#the problem is that they have so much power that the impact of their shortcomings is amplified to a massive scale and can seriously

[forthelostones]

𝚙𝚝.𝚎𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 ; 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚎𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 ─── ⋆

⟡⋆˙୨ᥫ᭡. 𝚗𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚎 𝚊𝚞 - 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚐𝚎!𝚊𝚋𝚋𝚢 𝚡 𝚏𝚎𝚖!𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛ᥫ᭡.୧⋆˙⟡

synopsis: abby was a woman whose presence was becoming deeply irresistible to you. in your final year of nursing school, you toil with the idea of pursuing her — ruin what you have or enjoy what’s in front of you?

warnings. 18+ (mdni); sub!abby, domsub!abby, sexual themes, jealousy, fluff, nickname: dummy, and modern au - pre-established relation.

an: guys. this has been such a crazy ride, thanks for the support on both of my stories. it means so much to me. sorry for the wait... lets get it.

CLICK HERE.

(no y/n)

Abby watched from the row behind you, observing how you chewed on the end of that neon #2 pencil. She could tell by the bobbing of your leg that you were nervous and stuck on a specific question. It was the same during studying — chew, bob, sigh. Almost on cue, a frustrated sigh left your throat. She knew it was her fault that this was happening.

She knew neither of you studied long enough for you to feel confident on this exam. Well, that’s what she kept trying to convince herself, she was already finishing up the last page. Although her pencil glided on the paper effortlessly, she couldn’t help but be distracted by your indecisiveness on the math equations and multiple-choice questions. The once full eraser had been subsided to pure metal scrapping into the pages.

The time on her watch read ten minutes left until the end of the exam and you were only on page two. Studying had become harder for you with Abby around. It wasn’t only the dating component it was mostly the difference in your skills. Her ability to memorize vocabulary and complete math problems without thinking twice about them made you academically insecure. While you averaged low B’s and high C’s, she had a 4.0 and made it look easy. The clock's ticking distracts you from the problem you are trying to solve. It was one you and Abby worked on multiple times, yet you’re frozen, unsure how to solve it. As everyone flicks their pages to finish, you just … froze. 

“Okay. Pencils down.” Your professor said just moments after you started a new equation. Your jaw dropped slightly and you squeezed your eyes shut. Abby shook her head, not at you specifically, but herself. You had practically moved in and the nights that would typically be spent studying were now used to learn more about each other beyond your friendship. Realistically, Abby understood that those moments would be worth more than a grade in the long run. But a part of her also resented getting this comfortable, ultimately impacting you. The feelings clashed within her. The heat forming inside of you could only be described as embarrassment. Why was it like your brain suddenly lost all power to its systems? It wasn’t unusual for you to skip a few questions but this was completely unlike you. 

You chew on your cuticles and fold the mostly blank pages and pass them down to the front, doing the same for your classmates. Their pages crumbled with computation answers and confidently filled bubbles exposed your shortcomings. You should feel relieved that the test is over but you don’t. A heavy anchor grounded you but you were still floating. Abby met you down in your row where you saw her concealing another A-plus smirk. Once you both exited into the hall Abby’s hand finds the center of your back and she begins to pet it slowly. You shrug her away gently. 

“Don’t.” You sigh. 

Abby knew it would set you off but she did it anyway to show you she sees you. The blonde’s brain was moving at a rapid pace. She so deeply wanted to ask you about the challenging problems and the scenarios on the quiz. Her translucent lashes tapped frantically as she imagined the sheet of paper behind her eyes. 

“I feel good about this one.” She finally says. 

“Good. I really did not do well. It’s — whatever. Right?” 

Abby looks to you and she couldn’t lie and tell you that it’s not just whatever. It’s your future. Both of your futures — together — it was important to Abby that her partner was just as successful as her. 

“You should be happy that you did your best but understand that if you did do as bad as you think, it’s worth asking for a makeup to understand the material.” She suggested. 

You hated when she got like this, rigid. Her posture was straight, her mouth set hard, and no softness found anywhere on her face. The regime her father instilled in her stayed and it was evident in moments like this. 

“Abby, sometimes I really need you to just listen to me and be rational later.” 

A chill followed down her spine following your sharp comment. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t study together anymore.” She muttered.

Part of you wanted that to be a joke but knew it wasn’t. The night before proved itself to be deeply uneventful for the both of you. 

“You’re distracting me.” You groan as you’re reviewing flashcards on Abby’s bed, the first mistake. She was wearing a thin, white tank top and a pair of loose black sweats, untied, on her hips. Her hair was drying from the shower you two just took and so was her body. The outline of her features was accentuated by the water being absorbed by the cotton. She was so casually beautiful and simply yours. The bed shifted behind you, her weight bending the mattress inwards, as she crawled towards you.

“Am I?” She asks, using the tip of her tongue to playfully lick a stripe of slick up towards your lobe. An instant bubble of relief popped inside of you. “Okay. Okay.” 

Abby couldn’t take her eyes away from you. She had seen you in this robe every night now but it was something about how it was gliding with you. As well as your skin's glint from your body oil makes you look regal. You sat at the base of the bed while Abby retreated towards the headboard, leg tucked under her butt. She took off three inches of hair and it looked so fresh, carving out her face perfectly, and highlighting her stiff jawline. “How about we make a deal?” She said brazenly. 

“What?” 

“For each answer I get right you remove something?” 

“Abby,” you chuckle, not denying her advances. 

You thumb the index cards in your hand and turn to tie your eyes with hers. 

“First question, the section is Anatomy and Physio. What best describes endocrine glands?” You ask. 

Abby taps her chin as if she’s searching for the answer. “They secrete chemicals into the blood, growth, metabolism, sexual development and function.” 

She raises her eyebrows and shoots her eyes towards your robe. A deal is a deal so you remove the silk, leaving you in your two-piece pajama set. Abby notices the goosebumps lining the outsides of your shoulders and can’t help but desire to rub them warm. 

“Question number two. Anaerobic respiration can lead to a burning sensation caused by which molecule?” 

“Easy,” she scuffed. “Lactic Acid.”

Her teeth appeared behind her Cheshire grin as your top found its way onto her floor. 

“Good job.” 

Your words made her cunt pulse. 

“The mediastinum is located within which cavity?” You ask. 

Abby’s face fell instantly. The outline of your nipples looked delicious and icy, she needed them in her palms immediately. “Fuck. I don’t know.” 

You lift yourself off the bed and bend right in front of her to retrieve your shirt, Abby’s shadow overcame you and her hips thrust into your ass in one motion. She spins you around to face her, mouths inches away. “Do you think you’re going to actually put that back on?” 

Her index finger traced the outline of your lips with her eyes following. You grip her wrist, halting her movements, “And if I do?” 

Abby gently places the index cards neatly on her bedside table and presses you into the wall behind you. Usually, Abby is submissive but the stalking woman imposed her strength on you, like she’s been wanting to do from the first time she saw you in clinicals. 

“I’ll just rip it off you.” She giggles. 

“Would that be so bad?” You reply, bringing her finger into your mouth, sucking it then adding another. Abby huffed a keen groan as she bent down onto her knees, immediately pressing her mouth into your cunt. She lapped at the fabric separating her from you and didn’t even ask for you to remove them. 

You insisted by beginning to take them off but she tore them off you and hoisting up one leg onto her shoulder following the other one. 

“Abby.” You gasp. 

“I got you, hold onto me.” 

She was flexing her skill by fine-tuning your pussy with her tongue while she slowly hoisted you up towards the ceiling. Not only did you feel as if you were floating, you actually were. She was a show off but you fucking loved it. 

After that, there was no more studying done.

“Do you think we should cut down on the time we're spending together?” You question, as the night replays in your mind. 

Abby’s face scrunched up in immediate disapproval without hesitation at the suggestion. She pulled her bottom lip slightly in her mouth and looked around as if the walls suddenly grew eyes. Abby wanted to tell you no but she knew what had to be done. 

“We can.” She grimaced with a shrug. 

Despite all the time you spent together the girlfriend conversation had yet to come up. She thought about it the most when you were in her presence. She didn’t comprehend how you liked her so much and yet, you refused to make it official. She truly believed that once you ditched Ellie she’d be over the moon, but right now it’s feeling the same and Abby doesn’t do stagnant. 

“Abby, we can still study together, in the library, several feet away from each other.” 

She forced a smile. “Fine. Does this mean you’ll still sleepover?” 

Before your crush on Abby developed you were denying yourself the fact that it was possible. But during this time, before the dating, your grades had been the best when you were alone, and you know for a fact, that it was because of her. You may not be as smart as Abby but you do want to come out on the other end with a degree too. 

“Why don’t we come up with a schedule?” She suggests.  

“That would be perfect.” You said. 

The schedule consisted of dinners at Abby’s during the week, sleepovers on non-clinical days which were Wednesdays and Fridays, and studying every day at the library. Abby liked the organization but her body had gotten so used to you beside her. A week into implementing the new schedule Abby felt an immense amount of anxiety without you around. She didn’t know how to break down the feeling and why it was so persistent. Although you two were next door to each other, text messages still provided a temporary cushion for her sadness, but it wasn’t enough. 

Abby clicked the icon that was the home for your name and called but there was no answer. Dinner was stewing on the stove, and in the middle of mixing a cocktail, Abby called to find out if you could taste what was missing. Another call led to another one and soon Abby was sitting with a candle flickering silently in front of her. Your plate sat untouched and she just picked at the remnants of hers. 

Little did she know you were closed off in your room after studying, panicking. You knew yourself more than you wanted to. The schedule was needed for you to clear your brain on the feelings you had for Abby. With upcoming exams and graduation where would that leave you? She'd move across the world while you were huddled up in your small town's hospital circulation? It was coming in so fast and before you could mix in a girlfriend you had to know what you wanted. The pages of your journal turned soft as you tore your pen through the book. 

