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killjoyfem · 1 year

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Remembering her: with the American verdict, Heard has faced more than the culture’s wrath — she has faced global humiliation.

The entire case had been like a “Black Mirror” episode. A dystopian nightmare in which TikToks of a distraught woman detailing an alleged sexual assault were devoured with popcorn and laughter. Twitter hashtags — #AmberIsALiar, #AmbersAPsychopath, #TeamJohnny — made it a trial by media.

Those supporting Heard received death threats, rape threats, a constant bombardment of hate for simply saying, “I stand with Amber.” I know: I got them in bucketloads.

We saw tired, misogynistic methods used again and again to discredit a woman trying to stand up for her rights. Blaming Heard for not leaving, for fighting back, for not being bruised enough, for not having enough evidence. And when she did have evidence? Depp’s team portrayed her as a manipulative liar — and the jury appears to have found this credible.

Heard’s psychologist, Dawn Hughes, testified that Heard had post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of domestic abuse. Psychologist Shannon Curry, a witness for Depp, diagnosed Heard with borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder — despite having never treated her.

As a barrister, I have witnessed the pathologization of survivors become a go-to tactic to discredit them. Slamming a woman’s mental state has always been a quick and easy way to gaslight them — “Oh, she’s crazy,” “she’s so unstable” — “medicine” as a misogynist’s handmaiden.

Many women who watched this trial will recognize this, the classic DARVO playbook in action: deny, attack and reverse victim and offender. And they will fear that they could be next.

The trial reinforced the notion that those who speak out must look, sound and act a certain way. They must conform to the stereotype of the “perfect victim,” one who cowers in a corner, voiceless and powerless. That woman doesn’t speak or fight back.

This is a trope. It rarely exists.

I’ve seen victims behave in all manner of ways in abusive relationships and in the courtroom. Perhaps the only time we see the “perfect victim”? In movies written by men.

As the verdict came, abuse survivors expressed their devastation online. One psychologist told Rolling Stone that “hundreds” of survivors had contacted her to retract victim statements or pulled out from court cases as a result of watching the trial.

The biggest losers here are the U.S. justice system and the women who might otherwise have put their faith in it. Women have been told that if we have enough evidence, we’ll be believed. The truth is, it doesn’t matter how much evidence we have. The system is rigged against women.

Do you think it’s fair that a woman had to testify before a man she says abused her, while that man sat there, smirking? Do you think it’s fair that, throughout the trial, the most intimate and traumatic details were broadcast for the world to see? Do you think it’s fair that Heard was ordered to pay millions of dollars for writing an article that didn’t even name the man who has prevailed in this case?

Heard had the PR team. She had the legal team. Still, she couldn’t win. All we got during weeks of painful testimony was a woman being treated like a villain, a famous man showered with adoration and a justice system failing to protect what it supposedly promises to defend.

The Depp-Heard trial was a circus. The verdict is a gag order. (source)

#my post #i stand with amber heard #amber heard #johnny depp #domestic violence #sex based oppression #violence against women #domestic abuse #feminism #radical feminism #radblr #radfems do interact #radfems do touch

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honourablejester · 4 years

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Worldbuilding with Deities

AKA some thoughts on how to make pantheons for your fantasy worlds.

Okay. So this is fairly heavily inspired by D&D specifically, because some of the published settings feel very lacklustre to me in the deity department (*cough*Eberron*cough*), but it also feels like a general problem in fantasy when your setting is not ‘medieval or heroic western fantasy’ where you can just file the serial numbers off the Greek, Norse or Christian mythologies and call it good. I also feel there’s a bit of an issue with either darker or more technological settings, where there’s a push to either have no gods, evil gods, or relatively powerless gods, to show that this is a more enlightened and/or cynical setting that doesn’t rely on silly things like faith. Which is perfectly fine if that’s what you’re actually going for! But. You can have a very wide variety of settings and still have cool and interesting deities in them.

With D&D specifically, I feel like part of the issue is that clerics, paladins and warlocks are playable classes, so there’s mechanical considerations to keep track of. So when you’re worldbuilding a setting, you feel some pressure to ‘tick all the boxes’ with things like cleric domains, and it feels less like building out your setting and more like making random stuff up to fill jobs, which sucks some of the joy out of it. If clerics and deities and mythologies are your jam, excitement will carry you through, but otherwise it might feel like a bit of a slog. Ticking boxes on your worldbuilding forms.

Of course, clerics and deities and mythologies are my jam. So I possibly don’t have much of a leg to stand on here. But. I’m also a pantser when it comes to worldbuilding, and nothing turns me off faster than lists of things to shoehorn in. So. I do have some thoughts here.

When I’m building a mythology, and not just making up a couple of gods for a quick story, I do have a bit of process. It’s mostly subconscious, granted, but there is a method there. Things I consider in a particular order to get where I need to go.

So. Thoughts for rough-and-ready mythology worldbuilding for pantsers who don’t like to overplan. A quick summary:

Mood/Genre

Important Concepts/Themes

Overarching Goals

Reverse-Engineered Cosmology

Further Details

Mood/Genre:

This is the one I think about first and foremost. For worldbuilding in general, really, not just building pantheons. Everything starts from the mood for me. The tone of what I want. What my world is going to feel like to people. Do I want something bleak and pale? Wild and whimsical? Meaty and heroic? Urbane and subtle? Is the world wild and empty and only partially discovered, or completely full to the brim? Is it starting out, fresh and wild and new, or fading away, weary and dangerous and despairing? What does it feel like?

Genre usually follows from tone. Am I looking for dark fantasy? Something post-apocalyptic? Urban low fantasy? Old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery? Celtic fantasy? A rough-and-rowdy beat-em-up?

You don’t have to be overly specific on the genre. I mean, you don’t have to plan that in advance. The tone is the overriding thing, genre will settle itself. But sometimes it’s easier to conceptualise or pitch a thing by its genre.

Once you have the tone nailed down. The mood of what you want. You move on to …

Important Concepts/Themes:

When you’ve gotten a tone, then you can start to think about the concepts that might be important in it. What concepts that would be culturally valued in a setting of this tone, and concepts that would be regarded with suspicion. The themes that divide it up. This is where your domains start to come in, and also where you start to line up what the ‘good’ gods vs the ‘evil’ gods look like.

A question that I find helps here is what do the stereotypical ‘heroes’ look like in this kind of world? Are they rogues up against the man (urban fantasy)? The faithful against the profane (heroic fantasy)? The simple warriors against the sorcerous villains (sword and sorcery)? The fragile monster hunters against the unrelenting darkness (gothic horror)? Etc. This’ll tell you where domains like knowledge, trickery, arcana, war and order will broadly line up on the morality scale.

This is how you get your darker/bleaker settings in as well. You just rearrange your value-sets somewhat. Think about what is still valued in this world. What might usually be valued in a less strained setting, but might be more questionable here. In a post-apocalyptic world, where survival is the name of the game, perhaps gods touting ‘peace’ and ‘acceptance’ are viewed as corrupters, trying to get people to resign themselves and lay down and die. Or they’re saviours, offering a peaceful afterlife away from the horrors of what the setting has become. Dealers choice.

The point here is to get a broad, overarching theme or set of themes to arrange your pantheons around. In a dark fantasy world, it might be light vs dark, faith vs corruption. In a strongly urban fantasy, a very built-up setting, it might be anarchy vs fascism, rich vs poor, honesty vs corruption. In a post-apocalyptic world, it might be hope vs despair, survival vs surrender, life vs death. In a bawdy heroic fantasy, it might be exploration vs safety, civilisation vs freedom, natural vs unnatural. You’re thinking about the driving forces in your setting, the big conflicts that shape it. What things have value, what things are frightening.

And remember, this comes back to the feel of the world. You’re not writing a moral screed here (or, well, you can, but it’s not my primary point), you’re picking the themes and conflicts that will most highlight the mood you want.

And then, once you know the conflict points your gods will be divided along, you can move on to:

Overarching Goals:

What are the deities in your setting working towards? What are their main goals, what are they trying to preserve or destroy or make or accomplish? This lets you divide them up into groups that are working with or against each other. It’s an easy mechanism to build pantheons around, and is based on your themes/values from the previous point.

So. In your urban fantasy setting, built around themes of anarchy vs fascism, honesty vs corruption, rich vs poor. You have your gods of civilisation and tradition, of honesty and respect, of building and preserving. And you have your gods of change and chaos, of trickery and freedom. You have your gods of greed and corruption. Your gods of ascetism and simplicity. You could have them all the one pantheon, forever gaming between themselves. Or divide them out, make two primary pantheons around that first divide, civilisation vs anarchy, with each of them viewing the other as evil, and then several other deities on the outskirts, trying to gain for themselves, or poke at the larger pantheons.

In your post-apocalyptic setting, dark and bleak, built around hope vs despair, survival vs surrender, life vs death. You’ll have your gods of life and protection, of bastions and defenses, of nurturing and rebuilding. Gods who want to protect what’s left and help it rebuild. Then maybe you’ll have gods of death and annihilation, gods of despair and madness, gods of acceptance and fading. Gods who want to help the world limp along to a final darkness. And possibly you’ll have gods of light and defiance, gods of hunting and exploring, gods of lost knowledge and future innovation. Gods who want to reignite the world, kick it back into high gear, and maybe destroy it in the process, but better that than a long slow slide into a hungry nothing!

In your heroic fantasy, big and bawdy and brave, built around exploration vs safety, risk vs reward, civilisation vs freedom, might vs might. You might have people-specific pantheons, in a big empty world where every race or culture is out for themselves. Gods who pick (or come from) specific peoples, and act to make space for them in this brave new world. Other gods, with bigger or smaller goals. Gods of chaos, thriving on the general anarchy of the world. Gods of civilisation, striving to unify it more. Gods of annihilation, who want to wipe the slate clean, and who are great for everyone else to rally against.

There’s a lot of archetypes to work with here. When you’ve got your mood and your theme, it’s easier to get a picture of the type of god that’s going to live there, to embody that. Then what types might stand a good counterpart or complication to it.

Divide your pantheons up broadly along your themes. Feel out which domains and concepts and ideologies belong with which camps, which might be shared between them. What the pantheons as a whole culturally value, what individual gods value, what that means for their allegiances and goals. What deities would be outliers, independent, what ones would work together, what ones hate everyone but are broadly aligned in goals with others.

