#opening vs closing is a completely different world where I work

[torra-and-the-toons]

ready for death, but still chuggin’

[iamthat-iam]

Real vs Unreal 🤯

Jade has been in the LOA community for over a year now. It opened her up to many different possibilities, such as shifting to the MCU (Marvel Universe) where she is a superhero with super strength, super speed, and the ability to fly.

Everyday when she wakes up, and before she goes to bed, she does an intense visualization of this reality. Each time she does it, her "current reality" seems to disappear, until she opens her eyes. She knows that she's so close yet so far from shifting there! She decides to go on Tumblr and ask for advice.

She comes across some intriguing ND posts that say "You must collapse the duality between physical vs imagination and real vs unreal" and "All experiences are the same, no matter the label. Seeing a car in a 'daydream' is no different than seeing one 'in real life.'"

This seems to be different than what she learned from LOA, with the existence of a 3D/4D and 'fulfilling your imagination until it shows up in the physical.' She sends a blogger a question out of curiosity.

"Hi! I know that this is not a shifting blog, but I wanted clarification on a few things. For over a year now, I've been trying to shift to the Marvel Universe, where I'm a superhero with powers. Everyday I do a visualization where I am experiencing these things. I just saw your post that says all experiences are the same, and how seeing something in imagination is the same as real life. Does this mean the whole time I was visualizing myself in that reality, I was already experiencing that? It was real? I also want to know how imagination and physical are the same. Thank you." She inquired.

The blogger responds with, "Yes you already experienced it. The reason why there's no physical vs imagination is because your awareness, your true nature, is present during all appearances that come and go. We've just labelled certain appearances real or not real based on certain ideas we picked up through life. For example, many people think that experiences are only real when you are awake and you seem to be living through the 5 senses. They were also taught that things like fairies, dragons, supernatural abilities aren't real, so when they hear stories about people experiencing those things, it's a huge shock for them. But in reality, nothing is objectively real or unreal, all experiences are possible for awareness. You (as awareness, THAT, or " ") are the ONLY thing that is truly real. As the ultimate authority, only you can decide what is "true" for you or not."

Jade decides to take some time to really think about what this blogger said. Everything they said is a complete 180 from what Jade thought she knew about life and how reality works. So that means this entire time, she was already in the MCU? And the MCU is apparently just as real as what Jade calls "real life?" That is truly an interesting concept to ponder! The one thing that has Jade stumped, however, is the fact that she opens her eyes and continues to see her old life. She goes back to the blogger to ask about this.

"That's really interesting how I already experienced being in the MCU! So this technically means I can tell someone I "shifted" there, and they couldn't accuse me of lying? Also, I'm a bit confused on why whenever I open my eyes after visualizing, I still see my old life," She questioned the blogger.

"To answer your first question, no, they can't accuse you of 'lying' because that was a valid experience for you. The idea that you have to experience "shifting symptoms" or enter the void state to "experience another world" is limiting, and creates a barrier between you and whatever you want to experience. This is no disrespect to that community, if they want to "shift" or "enter the void state" to experience things, that is totally up to them. But ND is about not labelling experiences, and not treating them as if they are separate from you. All experiences are yours. It's natural for you, as an omnipotent being, to experience whatever you want instantly. As for why your "old life" continues to appear, there is no old life. There's no experience A turning into experience B, it's all nothingness. You said you visualized being in the MCU, have you noticed that the "old life" seems to disappear and you're totally focused on the visualization? That's because the "old life" never was in the first place!" The blogger explained.

That response made everything click for Jade. She finally feels free enough to experience the MCU universe or any other universe whenever she wants! "Thank you so much! This was very helpful and empowering!" She thanked the blogger.

And so Jade became the superhero she always wanted to be.

[vivaciousofficiall]

Stop Attracting Emotionally Unavailable Men With Inner Work.

Do you find yourself constantly attracting emotionally unavailable or toxic men? Does it feel like you keep having the same experiences with different men?

Then you may be in a karmic cycle.

What is a karmic cycle ?

A karmic cycle is a repetitive pattern in your life that mirror past traumas. This usually looks like being stuck in a loop of dealing with the same problems.

A prime example of this would be dealing with a father who was emotionally unavailable/abusive/absent as a child then going on to attract men who are similar to him in adulthood.

We often view this as a curse or a string of bad luck, failing to see that it is only persisting because it is aiming to be resolved. God (source, universe) whatever you call the higher power, will keep bringing these situations to get your attention. The more you ignore, the louder it gets.

The sad truth is that MOST people play the blame game. We blame our parents, ex boyfriends, husbands etc. We throw our hands in the air.

“If only he would change”

“That’s just how men are”

Then the few people who are truly ready to step out of their unfulfilling reality because they know they are destined for more will ask:

“How did I participate in this?”

“How can i energetically let go of this reality?”

Believe it or not, not every woman deals with this. There are women that are in harmonious loving connections with emotionally available men.

If you find yourself attracting toxic people then there is an alignment of energy. This means that you have limiting beliefs (subconscious) that attract men of this nature.

Conscious Vs Subconscious Mind

We all have a conscious & subconscious mind. The conscious mind refers to the part of our mental processes that we are aware of at any particular time.

Example : I would like a loving boyfriend.

Whereas the subconscious mind refers to the part of our minds that function outside of conscious awareness.

Example : Love isn't safe.

So you may THINK you’re open to love but your subconscious mind is completely closed off to it.

This is where self-sabotage kicks in. When the conscious mind says one thing while the subconscious says another.

The subconscious will always win since it has a stronger influence on our behaviour and habits.

This is where inner work comes in.

What is inner work?

Inner work is a process of taking control & reconstructing your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, habits & transforming into a better version of yourself.

Your outer world is only ever a reflection of your inner world. As you do your inner work, your vibrational frequency changes hence attracting new places, people & things.

When I first started this work and found out I had issues with emotional availability, I was stunned. It was a very confusing experience because I was seeking connection so I must be open to it right?

A powerful question to ask yourself is :

"If I am so open to love, why am I trying to be with people that can’t give it to me?"

Switch queues today.

True transformation can only occur when we stop playing victim and accept responsibility for where we are in life.

Start your inner work journey with a 1:1 Inner Work Clarity Reading.

This is a powerful consultation reading where I would identify limiting beliefs, unconscious habits (blind spots), provide clarity & the correct action steps to release and break out of these cycles & manifest what you actually desire.

For other inquiries, email vivaciousofficiall@gmail.com

Xoxo, Vivacious

[coraniaid]

I have decidedly mixed feelings about Season 4 as a whole but The Freshman is a very very good episode.

It's also, however you choose to work it out, in the top three episodes of the whole series in terms of how much dialogue Buffy Summers herself gets [see note A below]. Which makes sense thematically -- if Season 4 is about anything (note that I said if) then surely it is about Buffy attempting to answer the question "who are you?" posed by the title of one of its stand-out episodes. Who is Buffy (and what is this show about?) now that high school is over? That's a question this episode will begin to explore.

Part of the reason I like this episode so much is that it's focused on the character of Buffy herself in a way none of the other season openers get to be. Half of the focus of S3's Anne is on a town where Buffy isn't anymore and the other half is on a girl who doesn't want to be Buffy anymore; S5's Buffy vs Dracula is .... it's about ... no, I can't lie, it's just shit, sorry (and Real Me, morally that season's true opener, is certainly about Buffy in a sense but it's about her as seen through the prism of Dawn Summers); Buffy spends most of S6's Bargaining dead and as such doesn't talk that much; while S7's Lessons is focused on setting up the Dawn-focused, back-to-high-school season that, in just a few episodes's time, the writers will give up on entirely (in fact we never see Dawn's new friends Kit and Carlos on screen again).

S1's Welcome to the Hellmouth comes close to the underlying numbers of The Freshman (in keeping with the rest of Season 1, Buffy definitely has a lot of speaking time in this one), but that episode is an attempt to introduce the whole world of the show as much as it is the character of Buffy herself. By design, the Buffy we meet already knows the basics about vampires and Slaying and destinies: the exposition Giles offers is for the audience's benefit rather than hers. Even having moved to a new town, Buffy is instantly more comfortable in the halls of Sunnydale High than she is on campus at the beginning of this episode.

Only S2's When She Was Bad comes as close to being purely about Buffy as this episode does, but it doesn't score very highly among the season openers in terms of raw speaking time numbers [see note B].