A part of you wanted to hear the rapping of her fist against your door, ready to envelop you and reassure you that you would figure it out. She never came and because of that, a piece of you died. Conversations with her have turned short and passive since the last exam. It wasn’t just the exam it was a culmination of multiple things that either of you were ready to talk about. 

Abby put your dinner into a glass container and waited outside your door trying to gain the sense to knock. One of the many nights you spent together gave her a reason to knock instead of sulk in her bed, thinking about all of her shortcomings in the relationship. You were both lying down and Abby lit a candle that night that you bought her. The sweet scent of peaches and cream cut through the bitter smell of her pine products. She loved it. Between the sheets were your naked bodies damp and lazy. Abby had brought a glass of cold ice water and set it on the nightstand beside the candle. You took turns taking sips. 

“Thank you for the water.” You smiled. 

“Don’t mention it,” She nudged you. 

You twist your body onto your stomach and look up to her glimmering, post-sex face. 

“Abby?” 

“Yes, beautiful?” 

“You still make me nervous.” 

She cackles and brings her hand to your cheek and massages away your imperfections. With the roll of her eyes she licks her lips before curating a snarky response. But she quickly realizes you’re being serious. “Why?” 

“I care so much about you and that’s something I haven’t felt before. With anyone.”

A kind pause swells between you both. 

“I care about you too. I don’t want that to make you nervous.” She said. 

“I know you see me differently but I am a little insecure.” 

She leans down and kisses your forehead tenderly without a breath. 

“That’s normal.” 

“But I burrow. I distance myself when I get like that and I don’t want to subject you to that. I don’t want to hurt your feelings again. If I do that, get distant, don’t hesitate to just tell me to get out of my own head. It’s not your fault or your responsibility.” 

Abby’s fist banged on the door with your words echoing in her mind. The thuds startled you out of the sleepy daze you fell under. You shuffle to the door to see the goofy blonde in her pajamas and slippers holding what was supposed to be tonights shared dinner. 

“You didn’t come to dinner,” Her voice was more welcoming than usual. “I was worried. Are you okay?”

Shoving her way past you and nearly tossed the container on the kitchen counter. Without hesitation she opened her arms and you couldn’t help but to run into them. Although she didn’t say anything the affirmation from her presence was enough. 

“All too much in your head again aren’t you?” 

A sob escaped into her chest and she gripped you tighter. These past few days have been a blunder of confusing thoughts. A part of you knew getting together with Abby would make things unclear in your life. But if she was willing to get uncomfortable and support you, you were obligated to do the same to her.

“Abby, I should’ve answered your calls.” You pull away to notice how unswayed she is of your state.

“You should have but that doesn’t matter right now. We need to talk.”

You nod your head seldomly and she grips your hand and takes you to your bedroom. Abby pats beside herself to welcome you.

“I’m so scared.” You blurt out.

“Me too,”

Abby was scared for the complete opposite reason. When she was with you it seemed like all the decorative things such as school didn’t matter. She wasn’t familiar with how that felt. To have an identity outside of her accomplishments or care about someone. With you, she could flunk out of nursing school, move back to her home town, and still be satisfied. That scared her — that one person could allow her to have such a paradigm shift.

Hearing Abby say those words made your heart settle.

“I care so much about you. I didn’t think I would, this much. I should’ve known because on orientation when I saw you I thought, ‘I need to know who she is’ and I am grateful for that thought blossoming into my mind.”

You couldn’t muster any other word but her name. She picked up your hands to bring them into her lap. She leaned in to place a soft kiss on your mouth and lingered there with her forehead pressed against yours.

“When you moved next door, I just thought maybe this is the sign I need to do something different. To not let my ambitions lead me but instead my heart. And my heart loves you, Dummy.”

[bitchthefuck1]

One of the things that stands out the most to me about succession on the rewatch is how many hugely significant plot points only happen because at some point someone was feeling petty.

[ordinaryschmuck]

Quick Thoughts on Echo

I feel like Echo is going to be one of those shows where, depending on who you are, you're either going to REALLY love it or REALLY hate it. For me, though, I'd say it's...MOSTLY good.

The action is well-done and well-choreographed (don't let people tell you differently). You feel the punches and impacts a lot of the time, showing off how brutal and violent a character like Maya Lopez is.

It's also great to see the MCU get dark and gritty again, killing people, showing blood, and diving deep into the darkness of a character's backstory. They really did show a little girl watch as her mom bled to death, huh?

As for the characters, almost everyone here is written and acted well. Maya, especially, works as this character shrouded in darkness that her family tries hard to bring back into the light. And her family are all charming as can be, with the performances being entertaining and allowing each actor to do well to sell that they care deeply for Maya despite her shortcomings.

Then there's the representation, which I'm told is on point. Marvel worked well with the Choctaw Tribe to make this as authentic as possible, and I'm willing to take their word for it. I'm too white to know how authentic all of this is, but I haven't heard anyone other than other white people complain so I think it's fine. But...Okay, there are SOME negatives to be had with how it connects to her powers.

In the show, Maya has the powers to reach out to her ancestors, where their strength ECHOES through her and her bloodline, making THEM strong. Each episode even shows us one of her ancestors and just what made them so cool and empowering. And, yeah, that's a cool concept with half-decent execution, and I like all the different ways each ancestor is represented. The problem is...that isn't Echo. That couldn't be FARTHER from Echo. Echo's powers in the comics is that she's kind of like Taskmaster, she can memorize a person's fight moves and stand out on her own because of it. The reason why she doesn't do that HERE is because the person in charge of this series saw that and said, "Nah, that's stupid. I'm going to do my OWN thing." And call me crazy, but if you can't find a way to make a superhero's powers cool in an adaptation, then maybe...DON'T write for that character?

Because I already went over this with Ms. Marvel. The superhero's powers are their most important feature. Spider-Man swings, Superman flies, and Hulk smashes, it's a whole thing. You change the power, and it's not the same superhero anymore. And it's a weird change too. Like, this character doesn't need big, glowy superpowers to be badass. It sort of takes the punch out of the fact that she's this disabled hero who kicks butt despite being deaf and missing a leg. Give her superpowers, and it gives this idea that she NEEDS them to prove that she's capable instead of...proving that she can do it despite her disabilities. It's why I liked Episode Three within this first season. It shows how resourceful Maya can be in a dangerous situation with the episode hinting that her ancestor's spirit is guiding her gunshots and aim, but not enhancing her strength and abilities. THAT is how I think the power change could work better, where the ancestors' spirits guide Maya but leave her own strengths to win the day. None of that weird glowing shit. You don't need weird glowing shit if all she's fighting is the Kingpin.

Speaking of which, Kingpin's in this...And he's not as engaging as he was in Daredevil. The show tries SO HARD to force this relationship between Fisk and Maya, and...it doesn't work as well as it should. Like, Maya's rage towards Fisk? I buy that. THAT works. Fisk's love for Maya? It...feels disingenuous and almost out of nowhere, especially since Hawkeye didn't do much to show us that bond in the first place. The writers COULD HAVE, but they wanted to leave Kingpin as this big surprise just to get audiences to cheer. And I'd say that'd it be for the best to save the real bonding moments with Echo and Kingpin for ECHO'S show, making it more about her, but...it falls short. There's not enough time to showcase Maya's relationship with Fisk BEFORE the big betrayal, and it hurts the show and Kingpin's character considerably with how badly he's shoehorned in. I do like this one idea in the end where he faces his trauma and there's some decent set up for what lies in the future. Other than that, he...doesn't work well here.

Overall, I'd say Echo works fine enough. When it's good, it's REALLY engaging and some of the MCU's best work. When it's bad, it's pretty awkward and obviously rushed out. I'd still recommend it as a great time as these five episodes just fly by with some epic, brutal fun. But if you want something that hits the same highs as Daredevil, you're going to be disappointed. This isn't Daredevil, this is Disney trying to BE Daredevil. It works fine enough, but let's hope these edges are polished out by the time Daredevil: Born Again comes out or, at the very least, Echo gets a Season Two.

(Also, don't worry about having to watch Hawkeye. The first episode catches you up quick...It's poorly paced and rigid, but it still catches you up if you want to watch Echo for, well, Echo)

[meadow-dusk]

Albums I Loved in 2023

July: World Record (2022)

Maybe part of it was singing "Love Earth" with a crowd of a few thousand while Neil led the way. Maybe part of it was placing myself in the center of beautifully preserved landscapes and experiencing my own smallness and my own insignificance against the forces of nature. Maybe part of it was understanding the cycles of change: what fluctuates with time, and what is clearly human-driven impact. Maybe part of it was seeing the meteorological anomalies dwarfed in importance by news stories of either trivial entertainment value or the increasingly common devaluing of human rights and life. Maybe part of it was dwindling trust in the ways we try to act and diminishing hope they will ever actually make a difference in the face of such a monstrous threat that we are walking straight towards with eyes wide open and the rear-view mirror shot to hell.

I am regularly scared halfway to death about the prospects for this planet. I have fullest faith that Earth will eventually heal and rebuild herself once the scourge of our industrial conquest is eliminated from her surface, whenever that will be. The overwhelming issue is not that nature won't fight back and balance be reestablished, it's that there will undoubtedly be immeasurable suffering in the meantime. Lives are already being threatened by extreme weather, temperatures, and uncommon occurrences that we talk about for three days and then forget. The overwhelming issue is that no matter how much we as individuals care, it feels completely pointless to initiate change when so much of the burden is being created at the hands of so few: the powerful companies who thrive on our very smallness and helplessness. The system is built to support itself. Those that will suffer first at the hands of a changing climate are those without shelter, funds, or provisions to protect themselves. The wealthy, the comfortable, the greedy will survive. And what lessons, then, will have been learned?

