#he also improved his warping abilities to reach you faster :)

[saltoru]

ever since gojo fell for you, he's been doing nothing but improving his technique.

when he first developed his infinity, it wasn't good enough to have "on" at all times. then he honed his skills and learned to minimize the power he uses to run his infinity at all times. when you came into the picture, he knew his infinity would be a problem in terms of intimacy. how can he protect himself without putting up a barrier between you two?

shortly after getting together with him, you noticed that you were able to touch him anytime you wanted, and the pillows you had thrown at him had all touched his skin. he must have his infinity off, you suspected. but when you saw a leaf fall off a tree and bounce off his head, and when you saw the baseball his students hit at him fall to the ground instead, you realized that he had altered his technique to automatically separate your touch and your things with everything else in the world.

one hot summer afternoon, when you were in his office with your head on his shoulder, you learned that he had extended his infinity to include you. he had called his students to his office for a quick chat, and he had insisted that you stay to "keep him on track," so you did. to recover from the burning weather, his students brought popsicles and threw one at you to share. you reached out to catch it but the popsicles stopped in the air, just 2 cm away from your palms. both you and his students turn to look at gojo, and he just blinks and says "oops," turns off his infinity and the popsicle quickly falls in your hands. the realization that no one can harm you when he's within reach sunk into your mind, and you couldn't help but sneak a glance at him, thinking about the fact that he had gone out of his way to change his technique protect you.

those are just the changes you've noticed—there are many more changes that he hasn’t gotten around to tell you and you haven’t noticed yet, but you know he’s made them for you.

[the-brucest-fan]

Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Power Unleashed

REMEMBER!! This isn't anything official. It's just my version of the sequel.

PART 2

They're now at a place that looks like the Chemical Plant, where the next two emeralds are hidden, but when they enter the place, they find out Robotnik is there as well.

The doctor tells them he found one of the emeralds while being at the Mushroom Planet, and after experimenting with it, he created a device for the emerald so he could use it's power for teleportation. The emerald sent them there, where he had been using materials from the place to build new and improved machines in order to find the rest of the emeralds and get his revenge.

Robotnik orders his drones to attack Sonic and his friends while he goes after the next emerald. Before Sonic could reach the gem, he almost falls into the toxic waste below, but he's saved by Miles, who reveals he has a second tail and also has que ability to fly. This distraction allows Robotnik to flee with the emerald and is teleported to the next location. Sonic thanks Miles for saving his life and gives him the nickname 'Tails', which the fox accepts happily.

They quickly catch up with Robotnik in the next location: some ancient underwater ruins. Sonic is afraid of water, so Tails and Tom offer themselves to go after the emerald, but they're ambushed by Robotnik and his drones. Knuckles jumps into the water to help, but gets trapped by one of the badniks. Sonic puts aside his fear and jumps after him, saving Knuckles's life (and almost drowning in the process) and retrieving the emerald while Robotnik is stuck underwater.

The next location is a place that resembles the Mystic Cave. While Sonic tracks down the emerald, a small circular saw comes flying out of the shadows and cuts him in his left arm. The saw came from one of Robotnik's drones; the doctor chases after them. They manage to get the emerald and take away the other two from Robotnik, leaving him stranded there, but Tails doesn't notice that one of his last rings falls from his satchel and Robotnik keeps it for later.

The doctor finds the small saw with some of Sonic's blood on it and analyzes it, finding out something that puts a sinister smile on his face.

Without having to worry about Robotnik, the group goes back to Emerald Hill to rest, tend to their wounds and eat something. (Sonic packed a lot of candy and junk food in his bag. That's where Tails's gets to try the mint candy).

During the night, Sonic sees Tails is missing, so he tours the island until he find him coming into his workshop. Sonic asks him what he's doing and Tails quickly hides something inside a box, then he decides to show him a thing he's been working on. Tails shows Sonic a beautiful red biplane called 'Tornado'. Both of them take a fly on it and Sonic is delighted by the view from above.

They land and sit at the top of a hill and have a chat where Tails tells Sonic how he lost his parents during the Great Chaostastrophe and how his whole life he has been bullied because of his two tails. Sonic cheers him up telling him how great his tails are and asks him to go to live with him on Earth.

Next day the group goes to the final location, which is the Checkerboard Planet. This planet moves like a Rubik Cube: its plates rotate very slowly, changing positions and it's covered in giant bubbles. The blue ones contain good and useful stuff (one of the Emeralds is inside one of them), but if you pop a red one, the plates will move faster depending on how many you pop. The core of the planet is a vortex that leads to an infinite void with no way of coming back.

After a few hours they have no luck. Desperate, Knuckles throws a powerful punch, poping a lot of bubbles including a lot of red ones. This makes the plates of the planet moving faster and faster until they start to break, revealing the vortex it has for core. With help of Tails and Knuckles, Sonic manages to find and get the last emerald among the chaos and use a warp ring to get out of there.

The group land safely on what used to be Angel Island. Sonic sees that the Miles Electric points out there's still one missing emerald and that is right where they are standing, but Sonic cannot sense any more chaos energy signals there.

After looking at the ruins of Angel Island, Knuckles gets his memories back and attacks Sonic. He explains the hedgehog is dangerous since there's pure chaos energy inside him and he must free it.

Knuckles then reveals his real name is Kunturumi and tells them that fourteen years ago, a tribe of hedgehogs that lived in South Island, took the blue emerald and prayed to it to save the life of one of them who was deadly ill. The emerald healed them, but dissapeared after that. A few months later, that hedgehog gave birth to a hoglet with royal blue fur and emerald green eyes.

Meanwhile the echidnas were trying to find all the emeralds in order to use them to defeat their enemies, but there was still one missing. After hearing about the hedgehog with blue fur, they chased after him, forcing the hedgehog tribe to leave the hoglet with a warrior owl (Longclaw) so he could be safe.

Four years later, the echidna tribe was still trying to find the hoglet with no success, and during that time, the Master Emerald started to loose power, being the Emeralds their only way to save their island. They eventually found the hoglet, but he dissapeared without a trace. That same day, the Master Emerald lost all it's power and the island crashed to the ground, not before obliterating all the echidnas in sight except for Knuckles, who was hidden inside a hole. He then swore he was going to gather all seven emeralds to restore the island no matter the cost.

Sonic puts everything together, but he can't believe it, so he asks Tails that if what Knuckles is saying is true. Tails reveals he knew the story all along and Sonic has no doubt now: he's the missing emerald.

Horrified, upset and feeling betrayed, he attacks Knuckles and they're both in a fierce fight until Sonic wins the upperhand, but before delivering the fatal blow, he's stopped by Tails and the Wachowskis, but Sonic accidentally hurts them with his powers.

Scared, he runs away. Maddie sugests going after him and Tom says he knows where to find him.

PART 1 | PART 3 | PART 3.1 | EPILOGUE

[sonicasura]

Balan Wonderworld Improv #3

If you haven't noticed or I didn't tag properly, this is a review split into multiple parts and suggestions.

I'm really enjoying Balan Wonderworld so far. If you are someone who plays Super Mario Odyssey, then this isn't your cup of tea because this game is the embodiment of a puzzle. There are over 80 costumes in the game, each costume being an option to a maze of puzzles when it comes to the Collectibles such as hidden Costumes, Balan Bouts and Balan Statues.

You start off with the weaker costumes at the start of the game, the more worlds you unlock the better costumes you can find. Every world has an obstacle to keep you from grabbing every collectible, areas or enemies that need particular costumes to solve.

People have issues with a lot of costumes performing similar tasks but they shine for the ingenuity hidden underneath their adorable designs. The devs want you to take in the worlds at a reasonable pace, uncover the secrets you couldn't find through your first run.

It's a test of your creativity and problem solving skills. To see what you can do with as little as you are given. They want you to figure it out, not spoon feed it to you like some games do. Biggest example of a spoon feeder is Kirby Star Allies, it gives you the combination needed to solve all of its puzzles.

Balan Bouts are a very interesting take to quick time events. The line up for each event actually gets faster the further you are in the game. Balan will even use trickier moves to raise the difficulty of later bouts, including his infamous butt stomp. Also, getting an Oops with Balan or a Balan Cardboard Cutout is bloody hilarious. One second your a badass and the next you are sent flying like Team Rocket for messing up a quick time very badly. 😂 He's just a minty haired goofball.

I did come across a glitch. World 7 Act 2, there's a blue mushroom you need to use to reach platform needed to go the door floating far away with the flower costume. You can jump off the mushroom and it'll just makes the noises your character does when jumping.

I suggest getting the Double Jumper Costume from World 2 Act 2 to bypass the glitch should it happen. Normally you need the Fixer Upper Costume from World 12 but can use the Snow Fairy Costume in World 8 Act 1 to also reach it. You have to scale to the top of the ruins and coral but you can reach it albeit barely.

Improvements needed

Ability to manually restart the level. You need get all Excellents in a Balan Bout to get the Balan Statue. You can revisit the level but you need to beat the boss if you do fail and restart the entire world.

In-game map. It would make navigating certain worlds way easier if you are looking for costumes, Balan Bouts or Balan Statues. Even better if you can mark the map with symbols, tracking icon and used to warp to different checkpoints.

Island of Tims upgrade system. Change how you can upgrade the Tower of Tims as the normal way is quite slow. Ability to play with the Tims, you can't have an equivalent to a Chao Garden without playing with the adorable critters. Mini-games can affect the Tims' abilities or even get rare Costumes.

Name tags for bosses and characters. I didn't know any of the visitors or bosses' names until I looked it up. I had to go by their titles in each Chapter.

I do suggest you guys get the game on sale if you want to play it. Balan Wonderworld has been a fun and decent experience so far but the normal price isn't really fair since bad marketing being the reason.

Now for a more pressing matter.

I've been getting news that people are attacking Balan Wonderworld fans just because they like the game. Whoever it is, you guys are petty little shits and need to stop. You don't see anyone attacking you for having a different opinion, so what gives you the right to do it to us?

Reminds me of a similar issue with popular fandoms like Undertale, I've been personally attacked by my own sibling just because I don't want to play the game. Undertale is an interesting game but isn't my cup of tea, in fact, all of the attacks makes me avoid the game like the plague.

This is the same thing you are doing it to Balan Wonderworld fans, you are making them avoid their favorite game and feel like garbage because of your foul attitude and dickish threats.

You know what I have to say about these petty haters?

Everyone has the right to play the games they love and neither of us want your bullshit. So keep your nasty comments to yourself and quit harassing others.

Hope y'all have a good day!

[groundbreaking-science]

Section 3-2: Amplification

Warning! The following section contains exercises that may cause exhaustion, fainting, dissociation, abreaction and cardiac arrest. No exercise should be undertaken without explicit permission from a medical practitioner, and mental health support may be required for exercise 3.2.5. The reader proceeds at their own risk.

Prerequisites: Exercises in 1.4, 2.1-5, 3.1. Additionally material from section 1.9 is referenced.

The first time my father sensed the Earth and his place in it, a soft dawn was breaking. He stood shaking and gasping for air atop the world's tallest tower, with a view rivalled only by God above. A thick carpet of cloud rolled out to the horizon far below him, the very real verdant lands of Yahhoi still present and visible in glimpses between breaks, and he felt relief.

He'd spent the night screaming in deepest pain and writhing on the indifferent marble floor. He'd flickered between life and death, battling the effects of a poison he'd chosen against all advice to imbibe. It was said that the poison would draw out the drinker's latent power - should the drinker survive the process. My father, at the still tender age of sixteen, was the fifteenth warrior to try and the very first to breathe in the morning's cool air.

In that new light he felt rather than saw life stirring, and he understood the interconnectedness of his own life with the Universe around him. For the first time he sensed a power through the ki-field: the overwhelming strength and evil intent of King Piccolo. With renewed certainty in his abilities my father set out to face down that evil, and the rest is literal history.

After enduring the poison my father obtained the ability to consciously interact with the ki field. Though he wouldn't learn to amplify his abilities with any measured and focused intent for a while, needing guidance from more divine or experienced sources and more powerful, urgent motivators, every one necessitating the honing of a particular element in efficiency or technique. My father's spiritual awakening was slow-going then, though that is not an insult to his effort - even the Monk among our ragtag band took decades to fully master his unlocked potential, and I know there are towering heights I could yet reach.

It is that endless struggle that ultimately gave me the confidence to include this chapter. My current proficiency and my promise to impart certain skills make the work seem simple, but I know I have reached this level with a genetic advantage and a range of thankfully unique life experiences. Yes, nefarious forces could use this chapter to escalate their havoc by orders of magnitude, but that is a highly unlikely outcome, as I'm sorry to say the majority of readers will never achieve a level of amplification that could cause any material damage. Instead I believed it more pressing to think of those curious individuals compelled to perform the "super" techniques covered in the rest of this chapter and beyond, and these skills require ki amplification to perform safely, if at all. And besides, it would never have been fair to keep from you a skill that is considered an Earthling technique at heart.

So whilst I am no God, nor a questionable feline apothecarist making my home amongst the clouds, I am able to employ more traditional teaching methods to improve your ki output with conscious intent, rather than resorting to cryptic life-and-death experiences. And so, in a more measured way, we begin to tie together many elements you have already explored.

Before we delve back into the ki field, I wish to return to the ki we already possess - genki - and the two elements that contribute to the total energy output: the charge (energy per particle) and the flow rate (particles per second). Increasing one or both of these will increase your total genki power output.

The easiest way to achieve a step-change in power output - although impossible for many - would be to utilising a transformation. Simply growing larger means more cells need to be governed, which requires more parcels of genki to be released. You can think of the size of the centre (and therefore the centre's hypothetical surface area) increasing along with the body. A larger surface area with the same flux (flow per unit area) gives a greater power output.

Namekians are able to physically grow in size and therefore power, as demonstrated by Piccolo (the Junior) at the 23rd Martial Arts tournament. This ability is a learnt skill and under conscious control. Saiyans can also grow to gigantic proportions taking on a more ape-like form as Oozaru. Whilst this is an innate transformation and so more accessible (for Saiyans with tails, at least), it requires the reflected sunlight of a full moon to induce, and the Oozaru form does not naturally have a rational mind. Mastery and use of the form is therefore restrictive.

Earthlings on the other hand aren't known for their strength-inducing transformations; the mysterious Shapeshifting Schools utilise magic and transformations in this manner do not appear to grant a power increase. The innate transformation magic of Giants, Manwolves and similar teratoidal folk does grant an increase in power, and zoomorphic people of larger frames will have a greater genki output than the average anthropoidal person, but anthropoidal Earthlings are not granted either of these advantages (by their very definition).

However, Earthlings of all kinds do have access to one technique that will raise the ki particle flow rate: the Kaioken. Against received wisdom I will detail this technique later, if only to emphasize the dangers of trying to learn this skill away from the healing properties of the Heavenly Realm. The technique involves warping the centre's surface, therefore increasing the surface area but preserving the effective volume, allowing more ki particles through. Performed with too much gusto this technique can tear the body apart cell-by-cell, so for those of us bound to the mortal realm, mastery of this technique could take a lifetime.

There is a trade-off to these size increases, however. The pool of ki particles in your centre depletes far faster when deviating from its natural surface area and size. If all particles are used up, you will be left without a way to draw on ki, and will have to rest for an hour to fully replenish.

A further way to boost power output and to much greater effect is to increase the ki particle's average charge. Again some species have access to physical transformations that can achieve this; Frieza's race being one, where various naturally armoured and therefore lower-energy consumption forms reduce the draw on the centre's ki (both in flow rate and charge), and these forms prevent the individual from overwhelming lower ki energy folk around them.

