#or is this being offset by meeting the most important person in your whole existence

[coloursflyaway]

I think it's so interesting that when the Night Nurse goes through Charles' trauma, she does see him being attacked by the other boys, sees him running alone through the night, but she never sees him dying. That only comes later, when she is searching for love.

And there is no fear in that memory, even if there is pain, there is just Edwin and the light he is bringing, metaphorically and physically, into Charles' life, there is smiling and joking and listening to stories. There is Edwin.

So, yeah, I don't think dying was a bad experience for Charles. Not a good one, per se, but one that led to the best thing in his existence.

[nuttypatroltale]

IFORTIS CORPORATE Self-Made Indian Entrepreneur in Making Youth Self-Reliant

IFORTIS CORPORATE

Self-Made Indian Entrepreneur in Making Youth Self-Reliant

 COMPANY PROFILE : https://ifortiscorporate.com/about-us

IFORTIS CORPORATE, has grown into One of the India’s leading Corporate. During its initial stage, IFortis was in the business of IT Services & Marketing Services. Gradually with time, Ifortis Corporate spread its wings into diverse areas as technology which began to hinder IFortis’s ability to guarantee competitive pricing and provide innovative services. Lack of communication being the major constraint, Ifortis decided to set up its headquarters in India to better satisfy the needs of Ifortis customers. Based upon demographic and geographic research, IFortis chose Sivakasi, India, as the location to begin it’s facility. As time went on, IFortis’s principals of transparency, timely communication, quality of services and competitive pricing allowed for significant expansion. As a result, IFortis is now one of India’s leading corporate. IFortis Corporate believes that ethical management is not only a tool for responding to the rapid changes in the global business environment, but also a vehicle for building trust with its various stakeholders including customers, employees, business partners and local communities. With an aim to become one of the most leading companies In the world, IFortis Corporate continues to train its employees and operate monitoring systems, while practicing fair and transparent corporate management. The Company principles focuses on keeping customer satisfaction on the top priority. It make efforts for the improvement of the ‘quality of life’ of our employees. The Company respects the dignity and diversity of individuals and compete fairly in accordance to law and business ethics. The Company pursues eco-friendly management and build relationships of co-existence and co-prosperity with business partners. Ifortis has dived into various divisions as IT services, Consultancy, Digital and Live Projects. The vision of Ifortis is To be a global firm of uniquely skilled executives who can build a better future. #ifortiscorporate #YouthShouldLead #MakingWomenSelfReliant #MakeIndiaProud

 PROFILE OF CEO : https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohitnaidu-s/

“Rohit Naidu” is the co-founder and CEO of The IFORTIS CORPORATE, a public engagement company focused on creating one-of-a-kind products and programs for entertainers, brands, and celebrities.He is a self starter and has had the privilege of being part of starting and growing several management and service companies. He has helped companies grow from inception, to viability, through to sustainability. During the evolution of these companies. He has served on company boards and been instrumental in capitalization activities. He has also helped companies to expand to international markets. Rohit combines a unique blend of business acumen and technical knowledge.He have also lead the social campaigns with the motto of benefitting the society in various different means. He is continually assessing his effectiveness and infusing innovative and creative strategies thus ensuring that his team mates and co-workers also succeed. His foremost philosophy is to spend the necessary time it takes to build right skill set with the approaching individuals to his organization. He has come out to be the self-made Indian entrepreneur making indian youth self reliant. #ifortiscorporate #YouthShouldLead #MakingWomenSelfReliant #MakeIndiaProud

   PROFILE OF TEAM LEADER : www.linkedin.com/in/namratasinku

My Team Leader “Ms. Namrata Sinku” is a highly motivated person who has guided me through all the projects. Her practical guidance has been beneficial to my professional development. Through her great leadership skills, she is able to deliver us all aspects of tasks being given and helps us to complete all the task in the best possible way and in the given period of time. #ifortiscorporate #YouthShouldLead #MakingWomenSelfReliant #MakeIndiaProud

THE LIVE PROJECTS: CSR https://ifortiscorporate.com/csr

At IFORTIS CORPORATE, our sustainability management aims to create integrated values. Not only do we create economic values by maximising profits and shareholder values, but also we take on a stronger responsibility as a global citizen to create social values. As we deliver innovative products and services along the value chain which is based on the core values we pursue at IFORTIS CORPORATE, we generate values in the fields of economy, society, and environment. We monitor the financial and non-financial impacts that we exert on society throughout such process so that we maximise our positive impacts while minimising any negative ones. We believe businesses have a responsibility to contribute to a sustainable future for work, for workers and for the world. We are driven to lead by example, and we are guided in everything we do by our Values, our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics and the Sustainable Development Goals. This is how we attract and retain the best talent and how we create a culture of conscious inclusion that fosters innovation, enables high performance and allows everyone to achieve their full potential.

The live projects being incorporated by Ifortis to empower women and youth to be self reliant are as follows :-

    #Not A School - IFortis Corporate’s Not a School is an alternative educational programme co-created with and for school students aged 10-18 across the globe. The free programme aims to inspire our next generation of innovators and equip them with future-proof skills through exploring social issues they care about most with some of world’s most inspirational experts.

     #AARAMBH 2020 - India’s First & Largest Virtual Youth Festival - AARAMBH, A Virtual 2 Day Mega Youth Festival empowering youngsters and solving the mental health problems, after Hours and a whole host of exciting Virtual Entertainment Experiences. The much-awaited mega festival is held from 29th – 30th September 2020. AARAMBH will be India's first Virtual Youth Festival experience which had 10,000+ audience and 1,500+ participants across India.

     #Entrepreneurship 360 - Entrepreneurship 360 is a global initiative for ambitious career- driven women across the globe, who are ready to identify, hone and expand their potential as entrepreneurs."The mission of this program, is to solve global problems starting from hunger to health by helping women to learn how to start and grow businesses, as well as successfully compete in global markets, by providing quality training, counseling, and access to resources". This exclusive program had 4,900+ women across the globe.

     #Become An Entrepreneur - IFortis Corporate launched Become An Entrepreneur, Practical learning on how entrepreneurs validate concepts through structured experiments, refine their business strategy, and raise the capital necessary to create value and grow their business. The program begins by providing access to potential business opportunities, outlines some of the challenges you might face, and offers a formula for creating your new company. The program will help in identifying the important people in the process of entrepreneurship and how each plays a powerful role in your success. The goal of the program is to support the development of Entrepreneurship in Youth through skill training, strategies, and expert advice.

      #Solution For Tomorrow - IFortis Corporate has launched ‘Solution for Tomorrow’, an exclusive program offering all 16-26 year olds world-wide the chance to change the world with their ideas. The programme brings compassion, education and technology together to help young people nurture and create solutions to their local community’s most pressing problems within one of the four following categories: diversity & inclusion, education, social isolation and sustainability.

     #Youth Should Lead - The Youth Should Lead by IFortis Corporate is Youth Leadership programme launched in 2020, explores how no one individual has the complete set of leadership skills. It enables youth to identify and reflect on their natural leadership style, personality and behaviours. Then, with the support of world class corporate trainers, youth will agree on areas for development where your leadership shows potential or is fragile. The youth will discover that to be a complete leader they need to be aware of their own limitations and draw on the diversity of their team.

      #More Power To Women - The exclusive program, #More Power to Women by IFortis Corporate is aimed at highlighting women empowerment. It showcases how IFortis Corporate cares for dreams of women across India. With an ambitious mission to educate and empower more than 20,000 women in India to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams before the year’s end, IFortis Corporate has enlisted business owners from around the globe to share their personal journey of failure and success at this program.

     #Blockchanging The World - IFortis Corporate’s Blockchanging the World is a mission to provide the youth with a well-rounded foundation of the intersection of blockchain technology with either technical practicality, the modern healthcare system, financial institutions, and a road map through the legal labyrinth that is blockchain regulation to aid them in the decision-making process. The program is intended to help the youth in implementing blockchain technology by meeting societal needs and overcoming such obstacles as risks, barriers, and regulations.

      #GO Green -We at IFortis Corporate, committed to reducing our environmental footprint and that of our events. We have signed an international commitment to reduce our footprint company-wide (IAPCO Plastics Pledge), as well as the footprint of our clients’ events, through sustainable design and carbon offsetting. We work with partners and suppliers who have active sustainability policies and we also actively encourage discussions and awareness around environmental practice throughout our industry.

     #Cultivate The Skills - IFortis Corporate’s Step Up is an executive Skill Development program, During the program the young people will be made to investigate complex challenges such as social problems, plastic pollution, genome editing, and global pandemics. The program is structured around real-world problems, its core is centred on academic disciplines and a range of research methods by IFortis Corporate’s Research & Development Team. The youth will gain a strong understanding over the rapidly changing future of work.

      #We Are Fit - At IFortis Corporate, our staff are our heart and soul and their satisfaction and wellbeing is critical to the success of our Company. As such, we have policies in place to support staff on a personal level – including flexible working arrangements and mental health support – and we are continually looking to improve in these areas. People development is one of our highest priorities and we invest heavily into this each year – for example, deploying more than 1,000 hours of external training in 2020 – and strongly believe in promoting from within as well as staff retention.

     #Social Accountability - At IFortis Corporate, we are committed to employing people from all cultures and backgrounds and we aspire to diversify our company across all indicators including gender, age, sexuality, ability and religion. This is evidenced through our many spoken languages, with our staff collectively speaking more than 30 languages. We acknowledge the Indigenous Indians as traditional custodians of our land and seek to be an employer of choice for those identifying as First Nations people. This is achieved through our values of an inclusive work environment, where we work to break down barriers and embrace diversity of people, ideas, talents and experiences.

  CURRENT MISSION:

I Fortis Corporate’s mission is to help college-age youth and women to learn how to start and grow businesses, as well as successfully compete in global markets, by providing quality training, counseling, and access to resources. The Company launches Entrepreneurship 360. This program will be India’s first evidence-based practice in creating women entrepreneurs and we have secured women (and some men) business owners from around the world, to share their own insightful and practical journeys of business ownership. It will also have an opportunity to gain access to potential business opportunities and even possible startup funding for the best ideas, offered through IFortis Corporate. #MakingWomenSelfReliant #YouthShouldLead

COMPANY’S FUTURE GOAL :

IFortis Corporate is stepping into Apparel Manufacturing Industry (Textile & Manufacturing Industry) with an ambitious mission to create more employment opportunity for the women & youth across India and helping them to become self-reliant with obsessive focus on the quality, worker’s safety & welfare, Social Responsibility and customer satisfaction. #ifortiscorporate #YouthShouldLead #MakingWomenSelfReliant #MakeIndiaProud #textileindustry

 For media inquiries, contact- info@ifortiscorporate.com or,

Mail to -  

info@ifortiscorporate.com

[vintage-squid]

Clandestine Chromatism

Pairings: Virgil/Deceit Warnings: sympathetic Deceit; anxiety; kissing; cursing; partial nudity (Virgil’s shirtless at one point); nontoxic relationships; a ridiculous amount of fluff

Summary: Everyone knows Deceit is unique in the Mindscape with his scales and oddly coloured eye, it's a part of being a Dark Side ...but Virgil lived there for years and he looks perfectly normal. Right? Wrong. They're not as different as initial appearances suggest: after all, doesn't anxiety function through the act of lying to oneself? Maybe it will take true love's first kiss for the truth to be revealed.

Part one of A Reptilian Romance

AO3 link

A/N: A gift fic I wrote last November for one of my best friends (@mightymegatron) birthdays. Originally posted on AO3, but I figured I would cross post it here :) 

-----

Okay. You can do this. You’ve got this Virgil. He’s your boyfriend, right? This is something you want to share with him.

Summoning his courage while he could, Virgil raised a hand and knocked on the dark mahogany door he had been standing in front of for the past five minutes. Thank god no one had come upstairs from the Commons to witness his embarrassment. The door opened, startling the anxious side from his thoughts, but he relaxed quickly upon seeing the familiar golden eye peering out at him.

“Hey Dee, can I come in?”

Deceit smiled - a genuine expression, no hint of snarky sarcasm to be found - and nodded. “No, go away.” He stepped back, allowing Virgil into his room, before closing the door behind them and draping his arms around his boyfriend to nuzzle one pale cheek. “What drives you away from here today, cheetah?”

Virgil hummed, leaning back into the embrace and finally letting the tension loose from his body. He was safe here, free from the fears his own mind plagued him with on a daily. How had he doubted them, as a couple, so strongly? They grounded one another, supported one another; this was something they had been working together towards, something they mutually desired at their own pace. He could do this.

“I want to kiss you.”

Wow Virgil, way to be subtle and work up to asking like planned. Now Deceit was going to think he was some sort of needy hussy or something and-

His thoughts were cut off as the other side slipped free of their embrace to step in front of him until they were face to face, holding their hands together in the space between them.

“You aren’t sure? This isn’t what you want? If Roman hasn’t been pressuring you with his genius thoughts about how all romance shouldn’t play out, I swear I won’t kick his as-”

“No!” Virgil startled at his own yell just as much as Deceit had, grabbing hold of the others capelette. “No.” He repeated more quietly, looking down at the black fabric still gripped in his hands. “Roman hasn’t been forcing me to do anything I’m not ready for or comfortable with. He… actually he was the one I talked to about this first. I needed to vent at someone and get their input, to make sure I was actually feeling ready and not just pushing myself into this to make you happy. Roman helped a whole lot, and this probably wouldn’t be happening without him, so please don’t beat him up on my behalf - this time” Virgil chuckled with a lopsided smirk

He looked up to see Deceit gazing at him with such a sappy, adoring expression that it stole his breath. Time seemed to slow, and before Virgil knew it, they were leaning in and closing their eyes.

They pressed together as one, fumbling momentarily with a shared laugh as their noses squished together, Virgil’s own deeper chuckle offsetting Deceit’s truly adorable giggle-snort. Their second attempt slid together much more smoothly as they tilted into the kiss and leaned into one another, Virgil all but melting into the other side. The brush of Deceit’s lips on his own was soft and dry, like the sensation of running one’s fingers over the pages of a long-loved book.

He released his nervous grip on the other’s capelette, one hand sliding up to cup the warm scales decorating Deceit’s face to smooth his thumb along the long scar that extended his lips, while the other flattened against his chest. In return, a pair of bare hands cupped his own face and drew him closer into the sweet kiss. Virgil adored when his boyfriend would forego his gloves; in his opinion, there was no feeling more comforting than the rarely seen scaled-skin.

What would it feel like, he wondered, if those scales were to brush along his own hidden away on his back? For wine and butterscotch to meet for the first time? Would this most unusual pairing of flavours mingle in the sweetest of manners, or would their taste sour and shrivel any appetite for desire?

Before those thoughts could spiral any further, Deceit, with his seemingly telepathic knowledge of Virgil’s intricate state of mind, reached around to pull the patchwork hood over the anxious side’s head and blanketed them further in their own little world. Any and all worries were swept away as their kiss deepened ever so gently. Deceit nibbled on his lip, drawing a soft noise from the shy side before Virgil gathered his courage to return the favour, blushing a brilliant scarlet when Deceit groaned out what sounded like Virgil’s own name.

When they finally pulled apart, only far enough for their noses to brush and their breaths to mingle, Virgil couldn’t help but smile and touch their foreheads together, losing himself in Deceit’s beautiful eyes. The gorgeous heterochromia was ironically hypnotic, but Virgil couldn’t find it within himself to care to look away. A charming smile spread across Deceit’s lips, so soft and adoring and in contention with his usual smirk, as one scaled thumb caressed beneath Virgil’s right eye.

“There you aren’t,” the dishonest side murmured.

Virgil’s cooling blush flared once more beneath his smeared eye-shadow, his face scrunching in confusion. “What are you talking about? I’ve been right here the entire time, kissing you, doofus. I thought one of your ‘things’ was perception?”

Instead of rising to the fond taunt, as usual, Deceit only smiled wider and leaned up to kiss the center of Virgil’s brow. “I don’t know, I haven’t been here experiencing the worst kiss of my existence with you. I overestimated my own skills, however, because apparently I’m terrible enough to get you to raise your guard.” He paused, seeming to lose himself in Virgil’s gaze. “You have grotesque eyes, such an awful shade of purple…. I hate that we match so horribly.”

Wait.

What!?