From there, we’ve got two further considerations, which I tend to do in whichever order makes sense at the time. One of them:

Reverse-Engineer Your Cosmology:

By which I mean, the origins of your deities and the mechanisms by which gods and/or universes are created in your setting. Can gods be made or created later, or did they have to exist from the start of the world? If they can be created later, how can they be created? How willing are the gods to personally interact with the world and to what extent? Did the gods create the things they’re in charge of, or are they avatars of them, or did they just divvy up jobs the old fashioned way? Etc.

Now. I know a lot of people prefer to do this step first. Cosmology first and work down from there. That’s perfectly fine if that works for you! For me, though, it really doesn’t. It’s far, far easier for me to reverse-engineer it later, after I’ve sketched out what my setting feels like and what sort of gods I’d like to exist in it. It’s easier to have realisations like ‘this setting is way too bleak for ascension to be an option’ or ‘this setting values freedom and chaos too much for everything to have been set in stone from before the beginning’ or ‘this setting is too subtle and low-key for vast holy gestures to be feasible until endgame’ if I’ve already run through the rest first.

Also, it’s easier to come up with backstories if the setting is already sketched. If I decide gods can be made, I can look at things like the cataclysm that defined my post-apocalyptic world and go ‘that made or killed a whollle bunch of gods’. If it’s a gothic/dark fantasy story that relies very much on faith and hope vs monstrosity and darkness, then mortal-origin deities who were so hopeful or monstrous in life that they became avatars after death becomes an obvious option. Things like that. Cosmology is easier sketched in retrospect, I find. You’re not paralysed by fitting stuff into a pre-existing grand order of the universe. You can come up with stuff as it pleases you, and work back to justify it later. (I mentioned I’m a pantser, right?)

And the other consideration:

Further Details:

Once you have your broad-strokes themes and pantheons sketched in, you can flesh them out and start building stuff above, below, within and around them.

Above would be the reverse-engineered cosmology above.

Below would be: servants, celestials, lesser deities, demigods, mortal champions, mortal organisations, priesthoods, cults. What the gods have put into the world. Artefacts. Locations. Ideals. Religions. Powers and magics.

Around them would be other beings, devils, demons, eldritch abominations, etc, and where they fit in this setting. Anomalies to the grand order. Etc.

And within them would be: individual gods, backstories, personal histories, what gods are most powerful depending on theme, what gods are most independent, what gods have changed allegiances in their history, what gods does nobody know their allegiances. What do the gods themselves feel about their jobs and their goals and their means to enact them. Once you’re down off the broad strokes and into the details, remember that your deities are individual, thinking beings as well. Perhaps they can learn, change. Perhaps they have personal hangups from their histories that preclude their doing or joining a certain thing, despite the thematic sense it would make. Perhaps they identify more strongly with a particular aspect of their nature/domain that could put them over into an unexpected camp. There’s a lot of room to muck things around and complicate them once you’re into the nitty gritty.

If stuff crops up here that makes you reconsider any of the previous points above, follow it. Play with it. Maybe adjust some stuff because of it. It often happens to me that a small specific detail will catch my imagination so much that I’ll edit huge chunks of the world around it. Possibly this works out better for writing personal worlds than for live game worlds that have other people in them, but still. It’s a point to consider. Stuff likely will come up later. Mood or tone might shift a bit, entirely naturally. Don’t go too far down into fixed details. Leave enough things vague or sketched that you’ve wiggle room later for adjustments.

In Summary:

Voila! My bootleg process for worldbuilding in general and worldbuilding deities in specific: start with what you want out of it, the mood and tone, the feeling of the setting. The themes and conflicts you want people to explore in it. Then jury-rig the rest out of that. Move to your goals, your factions, your big forces. Then your smaller details, individual characters and personal details. Your origins and your processions, going back and going forward. Reverse-engineer what you’d need to have done to get the setting you want, set the stage for where you might want it to go later. And always remember to keep things loose enough that you’ve got room to play and adjust and be surprised later, often by your own flighty brain.

Also. Deities are just characters, when we’re talking about fantasy settings. You don’t have to make any specific real world points with them. You just have to make them fit with the mood you want within your setting. You build your universe to fit your story, because fantasy allows us to do that, unlike the real world where we’re stuck with whatever was premade earlier. Heh. So don’t get too bogged down with what you need to add in or leave out to make things ‘dark’ or ‘realistic’ or whatever. Anything can be made to be anything, if you build stuff around it the right way. So add in whatever you want, and jury-rig the rest until it fits. Get a strong enough, loose enough base, and you can add in a surprising amount without upsetting it too much. In my case, that’s the feel. Get the tone nailed down, get some good strong archetypes to build the show on, and you can play merry hell with it from there.

It’s a good general rule. At least for rough-and-ready, adjusted-as-required stuff. Start with what you want, set up a loose framework for it to fit in, then jury-rig the rest from there.

(Or make stuff up out of whole cloth in a blind panic and spend the entire rest of your time straining to keep one chapter ahead so no one figures it out, until you hit a surprise endgame that absolutely no one, least of all you, was prepared for. You know. One or the other. Heh)

So. Good luck inventing gods? Hope this works for more than just me? Eh. Hopefully there’s something worthwhile in it, and good luck!

#worldbuilding #fantasy #pantheons #deities #meta #jury-rigged writing methods for jury-rigged worlds

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ask-de-writer · 4 years

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SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 45 of 83 : World of Sea

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SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

Part 45 of 83

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

written 2007

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

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Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

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New to the story? Read from the beginning. PART 1 is here

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Doctor Worran put her arms around her Captain and looked at Mord as she said, “It was Ord smoke that contaminated provisions. My Captain and over seventy of the crew were hurt. Twenty seven died. She’s been poisoned twice.”

Sula blinked back her tears and regained a semblance of composure. To control the feelings that still raged in her after more than ten Gatherings, she spoke with almost academic detachment. “These provisions would have prevented those deaths and saved many more, myself included, from injury. If we’d had this process we could have just washed the Ord smoke from the blocks. The total populations of twenty three murdered ships could have been saved.”

Once again, the circling Wide Wing became a thing of interest. It helped Sula to focus and get her thoughts under control. She picked up the block of preserved crab and looked at it with both sorrow and hope.

“These provisions will enable us to make long, swift runs when necessary.”

“Like battle intercept runs?” Mord asked brow furrowed with curiosity.

“Like battle intercept runs,” confirmed Sula.

“The Captain of Captains got away from us after the Second War,” put in Doctor Worran, “because he had more provisions than we did. Nets, lines and catch processing slowed us down, allowing him to escape. Provisions like these could have ended the matter there. Instead, thousands died and over a hundred ships were lost in the Third War.”

Kurin, who had been listening intently, asked, “Where is he now?”

“At the end of the Third War, we had more provisions than he did,” Sula said shortly. Kurin was awed by the thought that so small a thing as this might have saved thousands of lives and many ships. She mentally filed away the notion that a big picture is made up of small details and sometimes just one detail can change the entire picture.

Sula was staring at a lowly block of preserved fish and seeing carnage, a war that could have been prevented, ships and lives saved by a bit of safe food. She was biting back tears as she signed the agreements that Alor put in front of her.

Soon, the Longin’s cargo crane was lowering bulging nets into lighters. The provisions were being transferred to the Dark Dragon. The two galley Masters had their heads together, going over the whole process and the equipment needed.

Master Juris was busy in the boat-shop, fabricating two new sets of block presses, one for the Dark Dragon, and one for the Soaring Bird. Kurin could not help in the manufacture, as she normally would have, so he set her to making drawings and writing directions for the equipment. Both Captain Mord and Captain Sula were watching the work going on in the shop.

A runner from the Council located Sula and conveyed their urgent request that she come back. All of the Captains that had left the Council were also being recalled.

As Mord and Sula left, Master Juris remarked to Kurin, “There’s a Wide Wing hunting on this breeze. The Council’s asked for Sula and Huld both. I’ll wager you that they want more than just advice on how to run the search for the Grandalor.”

“I know what you mean. They are the only Captains here that have any experience in searching for ships that don’t want to be found. If we catch the Grandalor, I hope that the Dark Dragon doesn’t have to sink her. It would cause Sula grief that she doesn’t need.”

“I did see that even the thought of war bothered her,” said Master Juris, looking up from the mold and press that he was fabricating.

Kurin continued to carefully copy her drawing as she replied, “Sula still cries in her sleep for the folk that she’s killed. She can’t forget them. She sees no difference between them and her own crew. The last war that she fought was over ten Gatherings ago.”

“That must be hard,” said Master Juris sympathetically, as he methodically shaved the carefully shaped press ram for a perfect fit in the mold. “The Dark Dragon has sunk what, about thirty ships?”

“Thirty six,” said Kurin, concentrating on a bit of tricky detail in her sketch. “She has damaged and captured fifty three and taken the surrender of a hundred and twenty-one. While I was on board the Dark Dragon, I was allowed to read what I could in Sula’s library and sailors will talk. Most of her books are written in Winternight. I can’t read it but I did look through quite a few of them anyway. They had pictures that I could understand. I know what war is, now. It scares me.”

Master Juris had a tight, angry smile as he spoke, “It is hard knowledge to have. I think that you had an easier time receiving the knowledge than the Grandalor will have.” He carefully measured another press part with a caliper, so that it would exactly match the previous press, standing on his bench.

In the Council Pavilion, Master Juris’ prediction was being borne out. Captain Sarfin was addressing both Sula and Huld.

“We have no claim on your time. You came here for a clearly stated purpose which you have accomplished. In all honor, you could leave us here to deal with the situation that has arisen in our fleet. I do hope, indeed we all hope, that you will continue to help us as you have already.

“You have made one search sweep for the Grandalor. We know that you have experience in searching for ships that want to hide. We have to find the Grandalor and bring her to justice. Will you help us? If you will, we will put the fleet under your command.”

Huld was sitting cross-legged on the deck. Sula turned to him and crouched down to his level. “Honored One, this is not my decision alone. May we do this thing?”

Huld did not open his eyes. He replied quietly, “We must.”

Sula uncoiled, a spring of human energy. “We will organize and guide your effort. When you find the Grandalor, do not try to take her. Huld and I have the experience and equipment for that task. We will not take the reward but will see it shared out to the ships that found her.

