#most of these decisions are greatly effected by editors i get that

[syneilesis]

[fic, wip 2/3] Let It Stand | chapter two

Let It Stand

Ikemen Prince | Chevalier Michel x Main Character (Emma) | T

ao3 link

Emma gets a new editor. This editor doesn’t like her that much.

A/N: Finally, ugh. I tried my best with the novel excerpts. Also, things get slightly serious in this chapter.

chapter one

chapter two

Page 84:

Did the main character waltz into the basement without getting flagged by security?

Why would Chevalier focus on the security of the palace? The scene was the first emotional confrontation between the main character and the male lead; nobody would bother to think about the shifting schedule of the palace guards!

Page 132:

The generals are not doing anything in accordance with their function.

It's a romance novel, not a military novel.

Page 256:

This scene doesn’t contribute to the overall narrative. Either remove this or revise this into something that will strengthen the connection between the main character and the male lead.

… Okay, this one was fair.

Page 401:

Flowery prose in this scene will only take away the quick pace of the action. Rework this.

Tch, fine.

Page 445:

The sacrifices made in defeating the antagonist are not comparable with what I suspect you want to achieve; if you want to highlight their love, you need to find something of equal value—say, his magic, for example.

Oh. This was a good point. A bittersweet approach, but utterly effective. Emma opened her notebook and started to take down notes; she was definitely going to lose a lot of sleep for revisions.

✏︎

from: emma083021@gmail.com

to: cmichel@rhodolitepress.com

subject: Re: Re: Re: Manuscript Editing

Dear C. Michel,

Hello! I hope you’re having a good day.

I am submitting the latest version of my manuscript. I’ve revised it according to your suggestions; however, I feel the need to defend some of my narrative choices, particularly about my decision to have the main character stay with the male lead.

I totally understand your point about the main character doing the most of the concessions, and I do feel that way about it too. But for this novel I want to capture the magic and fantasy of love, that it triumphs despite their being from different worlds. Besides, we all want, at some point, to escape and live within a fantastical world, don’t we?

I hope you let this one go, as it’s central to one of my goals writing this novel.

I’d like to reiterate my sentiment in my previous email: I greatly appreciate your feedback; I feel like I’m learning a lot, even if I already have some experience in writing stories.

Sincerely,

Emma

✏︎

“Any news about Luke?”

This time, Emma could hear a background hum, which she surmised was the photocopying machine. Maybe the same poor intern managed to fix it. Sariel sounded like he was in a good mood today.

“Unfortunately none. He remains elusive to our search.” Sariel paused, then excused himself, his muffled voice indicating that he was speaking to somebody in his office. Emma waited patiently, shifting her groceries on one arm. It was Saturday, and she had to catch up with her chores. She felt bad that Sariel had to work during the weekend because of Luke; she silently hoped that they’d find him as soon as possible.

The thump of something at the other end of the phone call brought Emma back to the matter at hand.

“My apologies,” Sariel resumed. “I had to employ the assistance of the national intelligence. The boy is starting to test my patience. He needs some disciplining once this is over.”

“I’m sorry, Sariel, did you say that the national intelligence is now involved?”

“All for Luke’s sake, of course.”

“And what do you mean by ‘disciplining’?!”

Sariel’s tone was amused, and Emma, again, felt dread for Luke’s well-being. “Oh, you know. I just meant that Luke should learn the importance of responsibility.”

While Emma did agree that it’s important to learn responsibility, Sariel made it sound like it’d be the most grueling thing that Luke would go through in his entire life.

“No funny stuff, Sariel!”

Even if Emma couldn’t see him, the way the incredulous silence that followed was palpable, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine Sariel raising one disbelieving brow at his phone, the corners of his lips quirking slightly. “Oh? Are you seriously warning me?”

Emma gulped. “N-No …”

“Glad to have that cleared up. By the way, how are you?”

The abrupt change of subject gave Emma whiplash. “I’m great?”

“Working with Chevalier.”

Oh. Right.

“I just sent him my revisions,” Emma said. She’d clicked that send button with a slight tremor and immediately closed her laptop once it went through. So far, she hadn’t received any notification of his reply, even if it was just a confirmation that he got the revised manuscript. Emma had to convince herself that Chevalier seemed like a man who would email a writer once he finished reviewing the draft. Waiting should not be treated as an apprehension; it should be seen as an opportunity to let go and relax.

“Good. He works fast, so expect him in a few days.”

Okay. Waiting with apprehension, then. It brought to memory Clavis’s stories of Chevalier as an editor. While a lot of them had been about how intimidating Chevalier was in general—thinking about them now Emma realized that what she wanted to know wasn’t really about Chevalier’s eye for detail and narrative logic or his job as an editor; she wanted to figure out the philosophy that Chevalier was operating under. What he thought were good stories, great stories; his vision, his ideals—what was he looking for whenever he sat down to read manuscripts of different writers?

What was he aiming for when he wrote A Solitary Moon?

“Hey, Sariel,” Emma found herself saying, “how did Chevalier become an editor?”

A beat. “Are you curious about him?”

“I’m just—” How to say this without giving herself away? “He’s quite the character, you know? I’m surprised that a lot of writers rely on him in spite of that attitude.”

“He’s very good at his job, personality notwithstanding.”

“And I agree, but …”

“Ah, so you’re regretting having him as your editor?”

“No, it’s not that. I just wonder …”

“Emma,” to which she startled, nearly dropping her groceries. It was rare that Sariel would call her by her name; most of those times had been during serious moments, so whatever Sariel was going to say now, Emma began to brace herself for it. “Have you developed an interest in our top editor?”

Emma sputtered, the sound overlapping with Sariel’s amused chuckle.

“I don’t mean it that way!” she exclaimed, feeling flustered all of a sudden. The profile picture of Chevalier buzzed in her mind like an unwelcome signal. “I just thought he’s too much of a perfectionist to work well with other writers! But I read things about him and they’re mostly praises. I don’t know if they’re just good at hiding their fear towards Chevalier or what.”

“Maybe they’re just good at masking their fear.” Sariel hummed in thought. “Do you fear him?”

Did she? Emma recalled all her interactions with him. It wasn’t so much fear as it’s irritation with the way he approached editing work. Instead of running for the hills, Emma felt more like clobbering Chevalier with a giant pencil due to how he phrased his comments. No, she never feared Chevalier, because even though his words lanced like a thousand needles, Emma understood that in the end he’s still doing his job. And it’s showing in her manuscript. 

“No.”

“Good,” Sariel said, sounding satisfied. “That’s all you really need to know about Chevalier.”

“Huh?”

“That he's severely competent at his job, and that he will demand the same of his writers.”

But that didn’t really answer her question about Chevalier. About his path in becoming an editor. About what was most important to him when it came to the written word. Was he searching for the greatest novel yet written? Did he want to elevate all the novels he’d edited into great literature?

Maybe the others couldn’t answer Emma’s question. Maybe only Chevalier could.

✏︎

from: cmichel@rhodolitepress.com

to: emma083021@gmail.com

subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Manuscript Editing

Do we.

Read my comments.

✏︎

A few days later, Emma was turning on the lights of her apartment living room, exhausted from work, when it’s revealed that Clavis was lounging on her couch for god knew how long, feet crossed and perched on the coffee table, a paper bag sitting beside him. Emma’s heart leaped out of her body and fled to another country, taking on a different name and identity, never to be seen again.

She screeched.

“Oh my god, you stalker!”

“Now, now,” Clavis said, singsong, like it was totally normal to break into someone's home and scare them to bloody death. “You have a nice apartment. Cute. Needs more fun and color though. Three-and-a-half stars.”

“How did you—you didn’t break the lock—Clavis, I’m calling the police—”

“After I risked my life just to give you this?” He left the couch with the paper bag and presented it to her, smirking all the while. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Emma was still reeling from the scare, palms sweaty and hair on her nape bristling. She eyed the bag suspiciously. Nothing about Clavis was trustworthy anymore; instead, everything about him invited violence. Against him. “What’s that.”

“It’s Chevalier’s novel, of course. Have you forgotten?”

She hadn’t forgotten, but this certainly shouldn’t be within the realm of the possible ways of acquiring Chevalier’s novel. Clavis giving it over coffee or visiting her in the bookstore seemed the more reasonable scenarios in her head; she should’ve known after that stunt he pulled the first time they met. What an unhinged man. She should stay away from him from now on.

Snatching the bag away from his hand, Emma stepped to the side and showed him the door. “Okay, thank you for the novel, Clavis. Now get out.”

Clavis didn’t look bothered at the very least; he even laughed like this was all so funny—and maybe to him, it was. That violent urge resurfaced.  “Enjoy reading Chev’s novel, Miss Writer. I want to hear your thoughts after you finish reading it.”

“Ugh yes fine—don’t ever come back here again.”

Clavis bowed a gentleman’s bow, subtly mocking, and left. His chuckling echoed throughout the hallway. Emma slammed the door shut, double-locked it for good measure.

✏︎

Emma buried the Clavis Incident way, way deep down her mind, never to emerge again if she could help it. She seriously contemplated asking Sariel’s permission to file a restraining order on the man, for the sake of her apartment and her health.

But right now—regardless of whether she’s indebted to Clavis or not (she wasn’t)—Chevalier’s novel was calling to her like a siren, beckoning Emma to pick it up and read it on her bed. She inspected the book: a sturdy hardcover with smooth and creamy pages, the texture of which Emma would enjoy running her fingers on. The front cover depicted a stylistic illustration of a lady sitting as though she was modeling for a painting. Her hands were folded on her lap, her body tilted slightly to the right, but her head remained facing straight ahead, her gaze bright and defiant. She wasn’t smiling, but her rouge lips hinted of it. Her hair cascaded freely down her shoulders and chest, shimmering against the light outside the frame. She was, for all intents and purposes, beautiful. Just like the author, whose picture was printed on the inner flap of the back cover, with a brief blurb that recounted his accomplishments heretofore the novel’s publication. The photo in the book was different from the one displayed in the website. Here, Chevalier sat cross-legged on a rococo chair that almost looked like a throne, a king in repose, with a huge bookshelf in the background. He’s wearing a cream suit jacket over a white shirt, the first two buttons opened, revealing a perfect set of collarbones. Emma squinted; she’s not well-versed in designer brands, but Chevalier’s probably wearing Tom Ford or Dior or something unpronounceable.

She examined the cover further. The visual presentation of the novel gave her the impression that Chevalier writing fiction wouldn’t be a one-time thing. Maybe she could ask Sariel (or even Clavis? … Chevalier himself?) sometime in the future about it. Shrugging, she put those thoughts aside and started reading.

This was how A Solitary Moon opened:

It figures that exactly twenty years after he decided to study art instead of creating it, Claude Allard discovers the most beautiful painting in the world. It happens by chance – as all world-upending discoveries are wont to happen. It’s as if someone has pulled a rug under you, and as you fall your soul remains suspended in air, snapshot glimpse of the above seared behind your eyelids, lines and colors blurry with motion, the taste of shock on your tongue.

The first chapter chronicled how the main character, art historian Claude Allard, stumbled upon a painting of a woman so beautiful he fell in love with her. It was displayed at an indie art gallery, whose gallerist boasted to him that the artwork had once been owned by an archduke three generations ago. The artist was unknown despite the presence of signature, which was believed to be random letters strewn together. The novel narrated Claude’s attempts to determine who the painter was—propelling him to travel the world and meet the most interesting kinds of people with the most poignant experiences—so that he could identify who the lady was in the painting.

It wasn’t the sort of thing to be read from start to finish in one sitting, Emma realized. It’s meant to be read slowly and carefully, savored at lush moments, sighed at others. A Solitary Moon was the kind of novel that you think about during odd moments: right before ordering your favorite coffee blend at a café, crossing a street on a particularly windy day, watching people through the bookshop window. It had that tender quality that filled the silences of lost thoughts.

Even then, Emma didn’t notice that midnight had passed. She was still raptly glued to the book.

✏︎

He’s old – a willowy figure with wizened skin, hunched over as though he’s one cough away from collapsing. His great-granddaughter stands two steps behind him, a sentinel with a hawkish gaze, ready to come alive should a threat fall upon Dimitri. Claude observes them as he sips his tea, allowing the silence to linger and fester.

For years in between his work, his search for Luce’s painter brought him unimaginable adventure and even danger, and now, as he sits across Dimitri who can no longer even lift a brush, Claude thinks that this is a reprieve, in a way. The loud and explosive leaps of his quest thin into a reedy whisper, a bitterly unworthy conclusion. But regardless – he’s finally here and with one question, Claude will know. It doesn’t matter if Luce is already dead; Claude will render her immortal, as all beautiful existences are fated to become. One painting is not enough. The world should know and experience what it’s like to have your whole life, body, and soul seized and upended.

Except even there, he is denied of that. “I forgot,” Dimitri mumbles, repeats them over and over, the words blurring into each other that Claude has to strain his ears to hear them clearly. “I have forgotten.”

The teacup wobbles on his trembling hand.

This is the thing: a great journey doesn’t guarantee a reward at the end. But it is the driving force for all of them. What is hope without direction? A mere fantasy. All goals work towards a destination, and they all need an ideal—something to look forward to. For Claude, it is Luce, and thus he had faced all the challenges that arose in pursuit of his ideal, and he had emerged victorious. 

But this journey only rewarded him with a dead end. Nothing! Not even a full name. Luce, on the brink of immortality, flickers and fades into lonely oblivion. An elegy to the forgotten.

Claude leans back on his seat and closes his eyes. Swallows.

✏︎

It took Emma a whole week to finish A Solitary Moon. All her available time spent in the corners, on the bed, hands and eyes intent on the book. A few instances, she vaguely noticed Rio shooting her worried looks, especially during lunch time, when they usually went out to eat. Food seemed like a distant necessity compared to the pressing need to unravel Claude’s love of Luce. Emma had complicated feelings towards Claude: on the one hand, the idea of falling in love with a person in a painting and searching for them in real life sounded brave and romantic; on the other hand, the love Claude had for Luce was so pure and exhilarating it felt like an illusion. Emma wondered what Chevalier was thinking when he wrote this. Was this how he viewed love?

But in the end, Claude never found out who Luce was. Was she still alive by the time he met the painter Dimitri or was she already dead? Was she even real and not just an idealized vision he created for his art? It would be devastating for Claude if she was just a painter’s dream—to go through so much and all for nothing. What was the point of it all? Why would Chevalier write a story that set up something grand and transcendent only for it to end in a whimper? Or was that his goal all along—the shock of subversion?

To almost taste it—what you’d been searching for most of your life—only to be deprived of it at the end. Reading that chapter, that scene, sent Emma to a floating state of disbelief. She couldn’t believe Chevalier made that narrative choice. The catharsis of the journey was absent; there was no closure. No wonder some of his Goodreads reviews mentioned something along the lines of reader heartbreak (one even wrote Why would you captivate my heart and then crush it?). What was he trying to say—that love might be real but ultimately pointless? Was he reflecting reality in that case?

But Emma refused to believe that. The way Claude’s love was described in the novel read like a nostalgic reminiscence of what was once simple and innocent, a sweet memory filtered through a myth of roses. It was by no means an indictment of such feeling; it’s more like Chevalier wanted to capture that kind of love, the only way he knew how.

Or maybe it’s this: the love was real, even if the person didn’t exist, and that still mattered.

Regardless, Emma finished the book a changed person, heart heavy and hurt and carved out from the inside.

A Solitary Moon ended with this sentence: And as the din of the airport washes over him, Claude continues to stare beyond the glass windows, to the airplane in the sky with its white jetstreak that cuts against the cloudless blue, weightless in flight, like the heart inside his ribcage, beating like a flap of wings, colorless.

Colorless. Did Chevalier think of it that way—the implosion of love?

✏︎

from: cmichel@rhodolitepress.com

to: emma083021@gmail.com

subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Manuscript Editing

Your manuscript is two weeks late. Explain.

from: emma083021@gmail.com

to: cmichel@rhodolitepress.com

subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Manuscript Editing

Dear Mr. Michel,

I sincerely apologize for not submitting my revised manuscript. I know it’s now seventeen days past the deadline, and I still have not attached my manuscript. You must think very unprofessional of me for not honoring our agreed timeframe, and I most certainly agree with you. It’s just that I’ve been struggling with writing lately. I’m trying my best to follow your suggestions, I really do. But lately all I feel about my writing is that they will never amount to anything.

I’m sorry if that reveals a lot more than you probably want, but I swear, I’m working on my manuscript. Please give me a few weeks.

Emma

✏︎

When asked if Emma had ever imagined she and Chevalier meeting in person, she would of course say yes, as all writers and their editors should. Of course, she would never say that she had imagined their meeting with a frequency that might provoke Rio to a nervous fit. She would also never say that she had imagined their meeting in various creative scenarios. That one where their hands brush getting the same book in the library like a meet-cute was her favorite, though somewhat uninspired. Sometimes, she included Chevalier’s nasty personality, but most of the time she’d exercise her creative liberties. It’s her imagination, after all; it’s not like Chevalier would get wind of it and would then savagely edit her fantasies in a fit of petty revenge.

What Emma hadn’t accounted for was the possibility that Chevalier would come to her. 

There’s a new part-timer in the bookstore, and Rio was teaching the kid at the payment counter. A group of high school students was hanging out at the YA section, their excited giggles echoing throughout the small shop. It was another slow day, but that’s all right; the batch of newly released titles would arrive a couple of days later, and the bookstore anticipated an increase of customers and hence sales by then.

Rearranging the philosophy section occupied most of Emma’s afternoon. Her mind, though, was elsewhere. Absently she shoved the books into the shelf, ignoring how Nietzsche stared at her from the book cover looking all sad and monochromatic. Which was why she failed to hear the door chime tinkling, along with Rio’s gasp and the high schoolers’ squeals. All of this went over her head, too absorbed by the anxiety of dealing with writer’s block.

Distinct footsteps—Oxford soles clacking against the polished wooden floor—slid into her awareness, growing louder and louder, then stopping near her. Still, Emma soldiered on her task; if the customer wanted to buy philosophy books, they would have to wait until she finished.

And for a moment she thought they would have, were it not for a harsh, exasperated sigh and a “You.”

Emma startled. The voice was deep, sonorous, the kind that would penetrate your bones and rattle them from the inside. It was also the kind that Emma would like to listen to in audiobooks.

Attention leaving the shelf, Emma pivoted to greet the owner of that gorgeous voice and instead let out a gasp that was even more dramatic than Rio’s.

“Oh my god,” Emma said.

“Oh god, no,” Rio said.

It was Chevalier Michel, in the flesh. And what glorious flesh. His pictures didn’t do him justice at all. The light from the shop and the one filtering through the windows haloed his outline like an angel descended from heaven. Emma could even hear a choir singing in the background. He seemed to be wearing Armani this time—jacket, shirt, and slacks highlighting his tall, lean frame. Was his prior engagement a fashion photoshoot? Emma wouldn’t be surprised if it was. Honestly, he didn’t look like a book editor at all.

“M-Mister Chevalier Michel!” Emma sputtered, afraid that she was gawking at him too much. “What brings you to our humble bookshop?”

Against her will, Clavis’s gleeful voice resurrected and ricocheted around the walls of her mind, his stories of Chevalier eviscerating writers pumping her already accelerating heartbeat.

“Are you really that much of a simpleton to ask why I’m here?” There’s an undercurrent of disdain in Chevalier’s tone and in his eyebrows, which was an impressive feat considering eyebrows were just relatively thick lines plastered on a person’s face.

“No…?” Emma cursed internally; the intonation at the end of the word rose like it was an interrogative sentence. Was that just a rhetorical question? Was she even required to answer it? She knew she should be offended, but truthfully Emma was still stuck on the fact that Chevalier Michel was here. In the bookstore. Standing in front of her, looking all so handsome and otherworldly and expensive.

Chevalier must be a telepath too, because he rolled his eyes as if he’d read Emma’s thoughts and responded accordingly, which was a dangerous thing for her. He must’ve received a lot of comments about his appearance all throughout his life; Emma shouldn’t add herself in the list.

Rio raced towards them, the new kid trailing after him like a confused foal. Meanwhile, the high schoolers encamped around them—understandable, Emma had to admit. Chevalier was objectively a gorgeous man, and there’s no way these high school students would pass up an opportunity to interact with him. A couple of them discreetly whipped out their phones and attempted to take a picture of the man. One even courageously ventured, “Hey, mister, are you a celebrity?”

Rio cut off that poor girl. “Dear customer,” he pronounced, blocking any path the students could verbally take. The distance between the counter and the philosophy section stretched into infinity; Emma could clearly note the hundred varied expressions flitting through Rio’s face as he hastened to approach them. There was shock, alarm, anxiety, dread, and other myriad ones that Emma could sympathize with. She was partial with dread, of course. Anyone would feel dread when confronted with Chevalier’s sword-sharp glare.

But it’s as if Rio didn’t exist; Chevalier paid him no notice and remained judging Emma with his (beautiful! heavenly! heartstopping!) ice-blue eyes.

“It’s eighteen days past your deadline,” he said, like that answered all the questions in the world. Which, to be fair, it did. Emma’s heart started galloping. A part of her, numbed and removed from the immediate situation, felt sorry for Schopenhauer being stuck between her sweaty palms.

“I-I’m sorry!” Emma stuttered and gracelessly thrust Schopenhauer next to Nietzsche. Thank god they’re both hardcovers; she might scream in horror if either cover got ruined in her carelessness. “I know I’m late; I’m working on it, really! I sent an email yesterday—I was hoping you’d grant me that extension.”

But it’s clear that Chevalier had made a different decision. Emma was pretty sure he’s going to castigate her in the middle of her shift with Rio, the new kid, and the high school girls as unfortunate witnesses.

The line of Chevalier’s mouth twitched. Downward it seemed, like he was trying to tamp down the urge to sneer but failing to quell the reaction because Emma screwed up big time. She gulped and braced herself for the inevitable fallout.

Then a strange thing happened: whatever it was Chevalier’s going to do, he stopped himself from doing it and just heaved a long-suffering sigh. It reminded Emma of the countless sighs she’d heard from Sariel, but this one was more along the lines of I’m surrounded by incompetent fools rather than I don’t deserve this level of stress in my life please god almighty make Clavis go away. Hope budded inside Emma’s chest. Was she going to get away with not submitting on time?

But then Chevalier scowled and Emma’s nascent hope died a swift, painful death. He spun towards the direction of the exit and in a voice that brooked no defiance, ordered, “Come with me.”

So this was it, then. Chevalier was leading Emma to her demise. It had been a nice life, all things considered. She read, she wrote, she published. She lived the dream. She was just sorry that she hadn’t written her will yet; she hadn’t settled on whom to bequeath her book collection up till now. Maybe Rio, but knowing him, instead of reading all the books he’d inherit from her he’d just make a shrine out of them.

She threw an apologetic glance at the books. She would’ve wanted to read more, but this was as far as she could go.

Suddenly Rio’s at the door, barricading the exit with his arms akimbo and his face contorted in a way that his customer-service smile looked more seething than cheerful.

“Dear customer!” he repeated, jolly as a rabid dog could be jolly. “If you’re undecided about what books to buy, may I suggest a couple of titles?”

The bookshop fell into a hush. Nobody dared to breathe.

Emma must have a death wish, because she added, helpfully: “I’m on the clock, Mister Michel. I can’t follow you outside right now, much as I want to.”

With her and Rio to intervene in her impending doom, Chevalier would have to yield, right? But they had regrettably proven to be weak adversaries, for Chevalier merely glanced at them both and then strode back to the philosophy section to pull out Nietzche and Schopenhauer, after which he migrated to the—shocking!—romance section and grabbed a Jane Austen novel. (It was Emma; Emma didn’t know what to feel about that, honestly.) He returned in front of Rio and pushed the books into his unprepared arms. “There,” Chevalier declared, tone final. He handed his credit card (Oh my god, Emma inwardly gasped, zeroing in on the card; it was black) to the newbie, who paled upon the sight of such a display of status. “This will suffice, will it not.”

