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ardenttheories · 4 years

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To add another to the BS tally of HS2: what’s with all the political matters all of the sudden? ACAB Vriska (I don’t know how that happened and I don’t wanna know), facist Jane, rebellions... HS did have those political matters, sure, but it wasn’t scrubbed against your poor face with Equius levels of strength. Yet I swear the Epilogues and HS2 are half politics half misc fuckery. Whatever happened with playing a godly game and random shenanigans? Oh wait HS2 also has that! Badly done! Bluh.

I don’t think including political matters into fiction is an inherently bad concept; it can be one of the best ways to immortalise current events and to encourage discussion about them, and Homestuck has never really shied away from political discourse (such as Caliborn’s rampant misogyny, the facist dictatorship of HIC, both on Alternia and on Earth Alpha, and the entirety of the hemospectrum being an anaolgy for real life racism and classism, as well as the multiple rebellions against HIC in Alternian history).

However, it was often handled a lot better, and wasn’t so fucking heavy-handed. Hussie incorporated these issues a little more naturally, explained them in much better and much more subtle terms. The hemospectrum is definitely something we can relate to our own world, but it’s also just a cool piece of lore for the trolls that makes them a completely unique species. Caliborn’s rampant misogyny is a fun prod at the type of men you find on the internet who are just... like that, and making him a villain was both fitting and making him childish about it was a good way to belittle the point of view he was presenting. And the rebellions on Alternia? Things like Feferi wanting to make things better, but also being morally grey about it herself? It was naturally integrated into the lore of Alternia and into Feferi’s personality as a whole.

Overall, it was just more palpatable because it flowed with the tone of Homestuck. It was presented as part of the lore, as part of the characters, in such a way that it won’t seem like Homestuck has a lot of politics in it unless you pick up on the IRL parallels. But the parallels are there, are intentional, and are firm - and it’s an amazing point of discussion in and of itself, really, when you dive into it.

The Homestuck^2 team have... a lot less tact about it. They’re going less for natural progression and more for what will shock and horrify. They want it to be as much of a slog to get through as possible, as blunt and brutal as they can make it, which is okay, I guess, and gets the point across, but being so outright about it isn’t... the best way to do it. It doesn’t fit in with the rest of the themes of Homestuck; it’s clearly something that isn’t meant to fit in; it’s clearly something that has been crowbared in from our own world. This, admittedly, is just really bad storycrafting. It ruins the immersion of the text, which is why it’s now so obvious that it’s a “political text”; Homestuck has always had moments like this, but never so out of place.

And, in general, while it’s good to include politics into media and to appeal more widely to an audience with genuine real life issues, giving them more traction and showing your solidarity with a point of view, you do still have to remember that, like... people read fiction to get AWAY from the world. Sometimes, shoving in harsh and clearly abrasive reminders of what’s going on in the world around your readers isn’t going to go down very well, and can come across as extremely tone deaf (especially since at least Kate seems to be focused more on ACAB as a statement and a non-race-related protest rather than part of the Black Lives Matter movement, which deeply diminishes the fact that ACAB because of the violence they commit especially towards people of colour).

On top of this, in Homestuck, any negative political commentary wasn’t done with the villains being characters we loved.

Like, there’s an inherent difference between recognising that HIC is, for lack of a better analogy, like Trump - someone who has always had power, was always born into power, and who got power and went too fucking far off the deep end because they were corrupt to begin with - and watching Jane just... go so violently against everything that we as fans love - which, while not perfect, would be a bit like if Obama suddenly turned around during his presidency and said “close off the boarders, get rid of health care, let the poor die”. It’s not shocking and deeply expected from someone like HIC. It’s deeply shocking and disturbing from someone like Jane.

It also lessens the point you’re trying to make with ruined character development. People are so lost and confused over Jane suddenly being a fascist that anything they could be trying to say ABOUT facism is being talked over by fandom feelings of betrayal. The joke they made out of Karkat being a Solid Snake ripoff gives no credit towards anything they’re trying to make out of the rebellion.

