheimer's disease who practice for an entire year, to see if the results improve month after month. Study after study has shown that meditation alone (essentially a workout for your brain) can increase connectivity in the parts of your brain responsible for decision-making and memory. In one 2011 study, reported in the journal Psychiatry Research, a team of Harvard University neuroscientists observed, through brain scans, that just 27 minutes of meditation per day for eight weeks kept the brains of 50-year-olds looking much younger. Their minds had as much gray matter as the brains of 25-year-olds. Mind-body practices that combine meditation and movement may be the most beneficial, says Lavretsky. In a 2016 study published in Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports, Lavretsky and her fellow researchers reported that both mindfulness-based meditative practices that focus on present-moment awareness, like vipassana and Zen, and meditative movements, such as yoga, can help improve attention and memory. The difference is that yoga practices recruit parts of the brain that are involved in speech, motor function, and the ability to make complex decisions. In fact, Lavretsky’s Kundalini routine was actually more effective at building neural networks than some of the standard memory-training tools used by medical professionals. The protocol Lavretsky used in her study was developed at UCLA and utilizes mnemonic strategies for improving memory and recall. And now you might be wondering about those online memory-training tools that you've seen ads for. The jury is still out on whether apps such as Lumosity and Elevate are truly effective at improving mental agility. A 2017 study in Neuropsychology Review compared 18 apps and found that only two—Mahncke’s BrainHQ and CogniFit—were studied in clinical trials and found to help users process thoughts more quickly and improve visual memory in real-world situations.

Eat Well

Optimizing your diet is another important defense in the fight against dementia. Bredesen recommends keto-like meals that are plant-rich, high in healthy fats, and low in carbs and sugar. Think colorful, high-fiber, and detoxifying veggies, such as red cabbage and kale; low-glycemic index fruits like berries; and fats from nuts, seeds, and olive and medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oils. And he encourages 12- to 16-hour fasts between dinner and breakfast the next day. The goal is to stabilize resting insulin levels and reduce inflammation (remember, high levels are risk factors for Alzheimer’s). Several experts point to ways Ayurvedic eating practices align with modern lifestyle protocols for delaying cognitive decline. Finding harmony among your doshas, or primary energies—vata (air and space), kapha (water and earth), and pitta (fire and water)—may help slow aging, including memory loss... or so the theory goes. Intermittent fasting and a low-sugar, plant-rich diet that calls for abundant healthy fats and oils are all part of Ayurvedic eating. 4 Recipes for Intellectual Eating Julie Morris, chef and bestselling author of Smart Plants: Power Foods & Natural Nootropics for Optimized Thinking, Focus & Memory, says the key to boosting brain power really comes down to one simple guideline, similar to what Dale Bredesen, MD, recommends: A diet that supports a healthy brain includes some fat, some protein, less sugar, and more plants. “Then sprinkle in natural nootropics,” she suggests. “Derived from the Greek words noos, meaning mind, and tropos, meaning turned or changed, nootropics are indeed mind-changing, cognition-enhancing substances that can improve the way you think, feel, and function.” She says she thinks of them as the superfoods of the cognition world. Natural nootropics—such as cacao, matcha, reishi mushrooms, goji berries, ashwagandha, and turmeric— not only maintain and protect neurological function, but research shows they can also improve your mental performance. Here, four recipes that are rich in healthy fats, anti-infl ammatories, and nootropics to keep your brain firing on all cylinders. Get smart about what's on your plate and in your mug. Try these brain-healthy recipes. The Supplement Solution Dialing in your diet is critical, but there are all sorts of supplements marketed for brain health, too. Navigating what to buy can be as confusing and complicated as brain science itself. Emmons generally prescribes activated B vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium threonate, and antioxidants such as coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), along with a few herbal products that have been backed by science for memory and cognition improvement, such as ginkgo, vinpocetine, and huperzine A. He also recommends taking phosphatidylserine (PS), which plays a role in creating nerve-cell membranes. There's also L-serine, a trending supplement used for protection against cognitive decline. A naturally occurring amino acid, the substance has shown promise for reducing inflammation and potentially helping those exposed to the neurotoxin L-BMAA, which can happen from eating contaminated seafood. “But there is scant evidence that it is helpful for Alzheimer’s,” Emmons says. And people with cognitive decline who have contributing factors, such as insulin resistance or exposure to various pathogens and toxins other than L-BMAA, likely won't see any effects with L-serine, says Bredeson, adding that ongoing trials with L-serine should help us learn more. On the Ayurvedic front, research from Bredesen and his colleague Rammohan Rao, PhD, at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging suggests that common Ayurvedic herbs, such as ashwagandha, turmeric, brahmi (also known as bacopa), and gotu kola, may have the potential to improve concentration, reverse forgetfulness, and reduce inflammation. 4 Brain-Boosting Herbs