Then he stared emphatically at Emma, who received it with the poise of someone on the verge of diving behind the stacks of self-help books. She had no choice but to say, “Rio, I think I’ll take my c-coffee break now.”

✏︎

So far Chevalier hadn’t murdered her once they went outside. There was no glove-slapping, or surprise-stabbing, or a sidewalk shootout, and that invited further paranoia from Emma. Maybe he derived sick pleasure in pushing his victims to their terrified limits.

He led her to a sleek, blue Chevrolet Camaro, opening the passenger seat and demanding her to get in. Once they’re both inside, seatbelts on, Chevalier huffed. “I’m not taking you somewhere else to kill you.”

Emma’s head whirled so fast her neck cracked. Chevalier’s eyebrow twitched, unimpressed.

She goggled at him. “How did you know what I was thinking?!”

“If I wanted to kill you, I would have already done so the day after your missed deadline.”

“Is that supposed to reassure me?!”

All she got was a derisive snort. Afterwards Chevalier turned the engine on and drove away from the bookshop. For a fleeting second, Emma had the wild thought that it was the last time she’d see it. Rio had begrudgingly allowed Emma’s early coffee break since he had a co-worker staying behind with him and Chevalier had—in addition to Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Austen—purchased plenty more books to force him into capitulation. It would be sad if that was her and Rio’s final contact. He hadn’t even yet replaced the skincare set he ‘accidentally’ used up.

They passed through a familiar route that Emma eventually realized was heading towards Rhodolite Press. Perhaps Chevalier was just taking her to his office to talk about her manuscript? Emma sneaked a glance at him. Chevalier appearing at the bookshop was truly something unexpected, and although they should have met long before, Emma still felt unprepared seeing and speaking to Chevalier in person.

Rhodolite Press loomed over them, casting its shadow over the road. It’s a modest building of three storeys, one side transparent glass walls that doubled as windows. Only the first floor had no blinds, so Emma could peek into the interior and make out a spacious lobby decked with modern furnishings. There were a couple of vending machines, Emma recalled; one for drinks and the other for assorted junk food.

The car sped past the building, and Emma made an aborted sound. Not Rhodolite Press, then. So where were they going? A café? A five-star restaurant? His house? … An abandoned area unknown to most people?

Chevalier clucked his tongue as if responding to her rapidly spiraling thoughts. Which he probably might have, for all she knew.

After several turns, they left the main road and continued down a narrower path that appeared to lead to an upper-class neighborhood. Buildings became large houses, the cost of which Emma couldn’t even afford in her lifetime. Another glance at Chevalier, studying him as if his face held the answer to her current burning question. It didn’t, but it was a good face, an amazing face, so that’s a consolation.

A few minutes later they pulled over at a small parking area. Across it was a gated garden; however, nobody seemed to be guarding it.

“Out,” Chevalier said, removing his seatbelt and opening his side of the door. Emma scrambled after him.

Chevalier moved like he’d been here several times before, his strides long and sure. He knew exactly where the entrance was and marched in without hesitation. Emma, worried that they’re trespassing, scanned the area for any onlookers.

She was interrupted by an impatient grunt and a flick to the forehead. “Ow, hey!” Emma rubbed the painful spot—and then froze. She gawped at Chevalier open-mouthed. “Did you just—”

“You’re unnecessarily distracted. Even other simpletons could focus better.”

He resumed walking inside the garden, and Emma valiantly clung to a zen-state instead of surrendering to the temptation of throwing her shoe at Chevalier. She followed him before he could turn around and reprimand her again. 

There’s an isolated part of the garden that housed only roses. All in full bloom, a rich blanket of red that assaulted the senses. Emma inhaled sharply; it’s one of the most beautiful places she’d ever been to. It was like stepping into a dream, one in which she didn’t want to leave.

“I didn’t know there’s such a place like this,” she found herself whispering in reverence.

In her periphery, Chevalier paused and cast her an assessing gaze, to which she returned the favor. Surrounded by the roses, Chevalier looked like he belonged in this garden. The contrast between the crimson hue of the flowers and his pristine figure—cornsilk hair, azure eyes, and ivory skin garbed in white—served to highlight Chevalier’s preternatural beauty. If there were only a painter to immortalize this vision.

Helplessly, she added, “I love it. Here, I mean.”

His implacable expression never faltered. It reminded her of the marble statues exhibited in the museum she visited a couple of months ago—perfectly chiseled, perfectly haunting.

To Emma’s astonishment, it’s Chevalier who dropped the eye contact. But it turned out that he just redirected his scrutiny to the roses on his left. “It’s a good place to read. Quiet, peaceful,” he murmured.

The volunteering of such information caught Emma off-center. “Do you read here?” she asked. When Chevalier stayed tight-lipped about it, her previous concern came to the fore again. “Wait—I got it. This is where you’ll murder me. In this beautiful garden where you like to read. You’re going to use my corpse as fertilizer for the flowers.”

For the entire duration of their walk they never encountered any other people in the garden, which solidified her theory that Chevalier had planned on committing a criminal act, irrespective of his prior statements about the place. It didn’t help that his glower conveyed a definite homicidal inclination. But contrary to conjuring a sword, Chevalier merely crossed the length of the rosebushes that lined the path to a gazebo. He gestured at a bench as he sat on the one at the other side, ankles locked, one hand on his thigh, the other perched on the backrest.  

Emma obeyed; there’s nothing else to do. Nerves still persisting, she blurted, “I’d like to say my last words, if you’ll allow me.”

Chevalier inclined his head, eyes narrowed into slits. “Careful, because I have half a mind to fulfill what your silly imagination dreads happening.”

“Oh.” Emma laughed, high-pitched and tense, ready to bolt if necessary. In that precise moment, Chevalier truly did emit an aura of having killed before and getting away with it. “I’m sorry,” she hastily said when she noticed his hand twitching. “I’m just—why are we here?”

A pause, a breath. Chevalier still as a statue, with a piercing look that had Emma squirming in her seat. 

Before she could do something stupid, like confess to a nonexistent crime, Chevalier spoke.

“Explain,” he said. His tone might be clipped, but it was firm and implied nothing—not even judgment. It threw Emma for a loop; she’d always thought that Chevalier was pretty much a judgmental person, as evidenced by his neverending comments in her manuscript. But then she remembered what Sariel had told her: that Chevalier only demanded the best of everyone, even if others hadn’t the same standards as he had.

Even though it’s only a single word, Emma understood. And suddenly, everything shifted and gained clarity, like a dissipating mist revealing what was concealed. The rose garden was a beautiful place; it elicited the feeling of comfort, of peace. Chevalier brought her here to ease the tension that had built inside her the moment he entered the bookstore—no, maybe even before that: the moment she failed to submit her revision. He had exacting standards, sure, but Chevalier also knew exactly how to improve one’s writing skills (approach notwithstanding), and Emma had been benefiting from that talent. This too was a part of that: Chevalier needed to know what was wrong so he could address the problem. And if he had to resort to this, well—it was his job.

Which was why it was embarrassing to reveal to him the reason for her failure. But it appeared that this confrontation was a game of attrition, and Chevalier played to win. No matter how Emma tried to hedge, digress, and prevaricate, Chevalier would yank her back to the crux of the issue.

So, she capitulated. Hands on her lap, one on top of the other, she took a deep breath, and began. “I read your novel,” she said, slowly, softly. She picked on her skirt, traced the design with her index finger. Refused to lift her head and gauge Chevalier’s reaction. From his side of the gazebo there was neither a shift nor a shuffle, and Emma took that as a cue to keep going. “I was curious in the beginning. You’re very unsparing with your criticisms, you know? Your comments made me want to tear my hair out. And then when I found out that you’ve published something before, I wanted to know how you write. There was a bitter part of me that hoped that you weren’t a great writer, so I’d chalk up your fussiness to your inability to write well. But then I read your novel, and it was so good and so perfect and it left me breathless and heavy with emotions for days. I couldn’t do anything else with all these lingering feelings inside me. The way you write was just—so gorgeous and lovely and all the best adjectives I can think of. Compared with mine, yours is flawless. I can never measure up to your prose. And I guess that got to me. Now, I read my work and all I can think of is that it’s not enough. How can I write like you? I don’t think I ever can. I want to throw my novels and my manuscript away. I should just give up—that’s what I’ve been thinking all this time.”

She trailed off, letting the silence take over. In a way this was an exorcism: expelling what was plaguing her and the shame that came with it. The burden gone like a final sigh. It’s still uncertain whether this would help her writing from then on, but nonetheless it was a welcome development.

Chevalier hadn’t responded. The entire confession, Emma persisted in averting her eyes, afraid that any change in his expression could undermine the strength she’d mustered to talk. And even afterwards—only the distant twittering of birds broke through the quiet. A breeze rolled past and rustled the leaves, susurrus loud in her ears. Her reluctance prolonged and drawn out.

But then:

“Do you know why—even if Clavis meddled with the initial arrangement—I accepted becoming your substitute editor?”

Emma jerked her head up and discovered Chevalier observing her, a pensive look on his face. It boggled her; truth to be told she anticipated a roasting—grousing at how pathetic she was to see herself that way. In fact, she had braced herself for it. This, however, was a tentative surprise. “You knew it was Clavis’s doing?”

Chevalier closed his eyes, pained, and pinched the bridge of his nose, like she asked a stupid question.

“Sorry,” she amended, feeling a rueful smile forming between her lips. “I did wonder about it. Sariel said you have work to last you a decade. What made you accept it? Is it because it’s just temporary?”

“Of course not. I don’t like wasting my time with useless work.” A beat, as though he was debating on what to say next. “You said that you could never measure up to my prose. That I write beautifully and every word in that novel is flawless—”

“Wow, okay, that's right, it’s true, but do you have to rub it in my face—”

“—and it devastates you to compare your work with mine, because you feel like yours is worthless. Why would you compare other people’s writing with yours? It’s foolish and unproductive.”

Easy for him to say. A genius like him would never understand the agony of toiling over words, characterization, and plot. Despite her experience as a fanfiction writer, Emma felt like she bit off more than she could chew. Writing a novel was a different beast. She could still remember with vividness her bedroom walls filled with post-it notes and index cards outlining her story and characters. Her steady diet of caffeine, her near-brush with carpal tunnel syndrome. The anxiety of introducing original characters to new readers and existing readers who were used to transformative fiction.

Emma opened her mouth to argue but Chevalier apparently wasn’t done yet.

“You know where your strengths lie, your readers know where you excel—which is why they keep buying your books. Whereas I may write beautifully, you write with sincerity. Your novels are earnest—naïve at times, true—but that is what makes your books effective and appealing. Rhodolite would not support you if we didn’t think your stories would resonate with readers.”

Oh. Emma’s jaw slackened in shock. She gaped at Chevalier as if he’d revealed an earth-shattering secret—like he’s secretly nice all along (impossible, but a girl could dream)—and it wasn’t too implausible at all. Never in all the time she’d known him that Chevalier had the capacity to give her—even if in a roundabout way—a pep talk of all things. But he did! For her! To get her out of this downward spiral of insecurity! And it was truly an incredible thing: he believed in her and her ability to write. Something warm began to unspool within Emma’s chest, climbing to her cheeks, and the sentiment pulled her attention inward. If it had been from other people, she would have received the words of encouragement with grace and enthusiasm; but coming from Chevalier, whose writing ability could trounce Emma’s emotions in both art and editing, it made her bashful all of a sudden. Shy. Like peeling away her skin and exposing the vulnerabilities beneath.

She might not have known Chevalier for a long time, and taking into account all their exchanges plus Clavis’s and Sariel’s stories it would be safe to say that what Chevalier did today was quite uncharacteristic of him. To bring Emma to a wonderful place and say wonderful words to lift her spirits. Perhaps this was what Chevalier-the-editor would do, for the sake of work. After all, to his eyes, Emma was a job first and the rest a hyperbolically distant second.

Regardless, Chevalier had touched Emma’s heart with his positive words, no matter how awkward and backhanded they were. And because it’s him, it’s the thought and effort that counted. The possibility that Chevalier might have grit his teeth enunciating each encouraging word was hilarious, but Emma was too busy stamping down the swell of tears. She’s acutely aware that she’s telegraphing her emotional state like a large neon sign, but Chevalier was acting like nothing extraordinary happened.

“Do you understand now?” he said.

Emma resisted the urge to cover her face in mortification. “Yes,” she mumbled, sniffling. Three seconds later: “Your approach needs improvement, though.”

It’s a miracle Chevalier’s response was only an eyeroll. “You have a month to pull yourself together. I expect your revised manuscript by then.”

Now this was more like him: in business mode, succinct and demanding. But Emma was beginning to realize something: for Chevalier, one month was already a generous concession. It shouldn’t engender a warm, fuzzy feeling in her, but it did, and she didn’t know whether that was a dangerous thing or not.

But for now, she’s basking in the weightlessness of her writing concerns and in the radiance of roses. And in Chevalier’s steady and steadfast gaze.

“Yes,” she said, smiling sincerely. “Thank you, Chevalier.”

[savnofilter]

364 MHA/BNHA LEAKS****

-

-

-

-

im sorry but aside from the other poorly written bits of the series, bakugo being revived has to be one of the shittest. this isnt in a way to knock hori's writing as whole, but its just so obvious when things are written and catered for fans and not for plot.

youre telling me that bakugo diet-died so that someone ELSE dies?? wtf was the point in the first place im losing my mind. even tho it was pretty predictable that theyd somehow find some stupid way to pull a, "wait guys hes alive!!!" its still so annoying to watch.

context: first pic best jeanist is checking his (bakugo) pulse and trying to help him. edgeshot comes to the scene and transforms into a fucking heart.

really, what was the point?

[bigskydreaming]

With the Tom Taylor stuff, they released a new Batgirl costume for Babs again (different anon then before though so hopefully same issue). People are mad because, well, it's abelist. Especially because like it feels like they've been teasing/foreshadowing her becoming Oracle again (ie. noting that she shouldn't be hopping from roofs, I mean Dick adopted a three-legged dog for Christ's sake). It really seems like the perfect time for the magic disability curing chip to die, and instead they come out with this? Disappointing. Rude. Especially rude because the new costume was announced on the first day of disability pride month, and he's responded by saying - but oh look, here's a back brace on the part of the suit behind the cape. Not a good look imo.

Idk how many people would have to agree on making Babs truly paraplegic again for it to happen? Like would something like this be up to editorial, or could Tom as the writer have enough sway to make it happen? I know the original decision was ten years ago, and Didio has (thank the lord) been fired since then, as has Harras, and I've heard there's been creative turnover as well. Since you've been in the fandom for a while, do you know who else we should be pressuring?

Its literally something that only editorial and higher will ever have decision-making control over.

I can tell you that while Gail Simone was the one who initially wrote the story where Babs returned to being Batgirl - and considering that a lot of Gail's own work was instrumental in fleshing out Babs as Oracle to the degree that she was - what I can say there is that Gail was not actually a fan of the decision to make Babs Batgirl again herself.

It was 100% a decision made by the higher-ups during the initial Reboot discussions, and I do know that a number of creatives, both writers and artists, voiced their protest to the decision at the time - though I can't speak to who exactly did so and who didn't.

Gail has however expressed that she went back and forth a lot on her decision to write Babs becoming Batgirl again, because she really was not comfortable with it at all, but that ultimately the reason she did decide to do it was because it was made clear to her by the higher-ups that they were asking her to write it out of respect to the work she'd done with Oracle previously - but whether she accepted or not, they were going to go forward with it, even if with another writer.

So ultimately, she's said she only decided to take on the story herself because she could at least try to make it as aware of Babs' time as Oracle and what she represented as Oracle as possible, whereas she had no control over if DC went to another writer whose approach to it was basically to magically handwave Babs being 'cured' and being ecstatically happy about it.

Please note, I'm not trying to speak to her choice there or argue for it or against it, I'm simply trying to repeat what I know of her stated perspective on it, as the writer who actually 'did it.'

My point just being that it wasn't a decision made at a creator level at all, and DC was more than ready to go around one of the writers most closely identified with Babs in her Oracle identity, as well as a number of others who were against it, though again I don't know how many or whom specifically.

I honestly don't see any guarantee they'd be more accommodating of any writers today trying to convince them to do it. So while I don't think voicing concerns over disabled representation to writers is ever a wasted effort, I don't see it accomplishing anything here in specific. If any movement is going to be made on this matter, its only going to be done through keeping the subject centered in the awareness of the higher-ups, so basically any editors with a social media presence.

Unfortunately, options are very limited there (I'm not really on twitter these days so I don't really know what editors are even around there, currently), but yeah, in the interest of prioritizing time and spoons, and concentrating efforts.....this is one of those situations where the writers themselves are simply the go-betweens and the only even potentially effective appeals are going to be those made at the editorial level and higher. (Higher being those at the publishing exec and board of directors level, but I wouldn't know where to even begin looking for those particular names).

Sorry I can't be more help!

(Also, just FYI in general on this matter:

For the record, I do try to be very....'light' about expressing my opinions when it comes to Babs' disability, because I do not trust myself to have the necessary objectivity. I have a physical disability that greatly impacts my way of living and has for five years, but in ways not remotely interchangeable with Babs. Additionally, mine does have a surgical treatment that would allow me to resume my original way of living without significant deviations from it, and its a treatment I still am working towards and hope to get in the near future. So I definitely have opinions on physical ableism in society and how I've even been impacted by such things myself, but I've also never viewed or even approached my own situation or disability through the lens of it being lifelong.

So I'm kinda 'thematically' somewhat in a position that has nuances relevant to the conversations at hand and the 'choices' being thrown around in-universe IF and only if such things were subject to 'real world rules' and self-autonomous choices rather than being ruled by the whims of editors with agendas and biases of their own. All of which makes me uncomfortable weighing in too heavily on this subject because I'm a naturally opinionated person, and I have a tendency to center my own experiences in online debates simply because they're the only ones I can actually speak to, particularly in non-monolithic situations like this one where even people with broadly shared marginalizations have opinions that differ in degrees both large and small.

My own disability really brought to light for me that I had a LOT of pre-existing ableism myself that I'm still unpacking five years in, and frankly I just don't trust myself to be able to tell the difference between opinions I express on this subject as a kind of unconscious wish fulfillment, ableism-still-in-need-of-further-unpacking, and even subconscious overcompensation for my own ableism based on addressing current issues I have born of impostor syndrome. Its a whole mess up here in terms of ableism discussions, so if you don't see me weighing in on the Babs matter much elsewhere, that's why.

Personally, I always write Babs as Oracle and physically disabled, even in Reboot-era stuff, and I’m fairly sure I always will - so don’t get me wrong, I have a very clear stance on that front because I'm never on board with erasing, mitigating or invalidating previous representation....that isn’t my issue here at all, its more just wading into arguments for and against undoing the chip storyline that I hesitate to do. I know my stance - I just don’t trust myself to argue it in the right ways or for the right reasons.

Just know its not because I'm oblivious to it, that I approve of DC's decisions here or how their various creatives reply to criticism of it, or because I don't have opinions myself......but my own view of things is too constantly shifting in my own life for me to be comfortable contributing any lasting voice to these discussions, at least where I'm at right now. I'm not good at speaking softly if I feel a need to speak up at all, but I don't believe in speaking loudly when I can't even be sure for myself that I can commit 100% to what I voice...and even more importantly in my mind, WHY I voice it).

[mashounen2003]

Sonic opinions - 2

In large portions of every fandom, it looks like it prevails the idea that you can only take one of two positions: praising the story in every respect, including both the ideas themselves and their execution by the writers, or admitting not to like the story and not to praise any element of it at all. I think my ideas regarding the Archie-Sonic comics and the Sonic franchise in general cannot be pigeonholed into either of these two extremes.

More below the "keep reading" cut.

I loved all the world-building in Archie-Sonic, the elements the comic introduced, their many characters and the potential to tell stories about them; I also really liked much of the art and personal styles of several artists Archie-Sonic has had throughout its history, with very few exceptions (and such exceptions include Ron Lim, of course). That's why, of all the Sonic continuities, I often use the pre-reboot Archie-Sonic comic as the primary source for world-building elements and story ideas.

What really makes me feel bad about that comic, what motivates most of my criticism, is the ideas’ execution by the main writers, as well as aspects that I think are more linked to each writer as a person, the unique way in which each of them has written their stories.

Firstly, Michael Gallagher: the writer for the first few dozen issues of the comic had a terrible sense of humour, and this hurt the comic hugely since those first issues were fundamentally based on that low-quality comedy style. The characterization of the entire cast also suffered greatly from this; in Sally's case, something quite ironic happened too: Gallagher portrayed her as bossy, annoying, temperamental, usually bickering with Sonic, and now that's also how Sally is seen by many fans of the videogames’ continuity (at best). Other than this, not much more could be said about him.

Karl Bollers wrote quite decent stories with some nice comedy, with “Return to Angel Island” being his best work, one of the best stories in the entire comic and perhaps even one of the best in the franchise; but Bollers’s work was "torpedoed" by Ken Penders and then-editor Justin Gabrie, which ruined the stories’ final versions sometimes or led to elements introduced by Bollers being "retconned" and overwritten by whatever Penders smoked and decided to do when taking over. The characterization of Fiona Fox is one of the main examples, with Bollers's Fiona being a quite under-utilized character but with a great potential that would later be wasted by both Penders and Ian Flynn. Another similar case was Sally breaking up with Sonic: Bollers tried to give context to such a drastic decision by Sally and show how she was the one who was suffering the most at that time and also that both she and Sonic were partially right, but Penders and Gabrie didn't let Bollers develop this subplot properly and all we had was a quite infamous scene that unfairly made Sally one of the most hated characters. It’s also known of several plans Bollers had for future stories, and one of them was Antoine being corrupted by the Source of All and turning into a villain; this had the potential to be a good story by subverting the concept of the Source of All and making it an actual threat, but on the other hand, it’d have meant resorting once again to the resource of "this character isn’t doing anything, let's make them evil", something quite disappointing, which later would have disastrous results when Flynn did the same with Fiona a few years later. However, these plans of Bollers were just ideas, and the quality of a story created from them still depends a lot on execution. In the end, I can't say anything about how good or bad Bollers was as a writer, simply because I have no way of knowing what his stories would have been like if he had been given more freedom and had stayed as the writer longer.

There were two writers who influenced Archie-Sonic comics far more than any other writer in its history: Penders and Flynn. The first of them was a retarded pervert with an overly inflated and fragile ego. He became obsessed with the primitive, toxic ideal of "family" North-Americans have. He wrote nonsensical, contradictory stories, having already decided the end down to the last detail long before even thinking about how the story would come to that end (I also made this specific mistake a few times when I was just starting to write fanfiction, I must admit). He increased Fiona's age in order to be able to pair her with the Don Juan that Sonic had become, which also ruined Fiona's characterization forever. The issues 150s -right before being replaced by Flynn- were the worst part of Penders’s run, as Bollers was no longer there to put a stop to his madness in any way, and it was at this time when there was the most egregious case of Penders pouring into the comic his worst perversions and retarded ideas: he hinted at a sex scene in one of the most infamous cases in the history of the entire Sonic franchise, although it wasn’t infamous for the implied sex per se but rather because what happened was technically a rape by deception; to add insult to injury, the writer implicitly blamed the victim some years later when asked about it on Twitter.

I could go on talking about “Ken Perverts”, but I think that's not necessary and would be a waste of time since, as everyone here already knows, he's been the laughingstock of the entire Sonic franchise for years; @ponett even has a whole secondary blog, @thankskenpenders, mainly dedicated to this. On the other hand, there’s still another writer who has also contributed a lot and also made huge mistakes but is not criticized in the least by almost anyone, simply because he was better than Penders.