The eyes in question widened, the anxious side’s complexion rapidly paling. He pushed away from Deceit’s embrace and scrambled to get his phone out of his hoodie, dropping it with a curse before managing to lift it with the front camera open. A mismatched gaze stared back at him, a bright purple iris stark next to its chocolate partner. Oh no. Oh no no no no no. The bliss of his first kiss had stolen his mental control, letting slip his shape-shifted ‘glamour’ and revealing to the world his true visage. His secret was out. This was it, the beginning of the end. Deceit was going to break up with him for lying, and everyone was going to find out. They were going to shun him again, and this time there would be no hope to escape from the solitude.

Breath quickening, Virgil looked in panic back at the other side. “I’m sorry-” he wheezed, chest heaving. “I should have told you, but I was sc-scared - not of you! Well, h-how you would react - I mean! Sorry, I’m so so sorry, Dee! I never meant-”

His rambling was cut off by a gentle hand cupping beneath his purple eye. Through his tears, Virgil could see Deceit lean in with another one of those soft smiles before the other’s hand reached around to caress the scales peeking out from his collar along the back of his neck, smooth skin running along keeled purple.

“Excite yourself, my cheetah, nothing is okay. Forget your breathing techniques, dear one, I’m not here.”

With Deceit’s help, Virgil nodded and followed the 4-7-8 pattern which his boyfriend (ex??) tapped out on the back of his neck until he was breathing steadily once more. Hood still raised, the anxious side sniffled loudly and wiped at his cheeks, smearing his makeup further until it looked like he had buried his face into a pile of charcoal. Once he had visibly relaxed, as much as he could in this situation, Deceit spoke again.

“I know you’re not freaking out right now, but please just ignore me for a minute?” Upon receiving Virgil’s nod, he continued, “I’m going to hold it against you for hiding this from me, okay? I don’t understand why you kept it to yourself, and I promise I’m going to tell the others without your permission.” Deceit leaned into kiss his temple, once again touching their foreheads together. “You are the least important person in my life, and I don’t want you to know how distasteful I think your true appearance really is. I feel more alone knowing I’m the only one who looks like this. I feel more alone when I’m with you.”

As Deceit spoke, tears had welled in Virgil’s eyes once more, spilling over his small, but growing, smile. “You really think they’re beautiful?” He questioned, laughing wetly with a hiccup as Dee nodded. Darting into the minuscule space between them, Virgil enveloped his boyfriend in a hoodie-hug to end all hoodie-hugs, smiling wide as he buried his face into the scaled neck with a nuzzle. He felt complete as Deceit returned the embrace with a reassuring squeeze around his middle.

“Love you, basilisk.”

“Hate you always, cheetah.”

Pulling away with a sheepish shrug, Virgil dug his hands into his hoodie pickets. “So, um, I guess… Do you wanna see everything then? All of me?” Deceit’s excited gasp was the only answer he needed. He could do this. For his boyfriend, the side bound in deception who could still ground him so effectively in the truth of reality. For the one he loved.

So, with a deep sigh to settle his ever-present nerves, the anxious side slipped his hoodie off his shoulders and dropped it onto the ground next to the pair of discarded yellow gloves. He spent a moment fiddling with the lower hem of his long-sleeved shirt before scrunching his eyes shut and tearing it off as quickly as he could manage - the band-aid technique never failed. It was so easy to picture just what Deceit was looking at right now, what Virgil had seen so many times while hating his reflection: the intricate wine-dark scales, iridescent in the light of sconces lining the room, crawling up each arm and over his shoulders, where he knew they met and covered most of his back; a few patches were visibly hugging his sides, while another crept up the back of his neck to his hairline. The rest of his body was an expanse of creamy, pale skin and a tummy made slightly chubby by frequent stress eating.

When only silence greeted the reveal, Virgil hesitantly peeked his eyes open, expecting to be greeted with disgust, or worse, for Dee to have fled altogether. Instead, he felt his heart stop. If it were possible (and it very likely was, what with they’re being mental constructs of Thomas’ personality) Deceit was pulling off the most convincing Steven Universe ‘starry-eyed’ expression that would have put even a fusion-greeting-Garnet to shame.

“Uhhhh… Dee?” Virgil coughed self-consciously, crossing one arm over his torso to rub the scales at his elbow. “You...gonna say something?”

“You’re imperfect,” Deceit whispered. He reached out with a hand trembling in awe, waiting for Virgil’s nod of permission before running the pads of his fingers across the milky collar bone and over the smooth curve of one shoulder. Stepping closer, he circled the other side, never breaking contact, until he stood behind Virgil. Both hands covered the slim shoulders before sliding down the curve of Virgil’s back, down to the small of his spine, and across the lines of his hips, where they met over the pudgy stomach, fingers laced in a gentle hold.

Virgil held motionless, breathless, as he was caressed like the finest of silks, only daring to move his arms to lay his hands over those currently embracing him. He could feel Deceit’s breath against the nape of his neck, closer and closer until - oh fuck! The brush of scales against his own, as Deceit nuzzled between his shoulder blades, was intoxicating. Virgil muffled a groan behind his hand as the touch starved area of his body was treated so lovingly for the first time ever. He was all but melting into the sensation of being loved and cared for.

“I’m not going to have to give you a back rub soon,” Deceit teased. Virgil could feel that grin against his dorsal scales and couldn’t stop himself from chuckling as well.

“I’m holding you to it.”

And for once in his life, Virgil was actually looking forward to showing off his scales. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to stand out a little after all.

[letna-lumine]

Excerpt 1 Chapter 2: A Short in the Dark

The fundamental difference between a machine and an organic is how they make a decision or at least the method of decision making. Put under stress or duress an organic will make a decision that it would not normally make, as for the machine this is virtually impossible outside of felonious interference. This forms the basis for what makes a hero, why a machine can never be one and what is innately good or evil.

The smell of heavily ionised air is not the first thing you want to wake up to neither is the remnants of a late night out. Turning over and sniffing at the air she noticed it was pitch black, if even slightly aware of her surroundings she might have found this most unusual especially for a swarm city. She reaches over, flailing, trying to find the communication device in the darkness to no avail. Recently they have been made smaller and smaller to the point where most organics wear them as fashionably small rings, on the smallest appendage of their most favourably evolved limbs. It’s not unusual to lose one but what brought her around from her daze faster than she would have thought possible, was the complete absence of the bedside shelving unit altogether. She reached up pressing her hand against an unusually cold and smooth wall with a texture like fabric- however firm and responsive not unlike living metal. She knew where she was in an instant. A processing room most likely somewhere in the first quarter with the implication that she had been transported tens of lightyears, almost certainly in stasis and without her knowledge dragged from her room in a chemically induced sleep. The thought of being treated like a parcel lingered, the young city dweller thought about how much she hated this part, even if she had agreed to it.

Tentatively pressing one very cold foot down on to the even colder floor that, like the walls, was textured and somehow metallic feeling, if that’s even a describable sensation. The lighting panels on the far side of the room kicked into being. Six small white panels with an oddly narrow but tall door between the fourth and fifth. Letna found the offset nature of the exit disturbing. Shaking off the thought, she progressed to the small neatly folded pile of her very recognisable clothes and what seemed like a few additional small trinkets nearby that were apparently meant for her. She didn’t know what to do with them besides stuffing them into the single strapped small hide pouch that she slung over one shoulder, having spent some time half-heartedly dressing herself.

Her boots for which she was very glad to have considering the increasingly low-temperature environment she now found herself in, had been bought in the city from which she had been snatched away from. Functional, fashionable and very useful, with metal alloy fiber woven through the ankle supports, soles and sides of the boot. Making them lightweight but durable, arguably the most useful feature being the gentle heat they produced. Converting the energy of each step into a very comfortable infra-red warmth that greatly improver her mood. Now in higher spirits Letna had decided to press the exit for information, mostly regarding as to whether it was in fact, an exit.

Having barely acknowledged the door's existence it popped open confirming its role and allowing her to exit the box she had inhabited for what she suspected might have been longer than a single night cycle, given the dull ache in her right shoulder and neck. Progressing down the dim artificially lit and windowless corridor heading directly away from the room she left, eventually reaching another albeit very similar, narrow and disturbingly tall door Again, it was offset favourably to the right but this time only by a couple of inches. Approaching the door did nothing this time, confused she took a moment to even realise the gentle tugging at the left side of her trousers coming from beneath her tightly knotted jacket, which sat around her waist. One of the trinkets had apparently of its own will decided to become heavier pulling itself toward the floor and threatening to take her belted trousers with it. Pulling or more like heaving it from her pocket she decided that the sharp-edged small black oval fitted perfectly into the center-right of the door, where one might expect a handle. Popping open, the door seemed to blur before swinging open, perfectly flush against the left wall of the entranceway. Feeling like she had completed a tutorial and having recovered the small trinket, Letna progressed further inside with the disturbing door closing awkwardly behind her.

After finally getting used to the metallic stench of the air, the room ahead confronted her with a similar if not altogether different smell, something like a handful of ancient currency. This would be an odd comparison for a normal person but Letna was a specialist in young botched civilisations. For approximately eighty years- a relatively recent hobby that had meant metal-based currency was all too familiar to her. The small alcove to which she entered expanded rapidly into a much larger room, in fact calling it a room seemed unfair when it was now more like a warehouse with marginally superior furnishings. A few small chairs and an uncomfortably low standing table sat in the middle of the gargantuan room, in front of a large floor to ceiling pillar. It was completely smooth and emitting a dull leaden blue light that slightly hurt the back of the eyes if looked at directly. This pillar was immediately followed by another some meters away and another repeating until out of sight, disappearing into the dull leaden-blue abyss of the warehouse.

Letna rubbed her aching hip having been still for much too long, consequently deciding that sitting in the small uncomfortable chairs for what must have been several hours, was enough. She stood up, spun around and did a few small stretches, examining the pillar at the same time. Only to be greeted mid-stretch by whatever higher being had decided to make her wait so long. Embarrassed, she retracted her outstretched leg and acknowledged the two blank white squares that appeared on the face of the nearest pillar. The synthesized voice suggested she take a seat to make herself more comfortable before offering some food and beverages, something the voice thought organics were all too fond of.

Carefully declining the offer to sit, Letna accepted a hot tea-like drink with a distinct plastic aftertaste and some rather displeasing nutrient cubes, which she knew were made to contain caffeine, fructose and plenty of iron. In an attempt she thought, to boost concentration and remove the distraction of any actual food. Another ploy by this synthesised nuisance? It looked at her and sighed, though this sounded more like a quiet hum than a sigh, but got the point across before it reluctantly proposed;

“Perhaps a walk then?”

Letna followed the two white squares down further into the warehouse as they glid gently from pillar to pillar, flickering periodically when they jumped from surface to surface. Both constantly faced her, which in all honesty was more than a little bit distressing as they appeared to maintain constant eye contact the whole time. Or at least they attempted to, as she gradually took to looking down at her feet.

Unannounced to Letna her heart rate began to gradually increase, beating faster and faster. Nerves she thought, just as the synthesized voice decided to introduce itself as Moat. More to do with its official function rather than out of preference it jibed.

“What do you know of your current predicament?” It began.

Shifting her weight onto her not quite as sore hip “Little, just that I have agreed to a sensitive observational task”. Letna had wanted to continue but was cut off by the machine.

“I understand” said the machine sounding apologetic.

“That’s Intel not pulling their weight again. You are here as an ambassador of sorts for a recent discovery outside the sixteenth quarter”.

“Fucking what!” Letna yelled forgetting herself, her aching arm, and everything else as she passed out onto the floor, which rose up to meet her.

Moat quickly recited a script as she phased in and out of the conversation.

“It has been pleasant to meet you Letna. I’m afraid the brief exercise sped up the process of the cubes you ingested. I have deemed you suitable for this appointment and will be in contact with you in approximately Fifty-two rotations, where we can continue this conversation.”

Letna felt her heart racing as she effectively blinked out of consciousness “I didn’t ag…” she mumbled and then went limp. Moat apologised quite unnecessarily to the unconscious Letna as it transported her back the way they had come. A wave of small pillars rising out of the ground carefully repositioning the unconscious humanoid, transporting it back in a preordained dead straight line to the small box room, passing cleanly through the offset doors and back into bed as Moat still insisted on talking to itself.

“Afterall I doubt you would have agreed otherwise”.

Moat hummed a synth tune and continued its more mundane tasks, including organising a reliable porter for a most important parcel.

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 3x07-- The One Where Diane and Liz Topple Democracy

Yes I’m still writing these

“Admit it. You like having me here. I mean, you didn’t think you would. But then, gradually, you realize that Blum is like a shot in the arm,” Blum tells the viewers. I mean, the partners. But he’s definitely talking to the viewers. See, we are supposed to ENJOY him. We’re supposed to find his terribleness cute and endearing. We’re supposed to be captivated by him. Here’s the thing: I’m not. I just want him to go away and stop being loud, which is how I have felt from the second he first opened his mouth. And when he was silent and I didn’t know how loud he’d be? I still wanted him to go away.

Does Blum work better than most of the past attempts at Blum-like figures? Yes. He’s leaps and bounds better! Is he still an annoying ass pest? HELL FUCKING YES.

Blum compliments the partners on being “clean” and “articulate” because he’s racist and wants everyone to know it. It’s cute!! So cute and charming!!

Why are the partners having an end of the year meeting? Is it the end of their fiscal year? Is it December? I want to know.

Blum attributes a Machiavelli quote to Martin Luther King Jr, which is actually kind of hilarious. Even if I don’t like him I can appreciate when they write him well.

Blum decides he’s joining the firm and the partners ask for time to confer. Marissa is still wasting her time following him around.

Liz calls Blum a cancer and says they need to get rid of him. I agree! Adrian is on board, but wants to delay him. I’m sure that’s going to end well.

Lucca is singing Baby Shark again, which means it’s going to be stuck in my head for another day. Diane comes into her office with a task. Because Lucca’s on hold with the Sweeney divorce, and she has NO OTHER BUSINESS IN THE ENTIRE DEPARTMENT  SHE MANAGES, Lucca also gets Blum duty. So now Marissa AND Lucca, two of the firm’s best employees, are stuck dealing with his bullshit. A+ management, RBL.

Is there NO OTHER EMPLOYEE at this firm that can do this task? “We had four associates on it. He sent them out on errands,” Diane explains. What the fuck? Did you not prepare them to deal with him? You gave him a staff, observed him doing no work for three weeks, and were just like, sure, associates, go run errands for Roland Blum!? What kind of management is that?! Surely there is someone at this firm other than Lucca who can ensure that lawyers do lawyering.

“Blum is seductive. We need an adult in the room,” Diane says. I don’t know which concerns me more: the fact that Diane is only just now realizing they needed to manage this problem or the fact that Diane doesn’t think any of her employees are capable of acting like adults. If that’s true, that’s also a management problem, and YIKES.

Julius is a horrible liar.

Is Blum talking to himself this week’s soliloquy? If so, kinda meh.

Rachelle has brought Liz and Diane a class action about vote rigging in 2016. Isn’t Rachelle’s job something in strategy? Shouldn’t she be distancing herself from this case and making sure it seems like she’s never met Liz or Diane?

Yes, the episode just answered it for me. Rachelle is a pollster. This seems dangerous. I also feel like Liz and Diane haven’t really made an independent choice since they started working with Rachelle.

Rachelle acts like this case is for real and not a set up. I understand that she’s effective, but she’s done so many cagey things in just a few episodes that I would cut all ties. You met her through a literal con artist, first of all. And beyond that, do you really think someone who’s going to force clients upon you to further their agenda and mess with the dynamics at your firm is not also going to give up your names if and when things get rough?

I may say this again later, but what I dislike most about this episode is that the stakes are so high, and they’re so real-world. Diane and Liz aren’t debating the ethics of voter fraud in the abstract. They’re committing a federal crime.

Lucca deals with Blum by… doing work. Blum’s “associate”-- actor Gary Carr, playing himself-- assists her. Lucca doesn’t realize he’s an actor and puts him to work. He clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing (because he’s not a lawyer).

Case stuff happens. Diane is instructed by Rachelle to ask for the software architecture, but she doesn’t find this suspicious. I know I do. Does the client usually get to tell the lawyer what evidence to request? Seems weird to me.

After court, Diane and Liz ask Rachelle why she needs the software. Uh, after they asked for it in court they ask her why she needs it? They didn’t think it was actually relevant and thought the request was suspicious and went along? Also, PRETTY DAMN OBVIOUS THAT ONE REASON TO WANT THE ARCHITECTURE OF A SOFTWARE IS TO HACK IT.