“Set up a large table and bring me maps showing your territories. I will need sailing data on all of the ships that will be in the search. In particular, I will need your wind nomograms.

She looked about at the Captains, some like Sarfin, were already beginning to dig through the fleet Archive for what she had asked. Others, Skua in particular, seemed troubled by the way that she was taking charge.

Seeing his reluctance, Sula asked Skua directly, “Do you want to be a part of this search?”

He scowled, “Not really. The Fauline really isn’t up to this sort of work. Our schooner rig is handy but it’s not very fast. We should be going to our Spring waters and fishing.”

“Then go to notify the Arrakan fleet. You can begin fishing after that is done.” Sula turned her back on him in dismissal and began to study the data piling up in front of her. As Skua stalked out, he heard her saying, “Longin, you and the Dorton are both fast and sail tight to the wind. You will take the North. Go to the Dragon Sea and begin your mapping. Dorton, you go with the Longin and patrol one degree south of them and one half day upwind from them.”

As they began to protest that they could not cover so vast an area, she handed them a different chart. “Here, this polar projection will make the real situation clear. Mercators always distort the northern latitudes.”

The Fauline gathered her crew and left, ostensibly for the Arrakan fleet.

TO BE CONTINUED

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#SEA DRAGON’S GIFT #Part 45 of 83 #World of Sea #Written by De Writer

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imaginedanganronpa · 6 years

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Can you please do headcanons with the DR1 cast as the Remnants of Despair? I was thinking of the V3 cast in the role of the TTH cast with Tsumugi as the Ultimate Despair and Maybe Rantaro as her Mukuro. While Kaede’s the Ultimate Hope with Ryoma, Shuichi, Kiibo, Miu and Himiko surviving with her.

I love Remnant of Despair AU’s, but I’m going to exclude Junko and Mukuro for obvious reasons. And as for the V3 Cast in the THH roles, I’m not going to write that right now since that isn’t the Request submitted but I guess I could in the future! I definitely think Tsumugi would be the Ultimate Despair, but I’m not as sure about Rantaro as her Mukuro lol. I think it’s an interesting concept nonetheless!

Warnings for: Su*cide Mentions, as well as Spoilers for the DR3 Anime and Mentions of Violence/D*pression.

Danganronpa 1: Trigger Happy Havoc Cast As The Remnants of Despair!

Makoto Naegi

It’s hard to believe that Makoto would succumb to Despair very easily considering his status as the Ultimate Hope. He would be one of the more difficult individuals to break, especially with his affiliation to the Future Foundation.

But how Despair-inducing would it be to turn the Ultimate Hope into a servant for Despair? If anything, Makoto would be in a hostage situation where everything else started to feel bleak and meaningless, working as a similar Servant to the Warriors of Hope.

Rather than being a voluntary Servant, though, he would be forced into doing so, which would slowly break his spirit.

Junko would break him down and use him for her own personal gain. He would become a bargaining chip against the Future Foundation, and if they did anything to try to stop Junko and the other Remnants then she could easily bring harm to Makoto.

His broken down state of mind would also be used against his class - they would be shown how he has deteriorated and fallen victim to Despair, which would in turn bring his friends onto Junko’s side as well.

He, similar to Chiaki, would be the main focus in the brainwashing video that brought them into Despair.

Kyoko Kirigiri

It would be quite difficult tosend Kyoko into Despair, and it takes much more than just brainwashing to causeher to switch sides. Junko would trick Kyoko into believing that Makoto wasmurdered and show her the falsified video of his supposed brutal ‘death,’ which woulddo the trick.

After being converted into a Remnant, Kyoko would head to Hope’s Peak Academyto murder her father, Jin Kirigiri, in an act of cold blood. If he was gone,then she would have no trouble destroying his beloved Academy in the process – shewould watch the other Remnants wreak havoc upon the city from atop thecrumbling, destroyed building that once was Hope’s Peak.

She would see herself as the judge, jury, and executor – Kyoko would be able tomurder innocent civilians and cover up their deaths so that they would never besolved!

She wants children to feel the same Despair that she felt when she took her own father’s life and slaughter families before their very eyes, whichwould eventually lead children into working for the Warriors of Hope.

That, and Kyoko would starve herself until her body was nothing but a skinny husk. Ifshe was brainwashed as much as the others, she may even take Junko’s hands toreplace them with her own, scarred ones.

Byakuya Togami

Byakuya would be one of the mostmerciless Remnants of Despair, feeling his power growing within him and loving the new dominance he has gained since joining the side of Despair; he would become increasingly hostile and greedy.

Since he is the heir to a big company, he would easily be able to send peopleinto a deep depression and Despair by laundering money and sending them intomass debt. It would be just like the Great Depression in the 1930’s America allover again, causing people to commit suicide over their un-repayable debt.

He’d laugh as those around him crumble and watch the world fall into Despair as images of people everywhere jumping from the tops of buildings would circulate.

He would also offer up his parents as sacrifices to Junko - to both feel the Despair of killing them but to also inherit the company; Byakuya would be much more selfish after becoming a Remnant and he would be able to take full control of his family’s company so that his plan to send the country into debt would go smoothly.

And Byakuya would deepen his own Despair by doing something he’d never do in his right mind, and fall in love with Touko Fukawa.

Celestia Ludenberg

The first thing that Celestia woulddo is starve herself and change her entire wardrobe to replicate Junko’s aesthetic, even changing her clip-ins to reflect Junko’s hairstyle and wearing Monokuma pins in her hair.

She would likely revert back to calling herself Taeko as well.

Celestia would set up gambling rings that were rigged and impossible to win, causingpeople to gamble their lives away until they dropped from exhaustion,stealing their money and sending them into mass debt as she did so, similar to Byakuya’s method but in a much more direct way.

She would use Despair as a bargaining chip, sending even the most confident people into Despair. She would beg them to, “Keep playing, come on! You have nothing else to lose, Upupupu!” until her opponents lost everything they had, sending them into depression.

Celestia would laugh like a madman as she watched anyone who tried facing her crumble.

She would also force people to play Russian-Roulette, lying about how many bullets were in the chamber. Of course, they would all actually be loaded so playing her games was a death-wish, but she didn’t tell them that.

Leon Kuwata

Leon would become the face of Despair for athletes everywhere as he works them to death, literally; he ‘motivated’ his teammates to train until they dropped from exhaustion.

Those athletes who survived were brainwashed alongside him, becoming minions of Despair, and would then use their astounding physical abilities in the fight against the Future Foundation as well to slaughter civilians everywhere.

Since he wants to become a musician, he would create mediocre Despair-inducing music that would cause physical harm to whoever listened to it; he would attendSayaka’s concerts to further himself into Despair.

Leon destroys the baseball stadium where he played at, and stands among the rubble after he’s finished to overlook the city and watch the other Remnants spread Despair across the country.

Leon also spreads physical destruction, modifying his bat into a steel weapon, equipped with sharp blades at the top. He would recklessly vandalize the city, letting out loud, unsettling laughter as he did so.

And anyone who tried to stop him would get ruthlessly beaten to death in the process.

Aoi Asahina

Aoi would offer up her brother,Yuta, as a sacrifice to Junko and the Warriors of Hope; he was already a ‘Demon’ that they were hunting so she would just make their jobs easier.

And to feel the most Despair possible, Aoi would drown him. It’s ironic since both of them, especially her, are renowned swimmers - how Despair-inducing it is to be killed by the thing you love the most!

Aoi’s personality would completely change - she would no longer be the positive, optimistic girl that she once was. She would deprive herself of sweets to fuel her own madness and Despair, becoming much less emotional, and more serious.

She would fight alongside Genocider Syo and Sakura Oogami, using her own physical strength to fight the war against the Future Foundation. She would also completely turn against Makoto and laugh as she watched him serve the Warriors of Hope like a dog.

Aoi would be the main ‘motivational’ speaker for the Remnants, encouraging them to continue spreading Despair and develops a sick, sinister adoration for Despair and idolization of Junko.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru

Kiyotaka would become asecond-in-command to Junko Enoshima, self-proclaiming himself as a Leader ofDespair.

He would march around the city with a hoard of Monokuma carrying him on apodium as he waves his hand with a sinister grin and shouts encouraging words about Despair tocitizens on the streets, encouraging them to follow his lead with words.

Kiyotaka would shout at citizens trying to fight back against Junko’s Despair-inducing tactics, using his morality to alter their own morals and values and successfully swaying them onto his side.

Kiyotaka’s voice is programmed into the Monokuma Drones’ systems so that they recognize him, and that way he is able to command them as they march through the streets. He would be the main ringleader in charge of the Monokuma infesting the city, pulling at their strings like puppets as they do everything he says.

Anyone who was not succumbing to Despair was seen as a filthy rule-breaker, and Kiyotaka would promptly order the Monokuma Drones to tear them limb from limb.

Remnant of Despair Kiyotaka is much more cruel and rude as well.

Touko Fukawa

Touko Fukawa would cease to exist andonly act upon her instincts as Genocider Syo. She would never assist Komaru in a fight against the Warriors of Hope and Junko Enoshima, and would instead lash out against anyone who tried stopping them.

She would work as a tool for Byakuya and Kiyotaka as they order her around, getting off to their insults and harsh commands. She uses her scissors as weapons and superior killing-capabilities to fight the FutureFoundation.

Touko, or Genocider, would be like the ‘attack-dog’ of the Remnants. However, she would also blatantly try to murder Byakuya out of love, to only increase her own level of Despair, resulting in a horde of Monokuma restraining her.

Genocider would make plenty of comments about how Touko was her former self, and how she killed Touko and she’d never return. She was a ruthless killer who slaughtered tons of Future Foundation members.

Mondo Oowada

Mondo would terrorize the city onhis motorcycle, infecting the rest of his Biker Gang with Despair; also having leather-jacket wearing Biker Monokuma Drones join them and ride alongside them.

He could easily persuade the rest of his Gang members onto the side of Despair and ruthlessly kill whoever opposed him. They would form a fleet of motorcycles that would ride through the city, bringing Despair wherever they went.

Together, they would vandalize and destroy the city, and kill anyone who triedstopping them. Mondo and his Gang would take delinquency to a whole new level, getting in physical fights and destroying property, leaving only destruction and rubble in their path.