Ian Flynn usually reduced the characters to slightly oversimplified portrayals, similar to the personalities of the characters in the most recent videogames. Under his pen, Sonic was more sympathetic but his words sometimes sounded too empty and shallow, his apologies for past mistakes didn’t lead to genuine changes on his part, and sometimes he even seemed plain insensitive to all the tragedies happening around him, especially at the Mecha Sally Arc (I nickname Ian Flynn’s Sonic "Plastic Smile" for this). Admittedly, this had already happened several times with previous writers (Penders portraying Sonic as a Don Juan, as I already mentioned), and this is why I think the original Sonic from Sonic SatAM was always better for feeling more "genuine", less "empty", and more heroic and likeable as a result. Perhaps the only ones to escape the oversimplified portrayal have been Shadow and E-123 Omega, whose characterizations in Archie-Sonic were the best in the whole franchise.

Besides, Flynn had strong favouritism for Amy Rose, which only made things worse because this Amy was much more similar to the one in the videogames from Sonic Heroes onwards. Anyway, this also happened with previous writers, like when Amy wished to be younger at the cost of a chance to save Sally's mother and no one ever berated her for it.

Let’s look at the villains. Unlike the typical Eggman from the videogames, with his follies, eccentricities and other absurd aspects, the Robotnik “inherited” by the comic from Sonic SatAM was explicitly a genocidal bastard and crueller while at the same time being sane enough to realize everything he was doing (@robotnik-mun already spoke in detail about this once); however, Flynn tried to combine the two characters into the pre-reboot Archie-Sonic Eggman, and the result created some severe problems with the stories’ tone. Something derived from this was how Sonic let Eggman live and even felt sorry for his fall into madness, in addition to treating him as if they were the Sonic and Eggman from the videogames, Sonic X or Sonic Boom; it’s worth remembering this Eggman technically is a sort of reincarnation of the SatAM Robotnik (his exact nature is quite complicated and includes parallel universes, but yes, he’s supposed to be exactly the same as the SatAM Robotnik, with memories and everything) and this Sonic is supposed to have fought a bloody decade-long guerilla war against him just like his SatAM counterpart.

Scourge was turned into a massive Mary-Sue who achieved easy victories, as subtle as a huge neon sign saying "the bad guys win"; he was also an abusive manipulator towards Fiona Fox, and Flynn was unable to show that properly for fear of making his pet look no longer cool, which makes you wonder how alike Flynn and Penders might actually be in some ways. To clearly understand the horrible damage this has caused: it not only created a generation of young Sonic fans -mostly boys from the USA- who romanticize abuse either consciously or unconsciously, but also there are even women -including scholars, committed feminists and transgender people who are also activists for social justice- who either sympathize with Scourge or think Fiona made a right, wise, rational or informed decision by joining him in the story (I’ll not give names of those women, I’m not really eager to get into heated fallacious discussions about “the true meaning of Feminism”); to top it off, among the writers who started working with Ian Flynn either on IDW-Sonic or the last years of Archie-Sonic, there’s at least one person who got the job of writing official Sonic comics after gaining quite a bit of fame with a fan-comic where they used the pairing of Scourge & Fiona to inspire its readers to feel sorry... for Scourge. And speaking of Fiona specifically: the subplot of her career as a villain was ill-conceived, was built by using as a cornerstone the A-story of Issue #150 (that quite infamous and widely known story written by Penders where Scourge may or may not have raped Bunnie by deception), and was also seemingly "abandoned" as Fiona ended up merely being Scourge's new abuse victim girlfriend and her status as a traitor didn’t even have a significant emotional effect on the Freedom Fighters.

Flynn also followed something like a pattern of taking tropes from famous works and then using them when writing the comic but not actually understanding why those tropes had worked in the first place. Perhaps the prime example of this was Scourge giving Sonic the Joker's "One Bad Day" speech: it almost felt a bit like giving the same speech to the Batman of Batman vs. Superman, as Sonic had already had a whole "bad decade" and was still a hero despite it; also, Sonic's answer to that speech (telling Scourge it only takes a tiny bit of selflessness and decency for him to be a good person) wasn’t that great, not at all compared to the mildly masterful answer Batman had originally given to the Joker in The Killing Joke, and it even made Sonic look more like a bad judge of character.

Lastly, the entire Mecha Sally Arc was poorly planned, had some contradictions with itself and with previous stories, was stretched through dozens of comic issues no matter if that felt forced, and the main events and plot twists throughout the story arc were heavily based on shock-value without giving any substance to this or making it a bit more sense when putting it under scrutiny; meanwhile, Flynn always seemed to have quite a hard time when writing long story arcs, so these long stories looked like he was trying and outright failing to imitate Toriyama (someone quite known for putting together stories ad-lib according to what seemed most convenient at the time).

Despite this, it looks like those Sonic fans who are still interested in material outside of the videogames will keep buying and reading whatever Ian Flynn or one of his colleagues writes, simply because they’re better than Penders... even though it's been 15 years since Penders wrote something official about Sonic. Seriously, we should have gotten over it by now, instead of continuing to compare all material in the franchise with Penders's work, which sets the bar too low for any official content creator. Now that I think about it, Penders's work is to the North-American Sonic canon what Sonic 2006 is to the videogames: people can criticize the latest games all they want, and rightfully so, but if someone even casually mentions Sonic 2006, any Sonic game from 2010 onwards instantly becomes a masterpiece just for being marginally better than Sonic 2006; the same happens between Penders's work on pre-reboot Archie-Sonic and any other North-American Sonic comic written by Flynn after Penders left.

Right now it looks like it's also forbidden to criticize Flynn as a writer at all just because he's much nicer in his personal life and engages with fans more directly through his podcasts, or because Flynn is truly progressive while Penders claimed to be progressive and a feminist and was affiliated with the USA Democrats but his work showed how misogynistic, perverted, retarded, reactionary and downright sick he was. Also, now saying something about Flynn other than total blind admiration for him and his work, even asking for the Freedom Fighters to return in the IDW comics, has become synonymous with agreeing with those assholes who cry "Rally4Sally" or "Udon4Sonic" on Twitter: "nostalgic" fans of SatAM and Penders's work on Archie, in their 40s or 50s, deeply conservative and absurdly paranoid, who claim that those new inclusive cartoons such as Steven Universe or She-Ra "are ruining their childhood", are mad at Flynn just because he hinted Sally and Nicole may be a lesbian couple (and in a rather platonic way, not even romantic in the traditional sense), and try to justify their own warped ideas and fantasies about SatAM by ignoring any “liberal” political messages SatAM may have had at the subtext level.

[phriestly]

𝐃𝐈𝐄 𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐄 𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐈𝐇𝐑𝐄 𝐙𝐄𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐆𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐊𝐄𝐍 𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐓 .    ( 𝐆. 𝐖. 𝐅. 𝐇𝐄𝐆𝐄𝐋 )

THEMES APPEARING :    authenticity, Angst and Entwurf. choice. instrumental rationality. sexuality. in short: miranda priestly as a product of modernity and its failures. 

okay so.  here’s another long overdue character study that aims to enunciate the impact of the malaise of modernity, and especially the failure of existentialism as a meaningful philosophy on miranda’s life and how these things shape who she is. she is not an existentialist (moreso a structuralist when it comes to fashion studies), but the emergence of existentialism shapes indirectly her life.

a fair warning before i get to the actual meta itself: it will feature discussion of martin heid/egger’s philosophical work because it is seminal to understanding existentialism and any contemporary continental philosophy.  heidegger was an antisemite. there are no excuses for this anymore, he’s not just the philosopher who made the wrong decisions before and during world war two - the schwarzen hefte are disgusting. it does contaminate his philosophy. still, one can not simply throw away his philosophical work, because he is one of the few na/zi’s that has an ideology / philosophy that does apply to the modern world - it is generalizable outside of the era. it’s not utter garbage. as much as i’d like continental philosophy to be uncontaminated by hei/degger it is simply impossible to avoid him. so. this by way of being clear upfront. if anyone wants to discuss this, my dms are open. 

actual meta under the cut because it’s too fucking long

𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍.

in the end, authenticity can’t, shouldn’t, go all the way with self-determining freedom. it undercuts itself. yet the temptation is understandably there. and where the tradition of authenticity falls for any other reason into anthropocentrism, the alliance easily recommends itself, becomes almost irresistible. that’s because anthropocentrism, by abolishing all horizons of, threatens us with a loss of meaning and hence a trivialization of our predicament. at one moment, we understand our situation as one of high tragedy, alone in a silent universe, without intrinsic meaning, condemned to create value. but at a later moment, the same doctrine, by its own inherent bent, yields a flattened word, in which there aren’t very meaningful choices because there aren’t any crucial issues.

Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 68.

all of this   [ i.e. the ontological turn from art as imitation to creativity, paralleling that of the turn towards the subject & schiller’s conception of art as higher than morality when it comes to wholeness ]   contributes to the close links between authenticity against art. and this helps explain some of the developments of the notion of authenticity in the last two centuries; in particular, the development of forms in which the demands of authenticity have been pitched against those of morality. authenticity involves originality, it demands a revolt against convention. it is easy to see how standard morality itself can come to be seen as inseparable from stifling convention. morality as normally understood obviously involves crushing much that is elemental and instinctive in us, many of our deepest and most powerful desires. so there develops a branch of the search for authenticity that pits it against the moral.

Ibid., 65. 

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘, 𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐖𝐔𝐑𝐅. the principal feature of our modern culture is authenticity and a culture related to authenticity, something existentialist philosophers - and existential phenomenologists like heid/egger have emphasized. this existential comes with a burden however - to be authentic is to live your life, not imitating, but creating. not in the traces of someone else. but as something that is innate to ourselves. it does come with a burden, as the demand of the Entwurf, the grand plan of one’s life is a demanding one.

often, it results in existential angst, a suffocating feeling of having to live an authentic life. angst here is the fear for the nothing, for the irrelevance of our existence, which is always a Sein-zum-Tode/Being-towards-Death. in our realization of our authentic life, the easy choice is to follow the mores prescribed by das Man, the impersonal, plural, ‘they’ that is the driving force behind our societal mores. in the quotes above, the failure of this philosophy is brilliantly demonstrated by Charles Taylor, for in the end, there is a temptation of meaninglessness and morality can be abrogated - it turns violent in the name of authenticity.

this violence does not always have to be bad: it can be a violence of smashing, for example, the gender binary, the patriarchy, or the oppressive structures of religion. but this violence can also go awry, in various forms: an example would be fascism’s nostalgia for the ‘authentic’ past. however, this violence is a spectrum: there is not one mode of being violent and they all differ greatly from each other despite having their origins in the same idea.

miranda’s life is exemplary of the failure of the culture of authenticity exalted by existentialism. it’s not all bad: the only reason she is capable of being editor - in - chief of a magazine like runway is because of the ontological turn of art as imitation to art as creation. authenticity (despite all the fakeness)  is one of its crucial selling points - and she is brilliant at this. yet, as Taylor has pointed out, authenticity demands a revolution.

miranda, as a character, is symbolical for the breaking free of the modern woman from the traditional expectations of housewives. but this breaking free - while not a bad thing in itself, it didn’t occur without some sort of ‘violence’ (as should be clear by now. violence, for me, is subject to broad interpretation), as in that she can’t afford to be ‘nice’,  as is traditionally expected of her.

𝙲𝙷𝚁𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙰𝙽: 𝚜𝚑𝚎'𝚜 𝚊… 𝚜𝚑𝚎'𝚜 𝚊 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚜𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚝…  𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚝… 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚢.

𝙰𝙽𝙳𝚈: 𝚘𝚔𝚊𝚢, 𝚜𝚑𝚎'𝚜 𝚝𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚏 𝚖𝚒𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚊 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚊 𝚖𝚊𝚗… 𝚗𝚘 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛, 𝚎𝚡𝚌𝚎𝚙𝚝 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚓𝚘𝚋.

however. it doesn’t stop there. which is what i will be discussing next. 

𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘. das rechenende Denken is what hei/degger - but also the mar/xist frankfurter school of philosophy - labeled as the greatest ill of modernity. the devil wears prada is, in part a movie about instrumental rationality, which is the mode of thought that has emerged together with the advancement of science. it is a mode of reasoning that focuses on the most effective means to an end. 

𝙰𝙽𝙳𝚈: 𝚒… 𝚒 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚍𝚘 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚒𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚎𝚕, 𝚖𝚒𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚊. 𝚒 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚍𝚘 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝.

𝙼𝙸𝚁𝙰𝙽𝙳𝙰: 𝚖𝚖. 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚕𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚢 𝚍𝚒𝚍. 𝚝𝚘 𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢.

these betrayals are part of the industry. they are part of instrumental reason - a mode of rationality that has little regard for morality or nigel’s feelings, but only for the outcome. the weberian iron cage dominates. the violence of authenticity in part tied to the iron cage of instrumental reason. one wonders how authentic that individualist conception of authenticity is. 

𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄. another heavy emphasis is laid on choice: 

𝙰𝙽𝙳𝚈: 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝'𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒… 𝚗𝚘, 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜… 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚍𝚒𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝. 𝚒 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚊 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚒𝚌𝚎.

𝙼𝙸𝚁𝙰𝙽𝙳𝙰: 𝚘𝚑, 𝚗𝚘, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎. 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚊𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍. 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚒𝚌𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚊𝚛𝚢.

choice is fundamental in existential philosophy as it affirms human freedom. the Entwurf, the design can never be realized by someone else. one has to develop authentic life for themselves - Jemeinigkeit: authenticity is an authenticity that is personal, and that has to be realized in one’s own existence. however, for hei/degger the facticity of our human existence and the risk of Verfallen into an average existence or Durschnittlichkeit are omnipresent. They taint the Entwurf. for s/artre however, freedom is radicalized. existence precedes essence: who we are precedes what we are. our choices define our existence. and as we are doomed to human freedom, we have to make choices. andy tries to avoid these - representing the existentialist mauvaise foi, whereas miranda takes full responsibility for them. however, they become meaningless. 

𝙽𝙸𝙶𝙴𝙻:   𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚒 𝚌𝚊𝚗'𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚟𝚎 𝚒 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚙 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚍𝚊𝚢.

existentialism fails to recognize crucial issues because nothing is important anymore. the choice of having steak for lunch over pasta becomes as important as say, the choice to save someone from imminent death or not. a larger horizon is needed. which is conspicuously absent . authenticity becomes inauthentic easily enough .

𝐒𝐄𝐗𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘. with all this being out of the way, i want to briefly go over miranda’s sexual orientation vis à vis the fact she has been in the closet her whole life and will likely continue to remain so.  important to recognize, in the case of existentialism, is that there is no prior authentic essence to be uncovered. one does not first sit down and ponder on what is the most authentic mode of life for them, but one simply chooses. and because of the choice one makes as a free human, one is authentic. an existentialist culture of authenticity pushed to the extreme has as its consequence that sexual orientation too is also merely a choice. and paradoxically enough, because of this culture of authenticity, miranda’s choices for ‘this life’ involve choices that are inauthentic, that are part of hei/degger’s Verfallen. because of this, there’s that creeping existential Angst that permeates her life, her sense of not being whole, of not having realised the Entwurf fully.

[kokoronopikuseru]

Review: Pixelogue

A little late to post this, but I intend to share details and reflect on the editing of Pixelogue, in hope that it will help editors and organizers who need advice. (If you’re not interested in editing info, just skip to the last section)

Details are in Chronological Order -

# Software:

I designed everything from scratch in AE, with all the stock plugins. I had to relearn everything I used to know about AE; I last used it extensively in Pixelophobia years ago and furthermore, I wasn’t really used to the new CC interface. I had to seek tutorials for every simple effect I wanted to execute. It sure was difficult for me. For english speaking editors, this is probably your main tool if you intend to do simple video animations and graphics.

# Planning: Song Choice

I had intended to use a Korean Indie Track as stated in the collab details page. Sadly, the music really didn’t fit the music. I spent about 3 days rearranging the clips in every permutation I knew. I didn't really manage to find an arrangement that suited the clips. The unfortunate reality for editors is that we are usually at the mercy of the submission clips. I finally chose something Tigres’ described as “Shawn Wasabi-like”. It was a major challenge for my editing since I wasn’t exactly used to creating work that is colourful or cheerful rhythm-wise. I had to have major re-planning if I wanted it to work out.

# Editing: Draft

My process for editing clips always starts from arranging the combos. I used Vegas for this since, well, it IS a video editor, and it is pretty fast in processing clips. For learning purposes, here is the link of my very first draft (https://youtu.be/kRDwXTnxXGw). I think it’s necessary to spend a longer time at this stage, so as to visualize how its gonna turn out. And of course, to ensure that this is the flow of the CV you really wanted. By this stage, you should also have planned out the fillers (as denoted by the empty instances in the draft) and roughly how long your intro and outro will be. 

# Editing: Intro

I didn’t really want to make something too kawaii. But yet, I can’t really escape the colourful imagery I imagined the intro to be. I compromised and made something that alternates between some modern TV visuals and old school TV visuals. 

Modern TV; I was greatly inspired by those colour wipes that vloggers used for their youtube channels. It was one of those common and simple transitions that AE users exploit regularly. I found ways to incorporate it in a radial and a rotating wipe. The font animations were all plugins in AE that I found. I wasn’t gonna edit every alphabet like the previous CVs I made.

Old School TV; I took most of my inspiration from the adjustment knobs on analog TV. I found that it goes well with the subtle static noise in the music track. Hence I employed selection circles, and drew an actual knob (not sure if you guys realised that was what it was supposed to be). I also warp bulge the static background as well as the words, to emulate the concave glass distortion present in analog TVs. 

And in the final burst of images, I made the clips alternate between 16:9 and 4:3, just to show the juxtaposition between modern and old school.

I really hope people notice all these small details. I didn't feel it was impactful enough, but I guess these are probably cool facts for those who are interested.

# Editing: Combos

I always render my CV in a 16:9 resolution, simply because it IS more pleasing to the eye now that computer monitors are no longer square. My preferences have yet to change. However, with regards to the clips, I have read enough indirect feedback that the cropping wasn’t something that most people liked. I took this criticism pretty seriously, and thought it was time for me to hop on the bandwagon, to try the new-age style of CV editing.

I had to put in much more effort to retain a 4:3 combo in a 16:9 visual space, with an additional need to create a secondary background layer. But because of this decision, it gives me more freedom to explore options of panning and perspective movements.

I create a blurred and expanded duplicate of every combo as a background. I thought it was great that I could retain the original colours and give the clips a “floaty field”. No one has done something like this before, so it was instantly cool and hip. It also gives more room and potential to play around with the transitions too. Eg, fading the background before the clip (transition from Tigres to popte). Interestingly, all the backgrounds all have different properties, namely position, scale and degree of gaussian blur. The reason was really because some clips were seizure inducing due to their extensive movements. I thought it would be nice to vary all of them, which adds a unique aesthetic touch to all the combos.

I am pretty new to editing in a 3Dimensional Space and camera tracking. I was intending to do something as simple and fluid like Talentica Neue. Well, I learnt it wasn’t as simple as I thought. I had about 5-6 Parameters of camera movements, and frankly till now, don’t really know what each one does. I highly suggest for editors who wanna try 3Dimensional camera tracking, watch more tutorials and try simple practice projects. Learning how to utilize it properly will extensively improve your editing game.

Oh yeah, remember to use the graph editor for EVERYTHING. Acceleration and Decelerations have too much aesthetic value to miss out on.

# Editing: Outro

Because I have spent so much time on all other parts of the CV, it’s only responsible for me to put in some effort on an outro which I am usually way too lazy to make. Yeah guys, it’s important to make outros too guys. I used the same warping and television static effect from the intro to retain a sense of continuity. It's simple and nice, I liked it.

# Combos; (Warning: Difficult to Stomach) 

I’m gonna be a little too frank about this- the quality of combos I received were lower than what I usually work with (I love my UPSB submissions tho). I guess this is the huge downside of organizing sign-up CVs to an international community that is slowly dying and regressing. It was even harder when most didn’t submit on time. I had only 7 clips by the deadline. I wanna admit that I had moments regretting that I was organizing Pixelogue as a majority-signup CV. Some of the filtered combos either didn’t fit the style of CV (really sorry padrace) or was just bad due to the lack of effort. Mostly bad.

But here’s the heart of the matter, this might really reflect the standard of the international community. 

I’m not sure if I am the only one who feels this way, but I feel that most of the current international CVs can be separated into two groups, the JEB invites, and the rest of us. Don’t get me wrong, I do acknowledge the high standards JEB spinners deliver. But I’m not comfortable with the fact that they don’t submit better materials since their combos are guaranteed to be featured, and mainly because the quality of an international CV is often a 50/50 hit or miss (could be lower). Who can blame them really. Even so, their names are usually enough to make the lineup look great. 

> Pixelation was an all JEB sign up CVs. Pixelarium, Pixelophobia, Pixelography, Pixeholic were invites-only CVs, a mix of international and JEB guys. <

Most of my CVs have a JEB last spinner or a JEB dominant lineup towards the end. (coffeelucky 6th is also guilty of this). Clearly, you can see how much we use japanese invites as a way to boost the “quality” and hype of our projects. Yeah, sucks to admit it, but I am sure these are common sentiments shared with many of us international CV editors for a pretty long time.

Well, its not something I’m really contented with. In fact, I don’t like the way this becomes the norm. 

More recently, around the time I released “Express 12.1.18”, I really wanted to believe in us - the international community veterans, the borderline pen spinning retirees, that we can perform. I didn’t wanna believe that the international community was any inferior. I finally felt ready to edit something solely from our pool of people. I can accept that I don’t have to rely on japanese invitations to superficially enhance the CV. We have enough to make something great ourselves. 

I fondly assert that the international community does NEED this kind of confidence. Otherwise, we will always be second rated. Seen as the lesser beings. Y’all JapEn tiering meme-lords know what I’m talking about. I personally  needed this to prove to myself that it will work out for us even when the scene looks pretty shitty now. And yes, I did feel better after this.

# Conclusion

It didn’t really garner much attention especially when there was a flood of CVs being released around the time it was released. But I do love it a lot. It’s made up of familiar spinners that I cherish, good combos that I’m thankful for, and finally, an editing that drained my whole summer holiday away. Yeah, I do love it a lot. Definitely one of my proudest work.

[classyfoxdestiny]

FDA Gives Full Approval to Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine

FDA Gives Full Approval to Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday gave full approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The action may help raise public trust in the vaccine as the country and the world battle the fast-spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus.

Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said in a statement: “…as the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, the public can be very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product.”

The vaccine, made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, was the first shot to be approved for emergency use by the FDA last December. The FDA has also approved vaccines from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson for emergency use.

The FDA based its latest decision on a study of 40,000 volunteers 16 years and older. It said, “the vaccine was 91 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 disease.” The agency also noted the shot “is effective in preventing COVID-19 and potentially serious outcomes including hospitalization and death.”

Approval could lead to vaccine requirements

The full approval came as governments, schools and businesses around the United States are considering requiring vaccinations for employees, students and others.

Last month, U.S. President Joe Biden announced that federal employees and those who work with the federal government are required to show proof of vaccination or have regular testing.

FILE – A United States Navy officer from the USS San Diego receives a vaccine against coronavirus at the navy port in Manama, Bahrain in this picture taken February 26, 2021 and released by U.S Navy on February 27, 2021. (Brandon Woods/U.S. Navy/Handout via REUTERS)

Members of the U.S. military will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 beginning next month.

Also on Monday, New York City announced it is requiring all public school teachers and workers in the nation’s largest school system to be vaccinated.

Dr. Carlos del Rio is with Emory University in the state of Georgia. He told The Associated Press, “I think a lot of businesses have been waiting for” the full approval from the FDA. He noted that requiring people to get the shots “becomes much easier when you have full approval.”

An AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research study released this week found that a majority of Americans, up to 59 percent, support a vaccine requirement for teachers and students.

Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. have differing opinions about vaccine requirements in schools. Only 38 percent of those who identified as Republican support a vaccine mandate for teachers. By comparison, 81 percent of self-identified Democrats support such a requirement.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reported earlier this month that most unvaccinated adults in the country do not believe vaccines are effective. Some even see the shots as a greater health risk than the actual disease.

FDA chief Woodcock noted: “While millions of people have already safely received COVID-19 vaccines, we recognize that for some, the FDA approval of a vaccine may now instill additional confidence to get vaccinated.”

Booster shots

The FDA said the vaccine continues to be available under emergency use for young people between the ages of 12 and 15.

The agency has also advised a third shot, known as a booster, for those with a weakened immune system. But the Biden administration announced last week it plans to provide the third shot to all Americans.

A woman takes a picture of a man as he receives a third shot of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine as country launches booster shots for over 40-year-olds, in Jerusalem August 20, 2021. (REUTERS/Ammar Awad)

Israel has one of the world’s highest vaccination rates using the Pfizer-BioNTech shots. In early July, it became the first country to give coronavirus boosters to people with weakened immune systems. Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett then announced that the country would offer the booster to all people over 60.

Israel’s Ministry of Health reported on Sunday that the third shot of Pfizer has greatly improved protection from infection and serious illness among Israelis aged 60 and over.

However, health officials with the World Health Organization (WHO) have asked wealthier and more highly vaccinated countries to delay offering booster shots. They said it would be better to give more shots to unvaccinated people in developing countries.

WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus said, “We cannot accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it, while the world’s most vulnerable people remain unprotected.”

I’m Jill Robbins.

Hai Do wrote this story for VOA Learning English with additional reporting from the Associated Press. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

variant – n. something that is different in some way from others at the same kind

confident – adj. certain that something is true

outcome – n. something that happens as a result of an activity

regular – adj. happening over and over again

mandate – n. an official order to do something.

instill – v. to gradually cause someone to have (a feeling, etc.)

immune system – n. the system that protects your body from diseases and infections

global – adj. international, involving the entire world

vulnerable – adj. easily hurt or harmed

Source link

[mobileapplicationupdates]

Common Mobile App Development Mistakes To Avoid in 2021

With the invention of smartphones, mobile applications have greatly simplified people's lives. This has led to the mobile apps development company in bangalore industry emerging as the most lucrative of all. Especially with a melee competition between iOS and Android, you can see new applications arriving on the scene every day.

Both game stores have more than 1 million applications each. In such a scenario, companies struggle with each other to create first-hand applications than others. In such a case, it is clear that many common errors occur that are not seen.

Have you ever thought why some applications are better than others even though they are very similar in terms of application?

This is because some apps are perfect in terms of functionality and features, while others are trapped by common bugs.

This differentiates successful applications from unsuccessful ones. After having hands-on experience with both types of applications, I list common mistakes to avoid in your future projects.

Not adapting to market changes

Imagine a mobile application that allows you to make 6-second clips and share your life moments with others. Sounds familiar? No, I am not talking about Instagram, Tik Tok, or Boomerang. I mean Vine.

Vine was a free mobile app founded in 2012 that allowed users to record and share an unlimited number of short looping video clips with a maximum length of six seconds.

it became the fastest growing best mobile app development company India in the world.

Vine was used by actors, singers, and celebrities, but also regular users. Thanks to Vine, many people who are famous celebrities today got their initial fame.

So what went wrong? Ankur Thakkar, Vine's managing editor, said the network did not send anything for a year. So the main problem was that the application stopped following new trends and attracting users, in addition to not developing new functions.

It's critical to adapt your product to market conditions and keep track of your competition. The new functionalities increase the participation and the user experience of the mobile applications.

You can see from the Vine example that even if your product is great and gaining popularity, you need to remember to constantly take care of your top-notch user experience. Failing to adapt to market changes is one of the most common mobile application development mistakes to any avoid.

Have ambiguity about device and operating system compatibility

Providing small details about your proposal can jeopardize the relationship you want to build with your clients. If you avoid specifying your estimates, including iOS development only, for example, your customer can expect costs to include Android.

If it is not intended to work for iPad, it is your responsibility to repair it, free of charge, without deviating from the contract. Now, that can kill the project entirely, regardless of how close the deal is.

Therefore, you must ensure that the contract indicates the version, operating system, and device compatibility.

Have an application that lacks a clear purpose

If your application lacks a purpose, who will it be for? Not having a well-defined purpose to develop an application is the biggest mistake. Too often, apps are created as competitive tools to generate some curiosity just because others are doing it.

However, an mobile app development companies in bangalore without a real reason is not a recipe for more success. It only indicates an infallible failure.

Only when your application responds to some genuine concern can it be successful and rated as useful. When your app is unique and useful, it can serve as a definitive bookmark, especially for loyal users.

Build quality control throughout development cycles rather than leaving it for last. Compare the purpose of the application with the development process and run concurrent tests during development to avoid errors.

Not building an MVP

Making an MVP is a useful idea that can prevent your application from being a fiasco. An MVP or Minimum Viable Product offers you the opportunity to progressively test your product in economic situations, where you have day-to-day users to assess the exposure of the application. It is one of the trends in the mobile application market, used by most of the companies.

With a minimum viable product for startups, you'll spend the leanest assets possible to attract your first users, receive criticism, and understand your target market.

No mobile app monetization

Before spending money, time, and effort to push apps, set aside some work to plan mobile app monetization models. Building an app is one, however, interacting with target people to download apps is an unmistakable game. This is one of the crucial mistakes to avoid when developing an application for business.

There is an important test in the app stores with the argument that numerous applications are downloaded every day. It's pretty much infinite the app will download in case you don't have a solid app getting started plan.

Examine your objective requirements, advance to the app home page, get studies on your app, bundle it, use influencers to increase the promotion of your app, and distribute it effectively across multiple platforms. The implementation of this strategy is also responsible for the trends of the mobile application market in the current scenario.

Complexity

Another common user design mistake includes application complexity when it is difficult for the user to understand the functionality and usability of the application. Similarly, as a designer makes use of the best visual imagination and various color codes to deliver a message, it is also necessary to have a UX list of mobile apps development company India that makes use of significantly fewer steps to reach any other part of the application. When there is a lot of text or a complex flow that puzzles the user, it will cause them to exit the application and go somewhere else.

Spam notifications

Let's be honest about it, getting a lot of notifications from an app is annoying. Yes, you need to communicate with the user via notifications about new feature updates or subscriptions, but you should also refrain from spamming your users. You should try to build a proper balance between being aggressive with notifications and maintaining your presence. Focus on reporting relevant and important information rather than just spamming.

Partner with an inexperienced company for application development needs

This could be the biggest mistake of all those discussed above. Handing over your mobile app development requirements to an inexperienced or inexperienced company can be detrimental to your business. The decision may not only affect your customer base, but also your bottom line.

App development requires deep business understanding, analysis of customer requirements, development and design experience, best testing practices, etc.

Centimeter by centimeter imitation of competitors

When a successful business idea takes the form of an application, it attracts a lot of new competition in the market. There is nothing wrong with taking a page out of your competitor's book, but deciding to imitate your competitor inch by inch can be a huge mistake on your part. You need to instill some new ideas and approaches into the app, and try to bring a fresh experience to your users that none of the competing apps offer. Blind imitation of competitors is one thing, most people end up doing despite knowing that it is a glitch.

Too much feature stuffing

An application created by a reputable application design company should not have too many functionalities and features. If you are loaded with too much stuff, you can end up giving the impression that you are not clear about what you want to present to users. If users do not understand the specific reason for the application, there is a possibility that it will be uninstalled very soon. It is always better to be clear and concise about the content of an application.

Neglecting compatibility with other applications

There will not be just one application on a mobile or smart device, there are many applications installed. Sometimes one is too focused on developing an application that the compatibility factor can slip. If the application is not properly compatible with the rest of the applications or the device, a problem may arise for the user, such as device lag or abrupt closing of applications. If these things happen too much, the user will think carefully about getting rid of your app.

Summarizing…

With many opportunities in mobile app development, you can capitalize on and gain access to your own market, as long as you avoid common mistakes that have not been seen before.

If you have any kind of problem with mobile application development, you can get to know us by completing the following form. We will communicate with you with the smartest solutions that you will praise.

FuGenx is one of the Android application development company India for iPhone app development companies and the best Android apps development companies for devices in Bangalore. We are proud to be one of the iPhone apps development companies India due to our old projects and satisfied customers. Experienced top 10 mobile app development companies india developers who can run your mobile app without bugs or glitches. Contact us at sales@FuGenx.com for a free quote

FuGenx Services:

A) ai development company India

B) iot apps development company India

C) iPhone apps development companies India

d) best machine learning company India

e) iOS apps development companies India

F) Top data science company in India

G) ml development company India

[harshalyallewar]

Which is the reliable and cheap web hosting company in India?

Hey guys,

I am going to tell some reliable and cheap web hosting company in India

Hostinger

About Hostinger: Hostinger is one of the best picks among the top 10 hosting companies in India. Around 15,000 new users are estimated to be signing up for Hostinger every day and more than 29 million active customers give a brief idea of Hostinger’s hosting service quality. It consists of premium features to increase the reliability and speed of your website.

Pricing: Considering the Shared hosting service, for instance, Hostinger is one of the best web hosting in India based users can expect to depend on. Moreover, the lowest shared hosting package comes for ₹59/month, accommodating a single website, an email account, a free SSL certificate, 100 GB bandwidth, and more.

Uptime: Keeping your website online throughout the day, Hostinger ensures most of the Uptime. A good looking 99.50% is recorded for an average run. Above all, despite occasional downtime for updates and maintenance, hostinger india makes sure that you don’t lose business.

Features: It’s great to see that even the lowest package of Hostinger is packed with just enough features to start a website smoothly. It comes with 1 free domain registration, email account, 100 GB of limited bandwidth, 1x allocated resources, and a free SSL certificate to secure your website from unwanted threats like hacking and online fishing.

<a href="https://codebuggy.com/">All India Hindi News Portal Regional</a> <a href="https://codingbells.com/">codingbells</a> <a href="http://photoeduc.in/">All India News Portal Regional</a> <a href="https://techyedupro.com/">Videography Photography Information </a> <a href="https://medium.com/@harshalyallewar007/in-your-salary-can-you-buy-an-apple-iphone-the-latest-model-5c6a5f6f8abc">Videography Photography Information </a>

Pros

30-day money back guarantee

Unlimited bandwidth and storage

Free domain name

Backups for free

Reliable uptime and fast server

Free Bitninja security & SSL certificate

Single-click WordPress installer

Bluehost

Bluehost is My No. 1 choice for the cheapest web hosting service. The most popular brand is with over 2 million websites installed worldwide. This is recommended web hosting by WordPress with one-click WordPress install, and 24/7 customer support.

If you are just starting, then your cheap web hosting search ends here. You can start with Blue host as it is the best for website beginners. Their paid plans start with 199 INR (Discounted Price) and also provide a 30 days money-back guarantee.

Bluehost Features:

Free SSL certificate

Free domain for 1 year

Beginner Friendly and Easy to use Interface

99.99% uptime, which is the best in the industry.

Average load time of half-second

Best for bloggers as well as large websites

Affordable price plan

High-Speed Servers

HostGator

About Hostgator: Hostgator is one of the oldest web host India based clients may rely on. They are widely appreciated for their Cloud-based hosting environment while keeping the costing affordable for everyone. Adding to that, reliability, speed, and excellent support also make the hosting giant stand out of the crowd.

Pricing: Starting at just ₹99/month for a shared hosting plan, newly developed sites may go for a bigger package according to their website’s needs. The introductory price may look cheap and covers all the necessary features to start a complete website, but for extra stuff like Gmail access, data backups, Sitelock monitoring, SEO tools, and others the prices may don’t look good enough. You are advised to look out for these aspects while checking out.

Uptime: First, Hostgator has been consistently maintaining 99.98% uptime for months. The best part is the fact that Hostgator’s uptime guarantee comes with free one-month credit to your hosting account if they fail to maintain a minimum of 99.90% uptime.

With that being said, all the pre-planned maintenance and unpredictable hacking attacks are not included in the terms. Most importantly, any sort of other issues can be counted into the said guarantee and customers may claim for their credit within 30 days through a support ticket.

Features: Guaranteed 99.9% uptime, 24×7 technical support, and 45-day money-back guarantee would be our first priority if we are going for Hostgator web host review. For instance, with the basic shared hosting plan, Hostgator gives you a single free domain, limited 10 GB of disk space, 100 GB of data transfer, free 5 email accounts, free SSL certificate, and unlimited database.

Pros

100% Uptime

Reliable Technical Support

Free Migration, SSL, Backup

45 Days Money-Back Guarantee

Free Domain Name

Free Cpanel & Website Migration

User-Friendly Functionalities

Unmetered Space And Bandwidth

thanks to the readers for more relevant detail visit my answer

166 views

Add CommentPromoted by Hostinger.inWhich are the best and cheapest hosting for WordPress with good resources in India?

Darius Grigorjevas

, Head of Customer Success at Hostinger.com

Updated April 1, 2020

There are quite a few options for cheap and good web hosting providers for WordPress in India. The question is: how to choose the best one? To do that, we have to put a few factors into consideration. Now, without further ado, let’s start. When choosing a host, look for the one that has an(Continue reading in feed)

Aseem Chandna

, Blogger and Online Entrepreneur

Answered February 11

When it comes to Web Hosting, you should look out for many parameters before deciding. There are far too many parameters that need to be kept in mind at the time of selecting the web host.

Different hosting companies offer different options, features, and functionalities. So, what could be the best option for you might not work for others.

Your web host needs to be highly reliable, supportive, and cost-effective.

Since the purpose of this post is to help you make an informed decision, I'm not gonna confuse you by mentioning 10s of web hosting service providers. As mentioned above, I have done all the hard work, researched 10s of web hosting companies, read customer reviews, and applied due diligence while arriving at my final 5 best web hosting companies in the world.

I have compiled a list of Best Web Hosts for 2021, that includes a detailed review of popular Web hosting companies for all kind of users, including newbies, startups, enterprises, and eCommerce companies.

I am assuming that you are starting off with a new blog and would need limited resources. So, I will suggest DreamHost.

Dreamhost is one of the most trusted web hosting companies in the world which has been in business since 1996. Dreamhost has been PCMag's "Editors' Choice" Winner 5 Years In a Row. Over 1.5 million websites trust Dreamhost the world over.

Dreamhost is officially recommended by WordPress for exceptional web hosting services.

Here’re the main features that inspired me to keep Dreamhost on my list of 5 best web hosting services in 2021:

Free SSL Certificate

100% Uptime Guarantee

Unlimited Traffic

Unmetered Bandwidth

Fast SSD Storage

WordPress Pre-installed

Possibility to add Email as low as $1.67/mo

24/7 Support

NEW: WP Website Builder

NEW: Free Automated WordPress Migration

Dreamhost is offering a limited period discount of 67%.

Discounted prices start at just $2.49/mo.

I highly recommend Dreamhost simply because people greatly love Dreamhost - it has an unprecedented high rating of 4.7 (out of 5) on Trustpilot!

Check out the full details about the Best Web Hosting Services In 2021 (including Dreamhost, Bluehost, Hostgator, and Fastcomet), prices, and discount offers by clicking on the link in the footnotes below. [1]

I have also included a review of MilesWeb (an Indian Company) that is creating new benchmarks in Web Hosting.

Hope this helps. Please feel free to get in touch if you need further help.

Best wishes! 👍

Footnotes

[1]

Best Web Hosting Services In 2021

99 views

Add Comment

Prahlad

, Blogger

Answered February 1

As we Know in India most of the Companies is providing the cheap web hosting, but it is most important for one to choose the perfect best Web hosting for their Website.

As we all Knows that in India every person is Searching for Cheap Best Web hosting, but they even do not know that cheap Web hosting is not providing the best and Reliable Web Hosting.

Before Choosing any web Hosting Know, Does your Web Hosting is Providing Below Features

Web Server: does your Hosting provider is using the Best web server, Let Me tell you what is Web Server- Where your Content is Stored and Shared on WWW.

Server la

��� (more)12

Add CommentSponsored by MilesWebHost everything from a blog to dynamic websites.Get 24/7 support, 30-day money back guarantee and a high-speed server. Pick your plan & get started!Sign UpRelated QuestionsMore Answers Below

What is the most cheapest web hosting service in india for unlimited websites?

Which is the best web hosting in India?

Which is the best and reasonable web hosting service provider in India?

Anonymous

Answered August 5, 2019

Originally Answered:

which company provide Cheap web hosting in India?

cheap web hosting in India are those who really give better service, best way to ask this question is cheap and best web hosting in India, i had use lots of hosting big brand to small company but i feel one big difference is big brands costumer support is not that much effective infect they are not understanding Clint problem.

i have fix some scale to understand which company is best for hosting

Recurring price is same as normal price. This very important thing their are lot of company are giving you lot and lots offer but they indirectly try to cheat you. In the name of recurring price they cha

… (more)1

Add Comment

Web Tech Preneur

, Web Hosting Adviser & Reviewer

Updated February 18, 2020

I’m a Blogger and in my Blogging carrier, I’ve experienced so many web hosting companies.

So after using many hosting here is my best suggestion for you.

Here below are my 3 suggestions:

#1. NameCheap Hosting

It is a cheap and best hosting in speed or support.

here you can get web hosting at just Rs 91/month where you can host up to 3 sites or blogs.

here you also get a Free SSL and Unlimited Bandwidth.

Get Namecheap Discount Coupon

#2. GoDaddy Hosting

GoDaddy is Best and Cheap Hosting for Indians.

Here you get just Rs 99/months + Free Domain name for 12 months. So for Indians, it is really a good optio

… (more)1

Add Comment

Stella Joseph

, Blogger

Answered April 7, 2020

Originally Answered:

What are the best affordable Indian web hosting companies?

Web hosting has become prevalent as businesses want to connect with customers who have access to smartphones and other devices. A website conveys information about the products and services of the enterprises while customers also search on the internet to find the relevant products or services. Besides this, a website can also become the interactive platform with live chat-bot and online customer service. It provides contact information of the businesses. To create a web presence, the enterprises need to hire web

[writerservicesblogs]

How to Become an Author

Today we look at what your options are when writing and editing a book, and the bigger picture of how to become an author. These endeavors – the journey of book writing and the resulting life of an author – are among the most cherished and rewarding of all. I make a point of emphasizing that to aspiring authors because so many find the process of sorting through all the options, the decision-making, and the work of actually writing WELL WORTH IT.

WRITING SERVICES

Full-service companies offer authors everything from collaborative book writing to ghostwriting, editing and more. For example, Writer Services accepts inquiries about any and all aspects of writing a book. We work with aspiring and established authors and entrepreneurs alike to determine which of our services will best achieve our clients’ goals.

Our services include:

Ghostwriting – You simply tell us what you want, and we take care of everything else. As explained in further detail below, your name (and your name only) appears on the cover of your book as author. In other words, your writer remains anonymous.

Collaborative book writing – With this service, we work with you one-on-one through every step of the book writing journey. If you’d like to be more involved in the process of writing than what’s available through a ghostwriting service, this might be the perfect choice for you. You get to be involved as much or as little as you want.

Developmental editing – A more engaged, ongoing editing relationship throughout your book writing process is available through this particular service.

To most authors, this is an invaluable service because of the camaraderie between you and your editor. You have someone to rely on and trust in who will be very honest with you about the quality of your work and the effectiveness of your writing. Any doubts or reservations about your book are resolved.

You can look at this service as more collaboration than in ghostwriting and regular line editing, but less than in collaborative book writing.

Line Editing/Copy Editing – This is a high-quality editing service provided in a more traditional writer-editor relationship. Your material is checked for grammar and sentence structure.

Proofreading – We provide a service that puts the final polish on your work. S/he checks your manuscript for spelling, consistency of the use of punctiation marks and many other things these unsung heros do to make you look like a true professional.

Social media and traditional marketing As a full-service firm, we also offer marketing of your book(s) using our social media and traditional marketing resources. Our marketing services are available at several price points to fit your budget and goals.

GHOSTWRITING DEFINITION

Ghostwriting is a writing service where a hired professional book writer, who remains unnamed, writes your book—using ideas and concepts provided by the hiring party—which is then credited to the payer/author.

WRITING MENTOR

A writing mentor works closely with you, offering their vast experience and unique insight. Every aspect of being a book writer and being an author is real to your mentor, because s/he is a seasoned book writer and experienced author.

You may find that you learn quite a lot just by working with them, such as their writing habits, theories, and even style, which is okay because those inevitably give way to your own preferences as you grow as an author.

To give you a clearer picture of writer/mentor dynamics, you might have a look at one or two unique depictions of the relationship in film.

The Only Living Boy in New York (2017) stars Jeff Bridges as a successful author who stumbles into the mentorship of a young man who is his neighbor.

Adult World (2013) stars John Cusack as the reluctant mentor of a young woman who admires him greatly.

Although these portrayals aren’t typical, they offer a sense of the personal interactions that create the mentor-author bond.

Video Transcript:

“The life of an author is often portrayed as strictly independent – a one-person show. But, did you know that working with a mentor is one of the best gifts you can give your own writing? Even the great philosopher Plato had a mentor in Socrates. Plato, in turn, mentored Aristotle. Great minds seek other great minds to improve their work.”

WRITING COACH / WRITER COACH

Writing coaches (or writer coaches) differ from writing mentors in the type of relationship they offer to the author.

The writing coach is not necessarily an author themselves, and their role is more like that of a motivator. They’re not the same as a life coach, though, in that they usually have some experience with editing and/or another facet of writing.

Accountability, inspiration and motivation are the tools of the writing coach’s trade. You might find that the interactions with your writing coach are less personal and deep than those with a mentor. Still, without question, to have someone to answer to is better than having no one at all.

WRITING LESSONS

There are a great variety of writing lessons and classes available online and off. These, of course, can be taken alone or as part of a coaching or mentoring program. They might come in the form of:

1. Writing prompts – Prompts are challenges and/or ideas you can use to jump-start your daily writing practice.

 2. Creative writing classes – Just about every university, community college, and adult continuing education program offers a course on creative writing. Almost all of them also offer the course(s) virtually.

 3. Membership websites – With the recent boom in online learning due to the pandemic, we may begin to see more membership training sites showing up. Though there aren’t many out there to date, we are extremely proud to announce our own membership website for authors! You can get more information about how you can have on-going guidance for literally just pennies a day. It’s called Author Utopia. See it by clicking the following link: https://www.authorutopia.com

 4. Vocabulary expansion – Words are the endless variety of colors available to squeeze onto your writer’s palette. The greater your vocabulary, the better you will do at expressing your ideas in compelling and varied language.

Reading is one great way to expand your knowledge of words, but there are dozens of other ways, too. Online tools such as dictionaries and thesauruses provide vast opportunities for learning. You might also try a quick search for “vocabulary expander” and/or “vocabulary tests”.

5. Reading for writing – In my own experience, I find reading an excellent lubricant for writing. The published word has a certain power to condition an author’s mind towards better writing. As you read, you learn the music of well-written phrases. Like a catchy tune, this music stays with you as you write. You write more and more, eventually finding your own unique voice and your own “songs.”

Also, reading improves your vocabulary. This is proven. Some wise writers keep a list of words they don’t know and look them up after a session of reading. In these ways, reading is one of the best activities to improve your own writing.

6. Journaling prompts – In journals, you’re writing the true story of your life as you experience it or shortly thereafter. You can see how this practice can help you develop your own authentic voice as an author. As with creative writing prompts, there exist many sites that offer prompts for journaling.