I cannot afford to be scared. I cannot afford to be helpless. I cannot afford to be silent. And World Record is one man's attempt to go against the grain and speak up. To get people excited about and take pride in the place we call home (there's only one. We are never going to terrestrialize Mars). The effort has to be multiplied, and we have to demand better. No one person can fix this problem. And Neil Young doesn't try to. He just lives by example, owns up to his shortcomings, spreads his message, and makes his music. In such soul-building activities as art and nature immersion are the answers. There we will find no doubt that this place that has sheltered us and millions of other creatures is worth all the love and protection she has shown us.

[faith-in-democracy]

The Art of Criticism: A Comprehensive Guide to Complaining

Ah, criticism! The ever-enlightening act of pointing out all the flaws and shortcomings in someone else's work. Nothing quite compares to the satisfaction one feels when tearing down the creative efforts of others. After all, who needs encouragement and support when you have an arsenal of snide remarks and biting comments, am I right? In today's world, it seems like everyone is trying to avoid criticism. People these days are just too sensitive, unable to handle a little constructive bashing. It's truly a shame. How will they ever grow a thick skin if we don't constantly berate them? But fear not, dear readers! I'm here to provide you with an essential guide on how to excel in the art of criticism. So grab your virtual pitchforks and let's dive right into the enchanting world of complaining. Step 1: Be As Vague As Possible When criticizing, make sure to avoid specific details. After all, the real power lies in generalizing. Why bother pointing out the exact flaws when you can simply say, 'This is terrible'? It leaves the artist or writer pondering over their entire existence, which is undoubtedly a life-changing experience. Step 2: Don't Waste Time on Research Who needs to do research when you can form opinions based on a cursory glance? Why bother understanding the artist's intentions or the context in which the work was created? It's much more fulfilling to make outright assumptions and bash away without any factual basis. Instant gratification, guaranteed! Step 3: Use Absurd Comparisons Want to really make an impact with your criticism? Compare the person's work to the worst things imaginable. It doesn't matter if the comparison makes absolutely no sense. Remember, sarcasm is your best friend. Try saying something like, 'This piece of writing is the literary equivalent of a soggy sandwich left out in the rain.' Brilliant, isn't it? Step 4: Be Excessively Harsh Anyone can give constructive feedback, but your goal is to be mercilessly brutal. Forget about empathy or compassion; they have no place in the world of criticism. Tear the work apart, insult the creator's intelligence, and don't forget to highlight how superior you are. It's all about asserting dominance. Step 5: Never Offer Solutions Criticism is not about finding solutions or improvement. It's about making ourselves feel better by highlighting the flaws in others. So, always remember to point out problems without offering any helpful suggestions. Who needs progress when we can revel in the misery of the artist? Congratulations, dear readers! You are now on your way to becoming the most accomplished critic around. Remember, the world thrives on negativity, and your biting words have the power to crush dreams and extinguish creativity. Happy criticizing!

[antmin3rt19]

Crypto TREND

T19 antminer

As we anticipated, since publishing Crypto TREND we have gotten many questions coming from readers. In this type we will option the most common one.

T19 antminer

What type of changes are getting that could be game changers in the cryptocurrency arena?

One of the biggest changes designed to impact the cryptocurrency world is an alternate method of block affirmation called Proof of Share (PoS). We will endeavor to keep this story fairly high level, it also is important to have a conceptual understanding of what your difference is in addition to why it is a essential factor.

Remember that a underlying technology along with digital currencies is blockchain and most for the current digital values use a validation process called Proof of Operate (PoW).

With conventional methods of payment, you must trust a third party, including Visa, Interact, or simply a bank, or a check clearing house to stay your transaction. Those trusted entities are generally "centralized", meaning they will keep their own personal ledger which merchants the transaction's story and balance of each and every account. They will demonstrate the transactions for you, and you must acknowledge that it is correct, or even launch a challenge. Only the celebrations to the transaction at any time see it.

With Bitcoin and most other a digital currencies, the ledgers are "decentralized", interpretation everyone on the mobile phone network gets a duplicate, so no one may need to trust a third party, maybe a bank, because someone can directly check out the information. This proof process is called "distributed consensus. "

PoW requires that "work" be done in order to verify a new transaction to get entry on the blockchain. With cryptocurrencies, this validation is done simply by "miners", who have to solve complex algorithmic problems. As the algorithmic problems become more problematic, these "miners" have more expensive and more effective computers to solve the difficulties ahead of everyone else. "Mining" computers are often skilled, typically using ASIC chips (Application Targeted Integrated Circuits), which can be more adept along with faster at curing these difficult questions.

Here is the process:

Business are bundled alongside one another in a 'block'. Your miners verify of the fact that transactions within every single block are legit by solving that hashing algorithm marvel, known as the "proof of work problem". The first miner to eliminate the block's "proof of work problem" is rewarded using a small amount of cryptocurrency. Now that verified, the sales are stored within the public blockchain through the entire network. For the number of transactions together with miners increase, the particular problem of solving this hashing problems at the same time increases.

Although PoW helped get blockchain and decentralized, trustless digital currencies journey ground, it has certain real shortcomings, specifically with the amount of an electrical source these miners usually are consuming trying to clear up the "proof associated with work problems" as quickly as possible. According to Digiconomist's Bitcoin Energy Consumption List, Bitcoin miners are applying more energy compared to 159 countries, like Ireland. As the price tag of each Bitcoin springs up, more and more miners seek to solve the problems, taking even more energy.

So much power consumption merely validate the deals has motivated various in the digital money space to seek out optional method of validating your blocks, and the prominent candidate is a strategy called "Proof from Stake" (PoS).

PoS is still an protocol, and the purpose is equivalent to in the proof of operate, but the process to achieve the goal is pretty different. With PoS, there are no miners, but instead we have "validators. " PoS hinges on trust and the information that all the people that happen to be validating transactions have got skin in the sport.

This way, instead of working with energy to solution PoW puzzles, your PoS validator is restricted to validating a share of transactions that's reflective of his ownership stake. Such as, a validator the master of 3% of the Ether available can in theory validate only 3% of the blocks.

Around PoW, the chances of people solving the proof work problem is dependent upon how much computing potential you have. With PoS, it depends on how a lot cryptocurrency you have in "stake". The higher a stake you have, the more the chances that you answer the block. As opposed to winning crypto gold coins, the winning validator receives transaction extra fees.

Validators enter your stake by 'locking up' a portion within their fund tokens. If he or she try to do something malware against the network, just like creating an 'invalid block', their spot or security money will be forfeited. If he or she do their position and do not violate that network, but never win the right so that you can validate the prohibit, they will get their position or deposit once again.

If you understand principle difference between PoW and PoS, that could be all you need to know. Simply those who plan to come to be miners or validators need to understand many of the ins and outs of these a couple validation methods. The majority of the general public who wish to maintain cryptocurrencies will simply purchase for them through an exchange, and never participate in the actual exploration or validating with block transactions.

A lot of in the crypto marketplace believe that in order for digital camera currencies to live through long-term, digital bridal party must switch up to a PoS brand. At the time of writing this approach post, Ethereum may be the second largest electronic digital currency behind Bitcoin and their improvement team has been working away at their PoS formula called "Casper" during the last few years. It is required that we will see Casper implemented in 2018, putting Ethereum previous to all the other large cryptocurrencies.

As we have seen up to now in this sector, key events such as a good implementation of Casper could send Ethereum's prices much higher. Let's be keeping everyone updated in upcoming issues of Crypto TREND.

Antminer T19 is built with the same generation of customized chips found within the Antminer S19 and S19 pro, guaranteeing capable and efficient for mining cryptocurrencies of the SHA256. comparing with the previous Antminer T17, the T19 greatly improves performance, allowing miners to realize higher efficiency and earnings.

[danishkhan786]

India online therapy

Coachformind.com

With the ongoing changes in individuals' way of life, an ever increasing number of individuals are looking for help for their dysfunctional behavior. Delhi being a city that sudden spikes in demand for outrageous courses of events and cutoff times, has turned into a casualty to the extraordinary trench the city brings to the table to its kin. For the most significant length of time individuals thought looking for help for melancholy, tension and related mental issues was off-putting. Yet, with the ongoing change in individuals' convictions, they are at long last monitoring up and making it a highlight seek great treatment from specialists for their psychological wellness issues.

After you have found and acknowledged the way that you want help with your breaking down psychological wellness, the following stage is to find an ideal specialist who can assist you with your issues. Presently comprehend that there might be lots of them in a city like Delhi. Notwithstanding, you must do all necessary investigation from different sources like sites, articles and Practo to find the best one for yourself as it were. Likewise, understanding the contrast between a clinician and a psychiatrist is significant. A therapist is somebody who is able to recommend you meds for your treatment. Though clinicians generally depend on treatments like CBT.

Likewise, very much like you really want to visit a standard specialist for around 3 to multiple times least before you are totally fine. Same is the situation with a specialist. You really want at least six meetings before he cancels the treatment.

CBT in India is generally not however famous as it seems to be in different nations. The explanation is that there are very few talented CBT advisors accessible in India. The treatment approach of CBT is entirely compelling for the Indian mentality. For a country that has a culture of not discussing each other's feelings, CBT can assist individuals with vanquishing the disgrace and have a superior existence.

We are trained since our life as a youngster to zero in on the great and positive, to not show shortcoming. This perspective has adversely impacted an enormous number of people in our country. Insights show that India has one of the greatest self destruction rates with 700 instances of self destruction consistently. the Covid-19 pandemic hit India exceptionally hard and the psychological well-being of individuals was hit significantly more enthusiastically.

In such a critical circumstance the need of great importance is a decent treatment. CBT is one such treatment that has shown to find lasting success for various mental problems like misery, uneasiness issues, PTSD, rest problems, dietary issues, bipolar issues, OCD, and so on.