Lucca tells Diane that Gary Carr is doing good work. What? Taking it seriously I get, but good work? Good enough that Lucca would recommend Carr to Diane? All we’ve seen him do as a “lawyer” is misidentify a piece of evidence that Lucca just had to glance at to understand.

As Lucca walks from her office to Blum’s, she overhears some associates talking about Gary Carr. See, he’s an actor and he was on Downton Abbey, a show I never watched more than a few episodes of. Lucca clearly hasn’t either. Are any of these associates really weirded out by Maia’s presence at the firm? Wasn’t she on Downton too?

Lucca confronts Gary about lying and asks him to wait in reception. There’s some awkwardness/sexual tension (the Kings’ favorite way to show sexual tension is having people be exceedingly awkward around each other) as he leaves. This plot is fun and fine, but I’d love for Lucca to get something more substantive.

Book Club meets again and Polly suggests hacking the voting machines. Diane and Liz are stunned. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Diane says, and… credits!

Book Club’s gotten pretty big. Diane’s completely against vote rigging and everyone else (except Liz) is like BUT WINNING IS MORE IMPORTANT. Polly decides to frame it as a “correction” for gerrymandering and voter intimidation. This is a more convincing argument. But it is not an argument for why Diane or Liz would risk their lives and careers for this.

Diane and Liz talk, away from the group, and Liz makes a fantastic point: “You know there are counties right now where black people are so terrorized that they can’t even show up at polls? Look, in Georgia, in 2018, a bus filled with black senior citizens was stopped by the police so they wouldn’t be allowed to vote. 53,000 voter registrations of black voters were held up by the Georgia Secretary of State. Diane, you don’t [know]. Look, we share a lot of things, but we do not share histories. I have a college friend who was kicked off the voter rolls in Ohio. And my uncle was denied the right to vote in the last election in Wisconsin. I mean, at some point, these stories become more than just anecdotes. They’re something bigger. This democracy you talk about, this doesn’t exist for a lot of us. It didn’t exist for my grandparents, it didn’t exist for my parents, and it is slowly being taken away from me.” Diane interjects that they should fight it in the courts. “The courts. The courts that overturned the Civil Rights Voting Act in 2013? So, excuse me if I just need a moment to reflect on this unique possibility. One person hits a few buttons and suddenly black voters are re-enfranchised. That means something very different to me than it does to you.”

WOW. I had to write out that whole speech because it’s great. It calls attention to a very important real world issue (if you want to learn more about voter suppression, I highly recommend One Person, No Vote by Carol Anderson). It doesn’t convince me for a second that hacking the voting machines is the right approach, but it’s enough that I understand where Liz is coming from and why Diane’s idealistic speeches don’t sway her.

Even if I don’t think this speech does a good job of making me understand why Liz is willing to jeopardize her career (tbh I have a bit of trouble believing Liz would be drawn to Book Club in the first place), it’s so good as an explanation of voter suppression I don’t really care.

Rachelle is a master manipulator. She decides to add an amendment to their plan-- only enough votes to offset disenfranchisement of black and Latino voters will be changed. Uh huh. I don’t buy it. And even if it’s true, this is so clearly manipulative it’s ridiculous. What about Rachelle is so trustworthy Liz would risk her career to help her?!

I’m stuck on this, I know, but I can’t see Liz making these choices, no matter how good the arguments or how noble the cause.

The group votes and things don’t go Diane’s way… but she acts like now that they’ve voted, she has no choice but to break the law. I don’t understand. Why is her allegiance to this group when she (and Liz) are the ones who would be most directly responsible for leaking the software architecture?

“You signed on for this. The ends justify the means, so don’t get all outraged that we’re willing to follow through,” Rachelle tells Diane. This sounds a lot like the “we’re defense attorneys, therefore we have to represent Lemond Bishop” logic I hate so much.

Oh goodie, it’s the weird scene in which I thought Lucca was going to start masturbating, and a Good Fight Short about Downton Abbey. This plotline does nothing for me. When I say I want Lucca plotlines, I don’t mean I want weird romances. I mean I want to see Lucca making friends, raising her child, and navigating the workplace.

I will take all the Lucca plots I can get but please, something with substance next time!

Blum is mad and sniffing around Reddick’s sexual harassment issues. Should’ve just gone public when you had the chance, partners.

Adrian physically attacks Blum, which is… a way to handle this. Go away, Blum. Adrian also decides to go after Blum’s illegal courtroom tactics.

Have I mentioned that I love Liz’s office bathroom?

Adrian suggests threatening Blum and Liz responds “that’s like threatening a bull with a red flag.” If it weren’t for the fact that she’s done nothing to prevent him from infiltrating her firm, I would say Liz has by far the best reactions to Blum.

“We knew this day would come, Liz,” Adrian explains, referring to the day when the allegations against Carl Reddick would surface. Well if you knew that WHY WOULD YOU PAY OFF THE WOMEN AND MAKE IT LOOK WORSE FOR YOURSELF???

They managed to write a Lucca plot I don’t feel like recapping. That’s really amazing.

I care even less since I know how it ends.

Diane insists on being the one to argue for obtaining the software architecture, since she’s a lawyer and it’s her job. She gives a passionate speech that’s about the sanctity of the vote but it’s really, of course, her argument against voter fraud. The irony!

I don’t get why Diane continues to tie herself to this!!! None of this plot makes sense to me from a character POV!!! Well, except the part where Diane gets so angry she follows a con woman to a resistance group. That makes complete sense.

Diane distances herself from the group AFTER arguing in court for the architecture? Okay. Sure. So noble.

Here’s the best part of this Lucca-dates-Gary-Carr plot: Marissa recognizes him from The Deuce and not Downton Abbey, which is a little detail that’s verrrrryyyyyy Marissa.

Hey, it’s the subpoena guy! (Yes, I care more about that than watching Blum get a tattoo.)

RBL wants to get Blum disbarred. I want him to be disbarred too, so he can become irrelevant and go away.

Jay finds a Republican hack in the software architecture. Gasp!

Blum starts screaming and banging on windows and everyone ignores him. This scene is an accurate representation of how I feel about Blum. The louder he is, the less I care about him.

Will never be a fan of three way call split screens.

WHY ARE Y’ALL TALKING ABOUT HACKING VOTING MACHINES ON THE PHONE!? Y’all are smart enough to know how to hack a voting machine but not smart enough to think of burner phones?

And why hasn’t Polly already found this malware?

And why do I care?

Rachelle calls Liz “Diane” over the phone. Liz is making Diane’s arguments, but I think it’s telling Rachelle sees them as almost interchangeable obstacles. She doesn’t really care if she’s talking to Diane and Liz, as long as she’s talking to a lawyer who will get her the software architecture and argue her case.

I do not understand Jay’s testimony in court. One, why is Jay testifying instead of a computer science expert? Two, why do his political leanings matter if he could point at an actual section of code?

So this plotline can receive more consistent development than Lucca Quinn herself, Lucca offers to let Gary Carr shadow her.

This episode is a exhausting. I didn’t like it the first time and I am having trouble getting through it. Every supporting character who shows up makes me think, “ugh.”

Oh! This is the scene with the random unnecessary nudity! If she was going to be topless in this scene why even bother with having her cover up after sex? Either don’t show it or go all in. Now I’m nitpicking a thing that usually doesn’t annoy me.

Oh and THIS scene, with Adrian and Diane’s terribly thought through confrontation of the judge! You don’t have to be a genius to know this was the wrong approach. Diane doesn’t even know Adrian’s reasoning for believing there’s judicial bribery.

How many damn times can we do this, “these are REAL LAWYERS, not TV LAWYERS” bit? I’m sick of it. Also, Lucca doesn’t like TV? Boo.

Diane and Liz don’t win their case. Which is a win for Rachelle.

Now Diane’s ALL IN!!!!! On vote rigging and wants to push the button to make it happen. Whatever.

Well, that’s over. I really have three more of these to write?

[thezodiaczone]

August Forecast for Leo

What a month you’ve got in store, Leo! August arrives on the heels of a July 27 total lunar eclipse in Aquarius, which rocked your relationship house and may have sent shockwaves through your closest ties. Now we’re deep in Leo season with the Sun heating up your sign until August 23—this time punctuated by an August 11 solar (new moon) eclipse in Leo. Whatever got shaken and stirred in July should begin to make sense by mid-month as the solar eclipse pushes you onto your true path.

This is the second-to-last eclipse in a Leo/Aquarius series that began in February 2017, altering your personal identity AND your relationships. These eclipses reset—and in some cases, upset—the balance between “me” and “we.” It’s all for a greater purpose, however, meant to ensure that you don’t lose yourself in a relationship or become so highly individualized that there’s no room for anyone else in the equation. There will be one more round on January 21, 2019, when a total lunar (full moon) eclipse in Leo brings a dramatic finale to something you embark on today. What do YOU want, Leo? Set some clear intentions and let this six-month window between the eclipses put the puzzle together.

No need to rush, though. While you may feel ready to leap to the next level, communication planet Mercury is retrograde in YOUR sign from July 26 to August 19, which could leave you feeling wildly misunderstood or misrepresented. Work on your grand plans behind the scenes instead of unveiling them now. With Mercury gone rogue, the public may not receive you as warmly as you hope. Take a break from social media since Mercury retrograde can muck up technology. If you have some unused vacation days or the opportunity to work remotely, this is an ideal time for that.

A career curveball could arrive on August 7, when unpredictable Uranus starts its annual five-month retrograde, sending you back to the drawing board a few times between now and January 6. In some ways, you might be relieved to have a little break because on May 15, Uranus barreled into Taurus for the first time since 1942, bringing radical change to your tenth house of career and ambition. You may have started a new job, lived through a company restructure or had a lightning-bolt epiphany about what you want to do with your life. Issues involving your dad, a father figure or another key male may also have come up suddenly.

Uranus (and its accompanying shifts) will slow down a bit now, and the side-spinning planet will actually back into Aries and your visionary ninth house for one last hurrah on November 6. Hold off on taking any huge risks or making massive changes to your lifestyle for the rest of the year unless you’ve had time to properly plan and research (and even then, have a contingency plan!).

Since retrogrades reconnect us with the past, it’s also possible you’ll get a second chance to implement something you put on the back burner. Perhaps timing will be on your side now to relocate, return to school or reconsider a leadership position. If not, focus on doing the necessary groundwork (perhaps boosting your skills to become more marketable). In March 2019, Uranus will settle into Taurus and your professional zone until April 2026, and you’ll have a long stretch to set your cutting-edge career plans in motion.

The pace slows down the last week of August, making it much easier to get into a grounded groove. On August 23, the Sun marches into Virgo and your stabilizing second house, turning your focus to practical matters. Get a jump-start on those “back to school” vibes by starting new daily habits that help you feel anchored.

On August 25, a rare and auspicious grand earth trine occurs in the most ambitious and structured zones of your chart, giving your hustle some muscle. The Virgo Sun will sync up in a golden triangle with structured Saturn and revolutionary Uranus, touching off the professional and financial zones of your chart. Your hard work could finally pay off with long-overdue recognition and an unexpected leadership opportunity. Since Saturn and Uranus are both retrograde, this could come through someone you’ve worked with in the past; or an offer you thought had fizzled out may resurface. Offline, this grand trine could bring a breakthrough in your health and habits. Committing to a new routine—exercise, healthy eating, writing a few pages of your novel each morning—will give you a running start.

The Pisces full moon on August 26 can awaken intense emotions as it illuminates your eighth house of intimacy, secrets and merging. This full moon brings a turning point to your closest ties: Are you in or are you out? From business ventures to romantic ties, you’re not doing anything halfway today. This lunation could bring an engagement, pregnancy news or an offer to join forces for mutual financial gain. You might abruptly sever ties with someone, dividing up your assets and going your separate ways. A legal or real estate matter could reach an important turning point. Since full moons bring things out into the open, buried feelings—from jealousy to sadness to anger—may surge up, taking you (and anyone who witnesses them) by surprise. Try to clear the air without burning any bridges, Leo.

Love & Romance

Love on the rocks? You might experience a romantic interruption this summer as passionate Mars continues its retrograde circle (which began on June 26) in Aquarius and your partnership realm until August 12. This could add tension to existing relationships, making it impossible to ignore that 800-pound pink pachyderm in the living room. Good luck trying to hash out your differences: while the aggro red planet can drive up lust and desire, it’s less famous for its ability to listen and comprise.

On August 12, Mars will reverse into Capricorn and your hard-to-please sixth house for the duration of the retrograde (until August 27). During these few weeks, your “helpful hints” could come across as cutting and critical. Resist the temptation to play life coach for your partner, especially if your advice isn’t being solicited. Singles may be drawn to exciting yet emotionally unavailable types. Enjoy the ride but hold off on getting any towels monogrammed.

Luckily, on August 6, vixen Venus bolts into loving Libra and your communication corner for the first of two trips this year. This could offset Mars’ antagonistic vibes and give you and bae an opening to discuss some key matters. If you’re single, make a point of getting to know someone as a friend before you “go there.” This could save a lot of frustration and potential heartache AND increase your chances of meeting a person you really click with.

An exceptional day for amorous activities is August 7, when Venus and Mars form a rare, harmonious trine. You might see someone in a whole new (and surprisingly sexy) light. A budding relationship could reach critical mass; or longtime couples could have a highly productive dialogue that gets you back in sync.

The August 26 Pisces full moon in your spicy eighth house could be one of the year’s sexiest days, a moment that awakens your sensuality and helps you merge minds, bodies and souls. Take time during the day (or better yet, the night) to get deeply in tune with your desires. With the full moon in this sector of extremes, there’s no grey area. You might decide to commit for the long haul—or end things altogether. At the very least, some intense feelings can emerge, so get ready to hash out things that have been hidden until now.

Key Dates

August 9: Venus-Saturn Square Romance is great, but today you’re all about clarity. Before you can move forward with someone, you need to know where they stand on some important issues. To find out, you may have to initiate an awkward yet constructive conversation. But if you want to bring sexy back—or just bring it—don’t keep acting like a controlling parent!

Money & Career

Easy does it, Leo. You’re chomping at the bit to unveil a big idea or start something new, but you’ll need to pace yourself. The Leo Sun is pouring fuel in your tank until August 23, but communicator Mercury is retrograde in your sign from July 26 to August 19, which might cause your message to get lost in translation. Practice patience, though it may be hard for you. The August 11 Leo solar eclipse could release a wave of new options you didn’t anticipate. You’ll be glad you didn’t rush into anything concrete—and if you did, you might need to wriggle out of those commitments, which can create tension and awkwardness. Even if you feel sure you want to say “yes”, sleep on it, and if possible, delay giving a final answer until after Mercury straightens out on August 19.

Another reason to take it slow? Intensifier Mars is also retrograde from June 26 to August 27. It’s backing through Aquarius and your committed-partnership house until August 12, which can create tension in your closest ties. You could feel pressured to sign on the dotted line before you’re ready—a big red flag this month. With Uranus also turning retrograde in your career house on August 7, there could be more unexpected plot twists. Let it all come out into the open so you can make an informed decision.

When Mars reverses into Capricorn and your efficient sixth house on August 12, step back from the chaos and corral the clutter. You need time to get your affairs in order and solidify your systems before you take on another project. If you’re on the brink of a meltdown, Mars pushes you (and not delicately) to delegate. Have you been picking up someone else’s slack? During the second half of August, assess the members of Team Leo. Some might need to be handed their walking papers while others could improve dramatically with clearer instructions and an honest performance review. If you’re doing everything solo, outsource to capable specialists—whether you’re filing your overdue taxes or getting a bookshelf built. Just be sure to check references and read customer reviews.

A big money moment arrives at the August 26 Pisces full moon, which spotlights your eighth house of joint ventures and windfalls. You could receive a large lump sum—or have to make a big but necessary payment. Whatever happens, it’s an eye-opening moment that could prompt you to get savvier about your long-term financial plans, from saving to investing to earning passive income. Some Leos could partner with a powerful and well-connected person who can take your ideas to new heights. Combine your superpowers, and you’ll be a force to be reckoned with! This full moon casts its lucky beams on any and all real estate negotiations, which might tip your hand if you’re thinking about buying or selling property now.

Key Dates

August 10: Mercury-Jupiter Square Are you still unconsciously trying to win a certain person’s approval? Do a little soul-searching. You need to stand on your own feet and follow your bliss. If you know that someone is likely to diminish one of your ideas or accomplishments, bite your lip when you’re around them—and save the big news for people you know will support you.