That's because while When She Was Bad is about Buffy and who she is after (not exactly) surviving the events of Prophecy Girl, it's at least partly about who she is as seen from the perspective of her friends and family. So we open with a scene of Willow and Xander waiting for Buffy to get back, we have a rare scene of Buffy's parents alone together discussing their daughter, we see that (in their own different ways) Giles and Cordelia and Angel are all worried about her although she resists their various attempts to connect with her. In her absence, the gang briefly debate whether she might be posessed -- that this might not even be the real Buffy at all. There's no such confusion about the Buffy we see on screen in this episode. Giles is reluctant to help her, insisting that he's not her Watcher anymore; Cordelia has left town and goes unmentioned; somebody who watches Angel will know that Angel tries calling but Buffy doesn't find this out. Unlike When She Was Bad, The Freshman is completely about Buffy's understanding of herself. With a couple of brief exceptions near the end, the perspective and camera remains tightly focused on her: we see what she sees, and only that.

The Buffy Summers of When She Was Bad was trying to cut herself off from the world and is saved by her friends; the Buffy Summers of The Freshman is trying to make her own way in the world without a familiar safety net and -- though she is reassured to eventually realize her friends are still around and still want to help her -- she also learns she can succeed even without them. (Arguably, this is a lesson she learns a little too well.)

Also Sunday was great and should have been in more episodes (and so should Cathy and Olivia, frankly, though they do at least appear again a little).

--

[A] Per Julian Freedland's timestamp data, Buffy's top three episodes in terms of absolute speaking time are 1) S1E05: "Never Kill A Boy On The First Date"; 2) S3E18: "Earshot"; 3) S4E01: "The Freshman" . Adjusting for the fact some episodes are just more dialogue-heavy than others, Buffy's top three episodes as a percentage of total speaking time are 1) S4E02: Living Conditions; 2) S4E01: The Freshman; 3) S3E03: Faith, Hope & Trick.

[B] Technically When She Was Bad is only the fifth highest ranked of the seven season openers by Buffy speaking time, with Buffy having 23.5% of all dialogue, but there's very little difference between third and sixth here: 24.9% for Anne in third versus 23.4% for Buffy vs Dracula in sixth; compare 30.8% for Welcome to the Hellmouth and 35.6% for The Freshman and either nothing or almost nothing for Bargaining depending on whether you treat it as a two-parter or one double-length episode.

[spacenintendogs]

Can you share more about your degree? It sounds super interesting! Mine was just pretty straight forward (literature) lol.

sure!!

horticulture is never rlly easy to explain bc there's the basic definition of like "the art or practice of garden cultivation and management" according to the oxford dictionary (that i googled lol) but it's like. so many "hard" sciences and "soft" sciences mixed together. my first class was intro to horticulture and one of our tasks was to legit make our own definition.

i always explain it as the study of the art and science behind plants and how we apply them to our environments, human made or not.

i just have a two year degree bc i went to community college but it's skdkskd usually enough to get a job in the industry & work your way up. my degree was also very very hands on. during the 2020-2021 lockdown i had to go on campus despite the rest of it being closed (obv we were masked & stayed outside) but it was for classes like plant id courses, nursery production, etc

my fave classes were entomology (study of insects) & plant pathology (diseases caused by pathogens & environmental conditions!!). i also loved plant propagation (how to grow seeds!!!!) and it led to how i chose my certification in greenhouse production!! i learned basically how a greenhouse runs & how to manage it!! (i have a second certificate in permaculture (permanent agriculture in which you learn how to garden but it's a self sustaining ecosystem based on where u live!!) but that is based on a number of hours completed rather than taking a bunch of classes)

there is also a huge push for sustainability! lots of my professors had their docorates and masters in climate science and were very open & honest abt the way of the world & how gray it is in terms of what we make advancements in. (first class ever we talked abt gmos which are a touchy subject a lot of the time. they have their bads and goods. it's very messy as a topic & no clear answer on what to do bc they can't just get rid gmos but also? can't we do better with them?)

it's also learning abt how the industry in terms of sales & how plants grown travel. learning at shipments & the amt of mileage with a semi truck vs other forms of transport. how much each stop in the supply chain gets when you buy groceries (shopping local vs. big box stores).

i also did a project with my old high school in designing an outdoor classroom for them & learned abt designing a landscape (this was specifically one using mostly native plants!)

we would go to local forest preserves to learn about different ecosystems and biomes and why native plants are best but also how the majority of plants brought over, like, 80%, are not invasive. we did learn abt invasive plants as well and were very carefully instructed on proper control for pests (ranging from plants to insects to bacteria to virus... altho if your plant catches a virus... godspeed). chemical controls are ALWAYS a last resort.

we would go to local nurseries and greenhouses and farms to learn abt how they run!!!

it was just so much hands on learning and better understanding how the world works while also being told straight up where the world is heading (esp with climate change which will lead to inevitable zone shifting for what plants can grow where) and it's just augh!! so broad idek what to specifically go in on!! it's an amazing field!!

[joys-of-everyday]

Attachment

I have been away for a while, during which I have finished a degree (whoo!) and lost all of my drafts (sad!). I had a fancy website for organisation and I closed the tab and 6 months passed and I simply cannot remember where they have gone. So, back to word documents and I’m never putting my faith in a website again, at least not without bookmarking it. Any threads I was working on are gone. Adios! Probably for the better, since I’ve lost my momentum on them.

I’ve sufficiently curated my feed such that fandom discourse mostly doesn’t reach me unless I actively go out and search for it, and who has time for fandom discourse when you’re crying over exams, but inevitably SY vs SJ drama peaks in sometimes and… isn’t discourse so fascinating? Don’t you want to overanalyse it like you have nothing better to do in your life?

I love discourse, truly. It gives me so much joy.

You know, back in the ancient days (2020), I got into cpop. Cringe. Why is the idol fandom like this? Why am I like this? Anyway, I discovered an idol whose words… touched me. Deeply. Utterly transcendent. Relatable af. My gawd my blorbo understands me like nobody else etc. etc. I literally wrote down quotes and stuck them to my wall, that was how far it got (and I didn’t even have the excuse of being a teenager).

Now, unsurprising to those with any awareness of how the internet operates, as quickly as discovering the parasocial love of my life, I ran into the fans and the antis. ... .... *sigh*. There’s a lot to say about the dynamic of these groups, but what strikes me about that time is a vivid memory of obsessively reading anti content and feeling… well, hurt. More than hurt. Personally attacked. It was like everything I found relatable in this idol was being publicly criticised by the faceless masses, and all my worst fears about how people hated me were right there on the screen. I had to remove myself from idol news because it was really starting to get to me.

And as much as it was distressing, it was fascinating for me experiencing it, because I was a sensible adult (questionable) by this time! I knew the difference between reality and fiction! (and idols, as a brand, are basically fiction) But in relating to a figure on screen, in attaching a metaphorical part of myself to that figure, I’d opened myself up to a strange kind of vulnerability. Through this proxy, I’d put myself out into the world, and was automatically interpreting any negativity, regardless of whether it specifically applied to me or not, as an attack on me.

This, of course, is stupid. They weren’t attacking me. They didn’t even know of my existence. Even if, yes, the things being criticised were sometimes related to me and my experiences, 1) they were not criticising me and 2) online criticism tends to be… a teensy bit exaggerated.

To bring this back slightly, fictional characters can be an extremely powerful way to work through feelings that are a little bit too ugly to confront with directly. Maybe I’m weird, but I do this intensely. Most of my emotional processing involves sobbing over made-up situations involving fictional characters at inconvenient times of the day. The flip side to this is that what should be not-that-deep discussions on fictional characters are quick to turn personal, and are completely blown out of proportion in my mind.

I don’t really have a point here. This is mostly a self-conceited ramble about some experiences I’ve had. But some advice, which you are welcome to ignore if it’s not relevant: you are not a character on a screen. Any judgement of characters on screens are not a judgement of you as a person. And if it ever feels like it’s getting to you, go touch grass. Or open a window. Or - as my algebraic topology lecturer liked to say - drink a vat of gin. Whatever works for you.

[bigshotcirca1997]

Okay people have been asking me to explains what stands out between snowgrave and no mercy/genocide . I struggle with reading and phrasing things so sorry if some of this sounds odd ,':3

how punishment works.