In fiction, it’s almost always better to parallel real life issues with clearly defined traits; a villain and a hero. HIC is a villain. Jane is a hero. You can add in morally grey characters, of course, especially those in positions of power, because things aren’t always so well defined - but for something like politics, we’re well aware that there are Good Guys and Bad Guys, or at least Bad Guys and Even Fucking Worse Guys. And we know, for instance, that these people are almost always RAISED to be racist, to be xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, abelist, classist, murderers - it’s in every ounce of their blood to continue white supremacy because it benefits them most.

So the fact that Jane is now suddenly a villain, for no actual reason - without a full character arc, without any real justification, she just takes over and all of a sudden she’s paranoid about trolls and being incredibly xenophobic from the start - is what people are going to focus on most. They’ve upheaved so fucking much, it’s almost impossible not to look at the upheaval and to make that the point focus of attention. Like, how much clearer could it be that they’re making Jane a portrayal of white people in power despite the characters supposedly being aracial? And where the fuck did any of this come from? Why are such important and VERY close-to-home topics being thrust onto a character that we used to associate with? Why are they putting Jane up onto the rung of fucking Trump, when they could have chosen a completely new character for this to have been and actually gotten their point across away from the hurt fury of “what the fuck did you do to Jane?”

When you do something like this, you seriously run the risk of detracting away from the point you’re trying to make - which is exactly what’s happened.

Unless, of course, there’s no fucking point at all. A lot of HS^2′s writing focuses on the “nitty gritty of being an adult”, so there’s a fairly big potential that this... isn’t meant to reflect on anything in specific. It might just be what the writers think are “adult issues”, which, again, almost completely discredits the entire fucking point they’re trying to make. They might be doing this just to be shocking, to be upsetting, because they know ruining Jane will piss a lot of people off - and how much does that undermine the very real issue of facism when a lot of what’s going on in HS^2 is happening in our world right now?

This isn’t the sort of climate where you just turn someone into a fascist to be shocking. Not when real world fascism is on the rise and becoming more violent. That goes beyond shocking - it’s upsetting and tone deaf and horrifying, actually.

But, yeah. Homestuck has always has politics involved at its very core, like you said. It’s just that it was handled a damn slight better than whatever the fuck’s happening in HS^2 now.

#Anonymous #long post//#homestuck^2 critical #ardenttheories #homestuck critical

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tkmk · 6 years

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there was a post on here about being a good ally to social causes and marginalised groups. i think it was a good post that described something important, but there was one line where it said something like “... challenge injustice (when it won’t make the situation worse)...”

and that is always something that really stresses me out. because how do i know that i’m not going to make the situation worse? how do i know that? how can i be sure that i’m not going to antagonise somebody into lashing out towards the group i’m trying to support? how can i guarantee that i’m not going to spread misinformation that detracts attention away from the real issues? how can i be sure that i’m not being influenced by weird personal biases to approach issues in a way that is more about myself than the people i claim to want to support?

it’s very clear that i am over-analysing things here. i think i overestimate the importance of my actions - both in terms of the positive things i expect myself to contribute and the negative things i worry i am going to be responsible for.

the first thing is not to dwell too much on “oh, what if my behaviour is used by fascist types to justify their actions?” because it really doesn’t matter who you are, what you say, or what you do; these people are at a point where they have such twisted ideologies that anything they encounter will be interpreted as “evidence” that they are correct. that is the starting point on the road to passive appeasement, to compromise over things that should not compromised on. putting yourself in a position where setting one foot wrong is going to somehow be the catalyst for some atrocity is giving the people who would commit such acts far too much credit, and if you start defining your behaviour upon that principle, you are always going to be fighting a losing battle.

the other thing is that the standards set for “good allies” aren’t actually that high. i regularly see people showing a lot of appreciation for very basic and simple displays of respect and support. of course, it’s not about getting appreciation, it’s about what’s useful, but observing what people appreciate is a proxy for what we should be aiming for. no individual is going to change the world, but i don’t think anyone actually expects that, and small positive efforts from enough people can add up to something worthwhile.

i tend to forget that when i get hyper-focused on myself, and the more i scrutinise myself, the more i trick myself into believing that avoiding these issues altogether is the only way i can prevent myself from doing anyone any serious harm. the more i avoid these issues, the more distant i get from the people actually affected, and the more the concept of what constitute a “good ally” becomes this abstract, gargantuan, impossible thing. the more i avoid the issue, the more i need to do to compensate for the avoidance!

there’s no perfect answer to any of this. it’s important to at least try, it’s important to understand that you won’t always get things right, but well-intentioned mistakes are never going to have the same consequences or context as deliberate and malicious acts. the bigger picture means you need to take the risk of doing something wrong, and be willing to hold yourself accountable if that happens. the worst case scenario is to passively and timidly avoid the issue entirely; no marginalised or oppressed person in the entire history of humanity has ever been helped by a potentially supportive person dwelling on “i’d be more useful/less harmful if i was dead” type though.

there’s no perfect answer, but there is an imperfect answer: to engage actively and sincerely, and maybe that’s enough.