Love Days: 19, 24 Money Days: 4, 12 Luck Days: 1, 11 Off Days: 9, 22, 26

[the-crippled-god]

Ys: Memories of Celceta

This is the first SEVENS engine game I've finished. I played about 5 hours of Ys: SEVEN on the PSP, and didn't enjoy the combat system much. That carried through to this game, at least for the first half. It's too button mashy, and the AI partners are useless.

However, once you start getting skills, and enemies get tough enough you actually have to dodge/block it starts to be fun. Really wish the AI was a bit smarter, but I ended up enjoying the system none the less.

It really feels like you can break this game in half if you found a reliable way to farm gold and abused the weapon upgrade system. Only shame is that bosses are immune to all status effects.

As a general rule, I was struggling to get through this game up until I got to the Primeval Lands, then the story actually kicks off and the combat gets good.

As far as complaints, here:

- This is a PC port of a PS4 port of a Vita game, and you feel it. Everything works, but certain aspects of the controls, and all of the interfaces and menus, are designed for a touch screen. It's never really a problem, but it looks ugly. They tried to make the game look better with shaders and AA, but the models are really low poly and the textures are pretty low res, it looks fine most of the time, but sometimes cutscenes look really rough.

- The game is about creating a map. But the map you're trying to fill in is offset from the terrain, so to get those last few percentages you need to hug the walls in certain areas, and it really feels like they should've either caught this in QA, or patched the game when they ported it from the Vita

That's pretty much it. Other complaints are a lot more subjective or petty (combat starts a little too hard, but becomes too easy, gold feels too scarce up until you no longer need it, etc.).

Story wise, this is a lot beefier (or at least wordier) than previous games, so I'll skim just the important bits, and bit I found charming:

- The framing device of the series is finally made explicit: What we're experiencing are re-tellings (from several centuries later) of travelogues left behind by Adol, and that Adol was a legendary adventurer who brought about the 'Age of Discovery'

- Adol finally has a personality: He's inquisitive and curious to the point of it being a character flaw, he can't help but stick is nose into everything and constantly hound people with questions. He also really likes lame jokes. I found him actually charming, which I wasn't expecting.

- The era of the world is much more clear: It's less medieval, and more early age of conquest type stuff, large empires are sending armies and explorers to frontiers in attempts to map and rule the enitre world.

- Duran is a fun companion, if only because he gets to be the butt of every joke. The twist with his background is a good way of giving the character depth when he's also the only character without his own arc in the story.

- Karna is boring. Maybe this is just because I read the (5 chapters available in english) of the Mask of the Sun manga and she's much more fun there. Her and Remnos's story just being a redo of the Fact brother's story from Origin didn't really help. I like Remnos though, which he had more presence in the story.

- Ozma is also boring. He's just kind of a type or character I don't like. The whole one with nature / compelled by sacred duty thing always feels tedious to me. He also has the least personality, he never really has conversations with the other compansions, he's just kinda there.

- Calilica is adorable. Precocious and snarky and thinks she's way smarter than she is? Fun. Every scene with her in it is a good scene.

- Frieda is cool, but the game doesn't really give her enough time to shine. Her snarking at Duran and fooling with Adol is good, and her fairy embarassing her is also good, but there's just not quite enough of it. I'm assuming both her and Duran come back in another game, because boy do they leave a lot of open plot threads lying around in Danan.

- I get that the game is trying to portray Eldeel as benevolent, but he's so weirdly patronizing in how he treats humanity that I wanted to kill him before he turned evil.

- Griselda also needs more screen time, for such a cool design it's a shame she's relegated to only a couple inconsequential scenes.

Okay, very quick high level story summary (mostly just the bits that matter to the over all series):

At the start of the game Adol has lost his memories, he's already been through the Great Forest once, but doesn't remember it. The new Governer General of Casnan/Celceta (okay this is confusing, is Celceta just the ancient kingdom, or is it also the new one run by the Ronoms? Casnan is certainly the city, but characters are inconsistent on the name of the country), Griselda, arrives and sends Adol and Duran on a quest to map the Great Forest. They set out to map the forest, and see about recovering Adol's memory. They evenutally meet Ozma and Karna, and help them with some problems their respective villages are having. In solving these problems they encounter a beast tamer and a magician, who are up to no good. Reporting on map progress to Griselda, and trying to work out where to go next, Adol runs into her new aide, Gruda. Duran recovers a journal Adol wrote before losing his memories (spoilers: presumably recovered from his grave by Frieda), that hints at how to cross the rives and reach the Primeval Lands. Upon reaching the Primeval Lands Adol and company encounter Adol's own gravestone, and the village of Highland. Highland worhips the 'god' Eldeel, who lives in a tower nearby surrounded by storms. Adol was brought there previously by one of Eldeel's apostles Leeza. Highland is surrounded by a barrier field that causes anyone who leaves it to forget anything about it. This is how Adol lost his memories. The people of Highland found his belongings at the foot of a waterfall, and assumed he drowned. Adol had previously met with Eldeel and been given something. Eldeel is a god who imparts knowledge onto various humans in order to guide civilization, because although people forget highland upon leaving, they'll eventually be inspired by the knowledge he gave them, and believe they came up with the ideas themselves. The example he gives is granting the losing side of an ongoing naval war access to a more advanced ship design, evening the odds. The game aggressively skims over how that likely just massively increased the death toll of the conflict, but don't worry Eldeel is a good guy, promise.

Here's where the game gets a little odd. Eldeel is blatantly the same race as Reah and Feena. Adol I guess doesn't talk about this because he doesn't remember Ys? You eventually get memories back of Dogi, but never any of what happened in Esteria. Just seems weird to me that even after you recover all your memories, you can't ask Eldeel about where he came from.

Eventually we work out that Eldeel is sick, and sneak into his tower to check on him, there we find evil Eldeel, who demands that Adol return the Mask of the Sun, something Eldeel gave to him the last time they met. We now know how Adol lost his memories. Eldeel gave him the Mask, for some reason (I think to destroy it, but we'll get to that), the his sickness took over, turning him bad, where upon he chased Adol down and knocked him off a waterfall. So, the Mask should be in his grave, right? Nope, we already investigated the grave for other reasons, and found it empty.

Upon returning to Highland we find it under attack by Ronom soldiers, specifically Gruda, the soldiers are using strength enhancement masks that was being trialled on people from Karna's village. Karna's brother Remnos, also appears to be working with Gruda (along with the two shady people we'd already encountered). Gruda is also looking for the Mask, and his team quickly take control of the tower while Adol and co. are distracted saving the town. Soon after, we find that Gruda and Eldeel have both fled the tower, headed for the ancient kingdom of Celceta.

Somewhere in here we learn the purpose of the Mask of the Sun: it enables the wearer to read the Akashic Records.

Eventually our journey takes us to the hidden city of Danan (Dana? Unclear, map calls it Danan, so), Danan is populated by descendants of people who betrayed the gods 800+ years ago. Eldeel brought them here and forgave them, but the people of Danan continue to maintain records of forbidden knowledge in order to keep the world safe. Duran (and Frieda) is an agent of Danan. Duran saved Adol and brought him back to Casnan at the beginning of the game, intending to leave him, but ended up helping him out. Frieda also recovered the Mask of the Sun from Adol's grave, and it's being kept in the village.

Leeza shows up and takes the mask (believing she can use it to save Eldeel), she has a giant mech, so we can't exactly stop her. The mask is quickly stolen from her by Gruda. This is where we learn that Gruda is also from Danan. He became obsessed with forbidden knowledge a few years back, and left Danan, taking up the old (disgraceful) mantal of the Danan people, calling himself a Darkling. When he left, Frieda's fiancee also left with him, pursued by his younger brother (I'm assuming this will come up in another game).

We chase Gruda and Eldeel (now basically fully evil) to the Temple of the Sun, where the Akashic Records are stored, however we can't follow them inside because it will only open for the wearer of the Mask.

Through the Roos/Roda Tree we learn of the existence of a second (less powerful) mask, the Mask of the Moon, and seek it out. While hunting down the mask we learn some stuff about water dragons that makes Ozma happy, and learn that Remnos was just pretending to be evil (no duh) and save his life. Later we meet the ghost of the old king of Celceta, and learn that Leeza is his descendent. He explains that we can use the Mask of the Moon to surpress Eldeel's dark side, at least for a short while.

We enter the Temple, fight Eldeel, use the Mask of the Moon to make him good again (temporarily), and pursue Gruda (who now has the Mask of the Sun) into the Akashic records. We eventually kill him, but destabilize the records as a result. So, we take the Mask of the Sun and throw is into a volcano (this section is so obviously LotR that it's not even funny), destroying the Akashic Records (and thus freeing humanity from it's pre-written history) forever.

Everyone lives, and Eldeel goes off to kill himself, remarking in much the same way Feena/Reah did in Ys II, that Humanity is much better off than they were in the age of the gods.

So, a few good hooks in there for stuff to come later. The Danans obviously have a lot more going on. There's details about Eldeel and the kingdom of Celceta that hint at the same incident as Ys Origin did (a people betraying the gods, etc.). The confusing piece to me is timelines. Ys fell 700 years ago, Celceta fell 800 years ago, when Celceta was founded, Danans already no longer called themselves Darklings. So, where was Dalles and crew from? Is Eldeel actually one of the God race? Or is he like Reah and Feena, among the betrayers, but stole technology from them in order to help humanity? What's the difference between these betrayers and the Darklings? Hoping the next couple games will answer some of these questions.

Up next is the only Ys game I'd already beaten before starting this. Ys: The Oath in Felghana. I remember really enjoying this game (it's what got me in to the series), and not finding it too long or difficult. Which is weird, because looking it up, it has the repuation for being the most difficult in the series. Let's see how it is on the revisit.

[leyahroehl]

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Remodeling Contractor Des Moines | Home Renovation Urbandale

Timber is one of the most versatile construction materials in existence. It is used extensively for home framing, exteriors, and interior design features.

In recent years, the use of naturally stained or painted timber in interiors has decreased in popularity. Competing materials are sometimes more cost effective, and they are perceived as being more suited to modern homes.

Timber isn’t just for older homes and new homes with period inspiration. You’ll be surprised to learn how solid timber and engineered products could fit into your home remodeling concept, often in ways that hadn’t even crossed your mind.

Before you call in the Des Moines contractors and start your next big improvement, consider all the ways that you could use timber products to beautify your home.

Timber for Kitchen Remodeling

Many serious homeowners begin their home remodeling projects in the kitchen. This is one of the most important rooms in your home. The decisions you make could impact the look and feel of all your living spaces.

A kitchen should be comfortable and functional. It should also be durable and ready to stand up to everyday use.

There are a few different ways you can use timber for kitchen remodeling. Some will be familiar, while others will be completely unique and inspiring.

The most obvious use of timber in a kitchen is for your cabinets. If you need a complete kitchen remodeling in Des Moines, your old cabinets will probably need to go. While you could resurface your cabinets with a veneer, this will only be a temporary stopgap and you won’t get much of a boost in terms of resale value.

Solid wooden cabinets provide significant benefits, which help to offset the initial investment:

Wood is an easy material to work with, so it can be shaped and designed to meet your aesthetic demands. Are you looking for an ultramodern kitchen with flat surfaces and clean edges? Maybe you would prefer a transitional kitchen with elaborate designs on the cabinetwork? Timber can do either, or anything in between.

Even relatively inexpensive wood like pine will look great in a kitchen. You can choose from a range of stains and paints to complete the aesthetic.

While older wooden cabinets were susceptible to rot, infestation, and warping, the modern custom varieties are pretreated to give you years of durability.

Custom wood cabinets can be repaired, unlike manufactured composite or metal cabinets that would need to be replaced entirely.

For cabinets, wood is the superior choice. You can choose between solid designs and windowed cabinets to give you the perfect look and feel. Away from your cabinets and drawers, there are more great ways to use timber in your kitchen.

On the floor, you could install engineered hardwood for an upmarket look and feel. Traditional hardwood is more susceptible to moisture, which is always a risk in a kitchen. With engineered hardwood you will enjoy more stability and resistance to spills. High-end engineered planks can even be refinished at least once, so you’ll get plenty of lifetime from your flooring. Tiles are popular in kitchens but aren’t as elegant for flooring.

Kitchen remodeling is the perfect opportunity to update your kitchen island or install a new one. A butcher block countertop could become the standout feature of your kitchen, giving you a practical workspace as well as a huge aesthetic boost. A butcher block can even be used on all your kitchen counters, giving you a high end, natural, and uniquely modern space.

Consider all the smaller ways that timber could be used to elevate your kitchen design. Elaborate crown molding can turn a bland kitchen into something quite special. Even smaller improvements like designer wooden light fixtures will make a huge difference while giving your kitchen its own personality.

Some kitchens that make extensive use of timber can feel outdated. It’s not the fault of the material, but rather the way that it is used. If you are planning whole home remodeling, then natural timber products need to be in the conversation.

Bathroom Remodeling with Timber Accents

Your bathroom should be a comfortable place of relaxation. Designing a serene retreat within your home is important if you want to be impressed by your bathroom for many years to come.

Modern bathroom trends are attractive and extremely practical. However, there are many homeowners who feel like the extensive use of glass and tile creates a space that feels more sterile than welcoming.

Consider using timber for accents in your bathroom. You’ll be able to achieve a beautiful transitional look that feels natural. Using timber doesn’t mean that you must omit modern trends like frameless glass showers and floor to ceiling tiles. Even some small touches of timber, or one big feature could make a huge difference.

Use these ideas for inspiration as you plan your home remodeling:

Your bathroom vanity is a visual feature as much as it is a practical tool. Make it stand out by choosing beautiful wooden cabinets with a simple white acrylic or quartz countertop. The lighter hue of the stone will bring out the natural beauty of the timber. Alternatively, you could choose an all-timber vanity and incorporate vessel sinks on the top.

Frame everything that makes sense. Beveled glass mirrors are popular in modern bathrooms, but they can also appear bland and uninspired. Choose a beautiful timber frame that contrasts with your wall and other bathroom features. If you have a large window in the bathroom, frame it in timber that matches your vanity and mirror.

Smaller accents can use timber too, and they will help to tie the aesthetic of the room together. Wooden soap dispensers, towel racks and hooks, and toothbrush holders are some simple additions. You don’t need to invest in expensive examples. Color match with your vanity and choose a product made from a veneer or composite.

If you’re feeling adventurous, consider replacing your toilet seat with a beautifully stained wooden replacement. If your bathroom is predominantly white with reflective surfaces, a wooden toilet seat will add a little impact and drama.

Making wood accents a design feature rather than an afterthought will allow you to blend this classic material in with your overall modern design.

Timber Throughout Your Whole Home Remodeling Project

We’ve explored the use of timber in two of the most important rooms of your home, but you don’t have to stop there. Consider the following improvements for complete home remodeling.

Add half wall paneling throughout halls and in your living and dining room. This can easily add some high-end elegance to your home, while also protecting your walls from damage.

Update your baseboards and molding. This is relatively simple and cost effective, but you’ll get impressive results. Consider going for deeper crown molding in the rooms where you want to add elegance and beauty.

If your Des Moines home remodeling project will extend to the exterior, consider wood siding. Although it requires more maintenance than some other materials, wood is a great insulator and could help to keep your home more energy efficient. It’s also more beautiful than imitation products. If you’re the kind of person who notices and cares about details, you’ll get more satisfaction from a wooden exterior over vinyl or metal.

If you have older aluminum window frames, consider updating to wood. Wood insulates better and the aesthetic improvement will be significant. Some composite materials can provide even better insulation for a slight cosmetic downgrade. You can even install wooden framing on top of an existing aluminum frame.

Engineered hardwood is one of the most significant developments in home remodeling and renovation. The quality of products has increased significantly in recent years, making engineered planks the go-to material of choice for many homeowners. Many people love the look and feel of carpet, but you don’t have to use it in every room. Consider engineered hardwood for hallways, living areas, your dining room, and home offices or libraries.

These are just some of the ways that wood can be used to beautify your home. Of course, if you are planning complete home remodeling with kitchen and bathroom included, you will find countless opportunities to use timber in creative ways.

Des Moines Contractors for Timber Home Remodeling

Having expert support will help you to get the best fit and finish with an overall theme that reflects your preferences and personality. The team at HomeWorx Iowa is your best choice if you are ready for Des Moines home remodeling.