Snowgrave, albeit very dark and more blunt then no mercy, doesn't exactly punish you for putting berdly in a comatose state. THE most you get is noelle and susies relationship going back to susie thinking she's scared of her, and noelle also fearing her childhood friend but the player gets off scot-free. We haven't seen the whole game, but from what it looks like, you're going to be regarded as a murderer in that one fountain, where it doesn't even exist to the outside world. Nobody else is going to know how many you've really killed.

No mercy, on the other hand, everyone starts fleeing. People go from believing you can change, to trying to guard the barrier to stop you from getting out and doing it to your own people. Sans endangers a child, just to stop YOU from using this kid to hurt more people, which is why some people say his theme is the players theme (I don't believe this, because his theme belongs to another certain someone else too rendering this impossible?!).

The only person that believes you're capable of changing your ways is papyrus. His death leads to the rest of the bosses frantically wondering what happened, alphys especially.

Both pap and alphys would be the two people to trust you right off the bat, and since you've broken that trust, they're doing everything they can to stop you where you stand, snowgrave doesn't do this! Nobody really evacuated, Nobody really got away before you decided to start hurting them. Infact, when you initiate this route its already far too late for them to start running.

Route play-out functions

I know ALOT of people have mentioned the dumpster countdown, and spamtons importance to how it functions, but this is what also interests me.

You do not know how many people are left, you have to be told by someone, guided by another monster, to know what you're supposed to be doing. No mercy lays everything out for you, down to the save points giving you exact amounts remaining in each area!

Yes, they are direct copies supposed to mimic the way genocide functions, but the difference is an outer force is guiding you and giving you exact amounts to massacre entire areas of monsters that remain. Snowgrave gives you some puppet that suffered, and is using you and noelle as an outlet to get his revenge.

Youre being messed with WHILST youre manipulating kris's friend. You are just as vulnerable, you needed spamton for your next tool to ice berdly, whereas in genocide the only real roadblock is sans, but even his forces don't stop you if youre good at the game.

The tedious open spaces for snowgrave, the closed off areas that you can just pace around for no mercy!

There is ALWAYS a save point nearby, so you can keep track of your kill streak. Snowgrave makes your journey far worse, once you've started you can't exactly stop. There's hardly save points, your items can only gather from junk you find laying around, and iced corpses will stay there for when you go back to get something.

Both have horrible amounts of work to stop you from marching foward, no mercy has stupidly high amounts of monsters for you to kill, snowgrave has a step-by-step plan for you to initiate it, and the further in you get the more ridiculous it is. Both games literally go "wtf??? You actually did it" each time you initiate the route. Snowgrave has jingles for each time you properly complete a part, no mercy has another person seeing you as a vile human each time you wipe out another area.

Human guidance (kris vs frisk)

Alot of people have spoken about this, but I think there's alot more people fail to mention. Kris is naturally a very quiet kid, but they aren't silent, or emotionless. Infact, they are way more expressive than the game is letting us know! For frisk, however, we only know that they were an outcasted child. YOU decide how frisk reacts to the monsters they've just met, your initial reaction helps them develop theirs, exactly the way a child learns from their parent how to react to someone you've just met.

Some people forget frisk is very young (for this, and MANY, MANY other things too. >:[), so the drastic difference is you're using an impressionable child to do your work, whereas in snowgrave you weaponise some poor teenagers friendships to re-traumatise all of them.

Both react very differently to what you're doing to them. Frisk has no choice but to listen to you, they're a kid, they wouldn't know it any different from an adult guiding them.

They learn from your guidance that these monsters aren't worth the time, if you don't react they won't bother either. You turn them into a cold, careless killer. You teach this child to have the old views of humans, and in the process endanger humanity from it too. Alot of people turn both frisk and chara into the villains, but both of them are young children in a place they don't recognise, they're obviously going to rely on this nagging voice, this soul controlling them to help them get home. What happens during that process is out of their control, this is all on you.

Kris, on the other hand, is very clearly trying to let their friends know they aren't okay. Constant silence, barely any emotions, lashing out to let people know someone else is using their body to do harm on others. (Can't get images, mobile limit is WAY too small lul) you aren't even using kris, perse, you're using noelle. The impact of trapping berdly both hurts noelle and kris, yet kris will hold this guilt as long as you remain a constant force for them, and they hate you for it.

Using kris as a vessel to hurt noelle, and using frisk as a vessel to spread the old views of humans towards monsters. Noelle is more optimistic on things, shes not innocent at ALL despite what people say, but you use her close best friend to hurt her. Kris has to stand and take this all in, let you hurt her and their childhood friendship, because they aren't in control so long that soul keeps them in the backseat. Frisk has to go up to the surface with a warped view on regards to life, and who truly deserves to live.

Your impact on these kids stays with them, despite kris being very emotionally defensive, you still manage to hurt them. You manage to hurt noelle, too, despite not even having physical control over her. You use kris as the gearstick, making them the monster in noelles eyes. Kris constantly kindly tells you to fuck off, whereas frisk can't say or do much, because they haven't matured enough to know.

Other stuff :P

This one is something many people have pointed out, so I don't feel the need to say much more on it, but the way monsters die. Snowgrave is far more darker, you freeze them eternally, and leave them to die in a sealed fountain. Berdlys death is also horrible both in the way it plays out, and the way you torture noelle to get to it. No mercy is more "kill now, think about it later" kind of shtick. They aren't brutal, but it really makes you think on how it's so easy to do it, and then your actions come crawling back when you really are a danger.

Berdly and papyrus, the two people who strongly believed in frisk/kris, are violently dealt with and hurt for doing so. These two have parallels that are more complex, and I don't wanna fill this with MORE text, but you get the idea. You hurt "your" most trusting friends to get your way, and both deaths are a sign that you are now too far in to turn back.

Dialogue changes too, where it goes from chipper to regarding you as a force to not be reckoned with. Alot of people say chara is the narrator for undertale, I do think this too, but this also plays into you manipulating a child to get your way! Chara is already a very troubled kid, being raised in an environment that just wasn't made for them, so obviously they're going to be very upset in death for what you're doing, but they can't stop you aswell, so on and so forth, yadda yadda. You get it :P

Sans, noelle, kris and so on talking directly to YOU. I don't need to really talk about this, you can find alot of people mentioning it already. Everyone knows that you're to blame, not these kids you're forcing to hurt people. Don't need to mention that when it's been said enough XD

Spamton is a different case entirely, kind of based of him to use you to set his own plan into motion (KIDDINF OBVIOUSLY) but he's a different case that would need a different post and oh MAN do I have alot to say about him and his situation.

We've barely touched the surface for deltarune, so some of the stuff here could change! So far, though, this is what I've noticed.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on that . Thank you if you actually read my nonsense I don't really post my thoughts/analysis on stuff publicly :^]

[eishtmo]

Why Your Inventory Sucked Part 2

One of the positive things about working inventory is all the places I've been. I have seen more of the world of retail than most people even know exist. I've been in the back rooms and break rooms of so many stores I have to remind myself I shouldn't just go back there when I walk around a store.

I've been to warehouses and distribution centers. I counted book fair supplies in storage units, and a pharmacy distribution center with 3 giant round machines to fill bottles. One was a company that sold parts to oil drillers. Another was a warehouse where you could by anything for classic cars from doors to the manuals. I've also been in the backstage areas of amusement parks, and eaten in their cafeterias. I've walked through massive freezers, and sweltered in sheds.

And on top of that I drove to small towns you didn't know existed, down poorly marked roads and close enough to both the Canadian and Mexican border that I could wave to the residents and they could wave back. I drove a lot is what I'm saying. It was an experience I really enjoyed.

PART 2: Bad Accounts

Most inventories can be divided into two groups: Quantity and AQ-1.

Quantity is where you scan the barcode of the item and count how many of those items there are. It's fast, but not necessarily accurate. The accuracy issue is because sometimes two items look the same, may even BE the same, but have different barcodes so come up as different in the system. Otherwise it's just miscounting them.

AQ-1 means Auto Quantity 1. Scan the item barcode and it inputs a 1 for the quantity automatically. It's very accurate, as you do have to scan every bar code, but very, very slow. It's best for stores where nearly every item has a different bar code or they're so mixed there's no way to count them as a group.

