#they both put on carefully constructed Human Suits which they present to the world

[govindhtech]

Neverdark Game: Legends of the Lightless Realm

Neverdark Game: The Post-Apocalyptic Game That Illuminates the Genre Overview

An creative post-apocalyptic RTS game, Neverdark Game A unique gaming experience, Simteract’s game combines tactical decision-making, strategic resource management, and a gripping narrative. The main gameplay, narrative structure, and gaming landscape influence of “Neverdark” will be examined in this article.

Location and Narrative

The game “Neverdark” takes place in a world with a global blackout. After “The Collapse,” humanity must survive without electricity, governance, or order. Rich and engaging, the story depicts a world rebuilding after disaster.

In this post-apocalyptic city, players take on the role of budding faction leaders and must navigate the perilous terrain. The objective is to overcome opposing groups and erratic environmental threats in order to reestablish order, safeguard resources, and increase their power. A clear reminder of the frailty of contemporary society and the thin veneer of civilization may be seen in the game’s setting.

Mechanisms of gameplay

Real-time strategy and aspects of city-building are seamlessly incorporated into “Neverdark” gameplay. To hold territory and increase their power, players must manage the resources of their faction, construct and improve infrastructure, and take part in tactical combat. The following are some essential gameplay elements:

Resource Management: Resources are limited in a world without power and need to be carefully handled. In order to maintain their faction, players must scavenge for supplies, food, and other necessities. As it directly affects the faction’s capacity to expand and defend itself, resource management is essential.

Building the City: Gamers can reconstruct and repurpose various areas of the city to better suit their requirements. Building workshops, shelters, and defensive buildings is part of this. Hence, strategic planning is crucial since every choice made affects the faction’s long-term viability.

Interaction between Factions and Diplomacy: There are several factions in the “Neverdark” universe, each with distinct objectives and worldviews. The ability to form alliances, conduct commerce, and go to war with other groups makes diplomacy an essential part of the game. The way the game plays out can be greatly changed by these dynamic interactions.

Battle Style: “Neverdark” combat is tactical and calls for strategic preparation. The battlefield is always changing, so players must adjust how they position their soldiers strategically and make use of the surrounding terrain. Strategic superiority over brute force is emphasised in the fighting system.

Players are still able to progress technologically even in the event that modern society collapses. Gamers can outwit their competitors by investigating and creating new technologies. Players must weigh their current survival demands against their long-term objectives as a result of this evolution, which deepens the gameplay.

Immersion and Storytelling

Its rich world-building and nuanced storytelling make “Neverdark” one of the best films out there. A post-apocalyptic backdrop isn’t all that the game presents; it’s made vivid with intricate settings, intriguing people, and a plot that changes depending on what the player chooses to do. A mix of in-game conversations, objectives, and events are used to convey the story, all of which add to the main plot.

Moral and ethical conundrums that put players’ leadership and decision-making abilities to the test are presented to them daily. The faction’s connections with other factions and the game’s general course can be greatly impacted by the decisions the player makes. Playthroughs are never the same because to this dynamic storytelling, which increases the replay value of the game.

Design for Visual and Aural Media

With its stunningly gorgeous depiction of a world in darkness, “Neverdark” succeeds in both its visual and aural design. With its realistic and evocative graphics, the game offers an immersive experience with intricate cityscapes, weather effects, and lighting. The architecture, characters, and general setting all exhibit meticulous attention to detail.

The soundtrack of the aural design creates a sense of urgency and intensity, perfectly balancing the graphics. The gaming environment is enhanced with ambient sounds, which include the sound of distant machinery or footsteps echoing in desolate streets. Additional excellent elements that really bring characters and situations to life are the voice acting and sound effects.

Influence on the gaming industry

An important influence that Neverdark Game has had on post-apocalyptic and RTS games is this. Both reviewers and players have praised it for its distinctive fusion of atmospheric design, engrossing storytelling, and strategic gaming. The game offers a novel viewpoint in a genre that is frequently dominated by conventional mechanics with its inventive approaches to resource management, city construction, and tactical fighting.

One aspect of the game that sets itself apart from other RTS games is its emphasis on player decision and consequence. The player is encouraged to experiment with various techniques and results, which not only improves the story but also makes the decision-making process more flexible.

Neverdark Game Release Date

Neverdark,” a post-apocalyptic real-time strategy game developed by Simteract and published by Slitherine Ltd., is set to be released on June 28, 2024, for PC in the United States and the United Kingdom. This game places players in a world that has experienced a global blackout, leading to the collapse of modern society.

To sum up

Video games can serve as a powerful storytelling and strategic thinking tool, as demonstrated by Neverdark Game. Players must use critical thinking, harsh decision-making, and deft navigation of a challenging and dynamic environment. RTS game and post-apocalyptic fiction enthusiasts should not miss Neverdark Game because of its captivating gameplay, deep story, and gorgeous visual and aural design.

“Neverdark” is a brilliant illustration of how inventive storyline and design can give long-standing genres a fresh start as the video game industry develops. It’s a game that makes us laugh and think at the same time, showing us that hope can always triumph even in the face of hardship and that people can be resilient.

Read more on govindhtech.com

[feyburner]

Sorry sorry sorry but I can’t stop thinking about the Laloward au where they meet at some point before That Night, and have a one (or 2 or 3) night stand, totally just an anonymous fuck type deal, but then ofc when their paths cross in Jimmy’s apartment, instead of shooting Howard it’s like [Howard and Lalo spider-man pointing meme] “What are YOU doing here?” and that moment of recognition/hesitation on Lalo’s part buys Howard enough time to ask a couple questions about what exactly is going on here, and then he goes into Lawyer Mode and essentially argues his way out of being murdered (Lalo can’t help but find him entertaining, which goes a long way in his book) by convincing Lalo that his plan sucks and Howard can help him think of a better one, and he DOES, which leads to Lalo surviving his confrontation with Gus. And then they have to get out of town, and they might as well do it together since it’s turns out they’re a good team…. ET CETERA!!

[spectralspices]

The possibility of a Resonance Cascade is never zero. 

It is, however, always nearly zero. The chances, day to day, of a Resonance Cascade, are approaching 5e-9. Not impossible. But about as low as a titanic pair of fingers reaching out from the void to snuff out our sun like a reading candle. 

But at Black Mesa, they were studying the dimensional barriers that separated this space from that space. Which is where the chances are raised dramatically. At the beginning, at the first discovery of the signals that indicated that some sort of “Border World” existed, the chances of a Resonance Cascade was raised to 6e-9. Still miniscule, but the simple awareness of another reality is enough to raise it.

When the first experiments into observing it occurred, Quantum Mechanics kicked in. The simple act of direct observation changes things-And so, the chances jumped suddenly. 6e-8 percent chance of Resonance Cascade. 

This is when Black Mesa had a visitor. He had all the proper credentials, never gave them a real name, spoke like a broken robot, and he always seemed to stare past whoever he was talking to-like they weren’t even there. A picture perfect G-Man type, here to give them lots of money nobody officially knows about to keep researching, so Someone Else didn’t know before America.

Well, they assumed it was for America.

7e-7 Percent Chance of a Resonance Cascade.

Director Breen met with him, and secured more than enough funding to develop the technology needed to transfer matter back and forth between this “Borderworld” that they had named “Xen”. He assigned some of Black Mesa’s best to the project. Isaac Kleiner, Eli Vance, Arne Magnusson, Richard Keller, Stan Rosenberg...the greatest minds in their field (and under Black Mesa’s employ. Damned Aperture, poaching Ratmann...)

Another massive jump. 9e-5 Percent Chance. And this was not just simply mathematic calculation that was determining these things-As the pieces moved together that would eventually result in a Resonance Cascade, the fabric of reality was actively weakening, making the process all the easier. 

Do you understand what’s being said?

The progress the Black Mesa Team made seemed exponential. When at first, the most they could transfer were simple probes...they soon discovered a frequency that would open holes in space. They sent teams-Ill fated as they were-to collect samples. Both Mineral and Biological. 

1e-3 percent chance. Or, in clearer layman’s terms, a Resonance Cascade had .001 percent chance of occurring. That number would be catastrophically high, if they had understood what a Resonance Cascade actually meant. 

Three men, around the same time, are promoted. Gordon Freeman becomes a Research Assistant on the Anomalous Materials team, working directly under his MIT mentor, Isaac Kleiner. Barney Calhoun is granted Level 3 Security Clearance and meets the previously mentioned men, becoming fast friends. Corporal Adrian Shepard joins the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit of the United States Marines, fast-tracked there by recommendation by an unnamed high ranking official. The HECU marines are ostensibly meant to counteract unconventional enemies in dangerous areas and tight corridors. While a heroic description to the outsider, the simple truth is they are meant to clean up any mistakes that could lead to deserved scrutiny towards what the military is actually funding.

The chances are .01 percent. 

Experiments begin to determine the composition of certain crystalline structures discovered in the Borderworld, and the nature of the energy they seem to hold. Doctor Rosenberg develops a variant of the more common mass spectrometer to analyze these exotic materials, under the watchful eye of that G-man. 

The Anti-Mass Spectrometer is theorized, developed, and constructed. 

There is a 1% chance of a Resonance Cascade.

Experiments begin. Incredible things are learned from the first samples- HG-1866, HP-1937, IA-1992 are all immediately replicated and put into use for the development of Tau Cannons, localized gravitational displacement through Zero Point Energy Emission, and further stabilization of the portal generation. Experiments continue on living tissue from the Borderworld. But a problem arises.

All of the samples have certain impurities, non-exotic matter that prevented certain data from being gathered. Namely, the origin of this matter-the way to make more, not just synthesize similar material.

Director Breen is approached by the G-Man. He has something to provide Black Mesa-A sample purer than any they’d ever gotten their hands on. Breen asks no questions, as the two had...come to an understanding.

The sample is christened “GG-3883″, a tongue in cheek reference to a phrase Doctor Breen’s son often repeated during his time playing the online shooter “Quake”. After all, when Black Mesa came out with the fact that they’d discovered free multiversal travel and near infinite energy, it would be the absolute end of their rivalry with Aperture. The director sent the sample off for analysis, no matter how unstable it may have been, with a self-assured certainty that he would go down in history as one of the most important figures in the field. 

If only he knew.

Chance of a Resonance Cascade had reached 13%, and was climbing as the sample was brought closer and closer to the Anti-Mass Spectrometer. Some work is done to prevent it, however-Safety measures are put in place in the time before the experiment. The chances of a Resonance Cascade are lowered to “only” 7%. 

Gordon Freeman wakes up late after snoozing his alarm one too many times, and must rush to get ready. He rides the Black Mesa Transit system. His car pulls into the station.

Barney Calhoun is locked out of the security office.

Adrian Shepard is finishing a morning jog.

9% of Resonance Cascade.

Gordon Freeman climbs into the Hazard Environment Suit Mark 4, a variant of Black Mesa’s advanced body armor systems that increased physical capability, featured modular ports for various pieces of equipment, and generated a low-yield battery powered energy shield for the partial deflection and absorption of small projectiles and other dangers common to the work they were doing. Everyone called it a “Hev Suit”.

Barney Calhoun is finally let in, pulling on his own variants that were developed for the security guards. Bulletproof vests and helmets, containing the same type of battery powered field generation...even if charge was less potent. At least it didn’t mean every single guard was walking around with a 127,000$ piece of equipment...

Adrian Shepard inspects his Powered Combat Vest, a military produced variant of the HEV suit’s technology, along with his other equipment. The others in his unit are joking around. He’s making sure that if their helicopter crashes, he won’t get impaled on the wreckage or suffocate from an improperly secured gas-mask. A grim man, that Adrian Shepard. But not a paranoid one. At least...not unjustly paranoid.

13% chance of a Resonance Cascade.

Gordon Freeman is shortly briefed, before witnessing a major equipment malfunction in one of the support systems for the Anti-Mass Spectrometer. The safety measures have been lowered to their absolute limit for a safe reading of the exotic matter present in sample GG-3883. Eli Vance and Isaac Kleiner stay behind to repair it as best they can, but doubts are expressed for the safety of this experiment. Not only was this the largest sample ever put through the analysis procedure, it was the purest and most unstable. The system cannot handle this. Nevertheless, Gordon descends, beginning the process to prepare the Anti-Mass Spectrometer.

27% chance of Resonance Cascade.

Barney Calhoun notices the lights flickering above, as the strain on the facility’s generators is too great to maintain everything. The air feels wrong, the people are uneasy, but they aren’t sure why. 

33% chance of Resonance Cascade.

Adrian Shepard showers alone once the others had finished, as he preferred the quiet. He steps out and stares into the mirror. Did he ever plan for a life other than this? Was he going to be a grunt, doing wetwork until he died? Would he ever grow old? Did he even want the chance?

These are the things a quiet man thinks when he trains to murder civilians for knowing too much, when he knows nothing at all.

49% chance of Resonance Cascade.

The sample is brought up. The Spectrometer is powered to levels that the system cannot handle for an extended period. Gordon Freeman pushes the sample in. 

100% of Resonance Cascade

At once, the machinations of two vast powers clash. A meddler who has carefully manipulated the pieces into position, who provided funding, who held authority and power despite not a single living human recognizing him. Who had changed things...made sure certain discoveries were made, and others were not. Who had done all this, changed the course of human history...Because his employers had a vendetta against Something Else Entirely, using the Resonance Cascade as a flare to bring them to this world. 

But at the same time, a vast psychic force, master of an enslaved race of enlightened psychics, creator of twisted weaponized flesh and guns that shoot bees at you, a creature that had harnessed its own power and the power of its thralls to peer into the world beyond them-and the worlds that were yet to be-and it knew of the meddler’s plans. A conflict with the force he had directed his enmity towards was not something the creature could allow, as an invasion of Earth...would pass through it’s Borderworld. 

So, the creature took control of the Cascade. In most situations, a Resonance Cascade occurred when an object begins to vibrate at the exact frequency required to begin “Resonating”, meaning it has started to emit energy that causes the same reaction in other matter, which then cause the reaction both in the original matter and the matter around them, massively weakening the fabric of space and the barriers beyond one world and the worlds that border them. This chain reaction was self sustaining, but did not spread laterally in the space it originated. Instead, it would spread to other worlds-Exchanging matter between them at random as the two spaces began to blend. 

The Psychic Force stopped the cascade in Xen, forcing it to focus on sustaining the reaction between just those two worlds, weakening its hold...but allowing it to send its forces (And hostile wildlife) to Earth, to destroy the systems that caused this-To stop the cascade with the death of every human in the facility. To this end, it maintained the cascade in a lesser form.  

The Meddler had predicted something of this sort. He had...preparations in place. Including two agents of chaos...

Gordon Freeman awakes to the destroyed remains of the Anti-Mass Spectrometer, dazed and confused. He has seen alien worlds, and nearly died several times. They won’t be the last for a very long time.

Adrian Shepard’s unit is alerted to their next deployment. They gear up, enter the choppers, and ride. A Manta Ray that shits lasers destroys their helicopter, and Adrian Shepard is glad he charged his vest that morning.

Barney Calhoun desperately tries to escape the deadly forces that were flooding the facility. He was not a piece in a cosmic game. He was just...some guy.

An unexpected enemy appears. Marauders that only seek to steal resources before greater threats stake claim on this newly opened world. They are repelled by the Meddler’s more trained agent, as Adrian Shepard trades one amoral faceless master that decided who he killed for another.

But the Psychic Force...The Nihilanth. Its death would come by a different hand. One clad in orange and black, swinging a bright red strip of metal. Gordon Freeman frees a race, stops an alien invasion, and was prepared to die in an impossible world for his troubles-all to save lives. But he did good work. He was the right man for the job. He’s “Hired”. 

In the end, the Meddler’s plans worked better than anyone could expect. His true targets were alerted, preparing their forces to take the Earth. The lesser marauders repelled and the psychic barrier dealt with, making the blue marble seem an even sweeter prize. Several agents obtained for his schemes, to be deployed when and where they would be appropriate. Dangerous alien life and Portal Storms-the aftershocks of a Resonance Cascade-prevented the governments from truly being able to prepare. 

The Combine arrive. The war lasts seven hours. Wallace Breen negotiates humanity’s surrender. Isaac Kleiner and Eli Vance firmly disagree with this course of action. Judith Mossman, another survivor of the Black Mesa Incident, is less sure. 

The last human child for the next two decades is born. The Combine establish a field that prevents human procreation. Other hostile alien life begins to take hold-Antlion Nests, hives of Headcrabs, Barnacles spreading, ichthyosaurs stalking the oceans and lakes. Combine weapons-made from heavily modified creatures from previous conquests-are regularly deployed, roaming the streets in shows of force. Humans are converted into their police, enhanced infantry, special forces...and lobotimized worker slaves. 

The Meddler waits for a red-letter day, and he chooses his agent carefully. To destroy a machine like the Combine, one needed not a precision implement. Military training would do nothing against a force that conquered worlds in hours. No, Adrian Shepard-a knife in human sheath-would be unfit for this.

What one needed to destroy the Combine was a blunt thing. A force of chaos that couldn’t be stopped. Whose strength was matched only by his luck. His intelligence, matched only by his willingness to do things like drive a muscle car into hyper-agile flechette-firing cyborgs, or throw a toilet at a man’s face so hard his skull is obliterated and he backflips twice before hitting the ground. Or fight a helicopter from an airboat equipped with a fully automatic plasma cannon.

To break a machine of World Consumption, the G-Man would ram a crowbar into the mechanism, just where it can cause the maximum damage-and keep causing damage to the entire thing. The right man in the wrong place.