#i'm not sure why i didn't reblog the post i probably should have #it's funny how i hyper-fixate on these tiny details which were in no way ever intended to be the main point of the post #i'm just trying to process some of my own shit here #this is not a call for reassurance or approval #and i hope it doesn't come across like that #long post

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Pirate Warriors 4 Review — This Pirate’s Life is For Me

April 2, 2020 2:00 PM EST

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 offers a faithful retelling of the iconic series’ story with thrilling combat to boot.

My last review was for a game based on My Hero Academia, an anime series I’ve never seen. That impacted my entire approach to the game as I was playing it as an outsider. This time around, playing One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4, the situation is different, but not all that much. I loved watching Luffy’s weird pirate adventures as a kid, but as I grew up, the show dropped off for me. I’m shocked that it’s still continuing to this day, and can only imagine what’s changed on those pirate-filled seas.

Regardless, I know what One Piece is, but I still didn’t know what to expect from One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4. What I found was a wonderful retelling of the Straw Hat Pirates’ adventures partnered with exciting, albeit repetitive, gameplay. And while there are some hang-ups in the story that seem to stem from localization issues, it hardly takes anything away from this epic journey to the Grand Line and beyond.

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“What I found was a wonderful retelling of the Straw Hat Pirates’ adventures partnered with exciting, albeit repetitive, gameplay.”

As I said, I went into One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 with a little bit of a background in the series. I knew who Luffy was, Zoro is one of my favorite characters from what I can remember, and the art style is more or less unsettling. And it seems like not much has changed since I watched the show as a kid, for better or worse.

All the same, the game’s story is a faithful retelling of this show’s 20-year saga. Billed as the dramatic log, you play through the story of One Piece from the very start, and I mean that quite literally. One of the first cutscenes you’ll see is of Luffy receiving his namesake straw hat from Red-Hair Shanks. The game takes you through all of One Piece’s main story arcs and, thankfully, doesn’t dwell on any filler. Sections of importance that you don’t play through are handled well through narrated cinematics and are highly reminiscent of the shonen anime.

The real meat of the story comes at the climax of each arc, just as it does in the show. As emotions came to a head and tensions rose to a breaking point, I was engaged and enthralled. The world of One Piece is weird, juvenile, and wacky, but don’t think it isn’t filled with real drama or decent messages. I was even surprised to find some tear-jerking moments, like Usopp’s apology to the crew or Ace’s death.

That’s not to say the story of One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 is without faults – there are plenty, they just aren’t written. The game’s more dramatic moments are shown through fully rendered cutscenes, and assumedly, they would showcase the game’s graphical fidelity. Admittedly, they do, but they’re also hindered by the often off-putting style of One Piece and some localization mix-ups.

The smallest of these sins are grammatical issues in the game’s translation – something I can more or less forgive. What I can’t forgive as much is the game’s beyond disappointing lip-syncing. In moments of high tension, the characters’ voices are almost completely desynced from their lips. Of course, neither of these take away from the fun I had with the game. However, they did take away from my experience with the story and detract from what should have otherwise been intense or heartbreaking moments.

In the end, the journey you experience in One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 is perfect for a game adaptation. The video game version of Luffy’s saga is enough to intrigue someone with little to no background in One Piece, and its handling of the series’ more memorable moments should leave die-hard fans happy. If you’re looking for a more digestible way to get into the story of One Piece, that’s what this title is offering.