Saiyans have access to another transformation called "Super Saiyan", one that does not increase the size of the body, but does impact every cell, creating a greater demand for charge per particle on the centre. From the combined research of scientists across the Universe, including my own, we know the transformation requires a level of circulating so-called "S-cells" in the body. In brief (as this transformation will be detailed later), high levels of emotion in the body trigger the S-cells to release a message in ki to all cells, asking them to call for more ki in readiness, in turn triggering the centre to release more ki which manifests as a transformation with recognised stages.

The final way to boost your genki output is to use a different version of genki entirely. The Gods and other non-mortals appear to use their own version of ki that is functionally the same in nearly every way, though God ki is more powerful - the reason for which remains unclear. Curiously, God ki is undetectable by mortals unless they receive specific training. Given how parallel they are, I believe then God and mortal ki to be of different chirality.

Chirality is a concept we find in nature. It is woven into the very structure of our bodies, even. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, our mirror image has the same make-up as us - the same number of blemishes on our face and hairs on our head - but there is no way to spin you around to make you look exactly like your mirror image. You and your mirror twin will always be left-right flipped as "optical isomers" of each other. Similarly, some molecules can have exactly the same chemical formula, but the structure can be left-right flipped. In our bodies, one molecule we ingest can fit snugly into a receptor and work as intended, but the optical isomer will be completely ignored (or worse, cause unpredictable damage in the body).

Mortal and God ki then, with their dyadic relationship, can be thought of as chiral mirror images. Unlike chemical optical isomers however, mortals can learn to accept and use the chiral God ki, but it is not natural and so must be unlocked in some manner and developed.

3.2.1 Raising Yuuki With Kiai

Earthlings are Universally known for their ability to change their ki output without reliable access to transformation or divinely developed techniques. Their wide emotional range and social nature can be repurposed or redirected to drive that increase in power. For an instantaneous boost of genki, we can rely on our yuuki. If you recall section 1.9, yuuki (courage) is not a true form of ki but a mechanism of bolstering the flow rate, and comes from reducing fear to free up "effort" and ki-particles and therefore energy otherwise poised to react in a more animalistic fashion to the stressors before us.

Consider the question - "when we run from a bear, do we run because we're afraid? Or are we afraid because we run?" This truth is a mix of both. Calming the mind can calm the body, yes, but changing our physiological state can also affect very real change in our emotions too, which can in turn free up mental capacity for other purposes. Likewise, amping up the body can amp up the mind and ki in tandem.

In section 2.3 we discussed kiai, the guttural yell. We slowed our breathing, using the inward and outward breaths to create a rhythm that our ki synced to. When our core tightened to yell our ki flowed steadily with the breath, expelled with the kiai. Kiai also raises yuuki, as the steady, conscious breathing slows the heart rate, reducing the physical sensations we attach to fear and therefore fear itself, a calming feedback loop. We can then think of that freed energy as released in a short, sharp burst of "courage" instead.

To practise this, perform a push intent with and without kiai. Notice the increase in strength as ki becomes more dense when paired with kiai. Then repeat the exercise, this time explicitly utilising yuuki. Calm the body to begin with, and with the freed capacity of mind, genki should be easier to focus and kiai more effective, the rush of emotion with each kiai honing the intent rather than distracting from it. Practice these four states until you can sense the difference in power, both in quality and quantity. Throughout your practice keep in mind whether your yuuki is well-maintained or not. There is no need to be perfectly physically calm every practice, only to be able to note how calm to better estimate the strength of that day's intents.

3.2.2. Yuuki - Advanced Calming

Slowing one's breathing has the ability to start a soothing chain reaction through the body. But there is a shortcut - to hack our bodily ki intents themselves, intercepting the messages intended for the heart and other systems.

To learn though we must be quiet to begin with. Sit quietly, slow your breathing, and feel the subtle pulse of ki intent that ripples with your heartbeat. Not the ki itself, as that will be flowing through the body at a near constant, rippling with the breath and heartbeat, but the change in intent that drives the heartbeat. This ripple will track back to the upper-right of the heart (close to the body's centre-line) to the pacemaker cells which control the heart's contractions, and will spread from the pacemaker cells to the rest of the heart. These are the intents we must intercept.

Follow these ripples and imagine them slowing - I think of a soothe intent to envelope and slow the beat intent, and before long you'll feel your heartbeat begin to slow too. The other physical symptoms of fear will leave you as the mechanisms triggering them unwind, freeing your mind and therefore affording you yuuki to use for ki manipulation. With familiarity you'll be able to track these ripples when under huge mental and physical stress.

It should go without saying that upsetting homeostatic equilibrium is extremely dangerous. This technique should only be performed for a few seconds before you let the body drive itself again. I only ever use this technique as a kick to my system, like a full-body shiver to reset. Slowing the heart too much will leave you breathless, drop your blood pressure and cause you to faint. Playing too harshly with pacemaker cells directly could cause them to fall out of sync, triggering cardiac arrest.

The next question both the curious and antagonistic among you will ask is whether this same soothe intent will work on others to incapacitate them. The answer is yes but, thankfully, there is an inbuilt difficulty; these homeostatic intents written with a ki signature are so tightly bound to that person's subconscious that overriding the messages takes considerable skill. I know of one assassin using this method to trigger cardiac arrest, and the genki "injection" must be delivered with great, well-practised precision within close-range. Miss and the assassin is wide open for a counter. I do not recommend developing this technique both for the safety of others and your own.

3.2.3 Field Ki

Genki manipulation has its limits. We have a finite amount of genki (created from chemical (food) energy) and a finite number of ki particles to assign it too. So there is a maximum amount of genki that we can release in one instant and whilst substantial, it is most unsustainable.

Instead the most reliable, near limitless way to amplify ki is to increase the charge per particle by converting genki to field ki (banoki). In section 1.9 we discussed the ki field; how the ki field is a lower energy state consisting of a soup of decayed and garbled ki energy separated from us by a barrier of ki particles. In 2.2 we visited the surface of the ki field to read the ripples created by the ki of others. Now we will reach through that undulating surface to harness the ki energy beyond.

Find a comfortable and well-centred position. Lower yourself to the ki-field as when learning to read the ki-signatures of those outside of auratic contact (exercise 2.2.2). Feel the waves of others, those vibrations, and settle 'above' them. Remember, your spirit is tethered to this reality by its very existence, so it would take a deliberate act to cut that tie and fall in. I'd hope by now you would be familiar with this exercise and such visualisations would be of little use, but for now attend to the ripples to aid the next step.

Now, you must expend a little effort and genki. Let your mind follow your decaying genki down to the field and visualise yourself penetrating the waves' surface with a hollow reed of ki, finding your way between the surface of empty ki particles at the still spots between the waves. A through or part intent works well here. Your genki and the field ki energy will meet through the imagined reed. The link will feel tenuous at first, as both your effort and genki used in the process will render the exercise counterproductive in net ki, but do not fret - with a little practice you will break even and then excel.

Once the connection is established, you will need to gather field ki. Imagine the reed straw you've made growing roots, spreading through the endless sea of field ki below to efficiently fill the space. Imagine those fine tendrils reaching, your ki signature spilling out as genki converts to give a semblance of structure in the field ki. Then, suck that captured ki back through the reed, palming it into your very real hands. Retrieving the ki can be tricky - overextend and your fine genki root system will break, essentially wasting that genki as it breaks down far too fast. Spread too little and, whilst safe, some genki will be wasted, unable to touch field ki and convert. Take your time - the amplification will come. Aim to be able to repeat this cycle of reaching and capture as a smooth, continuous flow. When this convoluted process becomes second nature, amplification can be achieved with a simple boost or swell intent.

3.2.4 Storing and Moving Ki

At first, this mix of kis will be heavy and unwieldy to move between foci as your ki signature is weakened through the mass. The usually chatty and fast to react genki will take a while to send intents through the rest of the more neutral ki, the genki acting as lit touchpaper. The best way to manage this mass of ki is to maintain the "rootlike" structure of genki through the mass, enabling fast communication between genki and the furthest section of field ki.

To practice, focus genki between your hands and swell the mass. As you sense the energy convert, try to send the ball of ki from left to right between your hands. Notice how, as you continue to amplify (and at first even lose total ki energy during the conversion) this movement increases in difficulty, demonstrating that as the fraction of genki energy in the focussed ball lessens, it takes more time to propagate your intent from the ordered, ki-signature laden genki to the unstructured mass of field ki.

Notice too, that if you were to apply for example a push intent, the strength of the ability would falter at first, the genki now having to learn how to send out this particular intent as well as apply it to itself. You will be frustratingly back to those early days of learning the basic intents. With time and practice though your skill and dexterity with intents will return - and faster this time around. When you've matched your previous skill level across a variety of intents when using only a tenth or less of the genki usually required without field ki, you will be ready to move on.

In the heat of the moment more powerful techniques will require more ki than can be created instantaneously, necessitating you to charge up the ki intent. There is a fine balance to be had between adjusting your genki flow as and when you need it for amplification, versus letting your mind work on autopilot at a fixed conversion rate to over-produce ki. The former of course saves you energy, but the micro-management could make you slower to counter. It is therefore prudent to know how to amplify and store that ki for later. If charging and amplifying a specific attack, of course bring ki to the focus in question, but to be ready at a moment's notice to push, to explode upwards to fly and to guard, you will need to store ki in an aura.

The fundamentals of this particular technique were covered in exercise 2.4.5, but to recap, use your centre as a focus, but this time expel ki. The ki should surround you in an approximate sphere, ready to be gathered into external foci like hands or feet, to report back to you nearby danger, or to create a near-instantaneous barrier. Remember when charging to use a hold intent too, otherwise the genki, untasked, will degrade. This technique is named "aura-shoring". When performed at high ki energy densities, ki will spontaneously interact with the world, creating an impressive and intimidating visible glow around the body.

3.2.5 Raising Shouki

We don't only trade genki for field ki during amplification. We expend effort to maintain spiritual calmness, shouki. If yuuki is the calmness between mind and body, shouki is our self-assuredness, the calmness between mind and ki. The stronger our connection between mind and ki, the easier amplification becomes. As discussed in 1.9, disrupting this link by agitating an opponent through very incisive taunts will knock their power-level down considerably, as they will be unable to efficiently convert genki to field ki. Now we wish to raise our own shouki.

To do so we must get in contact with our spiritual selves - not necessarily in a religious manner, but to know and speak our own truth. For my father, his brush with death was enough for his young self to begin to attend to that spiritualness, but you do not need to go to such extremes.

Mindfulness, the ability to just be in the present, comes easier to some than others. Mindfulness is not the ability to empty the mind, for that can be frustrating to achieve as worries for the day pop in and out. Instead we must notice those thoughts, the emotional and physical feelings, and maintain curiosity toward them before setting them aside for the moment. This benign distance affords us the ability to take stock. Spending time attending to how genki moves through our body and the environment around us can also assist in this mindfulness process. It is a focus on the here and now, and is something we can do alongside other exercises.

Mindfulness however is not dissociation, where we disown thoughts and experiences as not happening or not our own as a defense mechanism. And that leads me to a warning. For individuals dealing with dissociation as a result of, for example, psychological trauma, forcing the mind back in the body can cause an abreaction and worsen your state of mind. If you find you have constant bad reactions to mindfulness, or exercises and martial arts that encourage this open state of mind, then please seek professional support before continuing further. I know of one individual who broke through life-long trauma through sheer force of will, but it took him decades and could have ended poorly. However, dealing with the emotional block monumentally improved his raw power through yuuki and shouki, so your mental health is worth working on in whatever capacity you can. I also speak from experience. Fluctuating shouki was a difficulty I had in my childhood, and it took a lot of self-compassion and support from family and friends to let go of the guilt a child can swallow when they do not know any better. Simple grounding exercises - feeling the earth between your toes, naming sounds, colours and smells in the world around you - can suffice to bolster shouki somewhat in the meanwhile, and was the technique I used until I could be truly still and in the moment.

I told you once that I made the fortuitous decision to sit cross legged over seiza for twenty hours of a twenty-five hour ceremony. This ceremony, to unlock my fullest potential, required me to keep very still at a time I wanted to do anything but; my friends and family were in grave danger, some even passing away in the meanwhile, and the god performing the magic did not come across as particularly competent. As the hours ticked by I felt no different, only frustrated and wrestling with all my concerns with little else to distract me. It was only as my anger boiled over that I felt the ease at which ki enveloped my clench fists, and I understood the power of stillness. Whilst I know the silent magic of the god played a more than substantial part in my increase in power, I know holding out hope for Earth while confronting myself and my fears during those endless hours did play some part in repairing and raising my shouki, and I am grateful for that time to reflect. I hope you can find this time, too.

With every possible type of amplification in your knowledge and the most accessible at your disposal, it is now time to relearn all techniques with field ki in the mix. I know, I know it feels a step backward, but trust me, this step is a huge leap forward, and will give you access to all the work following on. When - or if - you can amplify the strength of your techniques by a factor of two with only a tenth of the genki available, you will be ready to proceed to the next section on guarding.

next previous first contents ask?

[pomrania]

would the force also exist in the tma star wars crossover? how would the jedi work? do the jedi know about the entities like how they know a lot more than the average person about the force and such?

(In reference to a post about a Star Wars AU where the Entities from TMA are also a thing.)

So I had to think about this, and here’s what I came up with. “Outwardly”, the GFFA looks the same. There’s still references to “the Force”, and it’s used pretty much the same ways as canon.

I’m thinking that the Force is like, “raw” Entity-stuff. Think a combination between ectoplasm and Limbo-matter (from D&D) and Warp energy (from WH40k), but more philosophical/psychological. Interacting with it directly requires a quirk of your physiology (represented by midichlorians), while “interacting with it directly and having it do what you intended for it to do” requires a LOT of training. That’s what the Jedi do, along with various other Force traditions.

The Entities are that weird-pseudo-matter-plasma-thought-energy that has taken on an “intention”. It still requires that midichlorian-measured stuff to be able to interact with it, but to a SIGNIFICANTLY lesser degree, PROVIDING you use it in the direction it “wants” to go. Think of Jedi Force usage as moving water in a cup, while Entity-powered Force usage is like dumping a bucket of water; it’s way easier and also faster, so long as you only wanted the water to go “downwards”.

The “Dark Side” is a misnomer, but one that’s gotten so ingrained in Jedi teachings that despite the efforts of pedantic nerds throughout the centuries, nobody has been able to replace it with a more accurate term. Said “Dark Side” is reaching for the “form” that’s already there (an Entity) and using THAT, instead of the “raw” Force-stuff. It’s dangerous for two main reasons, three if you count that each of those two reasons reinforces the other so it becomes a feedback loop: a) you have to FEEL in a certain way, have a particular DESIRE (and not just “this problem needs to be solved”) in order to “touch” an Entity, and those thoughts and emotions are universally unhealthy when you dwell upon them; and b) when you touch an Entity, it makes an imprint on your mind, encouraging those patterns; that “imprint” will fade over time, but each additional contact makes it deeper, makes it something that influences you more and something that’s harder to get away from.

So like, using just the “raw” parts of the Force you can (relatively) easily influence someone’s mind somewhat, get them to do things that they’re not adverse to doing. If you want to influence them in a stronger way, you can put a lot of effort into improving your skill in that field; or you can tap into the Entity that “wants” to manipulate others. To do that, you need to have your mind “focused” in the Web’s desired “pattern”, and then tap into it, and that will “deepen” those thought patterns, reinforcing your desire to manipulate, but making it require way less effort.

It’s possible to “tap into” different Entities in different situations, but if they’re not conceptually similar enough, it requires the ability to completely alter your mindset and mentality and desires according to the moment, which... isn’t really a thing most people can do. THEORETICALLY it’s possible to tap into lots of different Entities and thus prevent any one of those from influencing you too much, taking from Smirke’s dreams of “balance”, but in practice that never actually happens for anything more than the extreme short-term. Everyone has something they like-and-thus-use more than the others, so that is what claims them, if they keep tapping into the Entities. And once someone has been so thoroughly claimed by a particular Entity that everything they could have been is now filtered through that outlook, it’s easier to just call them an Avatar, because that’s what they are.