6. Editing classes – Editing isn’t just a task, it’s an art. Writer and editors (especially), must look at  manuscripts with a critical eye. Is a phrase redundant? Delete it. Can a different word provide pleasant alliteration? Use that word instead. Clarity, efficiency, inventiveness – all these and more are the goals of excellent editing.

7. Grammar and punctuation – A good writer is never done learning and relearning the rules of writing. Just as a jazz musician must learn their basic scales before launching into improvisation, an author must know the rules thoroughly before they break them.

8. Journalism and blogging – These two types of writing have ethics and rules of their own. It’s worthwhile to familiarize yourself with these, even if they’re not your specialties. It’s likely that some of the practices and skills involved in journalism and/or blogging will translate to an aspect of your future writing processes.

9. Research and writing – Research is another rewarding endeavor for writers. When researching a topic – any topic at all – you might gain all types of ideas and inspiration for your book. Depending on what you’re writing, research could account for a large percentage of your time working. For example, non-fiction books generally require extensive research into the real people and actual events you’re writing about.

10. Poetry workshops – Here’s a double-power tool for improving your work. Writing poetry hones your senses of efficiency, rhythm, and tone, as well as aiding your creativity and inventiveness. Workshops offer contact and interaction with other writers, and everyone usually emerges from them better editors.

11. Character creation and development – Classes are also available for specific aspects of the fiction-writing process. Think of the value of well-developed, three-dimensional characters to a good novel. Learning this skill can go a long way in making you an effective writer.

12. Fiction for beginners – On the other hand, you might not be ready to dive into in-depth classes on specific techniques. Fiction lessons for beginners are great ways to dip your toe in the water and get a feel for the process and promise of a professional writing career. Make all the mistakes you want! In beginners classes, you’re free from the pressures you might feel elsewhere. In the meantime, you’re getting solid footing for the next steps towards authorship of a book.

13. Advanced writing – Maybe you’ve already taken many of the classes I’ve listed above. Maybe you’ve even written a book or two. Your learning isn’t done! Advanced classes offer learning opportunities to authors who are ready to accept the next higher challenge.

BOOK EDITING SERVICES

“Writing is editing,” is an old adage that holds true today. Editing affords your work a reader, among other benefits. A reader/editor who is not the author often facilitates the best results. Writing is communication, and communication is always a two-way street. You want to make sure that what you’re writing is as close as possible – in clarity, meaning, and tone – to what the reader perceives.

We often think of editing as work done exclusively after a book is written. That isn’t the case at all. In fact, editing often begins in earnest at the beginning of your second draft. So, it’s useful to think of editing as much more than polishing a completed draft.

Working with a developmental editor, for instance, is a fantastic way to refine ideas as you go along. You might find that this type of editing service helps put you on the writing path that you were seeking all along. 

Working with a developmental editor means having a working relationship, including dynamics both personal and professional, with an experienced author with whom you feel comfortable. This type of editor guides you towards not only improving your writing but also clarifying and defining your message. Think of this person as just one step shy of a mentor. In fact, a developmental editor can become your mentor under certain circumstances. The definitions are not set in stone, but usually a mentor is more invested in you as a writer. This makes sense because the relationship with a mentor can last a lifetime while a developmental editor is usually on board for one of your book projects at a time.

All these resources, services, and tools can be mixed and matched to fit your goals and needs. I hope that with this article I’ve given you a clearer picture of some of the pathways and work-ways available to burgeoning and established writers. Now it’s up to you to choose the first (or next) step in your journey as an author. 

Video Transcript:

“Mark Twain once said, ‘Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.’ And with that, the great American humorist leaves us back at square one. In a way, he was talking about editing. A subject so broad that a good author is almost always studying it. Fortunately, the resources available to you are also almost endless.”

The post How to Become an Author appeared first on Writer Services.

[tonxstark]

The initial overseas Cocos user: How to release the overall game to Viber, a platform with 1 billion users?

With the increase of the wave of ultra-casual games at home and abroad in recent years, a growing number of domestic and overseas game manufacturers are discovering the value of the track, in order to effectively avoid the heavy large-scale games gathered by large companies and focus on more It is ideal for innovation in the field of various casual games and social apps that reflect the creativity of gameplay. One of the earliest overseas users of Cocos Creator, Groovy Antoid from Lebanon, is really a small group of 6 individuals. Since 2015, it is rolling out many fascinating and fun informal games in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, and contains also earned a good income. Bitcoin Currently, they're spending so much time to bring HTML5 games to the popular instant chat software Viber. We are fortunate to invite Mohamad Kotob, the lead programmer of Groovy Antoid, to talk about their sport development history and work at home opportunities on Viber. Interview Record Hi, can you introduce yourself to our readers? My name is Mohamad Kotob and I am the lead programmer of Groovy Antoid. Groovy Antoid is a start-up game advancement studio of Techstars, headquartered in Beirut, Lebanon, authorized in the United States, the target is to create a unique, sophisticated, fascinating and quirky combined casual game. One of our works, "Body fat Bunny: Endless Hopper", has already established a lot more than 1 million downloads so far, and is widely loved by players. It has won 2 awards at IMGA MENA 2017 and was chosen for the Indie Prize display award at the 2017 Informal Connect USA. That is an endless horizontal jumping game, the protagonist is a cute rabbit, you can test the player's skills of timing. We have received a huge selection of email messages from enthusiasts expressing their like for this adorable rabbit. These achievements have got more enhanced the eyesight of our whole team and the inspiration to create more appealing game characters. When did you first enter video games? I have already been a brilliant gamer since I was a kid. Fortunately, there exists a father who is as fanatical about technology when i am. He bought a computer when I has been very youthful, but I quickly monopolized it (the strength is cheating, excellent). In the long days and nights, I performed arcade games, simulation games and Flash games, from RPG to RTS, and then to MMO. Finally, I couldn't assist but start understanding how to make games by myself and search for programming resources on the Internet. How did you obtain into this market? Actually, before joining Groovy Antoid, I have been engaged in sport development for many years with some other independent programmers. Creating interesting games is an exciting task, and I have already been exploring "trend" systems and motors to find the most suitable technology for the project. After completing many different types of projects with various tools and engines, by chance I joined Groovy Antoid, a separate team. Groovy Antoid started as a project initiated by amateur game developers with enthusiasm. They utilized to make games together just for enjoyable or game advancement competitions, and they have developed right into a professional game firm. You are one of the first users to use Cocos overseas, why did you choose us? After evaluating several other options, we found that Creator provides the nearly all mature engine/editor experience overall and made a decision to use Cocos Creator. For us, it is essential that designers and creative designers have an user interface to integrate video game art and UI design. The design of the engine is also very intuitive. If the developer has encounter with other motors, its internal architecture is simple to grasp. What type of video games are mainly utilized to build up Cocos Creator? We've been using Cocos Creator to create casual games with innovative gameplay. With the effective cross-platform abilities of the engine, these games could be simply deployed to several instant game systems (Viber, Facebook, etc.).

After using Cocos Creator, we can focus more on game development and quickly construct games for all your targets we need after the tools are in place. We have used Cocos Creator to complete all the work from arcade form drawing games to physical item stacking games; we've also used keel components for character animation, and the tweening system for complex visible effects. Generally, we have been able to utilize the mature element library that is included with Cocos Creator to complete a lot of work. Cocos Creator "general" components could be reused anywhere, that is quite convenient. I like this very much. This helps it be very simple to include localized parts, any person in the group can attach it to the label and hyperlink it to our localized string. In addition, you can also use more advanced features to increase the UI components, such as the box will expand once the label width changes. Benefiting from the JavaScript ecosystem, integrating external plugins in addition has turn into a breeze. We are able to adapt the prevailing shapes-gestures library without having to create the algorithm ourselves from scratch. This also implies that we are able to make our own scripts as standalone plug-ins and reuse them in the project. Running the game directly within the browser can also speed up the iteration speed, and help the usage of the net console to simply debug concerns to find errors and places that need optimization. Is it possible to introduce Viber to Chinese developers? Viber is an instant chat software program with an increase of than one billion registered users and is popular overseas. Viber is a pioneer in the IM industry for many years, and they adopted features such as for example stickers and voice notes much sooner than almost every other popular platforms. What is the opportunity to develop the overall game with the Viber team? We think that the real-time game industry has great potential, and the Rakuten Games and ViberPlay groups will always be very open up and supportive to designers. Viber includes a big and healthy consumer foundation, and through their SDK to help ViberPlay achieve seamless development. They also provided us with beneficial suggestions on how to best develop and deploy multiple instant game systems once the ecosystem is not yet mature and steady. We have been developing instant video games for ViberPlay video games for pretty much two years and have launched many games on the platform. This collaboration brings us the chance to reach hundreds of millions of players, supportive suggestions from the ViberPlay team, and a comfortable advancement and deployment process, especially when we use Cocos Creator for development. Furthermore, with the advantage of the system, we can immediately attract a large number of users without the marketing, and when we promote marketing, we are able to get thousands of users. Many game systems have too many games, leading to many video games never getting the required exposure. The ViberPlay and Rakuten Video games teams have ensured that the platform is well managed, and customers can simply obtain high-quality new video games and make them well-known through ranking improvements. What challenges should developers find out about when working with Viber? The ViberPlay platform is still an HTML5 game platform. Developers have to optimize their video games to get a smaller package size and shorter loading time, and to make sure that it works easily on a variety of different devices. A large number of users want constant updates and real-time services, and quick iteration is vital for instant public games. At this time, Cocos Creator has taken us a huge help. It greatly decreases the bottleneck between art and code, making it possible to iterate quickly in the advancement procedure. Everyone on the group can integrate their work without waiting for programmers. Making use of Cocos Creator to build intended for Viber is very simple. We have a one-click button to instantly export from Cocos Creator utilizing the command line, and add the mandatory SDK, and upload the final zip package to Viber for deployment. Actually, the Cocos Creator tool can be recommended by the programmers of Rakuten Games and ViberPlay. They often shared the very best internal resources and suggestions with us. Do you have anything to say concerning the future? We will continue to use Cocos Creator to build up HTML5 and cell phone games, and make great games that we are proud of! Personally, I'm very happy to see that WebAssembly and WebGPU have shown great potential in the field of browser games. As a studio, we have been constantly developing and creating our next exciting sport, so keep tuned in! The above may be the overseas information that Kotob brings us. It is great to see a lot more designers realize their desires through Cocos Creator. The Cocos engine provides the best tools and the most comprehensive platform for game programmers to release games, allowing developers to target more on the quality and growth of games, and easily achieve one-click release and full platform deployment. We will also bring you more posting from overseas programmers from time to time, and partners who wish to talk about are welcome to get hold of us on any time~

[jccreviews]

New Post has been published on HealthyBrags

New Post has been published on https://healthybrags.com/best-supplements-for-anxiety/

Best Supplements For Anxiety: Natural Supplements For Anxiety and Stress

There are times that anxiety can take a lot of time and wear in your life. For this reason, it is recommended that you take the best supplements for anxiety.

There are several in the market, but those we recommend will not make you addicted. Have a better mood, feel calm and relaxed even in complicated moments.

If you’re curious (or just in a hurry):

✅ This specific Supplement For Anxiety is the most popular among our readers.

We have all been in difficult situations in our lives, and it is in those moments where we can feel that anxiety takes hold of us. This state of concern is considered a defense mechanism when you go through a situation of a lot of tension, anguish, stress or fear.

But how can you control it? In this article, you will learn more about anxiety and how to calm anxiety when you feel it is necessary.

What Causes Anxiety?

All of us have felt anxiety from time to time. It is a normal emotion. It is possible that, just before an exam, because of a work problem or because you needed to make an important decision, you experienced its symptoms.

The causes and symptoms of anxiety can differ greatly from one case to another. This occurs because anxiety is a normal reaction of people in situations of stress and uncertainty.

Living a certain degree of anxiety, of stress, is normal. It is an alert mechanism that our body has. But for at least 10% of the world’s population, anxiety does not go away and, in fact, may get worse over time.

Fears, intense and persistent worries and terrors may end up causing crises that manifest with chest pains, shortness of breath, palpitations and a lot more.

Types of Anxiety Disorders

Generalized anxiety disorder. It is characterized by persistent and disproportionate anxiety and worry. It includes physical discomfort and often adds to other anxiety disorders and depression.

Panic disorder. Repeated episodes of sudden sensations of intense anxiety, fear or terror. You have trouble breathing, chest pain and heart palpitations. You might also like: 60 Second Panic Solution

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It is characterized by repeated and distressing obsessions and thoughts. Those affected perform repetitive or ritual actions. It usually appears in childhood or adolescence.

Posttraumatic stress (PTSD). It is caused by a traumatic experience that causes terror past danger. You have feelings that the trauma is repeated. It is disabling and also affects the people around the patient.

Disease anxiety disorder. Intense panic caused by a health problem such as diabetes, thyroid problems, heart disease, chronic pain or respiratory disorders.

Selective mutism. Inability to speak in certain situations and usually occurs in children.

Social phobia. Fear or refusal to be in society. There are feelings of shame, insecurity and concern for what others think.

Substance induced anxiety. Caused by drug abuse or withdrawal. It can also be caused by the intake of some medications or exposure to toxic substances.

Separation disorder. It mostly affects children and the fear is the separation or lack of direct contact with parents.

Specific phobias. Desire to avoid specific objects or situations. They can cause panic attacks.

Non-specific anxiety. Anxiety disorder that does not meet the exact criteria of any type of anxiety but that causes alarm and disturbance.

Symptoms of Anxiety Disorders/Depression

People of generalized anxiety disorder experience very varied signs. These can include:

Permanent anxiety.

Excessive concern about minor problems.

Tilt to negativity.

Continuous doubts.

Feeling of not being able to overcome any problem.

Inability to relax, feeling nervous and feeling excited or being on the edge.

Difficulty concentrating or feeling blank.

Tiredness

Frequent diarrhea.

Gastrointestinal disorders.

Eat compulsively.

Difficulty getting to sleep.

Palpitations or arrhythmias.

Need to avoid situations that cause disturbance.

How to Deal With Anxiety

As with the other cases of mental problems, there are various ways to deal with anxiety. Below are some of the best known techniques in reducing anxiety.

Physical exercise

The exercise will help us to avoid excessive activation of the nervous system and get a more restful sleep. If our physical state does not allow us to perform exercise we can opt for gentle rhythms at short intervals.

Sleep and eating habits

An unbalanced diet can harm some gastrointestinal symptoms associated with some states of anxiety. On the other hand, a healthy and balanced diet will help us control it.

Regarding sleep, the benefits of sleeping well are obvious. If we see that anxiety does not let us sleep (or worse, the thought that we cannot sleep, does not let us sleep), we can choose to read something boring until the dream itself comes to visit us.

Meditation and Mindfulness

It is likely that you have already heard about Mindfulness. It is a meditation technique that will help you get mindfulness. In a relaxed atmosphere, where you make sure that nobody is going to bother you, focus on your breathing, body sensations, sound or an object and practice mindfulness.

Distraction Methods

If we use appropriate distractions, we can interrupt (even temporarily) the thought that causes us anxiety. Some examples include: stop thinking, reading, leisure, walking, among others.

Natural Supplements

Today, there are a lot of natural supplements that are designed to control anxiety and restore the mood. These are usually made up of herbal ingredients that promotes the body’s ability to relax.

Natural Remedies For Anxiety and Depression

In situations where anxiety is not a serious problem (although annoying or uncomfortable) it is possible to benefit from some natural remedies to relax. These remedies, likewise, can be useful in more severe cases as long as you also go to psychotherapy sessions.

Chamomile

Chamomile is a much consumed infusion that has not only beneficial properties for digestion. This infusion contains anxiolytic characteristics and helps reduce stress, anxiety and insomnia.

Green tea

Although green tea is also considered as a stimulant, some studies have shown that it has benefits in reducing anxiety. Mainly because it stimulates brain neurotransmitters that induce relaxation, thanks to L-theanine.

Hops

This plant is characterized by its bitter taste. It is native to several regions of Europe and, after its consumption, has a positive effect on the nervous system. It is known for its effectiveness in treating anxiety, nervousness, stress, insomnia.

Lemon balm

This herb has been used since the middle Ages, since it is effective in treating sleep, nervousness and anxiety. It is a digestive infusion and native to central Europe. However, too much can be counterproductive and cause more anxiety, so you have to take it in moderation.

Valerian tea

Valerian root is believed to have an impact on the availability of the GABA neurotransmitter in the brain. GABA is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter of the nervous system, and is responsible for inhibiting the activity of brain neurons. GABA promotes relaxation and reduces stress levels.

Passionflower

This infusion acts as an anxiolytic and is a painkiller and a relaxant that comes from the passion flower. It was used by the Aztecs centuries ago for its analgesic and sedative effects. It is also indicated in cases of depression, as it produces a slight euphoria. It is also used for insomnia, headache or tachycardia.

Cannabis sativa

Cannabis sativa is a plant that has been talked about a lot, both for its psychoactive power and for its therapeutic function. CBD, a substance present in cannabis, has anxiolytic, soothing and analgesic properties. This cannabinoid is considered as one of the substances that can be used in the treatment of anxiety disorders.

St. John’s Wort

This medicinal plant is known to be a natural antidepressant that greatly helps people who consume it. It also has multiple therapeutic properties that have made it a very popular herb. It is great for treating insomnia, nervousness, irritability, anxiety and mild depression.

Best Supplements For Anxiety

Whether you are old or young, stress and anxiety can knock you down when you are going through some difficult times, problems at work, or simply due to daily life.

We’ve experienced this, so we know how you feel, and this is why we are sharing with you the best supplements for anxiety that are safe to use yet effective.

These natural supplements below are considered as the best supplements for anxiety.

✅ Anti-Anxiety Plus – Editors Pick

✅ Check current price!

Anti-Anxiety Plus is our pick as the best supplements for anxiety. Created by Vita Balance, it contains almost all of the natural ingredients that we have mentioned in this article.

What we like about Anti-Anxiety Plus is that this formula is designed to support a healthy response to stress. It is best for people who are experiencing mild anxiety caused by external factors.

As stress is a normal and healthy part of life, consumers recommend Anti-Anxiety Plus as a daily dietary supplement to avoid persistent stress and nervousness-related anxiety.

Buying tip: One bottle of Anti-Anxiety Plus in good for ONE month. But the great thing is: If you purchase 3 bottles of Anti-Anxiety Plus NOW, you also get one for FREE!

✅ Mood Effex – Consumer’s Choice

✅ Check current price!

Mood Effex is the consumer’s choice for the best supplements for anxiety based on research. Created by CLE Holistic Health, this natural depression supplement supports healthy mood and promotes youthful energy.

CLE Holistic Health products are featured in leading industry magazines and publications. For this reason, their supplements (not only Mood Effex) are creating a viral buzz around the world.

According to consumers, Mood Effex is the best natural alternative to prescription medication. It contains 7 of the most effective natural ingredients that treats anxiety and depression.

Buying tip: Mood Effex should be consumed for at least 6 weeks to experience the best results. Order in bulk: Special deals are available right now!

✅ CBD Gummies – Most Popular

✅ Check current price!

CBD Gummies is the most popular supplement for anxiety based on consumer reports. Created by Joy Organics, CBD Gummies contain 10mg of premium CBD and are available in two different flavors (green apple and strawberry lemonade).

According to several experts, CBD can reduce anxiety because it helps boost signaling through serotonin receptors, boosting a positive mood, and an anxiolytic and relaxing effect.

According to consumers, CBD Gummies are very tasty and fun to take. Joy Organics products are very popular in the USA because their products are THC-Free and lab-tested.

Buying tip: If you don’t like gummies, CBD for anxiety in Joy Organics is also available in soft gel form.

When To See A Doctor

Anxiety can lead to depression, substance abuse or even suicide. Those who suffer from anxiety disorders usually earn less money, are less likely to get married and if they do, more chances to divorce.

If the best supplements for anxiety and all of the tips above did not help improve your situation, then it is best to seek professional help.

[missstormcaller]

CAN’T FEAR YOUR OWN WORLD Part 3 Full Translation.

TN: When this third part was released on the Bleach/Jump+ app, Narita tweeted that “main house” was written in place of “branch house” in one line, I’ve spotted that line and made those amendments in my translation below already. He apologised for any confusion and has stated this will be corrected in the printed book version.

 Chapter 2

Several days later - Rukongai.

Hisagi Shūhei is engaged in two different occupations at the same time.

One of those occupations is his professional duties as Squad 9 Vice Captain, which everyone knows.

The other is being the editor-in-chief of the Seireitei Communication.

Seireitei Communication is a public institution magazine which is circulated throughout Seireitei and occasionally as far as some parts of the Rukongai, it is basically under the management of the 9th Division.

Naturally, it ought to be treated as equal occupations, but because the nature of the work differs too greatly from primary Shinigami duties, it was, in effect, perceived by society as something akin to a side job.

Until a few hundred years ago, this was a simple proclamation issued to the general public which could be referred to as tile block print, but from the period when Tōsen Kaname became Captain, that format would come to develop rapidly in accordance with the printing techniques of the Human World.

Perhaps due to Tōsen's serious disposition, the Captain himself began serving as an editor, it was now being spread throughout Seireitei as one large informational magazine, published with many running stories, or essays and novels and so forth, penned by the Captains themselves.

After Tōsen had left Soul Society, Hisagi, who was his Vice Captain, became responsible for that role.

By all rights, Muguruma Kensei who had returned to his post as Captain, should have been the one to become editor-in-chief, but the man himself entrusted all the decision making to Hisagi saying "during my time, I left it up to the troops…. Frankly, It just doesn’t suit me", even now Hisagi continues editorial duties as the responsible editor.

"So? The editor-in-chief of Seireitei communication has come all the way out here, what can he possibly want with me?"

The quizzical voice of a woman resounded from the doorway of a certain residence.

"What do you mean, I’m collecting information for an article of course."

The other party whom Hisagi replied to is Shiba Kūkaku, a pyrotechnician who could be described as a person of clear influence within the vast expanse of the Rukongai.

"What is it? Is it about my new objet d'art? I give up. Jeez, it’s not meant to be an exhibition you know."

With a boastful expression that was contradictory to her words, she shifted her attention to the item of artwork, stone statues holding up a banner which Hisagi had just passed under a moment ago.

Two huge statues imitating stern looking men stood side-by-side, they held up a banner with the words "welcome to Shiba Kūkaku’s residence" painted on it whilst striking an odd pose.

"No… I mean, it certainly became a popular topic of conversation among some people."

"In that case, I suppose you want to use it for the front cover in the next issue of Seireitei Communication?"

"…Well, I'll just make a note of that proposal for now."

Having returned an innocuous reply, Shūhei begins to broach the real issue at hand almost like he was half dodging the subject.

"I would like Kūkaku san’s cooperation in documenting a memoir of the Protection of the Soul King Great War."

"Huh? A memoir you say… hasn't it only been, like, half a year since then?"

"That's precisely why, you see, I want to keep an accurate record now while I still have the chance."

Shiba Kūkaku is both a pyrotechnist on the surface as well as behind the scenes, all involvement with Squad Zero and such were declared "side jobs". It is for this reason, that there exists a curious big-shot like air about her, even if Hisagi, as Vice Captain of Squad 9, ranked higher in terms of station; many among the Vice Captains view her with a sense of respect.

In fact, although they are currently a fallen house, the Shiba clan is a respectable family that once produced a number of seated officers and Captain ranks, they were a family of good social standing to the degree that they were known as one of the "Five Great Noble Clans" alongside the likes of the Kuchiki and Shihōin clans.

For that matter, Shiba Kūkaku herself, who is standing before him, is also a considerably powerful person.

He has heard that she struck down one of the mighty gatekeepers of the Seireitei with Kidō alone; in Hisagi's eyes, she wasn’t merely a pyrotechnician, but a figure of great influence hidden in the depths of Soul Society.

That he had called on such a woman, it was for the purpose of obtaining an interview on behalf of Seireitei Communication just as he described.