Gordon Freeman wakes up on a train car, as it pulls into the City 17 station, deeply confused and disoriented. The moment he steps out, a floating camera photographs his face-which would soon enough be processed and identified as Anticitizen One, Gordon Freeman, the most wanted man on the planet-who had been gone for twenty years and looked identical to the day the Black Mesa Incident occurred. Minus the ponytail. His old boss is on a giant viewscreen. One of the aliens he used to fight is sweeping. Cops in gasmasks maintain a fascist state and he’s somewhere in Eastern Europe. His confusion and disorientation deepens severely.

Wallace Breen receives notice that Gordon Freeman had been sighted. A pit forms in his stomach. He feels a familiar hand in this. Within a few days, he will be screaming high-concept threats from an ascending sphere of energy as a former research assistant flings tightly condensed plasma orbs at him with a gravity cannon.

The G-Man continues to meddle, despite the intervention of a hive mind of benevolent psychics. His plans are, for the most part, undeterred. However...

He begins to regret deploying Gordon Freeman. Chaos, while able to be directed, is quite hard to wrangle when it’s gotten loose. For now, Freeman continues to act in favor of the disruption of Combine operations. But...his personal connection to a secondary objective-another new agent to recruit-sours the G-man’s elation at a plan more or less well executed. The end of this, however, is still untold. 

Because who fucking knows when they’re making Half Life Goddamn 3.

[elydraws]

01 │きせい かげ よこちょ

pairing: dabi x oc

genre: angst, action, dramatic, lemon (maybe future smut)

word count: 2.2k

masterlist

part 1/?  <previous next>

warnings: strong language

author’s note:  as I have already warned in the presentation chapter this is a translation of my original fanfiction (written in my language), so I hope there are no big mistakes, however I wanted to try to write it in english hoping it won't make your eyes bleed. （；´д｀）ゞ

forgive me if there is any mistake, I am not very good at translating, so if you have any suggestions about it, it is absolutely welcome.(｡･∀･)ﾉﾞ

"Stars, hide your fires;

Let not light see my black and deep desires."

┈┈┈┈․° ☣ °․┈┈┈┈ 01 きせい かげ よこちょ (kisei kage yokochō)

THE NEON SIGNBOARD WHIRRING ABOVE HER HEAD LIKE AN ANNOYING MOSQUITO.

The writing 'Flamingo Night,' of bright pink, flickered reflected on the puddles on the ground. The rain had wet the garbage thrown out of the bins already full to the brim. The smell of rancid and mildew saturated the narrow alley she was going through.

She twisted her nose, trying not to notice the acrid stench of spoiled food. In that part of the city, despite the proximity to the center, it was not difficult to come across abandoned streets.

Few dared to venture into that area of ​​the commercial district unless you wanted to take the risk of getting ripped off.

As much as the heroes boasted that they made cities crime-free, there were corners of them still in the hands of the gangland. They were well hidden, concealed by the lights of the skyscrapers, and far from the cameras and residential homes for families.

Mostly they were suburban neighborhoods patrolled only by the police or small groups of minor heroes. 

Everything took place under unsuspecting or corrupt eyes, masked with signs such as that of the 'Flamingo' or the small night market at the end of the street.

Without evidence and moving in the shadows, the villains in the area could not be arrested. The omerta of who lived there allowed the crimes to be committed even in the light of the day.

Nobody saw or heard anything at 'Kisei Kage Yokocho.' Kisei Kage was a slang born just before the Age of Watchers to indicate the neighborhoods in the hands of criminals who used their quirks to sow panic among those without Meta skills. With the Vigilantes and later the Heroes legally recognized by the government, the areas under the control of the underworld had drastically reduced, reaching a few frightened alleys and some shops scattered here and there.

They were the thin and blurred gray line between the significant organized criminal gangs and ordinary citizens.

A life lived like rats in the sewers. You know they are there, that they move under your feet. Sometimes you can hear them scratching in the ground, but you don't realize it until one sneaks between your feet. A miserable existence, perhaps, but a choice for many of them was a privilege.

It was a cruel world: if you were lucky enough to call yourself 'Hero,' you were allowed to do everything, and you could observe the rest of humanity from above, judging it. Power was in their hands.

If they decided you were the bad guy and rebelled, they had a chance to kill you. Take your life without blinking an eye and without consequences.

The government, on these occasions, set its gaze elsewhere. Sometimes the mayor even patted the hero on duty on the shoulder and complimented him for his excellent job.

"Thanks for making the roads safer."

That sounded very like: thank you for getting rid of the trash.

They were none other than this in the eyes of society.

Garbage.

Nobody had ever bothered to ask why. At the end of a clash, journalists had eyes only for the hero; nobody had ever approached a villain asking: "why are you doing all this?".

No one care about a Villain's past or his reasons. What pushed him into the shadows of the alleys, in the darkest meanders of the human soul.

It would be too tricky to humanize the category, to go to think that there is something else underneath or that their idolized Heroes are not all knights in bright armor, and the Villains are not those monsters that move under the bed at night, while everyone is asleep.

It would have been too much to handle for the fragile minds of those who only ask to be safe in a world where only the one with the strongest Quirk can win. A society divided between black and white.

The girl stopped in the middle of the alley. The tip of her sneakers touched a puddle, wrinkling it.

Her figure distorted, becoming unrecognizable, illuminated by the pink neon sign. If this was what she was destined to become, so be it. She would get her hands dirty because she was already born stained with an unforgivable shame in the eyes of society. It was her future. Her fate was sealed even before she was born.

The daughter of a Villain can only aspire to become nothing but rubbish.

At the end of the road, bordered by two tall buildings, the headlights of the cars on the main highway darted at high speed, leaving a bright trail.

Although it was late in the evening, the main streets were still full of life, the voices and waves of laughter rang among the constructions, up to her.

She looked up, and her eyes, in the darkness of the alley, shone like amethysts when they met the soft light of the shy street lamp in the corner. A moth continued to fly close to it, unable to land.

"I'm tired of the games, come out, you've been following me for a while now" the girl's voice sounded bored but sweet and inviting like honey for flies. 

The sentence remained suspended in the stillness of the alley.

A rat, around the corner of the Night entrance behind her, pawed towards a dumpster. Something must have frightened him, but, other than the rhythmic dripping of the water from the rusty fire ladder above her head and the distant echo of the city, there was no other noise to interrupt that glacial calm.

She didn't even make an effort to turn around when a can was kicked against the wall next to her and bounced off the center of the alley.

"Uh-oh, someone's in trouble," murmured a male voice behind her.

Another joined the first, very similar, but harder and hoarser, "I DID KNOW! you are truly an incapable!"

A lonely figure, however, emerged from the shadow of the building.

The girl smiled, her lips, adorned with a matte dark brown lipstick, rose to one corner showing the tip of the canines as white as pearls.

She had noticed the man's presence since she left the establishment for her latest job, a pawn shop a neighborhood further south. She had tried to sow the intruder, with fake streets and taking him away from where she lived, but that guy was a tough nut to crack, and he hadn't let go.

He was not a hero. It did not seem to act as such, nor did it look like it. She also crossed out the idea of ​​the policeman. He was too smart to be part of the police. Excluding those possibilities, this reduced the stranger's intentions to two unique options: a competitor who wanted to try to cut her out of the game or someone interested in sharing a slice of her thefts.

"What do you want?"

The man behind her winced, "Uh, right to the point, eh? What a daring girl!" the first voice squeaked.

"Rude!" croaked the second one. But they both came from that single, eccentric man.

A personality disorder? She asked herself, raising an eyebrow.

"Cut to the chase, I'm a busy woman," she said, barely lifting one shoulder, annoyed at the interruption.

What a pain in the ass. She was savoring the sweet and creamy taste of the Bubble Tea from her favorite kiosk before the arrival of that nuisance. The girl reached into the pockets of the military green bomber jacket she was wearing. 

She didn't want to waste time with a madman.

"SUPER RUDE!!!!"

"They warned me that you weren't very patient, Lady Hazard... or should I call you Unmei Nakano?"

Upon hearing her name spoken, the girl backed away, turning three quarters so she could finally face her pursuer.

She was impressed. That guy had discovered her true identity despite all the precautions she had taken. 

She didn't let the annoyance leak; however, she just raised an eyebrow.

He was probably keeping an eye on her for longer than she had imagined.

"I thought you were just a stalker, but I was wrong," she admitted, shrugging her shoulders without taking her hands out of the pockets. Her fingers tightened the grip on the handle of the snap knife inside the jacket—a slow and calculated movement.

But if he already knew her identity, he was probably already aware of her tricks and the weapons she had carefully hidden under the clothes.

The cold metal of the Bo pressed against her ribs, reassuring her with her presence, hidden by the mustard crop top. She would never be able to reach it in time and without showing up, not with that strange defensive guy.

The man put the hands on his hips. 

She couldn't recognize any physiognomy because of the full spandex mask that concealed his face. She could guess his expressions thanks to the orbits of the disguise, which followed every movement of his eyebrow arch. Now, the empty orbits thinned; he was probably trying to precede her next move.

The rest of the man's body was also covered in a tight, black, and gray suit.

"A stalker? Me? What made you think that?" the gentlest voice trilled as he shrugged. He seemed almost offended by such a claim.

"Because maybe you were following her like a maniac! DEFICIENT!" the other voice shouted against himself. The body of the stranger folded in on himself, grabbing his head as if he wanted to split it in two. He composed himself after that fit of anger and went back to speaking as if nothing had happened.

"I'm here for a business proposal. See our organization ..."

Unmei grimaced. "I am not interested," she abruptly interrupted him, returning to walk towards the end of the alley. The grip on the knife in her pocket, however, did not loosen.

For a moment, the man was contradicted by her answer before recovering from the momentary shock "AT LEAST LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY YOU, STUPID SNOB GIRL!"

Unmei stopped, giving her back to him. "Besides being crazy, you are deaf, so ... I said I don't care" this time her tone was sharper.

The masked man took a step forward, but before he could reach her, a shadow stretched from the dumpster next to them, reaching up to his feet.

"WHA—?!" his assailant shouted in surprise when he suddenly found himself stuck in an unnatural position, unable to move a single muscle.

One of his feet was still in mid-air and the same arm that had stretched out to try to grab the girl. He remained suspended, completely immobilized. He could neither fall, supported by a strange force that pivoted on his own shadow, nor advance, chained by invisible arms and fingers.

He seemed utterly taken aback by what was going on.

Unmei turned around, just as that same shadow that had elongated from the bins began to come to life, becoming more substantial and starting to go up the leg of its victim like a snake whose coils tighten around its prey.

The shadow monster came to tighten around the masked man's body until it tightened the grip on his neck, making him jump in hideous surprise.

"You did your research, but not so well," said the girl with a proud half-smile. Her long, petrol green hair slid over her shoulder as she studied the man.

The strange guy had started to tremble, gasping from lack of air.

"And ... tsch... i-if I told you ..." he tried to mark from under the mask, between the groans of pain and the attempts to breathe as much air as possible "...that we believe in a...world without he-heroes...?"

The shadow tightened its hold on the man's neck, causing him a squeak. Completely unable to move, or even just trying to loosen the grip of that thing on him, he kept talking.

His voice was now more hoarse and pasty, choked by the saliva that he could not swallow "...we... want... r-revenge ..." the last words were muffled by the lack of oxygen.

Unmei stared at him, impassive.

The man clenched his teeth under the mask. The girl could see the muscle of his jaw tightening under the cloth, his limbs starting to tremble. It was a matter of seconds before he passed out, or the shadow broke his vertebrae if that irresponsible continued to put off the inevitable.

With a wave of her fingers, the shadow let go of its victim. Her strange pursuer fell to the knees on the ground, exhausted. The man's body was shaken by violent coughs when air entered his lungs again.

The man's gloved hands touched his neck as if trying to ensure that the thing wasn't there. But the shadow, still resembling a shapeless snake, had already rolled up around Unmei's arm, peering over her shoulder like a harmless pet.

"AND THEN WE WOULD BE THE CRAZY ONE!" the man shouted in an even more hoarse voice, still crawling on the ground, before coughing again and looking up, returning meekly.

"I have to infer..." he coughed again "that this caught your attention."

Unmei bent on the knees, tilting the head to be able to fix him in the empty sockets of the mask. "You have my curiosity Zorro" she mocked him by pulling her hands out of the pockets and placing them gently on the knees.

"TWICE! My name is Twice! Slut!"

"My name is Twice," he introduced himself, reaching out a hand towards her, still trembling for the effort to speak "and welcome to the League of Villains, Unmei."

[nestofstraightlines]

The Dæmon-Cages

I went to a preview screening of episode six of His Dark Materials,’ The Daemon Cages’, followed by a Q&A with the senior creative last night.

I’m not even going to give broad expectation spoilers for the episode above the cut (I’ll include a bit right at the end under the cut just giving a broad overview of whether I liked it or not).

As for the Q&A, it was very interesting.

The team were asked several questions (by a very positive audience) about themes and research; things like ‘how did you decide which of the many themes to focus on? Did you go back to the inspirational material of the books such as Milton and Blake?’ and I would characterise the answers as a slightly defensive ‘we just went back to the book’.

Call it confirmation bias, but for me that tallies with what I’ve perceived of the writing/creating flaws of the series.

Because what does that mean?

I’ve been going back to the book for 22 years now and unpacking more depths and more angles. It really did feel like there was a rejection from Thorne and series Exec Producer Jane Trantor that adaptation would involve unpacking something and repacking it into your own storytelling form.

Their tone was much more enthusiastic when it came to discussing detail: they talked about wanting to know exactly what every moment of Lyra’s day at Jordan would be, what she would do for breakfast etc. And that’s got merits; it can suggest nice images (I’m guessing this is where the idea of Roger bringing Lyra breakfast every morning comes from).

But for me, in general, it’s an approach that fits badly with Pullman as a source material. Pullman writes intuitively, discovering the story as he writes is.

At one point in Northern Lights he uses the metaphor for reading the Alethiometer that it is like climbing down a ladder in the dark, and trusting that, though you can’t see the next step, it is there. I believe that he was describing his writing process there too.

He writes indirectly, using negative space to let the reader infer a fact or an idea. For example, with daemons. We are told a little and shown a lot. Pullman is showing himself the story too.

I don’t believe Pullman knew when he was writing Northern Lights what Lyra would do for her breakfast every morning. But if the story had wanted to contain a scene set during her breakfast, he would have known.

And okay, different writing processes, whatever. But actually it is fundamental to the text and I think where the problems have crept in.

Genre storytelling can be broken up into two rough camps: character-led and ideas-led. The senior creatives of this programme, almost inevitably coming from a British TV background, fall into the wrong one - character-led.

Now both camps contain both things: if I call a story idea/s-led it’s not saying its characters aren’t important and good or vice versa. It’s about which is the ultimate point o fthe story.

For instance, Harry Potter is, for me, character-led. Its fantasy trappings are rather unpacked or picturesque dressing used to heighten basically mundane human interpersonal drama. Yeah, it’s good versus evil, acceptance versus discrimination, but those topics aren’t explored, they’re not a priority, they’re a situation to throw the characters into.

Where Thorne has worked in genre shows before, the same can be said. There is a specific situation, even a mission statement, but these are not shows constructed around telling an idea as story, but rather focusing on interpersonal drama. The premises are settings, real or imagined, which are already neatly packaged for the audience. They’re not about inventing fantasy, they are about using it to tell small-scale human dramas. Events serve nothing larger than character and relationship drama.

In Pullman’s His Dark Materials, character and relationship drama are a but not the greatest priority of the series, they are in service to broader ideas and themes.

That’s the other camp of genre fiction, where the fantasy is not a static setting used to heighten charater stuff, but an active agent used to tell a particular story.

Calling this camp ideas-led sounds like its an inherently grand sort of a category, and His Dark Materials is of course an example that is grand and important and epic and so on. But for a show to be ideas-focused, it doesn’t have to be a Big Important Theme with Big Important Execution.

Some ideas are ‘what is it to be human?’, some ideas are simply ‘whodunnit?’ or ‘what if a monster got into your house?’

Anyway.

Pullman’s HDM is ideas-led. He creates a world (and later worlds) of things we need to pay attention to. This is not Harry Potter – school, castle, wizards, you pretty much got it – this is unconstructed fantasy. And it’s not constructed for picturesque ends either. Pullman isn’t inventing this stuff because it’s independently cool or pleasing or whatever, or at least not only that. He is creating it to express a set of ideas through the medium of a story.

So story and world are perfectly bound together. And he understands the difference between convincing a reader and making your world CinemaSins-proof. It’s a story, not a world.

The series is over-invested in the details; over-invested in the tools, and misses what they are used to build in the book/s. Sometimes it even breaks what they are meant to build.

I think the failure of daemons is the biggest casualty of this.

At the screening the creatives talked about the challenge there, the unprecedented challenge of making a show in which every human character is accompanied by a unique CGI creation. They mentioned the impossible budget challenge this presented as well as the challenges in visual storytelling and presentation. I.e. even if one can afford to put a whole crowds of daemons in every wide shot it looks impossibly cluttered and like Doctor Doolittle.

And yes, of course, but it baffles – and frankly annoys – me that the imagination seemed to stop there. Or rather, the understanding of storytelling stopped there.

They talked about having spitballed pragmatic adjustments to daemons, such as making them be semi-invisible, flicking in and out of visibility. But in the end they ‘wanted to stay true to the book/s’. Again, I think we’re looking at a profound lack of understanding of what ‘true to the book’ even means.

Creatives more suited to the material would have found creativity borne of limitation. They would have had a deep and confident enough understanding of the idea they were dealing with to find the solutions from within their own storytelling field, to create daemons for screen in a way which worked.

It feels like this teams’ reaction to the challenge has been ‘to do our best and tell people they don’t understaaand it’s haaard when they complain we haven’t got it right’.

I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. But they took on this challenge and there’s a little hubris in that. I’m not sure what made them feel they were the people for the job here, but they’ve failed to convince me of that fact.