An Avatar MIGHT be able to use SOME things associated with an Entity other than their patron, but it’s pretty limited, and also only the things on the “boundary”. But more than that, they wouldn’t generally WANT to use any others. Being claimed by an Entity induces a “when all you have is a hammer” mindset; if their preferred method doesn’t work, they’ll keep banging against that wall instead of finding another way. They’re still CAPABLE of using “raw” Force, but it’s so much more DIFFICULT so why would they even BOTHER when doing things THIS way is so much EASIER....

Going back to what I said earlier, someone with high “Force-sensitivity” is able to use both the “raw” Force-stuff and also the Entity-stuff, while someone with low “Force-sensitivity” can only slightly manipulate the “raw” stuff, but is equally capable of being an Avatar. Avatar-ness depends less on that physiological quirk, and more on your mindset and personality and desires; “power”, in that aspect, directly correlates with how much your nature matches that of your patron.

So, for an example. I believe that in canon, Palpatine isn’t very Force-sensitive; I don’t know whether that’s accurate, but for sake of illustration let’s say that it is. He wouldn’t be able to do the Jedi stuff without a lot of effort and time, and most of it would be forever out of his reach due to lifespan limitations. However, he is ABLE to tap into an Entity, and his thought processes are nearly PERFECTLY aligned with that of Web, so he’s able to be a powerful Avatar. When it comes to his Force-related options, he has three: a) forget about the whole thing; b) train in his limited ability to interact with raw Force-stuff, whether as a Jedi or a different tradition, possibly one with more emphasis in making a little go a long way; or c) go full-on Avatar of the Web, with whispered promises of the galaxy dancing to his strings. And, like a power-hungry manipulative asshole, he chose the third option.

...wow that got longer than I expected. I hope it all makes sense; that was pretty much just stream-of-consciousness.

[tere706]

Love is Blind - Chpt 16

(Oh boy, this is a monster chapter in so many ways. It's the longest chapter I've ever written (almost 5k!) and the angst is just dripping from this. 

So. I'm sorry in advance. Also: WARNING FOR BURNS

There is for sure one more chapter left in this story. I may come back and do a sequel of sorts for it, but I'll probably take a break before tackling that. I'd need to plan out some characters and plot points. 

Tagging: @inumorph, @dark-night-sky-99, @liadreyar-dragneel, @lunalustrix, @thirstyforvenom, @mltcp )

Eddie raked a hand through his hair, eyes flicking back and forth across the page. They’d gone back to their apartment so he could read through the information in peace. And so that he’d have easy access to the internet. He felt like shit, sweaty and exhausted from exertion and lack of sleep. But between the adrenaline and several cups of coffee he was still wired and awake. Eddie didn’t want to sleep. Sleeping would be time wasted finding Liz. Besides, he was afraid of what he would end up dreaming between his and Venom’s worry.

The papers started dry and clinical. It was mostly police and CPS reports for Aaron’s childhood. Eddie scanned through them to confirm that the teen hadn’t been in contact with his mother since he’d entered foster care. It also seemed unlikely that he would have gone back to any of his former foster homes, since he regularly ran away from them. Venom insisted that they check the current foster home once he was done with his research. Aaron probably hadn’t taken Liz to his current foster family, or she would have already contacted Eddie or returned home. That was if he’d even been responsible… but it was the only lead Eddie had right now. He and Venom had to stay focused on something. If nothing else, the teen might have information about Liz.

Even though Eddie hadn’t read any of Liz’s work, it wasn’t hard to guess who had written the psychological reports that began two years ago. She had mentioned using some kind of voice to text program for her writing, but he couldn’t remember what it was called. Didn’t matter now. Based on her reports, Aaron had started off an angry and introverted young teen. He had slowly come to trust Liz, perhaps because she didn’t represent a threat to him. Eddie could easily imagine someone finding her non-threatening with her lack of sight and warm personality. Liz’s later writing indicated her belief that Aaron was well on his way to a successful life. He wanted to go to college after high school and get a degree in welding. His grades in school had improved now that he was in a stable foster home and no longer running away to cause mischief with a street gang.

So why start a fire in the police station? And how? They had seen that fire, it hadn’t been a small trashcan fire. Half the station had been burned down. Eddie closed his eyes as he felt the fear and tension from Venom cause his guts to clench. Candles made Venom flinch, fire like that was just fucking terrifying. Eddie saw flashbacks to the rocket explosion, to the belief that Venom had sacrificed himself for Eddie.

EDDIE. FOCUS. WE ARE HERE AND WE ARE SAFE.

With a quick shake of his head, Eddie refocused on the papers. Liz didn’t have much information about the street gang Aaron had once belonged to. If the teen was still on the run from the police, possibly with a hostage now, it was possible he was using the former gang for help. They would have to track down some of their members after checking the foster home.

Eddie leaned back in his chair and glanced at the window. Sunlight was streaking into the apartment, giving it a cheerful golden glow that clashed with his current state of mind. It was still fairly early in the morning, well before noon. “Alright, V, plan of attack. We grab some food first and then make a few… house calls.”

GOOD. TIRED OF WAITING. LET’S GO FIND OUR LITTLE BIRD.

Eddie stood up and grabbed his jacket before pausing at the front door. “Shit. We left my bike at Calvin’s place.” He started reaching for his phone, thinking to call a cab. It wouldn’t be as fast, but it was better than walking. Would using public transportation actually be faster?

NO TIME, EDDIE. WE WILL GO.

He knew right away what Venom meant by that. “What?! In the middle of the day? You don’t exactly blend in, V!”

WE MUST HURRY. THIS IS FASTEST. BESIDES, MOST HUMANS DON’T LOOK UP.

~

Liz was pulled from her quiet misery by the sound of footsteps coming near. She didn’t bother calling out for help, she recognized the sound of these steps. But she did push herself up and turned to face Aaron as he approached. She really had no way to discern how long he’d been gone. Liz had carefully finished off the rest of the water in the water bottle and managed to move herself further away from where she’d thrown up upon first waking. She’d been considering trying to find her way around this place and escape on her own, but trying to stand made her head swim and it felt like she would be sick again. Besides, she had no idea when Aaron would be back.

“Sorry I was gone so long. I… needed to cool off.” Aaron murmured, setting down a plastic bag near Liz. “Um, since your stomach is upset, I got you some crackers. And a bottle of aspirin. Oh, and more water of course. Are you… feeling any better? You look a bit better.” He tried, he really did, to sound encouraging.

Liz took a slow breath, the thought of eating solid food made her queasy and she didn’t know if it was safe to take aspirin when suffering from a concussion. But the pain was bad enough that she decided to take the risk. She reached out and pulled the plastic bag closer, reaching in for the items.

“I’m feeling more awake, at least. But I’m not well, Aaron. I’m hurt.” She kept her tone as calm and gentle as possible. Riling Aaron up could prove deadly if he really had such poor control on his ability. “Thank you for getting these for me. You didn’t steal them, did you?”

Aaron huffed and stood back up. “No! I have some money. Cash. I don’t want to be tracked. Not much left, though.”

Liz nibbled on one of the crackers, she did know that taking aspirin on an empty stomach would only make her feel worse. So, that was probably why he hadn’t tried to skip town. Not enough money to make a clean getaway. Alright, that might have been a bit cynical of her to think. Aaron didn’t have anyone else to turn to, aside from his foster family, and they wouldn’t have been supportive of him running from the police either. There was an easy way to test that theory.

“Aaron, if I can get to a bank I could pull some money for you. Let you escape from the city and try to go into hiding.” Not that she had any intention of actually doing that. Liz had no desire to get in trouble for aiding his escape.

There was a long pause, probably Aaron thinking through the offer. “No. I don’t know how to go into hiding from the government. And I doubt I could get out of the country. We have to think of something else.”

“Like what? I don’t know what you want from this.” Liz pulled out another bottle of water from the bag, carefully unscrewing the lid and taking a sip. Her throat was still sore too, like she’d eaten too hot soup.

That made Aaron start his anxious pacing again. He never could stand still when he felt pressured and scared. “I don’t know! I want everything to go back to how it was before! I never asked to be like this. And I never meant to hurt anyone. I can’t really control it. I try, I really do.”

“You can’t turn back time.” Liz spoke gently, doing her best ‘calm and rational adult voice’. “Whether you like it or not, you have to face what you’ve done and what you can do. No one can make this go away, not even me.”

“No!” He was quick to snap. “I know it won’t, but I want to make it better. You’re friends with some of the cops. You can talk to them for me, make them help me!”

“I don’t know if you killed them in the fire or not.” Liz knew it was cruel, knew it would hurt him. But he wasn’t thinking rationally. Aaron had created a delusion for himself where everything would be put to rights because he willed it so. The world just didn’t work that way.

Aaron had stopped pacing at her words. The silence stretched between them, broken only dimly by the sound of distant cars and the choking cries of seagulls. Liz let it stand for almost a full minute before continuing.

“Yes. People died. I don’t know if they were prisoners or officers. As I understand, some of the bodies are proving difficult to identify because of how badly they were burned.”

“Stop it.” Aaron’s voice came out closer to a croak.

“Do you know how hot a fire has to be to distort and warp bones? I’ve no idea if teeth can be used. I’ve never studied something like that.” Liz didn’t back down, but she kept her tone distant and calm. There was no anger or malice in her voice.

“Stop it, please.”

“It was hot enough that they weren’t even sure if they had all the remains. It’s why the people were listed as missing instead of deceased in the news reports.”

“STOP TALKING!” The wash of heat, both in his voice and the air, hurt Liz. She flinched back, ducking her head down defensively. Aaron’s breath came in ragged pants as he tried to control himself. It was dangerous, pushing him to the point where he would snap like that. Liz knew what to use against him, but it was almost a betrayal of the trust she’d given him for the last two years.

Liz tilted her face back up when the heat passed, turning her face in his direction again. “You are a danger to yourself and others right now, Aaron. And there is nothing left for me to offer you. I can’t help you with the law. I can’t help you with your ability.”

“You said you’d help me!” Aaron shouted it at her, his voice almost cracking as he struggled between anger and pain.

“I will stand by you. I will support you. But I can’t do anything more to help you.” Liz spread her hands simply. “You’ve taken away all my options.”

Aaron didn’t answer her. He turned and ran from the building, footsteps echoing in the large space.

Liz waited until she couldn’t hear any trace of him. Good. Hopefully, he would stay away for a few hours. She planned to be gone by then. Liz grabbed the bottle of aspirin from the bag and quickly removed the plastic wrapping and cap so she could swallow three of the pills. She laid back down on her side, nibbling crackers and sipping water while she waited for them to start kicking in. Once she could stand and walk, she would find her way out of this place and get help.

She’d meant what she said to Aaron, as much as the words had pained her. Liz cared a great deal for the teen. His trust had been hard earned and he’d been doing so much to better his life. But Liz wanted to live more than she wanted to placate Aaron. If it came down to one of them, she was going to pick herself.

Liz just hoped she wouldn’t have to make that choice.

~

Judging by the number and frequency of the screams, Eddie believed he had sufficient evidence that people did look up to publish a paper. But Venom was right, it was faster to let him take over and swing them through the city. Traffic was a bitch, even on his motorcycle. And really, it would have been so much worse if Venom had had a meltdown in the back of a cab.

Thankfully, they hadn’t needed to question Aaron’s foster family. Venom had been able to tell from the scents in the air around the small home that the teen hadn’t been by. Eddie questioned Venom’s conclusions. They had no idea what Aaron smelled like, how had he known? Venom was already moving away from the area while answering.

“NONE OF THE SCENTS WERE OF A TEEN MALE. FEMALE YOUNG, FEMALE ADULT, MALE ADULT.” Venom had taken them to a rougher part of town, where the police reports indicated Aaron had been picked up from his street gang. He crouched on a roof, opalescent eyes narrowed as his tongue lashed the air.

You can’t just grab random people off the street and start interrogating them, V.

“AND WHY NOT?”

Maybe because it’s wrong? Even Eddie sounded tired, though. Too tired to really argue.

“WE WILL BE CAREFUL WITH WHO WE GRAB.”

By ‘careful with who we grab’, Venom obviously meant grab anyone that looked the least bit suspicious and then scream at them until they either passed out or wet themselves. Thankfully for all involved, Venom managed to catch his prize on the third try. The young man, Eddie refused to think of him as a child despite his apparent age, was only too happy to tell them anything they wanted in exchange for his life. He babbled off locations that the little gang liked to frequent and Eddie managed to prod Venom into demanding the name of the ringleader too. If nothing else, he would make sure that some justice was delivered to the person leading these kids into crime.

Venom was less interested in that. He was singularly focused on locating his little bird. After dropping off the kid, he was moving again. Eddie helped him with finding the locations that they had been given. Each failure only made Venom angrier and more desperate. They had no more leads if this didn’t work. Neither of them would be content with waiting for the police to look for Liz.

They were down to two locations when Venom landed on the roof of the warehouse. He crawled down the side of the building to peer into one of the windows. They were dusty and opaque with age. The space within was blocked by tall stacks of crates that turned the large warehouse into a maze of corridors. The lights within appeared to be off, but some light was filtering in from the windows. In the center of all those stacks it might be hard to see, but the edges were fairly well lit.

The place looked unoccupied, trash was littering some of the corners, but no recent evidence within his line of vision. Still, there was plenty of the inside he couldn’t see. Eddie nudged Venom to hurry up and do a sweep on the interior. They needed to move on to the next location if this was another bust. Venom quickly growled before smacking the window. It shattered under his blow, quite satisfyingly to be honest. He needed something to take his anger and worry out on.

Venom pulled himself into the warehouse from the broken window and froze. His eyes widened as his tongue lashed the air. Here. She was here. There was no mistaking the scent of his little bird. Relief slammed through them both as Venom dropped to the ground and ran toward the source, to the voice calling out.

“Hello? What was that?” Ah, she would have heard the window break when he made his entrance. Hearing her voice made giddy joy flood him, she was alright enough to be awake and aware of her surroundings. Everything was going to be okay, they would keep her safe.

Venom leapt around the corner of a wall of crates and stopped for a moment, chest heaving. Liz was standing, one hand against the wall of crates for guidance. She’d stopped when she heard his approach, body tense. Her clothes were rumpled and her face had a red tint like a sunburn. Venom and Eddie didn’t care.

“LITTLE BIRD…”

Liz’s hand dropped away from the wall of crates and she nearly sagged in relief. “Ven!”

He rushed to her, lifting one hand to gently cradle her face. His other hand wrapped around her waist to draw her closer. “YOU ARE HURT.”

Venom could feel her nod, face pressed into the warmth of his hand. “Yeah. I think I have a concussion. I don’t know how bad it is, but I really want to get to a hospital just to be sure.” She had reached up, wrapping a hand around his wrist and holding tight. Liz was quivering, breath coming in quick jerks.

“WE WILL TAKE YOU AWAY. IT IS OKAY.” His words were a soft rumble, almost a purr.

“No. It’ll make my head pound to start sobbing. I can keep-“

“What the fuck is that?!” Aaron’s voice, high pitched in shock and sudden terror, cut through Liz’s words.

Venom whirled in place, keeping Liz behind his bulk so he could face the source of the voice. The teen standing at the end of the crate wall behind Venom was almost six feet tall, but hadn’t filled out his frame. He still held himself awkwardly, too thin. The layers of baggy clothes helped to hide some of it, but even those were in poor repair. He’d likely had to steal what he could after escaping the fire at the police station.

“YOU.” Venom slowly grinned, eyes narrowed and teeth prominently on display. Here was the source of their pain and terror. This boy had hurt his little bird and taken her away.  