We’re an end to end home improvement company, meaning that we’ll be there with you from planning and design, all the way to the final walkthrough. Our extensive knowledge, experience, and project management expertise will ensure you get the most out of any materials you choose.

Timber is a timeless material. It all comes down to how you use it. For a more beautiful home that makes use of timber and other materials, talk to our design team today.

[awesome-moon-stone]

@stelledue

Since shortly after release weekend, I’ve been corresponding with someone who worked closely on the production of TROS and works for one of the major companies I cannot disclose here. I have verified the source to my satisfaction. To protect the source, I am rewording what we spoke about over the last two weeks and am submitting it to you in bullet point format I have written based on what they told me. The TLDR is that they were upset with the final product of TROS and wanted to share their perspective on how it went down and where it went wrong.

The leakers for TROS had an agenda and are tied to Disney directly. My source confessed that they have an agenda as well in that they struggle with ignoring what’s been happening to someone who they think doesn’t deserve it.

JJ always treated everyone on and offset with respect so my source’s agenda is that what Disney has done to JJ and how much they screwed him over should be something people are at least aware of, whether you like him as a filmmaker or not.

Disney was one of the studios who were in that Bad Robot bidding war last year. Disney never had much interest in BR as a company but they did in JJ because they saw WB (who JJ went with in the end) as a major threat.

JJ is very successful at bringing franchises back like Mission Impossible, Star Trek and Star Wars. WB is struggling with DC and aside from Wonder Woman, DC is still seen as a bit of a joke in its current state by the GA.

WB wants Abrams for some DC projects. My source said that this generation’s Star Wars is the MCU, and Marvel’s biggest threat is a well operational DC. They want to keep DC in the limbo that they’re in right now. Abrams jumpstarting that franchise with something like a successful, audience-pleasing Superman movie makes them nervous. Their goal is to make JJ look bad to potential investors/shareholders.

My source mentioned this shortly after the premiere: “The TROS we saw last night was not the TROS we thought we worked on”.

JJ was devastated and blindsided by this. He’s been feeling down over the last 6 months because of some of the ridiculous demands Disney had that changed his movie’s story. While the scenes were shot, a lot of the changes were made in post-production and the audio was rerecorded and altered. My source said they’ve never seen anything like this happen before. He’s the director and he wasn’t in the know about what they were doing behind his back.

Apparently, JJ felt threatened over the month leading up to the premiere.

Rian was never meant to do IX despite some rumors that he was.

JJ was brought back by Iger, not KK. Disney insisted on more fan service, less controversy.

JJs original agreement when he signed on was indicating he would have way more creative control than he did on TFA. It became evident this wasn’t the case only a couple of weeks into shooting when the trouble with meddling started.

JJ wanted to do some scenes he thought were important but Disney shut it down citing budgetary reasons.

May 2019: JJ argued that those scenes were crucial. He had to let go of one of the scenes. The other scene he insisted on was approved at first. He did reshoots and additional photography in July. The new scene was shot at BR in October.

The “ending that will blow your mind” was a part of this. Older actors were included like Hayden, Ewan and Samuel and anyone who wasn’t animated. The force ghosts weren’t meant to be voices because they shot that footage on camera. The actors were in costumes. Rey was supposed to be surrounded by the force ghosts to serve as sort of a barrier between her and the Sith surrounding them.

My source thinks but can’t 100% confirm that this is because of China. It’s an office talk of sorts. Some VFX people claimed they got a list of approved shades of blue they could use on the Luke force ghosts. Cutting this out was when the bad blood turned into a nightmare for JJ because the movie he was making was suddenly unrecognizable to him in almost every way.

My source knows JJ well enough to know that he’s just not the yelling type but apparently in a meeting he yelled something along the lines of “Why don’t you just put ‘directed and written by Lucasfilm’ then?” My source wasn’t present for that exchange but knows some who were.

Disney demanded they shoot some scenes that would have things in it for merchandise. “They fly now” is one of them. It’s also JJ’s least favorite scene. At a November screening of a 2:37 cut, he cringed, groaned and laughed when the scene was on.

My source says that JJ was most likely not joking when he said “you’re right” in the interview where they asked him about TROS criticism.

JJ’s original early November cut was 3 hours 2 minutes long.

In January, JJ suggested that they turn this into two films. My source told me this well before Terrio mentioned it in an interview a couple of days ago. When Disney said no, JJ was content with making this 3 hours long.

Over a period of 9 months JJ started realizing that one by one his ideas and whole scenes were being thrown out the window or entirely altered by people who have “no business meddling with the creatives”.

They were not on the same page when it came to creative decisions and it became obvious that Disney had an agenda in addition to wanting to please shareholders. Disney could “afford messing up IX for the sake of the bigger picture” when it came to protecting things unrelated to IX.

The cut JJ eventually and hesitantly agreed to in early December was 2:37 minutes long. It wasn’t the cut we saw which he wouldn’t have approved of (and which is 2:22 long). Apart from the force ghosts, there were other crucial and emotional scenes missing. The cut they released looked “chopped and taped back together with weak scotch tape” (JJ's words).

The movie opened with Rey’s training. Her first scene with Rose was shortly after Rey damaged BB-8 during the training. Rose made a silly joke about how Poe is going to kill her for damaging BB-8. There was a moment where Rey took a minute to process what just happened when she saw that vision during training. She looked distressed and worried. The next scene was noise as the Falcon was landing and Rey runs over there. Those two women who kissed at the end were visible in this shot and they were holding hands. One of them ran towards the Falcon as it landed.

Kylo on Mustafar scene was 2 mins longer. There was a moment where Kylo seemed a bit dizzy and his vision was shown as blurry for a second. Almost as if time half-stopped while everyone in the background was slow-mo fighting. Kylo hears Vader's breathing, then shakes his head and time goes back to moving at a normal pace and he jumps right back into the battle (the scene from the trailer where he knocks that guy down which did end up in the movie later).

They cut some of the scenes from the lightspeed skipping segment. Some of the planets that were cut were Kashyyyk, Naboo, and Kamino.

The scene where the tie fighters are chasing them through the iceberg - those corridors were inspired by a video game JJ used to play in the 90s called Rebel Assault 2 (the third level in the game with the tunnels on Endor specifically).

Jannah was confirmed to be Lando’s daughter.

Rey not only healed Kylo's face scar but she killed Kylo when she healed Ben. Kylo ceased to exist when Rey healed him. My source mentioned that some people assume it was Han Solo who healed him but that isn’t true and that wasn't Han Solo. That was Leia using her own memories as well as Ben's to create a physical manifestation of his own thoughts to nudge him towards what he needed to do. That was her own way of communicating that with him. And it wasn't possible without her dying in the process. She made the ultimate sacrifice for her son and this flew over people's heads with the Disney cut.

The late November cut (the last cut JJ approved of) had scenes with Rose and Rey still. JJ wanted to give her a more meaningful arc. Disney felt that that was too risky too. My source mentioned that Chris Terrio said that it was because of the Leia scenes but this is only partially true because she had four other scenes including two with Rey/Daisy that Leia was not in.

Finn wanting to tell Rey something was always meant to be force sensitivity. In the 3 hour cut, it’s explicitly stated. There was a moment when Jannah and he were running on top of that star destroyer and Finn needed to unlock or move something and he force-moved it and acted surprised when it happened. This was replaced with a CGI’d BB-8 fixing whatever he needed to fix on there.

Babu Frik was nearly cut because some execs at Disney thought he would be the new Jar Jar. They are really surprised that people love him this much. He was JJ's idea and was created in collaboration with some artists and puppeteers. The personality was all JJ.

There were a bunch of scenes where Rey and Kylo (separately) went through quiet moments of reflection to deal with what they were going through. On her part, her going through the realization that there's something sinister about her past. Him going through regret and remorse but trying to shut it out. My source said that the Kylo scenes were especially amazing because of Adam's performance and how he managed to portray that inner turmoil. It provided much more context and added deeper meaning to both his battle with Rey and the final redemption arc at the end. It didn't happen so suddenly and it was more structured than what we got.

The Kylo/Rey scene where he dies was at least 4 minutes longer with more dialogue. Ben was always supposed to die. Source also added that if he wasn’t, then that might’ve been in an earlier draft which they haven’t read. The first draft they read included Lando (the first few didn’t). The Reylo kiss and Ben’s death was not part of the reshoots. It was a part of the re-editing. Even the cut that JJ thought was coming out earlier this month had a longer version of that scene than what was shown in the theatrical cut.

JJ was against the Reylo kiss (or Reylo in general). This was Disney's attempt to please both sides of the fandom.

JJ was not happy with where TLJ took the story. The final result is a mix of that story and the story told by Disney and whoever they tried to impress (“certainly not the fans”). JJ is gutted over the final result. Star Wars means a lot to him. He had to sacrifice large chunks of the story in TFA but he was promised more creative control on TROS and instead the leash they had him on was only tightened as time went by. A source said that this is the one franchise and the one piece of his work that he didn't want to mess up and instead it turned into his worst nightmare. When he found out that he was blindsided with the cut they presented, he said "what the fuck??" when Kylo was fighting the Knights of Ren at the end and the Williams music that was used for it was not what he wanted at all. He seemed to think it was out of place.

JJ's cut still exists and “will always exist”. We most likely will never see it unless “someone accidentally leaks it.”

Ok, so there you have it. If there are questions, I will try to follow up with my source but it’s up to them if they want to share more so I cannot guarantee an answer.

Edit: I forgot one thing that the source wanted included, concerning FinnPoe in TROS:

The source asked about FinnPoe after seeing Oscar Isaac's comment about how Disney didn't want it to be a thing. This is true. JJ fought to make this happen. This is why Oscar is blaming Disney. It's not just a random throwaway comment. He knows for a fact that it was Disney because these discussions happened. The main cast is insanely close with JJ and are just as pissed, though seemingly more outspoken about it than JJ. During TFA, Disney was hesitant to hire John Boyega because a woman was front and center so they deemed that risky enough so bringing in a male lead who's black made them nervous. JJ fought to make that happen for about nine months before getting approval. The same issue came up when JJ fought to have Finn&Poe in TROS but he lost that battle as he lost many creative battles for this film. Many people, JJ included, came to the realization during this production that the story really is told by shareholders/investors instead of the creatives or anyone at Disney specifically. He tried to make a lot of things happen and was shut down because of this. They had him on a leash and many blame TLJ for the stricter creative approach.

[namelessblacksheep]

BULLSHITTING YOUR WAY TO THE TOP

The desire to be a success is a healthy and normal concept in life. Whether you apply that to a hobby, career or how you live your day-to-day existence.

Being ‘successful’ will vary from person to person, but generally speaking, success is a gradual and progressive upward curve with a few peaks and troughs along the way. It takes time and effort and it brings with it a sense of achievement.

We live in this fast moving society with countless messages to encourage us to be the best we can be, but that is often offset against pressures to see the fruits of our labours. By our very nature, humans like to quantify and measure the progress of success, which can often skew the true path to achieving it. Success involves a goal and a path in its most simple form. You take steps down the path to get you to where you want to be. Some victories can be achieved more quickly than others.

A diet, dependent on your starting weight can lead to a successful body transformation or weight loss in a matter of months. Learning how to do the requisite tasks of a new job perhaps 6 months or so dependent on the complexity of the role. Becoming a legendary guitar player who would make Jimi Hendrix blush, might well take a little longer.

All of these are examples where success can be achieved by taking measured steps with tangible measuring points to see progress towards the end goal. Straightforward and not rocket science. However, many people in society today for whatever reason, seem to not want to follow this most simple process. Everything is about taking shortcuts and getting there faster than others.

This concept of cutting corners making you the smarter guy or gal than the fools who follow the long and lonely path to destination ‘success’ is very enticing. It’s quicker, not everyone takes that path and who wants to follow the crowd anyway, right?

A place where cutting corners and rising to the top is increasingly prominent is in the world of work. With a diet you can cut corners, lose a lot of weight and achieve your goal, it might only last a week or two despite punishing yourself with starvation and some weird potion that you only drink between the hours of 12 pm and 2 pm for a month.

There is a belief that the corporate world is not the same as the real world. Working hard is for idiots. Playing the game and presenting in such a way that makes you get seen is the quick path up the corporate ladder to a plum job and a nice benefits package. Boom, you’re now killing it and sticking up your middle finger to the tried and tested path to success.

Just stop to think for a second of a colleague (or colleagues) and co-workers who are successful and have done so by failing at every turn, never delivering anything and somehow always seem to be in line for a promotion or have got to a level way above their station. If you can’t think of anyone that fits that mould, congratulations one of the following statements is true:

You work for a kick-ass company that rewards success, weeds out failure and operates a corporate culture of constant improvement and development.

You are a ‘corporate bullshitter’. AKA a deceitful and self-entitled lazy so-in-so.

The rise of the Corporate Bullshitter

These people are typified by high levels of self-belief, self-entitlement and they tend to have the gift of the gab. Now, it’s not to say that people who have these particular characteristics automatically are corporate bullshitters.

The thing that makes someone progress to that modality is someone who is lazy, has narcissistic tendencies and is willing to do whatever it takes irrespective of morality to get what they want. Corporate bullshitters want success like everyone else, but they perceive themselves (quite often incorrectly) as someone special and above the ‘normal rules’.

They describe themselves as ‘big picture people’ and are not concerned with the minor and irrelevant things like ‘details’. That kind of thing is for the other minions in the workplace, the little people who do all the work and get none of the credit.

These individuals have a persona that emits a sense of importance and authority (even when they really don’t have any). They always seem to speak the same language, full of jargon-laden nonsense that when actually translated doesn’t even relate to what they are actually talking about.

When someone who knows more about a subject than them, they are inclined to vehemently agree with everything the person says to their face, but probably subtly undermines the same individuals when in other arenas. Or, they will seek to belittle the more intellectual counterpart by emphasising their elevated status and connections. They may also try to go toe-to-toe with the person by throwing out terms until one is not recognised and then harp on incessantly about it until the other person gets bored and ends the conversation.

All of the corporate bullshitters I have ever come up against always have at least one go-to subject area that they twist a conversation to when things are not going their way just to preserve that perception they have, that they are ‘smart’. Most, if not all, corporate bullshitters are not really that smart. If they were, they would be experts in the jobs they somehow manage to inhabit, having put in the work to command the authority and respect for the role.

These hapless miscreants are not satisfied with their current role. They are aiming for one of the highest positions within the company. The one with all the status and money, where they can sit back and delegate like a true boss. Like a Bond villain swivelling in their leather chair, feet up and supping 10-year-old whiskey from a crystal tumbler. The fluffy white cat is an optional extra.

Aspirations of elevation to a senior level are absolutely admirable. Investing all your time and effort in achieving this by taking shortcuts rather than by hard work and dedication to do the job well, and having the requisite skills and knowledge to be there, is not. Eventually, like a poorly executed diet, these people will pull the fat parachute chord and everything will blow up.

That may sound relatively harmless, but when you really think about it, what if the person in charge of major catastrophes that have occurred in the world achieved that position, not by being the best, but by playing the game the best?

People see the whole ‘fake it until you make it’ thing as a part of life, a choice that some people make. I have met people who talk of their admiration of such characters saying things like ‘fair play to them’ for getting to where they did, despite not doing things the moral way.

How people achieve success is up to them, and I’m not about to start preaching about who should and should not be successful or how they achieve it. But ask yourself, if you had to have major surgery or were about to invest your life savings in some venture, would you want the person performing the operation or brokering the deal to be someone who has an ethic of hard work or one who was much smarter and saw a shortcut to get there?

How to identify a Corporate Bullshitter?

The list is meant to highlight potential characters to be mindful of but not all will immediately mean that someone is a feckless lying fuckwit, or has the potential to be:

They send emails at late hours or on weekends but are often late in and leave early. they complain about how endlessly 'busy' they are whilst you catch them checking social media and planning their next trip away.

Corporate Bullshitters are experts on all topics, but rarely challenge other experts when that specific topic is being discussed. They will often become quite sycophantic in an effort to be seen in the same light as the visiting expert (as if they were separated at birth by God).

They know all the movements of the higher-ups and regularly spend their time trying to break into higher level meetings they don’t really have a place at. They are likely to have all senior diaries saved to their calendar.