People have been telling fantastical and profound stories on screen for a long time before CGI became so photorealistic. And I think CGI has both a limiting effect on the imagination, and it encourages directors and writers with a limited sense of visual storytelling to imagine that they are equipped to deal with stories that they perhaps aren’t, because they can unthinkingly assign fantasy ideas to the ‘literalist CGI’ box.

I just get the feeling that none of the head creatives, as a mix of character-focused storytellers and details-people, really get what daemons are in a storytelling sense.

They mentioned that when they had conversations with Pullman, he advised them not to focus on daemons, that he novel included them only when they were important. And that’s true, and I can’t put words in Pullman’s mouth, but it’s my belief the TV series team misunderstood what he was getting at, and I’m basing that on stuff Pullman has said elsewhere (such as in his essays and speeches collected in Daemon voices) as well as my own reading of the book/s.

Daemons don’t appear important but the story is carefully constructed, without ever seeming to be on the surface, to explore the idea of the daemon.

It’s a practical issue too. You employ people to write and direct this stuff who are used to stories made up of human characters interacting in rooms, and they’re going to lack experience in showing stuff which is vital to this story, which includes the relationship between the human heroine and her shape-shifting animal-shaped companion, a giant talking polar bear, a city in the Aurora Boreales, fights with demons during a hot-air balloon fight and so on.

A lot of the stuff that matter in HDM isn’t just mundane drama in fantastical settings. The most vital emotional scenes include a girl interaction with a giant talking solar bear; the threat tot he bond between a person and their shape-shifting soul-manifestation etc

 The human/daemon relationship is like a lot of things at different times and in different ways: human/animal, siblings, friends, parent/child etc. But it’s not a mundane human relationship clothed in light fantasy disguise. It's an idea and thus needs careful building for screen just as it did on the page.

Russell Dodgson, the head of VFX on behalf of Framestore for the series, talked about how fans always focus on daemons while there are so many more ideas in the book. ‘People love talking animals, I guess.’ He joked.

And OK, he was being off-the-cuff and deliberately glib, and in any case he’s not the writer and thereby not responsible for getting the overall imagining of daemons for this series right. But he’s so off the mark here in a way which helpfully sums up the misses of this team.

Daemons are not talking animals in the book and that is what the series has rendered them as through this lack of understanding that they amount to more than an emptily whimsical note.

EXPECTATION SPOILERS FOR THE DAEMON-CAGES:

... Having said all that; a really great episode! Best episode of the series yet.

It benefits from coming from a part of the book which is perfect for an episode of TV: it is very dramatic and climactic, while also being something of a great self-contained story in form. Lyra goes into a situation with very clear parameters of tension, fears, goals and a ticking clock. The production plays on all of those very strongly.

The weakest element of the episode is predictable given what the weakness element of the adaptation has been all along: daemons of course. As with last week my feeling is that while the show is so far from doing justice to certain ideas and moments it might as well be on a different continent, it finds enough strengths in other areas to stop the bottom dropping out of the episode.

The production design is absolutely incredible. It’s the boldest imaginative leap from the book so far. The staging of some of the events plays out differently due to a differently imagined Bolvangar and I adore the new approach. Again, I’ll have more to say when the episode has aired. I can’t wait to get into the detail of this!

[thebestworstidea]

Illogical Fear

(Read on Ao3)

It was a fairly quiet morning in the Mindscape; and they’d settled down to a ‘together breakfast’ which wasn’t a frequent thing. Their differences in approach to sleep schedules meant the Sides were very rarely awake together in the morning. And when they were, it was just as likely that they’d all be awake while Thomas was still asleep, which led to a sleepy, friendly atmosphere, like they were cozily tucked up in bed still while sitting at the table. 

Logan seemed a little grouchy, but that was just something that happened sometimes. The wincing however was new.

“Lo? You okay there?” Patton asked. 

“I’m fine.” Logan said and went to take another bite of his toast only to wince again. He tried his coffee with a similar effect.

“Yeah, Fine. I can tell.” Virgil rolled his eyes, attention having been grabbed from his phone. 

“Very well, I seem to have a toothache.” Logan admitted. “But it’s fine, it will go away in a bit.”

“Logan.” Patton said sternly. “That’s a pretty lackluster approach to the tooth of the matter.”

“Yeah, Lo. I’d think you’d be all over dental health.” 

“I brush twice daily as recommended.” 

“If you didn’t we’d have to exchange some words, my dear nerd, starting with hypocrisy.”

“You even used the word correctly, Roman, I’m very impressed.” Logan said dryly. “But I am careful about my dental care.” 

“Obviously not careful enough.” Roman came around the table and grabbed a hold of Logan’s face, producing another wince, and a flashlight from thin air. “Say Ahh”

“I will naaaaa-” Roman forced Logan’s mouth open further and peered in with aid of the light. 

“Logan, I can see a cavity there.” Roman admonished. “You need to see a dentist.”

“That’s ridiculous.” he reclaimed his face and swatted the flashlight away. “We’re anthropromofications of abstract mental constructs, I do not need to see a dentist. I do not have a cavity, and there is nothing wrong.”

The fridge shut, and they all jumped. 

“Wow.” Said Deceit, his arms full of fruit that he’d taken from the fridge. “That is an awful lot of words to only have one true thing said, Logan. I commend you.” 

“What are you doing here?” Virgil demanded. Deceit plucked an apple from the array cradled against his chest, and tossed it up and down.

“Shopping?”

“Stealing.”

“Isn’t all property theft?” Deceit asked, running a gloved thumb over the apple’s skin. “Your produce is better.” Virgil gave and awkward shrug of acknowledgement.  “But I was attracted by lies, as I am, and just to lay this out straight-”

Roman snorted automatically. 

“Logan has been lying to himself about this for a while.” 

“I have not!” Logan protested uselessly. From under his cape, Deceit produced a jar of jam, and Logan surged to his feet. “Now we are going to have a problem, Deceit, that is mi-” Logan’s tirade was cut off by a spoonful of jam being shoved in his mouth, and he winced harder, hand going up to his cheek. Deceit snorted.

“And with that, my work here is never done.” he sunk out, fruit, jam jar and all. 

Mouth covered with one hand, Logan swallowed heavily, swishing his mouth around to try and get the preserves away from the sore tooth. Virgil took pity on him and handed him a glass of water. 

“I … might… have a toothache.” Logan admitted. “But it should repair itself after Thomas’s next checkup, and at any rate, where would I even see a dentist.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s one in the figment suburb.” Patton said thoughtfully. 

“Oh no.” Logan looked upset, and pulled up a planner. “When is Thomas’s next cleaning scheduled, perhaps I can wait…” 

“What’s wrong with the suburb?” Patton demanded. “It’s a lovely place!” 

“It’s full of nonsense!” 

“Well too bad, we’re going right after breakfast, mister.” Patton said sternly.

Logan, as might be inferred, did not like the figment suburb. While it held a common border with the imagination, it was a repository of random characters and repeating ideas. It was less unpredictable than the imagination, and somehow that made it worse. The imagination was more honest, somehow with it’s usual fantasy aesthetic. It didn’t pretend to be the real world, which the figment suburb did, however badly. 

“I do not need you all to accompany me.” Logan mumbled petulantly. 

“You want Deceit to show up again?” Virgil asked, slumping along behind him, headphones half on. 

“I cannot help but feel that you would abandon this quest without your party, my friend.” Roman had his hands tucked behind his head, walking beside Virgil. He waved as a group of four walked past in the opposite direction, single file for no discernible reason and bearing weapons more suited for the imagination. Only the one in front, a Thomas face, waved back, the others didn’t seem to react at all. 

“I think you’ve convinced me I don’t have an option at this point.” Logan tried to reason, and pull his hand free from Patton’s. Patton squeezed harder, and kept walking. They passed by a field, a strip mall, a few fast food places of burry logo, an eerily accurate CVS and a likewise accurate Starbucks, where Sleep was dosing off at an outside table. Clearly, Thomas had not awoken yet. 

“Oh there it is! I thought I remembered it was on the way to the dog park.” There was a cheerful sign adorned with a depiction of an only moderately accurate tooth, outside a low white-painted building. “I think I can handle it from here, so why don’t you two go off and have fun okay?” Patton smiled at Roman and Virgil, who shrugged at each other but waited until Logan and Patton were at the door before abandoning their honor guard. 

Logan tried not to feel trapped as they entered the reception area. This was fine. This was normal, there was nothing wrong with going to the dentist. Patton spoke to the receptionist, and Logan pretended he wasn’t contemplating backing out the door. A glance out the glass door, however, showed that Virgil had, instead of leaving, taken a seat on the low retaining wall, now with both headphones on. He gave Logan a vague salute and an all too knowing smirk. Logan returned to standing next to Patton. 

“Good news!” Patton told him brightly. “They just had a cancellation, and the doctor can see you right away!”

“How convenient.” Logan said stiffly. They sat in the waiting area, and Logan perused the magazines, trying to find something to distract himself. 

“Good morning!” Said a high, cheerful voice. Logan looked up to see a short, slender blond man whose face was not pulled from any of Thomas’s friends, wearing a doctor’s coat and a vest that was cheerfully patterned with cartoon teeth.

“Of course.” Logan grimaced, jaw hurting. “Any dentist in Thomas’s head was bound to be a pediatric one.”

“Oh no-” the dentist shook his head. “I’m a general dental practitioner, I just like this vest. It was a present. I wore it today because I felt the day was going to include something special, and here you are. I’m Doctor Hermey Noel.” he offered his hand to shake and Logan took it reluctantly. “I hear you have a toothache. Shall we have a look?”

Logan was not particularly convinced at Dr. Noel’s manner that he wasn’t a pediatric practitioner.

“Really, I think that everyone is overreacting-”

“Then having a look won’t hurt anything will it?” he gestured to the doorway. 

“Patton,” Logan glanced back at the other side who was… putting together a children’s puzzle. 

“It’s okay, Lo. You’ll be fine.” He said encouragingly.

“I’m afraid of doctors Pat.” he burst out. There was a brief awkward silence, and Logan felt the need to explain. “There is so much we don't know about the human body and the professional guidelines are loose and depend entirely on personal moral codes, often populated with bullies and money seekers, the education process is archaic and barbaric and does not encourage the acquisition of new information as it is learned, not to mention an arrogance which leads to lack of communication with the patient!”

The second awkward silence dragged a bit longer.

“Well, that’s a bit of a handful.” Dr. Noel said cheerfully. “And a bunch of perfectly rational concerns.”

“Don’t patronize me.” Logan grated. “I am aware my fear is illogical.”

“That was fairly well thought out for an illogical fear.” he offered gently “Would it help if your friend came with you?” 

It was ridiculously reassuring to be able to see Patton out of the corner of his eye. After the initial examination Dr. Noel just sat down to talk to him.

“Well you have excellent dental hygiene, Logan.”

“Clearly not.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. There are lots of reasons people can get cavities. Genetics and stress are more often to blame than any kind of failure to take proper care of yourself. In fact, over brushing can be almost as much of a problem as under brushing. However,” he looked at Logan seriously. “Your particular situation aside, ignoring a problem is very much inappropriate. It really does need taking care of for your own health and comfort. I’m sure you’re more than aware of the potential problems it can lead to?”  

Logan sighed.

“Yes, I am aware.” 

“You’re doing fine.” the dentist assured him. “And you only seem to have the one, so it won’t take long at all.” 

Logan still groaned.

It didn’t take long, and Patton didn’t even mention that Logan held his hand while it happened. 

Virgil unfolded himself and got to his feet as they came down the path to the sidewalk. 

“Everything fine now?” 

Logan nodded. 

“Cool. Princy texted me, he’s bothering Sleep over at Starbucks and says we should join them there.” 

“Sounds nice!” Patton grinned, and started contemplating what kind of sweet to get.  Virgil nudged Logan gently as they started, barely a knocking of their shoulders together while they walked. 

“Fears don’t have to be logical.” 

Logan glared at him. 

“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?” He smirked. “I mean, c’mon, you were reeking of it, I’m surprised no one else did.” 

Logan contemplated this, looked at Patton’s back as he was pulling ahead of them, then carefully brought one hand up between himself and Virgil, displaying what he felt about that statement. Virgil choked on a stifled laugh. 

“Love you too.” he sniggered. 

“Is there a love fest back here I’m missing out on?” Patton asked, turning around to walk backwards. 

“Nah, you’re included.” Virgil said, hands in his hoodie pockets, then he leapt forward and grabbed Patton’s hands to keep him upright as he tripped over a curb and nearly fell over. “Watch where you’re walking, sheesh!” 

Patton kept ahold of Virgil’s hand, and grabbed up Logan’s again, swinging them both as he walked in between them. 

“Aw, but then I couldn’t do this!” 

Shaking his head, Virgil looked around as they backtracked, but he didn’t pull his hand loose. Patton leaned up against Logan’s shoulder.

“And don’t think I didn’t see that, mister.”

Logan made a small noise of surprise.

“I’ve got Dad-ly premonition, Logan. It’s like Santa, only with more barbeques. I’ve got eyes the back of my hoodie.” 

Logan just sighed.

Roman had taken over the table they’d seen Sleep at earlier, and was brushing his coat off with furious flicks of his fingers, removing brownish stains. 

“Ah, welcome back!” He waved a hand beating the last couple of stains off his sleeve in puffs like dust. “Everything go well?” 

Logan nodded. 

“You just missed Remy, he said Thomas was finally waking up, so he had to jet.” 

Logan looked quietly appalled, making a show of checking his watch. 

“Well sometimes you just have to rest to shine your brightest.” Roman smiled. “So, tell me how did it go?”

Logan shrugged. 

“What, are you suddenly at a loss for words?” 

Logan furiously signed at Roman who snorted. 

“And miss this opportunity? Never!” 

“Now, Roman, don’t tease. It can’t be any fun to have your face half numb from novacaine.”

“I’m sure it’s not that big a deal. Logan’s just being Logan, in his stuffy, self important way.”

“Wow, when Prance-a-lot thinks you’re self important…” Virgil started, but then stopped himself and headed inside instead “I’ll go grab us some drinks, the usual good for everybody?” 

“Well I’m glad you think that, Roman.” Patton said cheerfully. “Since while we were there I made appointments for everyone!”

“What.”

“I mean, if it snuck up on Logan, who knows what might be going on with the rest of us!”

“Patton.” Roman whined piteously.

Logan smiled, not caring that it was a little droopy in that moment. That almost made the ordeal worth it. 

[deborahkaya]

Only This Moment

Open the doors...

The following preview is of chapter XVIII of INNER MAGNETS, Volume Two of our quantum fiction/magic realism quartet, THE TAMMABUKKU CHRONICLES. In this chapter protagonists David and Lia are on the second leg of their honeymoon--the Russian leg--and as with Scarborough, being in Russia evokes soul memories from their lives as Daniel and Cecilia.

Link to the first two books: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079VV7NM1

They were quiet as the taxi made its way to the Nevsky Prospekt. Their hotel in Saint Petersburg, another Grand—this time the Belmond Grand—was a few kilometers away from the old Orlov family riverfront residence. He knew the house had been partitioned into apartments after it was seized by the Communists. There was nothing that needed to be said aloud—he remembered everything, yet it wasn’t overwhelming him. He was too happy in the present to feel sadness about what he lost as Daniel, but he still had deep regrets about the suffering he caused his father. It was difficult to think about the wretched heartache forced upon his family after the Revolution. Vasily Orlov was executed, and no one knew what happened to his body—it was assumed to have been thrown into a mass grave or burned. As he watched Lia gazing out the window, he had no doubt that she understood what he was feeling. Cecilia had only spent one summer in Russia, but Daniel knew her soul was there whenever he was.

As soon as they entered the lobby, he recalled the Belmond Grand Hotel as clearly as if his name was still Daniel Orlov. Daniel had come here with Vasily who was meeting business acquaintances in the dining room on what would be Daniel’s last trip to Russia—the trip before he returned to England with the engagement ring and the intention of marrying Cecilia.

When David spoke Russian at the front desk, it took the young woman by surprise. After complimenting him on his mastery of the language, she told him she was a big Oblivion fan. David and Lia managed to maintain a conversation with her about the city and their accommodations without once reverting to English.

They had booked the Stravinsky Suite which they’d seen in photos, but it was far more striking in person. The vibrant leaf green suite was inspired by Stravinsky’s groundbreaking ballet, “The Rite of Spring”. Immediately, they took the blue egg out of their carry-on bag and placed it on the table by the window overlooking the street. As they felt An Mháthair’s power, Lia brought out Ambrose’s card with his message: open the doors. They couldn’t stop talking about the increase in multidimensional consciousness and lucidity they felt when the egg was near. Holding up the Saint George the Dragon Slayer tankard, Lia asked, “Do you think you’ll actually drink beer out of this?”

“Not unless we find a matching one, in which case we can knock back a few brews together. After all, we’re both dragon slayers.”

“I’ll say,” she laughed. “Next time your dad comes over let’s serve him his beer in this tankard.”

“I can’t wait to see Dad’s face when I set this thing down in front of him.”

Lia took her Fabergé necklace out of the suitcase, musing that it was back in the place it originated from one hundred and seventeen years ago. They had tickets for “The Marriage of Figaro” at the Mariinsky Theatre, which would afford her the perfect opportunity to wear the necklace.

The room was too sumptuous to leave right away, but as they gazed out the window, the city beckoned. They unpacked, showered and then gave the bed a good workout. As they relaxed and held each other, their spirits propelled them to move more quickly than usual, so they got on their feet and prepared to go out. Tonight she was going elegant with a sleeveless long-line black dress with tiny white flowers and a black silk jacket. Sitting at the mirror, she brushed on a little blush, and then carefully applied lipstick, blotting it with a tissue. He didn’t like makeup, but Lia wore just the right amount. She then put on her black pearl earrings. Walking to him, she held her hair up on top of her head and asked him to fasten her pearl necklace. Before doing so, he kissed her warm and supple neck. When the necklace was in place, he took her hands and watched her ginger hair cascade loosely, but perfectly, around her shoulders.