Most store are a mix of both, but the majority of a store is either one or the other. But when the wrong choice is made, things go downhill quickly.

I have so far avoided naming stores, not out of any desire to not say, but mostly because it wasn't really important. Here it is important, so let me tell you the tale of Bath and Body Works.

You know the store, it's that hole in the wall mall store that sells candles and lotions that only come in like 4 scents, but have 30 different labels for those 4 scents. You've been in one, likely around Christmas. Now when I started, it was owned by Victoria's Secret, and I know you know what that is. Victoria's Secret is a proper AQ-1 store, as you're not going to open a drawer and have 15 of the same bra inside.

So when it came to BBW, they wanted the SAME inventory done. Now it kind of makes sense. The audit process for VS, which I won't go over but know by heart, is what they really wanted, and the stores had about the same amount of product, so that should be an easy fit, and it'll be accurate too!

Except it was miserable. VS needed 20+ people and 6 to 9 hours to complete, sometimes longer. BBWs are NOT as big as even the smallest VS, so now I'm trying to cram in 20 people into a tiny store to scan every item on a shelf that has 50 of 2 different products on the shelf over the course of 8 hours.. No one liked it, and it took forever. Also we made one hell of a mess because, again, we had to reach EVERY barcode.

They would eventually change it from AQ-1 to Quantity, and the results were immediate. That changed it from 20 people taking 8 hours to 5 people doing it in 4 hours. Hell, I had a store with me and the two worse counters in the office, and still got one done in 5 hours.

Understanding how the inventory is supposed to go is the job of the Account Instructions. This represents the agreement between the client and our company on how the inventory is supposed to go. Usually it contains things like the tag ranges to use, how many people should be there, what kind of audit system to use, what the final reports are to give to the store and weird things that might happen. A well written set of instructions can make an inventory go smooth as butter, and once you've done one a few times, you may never look at them again. Something that happened with VS for me after a bit.

Then there was the Apple Store. Yes, I've done the inventory for an Apple Store. Nothing terrible, it's AQ-1 as any high dollar store like that, and aside from the giant wall of aluminum that made it hard for the scanners to communicate with the laptop, it shouldn't be very hard.

And yet, the instructions insisted on having 2 Inventory Supervisors. This is odd because it's not much of a store. So we sit down to do the inventory and everything is going well until it's time for the audits and they require a special report printout, as per the instructions.

The report isn't there.

In fact, NONE of the reports I'm supposed to print are listed in the the program. There's a lot of reports, but not the ones we need. Now the two of us are pretty smart, and know the program pretty well so we can fudge it, but we're still not getting the reports we need.

Eventually, after bashing our heads against it for a bit we figured it out. The reports ARE there, but they don't have the same names as in the instructions. And that's when we realized why there were two supervisors. With the wrong report names, one IS would spend all their time trying to get the correct reports printed, which made Apple think we were all fire stupid, so they figured 2 would fix the problem.

The worst part is the person that wrote those instructions was NOTORIOUS for bad instructions, often leaving very old, out of date information in them literal years after they were no long relevant. And she resisted changing them. She retired a couple years or so before I left, and I do hope the new account manager could fix the mess.

The worst part about the job was giving bad news. Most stores know what they should have in the building. I often ask because it helped me gauge how long the whole thing should take. My experience also let me figure out how close they would be. The goal was to get within their Shrink, the amount of difference between what's on the books vs what's in the store.

Now I am kind of a wizard when it comes to the inventory program and I could, BUT DID NOT, change the numbers in practically any way I wanted. I had a few people ask me to do this and I had to deny them. But it also meant I can see where the numbers are short, and help guide them to the issues or even catch the mistakes before they even got to the store staff. That said, there were more than few occasions when the answer was bad. If it the product isn't there, going over those numbers again and again is NOT going to make that product appear. If it isn't there, it isn't there

One particular store started pretty rough to begin with. It was being sold off as part a merger agreement between two big corporations. The inventory was part of the sale process. It was raining cats and dogs, and the neighborhood was not the greatest. There was a cop car just parked in the parking lot of the minimall this dollar store was in. I arrive a little early, and since it's a local store, I'm waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive. But the store is locked. The store manager hadn't arrived yet to unlock the door. This is a BAD sign.

The store's District Manager arrives before the store manager, but she doesn't have the keys so we have to wait. He does show, not strictly late, iirc (it's been quite a few years), and the crew, as always, trickles in. The store is a mess to being with, but I tag it up and we get started. As we get to the end though, it's clear the numbers aren't looking good.

Dollar stores typically have between $250,000 to $400,000 worth of stuff in them. It varies on location, size of the store, the type of dollar store, etc, etc, but 300k is pretty common. They gave me this number for this store. The dollar value of the store after the inventory was 200k.

$100,000 dollars short. That's, a lot. Typically stores don't want more than 2.5% shrink, so they shouldn't be more than $10,000 short. Yeah, it was bad, very, very bad. There were a few minor corrections that could have been made (there was a stack of foil pans that was counted as one upc when they should have been another), but the DM and her boss (yeah, HER boss came in), said not to bother.

I couldn't, and by rights shouldn't, fix that. As I packed up the SM was sadly flipping through the final reports. He was already going to lose this store, but I wonder if he was going even have a job after that.

There was another time when I had good news. A truck stop we stopped doing after a couple years, and one I sharpened my skills in, hadn't had a good inventory in a long while. We also had issues even getting an inventory going due to crew issues and such. Anyway, for these stores the DM would basically be the contact person for the inventory.

I'm counting the inside of the cooler and the DM comes in and tells me point blank if this inventory is bad, he'll have to fire the store manager. This was the worse thing he could have said to me because I always strive for accuracy, but now a guy's job is on the line. I could not fake it, even though I could. But I could hunt for product.

Which I did. This store had a map that determined where each tag was set to go, and tagged the store accordingly. As we're going through though, I ask about a door near the food places in the truck stop. It didn't have a tag assignment and looked to be part of the food place. Inside was gatoraid, LOTS of gatoraid, amongst other things, all of it belonging to the store.. Tag and count it. I wondered if it had been missed repeatedly because it wasn't on the map.

At the end the numbers came in, and I was able to give the DM the good news. He thanks me, then promptly calls the SM in and in a stern, you're fucked, voice told him the inventory was fine. He would not be fired. The manager LOVED me after that day, and I generally got stuck doing the entire local chain until they switched to doing it themselves.

Next time, I'll get into the last major category why inventories suck. Until then.

[allqrcoded]

Devlog 6: About the lingering dread over the horizon + game summary

Oh, no, no, no. I think we're about to go to the 2nd act of game devving... The scary part -- oh, yes, we're going to bug fix. Sooner than later, apparently.

But before that, happy holidays and a merry new year to all of you. As expected, I spent this time slaving away in the game dev mines and, of course, here's the story on how I did so/what I did. January's a busy month! Both IRL and in the coding sphere of things in this project.

(Also, a very late addition on the summary of Descent to Negative Zero is because I didn't add one):

Descent to Negative Zero follows our protagonists, Josh Lorenzo and Rex De Los Santos in a reunion/birthday road trip gone awry. After pulling up to a motel to close in for the night, instead of seeing their room, however, they both wake up locked in prison cells. As the two work their way out, they slowly uncover the underlying reason on why they're both there and maybe even personal secrets between them.

Maps, sprites & assets

As I'm writing this, we currently have around 45 parallax maps done in the game's folder! While overlays and all that fancy lighting stuff is pushed to the side, a majority of the maps needed in the main game itself are finished. A couple of extra Rexosh (AKA Rex/Josh) face/in-world sprites have also been taken care of, specifically for a section in the opening cutscene itself.

On that note, now that we're here, may I reveal to you an old (as in... Very old) screenshot I tested with when I was trying to figure out a face style for the portraits (painted vs pixeled). In the end, pixeled won.

Now that most of the game's maps have been taken care of, I've also made more maps that're specific to the end game itself.

I especially had fun making this map, even if it's simple (just a road with a bus stop and nature in the BG) because I loved the way it turned out. The sky is my favorite part of this thing.

I've also been bogging down on making individual assets on things such as lore letters scattered all over the game that'll lead to an ending. While I do know that I could've gone the easy way and made it so that the important things get conveyed through solely message windows and nothing more, I wanted to do something a bit more fun (even if it's to future me's detriment).