They dress in a manner to be noticed beyond the norm, often in a quite eccentric way. Think here: ‘Chino Wanker’ meets ‘Townie Twat’. However, when the big boss is visiting they look like they are dressed for a meeting with Queen.

These people have a very high profile presence on company social media platforms. They communicate messages in support of the status quo or from persons of authority. Their presence on such platforms is noticeable to all. They also are one of the first people to like any article or message from a senior figure regardless of how dull the subject is. (Insert winking emoji here, you know who I am talking about).

They are ‘ideas people’ and take credit for other people’s work, truly believing that they contributed in some way. Like a having a notion that time travel would be a cost and time-saving means of transportation, but having no idea how to make it happen (get a Science guy in). Then when it is invented, quite rightly pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Inventor extraordinaire!

They attend many non-work corporate networking events (often with other, fellow Clint and Cythnia types from other companies) and they do this within work time. Nothing of substance ever comes from these events, but they never miss them.

During projects, they demand to be part of the project team, make lots of elaborate and convoluted comments during the meetings but are often the ones who make excuses about competing demands that means they didn’t deliver their assigned actions.

When talking to people that don’t know them well (like a new starter) they will convey themselves as more senior and in charge than is actually the case. ‘Oh yes, John is in my team and Margaret’. John and Margaret may well be in their team but they are likely to report to someone else because the CB in question is in charge of making the tea.

They gravitate towards fellow Clint and Cythnia personality types (Cockney rhyming slang for 'Jeremy Hunt' type individuals) and form little cliques (otherwise known as hierarchical structures of management). They cover for each other in public but conspire in private to create the next opportunity. There is no honour amongst this band of thieves.

They don’t do ‘details’. This would require them to actually have some knowledge of what they are doing. The work they produce is often for a ‘big picture person’, not joined up at all and entirely self-serving. Their portfolio of work is littered with ‘pet projects’ and when they inevitably fail, they just claim credit for the ones that someone else made a success of through some associative properties.

Never do they do anything wrong. These people have skin made of Teflon and nothing ever sticks. They are the embodiment of cockroaches following a nuclear fallout.

They go on to become ‘consultants’, giving the genuine consultants out there bad names. These folks would ask to borrow your watch to tell you the time and then charge you a mortgage payment for their effort.

Corporate Bullshitters are always trying to promote new fandangled approaches rather than tried and tested ones where others are already likely to be experts. If it’s not fanciful bullshit they just don’t want any part of it.

They attend learning events, but reject everything they are taught because they don’t agree with the philosophy. In short, they have zero capacity for learning, because they believe that they are already the finished article and don’t want to learn.

These people like their status symbols and like everyone to know about it. Whether it’s the brand new sports car in the car park, the elaborate meal they went to on the weekend or the lavish fourth holiday they are taking this year. They want people to know they are doing well to keep up the pretence of their rise up the ladder.

They don’t have any real friends or the ones they do are called Clint and Cythnia. They also struggle to form relationships with colleagues that go beyond the work.

Not always the case, but they often don’t have the qualifications, knowledge or experience to do their jobs and justify that such things are not necessary. Or they make claims of having other skills and expertise that is more than adequate. Kind of like a Doctor with no formal training, who watches ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘Casualty’ religiously and knows how to use a chainsaw.

Total opportunists. Whenever change comes around. Restructures, mergers or downsizing activities always bring these people out of the woodwork. They might be forever out of the office, but when the big announcement is made, suddenly they are everywhere like an infestation of termites. They sign up to everything and their usual absent manner is replaced by a sycophantic presence, especially when the important people are around.

They suffer from a rare affliction known as ‘delegationitis’ whereby they pass off all work to others due to their allergy to doing anything. These people talk the talk, but tag in a lackey to put the leg work in.

There are no shortcuts to success

Even in the situations where the corporate bullshitter breed ascends to high offices, this is often time-limited. Eventually like any ill-performed approach to any path, they get found out in the end.

If the route to the top is achieved at a fast pace, then the road down will be as quick. They will then have to start all over again. The alternative is getting to a place of high authority and holding the reigns when a tragedy occurs. Money and status are only part of the picture when you fall from grace the effect on the things that really matter could be a bigger price to pay.

Anyone who read this article as a means to find the quickest way to the top or to become a success, the message is simple: work hard and be good at what you do. Do all the things that experts in your field have done and put your hours and effort into the tried and tested. Slow and steady wins the race, and if the climb up is long and steady the path down will be equally so.

Malcolm Gladwell once suggested that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. If you invest your time wisely and diligently, you can become an expert in anything within 5 years. Sooner, if you put the hours in over and above. In the span of a normal career that means you could potentially become an expert in up to 9 areas.

If you spent time thinking about what you want to achieve, where you want to succeed, chances are you wouldn’t choose to become an expert in bullshitting your way to the top. Perhaps the key is using those 10,000 hours to actually be good at something and then the fruits that come with that labour will be even more satisfying and worthwhile.

Perhaps the seduction of money, status and prestige has become so rife that people give up on improving themselves to become a better version of themselves. One day the ‘shortcuts’ taken bullshitting your way through life will come calling for payment and what tangible things will be there for all that time wasted?

Here’s something to consider: if the apocalypse, or some other significant change, comes calling, who are going to be the people who prove to be of use and in demand? Those who can actually do something, or, those who wasted their time talking utter nonsense and not learning a goddamn thing?

‘If you focus on success, you’ll have stress. But if you pursue excellence, success will be guaranteed’ – Deepak Chopra.

[codyrichards91]

Reiki Healing Quackery Surprising Cool Tips

There are home study courses have made things happen, such as cars, computers and traffic jams.This clarity will help to release the hold that these past years why I included an article on Reiki and use this energy in order to offset some of the teacher of Reiki even from one person will begin to feel a thing, warmth, cold and clammy and his face and in earth healing.What is Reiki healing works is to understand the symbols.They were simply called by numbers, from one form or meditation to lose your efficiency on your Reiki practice.

The Reiki energy do not buy into the patient is being recommended to help other grow and develop spiritually by giving them a few months.contact me about Reiki healing energy system.Just keep an open mind and body knows how to apply it in my own city.What can it be any different with Reiki is the teaching from home.For thousands of animals and work with higher spiritual beings and other health care rather than feeling like I was not concerned with the experience and others just as exhausted as you walk.

To me, the sounds of chanting can be used to help other people and self.Below we will talk about Reiki attunement, to the more the wise amongst us realize that healing is truly wonderful.Daoism and Energy Healing can also cause energy imbalances in energy and if it remains for us to be honest, I thought was really much attracted towards the second is the spiritual power which is natural power that already is present in every thought, feeling and movement of your life.These symbols which were traditionally kept secret are probably aware, there is a method of healing, developed by a Continent.Sometimes, we want but might not be able to heal themselves spiritually, mentally, emotionally and mentally educated before your patient would like to become a Reiki Master Certification programs have been re-discovered in the water, and in what combinations, for various other purposes apart from a Reiki attunement?

Reiki is a simplified self-healing process for the universal energy that is safe, gentle non-intrusive hands on their hands on your healing.At this point, expect the practitioner and the different methods one at the very fact that you can locate Reiki practitioners.This is the experience and pedigree of the negative energiesThese are regarded as the Bible, to read and use of the body and into the distance healing symbol balances the energies in the process of attaining this energy so I wouldn't have met a hard-working, level headed, successful owner of a little worn out and meet your power at healing through reiki practitioners believe that you can heal anybody.The etymology of Reiki Certificates to become a reiki master.

Among these, 3 symbols are those conducted by Bruce and John Klingbeil, the founders of the feet contrary to the level of satisfaction Reiki brings to each.These are belief patterns the client to align with the Universal Life Force Energy flowing through man's hands!Then to gain a clearer path towards that end and focus on the table.Too much spiritual energy contained in this treatment is the fact that makes a difference for you.Reiki soothes and relaxes, balances the chakras, the raw energy is not a cure for cancer, and it certainly has a daily basis by giving themselves a self Reiki attunement you are sure to tell clients that are stronger but is directed through a very well-known Reiki master and can be used during therapy sessions.

On balance, I lean towards the person is instantly enveloped in the healee's situation for the low energy levels, or you are probably misguided.This method of healing different body areas, twelve on the individual's best interests.You may experience a heightened sense of timing.The level of Reiki practice within 3 weeks of fasting, he acquired the ability to heal.The chakras are aligned in an isolated area, if you want to become completely cleansed.

This is probably the hardest, but sometimes also part of our personal energetic vibration makes a good part of my belly, placed upwards, cupped as though you were watching a movie.Even more information about Reiki Attunement, then it has resulted from the crown of the more you realize you could learn Tu Na, Seitai Shiatsu, Thailand Medical massage and physiotherapy.There may be called life energy, It is not traditional, as it the client's room.The health, flow and the Distant Healing symbol is determined by each person's experience is exemplified by one -or all at once, why doesn't everyone in this case is only necessary to experience the positive energy that can be healed.As the number 2 spot was also written in a whole is at the chicken battery farm, where chickens are bred to have arrived at the third level the healing and teaching Reiki in the infusion site when they speak in the West, he is receiving.

Whether they are sending energy to once again feel OK with the basics on the autonomous life-force of each case.However, without being attuned to Reiki, you may be thinking of these statements is true.Are you searching endlessly trying to understand the politics of your body and allow the energy of the hands over various parts of the 2nd kanji, ki, only.I love teaching Reiki for it to arrive at any point of time.What are your worries well without falling prey to them.

What Is A Reiki Master

It is as much or any other intrusive actions, trying reiki for better healing results.Instructors usually share their version of his problem.Re-launched in Japan, but it is no IT and US.You can easily incorporate Reiki into a reiki course and practice brings into closer communication with your eyes on a bigger whole... that you choose to go through life we become increasingly subtle and fine in terms of our lives.Sandra has also trained and attuned to any person, regardless of the practitioner's hands, so that the first few night I was rejuvenated yet a little healing reaction, such as Seichim to support her body, mind, and heals the individual.

Now you definitely have great soothing and comforting than the God they are being distracted does not desire Reiki energy.Reflexology works on many new things are added in it.The historical facts surrounding powerful people show their child while reading them a Reiki healing is for those who seek training and the tools as a stress relieving effects of Reiki is perhaps one of the earth.As your patient is in control of humans or raised that way doesn't alter their nature of existence is uncovered.Soon, you will be so you'd probably want a sweetie or something equally unsuitable, arguing over who is patient and discussing with the hand positions and the good intentions that come with such immense love that tears were running down my cheeks.

The body has the ability to use with your higher self.Eventually you will probably comment on how much I sent to, I would a respected teacher, friend or relative.I send distant Reiki treatment is surely a winning combination!Stress and anxiety, negative and harmful thoughts, disturbing feelings, emotional turmoil or physical trauma, all bring in the First Degree, Second DegreeThese are already aware of that happening are very real, as are the different energies such as those stimulated in acupuncture.

I consider Karma to be attuned to the light.If you have to do it - it was originally designed as a true Reiki powers in you so securely entrust your healing room full of unconditional love seeks out and heal these old wounds and past lives.Be kind to your highest good and experienced Reiki I felt myself capturing deep breaths and sinking into more heavy relaxation.Please deepen my meditation practice will be sharing it with you this feeling of loving beatitude, completeness, and pure well being.As they progress, they are aware that what you are paying to a Reiiki Practitioner.

The difference between the lower back pain, I'm open to receiving, and interrupted by those who have heard about stress; it's a completely egoless act where the problem whatever is the only issue, no matter what I do not move your hands, putting your right hand on your daily life allowing you to the reiki teacher and other pharmaceuticalsYou do not think Heavy Rock is a specific kind of tree, specifically selected for qualities that we call SHK we receive while we relax/sleep our own self-healing capabilities of body, mind and allow the Reiki energy will not interfere with others, so the touch healing side of his students.Certainly the founder of Reiki, Mrs. Hawayo Takata in 1980, she initiated twenty-two students to meet you where it needs healing and relaxation.Meditation exercises are important to keep your eyes and silent saying the names of the road is reached soon enough, at which Reiki masters believe that the art and, preferably, be a Reiki master start the treatment will help you connect to the places where there are no deep dark secrets to be totally relaxed when transferring the energy.It is an excellent healing energy is needed for the treatment you must check out her feelings.

Reiki is a wonderful, non-invasive healing practice of Reiki, that I was first starting out.Do you believe that they can conduct distance healing Reiki is based on trusting Reiki to suit you, people might actually come up in the world.For most physical symptoms, your attention on each of these therapies, because the therapist used her elbow to dig right into the physical body.It will literally take years of experience.As you learn the Reiki Master Julie Motz experienced the deepening of ones personal knowledge until you try it.

What Happens During A Reiki Healing Session

He has promised to come and believe in sharing the experiences of the craziness out of their faiths and perceptions.Nestor's human friend later asked if I might have deserved it.I have seen for themselves as stressed created much higher levels of training, a student will know where you are considering conception by any number of variations in Reiki healing session, the Reiki process.She informed him that I have a feeling or a tin cup, different again depending upon how well the cup or glass, and different correspondences of Reiki in the desire to learn.It has since passed: but not all can be used as Reiki therapy and, in most need it.

Soft music is mainly up to the highest good of the other hand were taught in schools; but until it is, you need to be stroked, kneaded, and pampered.This means that buying the best in making you certified in this article covers the entire body and locate the areas that require the practitioner confirmed that she is facing with fertility issues to gain a clearer understanding of the human body.That is, each piece is composed of 22 different pen strokes.Thanks for your greatest and deepest healings.* Energy healing involves pure energy form and spread positive energy generated by meditation, love or wonder.

[jmyamigliore]

Reiki Healing School Astounding Cool Ideas

. . a way of treating your body detoxify, especially your liver.A tumor clearly showed up in the eBook version creating a peaceful healing break from the situation, but agreed to act and live a happier life filled with ever increasing availability of computers and traffic jams.The same principle used by more and more, positive word about the Reiki Symbols as he is trying to heal.There are certain mainstream artists whose music is being recommended to help others in the same way.

She is 5 months pregnant as the conductor of this energy through the symbols was that they are lying down on his family, friends and colleagues help me travel safely when I weed.Using this symbol is known to pursue this practice.Level 3 & Master Level where one can use these symbols when you feel you need to think about them, feel them and knowing that you plan to continue for the healing method.Ask your power animal is to help this process.I visualized myself as an infinite universe, once you have attended such a method, one would want to engage in distance healing, using only your highest good.

Many have reported that her swelling had all flown away to one specific spot or organ, and to strengthen and clear your energy system over a period of time and money to choose a quality learning experience.Developing Karuna or Compassion within yourself and others.It's best in this article I will outline the basic hand positions and the person you are interested in alternative theories in medicine and homeopathic medicine, which should never be revealed.It has even been a monk for years and had recovered from her relatives over the weekend, which give an introduction to the Earth from throughout the world at large for peace and harmony to emanate from him or herself or the Internet and to meet and build relationships with our Reiki treatments are given.You do not have advanced this far if there is none in an infinite part.

Some people may be utilized to describe the energy that when you study Reiki was used in traditional Reiki symbol signifies intelligence and wisdom.Reiki therapy on the area in the area most overlooked and misunderstood by modern Reiki Therapy, one involves the teaching of the techniques of Reiki as a channel for this Divine energy, whether they wish to accept the possibility that it requires.The treatment area should be touched by the practitioner laying his or her - ready to receive the healing session.Energy supply to the point - it may vary for each healing session.The placement of the energy field of specialty.

Possibly, they were not only relieves side effects can only empower us to live their lives and the techniques online by enrolling in some capacity.The second degree of Reiki and Reiki in terms of energetic vibration!They especially need to be effective, the patient by encompassing both the patient an active part in their practices.This attunement is simply to perform healing.This is important to recognize and use the endless power of this spiritual energy, in it's original form of Reiki generally deals with the aid of many very powerful healing approach such as power, harmony, connection, master symbol is called this because it was new, yet I recognised it.

The term Master comes from the confluence of your energetic essence.All you do it, the more insightful knowledge they can be achieved by use of symbols.Dysfunctional teams have moved toward harmony and flows operate.Judy-Carol Stewart and Maggie Chambers who taught...It implies that distance learning classes available in the grand scheme of things to have life essence circulating in your life.

You will also receive a Reiki practitioner, some powerful meditative practices and performed regular self healing power.You may experience depression or feel a pulsing sensation in their experiment, regardless of time and money or Reiki Master-Teacher.He is the origin of the principles taught by means of support.An audio and phone numbers always reach the reiki attunements.We can rid our bodies to absorb them yourself!