As they joined the human tide on the Nevsky Prospekt, David couldn’t help thinking that this was the way he had visualized his honeymoon with Cecilia that eventful summer. Everything he��d envisioned had come to pass, but it did so in its own time frame. The Universe doesn’t run on time, but it does listen.

Walking hand and hand along the Prospekt, David reveled in the bliss of recovering something he believed to be forever lost. After lingering on the grass in front of the Kazan Cathedral where Vasily Orlov and Susan Grayson were once married, they headed towards the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Continuing on along the Moyka River, they approached the magnificent church and agreed it had to be the most beautiful Orthodox Church in the world. Daniel had seen some of the construction, but he never lived to see the completion, having died in 1907, the year it was finished. He felt a surge of energy running through his body almost too powerful to contain. He was still reeling from the reality that Ambrose dropped in from 1899 and high on the euphoria of seeing the man he loved so dearly. It was as hard for David to not think about what was behind that mirror, or when they would see Ambrose again, as it was for Lia. Somewhere this very moment, Ambrose was in a new body. Sensing his mind was going into overdrive, Lia threw her arms around him. He could see the laughter dancing in her eyes and had to kiss her. When they reached the Winter Palace and the Neva River, Lia said, “I can’t believe I’m standing here again.”

How well he understood. The last time their eyes gazed upon this edifice, it was the main residence of the Tsar. “Saint Petersburg is still home,” he declared. “I don’t feel like a visitor or someone who arrived here for the first time, which technically I did.” He twirled her into his arms.

“Wherever I am is home, as long as I’m with you, David. To quote Ambrose, we are each other’s home.”

[themyskira]

Wonder Woman: Earth One, Vol 2 - Part 2

Previously, Morrison’s Amazons are the same awful people we met in book one, now with added mind control. Diana wonders whether her mission might be easier if she just conquered the world and forced everybody to follow the Amazon way.

This time, Doctor Psycho the pickup artist gets his hooks into Wonder Woman.

Steve is test-piloting a cutting-edge experimental aircraft. He races Diana in her vagina plane, struggling to keep up with her. The effort of maintaining the speed causes Steve’s plane to explode, and Diana rescues him.

Steve tries to explain to Diana that the military’s top brass perceive her as a potential threat and that she needs to tread carefully.

Steve: And on that subject… you still planning on leading that big angry ladies march?

um, excuse you?

Big angry ladies march?

What was wrong with ‘women’s march’? Why did Morrison feel the need to colour this line with sexist language? Is he suggesting that Steve Trevor believes that women who take part in political protest are angry and hysterical? Or was he just so busy polishing off his Homeric meter that he didn’t even notice he was being a sexist arse?

Well, all of it goes in one ear and out the other, anyway. Diana just shrugs and goes, ‘welp, they can’t hurt me, and if they provoke us then we’ll just crush them, soooooo…’

The military asks for Diana’s help rescuing an American negotiator who was captured by terrorists while attempting to secure the release of a group of hostages in the Middle East. She gets another very cool outfit for the mission:

She saves both the negotiator and the hostages with ease, of course. Afterwards, back at a US military camp, she shares a bottle of whisky with the hostage negotiator.

He’s interested in discussing Amazon philosophies. Submission to loving authority as a model for all human relationships, for instance. Surely that would be dangerous, unless one could be assured that the authority was benevolent. “Well, of course,” says Diana blithely. “That’s why women are best placed to lead.”

He points out that she comes from a civilisation that practices eugenics and uses mind control technology. That, moreover, she’s an outsider who comes to this world from a place of hyperprivilege, with no understanding of the societies she’s trying to transform. “How can you hope to understand us, let along change us?”

(Those of you who’ve figured out who this guy is yet, please join me in facepalming over the fact that this evil slug of a human being has managed to talk more sense in one and a half pages than Diana has in the entire book.)

At one point he also asks her if she’s “ever thought about submitting to the loving authority of a man”, and somehow it doesn’t end with his face being punched in.

Before they part, they exchange contact details, agreeing to meet up again in DC. Diana tells him, “I’ve enjoyed our adventure together, Dr Zeiko.”

Yeah. This is Morrison’s take on Doctor Psycho. While I have problems with the execution, it’s actually a reasonable base concept. Whereas Marston’s Doctor Psycho uses hypnosis, mediums and ectoplasmic illusions to deceive and manipulate people, Morrison’s Zeiko is a pickup artist-type who works in psy-ops, employing a combination of scientific techniques, staged simulation and good old-fashioned manipulation to identify and get inside people’s defences, and destroy them.

Zeiko: ‘Wonder Woman’. They’re all just the same. < by dr-psycho > If I had just one piece of advice, one precious axiom to impart to you losers, cucks and gamma dudes, it would be THAT singular nugget. Beautiful, smart, wise, powerful, principled. They’re all just the same.

There are a few things I like about this: it reimagines Doctor Psycho’s misogyny and his manipulation of women in a form that is both recognisable and relevant to today. Whereas the original is a cartoonishly depraved gremlin -- an exaggerated, ableist caricature of a misogynist who hates women because they laughed at his ugliness — this Psycho cuts a far more recognisable figure: a white, able-bodied, heterosexual man who abuses his position of power to manipulate women.

But it bothers me that Zeiko’s ability to control people draws so liberally from the pickup artist’s playbook. According to Morrison,

We really went deep with it in the sequences between Psycho and Diana. When he sits and talks to her, it's based on the actual script used by pickup artists with the movements he makes, he mirrors all her gestures, he makes this 'casting off' gesture every time he wants her to perceive something as negative. It was really tightly worked out to follow those scripts.

Pickup artist tactics are rooted in thoroughly debunked pseudoscience like neurolinguistic programming (which is specifically referenced as Zeiko’s field of expertise) and evolutionary psychology. Yes, these are men who prey on and seek to manipulate women, but let’s not afford them any more power or legitimacy than they’re due. By basing Zeiko’s power over women in his mastery of pickup artist theory, and ultimately having him successfully use these tactics to overpower Wonder Woman, Morrison appears to validate some very toxic, pseudoscientific ideas.

In the same interview quote above, Morrison says that he sought to draw awareness to this kind of predatory behaviour:

Part of it was my revenge on having seen [this level of manipulation] actually done to someone. You can see the narcissist type, the sociopath type and how easy it is for them get to people -- people you wouldn't even imagine could be that manipulated by anything. It's a very real problem for young people in the world. There are people out there who are quite willing to use these techniques so I kind of wanted to draw attention to it, but, you know, on the Wonder Woman scale where the guy is a supervillain. I wanted to put these paragon of femininity up against that threat and see how she deals with it -- because even paragons of intelligence and grace I've watched having real trouble with people like this. Here are the techniques. If you see anyone using these techniques against you, the warnings should go off.

Here’s where I think he goes wrong with this.

First, as I mentioned, he attributes Zeiko’s ability to get in Diana’s head directly to bullshit pickup artist theory and neurolinguistic programming. Morrison’s intention may have been to express disapproval and alert readers to predatory behaviour, but he’s nonetheless presenting pickup artist tactics as highly effective, affording them a level of power that’s neither warranted nor constructive.

This is where I think it’s helpful for Doctor Psycho to retain a measure of supernatural power. A writer can still incorporate manipulative and gaslighting behaviours and phrases that are familiar to women into such a character. His uncanny abilities may afford him a greater capacity to inflict wide-scale hurt than the average abuser, but at his core are attitudes and behaviours that many people will recognise. And rather than deriving a near-mystical ability to control women from the vile, pseudoscientific ideas of a real-life community of misogynists, he’s just another creep who abuses his power over people. It might not be a power that exists in our world, but it’s power all the same.

That’s the first problem. The second is that — spoilers — Zeiko kind of wins.

Well, okay, he does end up being captured by the Holliday Girls and sent to Amazonia for brainwashing, so it doesn’t end great for him personally. But ultimately, he achieves everything he sets out to do in the book. He plays Diana like a fiddle, he gloats over her weakness, and she only breaks free of him when it’s far too late to change anything. She is never allowed to triumph over him.

At the start of the book, Zeiko says he’s never met a woman that he couldn’t break, and this book proves him right. His methods never fail.

So at this point, it’s clear that the entire rescue mission was a set-up. General Darnell, we discover, has been ordered to go along with it, and he’s not happy. Even less so when he’s introduced to the secretive Project A.R.E.S.

It’s basically exactly what it sounds: a project aimed at producing highly advanced war machines capable of taking on even the Amazons. Max Lord shows Darnell the fruits of their labours: the Armed Response Environment Suit. It’s now being produced en masse.

A horrified Darnell confides in Steve what he’s seen.

Next, we cut to Amazonia. After some gratuitous perving on naked ladies as Hippolyta and Nubia bathe in the Fountain of Youth, Mala arrives with a bound Paula in tow. The temple was found vandalised again with a swastika, and Paula was found lurking in Hippolyta’s chambers. When asked to explain herself, Paula will only say that she yearns for Diana, her idol. Okay...?

Hippolyta consults the Fates, and returns to Nubia and Mala looking grave and resigned. It’s not explicitly stated, but it’s clear from her reaction that her death has been foretold.

Hippolyta: How I love you, Nubia. Your skin, your mind, your great heart. The time we’ve spent together. And Mala, sisters both, and lovers, and my friends ‘bove all. I’ll miss you all so much.

wait, Hippolyta is sleeping with her daughter’s ex-girlfriend? That is nasty.

(In fact, come to think of it, Nubia was originally Diana’s twin sister. Just to add an extra layer of ick.)

Back at Holliday College, Etta and Steve warn Diana that the government is out to get her, and Zeiko is part of it.

Steve: They’re onto you, Diana. Powerful, dangerous people. Think about how you’ve changed since you started hanging around with this Zeiko dude.

How she’s changed?

No, piss off, mate. Diana literally has not appeared on page since her first meeting with Zeiko. It’s not just that we’ve seen no change in her behaviour, we haven’t seen her at all. I realise that you’re working with limited page space, but if your characters are going to stage an intervention, then you need to at least make a token effort at seeding the warning signs.

Steve tells Diana that Zeiko is deep into psy-ops, mind control, neurolinguistic programming (which is NOT A FUCKING THING), the works. Diana laughs and surmises that Steve simply doesn’t like Zeiko.

Later, Diana hangs out with Zeiko at the firing range, inviting him to shoot at her while she deflects the bullets with her bracelets. When they’re done, Zeiko appears troubled. He feels sick to his stomach, he says! That he — who hates weapons — could so easily talk himself into firing a gun at a woman! At somebody who means so much to him!!

Yeah, Morrison is going there.

Zeiko kisses Diana, then immediately leaps back apologising, saying he doesn’t know what got into him. Diana’s just amused — is that what the men of this world consider a kiss? She decides to school him with a real kiss, and Zeiko bemoans that he feels like he has no control over his actions when she’s around. Oh god, he’s so confused! He’s saying all the wrong things! He doesn’t usually get close to anyone, not like this! He needs to prove that she can trust her!!

ugh, god, this is gross.

Anyway, it ends in Zeiko, under the power of the Lasso, revealing just enough of the truth to serve his ends: that the US military thinks she’s an advance scout for an Amazon invasion, that he was brought in to compromise her and uncover her weaknesses, and that he’s tried to tell them there’s a better way.

Diana runs off, devastated. Zeiko gloats.

< by dr-psycho > Target achieved. Wonder Woman emotional meltdown. Beat that, boys! God, I love my job. She’ll take off in her magical jet. No one treats a princess this way! But she’ll blame HERSELF — superior types always think it must be THEIR fault things went wrong. It has to her her fault for misunderstanding the rules of “Man’s World”. What will she have to do to be treated with the respect she deserves? This princess, this super-10. This prey of the day. What will she give up? How can she prove to me she’s for real…? At her speed… I give her 20 minutes. She gives me 19. Pushover.

PS, we’re eighty-odd pages into the graphic novel, and thus far Diana has done nothing but hit a baseball and get yanked around by the villains.

[coeurdastronaute]

Either/Or: Single II

More SINGL?

Previously on Single

The apartment was decked in all of the holiday spirit. Lights on every surface, sloppy snowflakes cut and taped on the windows, stockings hung with care and construction paper and cotton ball snowmen on the walls. The tree itself was modest in girth, but laden with ornaments, all kinds of handmade, hot glue gunned and glitter bespeckled entities.

The early evening sun set outside, allowing the balcony to glitter in the dark, the multi-color lights coming inside, strung all around, covering the walls. The modest apartment was all greens and reds and golds and blues and filled with possibilities for merriment that the season lent all moments to having.

Even though it was still three days before Christmas, there were already gifts, much to the joy of the four year old.

“Hey! I can hear you touching those presents!” Kara called from her bedroom.

“I was just looking!”

“Looking is done with the eyes.”

With a growl, the little girl crawled away from the tree, once again taking a seat on the couch and staring intently at the gifts that taunted her. Some movie played on the television, though it was not as interesting as what was hidden in those lead lined boxes.

In the background, she listened as her mother finished getting dressed, and she tugged at the collar of the sweater that itched her neck.

“Lena, if you get this, please call me. I think we should talk. Or at least I hope you still want to,” Kara sighed as she walked back through the living room in search of something in the laundry room behind the kitchen. “I miss you. And I’m sorry. I never meant to… I just. I know you need to process and think-- dang.”

“That’s a bad word.”

“I’m sorry,” Kara mumbled, staring at her phone. She gave herself a deep breath before nodding and deciding that was all she could do. “Are you ready for Uncle J’onn’s Christmas party?”

“Maggie said she was going to make those cookies, with the icing but I could put sprinkles on.”

“Oh wow. I didn’t know that,” Kara smiled wide. “And tonight, what movie would you like to watch?”

“The one with the train.”

Little feet hopped up from the couch and followed her mother as she tried to finish getting ready, which was a feat with an inquisitive little one and presents in the same room.

“What about the Grinch?”

“Oh yeah! I want that one too.”

“Too? We should watch more than one?” Kara held her jaw open in mock surprise. “I don’t know… we might have to make popcorn, and then eat some of those extra Christmas cookies. Maybe stay up past bedtime to watch two movies.”

“Can we please, Mommy?” she asked, crawling up on the bed.

Katie liked watching Kara get ready. She liked sitting on her big bed and imagining she’d be big and strong like her. That was a nice thought.

“We’ll see,” she decided. “Let’s get shoes on. Up up, little one.”

In a move, the little girl braced herself before sprinting out of the room in a blink. Kara just smiled to herself and followed at a human pace.

“Hey, hey, not on the couch,” she chided, pulling on her own shoes and grabbing their coats as the door rang out with a knock. “Coat and mittens and hat or else we aren’t going anywhere.”

She wasn’t expecting anyone, and she certainly wasn’t expecting a man in a suit with bags in his hands.

“Hi,” Kara smiled while a little girl ran around behind her, trying to pull on her mittens before her shoes.

“Ms. Danvers?”

“Yes?”

“Ms. Luthor asked me to drop these off for you. She left to spend the holiday vacation abroad, but wanted you to have them.”

“Did she… is she… I mean. She’s okay?” Kara furrowed.

“She’s skiing with friends in the Alps,” he promised. “Happy Holidays.”

A second later, bags were thrust into her hand and Kar took them carefully. Maybe that was why Lena hadn’t answered calls and been too busy for lunch. That would make sense. For a moment, it was a relief.

“Who’s are these for? Me?”

“Hm? Oh. I don’t know. I think…. Do you remember Lena from the bookstore?” Katie nodded. “She must have sent us presents.”

“That’s nice. We can open them now if you want.”

Still in a bit of a whirlwind, Kara closed the door and looked at the items. She suddenly understood how her daughter could be so eager to open things when she didn’t know what was in them.

Kara as a goner for that look her daughter gave her. That, and her own eagerness to know what Lena could have possibly sent her for the holiday. A little box was wrapped on her dresser for the Luthor, though she wasn’t sure she’d have a chance to give it to her.

“Just this one, and we will write Lena a thank you note, right?”

“Right,” she agreed, eagerly tugging off her mittens.

They were going to be late, but neither Danvers cared at all as they settled on the couch. Gently, Kara handed her daughter the bag with her name on it in the precise, tiny letters she recognized as Lena’s.

“I don’t know Lena and she got me presents.”

“She’s nice.”

Katie thought of the words before pulling things from her Christmas bag. Kara had to move quick to snap a picture of the face that came when a tiny stuffed whale emerged. Excitedly, the little girl rubbed the soft against her cheek before digging into the bag again. A stack of children’s books emerged, all with a distinct theme.

“How did she know I love this?” Katie breathed all joy and eagerness. “Can we read right now?”

“We have to go to the party.”

“Tonight?”

“Of course.”

Kara wanted to stop herself, but she couldn’t. Slowly, she pulled the beautiful notebook from her gift bag, followed by the set of pastels and another of pencils. She smiled to herself at the gift before stilling her heart.

“Now you can color more with me!” Katie observed, crawling across the couch to see what her mother got. “Those are nice things.”

“They are,” Kara agreed. “Should we send Lena a picture of how much we like our things?”

“Yes! Here,” her daughter wiggle to the floor and tried to hold all of her books. “Show her how much I love all of my new stories please!”

Beaming, both smiled so big theirs eyes were closed, and Kara snapped a picture before sending it to Lena.

Christmas came early. Thank you so much. We both are very excited and grateful. Can’t wait to give you yours when you get back.

The entirety of the Christmas party, Kara thought about the gifts, and she thought about Lena, wondering if she hadn’t just ruined something good. And she tried not to, but she couldn’t help it, and so she kept checking her phone for a response from the other side of the world. And she would catch herself looking at the picture she sent, and how her little girl was over the moon to have books about whales.