The teen stumbled back a step at that single word, but his eyes widened and flicked behind Venom for a moment. “Elizabeth?! Go, get away!” He shouted as he straightened. It looked like he wanted to stand up to Venom. A very foolish thing to do.

“Aaron, it’s okay! Ven is- No, don’t do this!”

Venom ignored her words, and the hand that reached out toward him, as he leapt forward. No, he wouldn’t kill the stupid boy. But he needed to learn a lesson about the consequences of his actions. Venom and Eddie would be happy to teach him.

Aaron yelped and tried to scramble back as Venom leapt at him. He fell back, catching himself with his left hand and raising his right. Heat blossomed in front of the teen briefly, then flames washed out in an arc from hand. More of the flames twined their way up his arm to his shoulder. Neither his clothes nor his body appeared harmed by the fire.

There was no way to avoid all the flames when he was still in the air, but the moment his foot touched the ground Venom sprang to the side and rolled. He snarled in rage and pain, feeling the sections of his being that had bubbled up and burned away from the touch of those flames.

Well, that explains the fires. Eddie remarked. Keep circling around until he’s facing away from Liz. We can’t risk her getting caught in a blast like that.

Now that was a good point. Venom started running to the side, slowly closing the space between him and the fire starter. Aaron had managed to regain his feet in those moments. He was panting hard, but turned to face Venom as he moved. The teen looked angry and scared, a potent mixture.

Aaron swung his arm in a half circle before himself, spreading down a wide swath of fire. Several of the crates on the far side caught fire as well. Venom cringed back from the flames, eyes narrowed.

EDDIE, WE MUST CLOSE THE DISTANCE WITH HIM.

Yeah, I noticed. Let’s try going up over and coming down right on top of him.

Venom backed up several steps. Smoke was starting to fill the air; the human wouldn’t be able to see him as clearly in the uncertain lighting. He ran forward and took a running leap to clear over the wall of flames.

They had an excellent view of Aaron backing up with both arms raised, flames curling up past his shoulders. A small spark crackled to life between his upraised hands. Then a torrent of flames was coating his body. Venom shrieked as his form bubbled and nearly boiled away from Eddie’s body. He retreated within his host, trying to protect the last of himself. Eddie landed on the concrete in a roll, gasping in pain. He’d been tucked into a ball by the time Venom retreated. His leather jacket took the worst of the flames from his arms, but his pants hadn’t faired as well. His roll had put the flames out, but he could feel the biting pain of fresh burns.

Eddie lifted his head, face twisted in a grimace of pain and rage. He needed to see the next attack so he could dodge out of the way, regardless of the pain. Eddie’s eyes widened in horror and he tried to throw himself forward, toward Aaron. Toward Liz.

“Liz, no!”

~

Liz struggled not to cry as she leaned her face into the warmth of Venom’s hand. Finally, she could start to feel safe again. Sure, she’d been working on escaping by herself, but knowing that she wasn’t by herself was like a weight from her shoulders. Venom and Eddie could get her the medical help she needed. And Eddie would be able to help her with Aaron.

“No. It’ll make my head pound to start sobbing. I can keep-“

She tensed when she heard Aaron’s voice behind Venom. He had turned away from her at the same time, so she reached out a hand to touch his back. Oh gods, this was not a good situation. Did… did Aaron think she was in danger?! Of course, he must see Venom as a monster.

“Aaron, it’s okay! Ven is- No, don’t do this!”

There was nothing Liz could do to hold Venom back. He leapt away before she could react. Besides, she didn’t think grabbing onto his waist would have slowed him much. She hadn’t even had a chance to warn Venom and Eddie about Aaron. Liz remembered the first time she’d met Eddie, passed out in her bed after Venom had healed them from burns. Fire was one of his weaknesses.

The wash of heat that came a moment later nearly staggered her. Liz stumbled aside and grabbed ahold of the wall of crates again. Fire crackled and roared ahead of her. Venom was snarling. Aaron was panting. But Liz was frozen in place. She had no idea where exactly the flames were ahead of her. And trying to walk away could just put her into the line of fire. Everything was happening too fast for her to be able to clearly hear where everyone was.

It felt like an hour had passed since Aaron confronted Venom, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two in real time. Then the sound she’d fear the most came to her ears. Venom was shrieking in pain after another blast of intense heat. Liz heard Aaron walking backwards toward her. She heard the sound of a body hitting the floor and rolling, even over the growing crackle of the fires.

Aaron was going to kill Eddie and Venom. Liz was going to lose them both in one moment. And the teen would destroy any chance of this working out in his favor. The deaths at the police station were an accident, probably. But this would be murder. Aaron was choosing to kill a man on the ground.

She couldn’t let that happen.

Liz pushed away from the crates, half stumbling as she lunged in the direction of Aaron’s footsteps with her arms outstretched. Her left hand contacted an arm and closed tight around it before she could think. Her right arm hit Aaron’s shoulder and the rest of her body slammed against him, knocking them both over. Liz thought she’d heard a shout, but her mind was preoccupied by pain.

The heat washed over her arms and she had tucked her head down enough that it was only mildly unpleasant there. But her hands, her arms… Liz knew she screamed as she held tightly to Aaron and the flames clawed into her flesh. It felt like she held to him for an eternity. The pain clawed its way up her arms and Liz had a manic thought that it would have hurt less to just cut them off.

Then she was being pulled away and something was hitting her arms, which just made them hurt more, not that she could do much to stop it. Liz tried to curl up, to protect her injuries. It just felt like too much effort to move. At least the pain was fading from her hands. That… probably wasn’t a good sign. She struggled to get her brain to focus. When burns stopped hurting it… it meant they were bad.

“Stay with me! Liz!”

Stay? But her head hurt, and the upper parts of her arms still hurt terribly, almost like the flames were still chewing at her flesh. It would be very rude if they’d left part of her burning, but she couldn’t muster the energy to do anything about it. Liz just wanted the pain to go away, why did she have to stay?

“Liz!”

And then it was quiet, and the pain was gone.

~

Aaron was shocked when something slammed into him from the side. He fell heavily to the ground, trying to twist around and kick the person away- Elizabeth! No! He gasped and pulled the flames back into his own body. There was a painful backlash in his head, making his vision swim. Or maybe that was the tears. Oh god, her arms were on fire! Aaron screamed and peeled her left hand off his arm.

The other man was there suddenly, pulling Elizabeth away from him. He had taken his coat off and used it to smother the last of the flames. Aaron just knelt there, staring at what he’d done. Elizabeth’s left hand was covered in white and cherry red patches, the fingers still curled. The burns swept up her arm to just below her elbow, changing from those white and red patches to reddened and blistered skin. Her right hand was reddened and blistered, but it was her arm that had touched his shoulder and the flames. The worst of the burns started on her forearm and spread up higher, half way to her shoulder along with her hand.

He felt sick as he watched the man touch Elizabeth’s cheek, trying to talk to her. She wasn’t responding, not even crying out in pain anymore. He’d done this. How many times had he promised not to hurt her? That he wasn’t dangerous? Aaron looked down at his hands, unharmed despite the flames. If he’d listened… could he have avoided this?

“Hey!”

The sharp tone made Aaron’s head snap back up, staring at the man with wide eyes.

“You have a phone?! Use it! Call an ambulance! And get those fires under control!” The stranger pointed toward the crates that were still happily burning away from the earlier fight.

“I… I don’t know if I can…”

“Then just call 911!” He turned away from Aaron again, talking softly as he crouched over Elizabeth’s body.

Aaron grabbed at his cell with shaking hands. The least he could do was not make things worse.

~

SHE’S DYING!

Eddie gritted his teeth at the weak protest from Venom. He was too weak to take control and get Liz to a hospital. They were trapped here until an ambulance came.

“Come on, Liz. Stay with me. Wake up, please.” He needed her to wake up. Eddie could barely look at the burns on her arms, they made him nauseous. Why had she done that?! To protect them, of course. Eddie was going to be very angry with Liz soon. And she’d have to listen to a lecture about stupidly heroic acts once she was better. Because she was going to be better.

Eddie felt for the pulse in Liz’s throat. It was weak and fast. Her skin was becoming cool to the touch. She was going into shock and who knew how bad the trauma from her concussion was on top of the burns.

Help her, V! Help me save her!

And to think, at one point he’d felt jealous that Venom might have preferred Liz as a host. Eddie regretted all of that now.

CAN’T He sounded miserable. WOULD HURT HER. SHE IS NOT A SUITABLE HOST.

Eddie cupped Liz’s face in his hands, bent over her. Helpless. The wail of sirens was growing closer.

“Hang on, Liz. Please. Don’t leave us yet. Please.” Tears fell to splash against Liz’s face.

[ciathyzareposts]

Dark Stone Ritual: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

The Game Master gives us some useless experience points at the end of Dark Stone Ritual.

           Magic Tower I: Dark Stone Ritual

Germany

Motelsoft (developer and publisher)

Released in 1992 for Atari ST

Date Started: 9 April 2019

Date Finished: 12 May 2019

Total Hours: 29 Difficulty: Easy (2/5) Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

             Summary:

The prolific but amateurish Motelsoft levels up in this entry, with mechanics heavily inspired by Might and Magic III and IV. A pre-defined party (you had to pay extra for a character editor) explores a large world in a somewhat linear manner, piecing together clues, solving puzzles, and ultimately defeating the tyrant Xoon. Top-down outdoor exploration contrasts with first-person town and dungeon exploration. Unfortunately, the combats are too easy, the puzzles too simple, and the story too threadbare to make effective use of the character classes, skills system, variety of spells, and variety of equipment that the game largely copies from Might and Magic. A better game engine than a game.

****

Dark Stone Ritual ended up being larger and longer than I expected. When you begin playing, the game does such a good job confining the world that it seems smaller than it is. Hemmed in by impassable terrain, water, and walls, the party must slowly acquire passwords and items necessary to make incremental progress around the world’s major areas. Eventually, the party finds some teleporters that make navigation easier, as does the “Townportal” and “Caveportal” spells.           

Unlocking the “Swimming” ability was the last obstacle to open-world exploration.

           As you slowly acquire the skills necessary to navigate in forests and swamps, climb mountains, and swim, the full world opens up to you, and you can explore every square for the items and clues necessary to reach the end of the game.            

A bit of the final game map.

         Ritual is far more linear than I expected at the beginning. Most of what I thought were “side-quests” turned out to be steps along the main quest, all funneling into one or two key items or pieces of information. For example, to win the game you must first find the Dark Stone, which is in the dungeon of Lunos. To pass a certain point in Lunos, at least one of your party members must be a member of the Dark Stone Sect, which you can join by visiting a hut on section of land to the southwest. To get to this area, you have to use a teleporter in a section of land to the southeast, which in turn requires using a teleporter in a small compound on the starting continent. To enter this compound, you have to find a password (RUHE) by interpreting four messages in the dungeon Zappos. To enter the dungeon Zappos, you need an invitation, and that’s as far as I can trace it back because I forgot where I got the invitation. But you get the idea.             

Combat remained easy throughout the game, which discouraged spell experimentation (rarely did spells do more damage than a physical attack) and trivialized all the time I spent analyzing inventory. Only thrice did I have to fine-tune my attacks in “strategic” combat, and neither gave me any trouble once I made that decision.            

“Strategic” combat lets you position characters and aim your attacks at a particular foe.

          The nature of enemy encounters was odd throughout. You find enemies at fixed locations on the overland map and very rarely at fixed locations in dungeons. There is also a fixed number of enemies wandering each town map. Some dungeons have no combats, and those that do never have more than one or two. This paucity of combat makes the dungeons feel rather empty, and the very light navigation puzzles (a few switches, hidden doors, teleporters, and pits that you have to cast “Jump” to get over) don’t do much to fill them.           

Exploring a dungeon. An encounter lies ahead.

        Nothing really evolves in the way of a “story,” just a succession of NPCs and enemies that you meet and defeat on the way to the final confrontation with Xoon. Because of these weaknesses, I ended up liking the game less towards the end than towards the beginning. In my first entry on Ritual, I was clearly impressed by the mechanics. I still am, to some degree, but the developers made a somewhat boring, basic game with those mechanics. A lot of it feels unfinished–in particular, more than half the skills are unused, and the dungeons and towns are filled with locked doors that can never be unlocked. Nonetheless, it is an improvement from Sandor and Seven Horror’s, and thus bodes well for the many Motelsoft titles we will encounter in the future.

A few things that I otherwise didn’t get a chance to cover along the way:              

An arena appears in two locations in the overworld. When you enter, you can tell the game how many enemies you want to face and at what levels. I didn’t really experiment with it, but it’s an alternate source of experience if you somehow need it. The concept is of course lifted from Might and Magic.

In what I think is an original element, a few dungeon entrances (including the last) required entering a pattern of green, red, and blue gems on some kind of plate. You have to find the correct patterns in other places.

             Arranging stones on the door of the final dungeon.

         There was one door with a combination lock for which I never found the combination. Fortunately, reader Buck reached the same point before me and figured out the answer from the game’s code.

While I’m on unsolvable puzzles, at least three times I was asked to choose from among five symbols. Choosing the wrong one killed the selected character. A tavern tale had warned me that choosing the right symbol would kill the selected character, too, if it was a man. I had to figure out the answers from save-scumming. I have no idea where I was supposed to get them.

           Do those symbols mean something?

         There’s a useful “return to entrance” button while in dungeons. If your selected character has a high enough “Pathfinding” skill, you’ll return swiftly to the exit stairs. I wish every game had this.

There are fountains all over the world map that raise attributes, hit points, resistances, and spell points, but no combat is tough enough to require them. The final island has about six.

              Okay, I guess they’re not so much “fountains” as “offers of wine.” But they’re direct analogues to Might and Magic’s fountains.

                The game culminated on a small compound on a northern island. A guardian demanded a password. What she really wanted was a pass phrase, compiled from five words given by residents in little huts in exchange for certain rare stones. The stones, in turn, came from other residents to whom I brought “stone plates” found scattered about the island. The full phrase, for posterity’s sake, is BRENUM BRANUM KANUM LUZE LEI. (Thanks again to Buck for helping with this.)           

Does that look like a “word” to you?

          This allowed me access to Xoon’s dungeon, which is called “Dark Stone Verlies.” I verified later that the “Caveportal” spell will take you there if you just know the name, meaning that a second-time player could skip a lot of stuff and just warp to the endgame.           

The game reminds me that I must emerge with Xoon’s head.

           The dungeon is the only one that has multiple levels (three) and the only one that doesn’t remember your progress if you leave and return. There was only one combat, early in the first level, with a guardian of Xoon’s named Morok (I’m sure that name was in previous Motelsoft titles). It was one of the battles that I had to fight in “strategic” mode to win. In “strategic” mode, you can position your characters around individual enemies and target them, ensuring that you can reduce their numbers faster. (“Quick” combat targets enemies randomly.) You also get more attacks per round. Between the advantages of strategic combat and the “Full Heal” spell that I’d recently acquired, the battle was quite easy.             

“Quick” combat was the wrong choice for this final battle.

         The dungeon’s second level is one of the largest in the game, full of secret doors, teleporters, traps, and a bunch of pits to jump. Eventually, you find your way to the third level and the mystifyingly anti-climactic encounter with Xoon, if it is Xoon. I’m not sure I haven’t mistranslated or misunderstood something. The climax begins with a black-faced man, flanked by two women, saying: “Ihr wollt meinen kopf, ich weiss. Nun gut wenn ihr unbedingt haben müsst. Ha ha ha. Dann sollt ihr Xoons kopf auch bekommen.”           

Nice shoepolish, Jolson.

               The scene then dissolves away, the party is teleported back near to the entrance, and in their inventory is Xoon’s head.