Albeit, that element is highly inspired by ZENO -- the whole main setting of this game is, really -- but I adored the tiny story telling techniques the custom assets gave me if I were to go that route instead. Yes, I know the text in the screenshot is inherently illegible, but you can't go wrong with a bit of extra censoring. Typesetting is a pain to do, especially on Aseprite, where I make the majority of the assets for this game on, but if I made that phone section in angel care possible, I know damn well I can do this, too. The visual puzzle hints are also on their way to completion.

1/27/24 update: most of the logs have been type-setted and done! It's only log 6 that still needs text, but I'm sure it won't be long until all of those assets are done.

End branches/puzzles galore

In the month of January, I have successfully coded in the 4 main end branches of the game! Woohoo! While the number "4" is questionable because I technically didn't code in the rest of the that end branch's dialogue + still have a bit of writing work to get done before I can be really satisfied with it, the main mechanics of how you get there is already in game. Writing down the dialogue doc before copy pasting the hell out of them into the game engine really helped me out in not getting lost in what I should do next. I also started to hunt down some ending music in freemusicarchive.com for the different credit rolls -- just to add a little more spice/impact once you reach the end.

Speaking of mechanics, the main semi-complicated/not-find-key-to-unlock-door puzzles have also been coded in! A specific wire puzzle did chop off a bit of my sanity last month, but, after a bit of tinkering and script hunting, I got it down. Turns out, it wasn't that complicated at all -- I just didn't know what the hell I was looking for, exactly. The core chase mechanic have also been added in the end game. While the chase itself still needs pizzazz like visual changes whenever you reach a certain point, chase music to set the mood and etc., I got that element done within this month.

What next?

In terms of what I'm doing right now, it's just directing the cutscenes, making custom assets for sprite interaction along with checking whether or not the variables line up with the events corresponding to them. Yep, it's bug fixing time. Right now, I'm trying to fix up a bit of code from the early game and took a break around the 2nd puzzle floor you encounter. It's, as usual, a bit tedious and frustrating at times because I kinda changed the way you solve puzzles by actually pulling up the inventory and using the item itself (sorry, future me), but either way, the good thing is that the core game -- up to the different endings are set in stone and just need detangling, polishing, and what have you.

Bug fixing Dt-Z compared to AC will certainly be a different experience because unlike AC, this game isn't a walking sim. However, if I went through the headache of bug fixing that game, then I'm sure that I'll do just fine with Dt-Z... Even if I hate doing it right now.

[gaypiratebrainrot]

This is not so much a question as it is me screaming about the secret fic. Probably not for the last time.

I wanna talk about how you swapped the names of the actors with the characters they portray. Ok, maybe I do have a question--did the idea for the name swap come during the early formation of this story in your mind, or did that come later, after you'd been writing for a bit?

It's just--we so often lean on names in fanfic not just as indicators of identity but as stand-ins for/signifiers of intrinsic elements of entity*, so while it's RPF (but is it lol) it's also like you've set up this series of mirrors so you can't tell if you're looking at the projection or the real person

which also sort of begs the question, is it all a projection

and basically you're amazing because you do all of this within the recognizable structure of an explicit one-off fanfic, complete with brain-melting smut and an emotionally satisfying (if also 'unhappy') ending. I can't even.

*See end of this interview https://krauseessayprize.org/winners-2/mary-ruefle-interview/ with Mary Ruefle where she talks about identity vs entity; see also every fanfic with the line "he smelled/tasted like [noun] and [noun] and something uniquely [NAME]"

Ok here's the quote from the Ruefle interview because I can't resist:

"Literacy is a blessing and a curse. Increased literacy means increased self-consciousness and we all know where that ends. Gertrude Stein once pointed out the difference between being an entity and having an identity: an entity is an entity but has an identity. An identity is bestowed from without, it is given to you socially. It’s your resume. But an entity is your being, and for many people, they have no entity without an identity, they confuse the two, and therein lies a great deal of anguish and suffering. Language and literacy are ambiguous because they invest one with entity at the same time they accessorize one with identity. That’s what I mean by being both a curse and a blessing. The moment someone learns to write their name, they become someone else, someone other than who they were before. A whole world opens, and a whole world closes. Who am I? I am one person when I am answering interview questions, and I am another person when I am alone on a plastic float in the middle of a lake. Which is the real me? Damned if I know. But the tension between the two creates my life."

ok first thank you so so so much for this incredible message and amazing quote, truly truly a gift to me.

the story of the conception of this fic: in the wild fields where fic ideas and masturbatory fantasies are not easily distinguished, my mind kept producing the rpf scenes that are now in the fic. i had very little interest in writing rpf (though i came into fandom through rpf and don't have problems with it), especially bc i knew there would be wank, but the scenes just kept coming.

so then i was like, okay, how far would i have to go to turn these scenes into an actor AU, and that was the slightly cursed day i asked myself "what really is the difference between a rhys/taika-coded actor au and a stede/ed-coded rpf?" i was too lazy to come up with the actor AU, and then the idea of just switching the names was really funny to me, AND THEN i was like but what do i call david jenkins, and sat on the floor weeping with laughter for a very long time at javid denkins, and the rest is now history.

one of the most fascinating parts to me is that i wrote it with their names being stede and ed, and then there was a stretch where i wasn't sure the meta aspect was working and almost swapped the names back (there exists a google doc where they are called rhys and taika). i had to grapple with feeling like i wouldn't have written it if i'd actually called them rhys and taika from the start, but that feeling is so so so interesting to me, cause like, damn, the power of a name!

anyway, i think excessively about the nature of identity, so this is just a bonkers great time for me to have folks engaging in the conversation that runs constantly in my mind <3 <3

[megaboy335]

Anime and Manga Log [06/18/23]

This was a fairly busy week. There was a new series out of Weekly Shonen Jump, Black Clover movie, and the spring anime season is starting to finish up. Additionally a new JoJo chapter dropped. Plenty to talk about as always. Discussion and Spoilers for the following series below: Martial Master Asumi 1 [NEW] Do Retry 7 Cipher Academy 28 Tenmaku Cinema 10 365 Days to the Wedding 110 [END] Black Clover: Sword of the Wizard King Dr. Stone New World (Season 3) 11 [Cour 1 END] Demon Slayer Swordsmith Village Arc 11 [END]