He becomes even more physical and hostile than he was before. Mondo would also get Chihiro to reprogram his bike and attach weapons, like machine-guns or flamethrowers, onto them so he can gun down innocent bystanders out of the blue.

He would often speak poorly of his fallen brother Diaya, no longer feeling remorseful over his death and instead calling Diaya a pathetic coward.

Sayaka Maizono

Sayaka would first set an example for her supporters by starving herself until she was nothing but an empty husk, encouraging all of her fans to do the same and insisting that they mutilate their bodies to look more like Junko’s.

But she, similar to Ibuki and Hiyoko, would perform Despair-inducing concerts that were designed to brainwash her audience. A lot of her songs encouraged suicide, murder, or destruction; and at the end of her concerts, she would have successfully diminished any and all confidence or sanity that her fans had.

Sayaka performs something similar to a Siren Song, bringing Despair to whoever listened to it. She would also use the screens behind her on stage to play the brainwashing video that Chihiro creates as she performs.

After her shows, she would hold a Meet-and-Greet where she demanded that her fans murder their loved ones and/or take their own lives; her influence as an Idol could persuade them into doing anything.

And Sayaka would also lure people in with her beauty, similar to Mikan. She would target her male audience and mutilate or torture them just for fun once she finally got a hold of them.

Chihiro Fujisaki

Chihiro would be one of the firstpeople to succumb to Despair since his mindset is already weak and damaged, so he would likely be the easiest person in their Class to convert.

He would use his programming abilities to play the brainwashing video he created all overthe city, hacking into downtown’s technology and projecting the video onto the big screens looming over the streets of Japan. Chihiro could also send this signal through private businesses so that his video plays in the homes of innocent civilians everywhere, unexpectedly catching them off-guard.

It would be a video, similar to the first Motive, that shows your loved ones in peril but also depicts graphic images of violence that would instantaneously brainwash anyone who watched it into Despair and send them into violent and hostile outbursts.

Chihiro would also ditch the dress he previously wore and adjust his wardrobe to reflect that of Junko’s, wearing a similar style to hers.

He is also in charge of programming all of the Monokuma Drones, becoming the main person who creates and develops them.

Sakura Oogami

If anyone, other than Makoto, isable to resist Despair then it would be Sakura – her willpower is far superiorthan that of her classmates and it takes a lot more to send her into Despair.Once she is on Junko’s side, though, she proves to be a formidable ally.

Junko would use her status as a Traitor to diminish her self-esteem, and thenonce Sakura’s emotions were at the lowest of the low, she would be shown a video of herfamily’s beloved Dojo getting destroyed.

In an act of anger, Sakura would slaughter her boyfriend and offer him up as a sacrifice to Junko – once sherealized what she had done is when she would completely fall into Junko’s hands.

Sakura would become a warrior for the Remnants, fighting alongside Genocider Syo and Aoi Asahina against the Future Foundation, easily taking out anyone who stood in her way.

She would also proudly boast about her status as a Remnant and try to provoke the members of the Future Foundation onto their side.

And if they didn’t listen, then Sakura would simply kill them with ease. Between Genocider’s mastery of blades and her brute strength, it was nearly impossible to fight against these women.

Yasuhiro Hagakure

Surprisingly, the Despair Yasuhiro feels causeshis prediction rates to increase in accuracy – but that was also part ofJunko’s motive for bringing him onto her side, and he fell for it withouthesitation.

Now, to fill others with Despair, Yasuhiro will still read their fortunes butpromise only negative things befalling his customers. He reads their fortunesthat are filled with Despair, misfortune, and heartache to send them spiralinginto depression; this makes them easier targets to either kill or bring onto the side of Despair.

Yasuhiro would be much more intelligent and calm as a Remnant, and less likelyto make hasty choices or comments. His new personality would be much more unnerving and sinister.

He would replace one of his eyes with Junko’s after her inevitable death,insisting that it helped him to ‘see’ into the future.

Yasuhiro would also murder his mother in a fit of blind rage and use her body as a sacrifice, selling her remains for profit.

Hifumi Yamada

Hifumi would also be easy to brainwash, and he’d ditch his ‘heroic’ persona for a more villainous one.

His Manga and Fanfiction would show depictionsof Despair and the characters he has created falling into it, causing hisviewers to model after them and succumb to Despair as well.

He would likely kill off his most popular and loved characters by forcing them to commit suicide and he would write Junko as a character into his fiction, representing her as an idol that his viewers should look up to and strive to be like.

Hifumi already has a large audience that would immediately be switched onto theside of Despair – his younger audience would follow in the Warriors of Hope’sfootsteps, killing their parents and joining their army, while his older audience would start worshipping Junko Enoshima.

He could easily get his readers to do as he pleases – if he wanted to cause them to commit suicide, kill their loved ones, or destroy their home or city, he could do so with one publication.

- Mod Rantaro

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theonyxpath · 5 years

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Eric Zawadzki here. As there seems to be a lot of interest in the Clades, I thought I’d share a bit more about these. To that end, I’ve provided the introduction to Clades, most of the write-up for the Mutant, and the current version of one Mutant Variation – Rapid Healing. A usual caveat applies: This game is just entering the first round of playtests, so things (especially mechanical things) could change.

Clades

Origins are how you went into the Divergence; Clades are how you broke. Which of the five Clades a Deviant belongs to depends on how her mind and body adapted to the process that fractured her soul.

While individuals within each Clade transformed along similar pathways, every one of them is unique and carried specific variances into their transformation. The Divergence brought the inevitable conclusion that the human subject would be altered into something inherently inhuman, either through dying or breaking and accepting becoming one of the Remade. While the outcome was unavoidable, the specifics were never certain. Despite any similarities that may exist in appearance, function, or powers of Broken within the same Clade, every transformed is unique. Each survived the Divergence in their own way and came into their Variations and Scars as individuals. No one within a Clade need have consistency or predictability with their peers.

Every Deviant has three Adaptations – two as a function of their Clade, plus Stubborn Resolve (p. XX), which is universal to all Remade. However dissimilar various Broken are, the Adaptations denote shared experience in surviving the horrors. For some Remade, the fact that others share their Adaptations is the only comfort they have in knowing they’re not alone.

Cephalists: The minds of these Psychics lashed out at the trauma of their Divergence, reshaping themselves as their souls cracked and giving them power over the world through sheer mental will, beyond anything a Baseline would understand.

Chimerics: Also known as Hybrids, these Remade combine human and foreign species to try and gain the best of both worlds. Hybrids may incorporate animal organs, plant genes, hastily attached limbs, or play host to voracious pathogens and parasites to merge human and other and see what results.

Coactives: The Infused blend the intangible with the solidity of human flesh. The precise power bound to the Broken that shattered her soul could be nearly anything. One harnesses deadly levels of electricity or radiation while another channels angelic light or demonic darkness. The intangible source is irrelevant to belonging to this Clade, only that the human controls it.

Invasives: The Cyborgs gained power as their flesh grew around invasive, inanimate matter, taking it in and incorporating it to be one with the human. Some Invasives benefit from shiny technological marvels while others make do with tarnished jury-rigged devices, but gadgets aren’t the sole province of this Clade. Magical artifacts, alien devices, and other exotic materials bonded with human meat also mark Invasives.

Mutants: Something in the genome of the Grotesques rebelled at the horror of the Divergence, rejecting whatever was trying to force change by responding with a change of their own. As the Mutant’s soul cracks, his body becomes something more, something with the ability to refuse the alternative insult to his flesh.

Classifying the Unclassifiable

Conspiracies focus on Clades because it gives some predictability to the Divergence, but this is far from perfect. It may be somewhat logical to think that slicing open a subject and surgically implanting mechanical parts produces an Invasive, but the victim’s body may reject the cold metal and latch onto the warm electricity inside the machines, becoming Coactive, instead. Or some quirk of genetics may force her body to violently destroy the foreign substances and rewire her Mutant physiology to be inimical to all machines. The stimulus of the Divergence is impersonal, while the response of Clade is nothing but personal.

Clades are not truly random, as statistical clusters do exist. The individual subject is important but not the only factor. Divergences appear to follow certain trends based on the events that brought about the rupture of a Broken’s soul. As an example, overcharging energy supplies — even with ephemeral energies poorly understood by science — while performing procedures may help skew results towards producing Coactives. Implanting living biological material is best suited to achieving a Chimeric result, just as grafting machines to human flesh most often gives an Invasive, when it delivers anything at all.

Progenitors who work under controlled conditions tend to have some level of repeatability to their methods, or at least try to limit the variables as much as possible to channel the results down the pathway they desire. To help deliver the control they so desperately crave, conspiracies specializing in producing certain Clades may use psychological profiling and genetic screening to identify those subjects with similar characteristics to what has previously yielded favorable results. What worked to make one subject of given background and health characteristics may work on another.

Despite these efforts, the Divergence is more art than science and any method can just as easily result in psychic Cephalists or genetic Mutants instead. Overall, Progenitors know every population has its outliers, and statistical anomalies exist. Sometimes, accidents just happen. Ignorant bystanders or isolated observers in the right place at the right time can undergo the Divergence as readily as carefully prepared subjects. In the end, which Clade a Deviant joins depends largely on the physical, mental, and spiritual state of the transformed herself.

Mutants: The Grotesques

Adapt and survive.

Every Mutant is a miracle, a statistical anomaly that, by rights, should have died as a result of the Divergence. Somehow, they didn’t. Their body rejected the cybernetic implant, or transplanted organ, or infusion of exotic energy as though allergic to it. Then it went a step further, transforming into something that would never suffer another such incursion. Unfortunately, this aggressive immune response still splintered the Grotesque’s soul.

The Mutant can endure almost any environment, for a time. Grotesques only rarely encounter situations that they can’t adapt to overcome. If a Mutant doesn’t have what it takes to thrive at that moment, she can change herself and triumph. If the Grotesque needs some advantage to save the day — or tear down a conspiracy — she will adapt and make it happen. These changes carry a cost — always a cost — but many Mutants are willing to pay this price if it advances their cause.

Welcome to the Freak Show

Mutants embody humanity’s adaptability to overcome any situation, including the Divergence. Regardless of whether the Remade was willing and prepared for the transformation, something within her genome refused to obey. Her body changed to survive, developing its own way of coping, and rejecting what was on offer.