The world has arrived at a ceaseless computerized stage. With the pandemic happening for over three years everything is presently accessible on the web. CBT treatment whether done on the web or disconnected will help by and by. Your advisor will direct web-based meetings with you by means of call or video call and advantageously assist you with recognizing your battles, negative contemplations, designs, and so on they will likewise direct you to supplant negative considerations and examples with positive considerations and examples. Alongside that, they will utilize various strategies like journaling, pretending, objective setting, and so forth to change your life into the solid and positive one totally.

Online mental social treatment in India is moderately new however has shown to be just about as powerful as disconnected treatment. You will go to meetings from the solace of your home. Such an extraordinary method for beginning your recuperating venture, from your own solace space. Journaling: recording your considerations and sentiments is an incredible method for recognizing and figure out them. Your specialist might request that you record any regrettable contemplations that might come up and chip away at supplanting them with positive ones.

Objective setting: laying out objectives inspires you and assists you with arranging your life. Your advisor could assist you with setting, SMART-Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based, objectives. This will improve and arrange your life.

Tackling positive exercises: it is both energizing and supportive to get familiar with another movement. Teaching a positive new action in your life will generally speaking advantage you and better survey you in adapting to your battles.

Disclosure and Questioning: through the whole course of this treatment, you will find new parts of yourself. Your specialist will direct you to find and scrutinize your contemplations and ways of behaving.

Distinguishing negative idea designs: the main piece of this treatment is your capacity to recognize negative idea designs. Your specialist will help you in leisurely distinguishing these negative examples and managing them so you accomplish inward harmony.

Unwinding methods: unwinding strategies like contemplation and care are a piece of cbt that will assist you with accomplishing a sound and clear brain.

More info]  https://coachformind.com/cognitive-behavioural-therapy-in-india/

[spinchip]

I Will Answer to Knife

Word Count: 3600 Pairings: Gen Warnings: Post s11 Ice Chapter. PTSD, mentions of blood/murder, Zane isn’t in a good headspace.

Summary: Zane struggles with weapons he isn’t used to. Zane struggles with what he offers.

Wouldbelove, do not think of me as a whetstone until you hear the whole story: In it, I’m not the hero, but I’m not the villain either so let’s say, in the story, I was human and made of human-things: fear and hands, underbelly and blade.

He overcompensates, loses his balance and skids across the courtyard. His side takes the brunt of it, and if he were human the bruises would be layered one on top of the other, each time he slips imprinted onto his skin in a motley purple-blue-yellow. He’s not human, so all he has to show for his fumbling is radiating pain not unlike cracked ribs, a dirty gi, and tight-lipped irritation that barely masks shame. The impact sends his shuriken out of his hands, arcing in an unrefined fling that has one stuck out of the gate across the yard and the other lying, like him, in the dirt.

He rolls to a stop, flopping back onto the ache of his shoulder blades to stare up at the sky. Without thinking, he balls his hand into a fist and bangs the side of his palm against the edge of the training mat he can reach. Frustration seeps hot across his throat and down his chest, like blood from a fresh wound. He rolls over on his sore side by mistake but doesn’t dare suck in a hissing breath, not with the others watching so closely, gathering his legs underneath him and rising to his feet.

Kai looks sympathetic from his spot on the blue mat that is not big enough to keep his failure contained, the dirt on his gi proof of his mistakes spilling over. The wooden swords in his hands are awkward and out of place, their weight different from his normal weaponry yet even with this disadvantage, he puts Zane down over and over.

Well, Zane does most of the work for him, really.

Lloyd watches with a pinched expression as Zane dusts himself off, his position at the head of the training session a solid presence, “I think that’s enough for today.” He says, and he almost seems apologetic.

“I can go again.” Zane insists, and refuses to stumble as he collects his discarded weapons, wrenching the edge of his blade out of the gate with his dwindling strength.

He’s exhausted. They’ve been running basic drills, ameatuer hour stuff Zane should have been able to do in his sleep- but it’s been years. Decades upon decades stuck on the throne of the Never Realm, and now he’s out of practice and off balance. Nindroids don't have muscle memory, and his regular memory has been shredded enough that things like this didn’t bother to stick. He can’t get through a single move without losing the dexterity that used to come easy and sending himself to the dirt- Lloyd had gone from advanced moves to novice to beginner slowly throughout the day, yet the result was the same: Zane in the dirt of his own accord, aching and weak.

To add insult to injury, Kai is obviously holding back. Jay had been too, yesterday, Nya the day before. In the span of a week he went from the most formidable man in the realm to an uncoordinated child who needed to be treated delicately. He could barely land a hit on the training dummy, and it didn’t even move.

“Maybe you can try your bow again?” Zane can’t meet Kais eyes, the pity he’s trying to mask making his wires curl.

“We saw how well that went.” Jay mutters not uncharitably, another string of disappointments a few days prior where his aim left much to be desired, and quite nearly took his eye when he’d lost his grip.

The others had been training too, but they’d stopped to watch as Lloyd summoned Kai and Zane to spar.

“We need to assess your skills in combat,” Lloyd had said earlier that day, the so we can make up for your shortcomings going unsaid but heavy all the same. Or maybe Zane is the one being uncharitable- but he’s in pain and tired and his mask of calm is harder to keep a grip on now.

And Kai had hesitated on the edge of the mat, holding the steel of his swords, and with his head down had swapped them for wooden fakes. The insult threatened to make Zanes lip curl, but he’d been forced to concede to his foresight when dull wood blades cracked against the side of his thigh and forced him to the ground, in one of the few times Zane had managed to stay on his feet long enough to be taken down by something other than his own shortcomings. He should have been able to dodge.

The shurikens are so small in his hands, and he hasn’t used them in so so long. He's rusty.

“I can go again.” He insists, stepping back onto the mat. In a real battle, he’d be less than useless. They couldn’t protect him, he had to be able to take care of himself. He had to keep going until he could at least survive. He was good at surviving, he’d spent decades hanging on by a thread- countering a wooden sword shouldn't be so difficult compared to parrying the knives from assassins or the swords of dead men walking. He’s weak.

Lloyd gets that look on his face that he only gets when he has to do something he really doesn’t want to do, mostly when he must flex his status on the others when they're being particularly stubborn. It’s a pained stony sort of expression, “That’s enough for today.” he says more firmly, shoulder squaring. He loses the soft edges of the boy he used to be, Master Lloyd filling in the spaces rigid.

Protest raises on his tongue, “The longer I go at the skill level I am at now, the more dangerous it becomes.” fear, frustration, and desperation simmers below the surface, “I am a liability on the field, I cannot stop until I can hold my own.”

“We can continue training tomorrow.” Lloyd says, unyielding. Green eyes trail down to Zanes' sore side, assessing.

He bristles and tries to tamp it down, “You do not need to go easy on me-” he starts.

Lloyd interrupts him, “Yes we do-” frustration cracking the facade of the master, the others looking on in wide eyed worry.

“Lloyd, Zane, enough.” Wu's voice rings out in sharp tones, his presence slamming the lid on the boiling over pot, “I believe I have a suggestion to solve our problem.”

Problem. Zane tries not to let that sting as he spins to face Master Wu.

The man is descending the stairs of the monastery into the courtyard, the others parting like the red sea, his cape trailing on the edge of the steps as he comes down. In his hand is-

Zanes vision tunnels, Lloyd, Kai, the others all fading away as he takes in the smooth metal, leather bound handle, the wicked curved blade- a piece of him howls, jagged and frozen fingers scrabbling at the corners of his mind, the sight of that staff is like going snowblind. All at once he’s standing in the courtyard amongst his friends and the throne room at the same time, realities overlapping in brutal contrast.

His shuriken bounces off his foot and he is thrust back into his body, his hands empty where he’d dropped his weapons in shock. Wu approaches him with the staff and he takes a shaky step backwards, wiping at his mouth with wobbling hands, half expecting to wipe away spit- salivating at just the sight of it. His wrists and fingers ache, begging him to take it in his hands.

Wu disregards his reaction, walking into his space among the group on the mat. He thunks the staff down in front of Zane, the weight of it digging into blue, like it is the answer.

He’s so spooked he doesn’t dare move, looking at it with wide eyes. Now that he’s more present, he realizes it’s nearly identical to the Staff of Forbidden Spinjitzu, except this one is notably missing the scroll that gave it the corruptive power. It’s just a staff, plain and simple.

No one says a word. Zane stares at it, trembling.

Lloyd is quiet, then, “Are you sure that this is a good idea, Master Wu?”

Wu looks sad but he’s trying to mask it, “You are their teacher, Lloyd. When Zane falters, what do you see?”

Zane is listening, sort of. He’s tracing the edge of the blade with his eyes- sharpened to a fine point, clean and perfect. It looks heavy, the whole thing does, he can nearly taste the weight of it on his tongue. He wants to take it so badly it hurts, and in the same breath he wants to cast it off the side of the mountain or freeze it solid and shatter it against the stone under his feet.

“He’s off balance. He’s compensating for a weight that’s not there.” Lloyd looks like he’s swallowed a lemon, “The shuriken are too small.” He admits.

Wu nods to the weapon in his hand, glancing from Lloyd to pin his eyes on Zane, “You’ve had a lifetime of practice with this weapon. You’ve wielded a staff longer than a shuriken or a bow, perhaps it is time to embrace that.”

Zane doesn’t even look at him. He can almost feel the whisper on the back of his mind- it’s not there, the staff is a replica without the extra power, but Zane can imagine it all the same.

He reaches out and takes it.