Martial Master Asumi 1 [NEW] Kawada from Hinomaru Sumo returns with a series about mixed material arts. I didn’t read his previous series and I didn’t get into the anime either, but I thought it was cool that he survived for 5 years in Jump in the shadows of bigger hits. The first chapter was more dense than usual since they wanted to set up the MC and his family along with giving the audience some background to the sport in case they don’t know. Its a solid first chapter overall. My only nitpick is the bullies coming back over and over again was slightly annoying. Rather than the first chapter being a single string of events, it felt like a 2 act story with the school at the start then the Dojo in the back half. The art is great as expected for a Jump veteran. The opening color spread in particular is much more striking than you typically see. I’ll be looking forward to more.  Do Retry 7 From the mangaka behind Bone Collection comes a boxing series that takes place during World War 2. He has improved substantially since his previous serialization in drawing, character writing, and clearly picked up techniques while working for Yusei Matsui. The first arc is a boxing match against someone who is in a similar situation to our protagonist where they’re in the sport to protect someone precious to them. However, he’s fallen off the path and became more and more obsessed with strength to prove his worth. The intensity of the match was crazy with Aozora taking punch after punch. I love how it culminates in finally closing the distance and delivering the finishing punch in return. That caps off the first volume with a W for our main character. Its hard to say if this series can stick around, but for the time being I’m enjoying it. Cipher Academy 28 This week we began the 3rd match of this class vs. class code battle. The theme is determining your ally from your enemy, or are they perhaps the same person, maybe neither? This question is presented to us in 2 different ways. Firstly, in the form of Yukako’s backstory. This is a 6 star puzzle because there can be no definitive solution to whether her actions were good or bad. The answer will depend on who you ask. Its a similar reason given for the previous 6 star puzzle from earlier in the series. Secondly, we get the question in a more literal form. Toshusai is presented with two projections of Yukako and has to determine who is the real one based on pure instinct. Its a question about how well can you know and trust someone. If she guesses correct that means our class got a clean 3-0 victory. That seems unlikely since Iroha still needs a turn. We shall see next week. Tenmaku Cinema 10 Unfortunately Tenmaku Cinema doesn’t appear to be catching on with Japanese readers. Could it be the abundance of movie themed stories like Sakamoto Days and Oshi no Ko? maybe readers aren’t fond of the mc using someone’s else work (similar to Time Paradox Ghost Writer)? or perhaps it just isn’t interesting enough? Personally I’ve been enjoying it quite a lot.  This week’s chapter continues Shinichi’s tour and observation of Hinaki’s time on a professional movie set. Up to this point, I was thinking Hinaki resonated with the character in Tenmaku’s script. At least that’s how I made sense of why a top level actor would take on an amatuer project. But this chapter completely changed my perspective. Maybe there is some level of resonating with the character, but I think its a feeling of rivalry. She’s been isolated in the world of acting and suddenly a fellow student who is the same age comes along with a masterful script. Of course she is going to jump on that. I think Hinaki saw this is a personal challenge to bring the character to life in the best way possible. Its like she found someone who might be able to understand her. Lets hope the popularity can recover before its too late. 365 Days to the Wedding 110 [END] I’ve been a fan of Tamaki Wakai since The World God Only Knows days and I always believed it was a matter of time before they landed another hit. There was a bakery series that has some loose TWGOK references. Then came King of Idol about a crossdressing male idol trying to get in the industry. Both of those were cancelled after about a year of serialization. Wakaki then moved to the Seinin magazine Big Comic Spirts where he published 365 Days to the Wedding. The story is about a pair of introverts who dread the idea of potentially being transferred to another company branch in a foreign country, so they create a plan to pretend date. Over the course of the story, they come to realize how compatible they are. I had a good time reading the series. It was generally pretty funny and heartfelt from start to finish. Also refreshing to have a romance with a pair of working adults. I would say it ended maybe too soon, but I can’t complain about Wakai finally landing another hit finally after all this time. It will be getting an anime soon. I recommend it! [Final Score: 8/10] Black Clover: Sword of the Wizard King After being delayed 3 months from its initial release date, the Black Clover movie was finally released on Netflix this past Friday. Shonen Jump movies often come in 2 different varieties. The most common is a 90 minute self contained story with heavy exposition to make it work in the short run times. They feel like a mini arc out of the manga. However, ever since Strong World a lot of Jump movies add to the existing canon. Black Clover belongs to the later category. The movie has very minimal exposition and quite honestly its all action from start to finish with only a small regroup period in the middle. The story is about the previous Wizard Kings coming back Edo Tensei style and wrecking havoc. They want to hard reset the world because each of them was wronged in some way during their time. Instead of providing extensive backstory for each one, the movie would rather show you the sheer speculate of their power. I thought that allowed the movie to progress at a brisk pace (just as the manga frequently does). A movie medium is a good choice to experience the power of the best in the Black Clover world. At the climax of the film each Wizard King comes to realize that the world is changing for the better, even if incrementally. It heavily reinforces the theme of Asta’s unwavering spirit and how he inspires those around him. This film is very much what a Black Clover movie should be like. I enjoyed it a lot and consider it above average for the Shonen Jump movie genre. Dr. Stone New World (Season 3) 11 [Cour 1 END] I don’t have much to say about this season, but just wanted to put down some quick thoughts. The animation is the same old stiff style, but at least the reaction faces are good. The manga story of this cour is very solid. Senku and the gang are finally on the move thanks to having a ship. First stop is the island where the the space shuttle originally landed. The goal is to confirm the existence of and recover the platinum left behind so they can make an unlimited amount of nitric acid. There is even the promise of learning something about how people turned to stone. Great arc and looking forward to the action packed second cour in October. [Final Score: 7/10] Demon Slayer Swordsmith Village Arc 11 [END] I’ve always had mixed feelings on the Demon Slayer anime. First, I am probably in the minority for not being a fan of Ufotable. I find their heavy computer CG style to be off-putting and boring. Its always flashy for the sake of flashy with minimal personality. However given that, I can still appreciate the work they put into the animation. Secondly, I don’t like how Aniplex splits up a story into its individual arcs as season labels. Demon Slater is particularly formulaic and that’s all the more obvious in this format. I think it loses all momentum when there’s only 11 or so episodes every year. Now for this arc, I remember liking it in the manga. Cool setting, another pair of Hashira to learn about it, and the usual backstories along the way. The arc concludes with Nezuko being able to stand outside in the sun without harmful effects. The anime version was such a slog. They pad out scenes and everything is muddled with Ufotable’s CG flair. In isolation from the rest of the story it offers very little to push the story forward until the very end. Demon Slayer works best when you get in the groove of the series over a long period. Next is the brief next training arc before everyone raids Muzan’s infinity castle. Just give me 4 cour please Ufotable, I’ll even take it split. [Final Score: 6/10]

[umichenginabroad]

[week 4] Prague to Paradise

Ahoj everyone!

Welcome back to my blog where we have officially passed the halfway point of our Engineering in Prague program! I am currently on a 10 hour train ride through the alps back to Prague from this week’s weekend trip, so shockingly this blog may come out on time! 

Let’s get right into it with a little bit about my classes from this week. On Monday we had a midterm for my Engineering Statistics class which was a bit difficult but hopefully we did well? I also had a quick midterm for my Cross Cultural Management class which was very straightforward, followed by a trip to the European Parliament experience in Prague. This was a really interesting experience where we learned about how the EU parliament works to pass legislation and even participated in a simulated activity where we played certain countries and parties in the EU and attempted to pass certain laws. It was a really eye opening experience and showed us a bit more insight into European politics. Closing out the class week, I had my final for my Cross Cultural Management class and officially finished up with that course for the summer. I highly recommend this course if you are interested in learning about different cultures, interactions, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and international business. 

Now for this weekend trip, this was the trip I was most looking forward to and it was to Lake Bled, Slovenia. I was initially planning this as a solo trip but was able to convince a friend to come with me on this journey. We woke up bright and early Thursday morning and began our 10 hours of train rides to this hidden gem. Shockingly, we made it to the final train station without any issues despite us having 4 transfers and there being an international cellular data outage while we were traveling (gotta love Verizon). When we arrived at the station in Lake Bled, there was a massive thunderstorm where we couldn’t walk to our hostel and with the lack of service we were a bit stuck. Fortunately, we met two Finnish girls who were able to call a taxi and offered to split it with us (shoutout Moona and Heela). Upon arriving at our hostel, the rain finally cleared up and there was a double rainbow which honestly set the tone for this trip. 

Friday morning, I had booked a white water rafting tour for us where we ventured through one of the most beautiful rivers in the world surrounded by insane nature. Our Slovenian guides were super knowledgeable and let us swim in the freezing yet refreshing water. It was definitely one of the coolest experiences I've ever had! We even saw a bunch of horses afterwards which were so adorable too! 

For the rest of the day we explored the town surrounding Lake Bled. We took a traditional Pletna boat to Bled Island and then hiked up to Bled Castle for some of the most insane views of the lake and mountains. Up on the castle we had a local Slovenian wine tasting and discovered a traditional printing shop. We also stumbled upon a wedding on the top of the castle which was pretty interesting to see ahaha. 

On Saturday we woke up super early and went to the alpine coaster which was a bit sketchy but really fun with some amazing views of the lake. After that we had the brilliant idea of renting mountain bikes to go to Vintgar Gorge. The ride there was so so difficult because it was basically entirely uphill directly in the sun. However once we arrived at the gorge, it was completely worth it. We were required to wear helmets as we ventured through the rocky terrain and were met with some of the most breathtaking rapids, waterfalls, and canyons. We then hiked back to the start of the gorge which was about two miles through the mountains with some insane views. Thankfully the bike ride back was much more enjoyable going downhill lol. To finish off the night, we watched the Germany vs Denmark Euro Cup match in our hostel’s pub.

On Sunday morning, we began our trek back to Prague and are currently on our final 6 hour train traveling through the Austrian alps. Moving into next week, I’ll have some friends visiting for a few days before a bunch of us head to Barcelona for the weekend! Thank you so much for reading and I’ll see y’all next week!

Matt Sinanis :)

Aerospace Engineering

Engineering in Prague 

[nightlockcake]

Any opinion about Catching Fire movie?