Most Progenitors agree that this surprising immunity has roots in some quirk in the Grotesque’s DNA, but they argue vociferously over whether it would have occurred in the face of a different Divergence trigger. In short, no one knows with certainty whether the Mutant’s genes would have reacted the same way to a nanotech injection as it did to the implantation of a unicorn’s heart, or even whether the heart of a lion would have succeeded where the unicorn’s heart did not. Genetics might predispose a person to mutation, but it is equally reliant on the much less likely possibility that she is exposed to a Divergence-triggering stimulus that will unlock this potential.

Inhuman Resources

The very adaptability that refused compliance is what conspiracies want with Mutants. Every loyal Grotesque is a wildcard giving power to the conspiracy. Rivals may plan for attacks from many fronts, but they can never fully prepare for the Mutant dedicated to the conspiracy’s disruption or destruction. This unpredictable power makes Renegade Mutants just as terrifying to the conspiracies they’ve betrayed. Even Mutants who have worked within a conspiracy for years as Devoted could return for vengeance from any direction and despite the obstacles placed in their way.

This risk and uncertainty prompt smart conspiracies to approach identified Mutants carefully. Recruiters would rather proffer the carrot than the stick, enticing the Remade to join on her own terms, and under what she at least believes is her own free will. The cost of keeping a Grotesque onside and at ease is usually far less than forcing her to comply. Among several conspiracies, Mutant assets enjoy a freedom unmatched by other Clades, and coexist with the organization as a valued freelancer or consultant rather than a slave. The main question is how long can the Mutant turn a blind eye to the treatment and propagation of other Broken in the conspiracy’s clutches before her maladjusted conscience realizes the truth of her ‘business partners’?

Mutant Variations

Mutant Variations penetrate the Deviant’s anatomy down to the cellular level. Grotesques suffer frequent comparisons to cancers, for their most common capabilities are disturbing perversions of normal bodily functions, and they are the Clade most prone to fatal deterioration due to Instability.

Rapid Healing (• to •••••)

Subtle Discrete, Perpetual

The Deviant’s body works tirelessly and unerringly to restore itself.

This Variation must be Persistent. This Variation cannot heal damage caused by Scars (such as Perilous Variation) or Adaptations (such as Adrenaline Surge or Overclock).

At Magnitude •, the Deviant’s natural healing times are halved.

At Magnitude ••, the Remade heals one bashing damage per turn in action scenes and heals all bashing damage at the end of each scene. This also removes minor ailments such as colds, food poisoning, or sprains.

At Magnitude •••, as Magnitude ••, but the Deviant also heals all lethal damage at the end of each chapter. This also cures most diseases and purges the Broken’s body of toxins.

At Magnitude ••••, as Magnitude •••, but the Deviant instead heals one bashing or lethal damage per turn in action scenes, heals all lethal damage at the end of each scene, and heals all aggravated damage at the end of each chapter. This also regenerates damaged or destroyed limbs and organs, eliminating relevant Persistent Conditions such as Blind or Crippled.

At Magnitude •••••, as Magnitude ••••, but the Deviant is nearly invulnerable to death, except as the result of Instability. Even if decapitated, dismembered, or incinerated, his body still makes itself whole. After being killed, the Broken’s body can remain inert for as long as his player wishes, such as to wait for enemies to leave the scene or until he is no longer immersed in a vat of strong acid. When he rises from the dead, the Deviant heals points of aggravated damage equal to Scar Power.

The Coactive Symbiote doesn’t remember the assassination missions her body carried out on behalf of her old employers because the spirits they coaxed into possessing her never let her — at least not until she convinced one to help her escape (Amnesia; Persistent).

The Invasive contains powerful nanites capable of rebuilding his body from a fragment, if necessary. They have done her mental health no favors, however (Murderous Urge, Persistent).

The Mutant possesses regenerative abilities that would make a starfish jealous. Although he heals quickly, he also feels pain more keenly (Fragility; Persistent).

#Onyx Path Publishing

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blueimmersion-blog · 5 years

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Technical Diver

There are robust variations between a cave diver and a sump diver and the way they relate to the cave surroundings, how they configure their gear and what they attempt to obtain. A sump diver is greater than only a cave diver and greater than only a dry caver. A sump diver combines dry caving and cave diving methods in a singular approach to be able to obtain a really particular aim - negotiating water stuffed passages to be able to discover dry cave on the opposite facet. Whereas cave divers get pleasure from swimming round in water stuffed passages as an finish in of itself, to the sump diver the moist stuff is an impediment that should be negotiated, not the ultimate reward. To the dry caver the sumps are impenetrable and signify an finish of the journey, the sump diver however is just about unstoppable. Technical Diver

It's not all beer and skittles nonetheless, most of the time really attending to a sump in a dry cave requires not solely dragging your personal sorry ass a number of kilometers in, but additionally carrying a mountain of dive gear as well. For these of us who get pleasure from driving as much as a dive web site, chucking on the tanks and taking a leisurely stroll down carpeted stairs to the water, this may appear a bit, effectively... eager.

Undoubtedly carrying miscellaneous bits of dive gear and tanks to the far reaches of a cave to be able to do a dive is somewhat intense. But the rewards are titillating and it's price carrying down your physique and pushing your self to get there. In my view, that is what actual cave exploration is all about; strapping on the required gear and negotiating some severe cave. After I lastly mixed dry caving and cave diving it was like that second when peanut butter and chocolate collided... "two nice tastes that style nice collectively"... Reese's Peanut Butter Cups anybody?

My very first sump diving expertise was courtesy of Forrest Wilson, who invited me alongside on a visit to Snail Shell. Snail Shell is the longest steady cave within the Tennessee Central Basin area and has greater than 9 miles of surveyed passages. Our journey to push the second upstream sump felt like an enormous effort, particularly with the diving tools in tow. We spent over 10 hours underground and traversed over 14,000ft. On the finish the boys (Mike Younger, Adam (Skip) Kendrick) laid an extra 400ft of line. But as soon as I noticed the map of the entire system it was clear that our sojourn into the cave did not even scratch the floor. The sheer measurement and potential of those 'dry' caves dwarfs the vast majority of their submerged counterparts.

Being my first sump diving expertise I used to be a bit moist across the ears. I wore a 3mm wetsuit, grossly insufficient for the circumstances, which meant I froze. I dragged in tanks that had been approach too massive for a sump solely 70ft in size. Even the sidemount harness was, in hindsight, approach too cumbersome and had too many redundant bits and items. I am positive the GUE of us would have a match in the event that they got here nose to nose with a sump diver. Gear choice is predicated on the character of the cave and whether or not you may carry all of it to the water's edge. Keepings issues gentle and environment friendly is of major significance; small tanks, no wing, light-weight harness and sometimes no fins are simply what the physician ordered.

Typically it's a must to be inventive and invent your personal gear. I as soon as needed to jury rig a no-mount harness on the spot to be able to discover a small crevice in upstream River Lethe, a collapse Jenolan. I had no hope of becoming into the outlet in a regular sidemount harness, so to maintain a 'zero' profile I threw some bits of bungee and hose retainers collectively. The 'Lethe' harness, with some minor modifications has since turn out to be my rig of alternative when sump diving. It offers me a low profile within the water, but permits me to sling and stroll with 7L tanks for a number of thousand toes. Typically you simply must get inventive.

Regardless of being clueless and ill-prepared, the Snail Shell journey was an unimaginable expertise. The cave is like an underground river, the place you negotiate massive stream passage by swimming, wading and strolling by way of giant swimming pools of water. Alongside the best way you climb over breakdown piles and traverse waterfalls. And in between getting your ass kicked by the cave, you're handled to some spectacular surroundings and unimaginable formations. These are likely to distract from the arduous circumstances, albeit quickly. Once we lastly reached the tip of the road and the second sump, the boys inspired me to seize the reel and spool out a number of meters, to expertise laying line. By that time I used to be bordering on hypothermic and enjoying explorer was the very last thing on my thoughts, so I declined and focused on getting myself heat. I did, nonetheless, get my first style of sump diving and I beloved it!

So from my first sump diving expertise allow us to quick ahead to an journey throughout the opposite facet of the world, all the best way in Australia in truth, the place I did get to play explorer. The Buchan space one of many largest karst options within the state of Victoria, the southernmost state of mainland Australia. It's a farming space; inexperienced grass, rolling hills, cows and all that. Beneath this panorama the world is a honeycomb of caves. The Pot Holes Reserve specifically is totally suffering from caves with over 90 recorded. The Pot Holes narrowly escaped quarrying within the 80s and is now protected by Parks Victoria, which is fabulous given the importance of the world.

In 2006 the Victorian Limestone Caving Staff (VLCT) found 330ft of perennial streamway on the Pot Holes Reserve, which they dubbed Elk River, on account of the outstanding 'antler' formation discovered. It was an unimaginable discovery, as for the primary time cavers obtained a glimpse of the underground river that had lengthy been mooted to exist within the space however had eluded all. Exploration quickly stopped, nonetheless, as the best way ahead was blocked on each the up- and downstream sides by sumps.

In 2008 my mate James (Jim) Arundale probed the underwater extensions at every finish of Elk River. He discovered it troublesome to push by way of however ultimately negotiated a good and nasty sump and was rewarded with one other 400ft of streamway passage earlier than one other sump terminated his progress. Lastly, in August 2009, with Peter Freeman coordinating the Victorian Speleological Society (VSA) effort, Jim and I ready to sort out the second downstream sump. I grew to become a accomplice in crime to what certainly is the largest heist of the century!

We joked about discovering kilometers of passage earlier than descending, however to really discover 5000ft of passage, principally multi functional go, was simply mind-blowing. I imply actually, who really finds that a lot cave passage nowadays, particularly in little outdated Buchan?! The Buchan caves whereas fascinating, are usually moderately small. The longest pitch is barely 130 odd toes lengthy and a lot of the caves appear to terminate all too early. Whereas hopeful, we weren't anticipating to hit the jackpot. But, we scored, and what we discovered surpassed all our expectations.