Although Seireitei Communication has currently suspended publication due to problems with its publishing systems, a small circulation of a simplified version is being distributed in various places in order to extensively report on the state of postwar reconstruction to the general public. With the target of officially getting it back into print on the first anniversary of the postwar period, it was gradually gaining a secure foothold.

Then, in anticipation for the upcoming first reissue, he started receiving requests from many readers asking for details regarding the "Protection of the Soul King Great War" to be addressed in his own segment called "Teach Me! Shūhei Sensei!!"

"Teach Me! Shūhei Sensei!!" has featured in Seireitei Communication for a long time, it is a page for his project in which Shūhei answers the questions of the readers.

Nevertheless, it's popularity is shaky and although​ it may be revived whenever there is demand, it is an unstable project which is often discontinued after only a few runs following its resumption.

Even so, the people of the Seireitei still had yet to grasp the full picture surrounding the war, it seems they were seized by a sense of anxiety about whether or not the war had truly ended, or whether such a thing would never happen again, and they looked to the public institution magazine that is Seireitei Communication to dispel those fears.

In fact, not limited to "Teach me! Shūhei Sensei!!", the standpoint of many with regard to the magazine itself is a desire to receive an explanation detailing all the particulars of the war, and Shūhei has decided to handle it all as a necessity for his own column.

This is a huge task imposed upon Seireitei Communication. It couldn't all be left up to the ordinary squad members. Given that the form is a come-back series of "Teach me! Shūhei Sensei!!" which coincides with the first reissue of Seireitei communication, it is he who must clutch the reins of information himself.

With that kind of motivation spurring him on, Hisagi had spent his days running around to personally interview the likes of the Visuals Department, the Department of Research and Development, and Squad 4's Special Relief Team, but he did not gather as much information as he had initially expected.

It seems there was virtually no one who was able to observe the entirety of the war from a bird's eye view. Just how many people's stories would he have to piece together before getting any closer to its domain?

Such misgivings crossed Hisagi's mind.

The man who presumably had the most extensive view of the battlefield, Yhwach, had already been buried at the hands of Kurosaki Ichigo. 

That being the case, he would have no choice but to take it upon himself to pick up and assemble the pieces of war.

If it could be spread far and wide how the Shinigami battled and triumphed in various places, then it’s bound to become hope for the people who were dealing with the restoration efforts.

The Soul Society has now entered a new battle known as post-war recovery.

It is during such times that people simply desire "information" which is able to put them at ease.

"…In other words, it's what you'd call a battle that only I can fight from here onward!"

In response to Hisagi who had explained the situation after getting himself all fired up, Kūkaku returned an answer as she folded her arms.

"I'm sorry to break it to you, even when you're sparkling those rugged sanpaku eyes at me, but there's hardly anything I'm able to speak of you know? I mean, all I did was launch up that lot from Squad Zero along with Ichigo's group."

It was a coarse manner of speaking belonging to a woman of mannish character, yet an oddly firm tone of voice.

With that alone, Hisagi had somehow or other come to the conclusion that "yeah, I guess this truly is a matter she can hardly comment on." Rather than being unwilling to speak of the past, she merely exudes a sort of atmosphere which accepted it all as part of everyday life, thinking "I did what I had to do."

"Well, I guess that means I’ll just be giving you my greetings for today, I’ll visit another time."

"It's nothing but a bother if you plan to keep coming back, and it makes no sense for me to even have a right to say anything about you Shinigami and your squabbles, if you want a story then ask my younger brother Ganju. That guy marched all the way up to the Soul King Palace together with Ichigo and his gang, I suppose he'd be able to tell you at least something."

"…He went up to the Soul King Palace?"

Speaking of Shiba Ganju, he is the man who once appeared as a Ryoka along with Ichigo and the others during the time of Kuchiki Rukia’s execution scandal. Why did a man from Rukongai go up to the Soul King Palace? Having been decommissioned from the front lines at the final stage of the war, this is the first time Hisagi is hearing of this fact.

—— Come to think of it, I still haven’t covered what happened around Kurosaki and his group….

Naturally, Ichigo’s group who were the most deeply involved by the end of the war should probably be interviewed. However, they are inhabitants of the Human World, not Soul Society. In order to travel expressly to the Human World for interviews, he must obtain the permission of the Captain Commander.

—— I think I’ll be able to receive the Captain commander’s permission, but I wonder if Kurosaki would give his full cooperation in this sort of thing…. I can’t see that guy talking about himself in much detail at all.

As he considered questioning Inoue or Sado about the subject when the need arose, both of whom apparently reside in Ichigo’s neighbourhood, Hisagi decided to leave the Shiba residence for now.

"Understood, then I'll listen to what your younger brother has to say first."

"Alright, if you want Ganju, he’s probably mounted on his wild boar, wandering around West Rukongai again. Even if you do a half-assed job of looking for him, I think you'd be able to find him right away? He’s a loud moron so you should be able to recognise him at a single glance."

"Right, it’s okay though, I’ve caught sight of his face every now and then whenever a disturbance occurs."

Having received the advice on this dynamic manhunt, Hisagi bows to Kūkaku before leaving the house equipped with a fireworks launch pad.

 Then, when he came closer​ to his vehicle which was parked a little further up the roadside, Hisagi noticed something.

A few men had gathered around 'that vehicle’ which Hisagi had gone to the trouble of ordering from the Human World after it had undergone Reishification. And, he also noticed that these men carry within them a Reiatsu so dense that they could not be mistaken for any ordinary inhabitant of Rukongai, on top of that, the nature of the Reiatsu is different to that of a Shinigami’s or Quincy’s.

"…What? Why is there a Kawasaki Z-II in a place like this?"

At the words of the man who had swept back hair that extended around his shoulders, the tall figure of a young man who was standing beside him shrugged. 

"Who knows?"

What stood before the men's eyes, is a motorbike originating from the Human World and characterised by its deep crimson paintwork.

For those who have died and arrived in the Rukongai, the surrounding standards of culture will have caused them to assimilate to the atmosphere, said to range from the Heian era to Edo period. Perhaps it was because of the fact that no major cultural reformation had occurred when compared to the Human World, that there are many things which almost causes one to feel its antiquity from the clothes to the buildings, and since coming to Soul Society, they have never seen automobiles of this kind until this very moment.

Then, standing behind them, a fellow befitting a gentleman with a black linen eyepatch covering his right eye, stared at this motorbike with great interest as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Hmm… regardless of the fact that we are Fullbringers who can manipulate the souls of matter, things that can be brought to this place through Konsō are only the clothes and articles that can be said to be part of our person, although… Perhaps there is someone who loved two-wheeled vehicles at a level that can only be described as unity of rider and horse."

"What about such things as gasoline?"

"It's said that Soul Society essentially produces no oil. Apparently, most of whatever becomes fuel in its place is sent around to the Technological Department or nobles of the Seireitei."

"So does that mean, this motorbike is just some noble’s plaything?"

Listening to these descriptions of Soul Society narrated by the youthful man, the man with the swept back hair clouded his face ever so slightly.

From behind him, words that denied such speculation were thrown out to them.

"I've been saving my wages up to buy that thing. Well, if you want to call it my plaything however, I guess I can't deny that."

Turning to look in Hisagi's​ direction - the newcomer that had just appeared - the man with the swept back hair narrows his eyes in a smiling expression.

"…Oh. I came to check things out after I thought I heard the sound of a motorbike which is rare in these parts, but I would never have guessed that I'd come face-to-face with a Shinigami as a result."

Observing the face of the man who had turned to look at him, Hisagi knit his eyebrows in unease.

That face closely resembled the profile of a criminal which, not too long ago, had been circulated many times over among ​the Gotei 13 as a "dangerous character who kills Shinigami".

Hisagi has never seen him in person, but his corpse, after being defeated by Ichigo in the Human World, happened to exist in Soul society.

"Ginjō Kūgo…"

The man who is the first substitute Shinigami, and later estranged, a man who slaughtered a number of Shinigami who were in pursuit of him.

The corpse was buried in the Human World at the request of Kurosaki Ichigo, but naturally, souls are a different matter.

Since they were also human beings who lived in the Human World, their souls which had slipped out of their dead bodies would have drifted into the Rukongai.

"Oh my, this is an honour. I'm surprised that a guy with a lieutenant's armband knows my face."

Hisagi’s Shihakushō is sleeveless, but when going out to a public place, he fastens his armband, putting it on display around his exposed arm.

In response to Ginjō who smiles boldly while looking at said armband, Hisagi lowers his voice.

"I’ve heard rumours that you didn’t fall into the depths of hell… but what are you doing in a place like this?"

"Dear me, you shouldn’t glare like that on our first meeting, wouldn't you agree? Have I done something to you?"

"Playing dumb all of a sudden huh… don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what you did to the Shinigami and Kurosaki.

As his eyes narrowed, Hisagi fixed a glare at the man who was once a substitute Shinigami.

Then, Ginjō also narrows his eyes once more, smiling fearlessly in Hisagi's​ direction.

"So what? Do you mean to say that I should get down on my knees and apologise? For your information, I have an obligation to Kurosaki Ichigo, but I’ve never planned on becoming a friend to you Shinigami lot, and I don’t regret being turned into an enemy."

"You bastard… what are you planning?"

"Ha. Does it look like I’m planning something? If that’s the case, what are you going to do to me?"

Ginjō laughed scornfully, at the same time, the tall young man who was standing next to him, closed the book he was holding and took out a bookmark from its crevice.

"Stop it, Tsukishima."

"Are you sure? But he's got a look that says he's going to come at us with a sword any minute now?"

The man called Tsukishima spoke with a cool visage.

Hearing that name, Hisagi heightens his sense of vigilance even more.

"Tsukishima… if I’m not mistaken, you were the asshole that messed up Kurosaki’s past."

The man in question, Tsukishima, looked at Hisagi with a cynical​ smile cast on his face.

"That’s a cruel manner of speaking. The past of the person himself hasn’t changed. Oh, although that last time, I helped with a little maintenance on his sword."

"……?"

Unable to comprehend the meaning behind Tsukishima’s words, Hisagi looked at him in puzzlement.

Having observed the situation, the gentleman with the eyepatch opened his mouth to speak as he heaved a sigh.

 "Ginjō san, it appears he has no knowledge of the fact that the two of you assisted Kurosaki Ichigo."

"You assisted?"

—— Come to think of it, I feel like Renji said something along the lines of "there was an unexpected helping hand"….

—— Tch. Should I have covered what happened there first?

During these past six months, Hisagi has continued to work his fingers to the bone as acting Captain of Squad 9 in place of Muguruma who was undergoing medical treatment for his zombified state.

Therefore, until Muguruma returned, he couldn’t get around to conducting detailed interviews.

Hisagi regrets his own decision to postpone interviews with those concerned on the mere basis that it could be done at any time, meanwhile Ginjō looked bored as he spoke to the gentleman with the eyepatch.

"Assisting him was no big deal. I only paid back a small debt."

Watching the three people engage in conversation with their placidity still on show, Hisagi thinks.

—— Can I take all three of these guys down by myself?

—— I don’t know this eyepatch guy, but he’s probably Ginjō’s comrade.

—— I’m not sure about his abilities… although, I've heard the stories about this other guy from Madarame and Captain Hitsugaya….

Having heard the rumours, could it possibly be this very man who is the "opponent cut down with a single strike by Zaraki Kenpachi"?

Hisagi thought as much, but he is not stupid enough to conclude that this man was weak just because Zaraki Kenpachi was able to defeat him in one blow. Because Hisagi knows well that there is not much difference between a wolf and a puppy before the presence known as Kenpachi.

However, at any rate, what is before his eyes, is the 'enemy’ who once butchered members of the Gotei 13.

Kurosaki Ichigo may have forgiven them, but this is a different​ story, as one among the Shinigami, they are by no means opponents that he can​ overlook.

Coming to that conclusion, Hisagi decided that, for now, he would keep the opponent talking whilst tightening his guard in order to probe into their intentions.

"The Shinigami…Ukitake san, why did you betray them?"

Then, the darkness that was dwelling at the back of Ginjō’s eyes faded away for an instant, he opened his mouth to speak as surprise and amazement intermingled on his face.

"…What a surprise. A Shinigami would ask me that now after such a long time?"

"That's right, I heard that Captain Ukitake used a substitute badge to monitor you. Though, was that alone enough to turn every member of the Gotei 13 into an enemy? I'm sure that was unpleasant, but it’s merely a matter of objecting against Ukitake san once you’ve noticed it don't you think?"

"…Once I’ve noticed it, huh?"

As Ginjō murmurs that, a silence falls over him for a moment.

In the next instant, he broke out into a laugh as if he had just witnessed a humorous circus trick.

"HA… is that so. It doesn't seem like you're trying to play the fool. Does that mean, even at Vice Captain level, your awareness of the facts only amounts to that much?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying I finally get it now. I get that you know nothing at all."

At that point his smile had disappeared and he began to fiddle with the cross shaped pendant that was suspended over his chest.

Hisagi sensed​ some kind of unpleasant Reiatsu fluctuating in that pendant; taking a step back, Hisagi reached his hand to his own Zanpakutō.

As they maintained their distance from each other, the air of an explosive situation fills the surroundings ——

In the next moment, that atmosphere was shattered to pieces by the squeals of a beast and the trembling of the ground.

When they turned their attention to the squeals, a huge wild boar as big as a Kei car, came careening from the direction of a neighbouring village before plunging towards the confrontation between Hisagi and Ginjō's group.

The wild boar rapidly eased up on its speed in front of them, and as a result, 'he’ who was riding on the back of the boar was thrust headfirst into the grassland between Hisagi and Ginjō.

"Buhhoo-…!?

The man who had crashed into the ground whilst issuing a comical shriek, staggered to his feet, he then gave a thumbs up towards the boar he was just riding as he raised his voice.

"Heh… that's my girl. Your​ style was so cool today too Bonnie-chan!"

As if ignoring the man who had just spoken, the wild boar galloped away in the opposite direction with momentum that was as swift as the wind.

With Hisagi watching the sudden comedy routine in round-eyed wonder, the man who had followed the wild boar with his eyes until it was out of sight then turned to face them and began to speak with a high-spirited voice.

"Hey, hey, hey! What's up with you guys? Is there some kind of trouble here?"

"It’s nothing, Ganju. I was just poking a bit of fun at this Shinigami who is ignorant of the ways​ of the world."

Hisagi looked at the stern face of the man who Ginjō had called "Ganju".

"Have you gotten into a dispute with the Shinigami? Jeez, I can understand your poor opinion towards the Shinigami, but you don’t need to raise a riot! Look I can't say let bygones be bygones, but it's not cool to all of a sudden go picking fights right in the open."

Having heard that, the gentleman with the eyepatch inclined his head as he posed a question.

"Is that so? But In Kūkaku dono’s stories, I heard that when you and Kurosaki san met, you got into a childish scuffle with him."

"Guh…! Big sister talks too much!"

The man, who had a face identical to the banner-bearing statues Hisagi had seen only a short while earlier, pulled a wry expression after remarking as such.

Confronted, beyond a shadow of a doubt, with Shiba Ganju —— the very man he was searching for, Hisagi knit his eyebrows together in bewilderment.

"I can't tell if your timing is good or bad…"

"Huuhh!? What's​ that you jerk!? ……Oh you're… if I’m not mistaken… you’re the Vice Captain of some squad… Vice Captain… Hi… Hisa…."

"……"

After an awkward silence, Ganju gives a firm nod, and with the same grin he had flashed towards his wild boar earlier, Ganju presents Hisagi with a thumbs up.

"Long time no see! Vice Captain! Vice Captain who is an acquaintance of Kuchiki Rukia!"

"Oh come on it’s only one more character! It’s Hisagi! Of the 9th Division! Hisagi Shūhei!"

To the side of a shouting Hisagi, Ginjō breathed a sigh as he released the pendant from the grip of his fingers.

"What's​ this, you guys know each other?"

Perhaps having confirmed that the tense atmosphere was now completely ruptured, Tsukishima also opens his book once again and turns his attention towards that.

"…Oi, Shiba Ganju, what’s the meaning of this? Do you and Kūkaku san know what kind of people these guys are?"

"Isn't that a given? Of course we know, these guys are the freeloaders big sis found and brought back with her."

"Freeloaders…?"

While Hisagi was unable to make heads or tails of it, Ginjō and the others were trying to leave this place a step ahead.

However, the sharp sighted Ganju who detected this, stops them in their tracks with that enigmatic, overbearing manner of his. 

"Hey, wait a minute! Where are you guys going!? I don’t know what happened between you and this Vice Captain brother here, but while I'm still around, I won't allow any fishy grudges between the Shinigami and friends of the Shiba to be left hanging."

Faced with Ginjō's group who had turned around, appearing to find the situation irksome, as well as Hisagi who wore a befuddled expression, Ganju spoke sonorously of his solution with a face that was brimming with self-confidence.

"Don't sweat it, I won't let you down. Leave it up to this self-proclaimed 'crimson bullet of West Rukongai’, the number one self-proclaimed but 'universally acknowledged boss of West Rukongai’ for 17 consecutive years! And finally, the self-proclaimed 'former number one Shinigami hater’, Ganju sama!"

Ganju was the only one in high spirits.

Unable to decipher how he should respond to the man who had just issued a speech on his puzzling self-introductions towards Ginjō and the others, all of whom were already acquainted with him, Hisagi's eyes closed half way as he just barely managed to produce a coherent sentence.

"That last one… It’s not exactly necessary to go by that title if it’s 'former’ don't ya think…?"

And thus the experience of being a Shinigami for many long years, causes his mind to procure a sense of foreboding.

—— This is bad.

—— I mean, I’m not being dragged into some troublesome course of events am I?

A few hours later - Seireitei - Squad 1 Barracks.

"This is a troublesome turn of events huh, very much so."

In response to these words issued from the mouth of Captain Commander Kyōraku, the two Vice Captains who were before him —— Ise Nanao and Okikiba Genshirō, exchanged a quick glance.

The words Kyōraku had spoken has half become a habitual saying, but from his tone of voice, the Vice Captains Nanao and Okikiba could sense that something​ was up.

Although it is a level of difference that can only be understood by those who are accustomed to hearing it, the Captain Commander's​ mutterings at present was in a tone of voice that was used only when something truly unpleasant had happened.

"What’s the matter, Captain Commander?"

At Nanao’s words, Kyōraku releases a heavy sigh.

"Ah, sorry, did I make you anxious? You can run into my arms if you want to stop your trembling, you know?"

"I’m asking you seriously, Captain Commander."

"…Yes, well then. A short while ago, before Nanao chan's arrival here, Nayura chan came to me with an escort. There was an official notice and a request from Central 46."

"Amakado Nayura sama, came to you in person?"

Nanao also knows about Nayura.

In Soul Society, the highest judicial branch that guides the Shinigami as the mouthpiece for the Soul King and occasionally hands down judgement, is the Central 46.

Amakado Nayura is the youngest amongst its constituent members, a small girl who only looks to be around 10 years of age in terms of appearance.

However, her shrewdness which has existed long beyond what meets the eye, is acknowledged by both Kyōraku and Nanao; with her as the pivot, the central 46 who prioritised nobility, were gradually changing.

There is a conscious disparity that exists between the status quo of the Shinigami and the Central 46, but that gap is slowly being filled through the pressure and encouragement of both her and Kyōraku. At least Nanao felt so, and although there was the question of balance, she was hoping that the administration of justice would settle things in good form for the nobles in their current state and the position of the Shinigami, or perhaps the commoners and every inhabitant of Rukongai.

From Nanao's point of view, kyōraku needed to refrain from addressing a member of the Central 46 with "chan" attached to their name, but because she often socialised with Nayura who would sometimes come to visit posing as a commoner, she also found herself inadvertently coming close to calling her "Nayura san".

Uttering the name of that young girl from the Central 46, Kyōraku breathed a sigh with a slight look of melancholy cast over his face.

"The other day, a rather troubling incident occurred among the Four Great Noble Clans. Though I think you’ve already heard about it."

"Yes. It’s regarding the assassins who invaded​ the Tsunayashiro clan and murdered their family head isn’t it?"

The fact that one of the heads of the four great noble clans and their household members had all been massacred, this is a major incident that would shake the very foundations of the Seireitei under normal circumstances. However, given that it's bad enough that the post-war turmoil has not yet settled down, the official story was declared in the form of - "their health came to harm from wartime anxieties, and it's an epidemic that took their lives". 

It is for this reason that the particulars of the case are known only to some of the top brass; those who have a handle on the course of events among the Gotei 13 amounts to only a small number of people including Captain Commander Kyōraku and his Vice Captains, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Onmitsukidō - Soifon.

"Well, I suppose Captain Kurotsuchi and Yoruichi chan would know about it through their own independent channels huh. Rather, following these events, they probably knew about it before I did."

"…Does this mean, there is some issue with the subsequent​ succession of the clan head?"

"I heard the general details from Nayura chan, but the strife among members of nobility is out of our jurisdiction after all. This falls within the jurisdiction of the Kinin* (*Golden seal) Noble Assembly, not the Gotei 13.… At least, for now."

In response to Kyōraku who uttered words with a hint of hidden meaning, Nanao narrows her eyes after understanding his intentions.

"For now? Does that mean this will develop into a situation that will involve the Gotei 13 later on?"

"I hope it doesn’t come to that."

After answering with a somewhat distressed expression, Kyōraku continued speaking as he gazed upon the official notice from the Central 46.

"Ah, also, won’t you summon Muguruma kun and Hisagi kun for me?"

"Squad 9?"

"It would be fine even if it was Hisagi kun alone. But given the circumstances, I think it's better to have the Captain grasp the situation too, just in case."

Meanwhile at Shiba Kūkaku’s residence.

"And then! No sooner than those stone statues or whatever had stopped springing up on us without a damn warning, that Ichigo asshole appears from behind us! 'sorry, we ended up moving down below earlier, so we're here to pick you up now' he says! And to think that my humble self and Chad got all fired up in order to 'prepare the way back for Ichigo'! The way back and all had already moved down to the Seireitei a step ahead, what's the meaning of that!?"

The guest room in the basement of Kūkaku’s house.

At the centre, was the figure of Ganju who was making Hisagi listen to his complaints as he gulped down his sake.

"Is he for real!? That guy Chad said 'Ichigo sees nothing but the path forward'! But, I'd never have guessed that it would be thrown in my face in that kind of way damn it!"

"Yeah… I guess, that must have been difficult for you huh."

"That Chad dude is just as bad too! The first thing he says to Ichigo in a situation like that is 'I see… it's over then' with a great big smile on his face. I mean if he's gonna put it like that, doesn't it make me look like some narrow minded oaf who whines too much-Gahhh!?"

Midway through his speech, Ganju received a firm kick from behind and was planted face first into the ground.

Kūkaku, the person who had dealt that kick, spoke as she trampled on her fallen brother’s back.

"Quit your infernal yapping! Your so-called guts was probably pathetic in action!"

"It hurts and that's uncalled for! But, big sis!"

"No ifs or buts! You punk… I spent years training you up so that you'd be able to fight on the front lines until the bitter end, and yet you lost sight of your companions and manage to lose your way on the road, what the hell am I supposed to make of that…?" 

"From whom did you hear that I got lost!? I bet it was Ichigo that jerk yeow-tetetetete! Will you cut that out big sis!? My spine will become sand! It’s going to become sand!"

Ganju wailed as Kūkaku continues to relentlessly trample on her brother.

Unable to comprehend how to deal with two such people, Hisagi, seemingly at a loss, took a swig of his drink for himself.

In the midst of doing so, Hisagi shifts his attention to Ginjō who was sitting at the very corner of his field of vision.

Earlier, Hisagi had been shown into this guest room by forceful invitation of Ganju who said "drinking sake will wash your grudges away", but at any rate, he enquired about the relationship between Ginjō's group and Ganju, and before he knew it, Hisagi wound up being made to listen to the idle complaints of Ganju who had become tipsy.