Do you like the change of director and the different style of the movies between THG and CF?

unnecessary long answer alert

IMO, CF is a nicely done film. It’s a bit hollywood-ish for me personally, this is why it couldn’t top the first HG movie for me. :)

I don’t know the exact reason why they have changed the director (and if someone does, please let me know, I am so curious about this change). But I do understand that Gary Ross and Francis Lawrence are two completely different people with different approaches to the shots. So no wonder films have completely different flows and structures. I personally okay with both directors, but it’s the way Gary Ross tells the story that makes me like him more. He uses close ups and very ‘’personal’’ (almost intimate) shots which correspond with the first-person narration of the books. He sort of breaks down the whole story into bits that the viewer needs to connect himself, while Francis Lawrence prefers to make big understandable shots packed with a lot of small details. It’s not a bad thing, though. I think it really depends on your personal preferences and the way you perceive information.

And we have to keep in mind that the budget for CF is almost twice as big as the budget for THG. (it’s 78 mil vs ~140 mil). And I think this is where everything good and not so good about this film is mixing up. They had more money to get bigger shots, better VFX, costumes, etc. But at the same time they had to think about the budget returns, marketing, and all that. And you can feel how it just changed the whole approach to the film completely. Once again, understandable.

The opening scene of CF is absolutely beautiful. And I really wish they made the whole movie in this slow, personal style, where we sort of follow a girl with severe ptsd. But I also get the fact that they had to do the ‘action’ stuff, and the action part really had to be entertaining for the viewers that aren’t so invested in the books/HG world itself. The film is meant to be entertaining, after all. I think this is why they sort of dropped ‘the first-person narration’ (if you can say that about the film) and went really really big, and this brought a lottttt of troubles for the director and the crew. They had to stay ‘true to the book’ while making a top-hollywood content for money. This is why CF looks a little bit unbalanced for me.

In the first film, the part before the Games looks quite similar to the part after the Games began. CF, as a film, is cut into two pieces, and that approach didn’t really work for me. I really like the change between aspect ratio when Katniss appears on the arena, though. Neat transition, both literally and figuratively.

Overall CF is a nice movie. One thing I don’t get is why it seems like Francis Lawrence and the crew cannot shoot the nighttime/dark scenes properly. It messes with my head a lot. They have the same problem with similar scenes in MJ1 and MJ2 as well. The films are so, so dark. Literally. Sometimes you can’t see a thing on the screen, and this is what makes the films hard to watch.

Sure, if it’s nighttime in the Arena, it is supposed to be dark. but if we’re talking about moviemaking then it’s reasonable to remember about different types of lightsources for the dark scenes. You cannot shoot in the absence of light, so you have to create the additional lightsources.

This is how the first film solves the same problem, for example:

they used the backlight/rim light to show the characters in the dark, and indirect bounce light on the faces (so we actually can see them and their reactions).

In CF, the dark scenes are just… dark, in most cases. The picture is dimmed to the point where you can’t tell what’s going on or where the characters are.

This is why the opening shot in CF is so breathtaking, though. Because all of the light and colours and reflections. And I don’t get why they couldn’t work the same way with the nighttime scenes or scenes with little to no light in the arena. The film crew is both talented and professional for sure.

*cheff's kiss*

oh this got a bit technical but yeah these are my thoughts

[readerlascl]

Apple pages vs word vs docs vs libre office 2019

#Apple pages vs word vs docs vs libre office 2019 software

#Apple pages vs word vs docs vs libre office 2019 free

#Apple pages vs word vs docs vs libre office 2019 windows

Topic I am most fond of, are almost exclusively requested inĭOC format. For instance, book submissions and query letters, a Serious business, you cannot afford to compromise at all. So it comes down to how much you can afford to compromise or lose. AbiWord and so forth formatting elements used in the text who knows what else. Original document, even if the document was later used and tweaked in other word processing programs.

#Apple pages vs word vs docs vs libre office 2019 windows

Slightly on various factors like: the operating system - Windows vs. Page breaks, tabulation, spacing might changeĪnd please note that these problems are not consistent, depending ever so.Some of the special characters are not preserved, like three dots (.).Maybe not always, maybe only in 1 out of 9,000 cases, but still.Īnyhow, so I've encountered the following quirks: I've already written a handsome number ofĪrticles that explain how you can improve the compatibility between different office suites. I will not be showing you a hundred examples where it works well. Will this be an important graph or a comment that your friends and business partners will need? Only expected in the imperfect world of different formats and closed-source coding. When you want to save your ODF file in the DOC format, you are warned that some elements might be lost. The only question remaining is, can you afford guesswork? Let Safe zone of 100% compatibility into guesswork. With Microsoft format being closed source, things are even worse. But in the less ideal world, even with the binary format fully Ideal world, the transformation is seamless. You do what you need, you save the files and then you send them over to your colleagues and friends. LibreOffice is capable of saving files in both DOC and DOCX format, so in theory, everything should be fine.

#Apple pages vs word vs docs vs libre office 2019 free

Of free programs, they will most likely be using LibreOffice to create their documents. The twoĪre very similar, although LibreOffice has seen more development recently. Stopped being a program of choice for people who wanted a free office suite, and it became LibreOffice. Since Oracle is despised in the open-source community, and most of the time for a good reason, OpenOffice And when I say word processing, I mean Word. And when I say text, it means a binary format of some kind Might be forced to send them your text documents. In this reality, you must work with such people, sometimes, if the count of affected users exceeds one. rtf files, you might get into some serious trouble.

#Apple pages vs word vs docs vs libre office 2019 software

That there used to be software like WordPerfect, or that some people run LibreOffice, AbiWord, and many other programs. Let me elaborate.įor most people, Microsoft Office Word is synonymous with word processing in general. Simple of matter what the weakest link in your user pool needs. Scale changes instantly and completely, and it's no longer a question what everyone needs or things, it's the If the answer is one, then you can proceed with your own evaluation. When you test software, you must ask yourselves how many people will be affected by that use? They are of course doing the one sensible thing, but Perspective, placing their own needs at the forefront. Y checks, they always do it from their own When people evaluate software for their own need and run X vs.

[nahasbetter]

Star wars the old republic character creation tattoos

#Star wars the old republic character creation tattoos mod

#Star wars the old republic character creation tattoos skin

For some reason, in restricting these customization options by faction and making some of them unlock with Legacy advancement, the developers numbered the sliders differently. Republic and Imperial Numbering Mis-matched For this guide to be as complete as possible, I’m listing all the options available and unlocked just be aware that you may have to work up to that point. This enables you to access all customizations with both Imperial and Republic characters. Once you achieve a certain legacy level, you will unlock these options for both factions.

There are also four tattoo options initially restricted to each faction((for example, the “ Darth Talon” tattoos are Imperial-faction only at first)).

Red and pink are initially unavailable for Republic ones.

Green and light blue are initially unavailable for Imperial characters.

If your first Twi’lek is a Consular, for example, they won’t be able to have red skin.

Some of these choices are faction-locked:

23 cosmetics and/or lekku patterns for a female.

When you create your first Twi’lek, you’ll have the option for: Although unlike other with species, the makeup is combined with the lekku patterns instead of being on a separate slider. Female Twi’leks also get the option of makeup.

#Star wars the old republic character creation tattoos skin

The primary customization for Twi’leks are a variety of bright skin colours and head-tail (lekku) patterns or tattoos. An SWTOR F2P player can buy the Twi’lek species from the cartel market and that, too, will automatically open it for all classes. This is true even if you stop subscribing and drop to Preferred status. However, once you’ve played your first Twi’lek to level 50, the species will be unlocked for all classes.