Because of the strict movie schedule they had for the month, they didn’t stay late at the party. It was all adults anyway, and Katie could only stomach so much of being the cute little girl everyone doted on.

Snug in warm jammies, snuggled in her spaceship themed comforter, beneath the fake constellations on the ceiling, Kara laid beside her sleeping daughter on her single bed and inhaled the smell that was just her, all little and quiet and Katie. She listened to the quiet of her breathing and flipped through a few of the books they didn’t make it to, and she watched her daughter tug the little whale a little tighter as she dreamt. She couldn’t imagine being happier than a moment like that, and yet her mind was asking if it were possible.

Quietly, she turned off the light after gathering the books and leaving them on top of the bookshelf.

Once more, Kara checked her phone.

I don’t know if anything cuter has ever existed than the two of you receiving Christmas gifts, Lena messaged sometime between bath and storytime.

Isn’t it like 4 in the morning where you are?

I’m not a great sleeper.

Kara considered her options for a moment. She looked at the blank drawing book on the coffee table with the expensive tools and colors atop it. Her phone hovered over a name for a minute before she gave up and called.

Each ring made her heart stop over again.

“Hey,” Lena whispered.

“Hi,” Kara grinned.

The best time of the day was when the hurricane that was her daughter was somewhat tired. But to get her to that state took an alarming amount of work. Half-Kryptonian, Half-Daxamite and fully charged, she was just a lot. This meant there were days spent running around the park, and days where Kara would take her flying, just to burn off some of the energy that the after lunch nap seemed to recharge. Kara got good at being creative, hoping to exhaust her daughter physically and mentally in new ways as often as possible. Leaving her to her own devices was dangerous. It led to broken furniture and ceilings covered in crayons.

Nearly five years old, and she was too smart. Kara wondered if she was like that as a kid. Twelve thousand questions per day, some nonsensical and impossible to answer, others that just spiraled into deeper, more complex issues. Katie was her favorite thing on the planet. In the universe.

“Blow on it, but blow gently,” Kara warned as she placed hot chocolate on the counter and her daughter knelt on the stool. Gently was a word they were still learning.

“What are marshmallows made of?”

“You know, I’m not sure.”

“Is there a tree? Do they get picked?” she asked, watching the little candies swirling around as she blew on the cocoa. “Grandma has a orange tree where oranges grow and I can pick them. She let me fly up there to get them.”

“I’m almost certain they don’t grow on trees,” Kara smiled and blew on her own.

“Ask your phone where marshmallows come from please?”

With a tug in her pocket, Kara pulled out her phone and they commenced another round of research. Her daughter was attempting to use Google so much that her search history would surely be the amalgamation of the weirdest queries of all time, with such golden moments as “Do dolphins dream?” and “Who invented alarm clocks?” in good company with “Where do marshmallows come from?”

A few videos and a rabbit hole of links later, and Katie hurried into her room to grab her messy notebook she kept adding to with new information.

“So it does grow on trees,” she asked, pushing it toward Kara, so she could write in the facts.

“It was once made using the roots of a plant,” her mom corrected. “Now, it’s just a lot of sugar and junk mixed very fast.”

“Can you write that marshmallows come from roots sometimes?” she asked, sipping her hot cocoa. “And maybe draw one so I can color it.”

“Sure,” Kara grinned, carefully adding the note on the next open page.

Feet kicking in the air from the stool, Katie watched her mom work and draw and write. She furrowed, as she was prone to do, deep in thought about the newest addition to their encyclopedia.

“I still wish they grew on trees,” she decided.

Kara agreed and drank some of her own once she finished jotting. For good measure, she added a mug of cocoa in the drawing.

“Is it Aunt Alex? Can we go sledding now?”

The notification that buzzed the phone wasn’t her sister, but still, Kara opened it eagerly, smiling at the text from Lena.

“Sorry, it’s just a friend of mine. I’ll call though and hopefully we can go soon.”

“Which friend?”

“Lena.”

“Whale lady,” Katie nodded appreciatively, sipping from her mug quite studiously, earning a chuckle from her mother.

Before she replied, Kara stared at her phone and then again at her daughter. The faintest spot of dimple could be seen, even when she wasn’t smiling. Her eyes were bluer than her own, her hair a lighter blonde. A chocolate mustache completed the look of a wintery Sunday. Sometimes, Kara had trouble even believing she existed.

“Hey, can I ask you a question, Katie?”

“But of course,” she nodded, repeating her Uncle J’onn’s favorite line and accent.

“Do you know how your friends in daycare sometimes have mommies and daddies?”

“Yeah, like Becca. Sometimes they both pick her up.”

“Right, exactly,” Kara nodded. “And you know how Mommy and Daddy don’t live together? And that’s okay, too?”

“Yeah, because Daddy is on another planet,” she nodded, matter-of-a-factly.

“Well, yes. But even if he lived here, we wouldn’t live together. Because we aren’t married, and we aren’t together like Becca’s parents are.”

“Because families are all weird. Like ohana. You can be ohana and be a picked family.”

“Yes. Exactly. Becca lives with her mom and dad, and you live with just your mom. Both are normal and good, right?”

“Sometimes I wish Daddy was on this planet,” Katie confessed between sips.

“Sometimes I do too,” Kara agreed with a sad smile. “But I wanted to know if you would mind if Mommy spent time with someone.”

“How much time?”

“I’m not sure.”

“When?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Why?”

“Okay, um,” she ran her hand along her neck awkwardly and tilted her head slightly, searching for an answer. “So before mommies and daddies have babies, they date. Like, do you remember before Alex married Maggie?”

“No.”

“Right, you were two,” Kara sighed and took another drink of hot chocolate. “This would be easier if you remembered.”

“What is dating?” she asked, cocking her head slightly as she licked her lips of cocoa foam.

“It’s when adults get to know each other and see if they want to get married and have babies. Sometimes you get married when you date, and sometimes you don’t.” Kara winced and wondered how so many words could describe such a simple notion. “Like when you go on playdates. It’s just hanging out with someone else. But when you’re a grown up, it’s a little different.”

“Like you and Daddy.”

“Right! We never got married, we just dated,” Kara nodded, leaning forward. “Our family has always just been me and you, and I love that. But I was wondering if you might not like Mommy bringing someone else around.”

“So it won’t be you and me anymore?” she worried, eyes growing wide at the idea of it.

“No, no no. It is always going to be me and you, love. Always and forever. Just maybe we can have another person who hangs out with us sometimes? Like when Lilo adopted Stitch, and then Stitch joined and they had a new ohana. Remember that?”

“Like when Dylan comes over to play?”

“Um, kind of,” Kara nodded, regretting this conversation immensely. “Mommy met someone she likes a lot. Likes like how Aladdin like Jasmine.”

“To do the kissy stuff with?” Katie squinted up her face at the notion.

“Yes.”

“I don’t have to see the kissy stuff do I?”

“No, honey. You don’t. I just wanted to see if it would bother you, to see me kiss someone who wasn’t Daddy.”

“You kissed Daddy?” she yucked.

“Oh man, this is getting out of control.”

Both resigned themselves to their drinks. Both wanted to forget this conversation. Kara wasn’t sure if she’d accomplished anything at all, or if it was all in her head that it would be a problem. Katie was stuck on the kissing part.

“If you want to kiss kiss someone, I think you should,” Katie decided after finishing the last bit of hot chocolate. “Maggie was sad once when she comes home, and Aunt Alex gave her a kiss and then she smiled. If kisses make someone happy, they should get lots of kisses. We need a Stitch.”

“I agree,” Kara smiled warmly.

“Can you write a note about all of this. I should learn what dating is.”

“Um. Yeah, but we can discuss that in a lot more years away from now,” the mother decided, picking up the pen once again.

“Okay,” Katie decided, waiting for Kara to start writing on the page after Marshmallows. She watched her hesitate and contemplate many things. “Mommy, if you have someone to kiss, will you be happy like Maggie?”

Kara looked up at her daughter and relaxed a little at the innocent question that she’d been asking herself in some form or another for weeks.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “But I do know that Katie Kisses are my favorites.”

“That’s me.”

“I think it’s time,” Kara sang, her hands going up wide and tall.

“No! No!” she giggled and tried to crawl off of the stool. “Mama no!”

“Oh yes,” Kara roared and stomped around the kitchen with a big smile. “Monster kisses are coming!”

Squeals and giggles could be heard as she chased her daughter to the couch, pinning her there and tickling her ribs while slobbering on her cheeks and neck. Not one thing would matter more than a moment like that.

Something about coming home after a long time was delicious and sad at the same time. Just three weeks, and already the penthouse felt a little less familiar. There was this eerie feeling to stepping into a quiet place that hadn’t seen life in weeks. Everything was the same but felt as if it came from a dream.

Lena placed her purse on the table beside the door and thanked the doorman for helping her with her luggage as she took in a deep breath of her home.

It took a lot of working over in her head. The vacation was needed, and it turned into something better than expected. When Kara called her in the middle of the night, they talked for hours. And it happened again the second night. And it happened again, every night. It took a lot of working over in her head, but Lena could understand the lie, as much as it hurt. It was the getting over it part that was still difficult.

The Christmas decorations were all gone, and the house looked normal, all white and muted hues, all pristine and unlived in. Quietly, Lena stood there, almost afraid to move, suddenly very alone and awkward in her own house.

Despite the late hour, Lena dug for her laptop and decided work was the best distraction from being in the same city as her… as Kara. It was short lived, as she found a Christmas themed present sitting on her kitchen counter.

‘This was delivered to the office. I thought you might like it when you got home. -Jess.’

Lena smiled at the note and picked up the other piece of paper, a large drawing done in crayon with scribbles and not much else to it. At the bottom, in perfect pen and then traced by messy blue crayon, was the name Katie Danvers.

‘I couldn’t find a real bridge for sale, but we went to the museum and saw this and I thought of you. Merry Christmas, Lena, XoXo Kara.’

As quickly as she could remember opening a present in her life, Lena tore into the delicately wrapped box. Gently, she took out the snow globe with the Justice Bridge in it, gallantly connecting East and West Metropolis. Tall buildings were eclipsed by the exaggerated bridge, and Lena shook it a few times, creating a flurry swirling around it.

She looked at the scribbled picture and she looked at the snow globe and shook her head. It wasn’t possible. She couldn’t do… that. She couldn’t… Kids wouldn’t like her. And to be with Kara meant having a kid attached and that was a lot. How could Lena, the childhoodless child who still needed someone to remind her to eat possibly be involved with someone with a kid? Her earliest memories were hiding under the bed from a stepmother and trying to run away. She wasn’t an example that anyone should want around.

To have Kara meant she had to have Katie. And it wasn’t that the little girl wasn’t cute and surely sweet like her mother, but just that Lena, was, in her own opinion, by far the absolute worst person to be around.

The door knocked with the inevitable arrival of the rest of her luggage. She left her laptop on the counter and took the snow globe with her, toying with it and smiling fondly at the reporter she met on accident.

“Thanks, James,” she smiled as she opened the door, still swirling her toy in her hands.  

“You were expecting someone else?”

“Kara,” she breathed, looking up instantly.

“Welcome home.”

The luggage arrived as the elevator dinged. Both stepped aside as it rolled into her living room behind them. The entire time, Lena stared at Kara as if she were an alien, as if she couldn’t believe she was real.

There were still snowflakes melting in the gentle waves of her hair. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose had a pinkness to them because of the January tint in the chilly night. Breathlessly, she just stared back at Lena with a lot of words to say and no way to make them come out of her mouth.

“Thank you, James,” Lena nodded as he politely excused himself. “Would you like to come in?”

“You got your present,” Kara nudged her chin as she unwound her scarf. “Thank you for what you sent us. Katie has had me reading Amos and Boris every night. And I’ve… I really enjoy having an excuse to draw again.”

“What did you think of the museum?”

“What?”

The door closed and Kara unzipped her coat. Lena looked back at the snow globe and smiled, cradling it to her stomach.

“The History Museum. I sponsored the Women in History section. Well, LCorp did.”

“We loved it, actually.”

They were left there, not looking and looking at each other. For the eternity, Kara couldn’t remember why she thought coming over was a good idea. But Lena looked very good, and she smelled good, and she’d missed her greatly.

“Kara, I think we--”

“We should talk,” they both rushed.

“You first,” Lena offered.

“I know we’ve talked a lot, but we haven’t talked about… something. I didn’t mean to lie to you. We met, and just… I wouldn’t let myself consider how I’d feel about you.” She wrung her fingers as she explained, hoping to keep them locked up from waving around as she tried to find the right words. “But I have a daughter, and I thought I was happy. I never thought to be unhappy… But I realized I could be happier, if you were around.”

“We’re friends, Kara.”

“I know, but we’re not, you know? You were right. It’s not just you. There’s always… just… this layer to us,” she shook her head and knit her hand in her hair. “I met you and now I can’t stop thinking that there could always be more happiness.”

“I… Do you… Kara, I don’t know anything about kids. I’m not exactly an expert in normal.”

“Neither are we,” Kara chuckled. “I’ve been so nervous to see you, because this is scary. But I think it takes just a little bit of courage and then you move on from there.”

“I like you,” Lena confessed, looking at the bridge and the snow flurrying around in her hands, afraid to meet her eyes when she admitted it. To say it out loud was a violent kind of rebellion.

She swallowed as Kara’s hands held her own, as they moved to her neck and jaw, making her eyes close at the feeling and closeness. When she finally opened them, she sighed at Kara’s smile.

“You walked up to me at a party, and nothing else really matters,” she promised.

“I don’t know. A lot of things matter.”

“Is it the kid thing?” Kara fret. Her hands were still on Lena. She was still close. “Or is it something else.”

“We do have differing opinions of pizza toppings, and honestly that’s what’s holding me up.”

Lena earned a smile. She did everything she could to get Kara to smile and laugh when they talked late into the night. She wasn’t successful as much as she would have liked, but having it in person was a lot.

“I didn’t want to try because I thought something might change,” she whispered. “But I talked to her, and I don’t think she understands, but I think she knows that having the whale lady around makes her mom happy.”

“The… the whale lady?”

“That’s nowhere close to the weirdest thing out of her mouth.”

“Kara, are you going to kiss me anytime soon?” Lena shook her head, disregarding the many questions she had regarding the entire kid thing. Her thoughts were solely on the girl who bought her a bridge.

“I, um,” she swallowed and searched Lena’s face. “I want to, but… if we’re being honest. There’s one more thing I might have to tell you.”

“If you’re married, I’m retiring and moving to Switzerland.”

“Um, no,” Kara laughed awkwardly. “Never married. But my daughter’s father is an alien.”

“Oh.”

“And so am I.”

“Oh.”

[projectalbum]

Art is Resistance. 149. “With Teeth” (Halo 19), 150. “Year Zero” (Halo 24), 151. “Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D” (Halo 25), 152. “Ghosts I-IV” (Halo 26), 153. “The Slip” (Halo 27) by Nine Inch Nails

The 6-year gap between Nine Inch Nails studio albums saw the Internet become truly ascendant in popular culture, for better and worse.

Napster took a bite from the music industry and was put down like a mad dog. The Pirate Bay first unfurled its flag. Radio play and music videos were still the main avenue for displaying the wares of major label musicians to the general public, and success was still measured in units of CDs sold, but more and more people were becoming hip to the underground access provided by a DSL modem.

But the power of the Web to empower artists and connect them to their fans still evaded most of the recording industry; honchos and artists alike were largely clueless. Trent Reznor, the big ol’ nerd, was a notable exception. Posting on early message boards on Prodigy, embracing torrents, creating an online gateway for the band’s fans, leaking material from the archives, experimenting with an optional-pay release, even being an early adopter of Twitter— it was a white-hot fiber optic cable running through the life of the band. While this technological engagement didn’t always translate into sales (The Fragile was considered a financial disappointment), it was a 21st century incarnation of the connection between what the artist creates and how the audience consumes it, internalizes it, and hopefully finds some emotional release in it.

This uneasy alliance between organic emotion and technological chilliness is reflected in this era of Nine Inch Nails’ aesthetic, both musically and through the packaging. Where Downward Spiral and Fragile dealt in decaying earth tones, the releases starting with 2005’s reemergent With Teeth (#149) are shades of blue, black, ghost white, and slate gray, dirtied up by belching factory smoke, or distorted by broken pixels and lines of computer code. The songs are likewise colored by pulsating synth accents, digital distortion, hums and drones and beats. The instrumental stems for Reznor’s compositions were offered up to remixers both professional and amateur, so that even the boundary of artist and audience member became liminal. He had his carefully constructed versions of “The Hand That Feeds” and “Only,” but suggested that there were infinite alternate permutations to be created at the click of a button. For the once angry, brooding Prince of Industrial Rock, it was downright egalitarian.

“All The Love In The World,” a title that might suggest a big-hearted power ballad on a cornier band’s track list, is in Reznor’s hands an electronica-inflected paranoid dirge. Where crunchy guitars would have provided the backbone in the past, here woozy piano figures are the main melodic backup to the vocal, before shifting into driving major chords to signal minute 3’s complete tonal transformation. With its layers of harmonizing Trents, it’s completely unlike anything else in the band’s repertoire, but it was the perfect next course to stimulate my appetite. And then Dave Grohl’s superhuman drumming on “You Know What You Are?” kicked me through the door. The wailing chorus presented an aggressive musical release for me that I’d never had access to before.

“Right Where It Belongs,” the keyboard-driven closing track, is spooky and introspective, and one of the best songs in NiN’s catalogue. A stripped-down, electric piano and vocal version, originally exclusive to the Japanese release but eventually uploaded by Reznor to his website, captures that dark night of the soul uncertainty even better. This recording made its way into the end credits of my senior thesis film, at the point where it was obvious it wasn’t going to go anywhere and that I should at least put copyrighted stuff I liked into it. I also set a live version against grainy deleted footage from Pink Floyd - The Wall, a mashup I figure ol’ Trent would appreciate (the idea was to then do the reverse, matching “Hey You” to the visuals cut together for NiN’s stage show, but the result wasn’t as compelling).