Incidentally, Tsukishima proceeded to read his book whilst leaning against a wall at the corner of the room without partaking in the drinking party; while en route here, the man with the cloth eyepatch who introduced himself as Kutsuzawa Giriko, retreated into the Shiba clan's kitchen saying "allow me to prepare some snacks."

"I mean, Both Ginj�� and Tsukishima are fishy too, you know!? According to what I heard, they managed to skip right over us and get to Ichigo's location, how the heck do you explain that!? Isn't that unfair!? Hey, don't you think that's unfair!?"

Ganju, who was released from his sister’s foot, changed the subject of his complaints to Ginjō.

Dismissing Ganju's​ words with a nonchalant air, Ginjō drinks his sake in a refined manner whilst shrugging his shoulders.

"That’s because we travelled there directly through Yukio and Riruka’s abilities. Our end was running a fair amount of risk in our own way too you know?"

"Yukio and Riruka?"

At Hisagi's muttering, Ginjō opens his mouth to speak as he turns his eyes away.

"Oh, I used to hang out with those guys in the Human World. Unlike us, they’re not dead, but they came all the way up here to help Ichigo.”

"To help Kurosaki…?"

As an editor of Seireitei Communication, he wanted to explore these matters thoroughly, but his wariness towards Ginjō did not readily allow that.

At that point, Kūkaku who had observed the situation with Hisagi, now raised her voice.

"Will you quit trying to drink with that mean look on your face. Didn't we already tell you earlier? Ganju and I have accepted those freeloaders. Even if we got cut up from behind, we would bear no grudge." 

"But, those guys are…!"

"Even Ukitake agreed."

"Huh…?"

In response to Hisagi who choked back a voice of protest in the back of his throat, Kūkaku continued.

"Well, now that things have come to this pass, he can’t even attest to that."

"…Wait a moment. So, has Ginjō also met Ukitake san?"

When Hisagi cast his eyes in Ginjō's direction, he spoke whilst turning the empty sake cup in his hand.

"I didn't meet him. Honestly, I did not intend to meet him until I imposed upon this place."

"You mean things are different now?"

"Can't say. Even if we had met, we probably would have ended up killing each other don't ya think?"

"So, why go that far to-…"

What exactly happened between Ukitake and Ginjō, the first substitute Shinigami?

It's not like he could dispel his vigilance without understanding the matter even a little bit.

No, no matter what the reason may be, the fact remains unchanged, that the man before his eyes is the very menace who murdered Shinigami. 

"However", Hisagi thinks to himself whilst entertaining a small amount of doubt in his chest —— or perhaps, fear.

Assuming that he was able to kill Ginjō after simply crossing blades with him, would it be possible to say he had struck down an enemy of the Shinigami out of duty to the Gotei 13? Having attempted to put a stop to Captain Tōsen's vengeance, is it not a mistake to rely on emotions to swing one's blade?

Aizen’s words from six months ago are called back to Hisagi’s mind.

 —— What you are harbouring is not hatred. It is merely sentimentality for your lost Tōsen Kaname and the impression he left behind.

This choice of words may be correct in a sense.

If he were to ask himself whether or not he carried even the slightest fragment of emotion in his blade, then he would probably answer "no".

Nevertheless, he can't very well turn a blind eye to Ginjō here. Being misled by the likes of Aizen’s words, and even losing sight of how to use his own blade would be putting the cart before the horse.

Perceiving the indecision and fear within himself, Hisagi regains his presence of mind instead.

Erasing the traces of emotion from his countenance, as a member of the Gotei 13 who must assess threats to the Seireitei, he turned to face the man named Ginjō Kūgo once again.

"……Forget it, you were right, I don’t know anything. For this reason, please enlighten me. What did the Shinigami… what did we do against you, the first substitute Shinigami?"

Having observed the situation, Ginjō raises one eyebrow in slight astonishment, he places his sake cup upon the table before replying.

"I see, sure enough, it's not like you're seated as vice Captain for nothing."

Though he smiled with great interest, Ginjō paused for a brief moment before slowly shaking his head left and right.

"…I appreciate that you're willing to confront me about this seriously. But, no matter what comes out of my mouth, you just can't bring yourself to digest the words of a 'dangerous character', can you? Why not ask your Captain Commander?"

"I reckon that wouldn't be fair in it's own way. The Captain Commander isn’t the kind of person who would tell lies, but so far as it goes, I am a journalist. It's not really impartial unless I listen to both sides of the story."

"I didn't expect that a word like 'journalist' would fly out of a Shinigami's mouth. Besides, there are no rules that say journalists must be fair in the first place."

"Fairness is the number one priority, it is a policy I carry on from the previous editor-in-chief."

Hearing those words, Ginjō chuckles.

"You’re a strange guy. At first glance, you looked like nothing more than an ordinary Shinigami with your typical Shinigami ways."

"I’ll take that latter half as a compliment."

"So, then what? Supposing I revealed the reason for my betrayal and I was unable to convince you, what would you do?"

"I think you know. In that case I'll——"

The voice of Kūkaku, who had remained silent up till now, interrupted Hisagi’s speech just as he was about to respond with some resolve.

"Look, I don't mean to poke my nose into this discord between the freeloader and the Shinigami. But if you're gonna cross swords, do it outside, got it?"

"…Understood."

"Alright I got it, we won’t cause any trouble for you."

Hisagi nods obediently while Ginjō shrugs and accepts these terms.

The air which had grown tense fluctuated, and after several seconds of silence, Ginjō opened his mouth to speak.

"I guess I ended up deceiving Kurosaki Ichigo."

"…? Ah, so I've heard."

"I personally had Tsukishima alter my own past…. In that past, there was a half Shinigami human who was willing to cooperate with us in order to eliminate the Hollow power from us Fullbringers…. That half Shinigami and my old friends were killed by Tsukishima, that's how things supposedly went down."

Something all Fullbringers like Ginjō have in common is that they each have a parent who was attacked by a Hollow.

It is for this reason that they are born mixed with Hollow powers, and Hisagi has also heard that it manifests as a unique ability called Fullbring.

"So, having come back to my senses again, you might be wondering what it was like in my original past…. There was no such half Shinigami like Ichigo. Suffice it to say that I was the one who was undertaking the role of substitute Shinigami. Well then, who killed my old companions who were in those memories?"

"…Wait, if all of that was just down to Tsukishima's modified past too then…"

"Tsukishima’s ability… "Book of the End" allows Tsukishima to insert himself into another person’s past. Although things such as 'memories’ and 'outcomes’ where Tsukishima was concerned can be inserted, as far as inserting​ people who don’t even exist, that’s impossible. By the way, the guy who I believed was the half Shinigami was actually one of the Shinigami I killed in a fit of rage."

"…It can't be."

Getting an unpleasant feeling, Hisagi gulped.

Tsukishima, who was at the corner of the room, lifts his eyes​ up from his book to glance at the scene between Hisagi and Ginjō.

Perhaps having discerned that it was not the kind of atmosphere where he could cut in, even Ganju quietly strained his ears to the conversation of the other two; Kūkaku wore an expression that said "it’s no concern of mine", but she gulped down her sake in a silence that was quite out of the ordinary for her.

An uncomfortable silence dominates the space around Hisagi.

And it was the words of a dark eyed Ginjō that killed this silence.

"The ones who killed the friends from my past… are Shinigami. Though, they were a bunch of guys who are all strangers to me."

Silence and cold air tries to fill the scene once more.

However, Hisagi, who decided that he couldn't stomach that statement, shook his head as he rose to his feet.

"Hold on…. So, do you mean to say that Ukitake san made them do it!?"

"Hell if I know. But, by that time I had noticed the secret of the Substitute Badge. As for the rest, I guess you can figure it out even without me saying anything right?"

"Uh…"

In his mind, Hisagi recalls the conversation from a little earlier.

—— It’s merely a matter of objecting against Ukitake san once you’ve noticed it don't you think?

Although he was unaware of the circumstances, Hisagi realised how beside the point his own words were and was seized with a feeling of great shame. 

"I see…. It's not like I can swallow your story just yet… but I'm sorry about earlier."

"I don't give a damn about that. It made me laugh didn't it?"

After mixing in a bit of playful banter, Ginjō takes the conversation further.

"On the day I repaid my debt to Ichigo at the Soul King Palace, I planned to go meet Ukitake. I wondered just how far his orders went, after all, putting me aside whom he didn't trust me from the very onset, why then did my Fullbringer comrades have to be killed? But, it's a funny story. When I went looking for Ukitake all prepared to take his life even if it meant losing my own, by then, that man was no longer in any condition to talk."

"That's…"

Hisagi tries to say something, but words fail him.

In his head, he recalls the moment Tōsen is killed by Aizen.

At the time, Tōsen was indeed able to exchange words with Hisagi in the end. However, just before the paths each chose to follow were about to intersect once more, Tōsen was cruelly murdered at the hands of Aizen —— Hisagi, too, had forever lost the chance to exchange words with his opponent.

Observing the expression on Hisagi who had recollected such a thing, Ginjō heaves a sigh as he clicks his tongue.

"Tch… I've said too much. Those drinks must be catching up to me already dammit."

"Please wait. If that’s true…"

Midway through his sentence, the Denreishinki that was in his pocket produced a noise.

When he took out the device and reviewed it, a familiar notice to convene was displayed on its screen.

"…Sorry. I'm being summoned by Squad 1."

"Getting called in with this kind of timing huh, well I never, are you also being monitored from above?"

Confronted with Ginjō who speaks with bitter irony, Hisagi utters a reply.

"That might be possible if it were Captain Kurotsuchi rather than the Captain Commander…. Still, regardless of whether I'm being watched or whatever, I won't stop until I carry out my duty."

Upon leaving his seat, Hisagi finally speaks to Ginjō in a blunt manner.

"This doesn’t necessarily mean that I take you completely at your word. I am also a Shinigami. I don’t want to believe that my colleagues carried out a massacre in the Human World with no justification…. But, I will definitely investigate the other side of this story too. Because while I am a Shinigami, I am also editor-in-chief of Seireitei Communication. You can count on me."

"……"

"Anyway, we'll talk again soon. And Ganju, please allow me to hear your story next time too. Next time, the drinks are on me."

When he gave a final bow towards Kūkaku, Hisagi departed the Shiba residence. 

Hearing the sound of a motorbike engine echoing from afar, Tsukishima, who had been silent up till then, raised his voice whilst his eyes were turned towards his book.

"That's rare. For Ginjō to actually tell that story to a Shinigami from his own mouth."

"Yeah. I’ve finally lost my edge haven’t I?"

After remarking jokingly, Ginjō stares into space with a serious look on his face.

"Well, he probably just strikes me as a no-nonsense kind of Shinigami. An awful lot like the Gotei 13 huh. I guess I ended up wondering whether or not a guy like that would take my words seriously… nah, maybe I just wanted someone to vent my frustrations at instead of Ukitake who's no longer here."

At that point, Giriko spoke up, having emerged holding a plate.

"Oh. I have the snacks prepared but it seems the Shinigami gentleman has left already?"

"Yeah, I suppose he’s a punctual guy. He was in an awful hurry."

"I see, that is a wonderful thing. After all, the flow of time is an absolute law that remains as unchangeable in the Human World as it is in the Rukongai and Seireitei. If the Shinigami are anything of the 'gods' they claim to be, then it is only natural to abide by it."

Elsewhere from the Fullbringers who were having this conversation, Ganju posed a question to his sister who continued drinking in an unusual silence.

"Say, big sis, what do you actually think?"

"It's none of my damn business. I told you didn’t I? It’s not something we can poke our noses into when we’re not even Shinigami."

"…I wonder if big brother knew something."

This brother he speaks of is Shiba Kaien who served as Ukitake’s lieutenant before the collapse of the Shiba clan.

Although they were ousted from their position as nobles due to his death and the disappearance of Kurosaki Isshin who belonged to a branch of the main house, Ganju still considered his big brother the pride of the Shiba clan even now.

Recalling the face of her older brother who was no more, Kūkaku cast her eyes down to her sake cup whilst forming her words.

"…Who knows. The Shinigami are only alert to external threats all for the sake of protecting Seireitei."

.

.

.

"Just like it was with that Aizen bastard, when it comes to the Shinigami, they may just wind up becoming all kinds of thick-skinned against the scoundrels created by the Seireitei itself."

One hour later - Squad 1 - Head office.

"Hey, you’re late Shūhei. Just how far did you have to travel?"

"My apologies Captain, I went up to Shiba Kūkaku san’s place in West Rukongai to collect some material."

"Kūkaku…? Oh, Kaien’s younger sister…?"

When Hisagi enters the office, the Captain of the 9th division, Muguruma Kensei, is already waiting there; Kyōraku then makes an appearance from the door at the opposite end of the room.

"Dear me, I'm sorry to bother the two of you when you're both so busy."

Seeing Captain Commander Kyōraku raise one hand in greeting with his usual rhythm, Muguruma spoke up. 

"So? What’s going on Captain commander? Is there any special reason as to why it’s only the 9th division that’s been summoned?"

"Yes, you could say that. It’s kind of a matter that involves Seireitei Communication."

"Huh? If that's the case, then why am I here?"

Muguruma is the Captain of squad 9, but he is not involved in the editing of the magazine at all.

Only a few days ago, Muguruma was recuperating in order to treat his zombified flesh, and for a long time he was in no condition to even get a grasp on the current state of Seireitei communication.

"Well, as a matter of fact, I was told in person by the higher-ups that there is something they wish to formally announce in the Seireitei Communication. Therefore, I think it would be better to also run this by you, as the Captain, just in case."

"An announcement? And by higher-ups, do you mean Squad Zero?"

"No, they were from the Central 46. The group of nobles behind the Central 46 to be exact."

Saying that, Kyōraku turns his eyes to Hisagi for only a moment before uttering the rest of the story.

"Actually, it turns out that one of the Four Great Noble Houses is to install a new clan head. The matter has already passed through the governmental district and, as a formality, the new clan head will have been instated by now, but very much at the request of this new clan head, it appears that he wants to publicise news of his own inauguration extensively throughout Soul Society."

"Damn it, so it's just your average self-absorbed noble again huh."

Kensei spoke, looking rather bored.

Although there are exceptions such as Shihōin Yoruichi, basically, he knows only too well that both he and the aristocrats would never hit it off, and given that the subject also concerned Seireitei Communication, Kensei was rapidly losing interest in the matter. Meanwhile, Hisagi continues the discussion with a look that said he doesn't quite understand.

"*sigh*…. Around how many pages will it take? From the onset, the first reissue is still scheduled several months ahead, and it commences with a special feature which looks back on the Protection​ of the Soul King Great War, so having to balance it all against that will…"

"It seems he wants you to produce a special edition extra. He said he wants it to be distributed widely, even as far as the Rukongai."

"S-Special edition extra! If we have to get the publishing systems fully operational right away, we simply won't have the kind of budget for it…."

The inauguration of a new clan head among the Four Great Noble Clans is big news in itself. However, because the highest ranking being is the Soul King, it is rare to go as far to issue special editions involving the Four Great Noble Clans even on auspicious occasions or times of mourning.

Of course, budgets that exceed expectations are sometimes required, and if it is to be widely distributed even up to the Rukongai, then there is also the potential for that alone to bypass the annual budget.

Hisagi pondered how he could possibly get by on that budget whilst groaning in frustration, but Kyōraku placed a hand on his shoulder with a plop and smiled.

"You can rest assured. After all, it appears that the budget will be completely handled by that noble clan."

"Really!?"

If that's the case, he considered that it may be an opportunity to use the special edition extra as a pretext to promote the advance notice of the reissue and subscriptions to the regular edition of the magazine; in Hisagi's mind, he began to weigh up the benefits, the implications of which differed from just a moment ago.

However ——

As if to pull him back to reality, Kyōraku’s smiling face then clouded over.

"And, about the new clan head of said noble family…"

"…? Is something wrong, captain commander?"

"…I'm speaking about Tokinada, of the Tsunayashiro clan… you know who he is, right?"

The blood vessels in Shūhei’s body pulsated frantically.

"Tsunayashiro…Tokinada."

Hisagi knows this name too.

With the objective to bring Tōsen Kaname back to their side after he once strayed onto the wrong path, for a time, Hisagi probed deep into the past of Tōsen in an attempt to learn even a little more about him.

The details of the incident in which Tōsen’s close friend was killed is outrageous, the story goes that her husband at the time considered the idea of imprisonment mere folly, and that he continued to live his life comfortably without even receiving an adequate punishment.

"Hold on a moment. Surely that man is supposed to be in the lowest seat of the branch family…?"

"He has risen to the top. Factors such as the time Aizen massacred the Central 46, and the disorder born out of the last war, all worked to his advantage no doubt. Furthermore, last week the head of the Tsunayashiro clan and the family members around him were murdered by assassins, one by one."

"Captain."

Nanao, who had remained silent beside him up till then, raises her voice.

Martial law had been imposed in response to the turmoil surrounding the Tsunayashiro clan assassinations, Nanao couldn’t imagine it a good idea to carelessly reveal information to Hisagi even though he held the position of Vice Captain.

However, holding out a hand to quell Nanao's​ objection, Kyōraku daringly continues to speak.

"I won’t speak from conjecture. Nevertheless, it was Tsunayashiro Tokinada who completely annihilated those assassins by himself, with that meritorious deed in hand, he was then promoted from the lineage of the branch family. Conveniently, all members of the head house are no more… that's how the story goes."

Contrary to Kyōraku’s opening remark, the suggestion in his words were the kind where anyone could decipher 'the true culprit behind the assassination scandal and his goals', regardless of who was listening to it. Of course Hisagi was no exception and he gradually raised his eyebrows in discomfort during the course of the conversation.

"I know about him too. I think you've already come to realise this, but he is the sort of man who can do that kind of thing without compunction.”

At those words, not only Hisagi but even Nanao and Kensei expressed a little surprise, judging by Okikiba Genshirō who maintained a deep silence, it seems he agreed with Kyōraku’s words too.

Hisagi and Nanao were surprised because those words just now did not seem to reflect the speech and conduct of the usual Kyōraku who seldom speaks poorly of others.

Perhaps having noticed this predicament, Kyōraku let a wry smile laced with self-mockery play on his face before forming his words.

"Come now, not even I, am a man of noble character. It's just a matter of one or two men who I don't see eye to eye with."

Then, Kyōraku’s smile disappeared once again, he threw a question at Hisagi with a serious look in his eye.

"To sum it up, we have been instructed to issue a special edition celebrating his… Tsunayashiro Tokinada’s inauguration. Hisagi kun…… can you do it?"

[arplis]