Start Now

The earlier you start making brain-protective lifestyle choices, the better. Alzheimer’s essentially develops in four phases. In the early stages, nearly all people respond to lifestyle interventions, whereas those in late stages show only occasional responses, Bredesen says. The first stage is asymptomatic, but a brain scan may show abnormalities. This could go on for 10 or so years, Bredesen says. In the second phase, subjective cognitive impairment begins—patients know that things aren’t quite right, but markers for beta-amyloid still aren’t showing up in lab tests. This can last for more than a decade, he says. The third phase, which can last several years, is mild cognitive impairment. Lab tests show cognitive impairment, but self-care and independence aren’t suffering. “Most people with MCI can get better, but not always,” Bredesen says. “Each year someone has MCI, they have a 5 to 10 percent chance of developing full-blown Alzheimer’s—the fourth phase.” This crossover begins when patients start to have trouble taking care of themselves. In an effort to get ahead of the problem, Bredesen recommends checking for potential at-risk markers, including ApoE, as soon as you turn 45. (His blood test recommendations, and how to interpret and act on them, can be found at mycognoscopy.com). With prevention in mind, “the key is to pick a practice you like and adhere to it,” Lavretsky says. “The earlier you start learning how to cope with stress, the more you delay aging-related diseases,” she says. Michael Trainer is sticking to his meditation practice. “Witnessing my father’s decline changed me. It was a catalyst for me to look at how I approach life,” he says. “I stopped working so many 12- to 14-hour days and I practice meditation and yoga daily, in addition to eating and sleeping well, because they are buffers to and integral in my own defense of dementia.” In fact, he’s taken it a step further and now draws global attention to brain health through his digital platform Peak Mind—where you can sign up for meditation and mindfulness practices. In 2015, he co-hosted a Peak Mind event with the Dalai Lama, on His Holiness’ 80th birthday, to “make my dad proud,” he says. But by the time the star-studded occasion rolled around, Trainer says his father no longer recognized the Dalai Lama. “All of a sudden, I realized I just wanted to be with my father; it became less about grand gestures and more about the simple quality moments with him.” Author: Tasha Eichenseher Source: https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/yoga-rx-dementia-alzheimers-memory-loss Discover more info about Yoga Poses for Two People here: Yoga Poses for Two Read the full article

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Understanding Travel  The Nuiances of Travel

One of the quickest travel trends on earth today is Volunteer Vacations sometimes called Volun-tourism.  Adventure travel is therefore primarily related to travel products where the main goal is to take part in activity and participatory experience instead of the more passive sightseeing related to traditional outdoor tourism.  Family vacation planners online suggest that a terrific family getaway is ideal to complement an excellent summer vacation.

As soon as your trip was confirmed then attempt to discover about the best deals regarding Travel.  Most discount travelers would like to get discounted tickets for theme Parks, Museums and other attractions within driving distance, and the key to making the the majority of your trip budget is to investigate and make the most of any discounts out there.  Escorted tour packages and vacations are an excellent method to experience traveling to various nations.

The Advantages of Travel

Please note travel times can fluctuate.  In case the travel occurs beyond his regular hours, you don't will need to pay him for the moment.  You never know whom you'll meet, and you simply may want to extend your journey.

What Everybody Dislikes About Travel and Why

Travel and tourism business is 1 sector that permits a relatively simple entry into the profession.  It is available in several different forms.  It can provide plenty of protection.

After all, it may take just one accident or unfortunate event to bring your trip to a halt and you might want to be covered by means of an insurance policy plan made specifically for the hazards and losses that can happen while on vacation.  For any traveller at the right time of planning international trips, it's quite crucial to deal with comprehensive coverage for your wellbeing and safety.  Moreover, the compensation program is excellent, with the possibility of high earnings.