Elk River it appears is the primary drain for the world, the lengthy misplaced and far theorized about grasp cave system. The cave is of excellent significance in Victoria and is an important since 1907-1910, when Frank Moon found Fairy and Royal Caves (the Buchan Present Cave system). The invention completely re-writes the books about hydrology and geological construction within the space. The drainage would not go within the path most anticipated, in the direction of the one important seen resurgence within the space. The truth is, it goes precisely the other approach! Additional, it's simply the deepest collapse Victoria, now over a 350ft down, and it has the potential to drop additional nonetheless. Which is unimaginable provided that not one of the caves within the Buchan space go deeper than 200ft On high of that, it has the potential to turn out to be the longest steady stream passage in Victoria. These accolades have meant the cave system is now known as the Murrindal Potholes Jap Grasp Cave (MPEMC). The official title would not fairly roll off the tongue, so we proceed to affectionately discuss with it as Elk.

Related Topics:

Expedition Trimix Diver Courses TDI Courses

#Technical Diver

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fridlyckanslove-blog · 5 years

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Electronic Marketing Demographics

Digital marketing has changed so much, often the greatest path forward it is best to step back and look at the broad landscape... the demographics of digital marketing if you may. To do this, I often look at overview reports from the best in the business. Below I lay out some of the biggest findings from a Razorfish report I love eligible "Digital Dopamine: 2015 Global Electronic Marketing Report". According to Razorfish, "Ideas that were once dominant now face irrelevance, as new digital developments displace them. This transformation happens rapidly, and marketers are constantly struggling to keep up. Therefore , in planning for tomorrow, Razorfish took a deep dive into the qualitative plus quantitative data of four worldwide markets (the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Brazil) to examine the ways in which digital technology is shifting traditional brand-consumer relationships. From uncovering global business expectations to identifying the effect of digital on our subconscious, this study set out to expose the key trends framing marketing. " What did Razorfish find in terms of how digital advertising was used in 2015? Here are a few of their key findings. 1 . GENERATIONAL CHASM Mobile dominates the Millennial buying experience. A Millennial's smartphone is definitely their key to the world. As mobile payment technology grows, mobile is going to become an even more important section of the overall brand and retail encounter. Millennials draw no practical distinction between online and offline. Millennials' continuously connected smartphones mean they no longer see a difference between "online" plus "offline. " Technology has become an integral part of their lives, and it is how they connect to and experience brands, even when within traditionally "offline" environments. They don't use media in silos. Rather, each uses all of the tools at their fingertips at any given time, regardless of the device or platform. Millennials are redefining privacy anticipation. When compared to Gen X, Millennials are more likely to trust brands to protect their privacy-and less likely to think that mobile targeting is an invasion of privacy. Policy for the Gen X / Style Y digital divide. Millennials prospect the pack when it comes to the use of technology, outpacing their Gen X counterparts in nearly every electronic activity on a daily basis. Gen X-led organizations need to ensure that their brand encounters align with Millennials' tech-led lifestyles and that digital isn't simply a good afterthought in the brand planning procedure. Target carefully and with purpose. 2 . THE DIGITAL EXPERIENCE ECONOMY: People are actively avoiding advertising. Consumers in every four markets (United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, China) report doing everything they can to avoid seeing advertising, and several are utilizing tools like DVRs to help them succeed. Advertising is most reliable when it is part of a value trade. Consumers are now aware of how much their own attention is worth to marketers, and they expect to be rewarded for it. They will look to be compensated with devotion programs, free content or useful tools that solve problems. Brazil still has a cultural affinity in order to traditional advertising. Interestingly, Brazil continues to be more receptive to advertising than any of the other markets. Fifty-seven % of Brazilian consumers endorse TELEVISION, radio and print ads since the most influential source of advertising. Consequently , it is important to understand that adding value means different things to different cultures. Make yourself useful. Brands need to offer their clients services beyond core products and add some real value to peoples' lives, if they are not already. Consumers are very likely to stick with a brand if they feel it makes their lives easier. 3. SMOOTH COMMERCE Digital is the new storefront. A good e-commerce site is not just a nice-to-have; it has a major impact on your brand. The numbers speak for themselves: 84% of people in Brazil and 92% of people in China say that a poor brand website negatively impacts their particular opinion of the brand. Seventy-three percent and 79% of people in the Oughout. S. and U. If you loved this write-up and you would certainly such as to obtain more information concerning http://www.therisebandb.com kindly see the webpage. K., correspondingly, agree. Current e-commerce experiences flunk of expectations. Even with the massive accomplishments made in the evolution associated with commerce, consumers are still not amazed. Current e-commerce experiences, return plans and shipping options are falling flat in cultivating satisfied customers. Consumer journeys are peppered with dead ends. Although consumers no more view a distinction between on the web and offline brand channels, brands are not yet structured to support this perspective. This creates a tension between what consumers want and what brands are usually providing, forcing consumers to jury-rig solutions. Empower your customer. Inflexible returns policies, in particular, are a main point of friction in both the internet and offline retail experiences. An excellent return policy is an easy method to differentiate your brand from the competition, build loyalty and earn believe in. 4. DIGITAL CONDITIONING Consumers confess to technology dependence. Over three-quarters of consumers in all four of the marketplaces surveyed admitted to often feeling dependent on technology. Many elements are usually cited for the development of this dependence, including utility, connectivity and the beneficial emotions they associate with it. We've been exposed to digital classical conditioning. As proven by Pavlov, repeatedly pairing two cues can elicit a classically conditioned response. This is similarly true for many consumers who use smartphones-the light or sound emitted from the device triggers a response associated with immediate attention. Instant gratification is not really always preferred. Remarkably, consumers in most four markets reported more excitement when receiving a purchase in the email than when buying in the store. This illuminates an interesting aspect of shopping that is specific to e-commerce- the power associated with pleasurable anticipation and delayed satisfaction. Use "surprises and delights" to your advantage. Without turning brand communications in to a carnival of push notifications plus flashing buttons, you can still generate pleasurable moments of anticipation about routine events for a brand. Wise marketers will play around with online game mechanics in the shopping and buying process, while ensuring it doesn't get in the way of simplicity and service. 5. EMERGING MARKETS IN THE FAST LANE Customers in Brazil and China are tech-hungry early adopters. This data shows that Internet users in these markets rely on technology for every part of their life and continually look for more ways to integrate it. Consumers in countries with lower Internet penetration could be the most demanding online. There are unexpectedly high expectations for digital services and websites in countries with lower Internet penetration. In particular, there exists a very strong desire in Brazil and China for e-commerce to improve.

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angrycollectordaze-me-blog · 5 years

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Essay代写：The American university education

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文- The American university education，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了美国大学教育。美国大学教育是世界公认的一流教育体系，其办学理念、教学环境、教学制度、教学评估、师生关系等趋于完善，教学质量优良且稳定。教师的敬业精神和自身素养决定了教学品位，学生在教师鼓励指导下，自学和思辨能力、公民意识等方面都得到充分提高，成长为现代社会的合格公民。

The reason why American universities have become the world's recognized first-class education system is that their educational philosophy, teaching environment, teaching system, teaching evaluation, teacher-student relationship and so on tend to be improved, and the teaching quality is excellent and stable. Teachers' professional dedication and their own quality determine the quality of teaching. Under teachers' encouragement and guidance, students' self-learning, critical thinking ability, civic awareness and other aspects have been fully improved, and they have grown into qualified citizens of modern society.

The author studied abroad in the United States for a master's degree in piano performance. The study environment of American university is elegant, halcyon, harmonious, study atmosphere already relaxed nervous. The educational concept of American universities is clear and the purpose of university education is to cultivate students' healthy personality. The rigorous and flexible teaching system and method complement each other, and the professional dedication and self-accomplishment of teachers and the perfect teaching supervision system guarantee the excellent and stable teaching quality. Teachers regard it as their duty to cultivate students' learning enthusiasm and impart correct learning methods. With the continuous improvement of students' self-learning, critical thinking ability and civic awareness, they have gradually grown into qualified citizens of modern civilized society.

The teaching environment of American universities gives people a sense of fresh and comfortable, relaxed and happy: wide lawn, green trees, old and modern buildings are in sharp contrast and elegant harmony, making people feel the organic link between history and modern. Many countries, nationalities and people of different colors work, study and live in the same campus. They live in harmony and are warm and friendly to each other. Whether teachers, students or staff, everyone is clear about their own goals and responsibilities, and conscientiously do their jobs.

Caltech is a world-renowned scientific and engineering research and education institution with 124 acres of campus and 7 departments and departments. Caltech has more than 300 professors and 600 scholars, and only enrolls over 900 undergraduate students and over 1200 graduate students each year. Caltech has a strong faculty, 33 Nobel Prize winners and 111 members of the national academy of sciences. Caltech's mission is to expand human knowledge for the benefit of society through integrated scientific research and education. Teachers and students actively explore and innovate. The professor teaches earnestly, the student studies assiduously, helps the fraternity. Advocate academic freedom, strictly abide by academic ethics, the whole campus presents an excellent academic atmosphere.

The university of Utah, where I am studying, is located in Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah. It is a famous comprehensive public university. It was founded in 1850. The 1,500-acre campus has more than 32,000 students and 4,000 faculty members from around the world. The university of Utah is fully qualified to confer bachelor, master and doctoral degrees, offering over 100 undergraduate programs and 90 graduate programs. University of Utah professor and alumni have won the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer prize, Turing award, Kyoto award, emmy awards, and other well-known alumni huntsman served as the United States ambassador to China. The university of Utah campus is surrounded by national parks. In 2002, the Olympic village of Salt Lake City was established in the university. Various sports groups in the university are very active, such as American football, baseball, basketball and skiing. Music college excellent facilities, is equipped with grand Gardner recital hall, as well as four performance hall and live music library, it is a school for the whole steinway, have at the university of the world's most advanced teaching facilities and equipment, regardless of the concert hall and the student piano room are the steinway piano, for more than 400 music professional students create a good learning environment.

When enrolling students, foreign students are required to provide toefl and GRE scores specified by the university. Students' personal statements and GPA are very important, from which the school will analyze students' ambition, learning ability, survival ability and plasticity, and then determine whether to admit them. If students are admitted by two universities, they can choose their schools and tutors freely, which reflects the rationality and science of the two-way selection mechanism of American universities and respects the feelings and needs of individuals.

Undergraduates must first pass the SAT and foreign students must have toefl scores. Graduate students must pass the entrance examination before entering the professional study. The subjects of music major include music history, music theory, etc. If they fail, they will have to retake the exam in the first half year, so they are under great pressure. Only after passing the examination can I choose professional postgraduate courses.