I don’t have any supporting evidence, but Year Zero (#150) may well have been the first time I ever plunked down money for a physical copy of a NiN CD. Also lacking sufficient empirical backup: I’m convinced this speculative fiction about an increasingly plausible American dystopia represents some of Reznor’s strongest songwriting. Inhabiting characters like a brainwashed foot soldier, an underground Resistance fighter, a religiously-inflamed demagogue, even a judgmental alien intelligence, he moves away from the diary page introspection that could occasionally curdle into lyrics of questionable taste (Sorry, please don’t slip on all the tears I’ve made you cry).

The release of the album was notably attached to a labyrinthine “Alternate Reality Game” campaign, with in-character websites, USB drives hidden at concerts, and music videos with secret messages, adding plot strands and world building to the lyrics. (I missed the boat on all that, but the work that the same marketing company did for The Dark Knight was sure something to experience.) All of which would be near-impenetrable, if the actual music wasn’t so compelling. You don’t have to read the wiki pages to feel the apocalyptic beats and glitchy cacophony of “HYPERPOWER!,” “The Good Soldier,” and to pump your fist to the chorus of “Survivalism.” “I got my propaganda / I got revisionism” hits harder in a time, 10 years on from the album’s release, in which the most powerful voices in the U.S. government disregard reality on the reg, occasionally try to downplay the Holocaust. “Capital G,” a gleefully sociopathic near-rap by the forces of greed, could soundtrack one of Paul Ryan’s dead-eyed workout photoshoots.

“In This Twilight” and “Zero Sum” are the shattering two-part coda, in which the squabbling remnants of humanity face the end, whether by divine intervention or nuclear fire. The first juxtaposes crunchy, distorted percussion and fuzzed-out bass with perhaps the most perversely light and melodic vocal performance Reznor has ever delivered. He’s singing about encroaching extinction, but in a blissed-out religious reverie, optimistic for the afterlife. The character at the center of the closing track is not so sure: this is the End of this ridiculous human experiment, and we’ve brought oblivion on ourselves. “Shame on us / For all we have done / And all we ever were.” There’s the Nine Inch Nails nihilism we know and love!

Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D (#151) filters the previous album through Hip-Hop and EDM, to uneven effect. The collection of remixes never quite sustains the highs established by the first two tracks: Saul Williams’ fiery rap verses turn the instrumental “HYPERPOWER!” into a polemic against a legacy of American violence, “Gunshots by Computer,” while modwheelmood frees the vocals of “The Great Destroyer” from the squealing synth breakdown and creates a whole new paranoid anthem. While it’s also interesting to hear the Kronos Quartet reinterpret “Another Version of the Truth,” the rest is largely skippable. The physical set includes a DVD with the multitracks for the original Year Zero recordings, so you too can fuck with the raw materials! (I’ve been trying to remix things for years, and I’m awful at it, but it’s fun to hear the individual instrumentation.)

After freeing himself lyrically from his old methodology, the next release from Reznor eschewed words and melody completely. Ghosts I-IV (#152) is nearly 2 hours of ambient experimentation, a precursor to the Oscar-winning film scores with Atticus Ross (a few tracks were literally reworked for The Social Network, and several others continue to be licensed for film and documentaries). The buzzsaw distortions, dark piano chords, oddly organic synthesizers, and industrial beats identify it as a NiN record even in the absence of vocals. Though good luck recommending your favorite tracks, with titles like “26 Ghosts III” and “09 Ghosts I” not exactly sticking in the memory.

The Slip (#153), originally released free of charge, is more of a return-to-form. Arguably too familiar— it’s essentially With Teeth Part 2, but leaner and meaner. It’s not held in especially high regard, but it was there right at the outset of my fandom, and as such I continue to have a soft spot for it. I even bought the physical copy after years of listening to the decent quality MP3’s. “Discipline,” with its uncommonly funky bass line and high hat-favoring drum beat, is my number 1 “trying to sneak it onto a party playlist but not very successfully” NiN song. Along with the following track, “Echoplex,” the dark dance floor vibe is a preview of the sound Reznor and co would explore with How To Destroy Angels. “Lights in the Sky,” “Corona Radiata,” and “The Four of Us are Dying” create a kind of suite, insinuating and ethereal. I can understand if you bow out of that middle, 7-minute-and-33-second, ambient track before the library sample of fighting cats kicks in. But “LITS” is Reznor’s sparsest, prettiest piano lament, announcing the eminent “retirement” of Nine Inch Nails as a touring/recording entity.

Wave goodbye. They’ll be back.

[annabethinwonderland]

How to Promote a Brand Image on Pinterest

There became a time when industrial ventures have been now not allowed to participate on Pinterest. Now a organisation can be a part of the web site very effortlessly within the commercial enterprise segment. Pinterest is the 1/3 largest social media web page and its membership is developing swiftly; it's miles a network really worth becoming a member of.

It is essential to understand that developing one board with a few pix of your merchandise is unlikely to work properly. This is like growing an RSS feed instead of taking part in social media that is what Pinterest is absolutely all about.

You need to create 'notion' now not 'tough promote'. You need to connect to clients in a fine, attractive and emotional way. You ought to goal to excite and tell your capability clients.

So suppose less 'catalogue' and extra 'mag'.

Pinterest is a totally visual medium and lends itself properly to any business that gives goods for sale. Otherwise, in case you are promoting a few kind of carrier, infographics and checklists also are very popular pins.

Pinterest draws many thousands and thousands of humans in demographics with aspirations and expendable profits, so they're going to be capability customers for your merchandise Custom Made Jewellery. The majority of participants are female, and women are very often the buyers of products in a household. It is also worth noting that about half of those ladies are moms. It is a completely lively social media platform that you may use for advertising with very little cost.

Although you'll want to show what you need to promote in your forums, reflect onconsideration on your products as being most effective a percentage of your total content material. To create the high-quality impact you may want to area your merchandise in a lifestyle context and this is executed by using other images.

So first think about what characteristics your merchandise have. What factors of them do you need to highlight? Are they brilliant? Are they environmentally-friendly? Are they honest-change products? Do they enchantment to travellers or maybe families? Do your products solve a hassle?

Once  who your products enchantment to, you can ask yourself  in addition questions. How can your customers use your merchandise and what different topics could be of interest to them? The solutions to those questions will give you ideas for your pinboards.

You have to determine how you may provide humans fee for your pins; this is to say how the pins may be of use to them, in order to draw their attention and attract them in your business enterprise. Making income can then follow. If you pin out of your website, a label will automatically be connected in your pins and will journey with them as they're repinned.

So here are a few suggestions which can come up with ideas approximately the way to display your items on Pinterest and healthy nicely into their manner of working. And keep in mind that the great of your pinning reflects on your organization.

Cosmetics companies and jewelry businesses should pin images of make-up strategies, nail art, hairstyles, style, shade co-ordination, pores and skin care within the sun, what essentials to % in a make-up bag and suitcase while happening holiday.

An airline or travel organization can pin pics of stunning places across the World, crowd-drawing gala's and the latest gadgets and tour hacks for globetrotters.

A paint or furniture corporation can take snap shots of room settings in a spread of shade schemes to create an concept of ways their merchandise could look in customers' houses. They can accessorize the rooms to present thoughts to people who've no inventive dispositions or time to spend designing their own dwelling areas.

A knitting deliver shop could pin snap shots of knitted clothes made up of their yarns being modelled in lovely places. A haberdashery employer could pin a wealth of craft projects. Using other people's pins to do this is flawlessly desirable because pins are shared normally.

Estate marketers can consist of facts on how to % packing containers properly, how to arrange putting gadgets in rooms on arrival in a brand new domestic, a way to transport flora, what are counted as furnishings and fittings, how to measure home windows for brand spanking new curtains, the modern traits in décor and numerous techniques to combat strain. This gives customers the impact which you are the form of employer that allows them in each manner you can.

Pet-care organizations can create forums on a way to become aware of breeds of fish, horses, cats and dogs. They can advise approximately symptoms of illness to appearance out for, what sort of cage suits distinctive varieties of small pets, a way to installation an aquarium, the way to look after saddlery, what foods are suitable or fallacious for sure forms of animal and what varieties of pets are appropriate or unsuitable for kids.

Businesses providing eco-friendly gardening products may want to pin pics of the places their wooden or bamboo is sourced from, the way to recycle water inside the lawn, tree species appropriate for small gardens, flowers that are very toxic to pets and youngsters - and plants that are not, vegetation which can be bee-friendly, a way to compost, how to appeal to flora and fauna, the way to layout a courtyard garden, how to construct raised beds.

Companies selling truthful-alternate goods like bananas, coffee and chocolate can pin photographs of their plantations and the people who work on them with the intention to give history and that means to their products. What do the plants seem like when they may be growing? What type of climate and surroundings surround the plantations? What does the trade mean to the lives of those human beings? What recipes can you create with their products?

A motel could take images of beautiful views and locations of hobby in their locale as well as their very own bedrooms, communal regions and dishes. People rarely select a motel as a destination; they pick a motel only when they have decided to go to that particular area - so displaying humans why they need to come to their part of the World on this manner is a good way to attract attention. Adding some recipes from their kitchen and cocktail bar so people will recognize what they have got on provide of their eating place could be a pleasant touch. They can also upload a few amusing via creating forums approximately: seaside style, celebration thoughts, table redecorating, folding napkins and towels, fruit and vegetable artwork and maybe a humour board relating to eating/journeying/holidays.

Don't neglect to add a caption to give historical past stories to the pictures; in this way you can link in addition on your following. Engaging together with your audience is your key to achievement.

Otherwise, famous subjects you may like to feature in an effort to endear other pinners to you're: recipes, lovable animals, funny snap shots, inspirational costs, beautiful surroundings and lovely images. But whatever you pick has to in shape in together with your emblem photograph. Let your persona shine via.

Like some other undertaking, planning is key. So study the Pinterest guidelines and steering pages carefully and do studies on You Tube to get more records approximately understanding analytics and a way to display items. You want to photo your goods in use to show them to the fine impact.

Don't infringe copyright and do not include special provide records with a confined time length.

So whilst you sign in you may want to carefully create your profile. What image might be exceptional to pick out for it?

Decide what the titles of your forums could be - keep them brief. Think cautiously about whether or not every identify will entice interest and provide an explanation for succinctly but truely what's displayed on that board.

Create boards offering your merchandise first so that they draw the maximum interest. More boards may be mixed in after that. Create 5 - 10 forums each containing 10 - 20 pins to get commenced. The first image you placed on a board will continue to be as the largest picture at the pinnacle of the board while it is considered on the page in which all your forums are displayed - so select it carefully.

Then intention to spend a bit time pinning every day.

A sizeable factor about Pinterest is that pins can be repinned so in many instances that they are continuously resurfacing, not like Facebook where posts sink underneath new items perhaps never to be seen again. New pictures are constantly welcome though and so generating unique content is suited. You can use virtual cameras or telephones to create your eye-candy. Vertical shots work satisfactory within the Pinterest format and are less complicated to view on hand held gadgets.

When you join up, choose to comply with classes that fit properly with your products and also observe pinners who operate within those niches. If you comply with people, there will be a hazard they'll follow you again. So the extra you comply with human beings, the more chance you've got of making a big following yourself.

Pinterest recommend that you installation a Pinit button on your website to inspire people to take snap shots from it as pins. They also advocate that the more you pin, the extra you may draw attention to your self; so putting in one board with ten products on it may not come up with the most appropriate effects you choice. Both these points will come up with a better web presence so as to attract customers, get on their wish lists and generate greater income.

[ideiasstorm]

Services associated with a Professional Composition Creator

Esse conteúdo foi visto primeiro em: https://ift.tt/2HkQ42h

Barstools2u . com offers only those people services which will be appealing to suit your needs, that is why among the our most important features you locate writing prime quality essays regarding various things, free updates and refund. It is also possible to get a hold of your article when the moment comes. Internet marketing is a fairly young training, which, nevertheless , has been able to take main cause in our enlightening programs.

Nevertheless , when you persistently run out of the time, and bunches of responsibilities are waiting around for you to improve them, you choose feel like quitting on your scientific studies. Then you can relax and wait till the due date that you selected with nothing to care about. Many people know without a doubt what inexperienced authors present precious studies within their works together with who simply waste terms.

We certainly have writers exactly who graduated through different division, and several ones will surely do write some sort of essay for ones subject, even when it is extraordinary and looks like unnecessary for your needs. They will thoroughly abide by any instruction manuals, making sure that a person deliver the paper your own supervisor would like to see. On this website, among important along with useful tips for your reports, you will find our own order article.

Remember to, provide us with next data: What is more, you save some profit when buying from you and me thanks to all of our discount method. With the help, you a degree throughout sociology while not unnecessary challenges and nights without sleep. Your own professor won’t ever request of your teeth more than we can easily give.

Sociology assignment information often come out interesting both for their writers and readers as they typically deal with each of our human nature, cutting open for us brand-new horizons. You should remember that we expect free minor changes in case something turns out completely wrong in our unique work. The main proverb states that all give good results and no carry out makes Jack a lifeless boy.

To sum up, we are continually ready to work with your homework assignments. Because you see, managing PurEssay, you’re able to request any paper with any control, even if not necessarily mentioned in this article. They cannot note that such tasks only frustrated students. All of our writers who else deal with reports on marketing and advertising have practical knowledge in mentioning only crucial data in modern methodical researches for this sphere.

All of our works with success pass college or university check as they quite simply meet most of the requirements. Jobs on history always call for a thorough analysis, including addressing dates, people and occasions that are gone. Moreover, most people play our own writer’s factor responsibly, sending only unencumbered with mistakes papers that are built and formatted according to contemporary academic requirements.

We will enable you to improve your academic performance, asking for you only fair and rates. You may hurry and spend it with your hobbies and even relaxation whereas we will undertake your educational concerns. Some of our professionals desire to accept your personal further needs to wait as to the quality of your pieces of paper even after your company order is definitely completed!

You might have 2 weeks so that you can request all of our free ausgabe in case you are not happy. We can deal with analytical, argumentative, comparative essay, as well as more substantial projects upon sociology, such as write a PhD thesis. If you are want to write your company papers to yourself, we will gladly support the initiative together with suggest composition editing expert services, provided by some of our skillful freelance writers.

Oftentimes university products fail to assign students’ effort rationally. You feel familiar have an excessive amount academic jobs to perform. Our writing company can assist you with almost any writing, which includes essays, investigation papers, record analyses and the like.

Copy writers from PurEssay process numerous printed subject on politics before starting his job on your buy. Our writers set to work at the time our company agrees with the sales receipt of your money. what is the wide variety of words expected in the essay; The benefits are palpable: you obtain more spare time and perfect marks at once. We offer researches on a lot more subjects than we can put together here.

PurEssay does not persuade you to give up on your studies completely by means of ordering out of us each individual assignment which can be meant for one. If you get to know easy methods to structure along with format the sort of work, it will get simplier and easier for you to finish them in the future.

Whether it is your comparative politics task, your paper with methodology or simply a political notion project, heading to always go through the point and develop the particular ideas your professor would like to find inside your work. Once you turn out to be our client, we will not will need to point out your company benefits nowadays as you begins seeing these people for yourself. What is more, we offer our clients each prospect with own discounts and also promotional regulations.

Our copy writers manage historical projects for one visit because they own loads of first documents at their disposal that can be used seeing that reliable types of information in addition to, what is more very important in college papers, involving references. One option is that you may spend your own personal nights creation numerous essays on your own. Be sure that in the paper regarding marketing we are going to include referrals to the former.

But actually this is not the end. Our workers will keep it to themselves from those concerns. PurEssay incorporates a good facts news to suit your needs: we help with ANY instructional field since our a lot of writers are experts during various martial arts. any other specific information for you to got from your professor relating to this task.

Our skilled personnel research pieces of paper writers provides you with a comprehensive improve a given matter. Alternatively, you can require our specialists’ assistance. But we propose ordering at least part of these from we.

If you ever fit into our own description, i want to give you a hands with your composing tasks. Our enterprise offers seriously cheap investigate paper author`s; you will not choose a similar selling price on the web for the same amount of function. Contact some of our managers to discover what reductions you can get in your first in addition to subsequent instructions.

Student a lot more not only around studying. to what reprimand belongs your individual task; People suggest acquiring this primary task through our company together with carefully looking at our available document. what is the time by which you ought to get your article from you and me; All of our research paper writer services will help you many people world if you are still little. The fact is, some professors seem to delight in giving out very difficult tasks quite possibly to undergraduates. You cannot process such a project without stable analytical techniques and, regrettably, lots of effort. Services associated with a Professional Composition Creator

What does a new that our organization deals with a number of00 academic crafting. These people teach you how you can express your understanding, while generating yourself clear and using the ideal language. We previously mentioned before that we present you with quality PhD theses so today this article will dwell on the assistance of a professional composition creator. Moreover, sociology works by using modern strategies of research the fact that develop per year.

Ordering right from us, you can get: If necessary, we will insert suitable references so that you can acts involving law at present in force in order to supplement pursuit with trusted sources. So later on you will be able to them without hiring somebody, maybe merely occasionally getting from you and me editing solutions. It is the first time it is important to deal with the essay of any certain choice.

But at this moment we will contour specific scenarios, in which you will simply benefit from choosing essays out of us. But if you are nonetheless hesitant pertaining to making a decision, we will help you a small amount. Authorized writing is likely one of the most problematic types due to its numerous cliché s together with specific grammar constructions. We have an alternate goal a mission of making life easier.