The feel of it in his palm is like a starburst of agony, an ice burn that jumps up the metal of his forearm and digs into the plane of his chest. Flickers of memories flash in his mind's eyes all like looking through a pane of frosted ice-glass, cold seeping into his skeleton. A memory rises unbidden, a man he did not freeze, who had been close enough to strike with the blade- red red red

He chucks it across the courtyard without thinking, staggering away from it, “I can’t.” he nearly gags, before darting past Wu and Lloyd and narrowly avoiding Coles worried brush of his fingers. He takes the stairs two at a time, throwing open the front door and not bothering to shut it behind him.

He holes himself away in his room, sitting on the floor next to his bed, trying to hold himself together.

Too much too soon, the staff wrenched memories he’d been ignoring and hiding away free.

He doesn’t want to admit it, wants to choke it down and pretend it didn’t happen, but he can’t deny that- even with the pain and shame and bloody wounded guilt overwhelming him- taking that staff had felt like coming home.

Home was supposed to be Ninjago. Somewhere along the way, it became the throne room, too. He’d been split in half, pieces of him trapped in a realm he could never return to. The closest he’d ever get to sating the pervasive homesick itch is to hold a facsimile of his tool of violence.

Perhaps it is time to embrace that Wu had said, holding out the weapon he’d bloodied his hands with.

Evening comes and goes, and he skips dinner again. He’s crawled into bed at some point, staring up at the ceiling, trying hard not to think. He swallows down the threatening urge to crack under it all. In the darkness, he stares at his palms.

Vex is standing at his side, the throne room an open doorway behind them, and the staff is a curling presence he’s never without. It’s hard to think about these memories because he doesn’t form thoughts like he did when he was broken, the memories jagged and warped. Trying to understand is like catching a blade you’ve dropped- a falling knife has no handle. It hurts.

But in this memory he and Vex are walking through the palace hall. Grand windows might as well be painted white with the snow obscuring the now frozen wasteland, but the Emperor had no desire to see the outside world, or anything at all. This is before he had snuffed out the rising rebellions, this is before he’d flexed his power and made the people afraid, this is before they’d even given him the moniker Ice Emperor. He is nameless now, even Vex only calls him by his title. He doesn’t even know he is missing something so vital.

Vex says, “You don’t need to worry about the inconsequential things,” he’s a step behind Zane, and when his emperor slows he can prod him so he keeps moving, “You are an instrument of power, these things are beneath you. I will handle the day-to-day for you, my Emperor.”

The click of his staff ticks across the hall as they walk, “And what am I to handle?”

“Nothing. Simply keep your hold on our eternal winter, and raise your staff when I ask it of you.”

There's a stirring of thought in the empty caverns of his head and not a hint of it is kind, “I am your attack dog, then.”

To his credit, Vex doesn’t falter, “You are my Emperor.” he says immediately, and then- carefully, and almost genuinely curious, “What do you have to offer other than violence?”

Zane lays in bed and stares at the shapes in the dark that might be his hands. Shurikens don’t fit right any more, his arrows shoot askance. If the next threat arises in the morning, what can he do except cost his friends focus?

He is a bleeding wound. They need to treat him gently and delicately- but life is not gentle and delicate, and perhaps it is time to take a knife over a fire and cauterize the injury.

He slips and goes horizontal and his blood spills across the dirt. It’s metaphorical until it’s not and the newest adversary forgoes fake wooden swords for real ones, sharpened blades sinking home. If he were human he would bleed red blood. He’s not human, so it’s oil and coolant and hydraulic fluid seeping into the soil.

He is a liability. Weak-link. He has to learn to fight again. He has to embrace it, even if it feels like frostbite chipping away at him, even if it hurts. Vex had forged him into a knife, forced him into the shape of a blade and sharpened him with blood instead of water, if he can accept these pieces he can make himself useful once more. It was all he had.

He wants to feel strong again.

Morning comes in slanting lights though his window, the blanket is too hot under them. He hadn’t slept enough but he rolls out of bed and changes into a clean gi anyway and trails out of his room. Conversation falls hushed when he comes into the kitchen, and he eats breakfast despite the way his stomach churns- it tastes like it always tastes, bland and unappetizing. The ache in his side had faded over the night, nearly non-existent. He can spar fresh.

“We didn’t think you’d be joining us today.” Nya tries, smiling over her bagel.

He doesn’t shrug, putting his fork down, “I meant what I said. I cannot stop until I can protect myself.”

Nya’s face grows pinched and worried, “You can, though.” She reaches across the table and sets her hand on top of his, and she doesn’t jolt or comment at all about how cold he is, “You can take a break, Zane.”

Wu had called him a problem. Zane knows that’s not what he meant, but it weighs his shoulders like lead, and he doesn’t respond. He stands up and takes his plate to the sink, and her hands falls flat against the table.

The staff is sitting on the porch, leaned up against the wall. He focuses on it the moment they walk outside, and Jay ducks his head nervously- he was probably supposed to put it away so Zane didn’t see it again, but they thought he was going to skip like he had the first few days after he’d come home. Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today.

They do warm-ups, then Lloyd pairs them up for sparring, and his eyes skate over Zane reluctantly until, “Cole… Zane. Come spar.” The others don’t need for Lloyd to supervise them, or the training mat. Zane needs both.

They both go to the weapons and Cole, like Kai yesterday, avoids his hammer. He reaches for the wooden training swords but Zane catches his wrist.

He looks up, startled, “Zane?” He asks, confused.

He manhandles his hand over to the grip of his hammer, “Do not hold back.” He says firmly, and then jogs up the stairs and wraps his fingers around the staff.

Expecting it this time, he compartmentalizes the memories the instant they surface, shoving them back. In the absence of pain there is comfort, the weight so achingly familiar a hole inside of him he didn’t know he had is filled. Like coming home, he’d felt it yesterday. Confidence pours into his system- he knows how to hold this, to swing this, to fight with this. He picks it up and it’s perfectly balanced, a missing limb reattached.

Carrying it down the stairs, he’s aware of their stares.

Kai and Nya break formation, moving back to give Cole and Zane room. Jay follows their lead, and they settle back to watch.

Cole is holding his hammer and his expression is grim, “Are you sure you can handle this?”

He feels like he’s being filled with ice, chill threatening to frost over his eyes. He’s not sure at all, but he says, “Don’t hold back.” Again anyway.

Shurikens are small. To fight, he has to stand back, give space, evade and dodge. Bow and arrows are much the same. They are largely defensive. Before the Never Realm, he was good at defense.

“Whenever you’re ready.” Lloyd says and Zane carefully tunes out the apprehension in his voice.

Now he is more comfortable on the offense.

He moves.

The Ice Emperor rarely fights in close combat- he rarely fights at all, actually. He waves his staff and freezes, he calls ice and allows that to do the work for him, but when he does face off one on one, he does so as brutally efficiently as he can. He is all offense, blow after blow after unrelenting blow- he pours bone-shattering strength into each strike, driving rebellion leaders to their knees, knocking back a town's most elite soldiers, and if they don’t go down on the first hit he wastes no time lashing out again. He rushes his opponent, he overwhelms them, and he offers not a single second of reprieve.

He hauls back, crossing the mat in half a second, and slices through the air in a clean and powerful swing. The crack of his staff against the handle of Cole's hammer sounds like a gunshot with the terrible force behind it, and before Cole can gather his bearing he swings again.

He beats him back faster than he expected- Cole underestimated him, and it cost him precious ground. He tries to put distance between them to get a moment to make his move, but Zane is with him step for step, suffocating any moves before they can breathe.

To fight with his shuriken or his bow is like oil against his water, they don’t mix now that the staff has imprinted itself onto his mind. He cannot reconcile the difference, not yet. He compensates for the weight of the staff, keeps his balance, and advances on his target with brutal efficiency.

He sweeps his leg out while splitting Cole's attention with a strike intended for his side, and Cole goes down with a startled shout. Zane twists the staff so the flat side of the blade is sitting on his chest- the intent is clear, but there’s no danger he’ll accidentally cut him. It’s over in heartbeats, and Cole looks up at him, astonished.

“Holy moly.” Jay breathes.

Zane moves the blade aside, shifting the staff to hold it upright. He glances over at Lloyd, who looks a shade paler than before the fight, whose eyes are a bit too wide. He was the only one who’d seen the Ice Emperor in action, and the last time he’d held the blade against someone's chest it had been him- sharp side down, the intent had been clear then, too. Zane averts his eyes, guilt threatening the progress he’d made even picking the staff up, and focused on holding out a hand so he could bring Cole back to his feet.

Cole winces as he pulls him up, “Zane…” He says, staggering, “That was like nothing I've ever seen from you.” He flexes his fingers, the blows stinging his hands even now.

He doesn’t flinch or shy away from his friends' looks, “It’s how I fought.” He’s hoping he doesn’t have to put any more context to that sentence, he doesn’t want to say the Never Realms name out loud.

“How?” Nya asks, “You left so many openings, how did you win?”

“Overwhelming force.” Zane says.

“The openings mean nothing if I can’t even swing.” Cole shakes his head.

Master Wu smiles from the doorway, “Very impressive, Zane."

The pieces of himself snapped clean down the middle don’t mend, but they aren’t bleeding anymore either. Satisfaction, purpose, strength floods his system. He is not striped with dirt or bruises, he is no longer a failure- he is formidable, dangerous. He can fight, now.

What does he have to offer other than violence?

Zane cannot be the man he was before, but he can be a weapon. He can't remember any other way to be.

The staff sits comforting in his hand.

I like to call myself wound but I will answer to knife.

Underbelly by Nicole Homer

[pridewhatpride]

do you have any gx rivalshipping hcs!! im super curious on your take of them :]

When I saw this ask my immediate reaction was thinking: "Yes, I have an excuse to talk about gx rivalshipping, YES."

So yeah. I love this ship a lot, like a whole damn lot and it's a little hard to explain why, especially when gx has so many open possibilities for romances involving Judai. By which I mean two, really, and Manjoume is not one of them (sadly for me). I am referring to Yubel and Johan, by the way, I refuse to acknowledge Asuka as a love interest.