#Star wars the old republic character creation tattoos mod

Get Neutral Appearance from a Mod Station I’ve almost done that with this level of colour distortion! It would be alarming to think you were making a yellow Twi’lek only to get in-game and discover he or she is actually green. But it’s a fair point that this mood lighting has a negative impact for players who might be trying to recreate NPCs, recreate an OC in multiple classes, or trying to create a character of a certain species with a specific look in mind. This is especially true for players who aren’t perfectionists and are okay with “close enough”. Still, I grant that this is not so big a deal for many of the available species. Where they thought they were choosing one colour, as soon as they started playing, they realized the character creator had misled them. Friends of mine have found themselves doing the same thing with Humans, Cyborgs, or Cathar. This was because the blue lighting in the character creator made him look much more tan than he turned out to be in the game worlds. Well, this particular character was based on an NPC, and I actually had to spend Cartel Coins adjusting his skin colour. “Big whoop,” you might say, if that’s kind of thing you frequently say. It changes depending on whether he’s in the Republic creator, the Imperial creator, or actually out and about in the game: Check out how different this character appears. This is where the “mood lighting” reaches the level of “an annoyance”. Advertisements Character Creator vs In-Game Appearance But for anyone who does invest significant time into getting exactly the right look, it can be a jarring experience to enter the game and realize that what looked one way looks dramatically different in the first cutscene. It’s a detail you may never have even noticed, especially if you primarily play a single faction or are more invested in gameplay than character appearance. Imperial locations are much darker, with even the best-lit places having a distinctly blue cast.Republic locations are brighter and lit with a noticeably golden glow.The most noticeable issue is what I call “mood lighting”: the character creator is “set” in the hangar bay of a Republic or Imperial class ship, and takes on the lighting of those locations. I’ll also provide you a resource to get around it with the species most affected by it((since the devs are very busy and overhauling the creator probably isn’t high priority)). I’m going to take this opportunity – and FJ’s lovely audience – to demonstrate a couple of problems. There’s an issue that, while it certainly affects some species more than others, it really does touch them all. The adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes to mind – does it need to be fixed? I would suggest that it does, especially as SWTOR works on what they call “quality of life” (QoL) improvements. Get Neutral Appearance from a Mod StationĪre Character Creator Improvements Needed?.Character Creator vs In-Game Appearance.Are Character Creator Improvements Needed?.

[the-nysh]

(eisenartworks) hello, resident Garou expert. I in desperate need of ur help. I saw u offer ur take on Garou's sequence, and I did get a few good ones on reddit, but I'm afraid I can't pick. What are your thoughts? :0

Thank you so much 😊

*gasp* 👀👀!!!! YES, @eisenartworks I am here to help! (or provide the content to brainstorm more ideas) 8'D

Ok, so if you wanted to match his character’s progression with the same 5-step sequence as the others, it'll depend on how much ‘completeness’ of his story you want to show (aka from his childhood all the way to the end of his arc - with his eyes opening under the waterfall), or focusing only on certain parts of his story to emphasize, like on the tragedy or a hopeful message for ex. So choosing which moments to include or eliminate depends on that - on what overall theme you want to show.

Because there’s already a symbolic progression of his eyes shown ‘monsterizing’ over time in canon (teetering on a fine line of balance & duality between his human/hero and ‘monster’ sides), so including when one half turns red, to the ‘human’ side waking when he’s on the surface after saving Bang, to the ‘monster’ side opening as human again under the waterfall at the end - that could be a consistent theme to focus on for ex.

Also because he goes thru countless external transformations, so if you want to fit everything into 5 images (unless you compromise room up to 6) we’d have to creatively combine or condense down different parts of his story together, to focus on his most important internal (emotional) turning points of growth/change instead. That means we can confidently exclude all the moments where he’s deliberately unconscious or passively not in full control/awareness of his own actions, because they do not reflect his innermost feelings (or actively progress his heart’s true values/goals). So the part where he’s sleep-fighting vs Darkshine, the part where he’s ‘feral’ unconscious arriving at the surface (vs Bang), and faceless Cosmic Garou (under the influence of ‘god’) can all be eliminated as ‘not actually him’ - we can’t even see his real eyes there anyway. BUT the ‘cosmic’ Garou who’s come to his senses after Tareo’s death - now THAT moment is far more important to his journey’s self-realization. :’D

And I’ve previously compiled a bunch of photosets documenting his expressions that can be used as references, but also confession: I have a wip file of his eyes I haven’t finished. Because I’ve observed how he’s the character with the most panels focused on dramatic close-up crops of his eyes (yes especially even in the webcomic!) and I just wanted to collect them all, but they happen to align with the type of story progression you’re after, so among those panels I can help narrow down which (manga) moments are most important! 8′D

Childhood - if you wanted to begin his story with his childhood (to consistently match Genos & Saitama’s who started with theirs), then it’s the panel where he’s crying angry, bitter tears in frustration at his teacher dismissing and talking down to him after he’s suffered from injustice. The moment he learned this is what he hates about how the world works. Where he’s either surrounded by the mob of ‘Tacchans’ representative of his worst (repressed) childhood trauma/humiliation, or lit by the anime’s dramatic spotlight while he sits powerless and frustrated (at being ‘alone’ and weak, with no one to support or understand him) on the chair. 

Lone Wolf Hero Hunting - so he begins his hero hunt on the night of a full moon, (if you want to document his shifting phases of the moon, cause his arc ends with a gibbous one) complete with the aesthetic of a grinning/hungry wolf (nocturnal hunter). At this part of the story, his dark eyeliner is most prominent (cause it will fade later on). The panels that best represent this stage of his story (imo) are these, especially his ‘my eyes have adjusted (to the dark)’ panel.

Red Garou, Monster Hunter - (condensing more moments now) but here’s where he has the red eye, red hair, and fresh scar. All at once. The turning point (aka a reality/naivety check) where the monsters literally backstab him to kidnap Tareo, and he declares war (alone) on the Monster Association. (Gaining the tattered ‘scarf’ thru facing Rover and getting charred by Orochi’s flames.) Significant because this is the first time he switches targets (from fighting heroes) to unleash true lethal intent vs monsters. The angriest, bloodiest, most intense, and disgusted at real monsters we ever see him (in seething feral fury in response to save/protect Tareo.)

Transformed Monster ‘Hero’ Garou - (so eliminating Spiral Garou pains me, because it was so short-lived) but this part is when his body monsterizes with the external shell of a ‘costume’ - but ONLY after he awakens to himself from saving Bang, with the realization + focus to ‘follow his heart.’ The symbolic, cracked open ‘window’ to his human eye here is so important! ;o; Cause this was the point he took action at his peak (antihero) ‘moral best’ - appearing like a monster, but saving everyone (including other heroes & Tareo) on the surface and destroying the baddest monster cadres with his own power. The moments where he took action because of, or in response to Bang (’awakened’ with the crack over his eye crumbling off his face, or the ‘blessing’ moment with the waves crashing from defeating the Centipede - in contrast to Red Garou’s fire/rage) are probably the strongest representations of his feelings here.   

‘Cosmic’ Garou’s emotional epiphany & resolve - so if the above was him at his peak, this becomes his lowest (emotionally). After ‘god’ interferes to fuck everything up, forcing Garou to learn what True Absolute Evil actually entails (not what Garou ever actually wanted) and experience the traumatic devastation & despair and self-loathing of having unknowingly killed Tareo himself. D: So horrific. (Note: actual Garou fans do not celebrate the faceless corrupted Cosmic ‘God’ entity, because it does not represent his true feelings, his own awareness/agency, or the person Garou actually is at all; he was cruelly used to destroy the humanity he’d previously staked his life to protect.) So it’s only after he finally comes to his senses, with his full face -both eyes- notably showing again, that matters most here. The strongest (most cathartic) moments being when he shares that beat of empathy with Saitama over their mutual loss of their most important person (still with residual ‘stardust’ tears grieving for Tareo - esp if you want to compare/contrast with Garou’s angry tears as a child), and then resolves to fix everything he never intended (choosing to sacrifice himself as a hero to help save the world.) Especially with the aesthetic of him still wearing his cosmic space ‘shell,’ the irradiated night sky with a watchful gibbous moon, or even parts of him turning to salt already.

Bonus: Waterfall Garou - cause whether you include or eliminate this moment (or exclude the first childhood one to include this one for a total 5, instead of 6) I like it because his story ideally shouldn’t end with his ‘death’ it finally shows him being ‘cleansed,’ with that one eye - that had symbolically been half ‘monsterized’ red before, opening up (as human) to new future possibilities.

So if you begin with crying kid Garou and end with him grieving over Tareo, that’s one approach (showing two different kinds of tears, keeping a bookend theme coming back full-circle in a way, and consistent with Genos & Saitama’s by including Garou’s childhood too.) But if you start with his hero hunting and end with the waterfall panel, it shows a more ‘complete’ progression of his active (present-day) journey instead, leaving off on a more hopeful, open-ended note (rather than ending at the implied, doomed tragedy of both his & Tareo’s death.) And because his arc is ‘complete’ anyway, it feels only fair to show most of the whole thing, imo. :’3