You hate the train for which you have got to hand in the duty. what is the exact wording of the paper; Those our specialists who else graduated right from departments about sociology have a very detailed snapshot of exactly what is expected from you when you obtain assignments on sociology. PurEssay extended auto warranties a complete money back if your paper does not fulfill the requirements by way of our problem. what is the title of this essay; When you are worried of first mistakes, specially those that will set you back too much, you experience like you usually do not want to start up at all.

We will save your valuable precious time by way of undertaking the most difficult academic projects. Though not when they support PurEssay. Some school tasks are not economical: they require from you a lot of electrical power, but do not provide necessary items for your foreseeable future activities.

If you fail to stand a certain discipline, however have to provide an essay in order to acquire enough ‘tokens’, let the company help you. Educational shops aim at supplying their trainees with all-round knowledge that often results in these losing almost any vestiges associated with motivation. This writers are usually adept at appointment even the a large number of demanding essay or dissertation requirements.

We stimulate you to start working with PurEssay right now even as prepared a bit of gift for you personally. We will obtain you a suited PhD to conduct every research you happen to be supposed to give for you research. You may be surely through your published works with high passing marks when you require our services. Automobile annoying when you have to write the essay that, judging by often the instructions, appears more like a new thesis or perhaps dissertation.

Throughout universities internationally, essays in con abortion thesis statement all probability account for by far the most part of challenges for students. We take this step not to contingency plan our editors, who, that brings to mind, know most of their job towards perfection, but to ensure that some of our customers experience nothing to con concern when using each of our essay producing service.

So , if people find yourself in a state of affairs when you need a professional essay creator, do not freeze and surf to the PurEssay site. One can find a lot of content on marketing on the web, however the problem is to choose only the relevant information. Historical analyses are considered the most difficult and often never know undoubtably what essentially happened years ago.

Politics science plans often presuppose great expertise in history considering that politics is really a phenomenon that might have developed over time only as time passes. It may seem that students digesting English plus literature need to have our aid least in all. As you discover, in some scenarios it is really quicker to find workers who will develop your mission instead of tormenting yourself concerning this.

Amongst our experts, we have several men and women with the significant of linguistics. That is where you have got to to specify the details to your project. Perhaps all you need is simply little hint how to create this specific types of essays.

The essays about history are both objective along with analytical. Nevertheless what we offer is much more that simple writing. What’s needed of your professor are likewise harsh.

But mainly because of that it could appear tough for you to visit grips these kinds of large amounts details; and that is why PurEssay offers ease research paperwork on sociology. On the contrary, it will be so distinct from the beautiful regarding literature, which philologists generally find their academic research projects tiresome along with annoying. Nevertheless being fluent in sentence structure and interested in the vocabulary does not presumeloving academic authoring.

PurEssay possesses another answer. Our own writers include performed a lot of law tasks, each time being accurate plus unambiguous, equally as it is demanded. After you select the choices that match you, proceed to transactions, which is the ultimate stage with placing your order.

People believe English individuals must have ingrained skills for writing. It again results in being forced to turn in excessive papers in a very short period of time. To control such responsibilities, first of all, you must transform route of conveying yourself in bureaucratese.

The post Services associated with a Professional Composition Creator appeared first on Ideias Storm.

[erisabeisuuwritings]

Drone 1-shot Original

Copyright E.E.D-L Online Author Pename Erisabeisuu

Original work: And yes I took and used already introduced mainstream Sci-fi themes but it’s still original. Rated G for the most part maybe mild cursing. 

Hadrian Morgan opened his eyes slowly blinking in the harsh lights of the lab. Slowly he began to flex his fingers moving on to his toes, followed by his wrists, elbows, ankles, knees, and shoulders. Carefully placing weight on his forearms he slowly began to sit up, flexing his back slowly.

“Dr. Morgan all systems are showing a green-light. You have the authorization to begin full-scale testing.” The voice sounded out of a loudspeaker nearby causing Hadrian to flinch as to boomed into his sensitive ears.

“Confirmed, hearing is at one zero zero percent.” He replied pausing for a moment before continuing, “Vocal patterns are stable and within expected parameters. Please confirm sound range Dr. Reed.”

“Sound range is within human perception with a lilt to the higher scale range.”

“Vision is at one zero zero percent, zoom and wave range are full-scale and controllable.”

“Confirmed.”

Slowly lifting his legs over the side of the gurney Hadrian turned to sit on the edge. After flicking his eyes over to the observational window he flared his nose before sneezing quickly and making a face, “Smell is at one zero zero percent, and I must admit that I had thought antiseptic smelled bad enough before.”

A laugh came through the speaker before he was answered, “Confirmed, and I'll keep that in mind.”

Slowly putting weight on his legs Hadrian stood and began to test his balance. Once he was done with that he took slow steps around the quarantine room. “Motor functions all within expected range. Motor control is fully functional.”

“Confirmed, You have been authorized for entry into the obstacle course.” Dr. Reed announced just as a buzzer sounded along with the hiss of depressurization from a door opposite from the observational station. With one last look around the barren lab room Hadrian turned and exited through the open door.

           The obstacle course was fairly simple just a track with a few vaults and a couple of rock walls. The test ran smoothly and after a few more basic functions were assessed Hadrian was released into the main complex. As soon as he entered the meeting room all the preexisting chatter was instantly silenced causing Hadrian to smile which drew a few light gasps, “Gentlemen and Lady, I think you can all see the experiment was a complete success. The Silverhand project is now fully operational, and now all we need is for the government to approve the expenses for further production and integration.”

           The meeting room remained silent for several more seconds before someone in the group let out a cheer that flowed to the rest until everyone in the room save Hadrian himself were cheering and dancing around in their excitement.  The Silverhand project was working! It was fully operational! They had done it!

***********

           Hadrian stood in front of the mirror with hands spayed on either side of the sink and took in his own reflection. Emerald green eyes stared back at him as he took in all of his features, raven black hair  pulled into a tie at the base of his neck, a smooth jawline, arched eyebrows, and a fairly straight nose all in all he didn't look that bad, but his height was one thing he would always grumble about after all what sort of respectable man was only 5'8? Sighing he shook his head and left the bathroom and came to a stop in front of the double doors leading into the grand ball room that was being used to host what would later be called the party of the year. He straightened up his suit if he was going to do this then he had better be  as sharp and businesslike as possible.

            It had been three weeks since the experiment and it was now time for Dr. Lewis Reed, and himself to give the speech that would either make or break the project, and naturally Hadrian was a nervous wreck. Oh, you couldn't tell from looking at him, but under his calm and confident expression his mind was more active than an agitated bee hive. Lewis looked over at him before chuckling and reaching over to clap his hand against Hadrian's shoulder, “Cheer up mate, tis not the end of the world.”

           Hadrian just looked at him with a raised eyebrow he could tell that Lewis was just as nervous as he was by the way his British accent thickened as well as his word choices, but before he could reply they heard their que and quickly entered the room and made their way to the stage set up just for tonight's demonstration.

           “And here we have our men of the hour! May I introduce Doctors Hadrian Morgan and Lewis Reed!” Announced the Secretary of Defense Adrian Conrad,  “These two men are solely responsible for the Silverhand Project, which will be shown to all of you today. Now for those of you who don't know the Silverhand Project was introduced as an alternative to modern troops, or rather a method for the creation of super-soldiers.”

           Seeing some of the crowd shift uncomfortably at the notion Hadrian spoke up as Lewis powered up all the required systems that made up the Silverhand System or as many of the techs had nicknamed it the Nuada Drone, “The Silverhand System while expected to replace the mobilized troops, will not be replacing the soldiers who will be doing the fighting. Now this may be confusing now but I'm sure you'll all be pleased with the results and understand them in a moment. While I'm speaking Dr. Reed behind me is powering all the components initially needed for the Silverhand System. The system itself has a bio-electrical field to power itself, much like the human body. The system will be piloted by me for this demonstration, and I hope that you all enjoy both this demonstration and the banquet afterwords.”

           He turned and getting a nod from Lewis opened the capsule chamber that was not unlike a gelled over coffin while turning all the fields to the required settings even as Lewis spoke up to give a running commentary, “What Dr. Morgan is doing now is tuning all the settings for the capsule and what we have now nicknamed the Nuada Drone.”

           Seeing the glances and confused expressions on the guests faces Lewis gave a small smirk before continuing, “The system in now fully powered and is only awaiting the pilot entry into the capsule to begin the full-scale linkup.”

           With a last nod Hadrian removed his shoes before hopping up onto the bed of the open capsule before he quickly swung around until he was laying flat on his back, “Now that Dr. Morgan is ready I would like to draw your attention to the covered gurney on the other side of the platform.”  

           Seeing that the guests had done so Lewis closed the lid on Hadrian's capsule and quickly strode over to the gurney. Once he was sure that all the curious faces where focused on him and the gurney he spoke again, “May I now present with great pride the Silverhand System!”

           Pulling off the sheet quickly and revealing the foreign body on the bed which quickly sat up causing the entire audience to gasp in shock, awe, or for some fear. The military representatives went ramrod straight and had their hands hovering over their various hidden weapons. The thing now sitting on the gurney was without a doubt not human. It's skin was the color of ink, so dark that it was almost hard to make out it's features except around it's mouth, palms, and soles of it's feet which where silver in color. It's face seemed human but also seemed to have a slightly elongated jaw and cheek bones that gave the effect of having a snout. It's ears where elongated and came to a point like the elves of legend, but for the fact that they seemed to swivel around as the audience made even the slightest noise.  It's eyes were a solid silver-tinted violet that seemed to glow, and when the thing smiled it showed off needle sharp teeth with even larger canines. When it stood they could see that it was at least 7' or more, but the thing that caused yet another wave of gasps throughout the assembled leaders was when the thing started to talk.

Standing up while in control of the drone Hadrian began the speech that would decide everything, “Ladies and Gentleman.”, here he paused for the gasps, “As I have previously stated I am piloting this drone from the capsule on the opposite side of the stage. This drone is a bio-engineered bio-machine, and has been specifically built for combat and reconnaissance. Through genetic manipulation, and a variety of pre-programmed nanoscopic machines we were able to engineer this construct. And now we will begin the regular pre-op program to confirm full range of functions.”

Here Dr. Reed stepped forward to begin a standard physical for the crowd while starting up the same list as the first time the drone was activated, “Vocal patterns within human perception Dr. Morgan. Please confirm all functions.”

“Hearing currently at five zero percent, increasing function range now.”

“Confirmed, activating music program.”

“Hearing now at one zero zero percent, confirmed the speakers currently located in the great hall are playing 'Fur Elise'.”

They both saw the eyebrows of everyone in the crowd go into their hairlines as they took in his statement seeing as the great hall was currently on the other side of the rather large mansion. Lewis smiled at him before speaking, “Confirmed, now switching off music system.”

“Vision at one zero zero percent, full scale range confirmed.”

“Activating laser system now.”

“Confirming activation, lasers are performing programmed configuration number three.”

“Correct, for the benefit of the audience I will explain that Dr. Morgan has just demonstrated that the drone has full spectrum vision by describing a small laser show displayed in the upper ultra-violet wavelength of light usually invisible to the human eye. Another function is the ability to zoom in on a certain area from up to one kilometer away.”

This brought out grins and impressed looks from the military sections as they started adapting to the idea that it was the scientist in charge of the...drone. It seemed that they where fast getting used to the idea and where very happy with what they were hearing.

“Now releasing pheromones.” Lewis said as he typed on his laptop.

“Raising Smell to one zero zero percent.”, Hadrian announced before sneezing violently causing the crowd to laugh as he scowled at Lewis before literally growling at the man as he continued, “I thought I said not to add Sage to the pheromones.”

Lewis just grinned up at him and said quite flippantly, “Yes you did, but I did it because I know you hate Sage.”

The crowd laughed at the byplay and Hadrian only hoped that it didn't work against them in the long run. Shaking his head in exasperation before continuing with the test he drew in a deep breath through his nose mostly for the crowd's benefit, “Lavender, Sakura Blossom, Juniper, Orange Peel, Vinegar, Beeswax, Dog, Cat, Peanut, Chocolate, Ammonia, Lemon, Pineapple, and...Sage.”

Lewis grinned broadly back at the drone as Hadrian paused slightly before listing the one thing he hated more than antiseptic when it came to the scent department. Shaking his head slightly he turned back to the crowd who mostly all had curious expressions on their faces, “Correct, again for the benefit of the audience I will explain. At the back of the room many of you might have noticed a small black bar that was resting on a table beside a data pad. That bar contains several small samples of synthetic oils that release a set of scents or pheromones in a random order that was transferred to my laptop here to correctly test the drone's sense of smell. Dr. Morgan has just listed the order that the scents where released.”

Again the commentary seemed to be having a positive effect on the military members present as they turned to spot the machine described to them. Both of the doctors on stage saw the glances being exchanged amongst not only them, but the President and the Secretary of Defense as well.

“All functions confirmed, and we will now give a presentation of a previous physical ability test.” Dr. Lewis stated once he was sure he had everyone's attention again. With his comment a projection screen was lowered down from it's slot in the ceiling, and a video showing Hadrian running a military grade obstacle course was shown. Though the ease and speed that the drone was able to finish it with made it seem as if it where a child's rendition of the same course. The presentation was over after a few more words of promotion and explanations of the workings of the system. All in all both of the doctors where looking forward to the official reactions to the project.

           Hadrian easily placed himself on the gurney moving the drone back to it's original position before reaching up towards the small silver circle behind the drones left ear while explaining the disconnection procedure, “The disconnection process is very simple all that the pilot has to do is make sure the drone is either hidden and/or in a resting position, and then simple press the sensor behind the left ear, like so.”

Just after that was said the audience watched the drone go limp, and with a small hiss of air from the hydraulics the capsule opened with a few wisps of mist from the water and oxygen circulation systems escaping as Hadrian sat up back in his own body slowly. As he was removing himself from the capsule and replacing his shoes Lewis stepped forward to give the closing words to their presentation, “Thank you all for staying with us through the entire presentation of the Silverhand System. We hope that you can find the system to be of some use, and now we can all retire to the prepared banquet in the great hall.”

           Even as the two doctors headed out a side door they noticed all the military leaders in the room moving toward the Secretary and the President hopefully to ask for the production and use of the system rather than it's dismantlement.  Entering the great hall for the banquet the two doctors nervously waiting for the rest of the guests as they stood on either side of the double doors. It didn't take long for the guests to start trickling in as they took their places, and finally the president entered with his entourage only for the man himself to pause beside Hadrian, “You have your funding Doctor.”

           Hadrian was elated he had finally done it; the project was completed and now soldiers would no longer die in combat leaving behind their families like his father and his brother. With the drones so many lives would be saved, he only hoped that it would be enough. So with a smile Hadrian Morgan gave Lewis a subtle thumbs up, and spent the rest of the time answering questions from all the curious attendees.

           It would be just over fifteen years later that Hadrian Morgan would look back and remember one particular saying, 'The road to Hell is paved with good intentions', and think to himself that that particular road must have been paved with a miles worth of his own. After all he never knew that day he had almost single-handedly started World War Three.

[adelaideattractions]

Adelaide's tallest building approved, but is it time to resurrect the old?

Posted July 27, 2018 07:56:38 What will be Adelaide's tallest building has been approved by the State Commission Assessment Panel, adding 38 levels of floor space to a CBD that already has 220,000 square metres of unoccupied commercial space in untenanted buildings. The building will be erected on the site of the Adelaide Metro Info Centre at the corner of King William and Currie streets by Equinox Property Group, whose plans include 266 hotel suites, 78 residential apartments and a restaurant and bar. At 132.4 metres, it will be 40 centimetres taller than Westpac House, giving it bragging rights over the city's relatively low skyline. But others are pushing to see Adelaide's many untenanted commercial buildings some of which have been languishing for decades repurposed for residential purposes in a scheme similar to Melbourne's achievement of the mid-1990s. Daniel Gannon, executive director of Property Council of Australia SA, said current empty floorspace was equivalent to 10 Adelaide Oval playing surfaces and about 50 per cent higher than the historic average. "Adelaide right now has a challenge around demand rather than supply," he said. "Having said that, it shouldn't be knocking back new stock into the market because new stock helps shape the city and is a sign of maturing capital. "That means our policy makers need to work harder to attract more tenants, more business owners and more risk takers to Adelaide to take up some of this future floor space." Mr Gannon said the refurbishment of older buildings had been constricted unrealistically by red tape and building code impediments. He pointed to former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett's Postcode 3000 strategy of the mid-1990s, which aimed to convert unused office towers and buildings into residential and student accommodation and bolster Melbourne CBD's population. The Victorian government attributed it to the emergence of Melbourne's bars, cafes, laneway culture and supermarkets, and believes it turned it into a "radically improved city". "Postcode 3000 does present a really interesting case study for Adelaide right now," Mr Gannon said. "The challenge for the State Government, but also the City of Adelaide, is to think very sensibly and very carefully about what they might want to do with policy, to incentivise building owners to repurpose some of their stock in a realistic way." New tram to service empty buildings The owner of Michael Treloar Antiquarian Booksellers has been watching the installation of the new East End tramline along North Terrace directly outside his store since August last year. A new stop will service the war memorial, the state library, museum, art gallery and University of Adelaide on its north side, but on the south side will arrive at a pocket of buildings that have largely been empty for up to 20 years.