I'll start off with a bit of fluff headcanons?

Manjoume thinks Winged Kuriboh is really cute and that its friendly and fluffy appearance screams Judai, in a way. But he will never admit it because of what that might imply for him and the Ojamas.

Manjoume is fueled by caffeine and monster, he only really starts to recognise how nice it can be to have a meal because of how much Judai enjoys his food. He tries to sit at the table with him with dumb excuses.

Judai feels a bit guilty for how his actions impacted Manjoume's life, but Manjoume generally tells him that it's fine, it's better this way, that he's never this happy, that the only reason why Judai should maybe feel bad about it is because of his tendency to get overly invested in other people's problems and getting hurt in the process. Judai responds with bear hugs.

Manjoume brags about Judai a lot, actually. "Oh you think that's cool? One time Judai managed to do a backflip, you loser." "Slifer reds suck, but they do have redeeming qualities, by which I mean one of them is actually good."

Judai likes to indulge himself in the thought that he's Manjoume's most trusted, that he's the only one who could ever be allowed to have that many incriminating pictures of him. Because Judai just loves taking candid pictures of Manjoume. He thinks he looks and and cool in every situation, so yeah. A part of him does it because he has an inexplicable fear of forgetting people and the way they look, but he just can't say why that is.

They hang out in silence a lot, but once they start talking they just never stop. You'll find them on the beach at 3 am with a smiling Manjoume listening to Judai go on about how crazy it is that you can fry food in so many different ways and how he once caught a butterfly as a kid and named it Kujaku.

They share their music a lot, so Manjoume's tastes switch from just emo to fast paced rap and the weirdly happy sounding songs about very morbid things Judai listens to (plus emo). Judai starts to enjoy a bit of angry screaming into microphones thanks to Jun. Do they sing along like idiots as they share earphones? Yes. Is Manjoume mesmerised by Judai's singing voice? Also yes.

Judai loves hiking and sometimes invites Manjoume, but because he's a lot weaker and has less stamina, they take it slow. Manjoume keeps cursing himself for being slow and dead weight, but Judai is just happy to have a companion. Admittedly, going slower makes the walks better as he has the time to enjoy the scenery properly. He never teases Jun about his lack of physical training.

Now... I wanted to talk about my general view on the ship, plus headcanons I guess, but this is going to be EVEN LONGER (you are getting more than you asked for, your fault for enabling me, really). For the sake of the sanity of mobile users, I'm adding a cut so nobody has to unwillingly scroll through endless text.

On to the the juice, then. My thoughts on the ship. Manjoume and Judai are, of course, the rivals of the series and, if my thoughts on rivalry weren't clear enough, I am one of those people. It's just really romantic to me. What is very interesting about the two of them specifically is that they are polar opposites in the way the reason why they play, throughout the whole series. Hell, their views end up getting reversed completely: Manjoume goes from "if I don't win I'm gonna have a breakdown breakdown" to "losing is ok, as long as I enjoy the game and am true to myself", while Judai does the 180 from "I really just love playing cards with my friends, who cares about the outcome, it's fun" to "I have card game related trauma, nobody speak to me, games are only an excuse to assert a sort of power scale and honestly fuck that".

Manjoume is sort of the only person in the 'friend group' (he's never actually part of it, sadly, literally only Judai and Fubuki like him) to not idolise Judai, not explicitly. He clearly has an admiration for Judai from the beginning, but he is adamant on expressing it as hatred towards for being better than him. A part of me feels that a lot of his superior act is meant to try and fool himself and Jaden into thinking that he's a worthy rival, because I know for a fact that Manjoume doesn't believe that. He wants it to be true, yes.

What I am trying to get at is that Judai is probably a little confused by the fact that Manjoume doesn't drool all over him like the rest of the school does, but it soon becomes a crutch. Judai is under a lot of pressure because he is the hero who will save everyone and people like to remind him of how much they count on him. Manjoume is in it for Judai. He wants to be acknowledged by him, he wants his recognition and his attention, but he never asks for help or expects Judai to fix his problems for him. Judai is probably thankful for that.

Manjoume is also really scared of being left behind and cast aside as soon as he stops being useful and that's exactly what the writers do to him!!! hooray!, but Judai keeps insisting that he's not a bad guy, that he's fun to be around, that he's competent. Manjoume doesn't really believe all that that much, but Jaden keeps playing him despite his repeated losses and to Jun that's the equivalent of someone kissing his tears away. Manjoume only learns to accept his losses and shortcomings because Judai did it for him first.

So basically Manjoume is the only one who fully sees Judai as a person, while Judai is the only one who is really willing to look past his pretentious facade. I fully believe that Judai was relieved to learn that Manjoume was not just a perfect boy with perfect manners, by the way. They both just love to learn about every imperfection that the other has and silently thinking that they just add to the beauty of the other's character. Will they tease eachother about it? Fuck yes. Do they feel awful when the other tries to fix something about themselves because they pointed it out? Also fuck yes.

They are in a dumb competition against themselves to be better in order to earn the right to be friends with eachother, but because they are fucking dumb they never actually communicate (until they do), so for a long time it's endless pining that is definitely not gay because admittedly Judai just doesn't think that dating is a thing, while Manjoume is straight™, really straight. He has never liked a boy in his life, he's so very fucking straight, I swear.

So Manjoume is a bisexual disaster (and in my headcanon he prefers boys, actually, the Asuka incident is the biggest example of denial™ ever. He prefers Fubuki, fight me over this). The problem is that he never really considered he might be crushing on Judai, but at the same time admitting to maybe liking boys too means that there was more to wanting to stay at DA, to hanging out with Judai's crew despite their mutual dislike, to his continuous playful headlocks and ear pulling. To add onto that, there is probably a certain amount of guilt over having betrayed that bond with Judai by trying to throw away his cards and everything. Judai, on the other hand... is confused at how bothered he is by the public declarations of love, because Manjoume is his rival and rivals are supposed to focus on eachother, not on some girl, no matter how good said girl is at card games.

So maybe they are a bit gay for eachother. And maybe they just want excuses to be together as much as possible. And it's really just the vibe of highschool romance between two people who don't want to admit to caring for one another on a deeper level, but are also weirdly possessive of eachother for no apparent reason. And I think I'll stop here with my gay retelling, but really if you look at the two of them you do see that they do a lot for eachother's characters. It's kind of beautiful, really. They are the two socially inept characters who find comfort in someone being just like them and understanding them as they change and grow up.

I have a lot to say about how that changes once the transfer students come in, but I think I've bored everyone for long enough- as in nobody will read this lol. That's ok. I thank you again for the ask and for allowing me to gush about this ship that is so close to my heart. If anyone ever wants to talk about them, just. Do. Break into my house at night and I still won't mind, I just want to talk about them.

[soleilibrary]

Book Review: The Callers by Kiah Thomas

In the world of Elipsom, the ability to Call, or summon objects, is a coveted, crucial skill, revered among its people as both a powerful tool and an essential way to sustain life. But despite an elite family history, a phenom for an older sister, a best friend who is set to join the Council of Callers, and his mother's steely insistence that he learn to Call, Quin doesn't have the gift—an embarrassment made worse when his mother gets his sister to cheat for him on his Calling exam. But everything changes in a moment of frustration when Quin, instead of summoning an object, makes something disappear. And what's more, he quickly discovers that the objects Callers bring into their world aren't conjured at all but are whisked away from another world and a people who for years have had their lives slowly stolen from them. Now Quin must team up with Allie, a girl who's determined to stop this unfair practice, and decide whether he should remain loyal to his family or betray them—and save the world.

4/5 ★

Thank you to NetGalley, Chronicle Books, and Kiah Thomas for the eARC copy of this book! Disclaimer: The version I read was an uncorrected proof. I thoroughly enjoyed The Callers; I read it in one sitting. It reminded me of The Giver as both books have that magical, dystopian vibe and convey important messages and themes. Despite being a middle-grade read, I think people of all ages can relate to and enjoy this book. The world, creatures, and magic system are really interesting and the main character, Quin, is easy to connect with. Quin deals with problems that I think many of us have in our own lives. He is struggling with the weight of his family's expectations and the feeling that he doesn't belong. He also finds out that his mother has been lying to him and has been a key player in the destruction of another land. Throughout the book, he finds his own calling in life--not the actual Calling--and begins righting the wrongs of his family. The overarching theme of colonialism and it's negative impacts is also incredibly important and I love to see it being addressed in a middle-grade novel. While younger children might not completely understand, the lesson still shines through--stealing anything from anyone is wrong and other people should not be harmed for your own benefit. The one shortcoming is that I there wasn't as much of a resolution as I wanted/expected in the end, but I think the book still accomplished it's purpose and the messages were conveyed well despite that. Overall, this was a great read and I will definitely be recommending it to my friends and colleagues who teach so that they can include it in their classroom libraries.

Full review on Goodreads.

[phoenixtakaramono]

Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’

This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!

TL;DR

Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?

A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.

Context

In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.

(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)

(SVSSS donghua - ep1)

I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.

I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)

Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:

(Excerpt I - ch2)

Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.

(Excerpt II - ch2)

(Excerpt III - ch2)

Contrarian Tendencies

You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.

A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.

In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.

For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).

The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.

But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.

AO3 Comments

Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:

(Comment I- ch3)

(Comment II- ch4)

(Comment III- ch4)

Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.

I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.

On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!

[leannetalksanime]

Shōnen Anime Through The Feminist Lens

During quarantine, there has been a significant rise in the popularity of Anime; this wave of new fans brought back memories of when I first started exploring anime and how I came to love this media. Anime is a confusing word: In the western world, anime a separate genre of animated shows and movies from the typical western cartoons (ie. SpongeBob, Tom and Jerry, etc.) while in Japan, it refers to any animation in general. But for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to anime as a type of animated show or movie that uses signature aspects of Japanese-style animation.