You understand how far ahead of time and that which you actually should plan. You will talk about the benefits of each assignment by means of your travel recruiter, and you'll speak about the requirements of each travel nursing job position. Implementing an internet booking and reservation software doesn't need to be hard, and it doesn't need to be costly. Top Travel Choices If your location seems somewhat shady, make certain you take along a rubber doorstop. In addition, don't neglect to leave a little early so that you are going to have lots of time to check in and arrive at the proper terminal and gate. When traveling always let someone know where you're going and when you are going to return. There are lots of things that may go wrong once you're travelling. In the present times, a lot of individuals are planning on how they will devote their vacation. The reason you should have a lengthy trip is because it requires time to separate yourself from your family and friends and life back home. The Birth of Travel Or, maybe business takes you from the country for a couple of days. The very best thing nowadays is that you do not need to plan your adventure trip all on your own, since there are a lot of travel agencies which specialize in adventure tourism and they plan your trips in detail for you at a nominal fee. There are quite a few other added benefits of adventure travel you may learn if you speak to individuals who regularly indulge in it. Our cycling tour packages have all your needs covered, and supply you with an invaluable chance to get in touch with the very best cyclists from all over the world. You will receive all the information regarding your tour in one spot. To be certain, the majority of the top travel buying zip codes overlap with a few of the costliest districts in the country. Travel Secrets A romantic vacation has the capability to super recharge your relationship. Travelling to unknown nations and places where you might not even speak the language is a path fraught with danger, but using a travel policy, you're going to be secure in the feeling that should you meet with an accident or fall sick, you will be in a position to find the necessary medical guidance. When you're traveling in a group, you need to compromise your plans to produce others contented. The Travel Game Well it depends upon the hotel you keep in (both quality and location can influence the purchase price,) how many meals are included and how much sightseeing is contained in the cost. Prices aren't as expensive as you would think to get a custom made vacation, particularly for a little group. The perfect way to go around the destination and explore it's the luxury bus service that's provided there. The travel market has developed considerably since the 1970s. Also, you are going to receive travel discounts around the world. You want to understand how they are going to take care of your luggage. Definitions of Travel You will want the best deal for the money. So have a chance and spread your organization around, you could be pleasantly surprised! Travel businesses, which are reliant upon a customer's tendency to devote excess money, will be among the very first sectors to be impacted by hostile financial conditions. You will need to keep in mind that quality shouldn't be compromised to realize lower rates. Among the very first and foremost things to handle travel blogging is content. With over 50 stores, decades of expertise and staff that are basically travel obsessed, we are the proper team for planning your ideal trip, and we can't wait to start! The Number One Question You Must Ask for Travel The history of makeup in Egypt demonstrates precisely how long cosmetics have existed. Reading travel blogs and journals on Laos in addition to other accounts and reviews of previous travelers is also important to making the the majority of your visit to the nation. Let me help you pick the perfect charter for you. There are a lot of great areas to visit in Italy during the winter. Firstly, you must be aware that it is among the expensive destinations on the planet. To be certain, the majority of the top travel buying zip codes overlap with a few of the costliest districts in the country. The Basic Facts of Travel If you must make some actual money ROI is the best internet revenue opportunity you will discover. One of the greatest strategies to reduce crime is to go to your own government international travel safety info and warnings website. With this much potential comes the added plus of all time availability. You will need to keep in mind that quality shouldn't be compromised to realize lower rates. There's a need to acknowledge the element that we've got different financial capabilities and as a consequence, spending may differ. Make certain you know the values for local or Travel Zeylan worldwide experiences. What Everybody Dislikes About Travel and Why Travel and tourism business is 1 sector that permits a relatively simple entry into the profession. It will allow you to recover some of the costs of your postponed or curtailed holiday. Backpacker insurance has been specially designed keeping in account the requirements and requirements of individuals that are on a budget travel and are searching for tactics to safeguard themselves. Some of us will get the travel insurance form the travel agent since it's more convenient. By going for a sound program, you can spare your trip companion the heartache. If you're planning on vacationing overseas be sure you place your vacation money in your checking account otherwise you won't be in a position to get to it. Transportation is crucial. The tourism business is thought to have supported millions of jobs that is a sizable part of the nation's total employment. The agency did encourage the Treasury secretary to supply more information to show that he couldn't use a normal business flight. Things You Won't Like About Travel and Things You Will Options are many in regards to selecting meditation centers or courses. The Singapore Art Museum would be perfect if you prefer to round off your holiday with a little bit of culture. Travel directories can be helpful even if you aren't planning a global tour. There are such a lot of shorelines in Sri Lanka where you are able to come and unwind. Together with the white-sand beaches, there's a wide scope of destinations in Aruba that tourists can visit. Australia is among the very best destinations for immigration. The Downside Risk of Travel What to do The very first step to curing travel burnout is to observe the indicators and accept that you're tired of traveling, without feeling guilty, naturally. There are numerous truly harsh personal conditions that need escaping from. It's likely just what you want to do so as to make your life more meaningful. Travel - Dead or Alive? Folks often say you need to follow your dream. Rather than doing what most individuals would do, taking a trip for a couple weeks or a month, Beata chose to live unique places around the planet, while getting jobs in every single nation. When you're together with your partner, you are going to be able to consider romantic names to call your boyfriend. So long as you complement one another and understand one another's ways, your very best friend is the ideal person to bring along in your trip. A stop card permits each member of the family to select one specific spot which they'd love to have a peek at. The reason you should have a lengthy trip is because it requires time to separate yourself from your family and friends and life back home. The Definitive Strategy for Travel Last minute booking If you're likely to book your journey in last minute please have a look our trip note where you are able to discover minimum essential time for the booking. All things considered, it turned out to be a relaxing end to a terrific trip. Second, the time of the flight would likewise determine the price tag. Travel Options Traveling is a pleasure and it is all up to you to learn the greatest and plan your travel in such way that it doesn't hurt your finances. Everybody should take a minumum of one solo travel in the course of their life. Certified and bonded travel vendors ensure that your club employs licensed and bonded vendors. The very best backpack for travel has to be in a position to be locked. Regardless of what your luggage needs may be, rest assured that there's an attractive set of Samsonite luggage that is excellent for you. It has never been simpler to locate last minute travel deals. Finding the Best Travel Please note travel times can fluctuate. With the advent of Airlines, it has become much faster, easier and cheaper. You will be able to continue your journey once you're rejuvenated. Top Travel Choices Actually, if you're travelling anywhere then books are definitely something you are likely to want to take with you. If you don't know the local language, you may want the bus conductor or someone that will help you communicate with the locals. When traveling always let someone know where you're going and when you are going to return. So long as you complement one another and understand one another's ways, your very best friend is the ideal person to bring along in your trip. In the present times, a lot of individuals are planning on how they will devote their vacation. Make certain you take time to recuperate on either side, there is absolutely no point to travelling to the United States. Travel and Travel - The Perfect Combination Well it depends upon the hotel you keep in (both quality and location can influence the purchase price,) how many meals are included and how much sightseeing is contained in the cost. You see, you might have to correct your trip itinerary to place you where the best prices on art purchases must be had. If there's a group of you, you can get in touch with your travel agent to establish a private tour for you.