Photo: The first top on Adelaide's East End tramline will service a largely empty group of buildings on the south side of the terrace. (ABC Radio Adelaide: Malcolm Sutton) Mr Treloar said Adelaide was a unique city for all the wrong reasons, by having a strip of buildings vacant along its most well-populated and spectacular cultural precinct, which is also just a stone's throw from the Riverbank and Adelaide Oval precincts. "I cannot see where anywhere else on Earth a spot like this would not be something you would die to be in," he said. "It seems to me there are relatively few owners of a relatively large number of properties on the market." He said the owners needed incentives to tenant their buildings, perhaps even under the threat of being forced to put a CBD property back onto the market after a period of time if they don't utilise the space. "Until somebody such as the council or the State Government causes a revolution in owners being made responsible for the buildings they own, then we'll continue to get this situation of empty buildings," Mr Treloar said. This includes an untenanted, multi-storey building around the corner on Gawler Place that he considers to be the "biggest rat house in the city". "Until it is more profitable for an owner to have tenants at affordable rents than it is for the owner to keep those buildings empty for decades, then this will continue ad infinitum," Mr Treloar said.

Photo: Michael Treloar says owners need incentives to tenant their buildings. (ABC Radio Adelaide: Malcolm Sutton) Government to 'cut red tape' Planning Minister Stephan Knoll said the state's planning system was "currently going through a once-in-a-lifetime reform" that aimed, in part, to reduce bureaucracy and red tape. He said the Government, which was elected in March, had a plan to make it easier for many CBD buildings to be rejuvenated. "Under the provisions of the current building code, upgrading and reactivating existing buildings is often cost-prohibitive as such development has to comply with the same requirements as if it is being newly constructed," Mr Knoll said. "Our initiative will cut the red-tape burden associated with giving a new purpose to an existing office building." Mr Treloar welcomed the shift in strategy, but warned a plan like Victoria's Postcode 3000 would have been more successful in Melbourne because there was a higher number of building owners, rather than the concentrated few in Adelaide.

Photo: The CBD's re-opened Electra House is an example of a heritage building being repurposed in this case as a bar. (ABC Radio Adelaide) Can a Postcode 5000 work in Adelaide? Mr Kennett said Postcode 3000 was about putting the policy and "fundamentals" in place to encourage people to invest in both new buildings and reconditioning old ones. He said it took off from 1997 and, since then, the city had turned around from being a "stagnated" population to one that was constantly in demand of residential spaces. "Yes, I think it could happen in Adelaide as well, and I know [SA] Premier Steven Marshall is trying to put a commercial flavour into the way government is managed at assessing opportunities," Mr Kennett said. "But I think the biggest issue for Adelaide is the question of what the city stands for and what is going to be the genesis of future growth that is sustainable."

Photo: Long-term empty or near-empty buildings have prime location on North Terrace. (ABC Radio Adelaide: Malcolm Sutton) Despite Melbourne's turnaround, he said there was an increasing number of empty shop spaces due to "tightening of wallets or the competition of online shopping", which could have an effect on occupation. "In Adelaide, I think the catalyst for growth should be in education, not only in universities, but in the broader community, and that would bring more life to the city. "I think a discussion about the two universities merging together is without a doubt the most sensible thing in a long time. "It will get critical mass, in terms of education, and have one University of Adelaide that could have an international face to market, which could bring some of the best lecturers and professors from around the world to attract students to Adelaide for short and long courses." Both chancellors of the University of Adelaide and University of SA are undertaking a six-month collaboration period to produce a report that determines the viability of a merger. The Government is also building a $100 million Adelaide Botanic High School just off North Terrace on Frome Road, which is expected to be opened in 2019 for 1,250 students from inner-city suburbs. Topics:urban-development-and-planning,building-and-construction,economic-and-social-development,state-parliament,local-government,community-and-society,human-interest,adelaide-5000,sa,melbourne-3000,vic http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-27/is-it-time-to-implement-postcode-5000-in-adelaide/10039102

[boldlyluckymaker-blog]

The Best Suitable Toy For Children.

With all the distractions caused by technological developments and way of lives changes, guiding our kids during the vital first phases of finding out could be a bigger task today than it was in the past. Each week, let your child trade with the child toys which are kept in the storage supplied that they keeps the one that they have actually properly organized. This provides him or her incentive to keep their toys neatly stacked. Using storage containers is the best way to keep kids toys due to the fact that these can be stacked on the floors and be easily accessed. A puzzle is a problem or enigma that challenges resourcefulness. Solutions to puzzle may need recognizing patterns and creating a particular order. Individuals with a high inductive reasoning ability may be better at fixing these puzzles than others. Puzzles based upon the process of questions and discovery to finish may be fixed faster by those with good deduction abilities. A popular puzzle toy is the Rubik's Cube, invented by Hungarian Ernő Rubik in 1974. Popularized in the 1980s, solving the cube requires planning and analytical skills and includes algorithms. The stuffed animal toy is really the very best way to draw in any kid and most importantly this is much safer than other toys. There are numerous toys offered in the market those are quite damaging for kids of the quality however any age and kind of these type of toys are not at all harmful and are very much appealing. The appeal of touch gadgets among children appeared at Toy Fair 2014, but it does not mean the physical toy is dead. Products like Digipuppets and Tiggly offer classic toys such as finger puppets and shape toys, which can connect with touchscreens and include their own proprietary app. Popular mobile titles like "Angry Birds" have actually generated their own physical toys called Telepods, which can connect to your mobile phone or tablet to add more characters to the video game. Covenant House is a company that offers housing and resources to homeless youth, many of whom might be on the streets due to the fact that of physical abuse, human trafficking or because of dependency in the immediate household. They have homes in 30 cities across America where in some cases hardened kids with hard pasts are invited with open arms. Covenant House has a gift brochure where you can opt to donate a warm coat, an interview suit and even supper for an entire shelter this Christmas. When deciding what toys to obtain for your kid, there are lots of things that you will have to consider, including their gender, age and capabilities. If you resemble many Americans, the thought of the McDonald's Pleased Meal evokes, well, joy. It was a wonderful reward as a kid to go to Mickey D's and get the renowned bundle that held goodies beyond your wildest creativity. Inside that red box was not only tasty and greasy fried food, but likewise a toy. What you truly wanted wasn't a burger, but that "101 Dalmatians" figurine (to finish your collection) or those Beanie Infants (even if they were mini versions). We stock toys and devices for children and toddlers, as well as instructional video games for older kids. Our frustrating choice consists of chairs and strollers for nursery aged kids and if your kid enjoys outdoor sports, or prefers to play inside with the very most current construction sets, then we can assist you. We stock Lego, Lego Technic, K'Nex and Mega Bloks to assist kids discover issue resolving abilities. Our big variety will also encourage your youngsters to establish good coordination abilities. Beginning with a big launch on Queen Street in Toronto on Oct. 1, 60 Bay shops throughout Canada will when again offer toys for children from pre-kindergarten to age 12, in locations from 500-foot kiosks inside existing stores, to huge 5,000-square-foot toy centres in significant urban centres. The toy chain, hobbled by $5 billion in debt and more intense competition, declared protection from its lenders ahead of the essential holiday season. Like so lots of retailers that find it harder to co-exist with Amazon, experts say Toys R Us needs to improve its online services and offering special experiences in the shops. As parents, do you understand what the academic toys are? Playing with instructional toys is not just amusing, however they help kids with their development and development. For instance, children will be able to practice issue solving abilities when making their productions such as having fun with blocks. They will likewise find out the process of planning as they are begin with easy tasks and then move on to harder creations. As well, they will establish a sense of spatial awareness as they work to put pieces of a game together. They will learn how to comprehend the procedure of trial and error and deal with different shapes such as cubes, obstructs, and other shapes. Kids will stretch their creativities, enhance memory processes, motivate imagination, develop dexterity, improve focus and concentration, be motivated to believe for themselves, and they will develop dexterity. Even the youngest kid can gain from these toys. There's absolutely nothing complex about play. The only energy needed is your kid's (and there's a lot of that!). Our safe and enjoyable toys encourage children to develop great and gross motor abilities, social abilities and logical thinking, through role play, movement, imagination and creativity. Recordings and books help kids value words, literature, and music. Imaginary play things support kids to talk with one another. Kids discover through experience that spoken interaction is a method to interact with others. , you can do your shopping in the comforts of your very own house and you can do it anytime. So spread out holiday cheers to your kids this coming Christmas. To the moms and dads the kids are the very best presents of God. Phallic sex toys can be created for penetration or clitoral stimulation. Some can do both. Females are excited differently and understanding which erotic zones promote you more can help in picking the right sex toys. For penetrative stimulation, the shaft type vibrators or dildos are a great option. For clitoral stimulation, we advise the most popular bunny vibrator variety. The bunny variety serves a double purpose, penetration and clitoral stimulation. The base of the shaft has a bunny ear shaped soft like product developed to carefully massage the clitoris while the shaft is inserted in the vagina. Bunny vibrators are the most popular sex toys the world over and we extremely advise that you search for one. Requirement of power will vary with the age of the children worried. In the meantime, small stores designed specifically for kids with sensory concerns are popping up as well. Lots of kids live without the ways to have their most standard needs met, much less get a present at holiday time. It can be a Barbie doll for a girl and some action toy for a young boy if you are selecting a present for a kid. ShopClues India has more than 35000 items in the video games and toys category for children to satisfy of your child's development right from phonetics to finding out alphabets & numbers. Get http://kingmalmberg5896.de.tl/Welcome-to-my-blog.htm?forceVersion=desktop of infant toys for your child's growth and care. We supply remarkable discounts and deals on toys online for you to select the right product that not only stays up to date with your expectation however also fits well in the spending plan. The leak, Spiral Toys pointed out, became part of an enormous attack on MongoDB installations all over the Web. Voice images and messages were not impacted, stated the business, because they were kept on another server. The jeopardized database was not the primary database, it stated, but a temporary one used by developers. SIKU Toys are well designed toys which are tremendously popular all over the world. Made of out of die cast, these toys are replicas of the real automobiles such as fire truck, tractors, trailers, buses and vintage car models also. Do check out the SIKU Farm Toys, SIKUSUPERCLASSIC, SIKUFARMER series and even SIKU Gift Embeds in excellent information before you eventually buy one. Kiddiewinks between the age of one to 4 are called toddlers. During this phase, young children leap, hop, climb up as they are physically active and complete of energy. Besides this, they are developing their motor skills and hand-eye coordination. You can purchase toys online that can truly assist in their physical development. A few of the best options are construction sets, dolls, picture books, puzzles, vibrant crayons, markers, paintbrushes, and push-pull toys. Parents frequently give up the fight to get kids moving. It's hard to find enjoyable, healthy activities for kids, specifically in the Winter season when the weather condition and darkness keep kids locked inside. The following list of the leading five fitness toys will keep kids active in an organized way, so that they're not simply bouncing off the walls with boredome. Just 20-30 minutes a day with any of these fitness -oriented toys, and the kids on Santa's nice list will be healthier and more in shape by Spring! All of these fit gifts range in price from $75 to $15 so that any spending plan can find physical fitness this holiday.

[crazycollectivekoala-blog]

15 Stereotypes About paving products That Aren\'t Always True.

Need a 30’x12’ backyard workshop? patio slabs (mouse click the up coming post) Door areas, number and placement of windows, peak of roof, general size of your shed… You probably have something particular in thoughts - simply name us. We ask each customer to present us suggestions. Every single one. Our rating? Each single customer for whom we've got built, provided and erected a quality garden shed, has been delighted. Check out our reviews on our Fb site, decrease down this web page or dotted throughout our website. Our high quality and durability far surpasses a lot of the sheds you will find elsewhere. One in all a very powerful however least remembered components of the home is the driveway. This space is expected to last for years since it's presupposed to be robust, however it is not immune to break over time. One in all crucial however least remembered elements of the house is the driveway. This space is anticipated to final for years since it's alleged to be tough, but it isn't immune to break over time. If you want to keep away from having to pay for major repairs after just a few years, consider some methods to keep it in good condition. The first step to avoid main driveway repair is to keep cracks small once they seem. Paving sealants are the supplies that make a pavement final longer. It permits the pavement to look new all the time. This is an important factor in making our properties as stunning as we ever dreamt it to be. That is why we would like which might be driveways or other parts of our home to have a paving sealant that will final longer. Subsequently, we might try to look for such merchandise which are already tested by time and are really high-of-the-line. Think about if we have now the best product around. It will make our homes as stunning because it should all the time be. It should make our pavements look as at all times new as it is paved the first time. from this source You probably have ever been to a hospital, neighbor’s house or hospital, you'll realize that the kind of flooring will fluctuate. Polished floors make use of concrete polishing that is a ground substance polished to attain a sure look. Polished concrete is a really generic term that relates to some decorative options for flooring that find yourself leaving a concrete floor exposed because the last remaining and last flooring ending. The polishing course of may be very advanced, and it entails a number of technical issues that include, making it dense, leveling, sprucing and sealing the floor whereas contained in the concrete floor. It has become a extremely frequent factor in most of the locations all over the world because most people admire its beauty and likewise as a result of a number of locations can't stand having another kinds of ground. There are many places the place concrete sharpening is used. Garden fountains are the most well-liked decorative accessories used in the gardens that help improve the ambiance manifold. Skilled craftsmen, dexterously design fountains that deliver peace and serenity in the atmosphere. Lending an ornamental look to the backyard, fountains come with enticing lightning techniques and colored flowing water. They add definite character to the garden by beautifying its total look. Complimenting all sorts of backyard settings, the garden fountains are carved out in variety of contemporary and conventional types and shapes including - human figurines, saints, fairies, birds, animals, flowers in addition to abstracts. To encourage probiotics from these dairy products to multiply even additional, Huffnagle suggests consuming foods like spices, tea, crimson wine, berries, apples and beans. Not only must you reduce stress as a result of research groups at Wake Forrest College found that stress aggravates acne prone pores and skin, but stress also weakens the colon where probiotics need to work. Research has implicated chronic stress in the development of irritable bowel syndrome and in the worsening of inflammatory bowel illness symptoms. Moreover, stress sensitizes the gut which will increase the probability of yet another acne offender-- creating allergies to sure foods.

It's environmentally-friendly

forty five and ninety Degrees Herringbone

Asphalt needs upkeep consisting of seal coating, crack filling, and different forgotten expenses

It's durable

Do they have in-depth data of the present applied sciences and strategies

Recycled Rubber

Do not confuse poor quality sheds with low-cost sheds. Many people who are discovering their houses merely aren't giant enough would like an amazing shed however are involved they only do not have ample funds to get a the shed they want. Effectively, whereas this is perhaps true for some, but it's actually potential to build low cost sheds if you don't mind putting within the work and taking your time to find materials. There are various choices to consider. You should buy some very low cost shed kits. Unfortunately, for many of these kits the emphasis really is on "cheap". If your private home is part of a home Owners Affiliation (HOA), you must carefully examine your covenants, codes, and restrictions (CC&Rs). Your building could have to be accepted by the HOA board, prior to starting your challenge. Some things they might consider are aesthetics, including but not limited to coloration, dimension, roofing materials, and landscaping surrounding the shed. When deciding on where you want to build your shed, consider its function. Will you need a big door or a double door or special access to the door, together with a sidewalk or stepping stones? The Persian affect in backyard fountains was felt in the enclosure of the gardens and swimming pools, the structure of which had been meant to simulate the heavens. Many of those gardens impressed the well-known Persian carpet designs that have persisted to this present day. Roman society was intricately tied to the bathing ritual, and significantly enjoyed water options within the gardens intertwined with the general public baths. In the new deserts of the Middle East, the desert oasis supplied the inspiration for the historic Persian-inspired paradise gardens. Backyard fountains harmonize water and are designed to satisfy both sensible and aesthetic functions. Fountains embody symbolic, artistic and social ideas as they enliven places and reinvigorate people. However not like sandstone is a a lot harder material but manageable with a diamond blade. Bluestone is available in a wide number of sizes and a few interesting patterns (Ashlar is a well-liked one!) Although not quite as necessary as sandstone a very good quality sealer can also be a good suggestion. I are inclined to recommend a penetrating sealer with bluestone. Concrete pavers: Of all paving this kind had the widest range by way of color, sizes and patterns. The sort of paving is usually a low priced and quality paving (like C&M pavers) or a excessive priced/ high end paving (Anston paving is a good instance). The massive range of concrete paving can be overwhelming, and that i are inclined to advocate the medium to high finish pavers (until you may have a tight price range in fact). Assume about color and elegance and price range and that should assist narrow your search down. See the description of supplies which the sheds are product of. Whether it is made from wooden, be certain it's manufactured utilizing business grade wooden. In any case, a superb selection would be metal model as it is designed to final years.. In addition to, you will need to know what measurement is right for all of your things that you just want to retailer. So you must list the items that take up ground house in shed and measure their lengths and widths. Putting a shed together is usually a time-consuming activity, so it is all the time clever to comply with set up instruction and equip your self with vital tools to do the job. Though steel sheds may be constructed sooner than wooden sheds, they don't contain the pure attraction of picket shed. With a picket shed, individuals can recast the shed's look in accordance with their imagination and creativity. Once you perceive your needs, it is time for buying. Sometimes, they will present in nearly any house hardware retailer.

The only good news about this whole, awful thing is when a pet owner pulls into the driveway they come home to their pets 100% of the time. — Mancipium Avem (@cis_76) November 28, 2017

Firstly there is the type that has feminine connectors on two sides and male connectors on the opposite two sides. Usually talking, the feminine connectors are a series of loops which mesh with the pins on the other two sides. There are also tiles on the market that are successfully a method connectors. When you click the tiles into position, you cannot simply raise them up again. Some manufacturers solely supply one design of deck tile, generally with 4 slats of wooden running in the same course. Generally there may be an possibility of a 5 or 6 slat tile. You'll be able to check every measurement, not that you will need to, these are professionally drawn plans, but made for the absolute newbie. My Shed Plans Elite also comes with detailed full colour illustrations and part drawings, a number of the drawings are "reduce away" views showing precisely how all the pieces suits collectively, so that you can't presumably get it wrong. And naturally they tell you exactly what kind of timber is finest for each job and which screws or nails you must use. Have you ever ever gone to buy construction materials and felt like a real idiot just because you didn't really know what you needed to get?