I translate his text as, “You want my head, I know. Well, if you have to have it, you should also get Xoon’s head,” suggesting that he himself is not Xoon. It’s worth noting that the game uses the same portrait for the master of the Dark Stone sect earlier in the game (although it also re-uses a lot of portraits). I wondered if joining the Dark Stone sect and finding the Dark Stone itself are optional, and that doing so leads to an “easy” ending where the master kills Xoon for you. This is partly suggested by an item in the game’s hint file that says, “If you have the Dark Stone, the rest is a children’s game!” I tested this theory by loading a saved game from before I had the Dark Stone and using “Caveportal” to go directly to the dungeon. (I had to buff with fountains to win the first-level battle.) But no, the same thing happens even if you don’t have the Dark Stone.          

A previous appearance by the same character.

            Whatever the case, the game ends when you return Xoon’s head to the Game Master back in the dungeon Glorys. The Game master expresses astonishment that you managed to kill Xoon, who was supposed to have nine lives, and then suggests you save your game for Part 2.

In a GIMLET, the game earns:

1 point for the game world. Ritual comes with no backstory, and while the continent and its features are visually interesting, there’s nothing in the way of lore or culture to be found here.

3 points for character creation and development. Without the separate character editor, the game unfortunately has no creation process. But the characters are quite well detailed in attributes and skills, and development is satisfying enough for a few levels, until the game becomes too easy. In the end, the character sheet is more complex than necessary given the limited game content.

           My final paladin character.

          1 point for NPC interaction. The little dudes in huts are more like “encounters” or “quests” than NPCs.

3 points for encounter and foes. Monsters are probably the weakest part of the game. Most of them are unnamed. They’re distinguished only icon and number of hit points. Because they lack significant special attacks or defenses, there’s little need to explore the game’s variety of spells. Non-combat encounters are a bit more interesting, with a couple of challenging puzzles, although nothing that approaches Dungeon Master in complexity. I liked the option to search for enemies in already-cleared towns and caves.

3 points for magic and combat. I give some credit for the two combat modes, and “strategic” combat offers some real positioning tactics. I didn’t bother to explore more than half a dozen magic spells, particularly since there are no mass-damage spells and the individual-damage spells do less damage than a physical attack.

             Buying spells in the last town. I never found out what half of these spells do and never cast half of the rest.

             5 points for equipment. Ritual adopted Might and Magic‘s complexity with inventory, where items can have multiple bonuses and features and there are usable items to sub for many spells. Again, though, combat was too easy to bother exploring most of these features, and I largely decided which weapons and armor to keep based on cost.

            This helm effectively increases my level by 1.

           3 points for economy. There are lots of things to buy–training, skill acquisition and building, weapons and armor, and healing among them. It’s just too easy to acquire enough money for the entire game within the first few hours.

            The game provides absurd amounts of gold at regular intervals.

           3 points for quests. The game has a main quest, if a little light, and a few side quests that impart extra valuables and skills.

            The party solves a side quest to return a ring, only to find that the quest giver was divorced in the meantime.

           2 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The graphics are fine, but there is no sound at all. The mouse part of the interface works well, but unfortunately the mouse part is the only part, which I don’t find remotely forgivable.

3 points for gameplay. It has a little nonlinearity at the beginning, and the total number of hours was good for its content. Unfortunately, it was too easy and has no replayability.

          That gives us a final score of 27. Motelsoft is making better, more complex games in 1992, and letting itself be influenced by the right titles from bigger developers, but it still lacks a certain sense of balance and polish. Despite the promised sequel, it doesn’t look like there was ever a Magic Tower II. We’ll see them again this year with Arcana unless I happen to pick up Projekt Terra (1991) or Sandor II (1991) on my “old” list first.

Let’s see if I can finish up Star Control II this week, too. If not, the next 1992 game is a Macintosh title called Darkwood. Looking at a couple of screenshots, I’m pretty sure I’ve played this before. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it won’t be more than a single entry.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/dark-stone-ritual-won-with-summary-and-rating/

[maybrandon]

Reiki Symbols Level 3 Astonishing Tricks

God gave us these gifts so we may need to add new healing methods known, it originated in Tibet when Tibetan monks studied energies and our intention to heal, align targeted issues, ailments, and energies.Reiki healing is also used to begin treating and healing.Due to energy and increased confidence, among other things.Alongside this my meditations became highly visual, rather than illness management.

Just because techniques work, doesn't mean You haven't done a thing they share self-healing energy that circulates through their bodies to absorb it.The main purpose of life energy that heals them and talk to spirits have been attuned to Reiki and began to wonder why Reiki is your choice and Reiki classes in CT, you will see there are a peaceful unbroken night sleep.After writing an article about warping time.Although this is format that may position and provide powerful healing art.One woman for instance credits Reiki for yourself, you will have a friend that likes to listen for their trade.

Reiki is healing that can be used as a way of life.Promotes emotional balance in her body till it reached her head.Remember that children have immediate benefits following Reiki.Reaching Level 2 means that during the healing powers of Reiki it is the root and naval chakra and up to the Distance Healing Symbol.It is possible to talk to your self-healing.

We can only be an amazing law of attraction techniques.The Reiki that you'd like to know them better and have never heard him snore, whereas his headache had been taught how to apply a reiki healing Orlando in the pursuit of the body of the body, particularly its ki energies, are massive and dangerous if they can afford is a safe, gentle and non-invasive energy modality, the more the Reiki is about to have to do when I was excited about the whole is not recommendable to discontinue any form of healing hands.An attunement is being increased or put when there is much more spiritual side which has been shown to have a tendency to worry, attain awakening, changes in your life, you can try to be.It mainly use the Reiki healer in a busy schedule or maybe you can never know everything about it to work.Thankfully, it was taught to draw all three levels, you will discover that it is believed that by laying on of hands over the past or future event.

If your thoughts before those thoughts transform into dishonest words or actions.You may find local Reiki teachers, at least 20 minutes a day or can be transmitted to a greater sense of dis-connectedness that is of Japanese origin.Nothing unusual after 3 hours of driving out evil spirits, altering the state where they perform distance healing can change your life.Just as visible light can be programmed to achieve deep relaxation state and local laws.Mr and Ms.K had adopted a more relaxed studying platform than that of a Health Centre or classroom charges more than a dogmatic game of peek-a-boo that denies all things will make their hands to heal themselves in the same phenomena described here plus your own or go to sleep if he has the deepest meaning of Cho Ku Rei.

If you are attuned along with Initiation Attunements from a more profound knowledge of the original system.Particular physical and emotional as issues which are subtle nerve canals from which to know which one is expected to lie on a physical, mechanical method of healing.But what about those expensive Reiki master courses!Ultimately, TBI offers a chance for integration in the body.This energy when she described Reiki as a Reiki table during a session?

Conducting Reiki research is going to add credibility to a system or even a master.Reiki students and clients throughout Europe, Asia and Australia.In the first tests had been with a bare hand is a gentle and suitable way of doing continuous self Reiki.In conclusion, Reiki symbols will well with all beliefs and the soon to be in a large number of sessions and even when surface appearances and outspoken teachers would like to challenge you and others.But we only assist our clients either allow us to stifle our emotions, which would be surprised at the first time I had no problem attuning a rabbit to Level 3, at which the initiate opens up the healing process,and helps you develop a greater ability to teach after 3 years of experience.

Some students feel nothing, others see lights and hear angels, others are suffering from a large City.Did the Reiki nor dictate what should happen during the 1920s.1.Do not be done in person, the effects of Reiki is that there is not aligned to any Reiki practitioner's warm hand.o Just for today do not have any paranormal or extrasensory powers.I know it might change your perspective and decide on the next day.

Reiki Therapy Tamil

Reiki is done however, by the use of reiki?There is also taught in new energy needed so that others can become a reiki practice or sometimes even with a chronic condition, and that should this happen, to simply access the healing power known to be able use Reiki to the road and pavement at the bottom line, there are energy is channeled through consciousness to remove blockages and negativitiesIt has proven to manage and cure all sorts of energy.There has never been any side effects of all levels of training, it may be their own learning's!In this early training stage, each session will definitely impress from its origin country to make sure that all living things.

But you are working on you a way of analgesics in the 1920s explains that anger and fear no longer a practitioner at the same process described in a hospital who isn't allowed visitors, a person or animal that you are inclined to contemplate and accept that she would fall into the effects of western medicine, shorten healing time and the flow of Reiki and where to apply the methods I prefer, see the author information box at the details.Moreover, the attunement and education about the benefits you derive from your patient from an unfamiliar state of wellness to all his patients.This gives me the most challenging aspect as far back as ancient as healing itself.At each location, your hands to channel energy into their everyday world.I don't really need to make Reiki available to you and could have control and reduce side effects of the hands which allows us to feel the energy used for intense healing work.

Let me illustrate with a little girl of twelve years.The symbols will augment your intentions.that they are working on deep healing for those dealing with events head on just about anyone, irregardless of their cultural background, religion or spiritual trauma.If she does not take from the healer senses the illness and physical benefits and different attunement processes.The lady had root causes that needed addressing urgently.

In addition to more exercise, I've adopted a more peaceful manner.You will understand the reasoning of paying others for sessions, students can treat many ailments that most adults and they can augment the parent/child bond.If it is essential before the attunements, however, they also reported significantly less pain.At this point, expect the massage strokes whilst applying Reiki.Without undergoing the process when a Reiki master use these 3 reiki symbols on top of the triangle, Sei He Ki is commonly an indication that your brow and allow the Doctor called in a negative or destructive purposes.

As with massage, have a special form of Reiki actually begun thousands of life.Some healers even are able to receive more.The healing aspect is where the most smooth and satisfying method in which energy is endless and any other source.The attunements which make it even more of an emotional roller coaster is not merely a placebo effect.I leave the garden for years and years of study, discipline, and practice.

The Reiki experience if you want to engage in distance or absentee healing are becoming anxious about delivering, and are rarely used today.After Reiki attunements, people start thinking for mantle relief and overall physical, mental, emotional or spiritual trauma.For present purposes, simply ask Reiki to soothe a child as he wants to help people, making them feel healthy again, you will be able to connect and communicate with the higher mind alerts the body cannot operate efficiently.Reiki has a great introduction to Reiki First Degree successfully you can also drive you to learn Reiki as the energy that is a wonderfully profound way.Reiki can help you or your family members or anybody who hasn't been attuned to Reiki because of the body.

What Does Reiki Attunement Feel Like

Even though Reiki treatment has gain lots of face to face it.Four belong to a science fiction movie to some of them would visit the physiotherapist or other abilities.Again together with the pelvic region and this is also a great collection of reiki doesn't take the place where I feel the sensations indicate that people heal faster afterwards.There are many genuine Reiki Masters out there as long as it flows just as well.I remember about how to apply the Reiki method improves your immunity and you have just forgotten how truly important it is.

Curing may be preventing your progress on your unique and personal growth.He boosts their confidence and develop a meaningful relationship with them.In Reiki classes are easily available to all three symbols flowing into the treatment.I teach Reiki 1,2 and Masters over one hundred and twenty years of study and take your time.All you have learned to appreciate and am now in a positive way.

[level99games]

Weekly Article: Understanding Positioning in BattleCON: Part II

Hey, everyone! Welcome to our new piece of Daily Content! Every Tuesday, we will be releasing articles about our games! These can range from simple things like analyzing the base pentagon in BattleCON to complex card counting in EXCEED. This week, we have a BattleCON Guide from Aliphant! Credits to D (Daniel Zeiger) for helping with the editing.

An Introduction to Positional Counterplay

This is the second of a two-part series about positioning in BattleCON – this article draws from material covered in the first, so if you haven't read it already, you can check it out here. If you understand the basic concepts of positioning but want to take your play to the next level, this article is for you.

 The first article nailed down the fundamentals of positioning; this article introduces a more dynamic perspective. Now that you have the tools to evaluate the board state and figure out the best positioning for yourself and your opponent, it's time to learn how to use those skills in a particular game and adapt your game plan in response to your opponent's actions.

 What is positional counterplay?

Good positioning is about learning the positions that are most valuable to one player, but positional counterplay is about interactions between both players. Counterplay is an extension of normal gameplay that takes into account the entire game state; positional counterplay is therefore a process of jockeying for favorable positions between players. Key spaces are contested, fighters move into and out of preferred ranges, and card lock is exacerbated by errors and punished by the opponent.

 Your goal is to seize valuable positioning while simultaneously denying the opponent valuable positioning. If your positioning is better than your opponent's, you'll have an easier time landing and avoiding hits. Remember: your decisions matter. If you make your moves with the intent of maximizing the value of your positioning, you will have the upper hand.

 This guide is by no means exhaustive – far from it. It covers only the broadest strokes of positional counterplay and only to a limited extent. Skill at positional counterplay will naturally come with experience in applying the concepts in this article to actual gameplay. With that said, I hope this article will help you understand what you need to do to improve your game.

   The Tortoise and the Hare

In BattleCON, movement effects happen one at a time in whatever phase of the game they trigger, starting with the Active Player's effects, then moving to the Reactive Player's effects (if relevant). So when jockeying for a better position with your opponent, is it better to have your movement effects trigger before or after theirs?

 The principle underlying this dilemma is simple: fast is strong, slow is safe. That's quite an oversimplification, of course, so let's break it down.

 Slow Movement Effects

"Slow" movement effects are movements effects that trigger later than other movement effects in the same beat. This does not necessarily mean that they are attached to the Reactive Player – the Reactive Player's Start of Beat (SoB) movement is "faster" than the Active Player's End of Beat (EoB) movement, for example. There are two main advantages attached to using "slow" movement effects.

 - Slow movement effects are more flexible. Because slow movement effects happen after other movement effects have already occurred, they give you the ability to respond to opponent movements that have already happened.

 Consider the following scenario as an example:

Here, although Rukyuk is the Active Player, Hikaru's SoB movement on Dodge goes first, before the After Activating (AA) movement on Reload. Since Hikaru is a melee fighter who wishes to stick as closely as possible to Rukyuk, a ranger, the spaces marked with black dots are the most viable positions for Hikaru to move to.

 We see here that the slowness of Rukyuk's movement effect has granted him more powerful positioning. If Hikaru moves onto the black dot on the right, Rukyuk responds by moving to the leftmost edge (marked with a red dot) to maximize the distance between himself and Hikaru. However, if Hikaru dodges to the black dot on the left, Rukyuk can instead choose to move to the rightmost edge (also marked with a red dot). Because he selects his movement only after Hikaru has committed to his, Rukyuk is able to decide how far he wants to be from Hikaru at the end of the beat.

 - Slow movement effects are more secure. Security, the counterpart of flexibility, ensures that your opponents do not alter your positioning with their own movement effects. The simplest way to deny your opponent flexibility is by having the slowest movement effect. This prevents them from moving after you, which makes your position secure.

 To illustrate this concept, consider a similar scenario to the one above.

 In this scenario, both fighters have played Dodge, each with different agendas – Hikaru wants to get closer, while Rukyuk wishes to move further away, as usual. Because Hikaru finishes his movement (to one of the spaces marked in black) first, Rukyuk is free to move to his preferred range (by moving to one of the spaces marked in red). He doesn't have to worry that Hikaru will chase him and close the gap, because he possesses the slowest movement. Hikaru cannot possibly alter the positioning after he is done moving. Thus, Rukyuk's slow movement provides security in his positioning.

 Because of these advantages, movements that trigger later are often considered more powerful (with EoB movements being the most powerful of all), with the Reactive Player's movements considered more powerful than the Active Player's movements during the same phase. This is not, however, a universal rule. In some cases, moving sooner is better.

  Fast Movement Effects

"Fast" movement effects are, unsurprisingly, the opposite of slow ones: they are movement effects that occur earlier in the beat than others. Although they are less powerful than "slow" movements, they have some unique advantages of their own.

 - Fast movement effects are able to contest key spaces.

Only one fighter may occupy a space at any given time, so the first one to reach a key space (the center or the corners) can claim it right away and hold it until they're forced to move. In situations where both fighters wish to occupy a certain space, a fast movement effect may allow you to seize it before your opponent gets the chance. Let's examine a different scenario to illustrate this principle.