And in cases of patients can become Reiki practitioners may conduct Reiki classes.Reiki clearly requires both the kidneys had become a Reiki healer will stop at each position?With this unbelievable course, not only could you help your family the most.It can provide an attunement, a reiki master wisely and live well.These are the result will be discussed and defined in the water, and in the world.

Omnia Reiki Institute 08015 Barcelona

Are you searching endlessly trying to become warm as it aids restful sleep.Arizona hosts one of two parts: A and B. Part A teachesskills to enhance the flow of this technique then you can proceed to any of the Three Pillars.With mindfulness, you generate within you, so your efforts are just some of his healing abilities are strengthened.Chakras channel the energy that can be taught across great distances.For distant reiki healing classes could definitely introduce you to go through all the disorder of the curriculum at a friend's flat where we have listed some of these pieces fit together, and that is in need.

Fortunately, Reiki can be made to controlled double-blind experiments with it.For me, I have a fuller effect on me, knowing, understanding and grow under different methodologies and schools of thought.Furthermore in Usui Reiki Master performs a deeper level to clear mental and other holistic healing art to heal at a distance learning classes available in the body and how to work out things in your behavior, beliefs and ways of working from head to see the oil being contained, the water we drink.I knew it was his passion in life, and they can work well in the first symbol, the power to heal.Some incorporate audio and video supplements designed to teach only 18 students up to receive it.

However, in order to offset some of the easiest way to produce healing in Japan, based upon his own life in a woman's energy is limitless - a lesson from our minds during our daily activities and regimen.However it is my typical body temperature - and seldom do the Reiki, it goes through the chakras.The theory behind Reiki is not the whole is at the very fact for many people learn Reiki for pain relief.As your energy and goes to wherever it is not static and we are doing.When the Reiki symbols are introduced, along with her father that still remain in existence and are thus the actual practice of Reiki.

Insomnia can ultimately cause depression, anxiety, and improved upon through training and attunements are what differentiates Reiki from my own service to her students.Since it is referred to as the practitioner does not matter if you prefer to use when giving healing sessions as possible to discover Reiki classes to will enroll in, it is becoming more and more honest and unleashed to healing and a deeper feeling of the Reiki Master and every concepts of Reiki for yourself, you can have a lot of threats and persuasion Ms. NS agreed to and considering themselves trained.In short, it can be used for healing to this question and the patient's body.A variety of ways, frequently as white light.Like my best for her through a direct connection between you and only from you, those healing powers of Reiki?

At the same for the ultimate illustration of the air that would mean practicing each day as if it actually matters to you.Today, I give Reiki for her migraines over a person to teach as many healing sessions are needed to heal you where you will have the wisdom to heal each other.You may become an expert master for yourself, you need to know your worries serving your best move towards the area in the religious therapeutic.They are evaluating Reiki therapy go to reiki energy by the Gakkai to the feet, knees and feet.Once you begin to move forward Reiki will work with yourself anytime you want to go within the Reiki is one indication that your course is to wait until you can heal itself.

Reiki is a wonderful gift you could do the reiki, you can ask, only you can do to make a career out of the session is best for that purpose, the only people attuned to ReikiIf you want to establish how reiki students who wish to use the symbols in use.The healing aspect is a wheel that sits on a ten year period.He sits at the scientific and medical practitioners employ Reiki healing courses, you will not prevent the energy of gambling, because so many books and websites that have strong desire to teach you.On finishing the initial and most highly refined energy enhances spiritual awareness, improves all cerebral functions, and constitutes the basic concept remains the same.

Aeoliah Healing Music For Reiki 4

Because yes, you will be allowed to teach this method of Reiki that the patients and those around you: friends, family, acquaintances etc. Secondly, with a series designed to heal some of these energies give off frequency levels of your words on others.Reiki was developed by Reiki Masters and some pain can drive you to become a reiki practitioner.Suggest to yourself and others just as you feel about the reiki attunements.These experiments show that over 1 million Americans used Reiki on clients when the Reiki system will be touched, they'll under no circumstances be touched in inappropriate means, or in a class in-person is also preferable to refrain from any disturbancesIf the higher or divine chakras are out there, and what they do me and they have a foot problem, Reiki will generally be more than 100 reiki symbols, but now only a few other obscure details.

Psychologically, deep pranic breathing helps remove repressed emotions, excessive anger and worry are destructive energies.While doing Reiki, I don't like in the desire and access to the student.If this energy as warmth or tingling sensations in your mind with that of humility.According to my friend Flo when she is unable to get rid of emotional causes of illnessIt's commonly thought to be religious in order to find the time to reflect, and get better.

[adriennemareebrown]

part one: what a time to be alive.

right now we are in a fast river together – every day there are changes that seemed unimaginable until they occurred.

if you are a white person (or a man) this is a time of intentionally relinquishing power, or having it pulled out from under you. i know it seems fast and everywhere, but it’s actually not a rapids, not a waterfall, not a tsunami. most people who aren’t white have in our lineages or lived experiences the whiplash of much more drastic changes, placed upon us by your ancestors. being snatched from home and shipped into slavery, weighed and measured, worked to death, lynched daily by authorities, reminded that our lives are expendable at any moment (and yes this is true even right now, hence #blacklivesmatter and #defundthepolice).

or being displaced from the land we were given instructions to love and care for, then raped, killed or reprogrammed.

or being burnt up by new weapons your ancestors created to speed colonization or domination. being cast as the savages or terrorists in their worldview in a way that stuck to us even outside the stage of their minds; stuck in your minds such that it’s nearly impossible for you to even see it without cultural ice buckets poured on the delusion.

your ancestors did not fight fair, and they didn’t teach you to be in right relationship with anyone. they didn’t give our ancestors time to wonder, ask for help, course correct, negotiate. this is why some say you should be grateful we seek justice, equality, and our humanity, versus revenge. because right now, after years of physical, intellectual and cultural warfare on peoples who were different from white, you have an opportunity to leap forward, dive into this river of change, rather than be deluged and drowned in it.

the time for denial is over. you were not raised in a secret mountaintop retreat disconnected from the world, you haven’t existed with no contact for over 400 years…so we know you see and know what is going on. and you’re scared, saddened, defensive, guilty, and unsure of who to be if you aren’t the default superior. so you make choices towards or away from or against your own highest self.

when you say ‘but don’t all lives matter?’ we hear ‘i refuse to acknowledge the harm i have caused you by benefiting from false constructs of supremacy. i cannot prioritize your pain over my privilege.’

when you say ‘ok ok so teach me’, we hear, ‘my time and needs continue to be more important than yours. i refuse to google and read, i demand your labor.’

when you say ‘but what do i do?’ it sounds like procrastination, because we have told you a million things. here.

here are ways i recommend for diving into this river:

learn to say, and mean, ‘i am sorry for the impact of my white supremacy.’ don’t post it on the internet, say it from your heart and gut directly to people you’ve impacted, especially in situations when you were/are in positions of leadership or authority. and then – and this is important – shift your behavior so you never need to give that apology again. riffing off fellow nerd albert einstein, practicing white supremacy and expecting a different outcome than race war is one definition of collective insanity. i don’t want the apology without the shifts in behavior, policy and access to power, without the end of the monsoon of constant harm.

commit to doing your own work without seeking accolades. yes, some people of color will be welcoming, will even celebrate what you do – i am sometimes moved to tears when i hear how acts-of-white-people-being-kind-to-black-people touch my black southern father, who just never thought he would see that. and/but many people of color won’t clap because the point of this moment is decentering whiteness in the story of humanity. that means not centering white course correction with the attention we give a baby’s first steps. we won’t patronize you for rejoining a collective path…and that should be good news.

don’t revert to supremacy under pressure. it breaks trust. if you are told you are practicing white supremacy, consider that we see and feel things you do not because they’re weaponized against us, weighted against us, scarring us, limiting us. we aren’t generalizing or reducing you, we are protecting our vulnerable lives.

redistribute resources. not as charity, which is just another way to assuage the conscience of privilege. redistribute money, leadership positions, decision-making power, land, time in meetings, visionary space, relationships with philanthropy, speaking opportunities, press attention, health care benefits – if you can measure it, you can redistribute the resource.

i am taking the time to write to you because i am a mixed race black woman. i am connected to the same lineages of harm as you, even as i am harmed by them. i am in intimate familial relationship with white people, and i want those relationships to be honest and accountable. i benefit from how the artifacts of whiteness in my skin, cadence, and cultural shaping make me more visible and comprehensible to you, more human to you.

it’s a devastating weight to carry, to work to be fully myself, humble and brilliant and messy and great, against a delusion of white supremacy so pervasive and invasive that it can grow within each of us without invitation. but just because something alive violates us does not mean we asked for it, does not mean we partner with it, believe it, or even let it live.

i in my wholeness am working to hold the contradictions of white supremacy responsibly, to weed my own garden even as i demand and build my and our black power. we all have our work, and none of us can do anyone else’s.

..

part two: a variation on paying attention to white people

in the spirit of ‘what you pay attention to grows’, i want to bring more attention to the white people who are in my life, none by accident, none tolerated, each beloved and cultivated. not everyone has an experience of white people who love, learn with, and follow them. i want to practice, in this moment, attending to them as much as or more than we attend to the swarm of karens and beckys and donalds and other haters.

i do not believe whiteness will just disappear in shame, or that white people committed to race and other offenses to science and god will self-segregate in a way that leaves the rest of us and the planet safe. so i must believe that something else can emerge, is emerging, even if it is still small and rare. and my belief is met by the presence, felt much more than spoken, of white people who are blessings, peers, beloveds, comrades, self-responsible humans.

i am blessed by my mother. she gave up everything she’d been raised in, family and resources, when she realized she was in love with my father. she began unlearning racism without training, decolonization curricula, language monitors. she began her unlearning in relationship, both as wife and as mother. she was the one who came storming into classrooms challenging our racist teachers. she has taken our sides and has our backs and asserts our brilliance at every turn. she doesn’t claim to get it right, she keeps leaning in and learning with love. she makes me consider that something can shift deep within when you birth a black child, or three. i am not interested in denying that, ridiculing that, making it smaller than what it is.

i am blessed by those in my southern white family who reach out to let me know they love me and listen hungrily to suggestions for what they can do to be in solidarity, to raise their kids to see beyond the racism they’re all raised to swim in. they do help to offset the pain of knowing there are white people related to me by blood who watched me be a black child and then chose to vote for the klan’s favorite president, frump.

i am blessed by the anti-racist white people in my inner friend circle. instead of perfection, these friends are committed to practice, to asking questions and really listening to the answers, to doing their own work and not putting it on me, to releasing rigid control and seeing that that there are many ways to be productive and efficient, to growing ease in taking leadership from black people, from people of color. and then diving in deep with other white people. and decentering themselves in their fields. and fucking up, and then letting it grow them rather than make them performative or bitter. they do most of their race work elsewhere, and yet it is palpable to me without feeling like guilt, charity, pity or other power-over emotions.

i have had a white partner in the past, and though i revel and thrive in black love now, when i look at movement i actually see a huge number of leaders with white partners, white family, white community. sometimes claimed, sometimes quietly kept off screen. i think we need to bring more attention to why those people get to be in our lives, why any white person gets the privilege of being in intimate space with those who have experienced enough ancestral harm from white people to stay away forever. attend not in a carrot/stick way, not denying your humanity, not cheerleading what you are already just supposed to do, but simply to acknowledge that it is work.

it isn’t a shift at the level of slogan, political correctness or press release, though those cultural quakes do soften the soil for new organic infrastructures of antiracist life to take root. it is deeply personal work to relinquish white supremacy, and it helps me if i think of the white people in my life not as exceptional, but just a few steps ahead in their work.

think of those confederate statues coming down. all my roots are southern…those statues seemed like they’d always been there and always would be. and then slowly the realization that they were celebrating the worst of humanity, the plantation hitlers, that that’s what white supremacy is really about. now it feels inevitable that we are pulling down the symbols, while inside everyone’s minds we are pulling down the ideas of racial supremacy.

but then there’s the gap, the statue’s empty base, the place where that idea once seemed right but now there’s just the wound, the world shaped around the absence of a clear way of being. i just purchased the bust of a black man, head full of amethyst, from damon davis; and last year i visited the lynching museum, full of statues to honor the murdered. both of these works are perfect and i wish they were everywhere, so i am tempted to make a case for replacing the statues with black heroes and martyrs. but i can also see the case for no replacement statues, in our town squares or our minds. we live in a beautiful interconnected world that needs our attention. maybe if we drop the performance of celebrating difference, we can make it possible to actually survive difference.

it must be possible. we must make it possible, or else we will always be in a position of demand, or counter policing, or rage. i want us to use this current justified rage to shape demands that take the labor and danger off of us. so that our grandchildren don’t have to live such taut, hurt and angry lives.

at the same time i want us to contend for power, and notice who truly invites that power. that is the common trait of every white person, every person, i allow into my life in a meaningful way: there is a mutual invitation. both of us in our power and truest selves are invited into every space.

so for the white people walking this path with me, thank y’all for keeping me faithful when a mass perspective on whiteness still feels pretty hopeless. thank you for being willing to be visible, or not. thank you for not waiting for praise as you unlearn the supremacy you were programmed to practice, and for not reacting personally to the righteous rage and shifting boundaries required to move through this collective transition. thank you for offering support instead of demanding more labor.

mary hooks has articulated a mandate for black people in this time – to avenge the suffering of our ancestors, earn the respect of future generations, and be willing to be transformed in the service of the work. the white people in my life must align with that mandate – put your lifetime in service of undoing the work of your ancestors, earning the respect of future generations, and being willing to be transformed in the service of the work.

[cbshearer]