Usually, a person is recommended mainstream shows from the shōnen genre when introduced to anime. Shōnen anime and manga are marketed towards boys between the ages of 12-18, but a lot of people outside of that demographic enjoy this genre as well. I find myself watching and recommending shōnen shows because of how exceptionally written the plot, the character development, and worldbuilding are. However, problems with female representation stem from the misconception that shōnen is only for boys or that girls don’t enjoy these types of stories. It is frustrating to see how little action and development female characters are given compared to their male counterparts and how often they are sexualized for the sake of comedic relief or fan service. 

NARUTO and NARUTO SHIPPUDEN

The Naruto series follows the journey of Naruto Uzumaki as he achieves his dreams to be acknowledged by the village he lives in and become the Hokage (the leader of the village). It’s a story about saving the world, protecting your loved ones, and believing in yourself.

Almost every person who has watched more than 3 years of anime has seen Naruto; those who haven’t still can recognize characters, references, and general plot points. Yes, it is THAT popular. I knew about the show but, I put off this anime for so long because of the silly reason that Naruto was an annoying brat at the beginning of the series. It took me a few months to build up my courage to pick up the series again— and wow! I was glad I did! I restarted my journey about two months ago and, as of today, I have less than 50 episodes left to watch to finish the series (keep in mind that the complete series has about 700 episodes). I got attached to the characters for their development and their compelling stories. I saw Naruto grow from being a troublemaker to a dependable hero, watched Sasuke go down a dark path for the sake of revenge, and learned about Kakashi and Itachi’s heartbreaking childhoods. But the girls? Where are the girls?

As well written as the story is, girls in Naruto are viewed as support-type characters for the boys; their stories aren’t touched upon and remain the same throughout the series. The lack of development of the girls is best highlighted by Sakura— the main female character and the most hated person from the series, and dare I say, all of anime. At the beginning of the series, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura train together to become ninjas with their teacher, Kakashi. Sasuke was a prodigy and excelled in every task, Sakura was known for her intelligence and chakra control, and Naruto lacked skill yet impulsively charged headfirst towards his enemies. As the show went on, Naruto and Sasuke’s skills have grown on par as they continuously try to learn new powers to one-up the other. But Sakura stayed the same. Even though she gained super strength and trained to become a medical ninja under the Fifth Hokage, her abilities and progress are constantly shadowed by her teammates' flashy powers (look at the picture above). This gap is even more prominent after the time skip in Shippuden where she becomes a “damsel in distress” which annoyed a lot of fans. She had so much potential to become a great character. Even if she was not the strongest ninja, the show could have taken steps to make her valuable in some way even if all they did was make her an efficient support character to Naruto and Sasuke instead of making her seem like she is always in their way. The unbalance caused by the lack of active female roles in Naruto leaves the female audience unrepresented. The female characters' underdevelopment implied that the girls are incompetent and therefore don’t get to make an impact in the story.  

ONE PIECE

I can talk about this show for hours. With 950+ anime episodes and 1000+ manga chapters, One Piece is synonymous with art; it follows the story of Monkey D. Luffy and his crew, the Straw Hat Pirates, on an adventure to find One Piece. Unlike other shōnen stories, One Piece immerses the audience into a mysterious world that is complex, dynamic, and feels real. Every single character is well developed— each of them have insanely detailed backstories, memorable personalities, and compelling motivations making them feel human. The story also tackles unconventional topics such as slavery, racism, the justice system, and classism. I could go on and on listing reasons as to why I love One Piece or why it is worth catching up to the 950 episodes, but I feel like you should let One Piece in and find that out for yourself. 

Unlike Naruto, women take on significant roles in One Piece and are often admired as role models. However, the lack of body diversity and the over-sexualization of the female characters leave a rather unpleasant aftertaste. 

As seen above, they all suffer the same-body syndrome— large breasts, impossibly tiny waists, and skimpy clothing. I get that these are common types of fanservice but, there are plenty of questionable design choices whenever fanservice is prioritized over logic (ie. the top-left girl is supposed to be a gladiator but her outfit does the very opposite of protecting her as it leaves her vital areas exposed). Another issue I have is with Sanji and his behaviour around women. He is the prime example of what the internet would call a ‘simp’ where his perverse tendencies and chivalry clash whenever he is near a female character. I feel like his overprotectiveness toward women and his willingness to die for them is counterintuitive to the powerful portrayal of women in the story. I understand that fanservice isn't going anywhere but the girls’ unrealistic designs and their treatment dilute their complex characterization to mere pretty and delicate objects.

CONCLUSION

From a feminist point of view, Naruto and One Piece have their own shortcomings when it comes to the inclusion and depiction of girls. I particularly chose to talk about them because they are the central faces of the shōnen genre, both of them depict common issues with female representation in most shōnen stories. It is understandable to a certain extent as to why the authors chose to draw/develop their characters, however, the lack of active female characters in shōnen stories fuels the ” shōnen is for boys, therefore, don’t expect female representation” narrative. It would do no harm to write stronger and more complex female characters in these stories, in fact, it would make the stories much more interesting as there is variation in perspectives and experiences— especially now because of the strong societal push toward feminism and the growing female audience consuming anime media. The fact that shounen does target boys is perhaps the most important reason to feature complex, active female characters in these stories—not only as supportive figures or dream girls, but as someone they can relate to and look up to as well.

EXTRA: NEW GENERATION SHŌNEN!

Naruto and One Piece have been in the anime scene for decades, but as societal values shift, many New Generation Shōnen are trying to tackle the inclusion of feminism in their stories. Here are some:

Boku no Hero Academia, one of the primary faces of New Gen Shōnen: A superheroes story where superpowers or quirks rule the world.  Physical advantages male characters may have during fights is insignificant as the winner is decided by their ability to use their power at its full potential and their compatibility with the opponent’s quirk. Women are shown to have different body types, breaking the skinny hourglass stereotype with healthy and muscular bodies. Read more on how BNHA is breaking the moulds here: https://www.animefeminist.com/feature-hero-academia-confronts-shonen-sexism/ 

Mob Psycho 100: A supernatural shōnen where the main character, Mob, struggles with masculinity, battles for self-improvement, and desires to just be an amiable and helpful person. His story breaks the typical toxic masculinity tropes in shonen stories and instead focuses on Mob’s emotional journey to being comfortable with who he is. Read more about this here: https://www.animefeminist.com/anime-feminists-top-25-anime-of-the-decade/

Demon Slayer, another progressive main face of the New Gen Shōnen: A historical supernatural story where women are given major roles and are never looked down upon by their male counterparts. As demon slayers, their attire is unique to each individual yet fit for their job and is not compromised for the sake of fanservice.

- Leanne.

[super-famicom-star-inactive]

Throwback Tuesday

January 12, 2021

Howdy, and welcome back to another Throwback Tuesday!

For this episode, we’ll be diving into the Kirby franchise and looking into the title Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land! This was suggested to me by my girlfriend who adores this game and I had been wanting to get into the Kirby games for quite a while, so here we are!

May I present

Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land (2002)

Production History

Original Release: GBA: October 25, 2002 (JPN), December 2, 2002 (USA), September 26, 2003 (EUR)

Future Releases:  Wii U Virtual Console: April 30, 2014 (JPN), October 30, 2014 (USA)

Developer: HAL Laboratory

Publisher: Nintendo

Director: Shinichi Shimomura, Masahiro Sakurai

Producer: Hiroaki Suga, Masayoshi Tanimura

Artist(s): Kazuya Konishi, Atsuko Nakamura, Akiko Hayashi

Programmers: Tetsuya Abe, Yoshimi Takahashi, Kouji Mori, Eitaro Nakamura, Takaaki Kawahara, Koji Akaike

Composer: Shogo Sakai, Jun Ishikawa, Hirokazu Ando, Tadashi Ikegami

Inspiration

After releasing Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards for the Nintendo 64 in 2000/2001, the development team HAL Laboratory wanted to shift their focus towards the Game Boy Advance, which was set to be released on March 21, 2001 in Japan (June 11, 2001 in the USA, June 22, 2001 in Europe, June 8, 2004 in China). Having history with the Game Boy series, production was immediately underway to possibly create a launch title for the handheld console. The game ended up becoming a remake of the NES Kirby title Kirby's Adventure. There were a few problems during development with one of the more notable issues was the four-player co-op feature not up to par and according to programmer Eitaro Nakamura, it wasn’t functional until one to two months before their deadline to publish the game. For promotional material, since this was going to be released internationally and needed to have some kind of a consistent design, pulled the logo assets from Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, a newly-released cartoon series that was airing internationally at the same time as the game’s proposed release, and remodeled the logo for the box art across all versions. This logo/title change would eventually impact future releases such as Kirby and the Amazing Mirror and Kirby: Triple Deluxe to name a few. 

Story

The story is rather simple: King Dedede steals the Star Rod of Dream Land and the citizens of Dream Land can no longer dream, which is a very big problem. Kirby discovers the issue when he takes a nap and realizes that there are no dreams. When confronting King Dedede about the Star Rod in the Fountain of Dreams, he finds out that Dedede broke them into seven pieces (it’s revealed much later that he does this in order to prevent Nightmare from taking the Star Rod and using its power for evil) and Kirby must find all of the pieces and defeat Nightmare in order to restore the dreams in Dream Land. 