Some Cruises are nowadays doing prepaid gratuities so it included when you cover the Cruise.  For the time being, it is simply available in the US store.  On occasion a travel website directory also supplies discounts on hotel rooms, that way you're able to save yourself some money.

Hearsay, Deception and Travel

Travel and tourism business is 1 sector that permits a relatively simple entry into the profession.  Be certain to maintain on the most recent travel regulations just before the time that your flight and understand what your travel insurance will cover in the event of a significant incident.  It is necessary You'd better take appropriate travel insurance into account, especially if you plan to participate adventure activities.

Today, the quantity of men and women that are choosing private jet rental has increased.  By going for a sound program, you can spare your trip companion the heartache.  If you're planning on vacationing overseas be sure you place your vacation money in your checking account otherwise you won't be in a position to get to it.

Any professional who's a specialist in making travel arrangements in behalf of different people is called a travel agent.  There are sites throughout the web which will not only create an employee ID card, but will also create a fake identification card for the best price.  Provided that you've got insurance cover however there's absolutely no need to be paranoid.

Vital Pieces of Travel

Disneyland alone attracts thousands of people from all around the World.  Traveling is among the hot favourite activities among millions and millions of people around the planet.  The attractions are websites that stimulate one's mind and provide a remarkable setting for picnics and several other outdoor pursuits appropriate for families.

Our cycling tour packages have all your needs covered, and supply you with an invaluable chance to get in touch with the very best cyclists from all over the world.  You may want to plan a trip to Pushkar during the yearly camel fair.  Actually, the very best trips have a period for the two types of travel.

So How About Travel?

The opportunity to go to Argentina is a once in a lifetime experience so be sure that you make the most of all that the tourism websites have to give.  Another important part of travel auction websites is the assortment of travel auctions out there.  If your travel club doesn't provide some training or help in showing you the way to utilize your package, you may want to look else where.

You will need to keep in mind that quality shouldn't be compromised to realize lower rates.  One of the greatest strategies to make hype around your trip blog is to take maximum advantage of your social networking channels.  With over 50 stores, decades of expertise and staff that are basically travel obsessed, we are the proper team for planning your ideal trip, and we can't wait to start!

The Ultimate Travel Trick

To the contrary, you should expect people from the insurance companies be more knowledgeable for the problem.  A travel may be a superb experience, and a sweet memory, on condition that you manage yourself during your journey.  Basically, a quantity of money is going to be made available to fly your body home.

The Ultimate Travel Trick

Alternate packages are readily available.  The Singapore Art Museum would be perfect if you prefer to round off your holiday with a little bit of culture.  It is possible to call and make bookings or you could book tickets on the web.

There are plenty of hotels in Kanha National Park with unique budgets.  For your Vacation in Egypt, get in touch with a great on-line agent who can make it possible for you to make your own tour.  Adventure travel has gotten quite well known in the past ten years.