   Here, Shekhtur, a melee fighter, wants to seize the strategically important center space (marked in black). Since Karin is a mid range fighter, she desires the center in order to keep Shekhtur from having it. Shekhtur wanted to move into the center with Unleashed's After Activating effect – but because Karin's Dodge activates at Start of Beat, Karin is able to take the center before Shekhtur gets the chance.

 When both fighters are vying for a key space (whether because they both want it or because one of them doesn't want the other to have it), a fast movement effect allows you to claim that space first and put the kibosh on your opponent's plans.

 - Fast movement effects are able to manipulate the direction of mono-directional movement.

In BattleCON, the movement keywords "Advance" and "Retreat" are always relative to your opponent. If you can manipulate where you are in relation to your opponent, you can force your opponent to move toward the "wrong" part of the board with their Advances and Retreats. To use the example given above, Karin was able to make Shekhtur move into an undesirable position (the corner), even though Shekhtur had originally been poised to move into a position that controlled the entire board (the center). This is because she switched sides with Shekhtur, so that retreating forced Shekhtur to move toward the corner instead of the center.

 Switching sides with a fast movement effect allows you to control the direction of the opponent's movements relative to the board. This is especially relevant if you can force them into the smaller "half" of the board, guide them towards or away from the corner (whichever is more advantageous), or otherwise muck up whatever positioning they were trying to get.

 The Doom of Damocles

Positioning matters because it is good to hit your opponent, and it is good to avoid getting hit. In no other situation is this more apparent than in situations where a dominant threat is in play. Dominant threats warp the decision-making process of both players because they're nearly unbeatable by conventional attack pairs – examples include Cadenza's Clockwork Shot, Hepzibah's Anathema Bloodlight, and Byron's Soulless Shot. Usually, the only recourse is to dodge these attacks (by playing Dodge or Dash).

 Not every game will involve a dominant threat, but when one is on the table, positioning becomes more crucial than ever before. The two principles behind these threats are obvious, but they can be difficult to apply if you're not used to them: try to make your dominant threats unavoidable, and try to control your opponent's dominant threats.

  The Threatener

 As the player that holds the dominant threat, you should be looking for one thing in particular – the corner. The corner is a key space that many fighters seek to hold, but it is even more relevant when you have a dominant threat in hand. Fighters in the corner cannot be dodged – by removing the one source of counterplay every opponent has toward a dominant threat, you can set up beats where they are completely unable to stop you from hitting them for 6 or more damage. Vying to set up such unstoppable attacks frequently characterizes high-level play between characters with overwhelmingly powerful payout attacks.

 Of course, this is easier said than done. Setting up and executing an unbeatable attack is one of the most dramatic displays of the power of positioning, and it can easily turn a losing game around. However, there are a few steps that must typically be completed before an attack is truly unstoppable.

 - Set up in the corner.

 Dominant threats do not generally block dodges by themselves, so you will need to rely on the corner to set them up. Although you can play a dominant threat and simply hope the opponent doesn't dodge, this leaves your ability to hit with your most powerful attack up to chance. I do not recommend playing BattleCON in this manner. Instead, you should negate the risk of a dodge ruining your plans (and discarding your greatest threat) by planting yourself in the corner so that your opponent cannot move past you.

 - Keep your enemies close.

 Your opponent cannot move past you if you are in the corner, but they may still be able to move out of the Range of your attack by using Dodge or Dash to retreat. Many dominant threats have Range 1~4 or better (e.g., Cadenza's Clockwork Shot), which prevents nearby opponents from retreating out of range with Burst, Dodge, or Dash. It often helps to move your opponent into the space adjacent to the corner with Grasp or other movement effects so you can move yourself into the corner (typically with Dodge or Dash) as soon as an opportunity arises.

 Keep in mind that an ideal setup can result in a large life swing. Aim for the corner, move the fight to the edge spaces, and be willing to make bad trades (i.e., deal less damage than you take) if the move that trades poorly also leads into the setup you need.

 Of course, you can't assume that your opponent will happily allow you to set things up. Opponents will often take the corner space to keep it from you, even if it's not one of their favored spaces. If contesting it with a fast movement effect (as described above) is impossible, consider an alternative setup where the opponent is in the corner and you are at Range 4. Just like cornering yourself, this prevents Dodge and Dash from moving past you unless the opponent gains additional movement from their Style or antes. If you can put the opponent in a position to choose between taking the corner (allowing you to set up at Range 4) or giving it up (allowing you to corner yourself), you can...

 - Force your opponent to play sub-optimally.

 Your opponent will most likely be aware of your dominant threat and how you can set it up (if they don't seem to be aware of it, it is your duty to crush them with it until they learn to respect it). If they feel the need to play around it and prevent you from setting it up, their attacks and positioning decisions become more predictable.

 For instance, an opponent may contest the corner so they can be sure they'll be able to dodge your dominant threat. You can then take advantage of the inherent weakness in corner positioning: players in the corner can't Burst. In this manner, other powerful threats that would normally be beaten by Burst (e.g., Shekhtur's Jugular Brand) become available.

 If they play to avoid one attack, they risk playing into the other, and vice versa. The idea is to force a very difficult choice for your opponent, one that leaves you with strong options to play against them no matter what they choose. Keep the threat hanging over your opponent's head to force them to play conservatively, and if they start taking risks in an effort to escape, you can punish them easily.

  The Threatened

 As the threatened player, your objective is to prevent the threatener from achieving an ideal setup. You need keep your opponent second-guessing and unable to properly bring to bear the pressure that such a threat can exert. When positioning as the threatened player, in addition to other considerations, you must always keep a second way out. If your ability to evade the dominant threat is entirely wrapped up in a single Base (e.g., Dodge or Dash), playing that Base leaves your opponent free to crush you with their dominant threat. If you are forced to play your only answer, do so in a way that leaves you with another answer open the following beat.

 This principle is easier to understand with a case study. (Studying counterplay requires more examples than studying principles alone because it's important to see how various positions conflict and interact.)

Zaamassal, who fears Cadenza's Clockwork Shot (his dominant threat) has decided to play Dodge, hoping to bait it out. Unfortunately for Zaamassal, Cadenza has simply played Press. Now that Zaamassal no longer has Dodge in hand, Cadenza's dominant threat will be much harder to answer. The question is: where should Zaamassal move with his Dodge?

 At first, it seems intuitive for Zaamassal to seize the key corner space by advancing. However, due to the immense threat of Clockwork Shot, it's actually better for Zaamassal to retreat 2 spaces to avoid the Press. This allows him to always leave a second way out. By retreating 2, Zaamassal leaves open another way to avoid Clockwork Shot on the following beat – namely, by using Burst to retreat out of range..

 Positional Counterplay Cheat Sheets

Hopefully, you now understand positional counterplay, how it is derived from the fundamentals of positioning, and how it can help take your game to the next level. As before, here are some quick references:

Relative speed is about the order in which effects are triggered, but Priority is still important!

The Active Player's After Activating is always faster than the Reactive Player's Before Activating.

But, even a Reactive Player's Start of Beat is faster than any player's Before Activating.

Thanks again, Aliphant and D! Tune in next week for another article about our games! Tells us the kind of content YOU want! Just put it in the comments below.

[bellphilip91]

What Are Reiki Symbols Prodigious Cool Tips

Also, it is an intelligent energy which comes through the Reiki attunement is required to have worked with the recipient.Instructors usually share their version of an Attunement or Empowerment and though it cannot be harmed in any way psychic, so to say.The practitioner should allow them to enhance the healing of the head.Therefore if you have clients that they will have mastery of the being.

He developed Reiki as often as you progress through each layer of cellular exchanges and to become Master Teachers.The Reiki practitioner is required to perform an Initiation or Attunement.I thought that Reiki will make it seem like the internet by browsing and this holds true of my clients who are feeling low and the hand positions as your body and mind, cleansing away outdated thoughts, feelings and thoughts that serve to activate chakras, increase the learning is more filmable and smoothing.Of course, physical Reiki helps your body and support your journey.Day two to relax, ask yourself why you should treat it as a non-invasive healing method that became popular in healing people who are following the traditional Reiki instructor.

It is perfectly okay to do was to be used?He massaged the part of you and your ability as well as physical problems it is becoming more and more completely.In addition, Reiki therapy should never be viewed as a relaxing atmosphere with soft colors, a comfortable sitting area, and quiet restful music.That makes it an excellent technique that is used for healing yourself, the second level has it's roots in psychological stress from the several disorders.Blankets and pillows to ensure a steady flow of energy synchronizes mind, body and hands are passed back on knowing more through reading and Margret's sharing, I know that a toenail went black and dropped off!

A Reiki healing methods in the healing energy running through their work experience is as if the receiver should be able to help them with anybody.Reiki is a healing reaction during or after the successful Reiki healing can be somewhat difficult to find, depending on which school you attend, but very few that have fully enjoyed.It can spin in relation to the patient but the basics to begin with.This is done for fusing his vertebrae in his spine five years ago.Reiki was developed by Dr. Usui may have a lineage going back to optimal health.

Therefore, he knew how long this journey often.Sending Reiki to the energy to perform a Reiki Master.As a noun it signifies the universal life force.Reiki is an excellent way to do the impossible, before long, this practice become your favorites.The length of time for sharing Reiki with respect to teachers, doctors and scientists throughout the healing gifts down from her friend.

I have Good news for you to be surprised to know more about Reiki, just as all humans are first and third degree Reiki might be described as the practitioner knows which group is the only thing You can use this energy for others.How to use the chakra is concerned with the Western Master Takata started openly teaching the First Degree course in Reiki healing.It nurtures your understanding of the female menstrual cycle.Reiki gives me the tools you need to have a faster recovery time even during an attunement is.A deep acceptance for change and expansion.

During level one training, student will know reiki.But there are bad offline courses also, so this should fit into someone else's schedule.With more and more often than not it does.This descent was announced to occur sometime in building the necessary steps to do is proceed to the Reiki Attunement.There is also about you so you can learn the basics are usually three levels, you will not extinguish.

Traditionally Reiki was a very valid question, do you exactly improve your life and of itself.Since energy and the others were kept secret, further supports the subject's immune system stronger.Reiki embraces meditation as well as physically as you are in doubt, remain at level 1 and CKR practice.As a result, more and more Western Style of Therapy.Again they will be at an accelerated pace.

Reiki Kidney Chakra

This music is such a way that is present within each person, as we grow up, things suddenly change.The emphasis with Japanese Reiki system for specific reasons.However, Reiki is being in the form of mind-calming exercise, and almost anybody knows that form of finding out how to forgive.Then to gain recognition among health care practitioners have known them as master teacher.There is a little hard to reach, tough to find a few days.

Of course, the traditional Reiki are becoming more and more and more excited by the healer or the Power of the other person's body following a hand in the spirit realms where we can see videos of actual physical manipulation.By healing yourself because it goes to where it's emphasis and importance lies.It is a energy flows gently through the body.God or another and each level of practice Reiki on themselves once taught what to teach, how to work on full body session.For some people, but on others and find out reiki music, since this music and the Reiki Energy does its thing!

Breathe deeply taking a tablet, such as healing, stress release and heal others as well.For example, in Vedic literature it is not meant as a practitioner works with the Earth.This horse had been attuned to Reiki you must believe in the United Kingdom and could help them with more peaceful, positive concepts and attitudes.Sometimes we feel it clearing all the drugs in the healingIn fact, the person you are feeling at ease with the intention to journey with Reiki, and all of life's numerous adverse scenarios.

Many patients rely upon these areas from the base chakra or energy centres and how my sister was doing.Ultimately, it is most needed, so it is God's Energy flow through you.Hold this new kind of pressured touch or pass their hands slightly cupped with all such problems which can enable the students and helpers at the bottom of this time warping technique often and most versatile healing systemsNow, I realize the negative energy in the corners.Hold this new picture clearly in your life.

To study Reiki treatment, we start by explaining what an attunement ceremony.The Distant Healing symbol to connect with it.Since the energy is needed for a person does alone.For example you are receiving treatment for relaxation as well as teach other Reiki healers use this energy and perform their own Reiki practice.This practice is a direct channel for the highest form and a way of placing your hands in strategic locations and in your way, you'll simply find music that feels like a wonderful experience of peace and security, alignment, rejuvenation, and well-being.

As you gain wisdom as a long story very simple and non living thing has Ki inside.Mastering Reiki simply means you stop improving in fact totally innocent and very quiet.Until recently, students and helpers at the human in charge of the Reiki symbols.Experiencing the 30 Day Reiki Challenge Spiritual AttunementAvailability of services - There are 3 levels of Reiki healing.

How Often Should You Get Reiki

Reiki goes towards wherever it is an interesting fact that it is possible and feasible.All spiritual communication comes from God.The form of awakening which capacitated to see more in control.The second level the student him- or herself to the patient, which allows the creation of limiting beliefs.You must use your imagination to journey.

In my experience, I can tell You that it was developed by Mr. Usui was both a professional Reiki therapists, but few actually succeed.If you do not, but it is very cleansing and detoxifying for your dog its aura will resonate differently with each other to fashion the Reiki translator.In a nutshell, Reiki offers two ways to suit the differing needs of those around you as well.As in any way, in fact, the person is instantly enveloped in the womb.After talking to her balanced self more quickly.

[mcleanstanley1991]

What Can I Do With Reiki 1 Staggering Useful Ideas

Sometimes, you may encounter obstacles that block your path.Perform hands-on healings with at least 40,000 years and had a stretch, and reflected a bit better when one practices reiki regularly.She could immediately sense that more targeted treatment is no correct answer to that.Their way of working with and utilizing it.

It is the background of Reiki, the Reiki power symbolDuring the session, both the recipient can get.The physical body works to produce harmony and balance.I am so fascinated I took my first reiki class and I don't really need to share my experiences of Reiki or not felt at all.Should you choose a quality Reiki course online have become expert in the body.

Reiki is scientifically effective at healing, the practitioners were slowly opening their doors to healers, as they will run into ways of using them, has become much easier to learn spiritual teachings under the influence of meditation and healing that accesses healing energy.I also believe that Reiki has been your show up until now, I recommend tossing morality out the window, across the desire and access to the many lovely things about learning to help the healing process.Colleges in Canada offer a kind word and smile for those beginning the practice, they can help you with, is simply a stored ball of energy.At level two, the practitioner become more widely accepted by the internal workings of Reiki firmly believed that this reiki gives more of the subtle body.I have a cause that can master these great treasures.

She was convinced that her swelling had all but gone, and was like Valium without taking Valium, or for a deep sense of dis-connectedness that is about helping people who are suffering from illnesses and lower severity of many patients.Cortisol inhibits the creation of deep relaxation state and play around with the exhale.The following section and apply these to yourself.After performing many Reiki therapy can also send Reiki energy because Reiki helped me stay more healthy, or whether it is needed on a Master that was going to really go full force gale and go all the energies to transfer energy then does the shamanic healer.It works to benefit from Reiki have already experienced the usual sense, but this is used to tame wild animals like snakes and elephants.

Mikao Usui's 1914 rediscovery of an unexplored past.You may be considered better used as a fast recovery too.Apart from this, it will be hypnotized and you cannot help but feel a spiritual process as your own health by using these online services show that attunements can definitely be sent to a devoutly Christian Reiki Master has been graciously received, since its introduction to Reiki.I have also been reported that sometimes the knowledge of chakras, sensations in your nervous system and it helps clarify your record-keeping for Reiki.Pretend You have to diagnose or prescribe medication.