Arplis - News: 20 incredible products that are trending on Amazon right now

— Our editors review and recommend products to help you buy the stuff you need. If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA TODAY’s newsroom and any business incentives. When I need a few things for my apartment, I head to Amazon knowing that even if I forget what I need, I’ll find something interesting worth checking out. But when I’m interested in discovering new products, or just seeing what’s new on the site, I usually head to Amazon’s Movers and Shakers page, which highlights all the largest gainers in sales rank over the last 24 hours. Since the page covers every product category on Amazon—from books to children’s toys to pet supplies and more—it gives you a real sense of what’s actually trending across the site so you can make more informed purchasing decisions. The one catch? Because the page is completely trend-based, there’s no way to tell whether these products are worth buying, or whether they’re, well, just useless knick knacks. Since we spend a lot of time here at Reviewed testing and analyzing products, we decided to take a closer look at the Movers and Shakers page. While the page updates hourly and some of these items might not be trending at this very second, these are the 20 best items we've seen on it over the last week or so that absolutely live up to the hype. 1. These Kindle e-readers that make it easy to read anywhere Credit: Reviewed / Michael Roorda These are our favorite Kindles for unlimited reading pleasure. Maybe you need to replace your old e-reader or you’ve just been procrastinating switching from the familiarity of hard copy to the more efficient digital medium (it’s okay—you’re not alone!). Our experts named these two Kindles as the best to own thanks to their comfortable feel, storage capacity, and Bluetooth compatibility, among other things. It’s a no-brainer that so many people continue to buy so many dang Kindles. Get the Kindle - 6" Glare-Free Display with Built-In Front Light for $89.99 Get the Kindle Paperwhite - 8 GB for $129.99 Get the Kindle Paperwhite - 32 GB for $159.99 2. A super-convenient dry shampoo that’ll save you time and water Credit: Not Your Mother’s Solve your oily hair woes with this $6 spray. Whether you have oily hair, or you just need to look presentable in a pinch, Not Your Mother’s has got you covered. We missed this product when we ranked our favorite dry shampoos of 2019, but $6 sounds like a steal when you see its 4.2-star rating on Amazon. Plus, reviewers rave about the volume and texture, light coconut scent, and lack of residue. Joelle writes, “This smells amazing! I love the texture it gave my hair as well. My hair is usually thin and hard to put into buns and this gave my hair volume which helped so much.” Get Not Your Mother’s Dry Shampoo for $5.98 3. A cold brew coffee maker that you can use all season long Credit: Takeya Get your cold brew fix for less. If you’re like me, you love coffee and likely just put up with the acidity. But no longer! This cold brew coffee maker boasts a brewing process that extracts only natural flavors—no oils or acids. And should you deem the weather too chilly for cold brew, you can also use this to prepare a hot cup of Joe. Once brewed, you can keep your coffee in the shatterproof, airtight container for up to two weeks. Get the Takeya Cold Brew Iced Coffee Maker for $16.99 4. This adorable, uber-efficient planner Credit: Panda Planner Keep organized with this undated planner. With over 250,000 units sold, the Panda Planner is a game changer if you want to add some structure to your life. The undated pages allow you to use the planner as often as you want, eliminating those passive-aggressive, paper-wasting guilt trips that dated planners put you through should you miss a day or several. In addition to the daily section, there are also weekly and monthly sections for your more long-term goals. Get the Panda Planner Daily Planner 2019-2020 for $24.97 5. Alexa’s favorite smart clock Credit: Amazon The perfect pair with your Echo speaker. Every household should have a clock or two. If you own an Echo speaker, you’ll want to keep Alexa busy with the Echo Wall Clock. It’s a must-have if you’ve got an Echo speaker, as you can sync them together and set timers, which will count down as illuminated LEDs on the clock’s face. Initial reviews for this product indicated that it killed batteries quickly, but Amazon deployed a fix, which has greatly reduced this issue. Get the Echo Wall Clock for $24.99 6. These doorbells that will answer the door for you Credit: Reviewed / Amazon This bundle is the ideal video doorbell surveillance system. Manage your home more effectively with Amazon’s Ring Video Doorbell bundles, which include a free Echo Show 5. Ring is our favorite smart doorbell and this combination lets you keep an eye on the front porch with motion-activated alerts, two-way talk, and an on-demand video feed without having to step away from your household projects. The Echo Show 5, meanwhile, is a great cooking companion or audio/video source for your favorite podcasts, TV shows, and other entertainment. Get the Ring Video Doorbell 2 with Echo Show 5 for $199 Get the Ring Video Doorbell Pro with Echo Show 5 for $249 7. These skincare products to keep your face feeling good Credit: LilyAna Naturals LilyAna Naturals are known to be good on all skin types. With autumn in full swing and winter approaching, everyone’s trying to keep their face looking fresh and vibrant. Whether you’re using these products for their anti-aging benefits or to keep acne at bay, these LilyAna Naturals moisturizers and serum are good on all skin types (including sensitive skin), free of parabens, and vegan friendly, making them some of the most popular skincare items on Amazon. Get the LilyAna Naturals Eye Cream Moisturizer for $19.99 Get the LilyAna Naturals Retinol Cream Moisturizer for $19.99 Get the LilyAna Naturals Vitamin C Serum with Hyaluronic Acid for Face and Eyes for $19.99 8. Your dentist’s favorite toothbrush Credit: Philips A toothbrush your dentist would be proud of. At my last dental checkup, my hygienist marveled at my oral health for the entirety of my cleaning and eventually asked my marital status. Was it appropriate? Not really. But I see it as a testament to the effectiveness of the Sonicare Essence electric toothbrush. I would recommend this to anyone looking to upgrade their brushing practice and maybe brighten someone else’s day. Get the Philips Sonicare Essence Sonic Rechargeable Toothbrush for $39.98 9. This underrated bathroom appliance Credit: OXO Good Grips The best assistant to clean your shower. Who doesn’t love a good squeegee? With a durable, flexible blade and non-slip handle, your cleaning job is sure to be free of any streaks or slips. Several reviewers also love how well the suction hook sticks to the shower wall, with Steven writing, “The large suction cup that holds this squeegee in the shower works perfectly. And unlike many metal squeegees, this one is very lightweight, so it will not pull itself off the wall.” That’s quite a bit of quality and convenience for $8. Get the OXO Good Grips All-Purpose Squeegee for $7.99 10. These curtain panels that’ll help you save money Credit: Sun Zero Keep the heat in and the sun out with these curtains. Give yourself some privacy while you save on your energy bill. These curtain panels help to block out both summer heat and winter chill while also reducing outside noise. One of our editors, Shayna Murphy, swears by these and says they look great. Need I say more? Get the Sun Zero Barrow Energy Efficient Grommet Curtain Panel starting at $6.37 11. These versatile microfiber cloths Credit: Amazon From cleaning spills to washing cars, these cloths are very versatile. My parents are so gung-ho about these, they stopped buying paper towels. I’m not quite as eccentric, but I love these microfiber cloths nonetheless. They’re terrific for cleaning up spills around the house, as they absorb up to eight times their weight. I set a couple of these below my dish drainer and use them to buff out my glass cooktop stove after cleaning, too. Get the AmazonBasics Blue and Yellow Microfiber Cleaning Cloths (24-Pack) for $12.81 12. A natural deodorant that actually works Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar Eliminate aluminum from your pits and still smell great. Imagine a natural deodorant, free of aluminum, parabens, sulfates, and other harsh irritants/unwanted ingredients, that actually keeps your underarms fresh. The Native brand has a cult following, which now appears to be trending toward the mainstream, given its uptick on the Movers & Shakers page. One of our experts recently reviewed this product and raved about the scent quality, natural feel, lack of white streaks on her clothing, and its durability throughout the day. However, be advised you may have to give your body a couple weeks to adjust from your old deodorant to Native. Get Native deodorant for $11.97 13. This leak-proof travel mug Credit: Contigo Sipping coffee on-the-go should be stylish and insulated. Few things make for a more satisfying commute than a travel mug that doesn’t leak. The earth angels at Contigo made this mug easy to drink from and super comfy to hold, quelling any fears you might have of dropping it on a crowded bus or subway. Additionally, its double wall vacuum insulation keeps your beverage hot for up to six hours or cold for up to 12 hours. Get the Contigo SnapSeal Byron Mug (16 oz) for $11.44 14. A yoga mat that’s got your back Credit: BalanceFrom This yoga mat is affordable and non-slip. This mat offers quarter-inch thickness, which provides much-needed cushioning for your spine, hips, knees, and elbows on hard floors. At just $13, this mat is also the top-selling yoga mat on Amazon. As someone who once pulled a hamstring in yoga class due to mat slippage, I can’t overstate the importance of slip prevention. However, while the mat will stay in place on the floor, you might slip if the surface gets too sweaty. Get the BalanceFrom GoYoga All Purpose Non-Slip Yoga Mat for $12.99 15. A more enjoyable and effective means of flossing Credit: Waterpik Finally get your dentist to stop asking if you've flossed. The late comedian Mitch Hedberg once joked that it’s just as hard to quit smoking as it is to start flossing. Sadly, he didn’t live to see the advent of the Waterpik. This water flosser is the only one on the market that has earned the American Dental Association Seal of Acceptance, which is huge. This product comes with five different tip attachments—including ones designed to work with braces, crowns, and implants—allowing you to floss in areas that are tough to reach with traditional floss. Get the Waterpik Water Flosser for $59.95 16. This comfy cushion that’ll save your back Credit: Everlasting Comfort Survive your 9-to-5 with a comfy cushion. Whether you’re at a 9-to-5 desk job or a road warrior, you’re bound to put undue strain on your back and backside. Fortunately, you can significantly reduce that stress—and improve your posture—with this orthopedist-recommended seat cushion from Everlasting Comfort. Made from memory foam, this cushion maintains its density and keeps its shape while supporting your tailbone, lower back, spine, and hips. Get the Everlasting Comfort Memory Foam Seat Cushion for $29.95 17. This mask and conditioner to restore and strengthen your hair’s health Credit: Arvazallia Add moisture to your hair with this affordable mask. You can keep your hair looking and feeling healthy with Amazon’s top-selling hair treatment mask. Argan oil is rich in compounds that moisturize and soften hair, making it a great supplement for medium to coarse hair types. Reviewers say this product significantly helped enhance their hair’s softness, texture, and overall manageability. This two-in-one mask is completely paraben- and sulfate-free and works on straight and curly hair. Get the Arvazallia Hydrating Argan Oil Hair Mask and Deep Conditioner for $12.95 18. This foam roller to optimize your workout Credit: LuxFit Roll out your achey muscles. Wish you could get more out of your workouts? You can with this durable, sweat-proof foam roller. This is a great tool for improving your balance and bodily coordination as well as for muscle relief before and after workouts. When you order this roller, you also receive an email with a link to free online instructional videos that demonstrate proper use. Get the LuxFit Foam Roller for $9.95 19. This warm and cozy throw blanket Credit: Bedsure There's nothing cozier than a fleece blanket. Be your coziest self with this fleece blanket. Whether you’re bingeing your favorite show on the couch or traveling somewhere, this throw blanket keeps you warm while still being breathable. Made from microfiber fabric, it weighs less and keeps its shape and color more effectively than cotton. Get the Bedsure Fleece Twin Throw Blanket for $19.99 20. A foot cream for everyone Credit: PurSources Heal your cracked and callused feet with this popular cream. While this cream is geared toward people who suffer from calluses and cracked feet, all feet stand to benefit from using it. The formula in this lotion nourishes and hydrates your skin, improving circulation and promoting new cell growth. This product comes with a free pumice stone and brush as well as an unlimited satisfaction guarantee—if you don’t get the results you want, PurSources will give you a full refund. Get PurSources Urea 40% Foot Cream 4 oz for $15.99 The product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest deals, product reviews, and more. Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.

Arplis - News source https://arplis.com/blogs/news/20-incredible-products-that-are-trending-on-amazon-right-now

[96thdayofrage]

Conversations in BlackFreedom Studies (CBFS) is a monthly discussion series held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Curated by Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, the series was established as a space to discuss the latest scholarship in Blackfreedom studies, bringing the campus and community together as scholars and activists challenge the older geography, leadership, ideology, culture, and chronology of Civil Rights historiography. In anticipation of the planned discussion on The Struggle Against Police Brutality, Mass Incarceration, and Educational Discrimination in the Jim Crow North on May 2nd, we are highlighting the scholarship of two of their guests.

Dr. Clarence Taylor was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He received his undergraduate degree from Brooklyn College, and his MA from New York University. While teaching in the New York City public school system, he pursued his doctorate in history at Graduate School of the City University of New York. In 1991, he received his PhD in American history and began teaching at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. Professor Taylor’s research interests are the modern civil rights and Black power movements, African-American religion, and the modern history of New York City. He is the author and editor of several books including, The Black Churches of Brooklyn from the 19th Century to the Civil Rights Era, Knocking At Our Own Door: Milton A. Galamison and the Struggle to Integrate New York City Schools, Black Religious Intellectuals: The Fight for Equality from Jim Crow to the 21st Century, Civil Rights in New York City: From World War II to the Giuliani Era, and Reds at the Blackboard: Communism, Civil Rights and the New York City Teachers Union. His latest book is Fight the Power: African Americans and the Long History of Police Brutality in New York City. He is Professor Emeritus in history at Baruch College, CUNY.

Dr. Kristopher Burrell is an Assistant Professor of History at Hostos Community College. He earned his doctorate in U. S. History from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2011. His research interests include the civil rights movement in New York City and twentieth century African American intellectual history. Dr. Burrell published “Where From Here? Ideological Perspectives on the Future of the Civil Rights Movement, 1964-1966” in the Western Journal of Black Studies and has just published a chapter titled, “Black Women as Activist Intellectuals: Ella Baker and Mae Mallory Combat Northern Jim Crow in New York City’s Public Schools during the 1950s” in The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South.Dr. Burrell is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled, Outsmarting Racism: New York’s Black Intellectuals and Theorizing Northern Racism, 1945-1968. He is proud to have been born and raised in Harlem, New York.

CBFS: Given your recent publications of new works on the Jim Crow North, can you tell us about what you’ve written and how you came to study this?

Clarence Taylor: My interest in the New York City civil rights struggle has to do with my growing up in the 1960s and experiencing gross civil rights violations by police, teachers and school administrators, store owners and their employees, and many others in authority. I also witnessed these same forces violate the civil rights of other Black people. I was aware at an early age that racism was not confined to the South. As a graduate student focusing on the civil rights movement I decided to research and examine the Jim Crow North and how Black people attempted to eradicate racial barriers and structures that relegated them to the lowest social and economic positions in the city. I am one of a handful of scholars whose work focuses on the civil rights struggle in New York City. My second book, Knocking at Our Own Door: Milton A. Galamison and the Struggle to Integrate New York City Schools, is the most extensive work on Milton Galamison, leader of the New York City School integration struggle in the 1950s and 1960s. This work challenges the southern paradigm on civil rights historiography by exploring the efforts of civil rights activists and organizations in New York to end city-wide segregation of New York City public schools.

In my latest book, Fight the Power: African Americans and the Long History of Police Brutality in New York City, I examine how over seven decades, Black people in New York City battled police brutality. I argue that relying on those in power to end police brutality has never worked. Even when there have been sympathetic elected officials who promised to take steps to end police abuse, the forces of reaction have silenced them. Organized resistance has been the most effective way of challenging police brutality. My book moves us away from liberal schemes of addressing police brutality such as diversity training, sensitivity training, making the police force more diverse, better technology such as cameras, community policing, and advisory civilian boards. Instead, I maintain that citizens must be given greater authority in determining how police will operate in their communities.

Kris Burrell: My chapter in The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North details and analyzes the intellectual theorizing and tactics of Ella Baker and Mae Mallory, in their efforts to eradicate Jim Crow segregation in the New York City public school system during the 1950s. It is important to study and highlight the efforts of Black women in the Black freedom struggle, and also to talk about these women as both activists and intellectuals.

I began studying the Civil Rights Movement in New York City while in graduate school, under the direction of Clarence. My dissertation focused on the ideologies at work guiding activists’ efforts to either forge or block working alliances. In terms of specific issues, my dissertation focused mainly on the struggles to desegregate the public school system between 1954, when the Brown v. Board of Education decision was handed down, and 1965 when Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. Typically, these years bookend what Jacqueline Dowd Hall termed, the “classical civil rights movement.”

The chapter in The Strange Careers, more specifically, grew out of the National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar I participated in in 2015. As a result of this seminar, facilitated by Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, I met nearly two dozen other scholars from around the country also working on the civil rights and Black Power movements outside the South. This seminar helped me greatly evolve my thinking about my own work, as well as the movements more broadly.

CBFS: Can you share a story of a struggle, or a figure from these struggles, that our readers might not be familiar with?

Clarence Taylor: An important force in the fight to end police brutality, in the 1940s was a little-known Black weekly entitled the People’s Voice, created by the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Jr. The reporters at the People’s Voice carried out a courageous anti-police brutality campaign, that included challenging the racist narrative of the police, mainstream media, and political leaders who all depicted Black victims of police brutality as criminals. I argue that the People’s Voice became an advocate for those victimized by the police. In its battle to end police terror, the newspaper challenged the popular narratives of the Black criminal propagated by law enforcement, the white-owned press, and the city’s political leaders. By providing a counter narrative to the police and white media’s story of the Black criminal preying on communities, the People’s Voice hoped to verify to its readers that the police assaulted Black people solely because they were Black.

Beyond this newspaper, I also write about organizations. In one of my previous books, Reds at the Blackboard: Communism, Civil Rights and the New York City Teachers’ Union, I explore the battle over teacher unionism in New York City and the entire nation. By 1935 the Communist-dominated Rank and File caucus gained control of the TU and immediately faced a great deal of opposition. By 1941 it had its charter revoked by the American Federation of Labor. The New York City Board of Education campaign to destroy the union resulted in the loss of thousands of its members and its banning from the New York City Public schools. Despite this attack on academic freedom, the union remade itself into a forceful civil rights pressure group, advocating the teaching of Black history, the elimination of racist and biased textbooks in the schools and the hiring of Black teachers. The union also forged a strong alliance with Black and Latino communities which has never been duplicated. However, because of the protracted attack on the TU, it eventually folded.

Kris Burrell: Fewer people seem to have heard of Mae Mallory compared to Ella Baker. But if people do know of Mae Mallory, they probably associate her with the litigation she initiated along with eight other Harlem mothers in 1958. Mallory was part of the group, nicknamed “The Harlem Nine” in the Black press. She and the other parents were ultimately vindicated in their decisions to remove their children from inferior Harlem public schools when Justice Justine Wise Polier ruled in favor of two of the parent-defendants in December of 1958.

However, I think another story is just as illustrative of Mallory’s incisive analysis of New York City’s systematic discrimination against Black and Puerto Rican children. At a public hearing with the Board of Education in the summer of 1957, Mallory told the Board that the school her children attended was “just as Jim Crow” as the one she had attended back in Macon, Georgia. She called out Superintendent William Jansen and the rest of the Board for not dealing with racial segregation in NYC’s schools in anywhere near a comprehensive way. Nor would she allow the Board to get away with using language that attempted to mask either the extent of the discrimination in the city’s school, or its systemic character.

CBFS: Considering the continuing fight for Black freedom today, how does this history help us understand or even act in our current moment?

Clarence Taylor: One important point I make in Fight the Poweris that relying on those in power to end police brutality has never worked. Many in power usually side with the police because politicians have exploited the crime issue. Even when there have been sympathetic elected officials who promised to take steps to end police abuse, the forces of reaction have silenced them. Organized resistance has been the most effective way of challenging police brutality.

Kris Burrell: Studying the movements for Black freedom outside the South should completely reorient our conception of Jim Crow and the history of racial discrimination in the United States. This history, and other studies that focus on the North and West, completely upend the popular understanding of racial segregation as a southern phenomenon, and of northerners as always more enlightened with regards to racial equality. It is necessary to talk about Jim Crow as a national illness embedded into our social fabric and look at northern governments as the originators and perfecters of the racially discriminatory systems that have existed historically, and still operate today.

My particular chapter, as with the larger book project I am working on, also asks the questions: What does a movement for civil rights look like in a city where people are told racial discrimination does not exist and where people are told that the racial disparities that they experience on a daily basis are the result of organic market forces, and are no one’s fault, perhaps except their own? Under these conditions, how would Black activist-intellectuals develop strategies and tactics to eradicate Jim Crow when they also have to convince political leaders and the public that Jim Crow exists? These are some of the questions that I think distinguish northern Jim Crow from southern during the 1950s and 1960s, but by now, perhaps we as a nation need to come to grips with the fact that, “the whole United States is Northern!”

[colinresponseofficialblog-blog]

How to Write a Rap Song

Knowing how to write rap songs requires an comprehension of the basics. Each rap song has a beat, hook, and verses, but there are additional factors relevant to writing a rap song. Each song, while it's hip hop rap, R&B, or a different genre, includes a base style or pattern that is common to every song belonging to that genre.

The basic element is the beat. Every rap has a beat. It may vary according to the kind of tune the artist would like to make, and it may be exhausting. Not many raps are angry and filled with violent beats and loud hooks; there are rap songs that are composed to many others along with dance beats that are joyful rather than filled with lyrics and harsh words. Virtually every rap tune has three basic parts - poetry, and the hook or chorus, intro. It is these three components that need to keep in mind when learning how to write a rap song.

There are various ways as to how a rap song may start. Writers try to ascertain which will fit the song the best generally when working on the best way best to compose a rap tune. Raps usually start with an instrumental bit that's followed using a verse or two. But based on the rap artist, the song may start with the hook that then contributes to the instrumental, which can be followed closely with the first verse. Based on the sort of song the artist is currently hoping to compose, the number of the components of verses and arrangement fluctuates.

Some songs have four verses and 32 bars each, although on average rap tunes consist of three, 16-bar verses. It is dependent upon the lyrics and beat of the rap. The verse is the part that has the true lyrics or rap or vocals. This is the part which includes the majority of the lyrics and in which the song's significance is portrayed to the audience. Normally, the various verses in the song are of the same length, but that isn't a requirement. The duration of verses might differ if the beats of the song varies.

Composing a rap tune demands an understanding of the fundamentals of rap song composing. The demands of writing rap comprise knowledge of rhyming approaches, of original lyrics, and developing. Rap is composed of both rhymed couplets, which are normally set beat and drum. Possessing a good rhyming flow and technique is crucial to writing a rap tune.

Lyrically, the first step to writing a rap tune is to select a topic that is good. The topic serves as the central subject of the rap song. It could be about just about anything, or pain, love, joy, greed, racism, justice, partying.

The beat is crucial to writing a rap song. Lyricists compose their lyrics into the beat, but others write the lyrics first and then make the track. A rap song cans crack or make. A musician can produce a fantastic bass beat working with an electronic drum loop or bass guitar. It's this bass beat that drives the rap trail along with also the flow. The rapper should keep up with the bass beat.

There is A hook essential to form this rap tune's chorus. Lyrics should be written with the rhyming scheme that was selected and the bass beat. Lyrics are considered the core strength of a rap. Lyrics are the characteristic of rap, making rap songs stand apart from others, even the ones that possess the same instrumental beat.

Writing a rap tune requires structuring after composing the lyrics. This involves incorporating breakdowns or bridges to add depth to the song arrangement and interspersing the verses. Lyrics are listed over bridge, verses, chorus, and the bass beat. The accession of punch lines can be used to bring an extra level providing amusement and humor. Drum fills such as beats of bass and melody lines can be inserted to add depth.

To compose good rap songs, you'll need to customize your rap lyrics and listen to and examine famous rap artists and songs that are popular. An ideal Mix of scheme, word drama punch lines, melody, and bass beats, is going to result in a rap song. Many rappers collaborate to write a last draft rap song and work.

By following some basic writing measures of structure and pattern, writing a rap song, can be achieved. Rap as a genre may seem limited by a set of beats and verses, but there's a lot more that goes into a rap song than those elements. Each rap song has components that are common to all songs, no matter artist or the genre. For instance, each rap has hook a whip, chorus, and verses; it is the arrangement of these components that differs from song to song and artist to artist.

When writing a rap song, the artist will start before writing the lyrics and vocal tracks, with working on the beat. This is because when the defeat is finished, it's typically simpler to write lyrics that than writing the lyrics first and then trying to create. Many raps consist of a monitor and bass line that plays along with the beat. Because the portion of a rap is your track, especially few instrumental parts are required.

These days, however, rap tunes are becoming collaborative and more experimental, and artists collaborate during the process of writing a rap song with other rappers. This leads to a final product that is a blend. Furthermore, it forms a new style and creates the song writing process more manageable and more interesting as every artist has a distinctive perspective.

Along with all the tracks and bass lines, a rap tune samples loops of tracks by artists. Samples coating over the first instrumental tracks to add another dimension to the song. This brings about a blend of two unique Hip Hop Songs genres which collaborate for writing a rap tune that has all of the components of a traditional rap, with the defeat, hook, and poetry in addition to a looped sample track that adds a new layer to the rap song.

Composing a rap tune requires editing and training. In all likelihood, your first draft will probably be mediocre at best. That is nice and will be expected. Just rewrite, reorganize, and rework it until you achieve the desired affect. You might employ a rap author and editor to help turn your rough draft into a finished song.

When you have a couple skills needed to achieve that it is possible to write your own rap tune. The main skill that you will need is a good imagination or thought process. Other abilities include having the ability to concentrate, knowing about rap music and using a great format. To begin with, having an imagination is important when it is time to write your own rap song because you'll need to come up with a few rap legends which people will want to obey.

There are several rap music out there on the market today and it's difficult at times to think of something that's fresh and unique. You need rap lyrics which will stick out from the rest. For this, you want to use your creativity. You don't want to go with the standard rap lyrics that everyone else is using. The more unique and imaginative your rap lyrics are, the greater chance your rap song will probably have of making it. This involves a thought procedure that is good.

Next, when you compose your own rap tune, you'll need to think your lyrics out and compose them. There are lots of ways in which you'll be able to create a format the best way is to write out every stage of the tune according to the sequence that each phase will appear. Starting with the title, you'd write your own rap tune from begin to finish as if it were an article. Including your chorus and verses. Write each thing as you come to it that you are not overwhelmed.

You should be Knowledgeable about the rap songs in The audio business and the artists that created them. This will enable you to know what songs have been effective and which ones haven't. Break apart the tunes that are well-known and consider what's made them popular use your knowledge to write.

People rappers who pride themselves on writing their own rap songs collaborate with other writers. Whether that means having a rapper compose a verse or even the tune or bouncing ideas, there's nothing wrong with alliance. The ghostwriters are not recognized and the rapper performs with the rap, although most rappers use ghostwriters to write whole albums.

Are you really interested in learning how to write a rap song? Well if this guide should be able to give you a hand and have you writing rap songs in no time flat. As a manufacturer I am familiar with the process of composing rap songs. Because I feel I have some information that others are going to greatly benefit from I chose to discuss it. In this article I will discuss some steps which will help.

You should bear in mind that there are ways which you can go about studying this process. What I am about to share with you are the steps that I use to make rap songs. Use or follow these steps. It is entirely your decision.

Receive a Topic - Get a idea of what your song will be around. At times the mood that you are in will give you a few topic ideas that are great. For example if you're feeling happy and at a party mood you may choose to compose a tune along those lines. Perhaps you are having. This may provide you with a slew of ideas for your rap tune. If you let your mood determine your song topic it would be a matter of time until you have a set subject to write about.

Brain Storm - This is a role if not the most important part of learning how to compose a rap tune. Brain storming is a great way to get the creative juices flowing. Before I pick up a pen I sometimes sit in my chair for 30-45 minutes. Just let thoughts flow before you start actually writing anything.

Consider A Title - is a great time to think of a title for your tune. This doesn't imply that the name can not change later. Picking on a title will provide you somewhat.

Write The Chorus/Hook - I personally like to write the chorus of the song before I begin writing the verses. I do so because it actually helps me to determine exactly what the lyrics will be. A good idea is to truly feel the beat out and then write your hook to really match if you're writing to a beat. You should be aware that in case the hook is what makes or breaks a song, so when making yours, take your time.

Write Your Verses - I recommend writing 2-3 verses 3, When it comes to writing a rap song. Each of your 3 verses would normally be, if you're going to use 2 verses they should be somewhat longer then. A verse usually consists of 16 bars (a set of rhyming sentences = I pub). Make sure that you are currently writing them to really fit your chorus when composing your verses. Your fundamental rap tune arrangement goes intro, verse, hook, poetry, hook, verse and hook. Of course you'll be able to change this structure for your liking. Be sure it sounds to outside the normal.

Twist It Up - Now that your song is completely written you need to go over it. You truly ought to make sure that your lyrics make since and that your hook is ideal for the song. Don't wait over your song several times before you promote it or capture it on your own. Learning doesn't have to be tough and hopefully this article hopefully demonstrates that.