Gameplay

The game is a standard platformer title much like the older games in the series where you have to play as Kirby and complete the level using Copy Abilities, which vary based on the level. Copy Abilities are special abilities that supply Kirby with a specific type of Ability (ranging from nature-themed ones like Ice or Burning, to magic-themed ones like Beam or Light) and can come from specific types of monsters or sometimes freely offered in select parts of the game. It plays almost identical to the NES version (Kirby’s Adventure) but with some notable changes including a graphics upgrade because of the Game Boy Advance’s graphical capabilities. Other changes include decreased difficulty, new monsters, and even new hats for most Abilities. This version also has a 4-player multiplayer system, an Extra Mode, three mini-games and Meta Nightmare playthrough, which marks Meta Knight’s debut in the Kirby franchise.

Reception

The game was positively received by critics and fans, who noted that although it was a remake of an older title, that it was a well-done remake, with the graphics, multiplayer and cutesy design being particular highlights of the title. One drawback that critics noted, however, was the decreased difficulty and the “stale” repetitive gameplay toward the latter part of the main game. Despite its shortcomings, it still was best-remembered by fans to this day is seen as one the most favorable Kirby titles to date.

Legacy

The popularity of the game itself was enough to land it in the Wii U Virtual Console in 2014 world-wide. It was and still is one of the best games ever to come out of the Game Boy Advance (which says a lot because there are a lot of them) and was considered a step in a new direction for the series. Meta Knight’s popularity with fans made him a mainstay in later titles and has been seen in almost every Kirby title since. 

Thoughts from the Head

So I have never played, nor owned the title, however my girlfriend has and she regards it as one of her favorite games from her childhood (as stated previously, she was the one that suggested the game to me for a Throwback Tuesday post), so if she likes it, and it looks really promising, I would very much like to play it. You can find the GBA game online on eBay for about $15-20 easily to start with (you can not only play it on the Game Boy Advance but if you have an original DS or DS Lite, you can play it that way, too because of backwards compatibility), and if you happen to have the Wii U, you can buy it for $7.99. Now if you have an NES, you technically can get the game Kirby’s Adventure (Hoshi no Kirby in Japan) since it’s essentially the same game but lacking the various modes and graphic upgrade. You can find various copies of it on eBay starting at around $15 roughly and this goes for both the NES and the RF Famicom versions. As far as accessibility goes, this game is one of the more obtainable ones in the series in terms of rarity and value. 

In terms of recommendations, it’s definitely worth a shot if you have the means to play it. It’s a very accurate and faithful remake of the NES original and if you’re a Kirby fan, especially take a look!

Don’t have a way to play it, but still wanna check it out? World of Longplays has your back with their full playthrough below!

(The video is from 2011 so the quality is not super sharp)

[danishkhan786]

cbt therapy delhi

Coachformind.com

With the ongoing changes in individuals' way of life, an ever increasing number of individuals are looking for help for their dysfunctional behavior. Delhi being a city that sudden spikes in demand for outrageous courses of events and cutoff times, has turned into a casualty to the extraordinary trench the city brings to the table to its kin. For the most significant length of time individuals thought looking for help for melancholy, tension and related mental issues was off-putting. Yet, with the ongoing change in individuals' convictions, they are at long last monitoring up and making it a highlight seek great treatment from specialists for their psychological wellness issues.

After you have found and acknowledged the way that you want help with your breaking down psychological wellness, the following stage is to find an ideal specialist who can assist you with your issues. Presently comprehend that there might be lots of them in a city like Delhi. Notwithstanding, you must do all necessary investigation from different sources like sites, articles and Practo to find the best one for yourself as it were. Likewise, understanding the contrast between a clinician and a psychiatrist is significant. A therapist is somebody who is able to recommend you meds for your treatment. Though clinicians generally depend on treatments like CBT.

Likewise, very much like you really want to visit a standard specialist for around 3 to multiple times least before you are totally fine. Same is the situation with a specialist. You really want at least six meetings before he cancels the treatment.

CBT in India is generally not however famous as it seems to be in different nations. The explanation is that there are very few talented CBT advisors accessible in India. The treatment approach of CBT is entirely compelling for the Indian mentality. For a country that has a culture of not discussing each other's feelings, CBT can assist individuals with vanquishing the disgrace and have a superior existence.

We are trained since our life as a youngster to zero in on the great and positive, to not show shortcoming. This perspective has adversely impacted an enormous number of people in our country. Insights show that India has one of the greatest self destruction rates with 700 instances of self destruction consistently. the Covid-19 pandemic hit India exceptionally hard and the psychological well-being of individuals was hit significantly more enthusiastically.

In such a critical circumstance the need of great importance is a decent treatment. CBT is one such treatment that has shown to find lasting success for various mental problems like misery, uneasiness issues, PTSD, rest problems, dietary issues, bipolar issues, OCD, and so on.

The world has arrived at a ceaseless computerized stage. With the pandemic happening for over three years everything is presently accessible on the web. CBT treatment whether done on the web or disconnected will help by and by. Your advisor will direct web-based meetings with you by means of call or video call and advantageously assist you with recognizing your battles, negative contemplations, designs, and so on they will likewise direct you to supplant negative considerations and examples with positive considerations and examples. Alongside that, they will utilize various strategies like journaling, pretending, objective setting, and so forth to change your life into the solid and positive one totally.

Online mental social treatment in India is moderately new however has shown to be just about as powerful as disconnected treatment. You will go to meetings from the solace of your home. Such an extraordinary method for beginning your recuperating venture, from your own solace space. Journaling: recording your considerations and sentiments is an incredible method for recognizing and figure out them. Your specialist might request that you record any regrettable contemplations that might come up and chip away at supplanting them with positive ones.

Objective setting: laying out objectives inspires you and assists you with arranging your life. Your advisor could assist you with setting, SMART-Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based, objectives. This will improve and arrange your life.

Tackling positive exercises: it is both energizing and supportive to get familiar with another movement. Teaching a positive new action in your life will generally speaking advantage you and better survey you in adapting to your battles.

Disclosure and Questioning: through the whole course of this treatment, you will find new parts of yourself. Your specialist will direct you to find and scrutinize your contemplations and ways of behaving.

Distinguishing negative idea designs: the main piece of this treatment is your capacity to recognize negative idea designs. Your specialist will help you in leisurely distinguishing these negative examples and managing them so you accomplish inward harmony.

Unwinding methods: unwinding strategies like contemplation and care are a piece of cbt that will assist you with accomplishing a sound and clear brain.

More info]  https://coachformind.com/cognitive-behavioural-therapy-in-india/

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6 Misunderstand about solar power

Solar power has become one of the best sources of renewable power and has always been a hot topic in energy discussions. Although many of these discussions are helpful, there are also some common misconceptions about solar energy. We would like to take this opportunity to clarify the four most common myths about solar energy that you may have heard of.

Myth 1: Solar panels do not work in cold snowy weather or cloudy weather.

Fact: Solar panels can work in sunny, cold or even cloudy environments. Solar panel technology allows them to work efficiently and more efficiently at colder temperatures than at warmer temperatures. In addition, cloudy weather will not inhibit the efficiency of solar panels; they can be a viable source of electricity because they can still generate enough electricity. Even on a cold, sunny winter day, it can generate electricity equivalent to that of a hot summer day. Examples of countries where such systems are efficient are Germany (the world leader in solar panels), the United Kingdom, China, and Italy.

Myth 2: Solar panels will not pay for themselves If you ask anyone who has installed solar panels, they will most likely notice a significant reduction in electricity bills. Not surprisingly, those who noticed large savings are usually also more aware of how much energy they used and when they used it. These energy-conscious people are usually a bit smart and use energy-intensive appliances during the day. Things such as dishwashers, washing machines, pool pumps, and hot water systems can be set on timers to maximize "own use" of solar energy. Preheating or cooling your home can also be an effective way to increase self-use, instead of sending excess solar energy back to the grid with little return.

Myth 3: Solar panels are not so "green" This view is aroused from time to time, but there is no tangible data to support it. The data does show that the emissions of solar panels are much lower than those of coal or natural gas energy.Since solar panels need to consume all energy in advance, the overall emissions seem to be greater than the actual emissions. However, when dispersed for more than 30 years of emission-free power generation, they proved to be much cleaner than ordinary alternatives. Even considering the energy used to mine, clean, process, and manufacture solar panels, the overall emission intensity is 3 to 10 times lower than that of traditional fossil fuels. According to data from the US Department of Energy, in addition to the emission advantage, the energy payback period of solar panels is about 2 to 3 years. This is about 40% faster than the rate at which a standard coal-fired power plant can return its energy. There are no shortcomings in any energy production method. Solar energy has many positive and negative effects on the environment.

Myth 4: Solar panels need a lot of maintenance Some people think that in order for your solar panels to generate electricity, they need to be constantly cleaned, which in turn can be annoying, and some may say that it is costly. However, the fact of solar energy is that solar panels require little maintenance throughout the year. Everything depends on your area. If your location is dusty or salty, you may need to clean the solar panels more frequently (perhaps every two or three months). However, if your location is dust-free or close to an industrial activity area, then you can clean the solar panels every six months. In addition, the costs associated with maintenance are almost zero, because all that is really needed is water and dish soap.

Myth 5: Solar panels can hurt your roof Not when installed correctly. In fact, in many cases, solar panels can actually extend the life of the roof. Professional installers are trained to use well-tested techniques, special materials and tools to handle almost all types of roofs. These tools are designed to maintain roof integrity and prevent leaks. Learn more about the installation process and how we ensure that your solar panels will not damage your roof.

Myth 6: If we can use clean coal, why invest in solar energy? Fact: Solar energy is a cleaner energy source than "clean coal" because coal is not really clean. Coal is one of the dirtiest fossil fuels. Since the top of the mountain was blasted and left a pool of black mud in its path, coal mining is the cause of many health problems. The more coal we burn, the greater our damage to the environment, because it will increase the content of mercury and smog, and further increase carbon pollution, which will have a more devastating impact on the environment.

cxmsolar.com is turning to SunPower to meet their solar + storage needs.You can learn more about residential solar power system.