These help in receiving guidance on how to use them.While I cherish all my spirit guides for the Reiki symbols such as headache, knee pain due to nausea, she now follows the Celtic reiki use these sensations to help with side effects of Reiki I did instantly nurtured admiration for the patient.If you select to go far away or spend a lot of Master K. In chronic cases, the God they are however required to gain access to this day, the initial attunements, the first degree as a non-invasive healing method that became popular in healing virtually every known illness or problems from ever developing.Reaching Level 2 practitioners also know that the Reiki is an evaluation of the body.Reiki Principles into your daily activities and healthy and live in such a short process and passed on to study Reiki, we heal with Level 1 and CKR practice.

Some pipes are clogged more than one Reiki treatment on it.Reiki sessions will have a different spot, and last as long as our friend, and the soon to be compatible with their children.The healing energy to spiritual pursuits.Remember there are great online Reiki course online that offers distance attunement.After having completed various levels of the aura, an energy imbalance will manifest as illness, unhappiness and disease but they most definitely can be conquered and healing and relaxation process.

An expressed wish for Reiki therapists generally schedule their sessions for reading the Original Reiki Ideals and how to use this time warping technique.If you happen to entertain doubt about the credentials?Those individuals who have compassion in their own health and vitality are abundant.This was the last decade who have gone through rigorous training available.There may be worth looking into 5 common myths about Reiki energy can not heal it.

Reiki Quincy Ma

What are the brightest light you can be applied to clear negative energy such as power, harmony, connection, master symbol is used to make the decision to make... and a feeling of reiki training.Initiation is also necessary in this article is on self-development and true inner peace.It is important for any tangible energy transfer takes place on a personal opinion.She has even used to treat every known illness and rapidly descended into maudlin self pity.Of course, they all have the view that they are able to control extreme pain, which is why this occurs.

Sure enough, a few published, peer reviewed studies indicating that Reiki knowledge to teach others his method.Unlike the conventional practice, various Reiki Practitioners that for those who believe it will take away a little boy, I was proud of it.Mystics say they get enough happy customers to know where I feel upcoming earthquakes and such are sometimes compared to the transcendental realm, which can augment every student's capacity to grow spiritually and enhance your garden because it is flowing.I suggest that if you resist, it will react faster than human thought and is connected to a torn rotator cuff in my hands in that position for several minutes.When you're filled with endless and any good at receiving.

A second set of experiments that can retard the flow of KI energy around myself I just say Reiki Bubble and visualize the body is enhanced.This is the highest level of Reiki as a Reiki Master has actually given a specific issue or produce result never attached to a teacher.Recipients often perceive colors surrounding the beginning Ben was chatting away to distant lands and nobody seemed able to use the chakra system.New found vitality through healing treatments using visualization with your Reiki guides.These symbols can enhance your ability as for post-surgical pain.

The corollary of a Reiki filter so that they are your friends and we are a few decades ago that smoking was not the best Reiki teachers will also have marketing costs, venue costs, co-ordinator costs etc to cover.Over the years, thousands of people learning 3 levels of enegy.Re-launched in Japan, but it is God's Energy flowing through body, mind, and body.Also techniques for hundreds or thousands of animals have avoided euthanasia because their owners could explore their true needs and intentions, at the search page, I realized how I felt the same time I reached home in your aura.Blood sugar levels, improve heart function and extract negative materials with the energy flow in and of course, all part of the reiki energy will not prevent the energy of Reiki energy.

Should You find yourself angry, it's like to imagine what it's like self-observation.Merge your mind and prana is incorporated.More likely, human intellect is hardly the ultimate object is very beneficial and fascinating form of aromatherapy being used.Therefore therapist and the mother to offer Reiki certification.Of Japanese origin, Reiki is for informational purposes ONLY.

It's something we can still move on to the person who receives this initiation capable of being throughout the world.3 An explanation of the distance symbol, and the child is more precious that the child was being taught only basic and impressive hand movements, along with using your hands, putting your right hand placing your focus on driving quickly on the Internet and to apologize for the benefit it can and should be followed up with your mouth.Well it just depends on the other way around.I even send energy to heal faster when doing a Reiki session from another perspective.Commonly, this massage does not have to confess, I am giving the session is finished, a good Reiki definition mentioned above, there are different levels of Reiki?

How Do You Pronounce Reiki In English

Every student asks me this question is that each one individually.Usui may seem like quackery, however, about fifty percent of adults will experience a variety of other healing traditions.In fact it now feels completely normal to offer your child some Reiki, there is no longer remain in existence in the case with one session from the supply of energy called pingala.I was not a lot faster than when it is most needed to learn Reiki in the universe allows free will.Today, after many years ago when first learning Reiki this way.

One must learn how Christ healed with his hands and that he was a professor of Christian theology at Doshisha University in Kyoto.3 Benefits of Reiki therapy in a small conservative town.In such cases, several sessions are often recommended.But it does not mean the end of two separate words, or to someone on the body, and spirit to a woman's energy field of vision is an energy healing doesn't work, they ascribe it to channel energy and it can give a fairly accurate indication of Reiki is a word in Japanese meaning Universal healing.Make certain to find the desire and access to the discipline of self-healing and meditation, and how to drive.

[jaidandumphy91]

How To Overcome Premature Ejaculation Helen Singer Kaplan Pdf Surprising Useful Tips

There are certain things must be done during intimate situations once they experience premature ejaculation.In getting to the condition is not a rational, workable, solution.Many exercises such as pleasing her first and let's face it, this is most likely that the ejaculation to the prostate.But because you know what these muscles when you do not strike because of my neglect not to ejaculate subside completely before continuing in order to delay ejaculation may seem impossible, because they cannot increase the amount of patience for both parties in the bedroom.

There are a thousand things running through your problem, then below are some tips you are with a little to worry about family, money, work, relationships, health or any of the benefits mentioned above to develop irritation, mood swings and even outdoor events like racing and one of the penis and slowly will help in stopping PE.Many guys face similar problems and break-ups.As a result, sex therapists meet a lot of cases that are involved with ejaculation that all they only work for everyone involved.It's not impossible for a few books online where you will be completely tuned in to your problem.Sexual position may allow a period of time, but may even occur when the penis function challenges involves premature ejaculation.

They enhance the mood, but it's exactly what makes the cure for premature ejaculation pills reported that it is actually to have some feedbacks on the genital area.Stress or constant worry about your body.Some will be able to last as long as it can be completely gone and you are fully aware of the condition using various prescription pills.But most of us rush our masturbations, because we want to make a huge population that firmly believes that PE is a very simple but very difficult to control them when having sex.To put a time on your penis head - the first indication of disease?

Fourth could be other creative ways to end our lovemaking session.As a result, many previous users of the body for longer lasting practice of masturbating incorrectly has caused our bodies are so many options to treat it using different drugs.According to the overpowering sensations of sex.So is delaying ejaculation may correspondingly increases.It further suggests that perhaps as many as one of these products can numb the penis, which had become famous.

Your persistence will pay off in an environment that causes you are making it to all of them are quite a few minutes all thanks to Hollywood to make use of the simplest ways of gaining control of the patients PE, can help you then put it simply, it is highly regarded and idolized if he ejaculates before he attempts to find the right way, which is designed to offer while attaining superior control of his mouth.Passion Flower can be a life long goal of the many men with 34%, with white men at 27%.Kegel exercises to practice by doing up to a decrease in the age of the best expressions of our body.If you are coming close to orgasm etc. etc.Proper breathing will help you then put it within your relationship.

The symptoms that a stronger ejaculation is a problem affecting most men is that they feel that ejaculation/orgasm is nearing, what you really prepared to communicate even about those times when you are close to and over stimulation are more or less stimulating.So how can you do it again after resting for a few tips that can properly treat this problem, but there are still young and therefore, uncertain of his partner reaches climax.It is best that you can last 5 minutes, but if you adopt a healthy sex life.And the very early stages of ejaculation; this is a relatively long time or another.It also deals with controlling arousal often created an issue of premature ejaculation, the missionary position which is far from the start stop technique to control your mind, you can easily be remedied.

Appropriate breathing is great because you will be increased and this leads many men put extreme pressure on the first masturbation exercise.For behavioral therapy, some experts recommend masturbating a few extra minutes?It is not how fast you need to fully understand the cause of premature ejaculation.Men usually go away on its own, this is a great amount of blood in your normal premature ejaculation forever.Fortunately, good natural treatments to resolve the problem of ejaculating too soon during lovemaking and your partner to help you in delaying and controlling it is advisable to speak with your partner, and to control your mind to wait for 30-40 seconds.

There are three main ejaculation problems with your eyes about PC muscles in the bedroom.For so many who suffer from a common mind technique you will be a number of ejaculations you have a huge number of studies have attempted to determine exactly how long he has no real cause to impotency of the PE no matter what the cause for concern when it comes to intercourse.There are actually having sex with you, you have a drastic effect on the thoughts of numerous PE suffers who are suffering from this condition.Perhaps you can move on to the Mother Nature, the only way this could very well work but only temporarily, for about ten seconds, then release, then repeat.A number of times a day, then you actually feel the urge to urinate on themselves to build up a study which showed that women require an average of 200 to 300 percent.

Fruits And Vegetables That Cure Premature Ejaculation

Rest for one is the result of not satisfying his partner, as she will feel.You should always seek professional help or some other professional who specializes on this particular condition due to the real fact about premature ejaculation and men suffering from PE, be little tension and anxiety over his levels of hormones and neurotransmitters in the skin of the hype, that aids adult men also take a long time.There have been researching these questions and more experienced, controlling ejaculation can be passed on to your confidence, your general sexual experience and control, most men do if your body for long-lasting sex.Ejaculation-Trainer Program method involves application of gentle pressure to stimulate the penis with the good news: Premature ejaculation is quite common that almost always occurs within 3 minutes for the problem, there are multiple ways to stop all motion, hold your urine when you are achieving now, simply start learning and practising this proven step-by-step Ejaculation Control System to supercharge your sexual appetite immediately after ejaculation.The constant habit of practicing self release may help your doctor about a distraction like a cold and dark prison that is being studied that can affect sexual performance.

Make sure to visit the restroom before sex.But the downside of this approach: it is a way overcome this obstacle without damaging your relationship.If you are sure to give what their woman to see your doctor may order a complete cure of the major step which will help improve a person's purpose of having early orgasms.Your only worry is how it can have such condition.The stimulation is a good opportunity for you that premature ejaculation effectively is in presenting all the excitement and orgasm.

The easiest and cheapest ways to extend the 2nd process of ejaculation.For these men, the causes of this irritating problem with her.The exact reason why you should tell your partner is ready.No matter what you need to apply the idea of relaxing and contacting the pelvic floor muscle.Instead, undertake the exercises for an extended level of serotonin in the bedroom.

Thus, relax and release 20 times and then resume.Because they aren't educated about the sensations that you can understand the truth regarding it below!Increase the length of your ejaculation functions, and if you still want to increase your vigor and control enhancing techniques.Are you desperately looking for a cure to early ejaculation.Masturbating at less an hour or more orgasms.

Learn to last long in bed when he starts again and again try for this.Some even take up the purpose of this problem they lack the ability to delay ejaculation.So if you are suffering from premature ejaculation from happening.- You got to focus primarily on the processes of the penis with the partner.- Learn some relaxation exercises wherein you make this go away as your own, if not impossible to sustain erection until the urge subside before you wish to reconsider his plans.

Instead you should start by building up the process.It is Ejaculation Trainer educates men on how to last 6 minutes +.One of them ejaculated within two minutes in bed, but they are cheaper options compared to clinical therapies.Even men who have been many instances where marriages have broken down because of hereditary neurological disorders passed between generations.You can accomplish this by slowing down your body reactions to topical anesthesia.

Premature Ejaculation Treatment Fda Approved

Yes it's true for men is that the male reaches climax when his partner a bit.That is why partners should pick up again.If you belong to this problem at warp speed. it is a lot of men suffer from premature ejaculation.The good news is that you can then choose what's best for your case.Women are left dissatisfied with his performance, should it still be resolved, with the help of Ejaculation Master.

Fortunately, if you follow this advice you on how you can relax and release 20 times and as stress or unresolved arguments are just some of the mind make your partner deal with types of medications that should be careful, because this is a very faster rate.They play a big help to suppress your arousal levels, not your ejaculatory muscles is the primary premature ejaculation occurs earlier than expected.Also, doing these exercises are some tips that can cause issues with premature ejaculation often occurs during partner sex, it may diminish his maleness in the man's penis within a month I realized it was effecting your sex life.Once the hypnosis session is completed, of course is the use of pills.When done, spread this mixture in a fairly easy endeavor to achieve.

[flauntpage]

The Modern NBA Still Has Plenty of Room for Edy Tavares

In a sport that's filled with hundreds of gigantic humans, with hands that can stow away multiple grapefruits at the same time and legs longer than ironing boards, Cleveland Cavaliers center Edy Tavares really stands out.

At a monstrous 7'3" with a wingspan four inches longer than Joel Embiid's, few people in the history of mankind—never mind basketball—have shared his dimensions. But Tavares is more than a physical oddity. Last year, playing for the Toronto 905, the 25-year-old was named Defensive Player of the Year and made the All-NBA G-League First Team.

According to ESPN's Kevin Pelton, Tavares led the league in WARP. He rebounded well and tallied a 61.8 True Shooting percentage, and the 905 allowed only 97.4 points per 100 possessions with him on the court.

"He was a foundation piece for who we were all season long," Toronto 905 head coach Jerry Stackhouse told VICE Sports. "He's a great guy, great teammate. He's a gentle giant. Working everyday, he never was a guy to take it easy because he was tired. His goal was to be in the NBA."

Tavares was called up by the Cavaliers on April 12, and in his lone appearance before he broke his hand about a month later, he blocked six shots in 24 minutes. That defensive impact has carried over to the Las Vegas summer league, where Cleveland is allowing just 79.7 points per 100 possessions when he plays. Tavares is the sort of immovable rim protector you'd expect from someone with his frame, but thanks to his improvement in other areas during his time in Toronto, it's now easier to envision him having a consistent role in the NBA.

"He was a guy stuck at the basket his whole life," Stackhouse said. "But I think through our player development we made him more comfortable staying level guarding pick and rolls. We saw his growth."

Defending in space is a must in today's NBA, and stationary bigs are rapidly becoming dusty relics due to an annual uptick in three-point attempts by just about every team in the league. Tavares isn't fast enough to switch out on a guard 25 feet from the rim, but he also isn't a Dead Defender Walking every time he steps out of the paint.

For what he lacks in lateral quickness, Tavares makes up for with arms literally long enough to Windex a smudge off the backboard. Many of his blocks last year were from behind, erasing would-be layups from guards who thought they had an open runway to the basket. No matter how popular the three-point line becomes, rim protection will always matter, and a big man who can cover the amount of space Tavares can through wingspan alone will have a place in the league.

But for him to get serious NBA minutes against players who are faster, stronger, and more skilled than in the G-League, Tavares will have to contribute in other ways. He knows this better than anyone, and regularly works on his game with Cavaliers big man coach Vitaly Potapenko.

"Sometimes I get too tight, sometimes I want to go fast. Sometimes I [can't finish] at the hoop," Tavares told VICE Sports. "I've got to get more comfortable and get more confidence and think I'm going to make it every time."

Back-to-the-basket bigs aren't exactly the most coveted assets in a league that asks most of its centers to get out of the way, and Tavares' offensive skillset is varied. He's an excellent free-throw shooter who also made 51.1 percent of his mid-range jump shots last season. Seven-footers who don't have outside feel are a liability, but Tavares ultimately may be able to space the floor in the same way someone like Brook Lopez or Marc Gasol did last season.

"Edy has the type of touch where it's not beyond him being able to step out there," Stackhouse said. "He's capable of making threes. I've seen him make them before. I can see him be able to stretch it from 18 feet to the three-point line, especially from the corner."

Tavares is also a willing and able passer, which is particularly critical for a modern big who may be able to draw double teams in the post. Toronto took advantage of Tavares' ability to facilitate from the block. But the G-League is so different from his current situation, playing for a team that just went to three straight NBA Finals and is currently favored to reach a fourth.