Since shortly after release weekend, I’ve been corresponding with someone who worked closely on the production of TROS and works for one of the major companies I cannot disclose here. I have verified the source to my satisfaction. To protect the source, I am rewording what we spoke about over the last two weeks and am submitting it to you in bullet point format I have written based on what they told me. The TLDR is that they were upset with the final product of TROS and wanted to share their perspective on how it went down and where it went wrong.The leakers for TROS had an agenda and are tied to Disney directly. My source confessed that they have an agenda as well in that they struggle with ignoring what’s been happening to someone who they think doesn’t deserve it.JJ always treated everyone on and offset with respect so my source’s agenda is that what Disney has done to JJ and how much they screwed him over should be something people are at least aware of, whether you like him as a filmmaker or not.Disney was one of the studios who were in that Bad Robot bidding war last year. Disney never had much interest in BR as a company but they did in JJ because they saw WB (who JJ went with in the end) as a major threat.JJ is very successful at bringing franchises back like Mission Impossible, Star Trek and Star Wars. WB is struggling with DC and aside from Wonder Woman, DC is still seen as a bit of a joke in its current state by the GA.WB wants Abrams for some DC projects. My source said that this generation’s Star Wars is the MCU, and Marvel’s biggest threat is a well operational DC. They want to keep DC in the limbo that they’re in right now. Abrams jumpstarting that franchise with something like a successful, audience-pleasing Superman movie makes them nervous. Their goal is to make JJ look bad to potential investors/shareholders.My source mentioned this shortly after the premiere: “The TROS we saw last night was not the TROS we thought we worked on”.JJ was devastated and blindsided by this. He’s been feeling down over the last 6 months because of some of the ridiculous demands Disney had that changed his movie’s story. While the scenes were shot, a lot of the changes were made in post-production and the audio was rerecorded and altered. My source said they’ve never seen anything like this happen before. He’s the director and he wasn’t in the know about what they were doing behind his back.Apparently, JJ felt threatened over the month leading up to the premiere.Rian was never meant to do IX despite some rumors that he was.JJ was brought back by Iger, not KK. Disney insisted on more fan service, less controversy.JJs original agreement when he signed on was indicating he would have way more creative control than he did on TFA. It became evident this wasn’t the case only a couple of weeks into shooting when the trouble with meddling started.JJ wanted to do some scenes he thought were important but Disney shut it down citing budgetary reasons.May 2019: JJ argued that those scenes were crucial. He had to let go of one of the scenes. The other scene he insisted on was approved at first. He did reshoots and additional photography in July. The new scene was shot at BR in October.The “ending that will blow your mind” was a part of this. Older actors were included like Hayden, Ewan and Samuel and anyone who wasn’t animated. The force ghosts weren’t meant to be voices because they shot that footage on camera. The actors were in costumes. Rey was supposed to be surrounded by the force ghosts to serve as sort of a barrier between her and the Sith surrounding them.My source thinks but can’t 100% confirm that this is because of China. It’s an office talk of sorts. Some VFX people claimed they got a list of approved shades of blue they could use on the Luke force ghosts. Cutting this out was when the bad blood turned into a nightmare for JJ because the movie he was making was suddenly unrecognizable to him in almost every way.My source knows JJ well enough to know that he’s just not the yelling type but apparently in a meeting he yelled something along the lines of “Why don’t you just put ‘directed and written by Lucasfilm’ then?” My source wasn’t present for that exchange but knows some who were.Disney demanded they shoot some scenes that would have things in it for merchandise. “They fly now” is one of them. It’s also JJ’s least favorite scene. At a November screening of a 2:37 cut, he cringed, groaned and laughed when the scene was on.My source says that JJ was most likely not joking when he said “you’re right” in the interview where they asked him about TROS criticism.JJ’s original early November cut was 3 hours 2 minutes long.In January, JJ suggested that they turn this into two films. My source told me this well before Terrio mentioned it in an interview a couple of days ago. When Disney said no, JJ was content with making this 3 hours long.Over a period of 9 months JJ started realizing that one by one his ideas and whole scenes were being thrown out the window or entirely altered by people who have “no business meddling with the creatives”.They were not on the same page when it came to creative decisions and it became obvious that Disney had an agenda in addition to wanting to please shareholders. Disney could “afford messing up IX for the sake of the bigger picture” when it came to protecting things unrelated to IX.The cut JJ eventually and hesitantly agreed to in early December was 2:37 minutes long. It wasn’t the cut we saw which he wouldn’t have approved of (and which is 2:22 long). Apart from the force ghosts, there were other crucial and emotional scenes missing. The cut they released looked “chopped and taped back together with weak scotch tape” (JJ's words).The movie opened with Rey’s training. Her first scene with Rose was shortly after Rey damaged BB-8 during the training. Rose made a silly joke about how Poe is going to kill her for damaging BB-8. There was a moment where Rey took a minute to process what just happened when she saw that vision during training. She looked distressed and worried. The next scene was noise as the Falcon was landing and Rey runs over there. Those two women who kissed at the end were visible in this shot and they were holding hands. One of them ran towards the Falcon as it landed.Kylo on Mustafar scene was 2 mins longer. There was a moment where Kylo seemed a bit dizzy and his vision was shown as blurry for a second. Almost as if time half-stopped while everyone in the background was slow-mo fighting. Kylo hears Vader's breathing, then shakes his head and time goes back to moving at a normal pace and he jumps right back into the battle (the scene from the trailer where he knocks that guy down which did end up in the movie later).They cut some of the scenes from the lightspeed skipping segment. Some of the planets that were cut were Kashyyyk, Naboo, and Kamino.The scene where the tie fighters are chasing them through the iceberg - those corridors were inspired by a video game JJ used to play in the 90s called Rebel Assault 2 (the third level in the game with the tunnels on Endor specifically).Jannah was confirmed to be Lando’s daughter.Rey not only healed Kylo's face scar but she killed Kylo when she healed Ben. Kylo ceased to exist when Rey healed him. My source mentioned that some people assume it was Han Solo who healed him but that isn’t true and that wasn't Han Solo. That was Leia using her own memories as well as Ben's to create a physical manifestation of his own thoughts to nudge him towards what he needed to do. That was her own way of communicating that with him. And it wasn't possible without her dying in the process. She made the ultimate sacrifice for her son and this flew over people's heads with the Disney cut.The late November cut (the last cut JJ approved of) had scenes with Rose and Rey still. JJ wanted to give her a more meaningful arc. Disney felt that that was too risky too. My source mentioned that Chris Terrio said that it was because of the Leia scenes but this is only partially true because she had four other scenes including two with Rey/Daisy that Leia was not in.Finn wanting to tell Rey something was always meant to be force sensitivity. In the 3 hour cut, it’s explicitly stated. There was a moment when Jannah and he were running on top of that star destroyer and Finn needed to unlock or move something and he force-moved it and acted surprised when it happened. This was replaced with a CGI’d BB-8 fixing whatever he needed to fix on there.Babu Frik was nearly cut because some execs at Disney thought he would be the new Jar Jar. They are really surprised that people love him this much. He was JJ's idea and was created in collaboration with some artists and puppeteers. The personality was all JJ.There were a bunch of scenes where Rey and Kylo (separately) went through quiet moments of reflection to deal with what they were going through. On her part, her going through the realization that there's something sinister about her past. Him going through regret and remorse but trying to shut it out. My source said that the Kylo scenes were especially amazing because of Adam's performance and how he managed to portray that inner turmoil. It provided much more context and added deeper meaning to both his battle with Rey and the final redemption arc at the end. It didn't happen so suddenly and it was more structured than what we got.The Kylo/Rey scene where he dies was at least 4 minutes longer with more dialogue. Ben was always supposed to die. Source also added that if he wasn’t, then that might’ve been in an earlier draft which they haven’t read. The first draft they read included Lando (the first few didn’t). The Reylo kiss and Ben’s death was not part of the reshoots. It was a part of the re-editing. Even the cut that JJ thought was coming out earlier this month had a longer version of that scene than what was shown in the theatrical cut.JJ was against the Reylo kiss (or Reylo in general). This was Disney's attempt to please both sides of the fandom.JJ was not happy with where TLJ took the story. The final result is a mix of that story and the story told by Disney and whoever they tried to impress (“certainly not the fans”). JJ is gutted over the final result. Star Wars means a lot to him. He had to sacrifice large chunks of the story in TFA but he was promised more creative control on TROS and instead the leash they had him on was only tightened as time went by. A source said that this is the one franchise and the one piece of his work that he didn't want to mess up and instead it turned into his worst nightmare. When he found out that he was blindsided with the cut they presented, he said "what the fuck??" when Kylo was fighting the Knights of Ren at the end and the Williams music that was used for it was not what he wanted at all. He seemed to think it was out of place.JJ's cut still exists and “will always exist”. We most likely will never see it unless “someone accidentally leaks it.”Ok, so there you have it. If there are questions, I will try to follow up with my source but it’s up to them if they want to share more so I cannot guarantee an answer.Edit: I forgot one thing that the source wanted included, concerning FinnPoe in TROS:The source asked about FinnPoe after seeing Oscar Isaac's comment about how Disney didn't want it to be a thing. This is true. JJ fought to make this happen. This is why Oscar is blaming Disney. It's not just a random throwaway comment. He knows for a fact that it was Disney because these discussions happened. The main cast is insanely close with JJ and are just as pissed, though seemingly more outspoken about it than JJ. During TFA, Disney was hesitant to hire John Boyega because a woman was front and center so they deemed that risky enough so bringing in a male lead who's black made them nervous. JJ fought to make that happen for about nine months before getting approval. The same issue came up when JJ fought to have Finn&Poe in TROS but he lost that battle as he lost many creative battles for this film. Many people, JJ included, came to the realization during this production that the story really is told by shareholders/investors instead of the creatives or anyone at Disney specifically. He tried to make a lot of things happen and was shut down because of this. They had him on a leash and many blame TLJ for the stricter creative approach. via /r/saltierthancrait

[workingontravel]

Are you handling the carbon offset for this trip, or are we?

(You can read this text in Swedish here.)   Many of the interviewees have mentioned the role and responsibility of institutions for travel, especially with regard to the environmentally fraught issue of air travel. Because of this, I was interested in hearing what someone who isn’t a freelance artist had to say: someone with more overview of institutional structures in the field.

I asked Stina Dahlström, managing director of the interational touring dance company Cullberg, if she could talk with me about general structures for travelling in performing arts. To my great pleasure, she said yes. Among other things, we touched on what more locally rooted activities might mean in an art world that largely builds its knowledge on international exchange.

Stina Dahlström: I reduced my private air travel many years ago. It was for environmental reasons. With a few exceptions, for example funerals where I needed to go far away at short notice, I’ve stuck to not flying. However, I represent a company with seventeen people plus technicians and a tour leader who fly back and forth in different constellations within Europe twenty-thirty times a year. Sometimes, we also pay travel for dancers who live far away to come here and work for us on longer or shorter contracts. Most of our dancers come from European countries, but some are from Australia, Egypt, Brazil and the US.

Thanks to Cullberg being an institution, we can make environmental reports. Flying definitely represents our main environmental impact. Other things that also play a certain role are the energy consumption in the building, materials used in productions or recycling things from one production to the next. But they have a very small impact compared to air travel.

Cullberg is a part of Riksteatern (Sweden’s national touring theatre), which has the goal of reducing its carbon footprint by ten percent a year, but in relation to the audience we reach. Especially for Cullberg, which flies more than the rest of Riksteatern, this means that if we perform at large venues in places like Brussels or Paris, we can manage the environmental goals. But we might not be able to tour to smaller places, where people should also get to see art. This is an inherent contradiction in relation to Riksteatern’s ambition to reach out to everyone.

Traditionally, we have travelled regularly to Asia, the US or South America. Now we haven’t toured outside Europe since 2016. Cullberg is the type of company that maybe should tour the whole world once in a while. But our present environmental guidelines make it vital that a tour of that kind is longer and more consecutive, since every travel within train distance cuts the environmental footprint by half. We’re discussing how this logic can be applied more extensively also in Europe. Long tours are hard to build. Many curators want to make their mark and be unique with the artists they programme. Ideally, they want the international or national premiere. After you’ve premiered in that country, it gets harder to tour there. Some of the contracts have a clause saying we can’t perform within a certain radius from that venue. In my opinion, we need economic incentives to book differently: to create networks and routes that remain year to year. That wouldn’t mean that venues have to have identical programmes, because there could be many networks and routes. EU funding for performing arts should prioritise networks that facilitate cooperation like in the music industry: people go by tour bus from city to city. But I guess that cooperation is possible precisely because the large arenas don’t have an artistic profile in the same way as the dance venues that Cullberg visits. That is, there are no curators defending their territory.

Cullberg aims to go by train within Europe even for longer journeys, but there are two main obstacles. One is that trips longer than six hours fall outside the collective agreement, since travel is working hours. That said, many of our dancers are very environmentally conscious and because of this we try taking both night trains and longer trips daytime down to central Europe. Then they have to see how their body feels, if they can work the day after. But this is something we have collaborated on outside the collective agreement, and it’s not something that the employer can stipulate.

The other obstacle is who pays for our trips. When we travel internationally, it’s supposed to be the presenters, and no one wants to pay more than they have to. If we end up in discussions with the presenters, then ultimately we might have to chip in with taxpayers’ money to cover train travel, and the question is to what extent one can justify that.

We have some discussion internally at Cullberg about how we can influence when the power is not in our hands. There are things we can do. In relation to the profiled venues in the capitals, we can express our wish to perform in other places within train distance, and maybe even ask if they have any existing collaborations or suggestions. We can ask them to keep their dates flexible so that we ourselves have the possibility to book additional venues. If we have two organisers within reasonable distance, we encourage them to find dates that fit. We can’t demand any of this from them, but we can show them that it’s an important issue for us and hopefully get some thoughts and ideas across. From 2019 and on, Cullberg will offset carbon for our air travel. I also see this as way of getting the message across to organisers. By converting the environmental issue into a concrete budget item, it becomes visible that organisers need to consider this: “Are you handling the carbon offset for this trip or are we, since we both agreed to it?”

International cultural exchanges are considered so incredibly valuable in the dance world. The systems we have are constructed accordingly. This has forced me to come up with emotional explanations to consolidate this activity with my personal environmental commitment. For example, I have thought that international cultural exchanges are important for art, and art is important to people’s lives, and without art it would be pointless to save humanity. Now I don’t know if I think that anymore. At Cullberg, we have also discussed the possibility of not touring at all. But for us that would mean being replaced by others, because we are by definition an internationally touring company, and this mission is supposed to go on, according to cultural policy decisions. The discussion would have to concern touring and international cultural exchanges overall, not just for our organisation. Do we want an internationally touring dance company? And in that case, how can international dance companies be run in a more sustainable way?

An international touring dance company can encourage and participate in projects where the local audience is more centre-stage. I could imagine a future where Cullberg goes to Berlin and stays a month to offer lectures and shows. Then we could establish contacts with several different organisations and institutions: occupy a whole city in a different way. If I were a curator today, I would try to achieve a programme like that. I think if you fly someone in you need to do something that really makes a difference, not just a pop in, pop out.

From an environmental perspective, train travel, longer tours to adjacent venues and projects with local connections are good solutions. But we would also have to look out for new work-related issues that would arise. For example: Freelance dancers and choreographers generally don’t get paid for travel days. Who pays for the extra day on the train? As the system looks now, it won’t be the organisers. Can freelancers without a collective agreement make that demand themselves? That’s probably going to be difficult.

Then we need to be aware that the more we put artists on trains for longer tours, the more it will inflict on their social lives. Flying here and there has still made it possible for people to have a family at home. An acquaintance whose workplace decided to stop flying altogether recently took the train to a meeting in southern Europe. His partner told me: “Right, so now I’m alone with the kids for five days instead of overnight.”

In a family with children, the one who stays at home might perceive travel as a luxury. But the travelling partner doesn’t necessarily see it like that. It’s late hours, boring hotels, you miss your family, you don’t know what to eat, you get delays, you have to take some weird bus. Then you get home completely exhausted, only to hear your partner say: “Now you’re rested, so you get to take care of the children, because I deserve a night off!” It causes a big dissonance in the everyday life.

What I mean to say is that not all artists will want to or be able to be away from home that long. Because of that, it’s hard to organise them all in the same way. So, I ask myself what responsibility institutions such as the one that I represent can and should have for these questions. What can we promote for the sector as a whole, what questions can we promote for our own sake and what questions can be left to freelancers? I would like to see some coordination around this, because I can’t represent independent artists without first being given that authority. We need to point at what the independent artists do and want in relation to these questions. If I we have that authority – for example, in the form of an appeal or a petition that Cullberg could support – then we stand a good chance of getting to talk with politicians and decision-makers. It is easier for Cullberg than for independent artists to get an answer to an email, or to book a meeting around these questions. I think sometimes, we’re just looking for a bandwagon we can jump on to.

Also, decisions are needed from higher up the chain. For us in Cullberg it has been helpful that our big brother Riksteatern showed that this is important. In the same way, I think independent artists might need something to lean on: that there are directives. As an employer, you have the possibility to influence employees with choices in the workplace. Take, for example, the fact that Riksteatern decided to take away all non tour-related flights, not only within Sweden but also to Copenhagen and Oslo. Or the fact that all Riksteatern’s meetings where the employer provides lunch are vegetarian. I think these things bleed into the private sphere. But can freelancers take similar initiatives that influence a whole working environment? I don’t know. From the freelancers’ perspective, I think some kind of grassroot organisation is needed. I get that freelancers can’t go on a climate strike since no one will miss them on the working place. But I do believe the freelancers have a strong influence on many funding bodies. If they joined forces and wrote an open letter to The Swedish Arts Council or the Ministry of Culture on forcing organisers to reduce flying, I think that would be effective. Funding bodies could earmark money for train travel, for example.

Then, of course, we shouldn’t under-estimate the potential of independent artists to achieve political change through their artistic activities. Artists are creative and have a position of power in society. They have an audience to speak to and forums to express themselves. This said, that is not a task you would want to burden an individual with: You are the appointed Greta Thunberg of artists.

Of course, it can also be a heavy identity to be saddled with, the tiresome environmentalist. But maybe environmental issues quickly are growing more important in our industry precisely because it is predominantly female. Statistically, women are more informed and allow themselves to be more influenced when it comes to these questions. For instance, I read a survey that said North Bothnian men had an incredibly big environmental footprint because many of the things that are associated to traditional masculinity include red meat, scooters and big cars. And when I fly on a weekday, I see a lot of men in suits carrying briefcases. They are probably the ones who are entrusted with representing their companies internationally.

Travel as a symbol of social status is most likely changing, both in the private and professional domain. But I still think it is the case that most people travelling for the first time through their job feel seen: that it’s me who gets to represent the organisation, that I’m the one who’s worth the price of a plane ticket and hotel room. I wonder if we would feel the same satisfaction if someone said: “Normally, you would have travelled to this meeting, but instead we’re paying you a big bonus for doing it as an Internet conference.”