Graduation time is determined by the student himself, if certain courses do not meet the requirements must be retaken. Some students are allowed to take a break from school to start their own business or work for two years before returning to complete their credits. Music is a 2 year graduate program that can be completed in 3 to 4 years.

American universities attach great importance to the cultivation of students' comprehensive quality and professional ability. In addition to regulations, students can choose any courses they are interested in. The school offers courses in which students of any major can attend classes and receive equal credit. An undergraduate majoring in engineering took piano performance as an elective course. In the course, he played very well. The loose course selection mechanism in the United States created infinite possibilities for the development of students.

The first two years of undergraduate education in the United States mainly focus on natural sciences, humanities and social sciences, known as general education. The purpose is to expose students to a wide range of knowledge, lay a good foundation for humanistic quality and change the single way of thinking. Through the influence of general education, students' potential can be fully tapped.

Under the precondition of the teaching of undergraduate students, the discussion and communication between teachers and students are the common teaching methods. When the JURY read the verdict, the JURY read the verdict: when the JURY read the verdict, the JURY read the verdict: when the JURY read the verdict, the JURY read the verdict: when the JURY read the verdict, the JURY read the verdict: when the JURY read the verdict, the JURY read the verdict.

Teachers not only make achievements in their own professional fields, but also show their extensive knowledge and strong humanistic cultivation in their conversation. Students can solve all kinds of problems raised by teachers through interaction.

In American universities, there is no uniform teaching material, and teachers can choose the teaching material freely, so that teachers can keep pace with The Times and make in-depth research on the content and achievements of the selected teaching material.

After reading a book, students should write down their reading notes, understand the ideas in the book, analyze the arguments, judge whether the conclusion is correct or not, and try to make their own opinions unique. This is a way for teachers to train students' independent thinking ability. Teachers often inspire students to analyze different academic viewpoints and help students improve their critical thinking ability.

A glance at the resumes of college teachers in the United States shows that some of the teachers who wrote and recorded music, for example, studied science and engineering as undergraduates, and they developed in both fields. American media once reported that the probability of music major students applying for medical school is 10% ~ 20% higher than that of biology students applying for medical school. One of my American classmates was admitted to the medical school after graduation, which shows that the students of music subject have the potential of ingenuity, which is more popular in the medical school. The role of interdisciplinary knowledge in intellectual development is evident. American universities focus on cultivating students' ability of expression, independent thinking and innovation, and impart moral education throughout their studies, with the aim of cultivating qualified modern citizens. American universities have made great contributions to the cultivation of students' intelligence, morality and sense of citizenship. The idea that how to teach is more important than what to teach is thought-provoking.

The board system of universities is a distinctive higher education governance system in the United States. It is responsible for academic supervision, promoting education reform, ensuring the quality of teaching, and avoiding inbreeding in schools to form interest groups. The board of directors, the principal and the teachers shall perform their respective duties and have a clear division of labor. In order to ensure the implementation of the supervision responsibilities, the off-campus directors are mostly educators with both educational management ability and rich teaching experience, as well as those who are concerned about education in the industry and commerce industry and the lawyer industry. They make a rigorous and objective assessment of the school's educational reform and teaching quality, so as to ensure the healthy operation of the school on the right track.

American student assessment mainly evaluates whether the teacher's class is helpful for the improvement of students' ability to analyze problems and practical skills. Reflecting the teaching situation from one side, the purpose is to find out the weakness and improve it. Students' evaluation of teaching is also one of the reference bases for teachers' evaluation and promotion. If teachers neglect teaching and students' evaluation is poor, it will directly affect teachers' professional title evaluation.

Teachers strictly implement the teaching methods, and there is no such phenomenon in the United States. Teachers teach conscientiously, students study hard and actively participate in discussions. Teachers often have to deal with the "challenges" of students. Students' creative ideas are always recognized and adopted by teachers, and the interaction between teachers and students is normalized.

American teachers are paid enough to live a decent life after they finish their teaching work, and they can also get love and respect from students, social respect and the sense of accomplishment of cultivating excellent students from teaching. Therefore, teachers take teaching as their own responsibility. According to the statistics of the us department of education, the average teacher spends more than half of his time on teaching and related things, less than 20% on scientific research, and less than 50% on the average professor who publishes a paper every year. Many teachers never take part-time jobs outside the school to ensure that they have enough time to teach in their own schools.

Each student will have a syllabus. The teacher will patiently explain the requirements and details of the syllabus to the students. Teachers also develop detailed plans for technical training, and music majors are required to participate in all "master class" discussions.

Teachers will inform students about the book titles and publishers in detail, and instruct music students to buy the top version of the music, with strict requirements. The teacher chooses a teaching material for the student, often oneself has studied, such class, the teacher's train of thought is clear, profound but simple, has the target.

Before a recital, the tutor would offer several free lessons to the students to ensure that the students could play in the most perfect state. For 60 minutes in each professional class, there is no small talk but only the teaching of how to play music artistically. When the tutor demonstrates the large-scale music, he is full of passion and devotion. The tutor will praise and encourage the students immediately if they make progress.

American university teachers can lead by example and become moral and professional models for their students. The university website details each teacher's academic qualifications, artistic experience and achievements so that students can choose the right tutor. Learning piano performance, can get the teacher's words and deeds is particularly important. My tutor is Curtis music college music bachelor, Yale university music school music master, Manhattan music school music art doctor, for the piano professor, steinway artists. When I first came to college, I watched a piano recital by my tutor, which was like a high-quality DVD that was officially published. Teachers will hold concerts every year and perform in other states and countries during the holidays. Undoubtedly, teachers' performance skills and experience provide rich connotations for teaching.

It is the duty of a teacher to teach the right way of learning so as to avoid detours. Lao-tzu said, "it is better to teach a man to fish than to teach him to fish." That is to teach students lifelong skills. In the teaching of piano performance, the tutor constantly guides and cultivates students' self-learning ability by means of demonstration, inspiration and discussion. In spirit to encourage, specific guidance in detail, and students to discuss the writing background of the music, experience the complex emotions, ask students to go to nature to find the feeling, see the scenery and their feelings into the music, and strive to accurately express the meaning of music.

The students' concert pieces are selected by themselves. The tutor believes that only when they love these pieces can they have the enthusiasm to practice and perform the music well. After the rehearsal of the concert is approved by the tutor, the tutor will ask the students to do concert promotion and sincerely say: such a good concert should be enjoyed by more people! Under the encouragement and careful guidance of the tutor, the piano playing skills and music expressive force of the students have made a qualitative leap.

To sum up, we should do a good job in university education. Second, create a good teaching environment; Third, the construction of professional teachers with both ability and political integrity; Fourth, establish and perfect scientific teaching system and fair teaching evaluation system; Fifth, to expand students' autonomy. Tap the potential of students, enhance the wisdom of students, cultivate the sentiment of students, make them grow into a modern civilized society qualified citizens. Professor yu lizhong, former President of east China normal university, said: "mass higher education does not mean that low-quality education is allowed." In fact, the core idea of education in ancient and modern times should be the same at home and abroad. China's educational cause has a long history and remarkable achievements, but China's large educational environment is alienated and distorted due to various factors, and it is urgent to return to its original simplicity. In the system, the respect for teachers and education will be truly put into practice, China's education off the horizon.

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ask-de-writer · 4 years

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SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 1 of 83 : World of Sea

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to World of Sea

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

Part 1 of 83

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

First draft written 2007

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

//////////////

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Chapter 1: The Voice of the Sea

The day was fair and the sun was high, glittering off the water of Sea. Big Wohan was near the horizon and swift little Dorac was nearly at the mast head. Carsis, the third moon, was not due to rise until well after night fall.

The helmsman turned the three hundred foot length of the Longin dead into the wind. The breeze, now acting as a brake, slowed the big ship to a stop. Her large lateen sails went slack and fluttered in the gentle wind as the big ship, resembling a cross between a Chinese junk and a Yankee Clipper, finally went dead in the water.

“Why is the Captain even listening to her?” Silor, the lead deck-hand demanded of nobody in particular, gesturing offhandedly at the young, white haired girl standing beside Captain Mord Halyn near the bow of the ship. He was further back, near the foremast, in a knot of people prominent in the ship’s community. The Masters of the Craft Council were there along with many of the officers who were off duty. There were many others who were simply curious as to what Kurin was going to do this time. The nearly unbelievable rumor was that she was going to sound the bottom without a fathom-line.

Master Juris, the chief boat-wright and head of the Longin’s Craft Council, seeing a chance to needle Silor again, chose to answer him. Sarcastically he asked, “Why? Is your memory as clumsy as yourself? Do your recall as far back as three Wohans? A whole hundred days? There was a Coriolis storm, remember? Quite a large one.”

Silor did, in fact, remember the storm. I was on deck through most of it. I took the Captain’s orders and directed my mast crews. We saved the mainsail, the Longin herself, and every life aboard, when the reefing points tore out in hundred mile per hour winds. It was me up in the rigging. Rain and freezing wind tried to hurl me to Dark Iren. I set the puling blocks and caught lines that the hurricane whipped out of the control of my men and women. We got the yard secured to the boom and rebound that flailing canvass. We were almost done, the last line fought into its block, when slippery footing on a wet line let a hard gust throw me twenty feet to the deck. I broke my left arm. Silor was still paying the cost of saving the ship in his aching left arm, only recently out of its sling. Yes, Silor remembered the storm.

“Everybody knows how to deal with a blow like that,” Master Juris went on, patronizingly lecturing Silor like as if he were a child. “Run before it, close hauled and quarter your way out to safety after you are on the back of its path so it won’t just run you down again. The trick is to know when to quarter your way out with neither sun, moons or stars to help. We came out of the storm with only one section of one sail blown out of shape beyond salvage. The damaged section was replaced in five hours, and we were back in trim. How many ships did we find in that storm’s track? All needing major repair?”

“Six,” muttered Silor sulkily thinking correctly, Master Juris will always find a way to criticize whatever I do. Saved the ship, Logged a hero, and Master Juris calls me clumsy! Didn’t see Juris in the rigging helping! Once, five years ago when I was a kid, one bad thing happened, and Master Juris has never let me, or anyone else, forget.