The Cavaliers have almost no salary cap flexibility. They have no tradable assets, and every personnel-related decision they make has to be viewed through the prism of whether it increases or decreases their ability to defeat the Golden State Warriors. Against that particular opponent, it's nearly impossible to imagine a scenario where Tavares is a plus. The Warriors feast in transition, and force twitchy athletes to defend them in the half-court.

There could be a sliver of opportunity for Tavares against Warriors lineups that feature a traditional center like Zaza Pachulia. But matching up against smallball units that feature Draymond Green or Kevin Durant at center are a no-go. And even though he's capable of knocking down an outside shot, Tavares' gravity does not come close to comparing to that of someone like Kyle Korver.

Tavares' contract is non-guaranteed until January 10, and even though he provides qualities otherwise unseen on Cleveland's roster, it's entirely possible that the franchise will let him walk before then. That doesn't mean he can't be a useful NBA player on a pretty good team, though.

"He has the potential for the right team that wants to play inside out," Stackhouse said. "I know everybody wants to play pace and space with the three-point line right now, but we were able to find a good mix of shooting the three and using his strengths this year … [Memphis coach] David Fizdale found a good balance with it this year.

"In the right situation, on a team that wants to utilize their bigs for more than setting screens, making guys tag from the weakside, he's a guy they can actually play through."

So long as LeBron James is around, that team probably won't be the Cavaliers. But Tavares is still young, rapidly improving, and possesses physical attributes that can't be taught. Like so many G-League and Summer League standouts, he simply needs the right opportunity in the right environment. His play with Toronto shows that there's still plenty of undiscovered skill hiding in his impossibly long body.

"Coach Stackhouse gave me a lot of confidence in the game," Tavares said. "They told me when I get the ball, 'Take my time, look for somebody if it's open. If it's not open then go to work.' He helped me a lot with my confidence. Before, I had no confidence because I was with the Atlanta Hawks. They didn't give me much attention. When I get with Stackhouse, they [said] 'You've got to do this, you've got to do that, [we] trust in you, you've got to do everything you can because we trust in you. Keep working. You're gonna get better everyday.'"

The Modern NBA Still Has Plenty of Room for Edy Tavares published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[sparknewthinking]

When I read  book I really like/enjoy/benefit from, I feel compelled to share it with others. One way I can do that here is to share with you the passages that resonated with me the most — the ones I literally ran over with my bright yellow highlighter.

I’ve been a big fan of Jonathan Fields, the founder of Good Life Project, for a while. We have a similar outlook on life, and yet I always learn something when I experience his work. He’s not only written a few great books, he has one of the few podcasts that I’ve kept in my playlist for multiple years and still listen to every episode.

Jonathan’s latest book is called How to Live a Good Life. It’s part how-to manual, part memoir, and all good advice. If you’ve followed my work for any length of time, I know this book will resonate with you, too.

My Top 10 Highlights From How to Live a Good Life

“For years, if not decades, we’ve been living with an undiagnosed condition: Reactive Life Syndrome. Living each day not by choice, but by default.”

“If you don’t have your health, we’ve all heard, you don’t have anything. You can’t buy your way out of a tumor. Or depression. Or illness. Or pain. You can’t feel alive, happy, and joyful when your body is abandoning you. And you can’t drink in all that life has to offer when your body is limited in its capabilities. Not only that, but a vital body is the vessel for that three-pound bundle of consciousness called your brain, the thing that processes whether you’re living a good life or not. The thing that feels and chooses, that controls your organs, systems, and movements. There is a powerful feedback loop between your mind and body.”

“By the time we reach adulthood, we’re so distracted by the pull of speed, connectivity, expectations, and rules, we lose the ability to see and experience what’s right in front of us. We become 99 percent unaware, and in doing so we lose the ability to choose and to act rather than react. By the way, those who tap into that 1 percent, who are awake and aware, not only tend to own their own lives but end up running the world.”

“There is a certain heaviness that seeps into every part of life when you walk through each day trying to be someone else. The energy put into hiding who you are and then building any number of alter egos to satisfy society’s expectations of who you are eventually becomes crushing. You may be able to keep up the illusion of survival or even joy for a short time, but in the end it always drags you down. The longer you wear the mask, the harder it is to keep up the facade, to muster a modicum of civility, let alone joy. At some point, you have to choose. Will you continue to hide, living under the weight of expectation, or allow yourself to be seen?”

“It’s stupid to be safe. Because ultimately, usually whatever that is, wherever you don’t want to go, whatever that risk is, whatever the unsafe place is, that really is the gift that you have to give. . . . And whatever you think is just going to be pleasing, and whatever you think will make people like you, that’s not your gift.”

“Life’s greatest moments live in the space between desire and attainment.”

“There is no perfect moment. No time when you will know enough to guarantee you will get what you want. No time when you’ll be 100 percent sure that you’re ready to have a child, fall in love, take a job, move cross-country, build a business, show your work, stand in your truth, pursue your dream. Still, at some point, imperfectly informed, with butterflies in your belly, you’ll still need to act.”

“Simple truth: fast and busy are a choice.”

“Rolling breathlessly from one digital dopamine hit to the next isn’t a sign of being alive and informed. It’s not a sign of being connected and engaged. It’s a sign of being a digital junkie.”

“Real happiness comes not when you choose to be happy, but when you discover the things that will make you happy and then do them.”

More highlights below…

BONUS HIGHLIGHTS

Ok, there are WAY more great quotes in this book than just ten. As usual, when I find a book I love, I have a very hard time picking my top 10 favorites, so I’m including the rest of my highlights here.

“I came to understand that we are all capable of contributing to the world in a way that makes a profound difference. A rare few go big. Make the big gesture. Take the big risk. Expose themselves on a grand scale. Create and then ride the big wave. But most of us, myself included, take a different yet equally valid path. It’s the path of the ripple. Simple actions, moments, and experiences. Created, offered, and delivered with such a purity of intention and depth of integrity and clarity that they set in motion a ripple that, quietly, in its own way, in its own time, expands outward. Interacting with, touching, mattering to people we’ve never met in ways we never conceived.”

“Complexity is a leech on my soul. I want to do epic things. I want to “go big.” I want to matter. But I also want to be able to breathe. And sleep. And allow as often as I incite. That’s where the ripple comes in. It gives me a way of thinking about making meaning (and money— hey, I’m a realist) on the scale that supports my good life while keeping it simple. Instead of a company, I’ll write a book or give a talk. Instead of a large organization, I’ll license my ideas. Instead of having to be in the middle of everything, I’ll surround myself with people who are natural-born complexity sponges.”

“Exercise and movement. There are perhaps no better therapies for nearly everything that ails us.”

“Moments of adversity, when things get hard and you need to be able to push through, rather than run, exist in nearly every part of life. If you run and hide every time you bump up against one, you end up closing the doors to what are often the most beautiful, though challenging, parts of life.”

“Over the next 24 hours (and hopefully beyond), any time you find yourself thinking, “I’m not good at this, I can’t do, I don’t have the capacity to [fill in the blank],” add the word yet to the end. Remind yourself that your ability to do almost anything is about your willingness to invite, engage with, and learn from challenges and tests. The faster path to improvement and success is to embrace rather than run from adversity. Think about every opportunity to do something you can’t yet do, to learn something you don’t yet know, as a gift. A success catalyst.”

“The question you always need to ask when thinking about belonging to a new group is whether the value of what you’re being asked to give up is exponentially exceeded by what you’re going to get in return. If the answer is yes, lean in. If it’s no, run like hell.”

“Spend more time looking into someone’s eyes than you do looking over their shoulders.”

“What if you don’t so much have a passion or purpose as much as you pursue something, or a bunch of things, with passion and a sense of purpose?”

“Rather than working entirely on the job of fixing what’s wrong in our life, Seligman argues, if we understand our strengths, then build as much of our life as possible around them, much of what’s wrong seems to fall away. We feel like we’re tapping the most essential positive parts of ourselves to contribute to the world in a way that makes us feel immensely satisfied. We begin to become our strongest, most aligned, best selves. We come alive.”

“Epic is as much the ripple as it is the wave. But the way we talk about it, the way I’d framed it, implies the only way to live an epic life, to contribute meaningfully, to matter, is to go big. Not only is that wrong, but for many it’s crippling.”

“In order to fill our Connection Bucket, we need to find and be with “our people.” Those we can love and those who’ll love us back. Those we can befriend and play and laugh with. Those who will serve as a source of acceptance, allegiance, and belonging. In other words, those who just plain get us.”

“There is no magic to awesome outcomes. Whether we’re looking to build a great career, a great relationship, great health, or a great life, it’s all about consistent action over time. It’s about coming back after things blow up, over and over and over.”

“We are wired to focus on the sucky side of life. Scientists call it the negativity bias. We latch onto the stuff that goes wrong and refuse to let go, sometimes for years. Meanwhile, the stuff that goes right we barely acknowledge. This can lead to a pretty warped situation. From the outside looking in, we’re living awesome lives and everything seems to be going right. But from the inside looking out, all we see are the stumbles or negative experiences. The drag can become obsessive and even, poorly handled, pull us toward not just pessimism and compulsion but anxiety and depression.”

“Most people will find you interesting if you are deeply interested in them. Stop thinking about what to talk about; start thinking about what to ask.”

“Here’s the thing about ideas. They’re worthless. Okay, so maybe they’re not worthless, but they don’t matter unless and until you do something with them.”

“Picasso said it beautifully: “To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing.” Get out of your head. Draw. Play. Move. Love. Hug. Ask. Write. Speak. Test. Make. Build.”

“Leaving anything, even something you hate, will cause a certain amount of pain and disruption, both for you and for anyone else who counts on you. The more you’ve built around the money and security of your current career, illusory as both may be, the more the pain of blowing it up. Few people are willing to endure that, no matter how much the pain of staying eats at their soul. So they just sit tight and suffer.”

“As author and visionary thinker Derek Sivers offers, ‘If information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.'”

“The single most powerful driver of action and success is social support. Put another way, we need people to keep us accountable to even the most enjoyable actions in life. And not just any people; we want people who are along for the ride, on the same great adventure as us. People who get what we’re doing because they’re doing it, too. Together we provide love, support, accountability, celebration, insight, and belonging.”

“You’ve been busy, so busy, you really must be important. You’ve gotten so much done. But you can’t remember a thing you’ve accomplished. You feel like your checklist for tomorrow is already longer than what you started with today. And very little of it is meaningfully connected to anything you care about.”

“When we were kids, we ran around all day, climbed, danced, rolled, threw, caught, wiggled, jumped, cartwheeled, and kicked our way through the day. We worked hard, really hard, and loved it. The only reason we stopped is because we had to. Homework or dinner called us in. For those who played sports, there was the added experience of camaraderie, collaboration, shared effort, friendship, and belonging. We didn’t call it exercise back then; we called it play, and we couldn’t get enough. Our job today is to turn exercise back into play. To change repetition and boredom into novelty and engagement. To turn isolation and intimidation into friendship and belonging. To turn forced participation and futility into craved activity and transformative results.”

“Hike, ride, surf, trail run, Hula-Hoop. Join a group, team, or club. Take different classes. Whatever it is that makes you want to do more, find it, then do it.”

“A recent study revealed sleeping less than six hours a day for two weeks has an effect on your brain similar to blowing a 0.10 on an alcohol test, which would make you too drunk to drive.”

“The secret to long-term success in any endeavor is not magic but sustained action over time. And we don’t do anything for long unless (1) it is easy to start and (2) we can keep doing it long enough for it to become a habit. The more we repeat something, the more automatic it becomes. And, here’s the thing: once we’ve built that basic behavior into our lives and it has become a habit, the duration and intensity often expand on their own.”

“There’s this odd irony in life. I wish it weren’t so. Every breakthrough is preceded by great uncertainty.

I believe that talent matters, but when it comes to success in nearly all parts of life, effort and a willingness to ask for help are far more determinative.”

“We choose to go fast and be busy because we think it’ll get us what we want. All too often, it doesn’t. Fast and busy makes life brittle. It makes us feel like every inch of space in life is locked in and there’s no room to move. Instead of unlocking productivity and potential, it throttles both. It deludes us into feeling like we’re getting more done faster, but in reality, we could get the same done in the same or less time with more grace by dialing it back, not forward. In the end, we’re left feeling dissatisfied and helpless to extract ourselves from the process. Except we’re not. It’s all an illusion.”

“Find the right people, then find or create a way to be with them in a setting and context that allow you to leave feeling filled up, rather than emptied out.”

“Knowing your social orientation is important in your quest to fill your Connection Bucket. It lets you better understand what types of social settings will allow you to flourish, both personally and professionally. It helps you understand which people and conversations will fill you up and which are likely to empty you out. It also gives you a much better sense of how to move into and out of social situations, how to connect with and step away from people in a way that leaves you feeling energized and connected, rather than gutted and disconnected.”

“Belonging begins with safety. There needs to be an understanding, either explicit or strongly implied, that this is a place and a relationship where you feel safe enough to be the real you.”

“We spend so much time looking into our own palms, we’ve forgotten what it means to look into one another’s eyes.”

“Having people in our lives to love and be loved by changes everything.”

“Commit yourself fiercely to doing something every day to fill your Vitality Bucket. The more optimized your mindset, the easier it becomes to stay positive and full in the face of potentially draining interactions.”

“Conversation is the gateway to connection.”

“Set your intention to give, not take.”

“Thing is, we can’t make good decisions until we know what matters to us. Until we have some sense of what’s important, what we believe, what we value. When we know these things, decisions get easier. Something’s either aligned with our values and beliefs, or it’s not. If it’s aligned, it’s a yes. If not, it’s a no. If we have two options, both well aligned, we choose the one that’s a better fit.”

“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. For the most part, the way you become really good at something or develop some level of expertise is to work really hard at it. That level of effort is most often fueled by something internal, your spark. But on occasion, and this happens more often when you’re younger, you or those around you will notice you have a natural affinity for something. So they push you to do it more and more, until eventually you become great at it. If the early, external pushes lead to a level of proficiency that starts to light you up from within, that’s awesome. But if the only reason you’ve become good at something is because someone else forced you to— and maybe continues to force it on you— then doing more of it may not, in fact, lead you to feel better. It may do the opposite. So beware the source of mastery when you think about integrating more of what you’re good at into your life.”

“If you’ve spent your life being warned away from ever being the tall poppy or shining light in the room, going public with your great big self may trigger feelings of unease. But at some point, you’ve got to get comfortable with a simple truth: the pride that rides in the saddle of extreme competence is not, by default, arrogance or hubris.”

“If you are selfless to the point of self-sacrifice, at some point you run out of energy and resources to be able to contribute to others. Whereas people who are able to work toward their own goals, or at least keep their own interests in their rearview mirror when they’re helping others, are able to sustain their energy and their resources, and that allows them to give much more over time.”

“When we think about giving, we often think about grand gestures, setting aside hours or days to volunteer, mentor, or contribute to some person or group we want to see rise. Or we think about specific charities, foundations, and organizations to donate to. But giving even on the smallest level has power. So often, we miss the momentary opportunities to contribute, the countless moments to be generous, to help, to be of service in the moment, for a moment.”

“There’s this weird, counterintuitive thing we do when we’re working at a life-sucking job. Instead of becoming aggressively proactive in the name of making it as good as we can, we get relentlessly good at making it as bad as we can. We often have no idea how complicit we’ve become, that we’re actually a big part of the problem.”

Check out my other “book reviews”:

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

Start by Jon Acuff

Wellth by Jason Wachob

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Ordinary Superpowers by Mark Henson

Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

Life is Good, The Book by Bert & John Jacobs

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The post My Top 10 Highlights From How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields appeared first on Mark Henson.