“Kurin called the timing sooner than anybody expected and the Captain believed her. She was right. She got us to safety. It’s only one of the many times that she’s been right. That’s why the Captain listens to her. Now, let’s watch and see what this is all about.” The other Craft Masters of the Longin had come up from their shops below-decks to watch Kurin’s demonstration. They nodded in agreement.

Master Cirde the head of the weaving shop said, “I wish that Kurin was my apprentice instead of yours, Juris. She learns quickly and works well, rarely showing anything until she is sure of it. She came to my shop to play and that’s how we found out that the secret of Longin Lace had not left the ship when Cat went back to the sea.”

“She actually pays attention to instruction, instead of letting her mind wander onto dry land,” said Master Clard, the drummer. There was some good-natured laughter at the expense of apprentices in general. “They’re about to start,” he added.

“Just time for a friendly wager,” said Master Juris, smiling predatorially at Silor. “You are sure that this stop is a waste of time. I have some confidence in my apprentice. Two steamed fish cakes from this evening’s dinner will be the stakes. Acceptable?” He held out his hand and Silor, cornered by his own dislike, shook on it. In the background, others could be heard making various bets as well.

The attention of the whole group was now fixed on the Captain, the sailor beside him with a sounding line, and on twelve-Gatherings-old Kurin, the center of this storm on a calm sea. She closed her gray eyes and appeared to be concentrating on something that nobody else could notice. The deck was rolling gently in the swells, that was all.

She nodded to herself, satisfied, and wrote quickly on a tallow-slate with a bone stylus, showing it to Captain Mord, who signed it.

“Make the sounding,” he ordered the sailor who was standing ready. The sailor nodded with a brisk, “Aye, Sir!” He heaved a coral stone attached to a light line overboard and let it sink. The line had knots at regular six foot intervals and the sailor counted them as the stone sank. To the surprise of everyone except the girl, who was nevertheless relieved, the weight found a bottom at only twenty one fathoms, a mere sixty six feet down.

“You were right, Kurin,” said Captain Mord loud enough for all to hear. “There is a shallow bottom here that we never knew of. This could mark a good crabbing reef, if it has any size.”

He took her tallow-slate and added another note to it. Then he showed it to the waiting Craft Masters, officers and crew-folk. There for all to see, in Kurin’s neat writing, was ‘Bottom about 20 fathoms’ with ‘Cpt. Mord Halyn Longin’ signed beneath it as witness. There was also a note in Captain Mord’s hand, ‘Bottom found at 21 fathoms, Cpt. M.H.L.’

As the tallow-slate was passed about the group. Theatrical groans and cries of glee went with it. The sailors and some of the Masters could be heard cheerfully settling bets. Master Juris gloated to a gloomy Silor, “That’s two steamed fishcakes that you owe me from your plate at dinner. Want to try for all three, when we actually map out the shallows?”

The Captain now held up a carefully made chart on paperfish parchment for the Masters and Officers to see. Kurin’s neat drawing showed carefully marked depth contours for the expected bottom.

“I will let Kurin explain to you, as she did to me, the means of making this chart without long and laborious soundings.”

“Kurin, you know the Masters of the Craft Council. Please explain your method and answer their questions.”

She had known these men and women for Gatherings and worked and learned in their shops as a way of playing in her free time, but she was nervous still. This time, for almost the first time, she was going to try to teach them, instead of learning from them — and all of them at once.

She nervously twisted her long white hair in her hand as she began, “Five Gatherings ago, when we were on our way to her last Gathering with us, Cat gave me a hint to how she was able to steer the Longin so well in spite of her blindness. She said, ‘The sea speaks to me and tells me where the currents and reefs are. It’s voice is the long waves under the waves that we see.’

Kurin went on with gathering confidence, “It took me all of the five Gatherings since to figure out what she meant and how to interpret the waves. Look at the little wind waves on the surface. The Longin is big enough that they don’t move her at all. Still, she rises and falls to a longer, deeper wave than those. The long deep waves are the ones that I read for this work.

“It wasn’t easy to sort them out without help. They get shorter and higher when they pass over a shallow bottom. They bend when they go around the end of a shallow area and make a pattern that I can show you as the bent waves cross the ones that go straight. Currents, both big permanent ones like the Naral and Cliftos Currents, and transient flows caused by the tides, push the waves around. You can learn to tell which way the current is going, and about how fast.”

“I grasp the basic idea,” said Master Juris, absently scratching his bald head, “but I’ve watched you work on that chart in the boat-shop for most of a Gathering. Wouldn’t soundings be faster and more accurate?”

“I chose this place because we always sail past wide of it, due to the sudden change in the direction of the Naral Current, caused by this very reef. The turn that the current makes can throw dead-reckoning between navigation sightings way off. Because of that, we’ve always avoided this area. This is the one place in all three of our home waters where there is nothing but wave information to go on. Each time that we went past at a distance, I was able to add a little more. I could chart it to this same accuracy in only two passes if we came up within a mile of the reef and sailed along it. At most, three to four hours.”

The Masters retired down the deck to confer for a bit, trying to decide how to handle this turn of events.

While they were conferring, Captain Mord announced, “The second part of this experiment is to go ahead and do soundings by tried and true methods, to verify the accuracy of Kurin’s chart.

“While we do that, we’ll put some crab nets down in the known part of the shallows and try our luck.” The crew began to launch boats for the soundings and bustle about, preparing nets and crab-rings for use.

In the background the large, tubular hailing drum could be heard pounding out directions to the boats doing the soundings. Its main use was long-distance ship to ship communication, in favorable conditions it could bridge distances of over a mile with its very directional pulses of sound. Two officers, now using Kurin’s chart and a wide based range-finder, were telling the drummer what was needed next and he was telling the boats where to plumb the depths.

While the soundings were being taken, the other small, four and six oared, boats were lowered to the water with that absence of splashing that signals both experience and skill. Women and men both clambered down a big meshed net secured to the rail for that purpose. The ring nets, lines and floats were being lowered on boat hooks to the waiting crews. They were accompanied by good-natured banter and a few jeers from folk on deck, envious of those chosen to go. Oars made little whirlpools in the water and drove the boats ahead of quickly vanishing wakes as the crews rowed out to try the reef for crabs and to set some shrimp traps.

As Silor was eagerly preparing to go over the side to a waiting boat, Captain Mord approached. “Silor, I know that your arm is out of its sling but take the word of another who’s had a broken arm. Don’t over do it at first. I want you to organize the lookouts for Strong Skins and Wing Rays. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous those fish can be. Stay aboard this time and man the small crane. Somebody has to bring the catch aboard. I’m the Captain, and I don’t get to go out anymore.” He leaned on the rail beside Silor and looked at the departing boats with a heavy sigh.

Silor gripped the net cords so tightly that his knuckles turned white. I want to go out! My arm’s getting better! How did she do this? “Yes, Sir. Set the lookouts. Man the crane. I’ll take care of it, Sir,” he grumped stiffly. Stung at the loss of a chance at something fun to do, he went to do as ordered.

TO BE CONTINUED

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#SEA DRAGON'S GIFT #Part 1 of 83 #World of Sea #Written by De Writer

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ask-de-writer · 6 years

Text

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : World of Sea : Part 45

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

written 2007

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

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New to the story? Read from the beginning. PART 1 is here

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“These provisions will enable us to make long, swift runs when necessary.”

“Like battle intercept runs?” Mord asked brow furrowed with curiosity.

“Like battle intercept runs,” confirmed Sula.

Kurin, who had been listening intently, asked, “Where is he now?”

A runner from the Council located Sula and conveyed their urgent request that she come back. All of the Captains that had left the Council were also being recalled.

“I did see that even the thought of war bothered her,” said Master Juris, looking up from the mold and press that he was fabricating.

“Thirty six,” said Kurin, concentrating on a bit of tricky detail in her sketch. “She has damaged and captured fifty three and taken the surrender of a hundred and twenty-one. While I was on board the Dark Dragon, I was allowed to read what I could in Sula’s library and sailors will talk. Most of her books are written in Winternight. I can't read it but I did look through quite a few of them anyway. They had pictures that I could understand. I know what war is, now. It scares me.”

In the Council Pavilion, Master Juris’ prediction was being borne out. Captain Sarfin was addressing both Sula and Huld.

Huld was sitting cross-legged on the deck. Sula turned to him and crouched down to his level. “Honored One, this is not my decision alone. May we do this thing?”

Huld did not open his eyes. He replied quietly, “We must.”

“Set up a large table and bring me maps showing your territories. I will need sailing data on all of the ships that will be in the search. In particular, I will need your wind nomograms.

Seeing his reluctance, Sula asked Skua directly, “Do you want to be a part of this search?”

He scowled, “Not really. The Fauline really isn’t up to this sort of work. Our schooner rig is handy but it’s not very fast. We should be going to our Spring waters and fishing.”

The Fauline gathered her crew and left, ostensibly for the Arrakan fleet.

TO BE CONTINUED

<==PREVIOUS NEXT==>

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to World of Sea

#SEA DRAGON’S GIFT #World of Sea #Written by De Writer #Part 45

19 notes · View notes

ask-de-writer · 6 years

Text

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 1 of 83 : World of Sea

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

First draft written 2007

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

//////////////

///////////////////////

Chapter 1: The Voice of the Sea

She nodded to herself, satisfied, and wrote quickly on a tallow-slate with a bone stylus, showing it to Captain Mord, who signed it.

“You were right, Kurin,” said Captain Mord loud enough for all to hear. “There is a shallow bottom here that we never knew of. This could mark a good crabbing reef, if it has any size.”

The Captain now held up a carefully made chart on paperfish parchment for the Masters and Officers to see. Kurin’s neat drawing showed carefully marked depth contours for the expected bottom.

“I will let Kurin explain to you, as she did to me, the means of making this chart without long and laborious soundings.”

“Kurin, you know the Masters of the Craft Council. Please explain your method and answer their questions.”

The Masters retired down the deck to confer for a bit, trying to decide how to handle this turn of events.

While they were conferring, Captain Mord announced, “The second part of this experiment is to go ahead and do soundings by tried and true methods, to verify the accuracy of Kurin’s chart.

TO BE CONTINUED

NEXT==>

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#SEA DRAGON'S GIFT #World of Sea #written by Glen TenEyck #Part 1

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