“The video game version of Luffy’s saga is enough to intrigue someone with little to no background in One Piece, and its handling of the series’ more memorable moments should leave die-hard fans happy. “

Looking over to how the game actually plays, it’s more or less the same story – a fantastic and rewarding experience with some hiccups in between. Overall, playing One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 is like playing a Dynasty Warriors title. Every mission places you on an enormous battlefield – sometimes a large town with destructible buildings, or a large barren wasteland filled with enemies to pummel. And pummel, you do! Playing as one of the super-powered members of the roster puts you a few rungs up the food chain from your basic enemies.

Combat is pretty straightforward – in most cases, you can just button mash your way to victory. In others, namely going up against bosses, you’ll have to actually mind their attacks, dodge out of the way, and whittle down an armor bar before dealing any real damage. Fighting can get repetitive if it’s approached like this, and I wouldn’t blame a player for doing so. It’s incredibly easy to mash the light attack button through a level. However, varying your attacks and combos, and making use of super moves makes the game infinitely more interesting.

While this system isn’t all that complex, it is satisfying. With a few moves, Luffy can attack swathes of enemies, fling them into the air, and then slam an enormous, inflated heel down. Every character in the game is also exceptionally well animated. Every single regular and special attack is given special attention to detail that in turn lends weight behind each punch, or viciousness behind each swipe of a sword. Just watching fights in One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 is a treat, taking control of one even more so.

To spice up combat, each character has their own growth map and a suite of special moves. Special moves are activated with a combination of button presses, and if you’re a fan of the series, you’ll likely recognize them. These attacks each have a cooldown, so they’re best used against tougher enemies. You’re able to upgrade these abilities, as well as gain others and upgrade stats on the growth map. Each character has their own, and these maps are extensive.

Besides basic upgrades to health, speed, stamina and such, you can unlock and level-up special attacks and perks. You unlock all of these combat bonuses with a combination of coins and berries earned in-game. I found myself hardly needing to grind for more currency for upgrades, but the few times I did, it didn’t take long to earn more – thanks mostly to the game’s alternate modes.

Besides the story mode – which admittedly offers the most fun in the game – there are two other main game modes. Free logs simply give you the opportunity to play through story missions with any character, a fun little mix-up, but ultimately it doesn’t add much. Treasure Logs are where the game’s writers had the most fun, and you might too. In this game mode, you’ll find yourself in different scenarios and have to fight your way through them. They don’t change the game up much, but wacky scenarios and dialogue are well worth playing through some of them for, if not just for the coins and berries.

“One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 is what I look for in a game based on an anime or manga.”

While this all seems like a good experience, the most fun I had in One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 was when I was able to play as one of the giant characters. For most of the game, you’re stuck playing as a regular-sized person. In One Piece standards, that’s pretty boring. However, playing as Whitebeard the pirate, a towering goliath wielding a staff that controls the wind, I was immediately thrilled. It’s the same kind of fun you have playing a Godzilla or King Kong game as you’re this giant, unstoppable force that smashes through the opposition. I understand why you don’t experience playing giant characters more in the story, but you haven’t really played the game until you give it a try.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 is what I look for in a game based on an anime or manga. It was clearly made with special care directed towards the source material, and even if you’ve never heard of One Piece before, you’ll come out of this game loving its characters. And I have to say, as someone who’s not really a fan of games like Dynasty Warriors, One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 pulls off the combat style with grace. Its combat has that one trait that takes a fighting system from good to great. It’s not just fun to play, but it’s fun to watch.

I haven’t played many One Piece games before, but Pirate Warriors 4 has set my sights on the series. For those getting into One Piece now, this title is a fantastic introductory that sets a high standard for future entries to come.

April 2, 2020 2:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/pirate-warriors-4-review-this-pirates-life-is-for-me/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pirate-warriors-4-review-this-pirates-life-is-for-me

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abundantlifepractice · 7 years

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10 Ways To Be Happy Even When You Have a Super Crappy Job

Most people I know hate their job.

And even those who don’t exactly hate their job, admit to resenting it in some way. This is so messed up because we spend so much of our lives at work. Our jobs give us money and we need money to live. I recently read a statistic that said the average person will spend about a quarter of their lifetime on this earth at their jobs. I know, bananas!

So why exactly do we hate and resent our jobs so much?

Truthfully, there are tons of reasons, more than I could ever begin to name. But here are just a few possible reasons why you hate your job.

1. You, an adult, literally have to ask for permission to take time away from the job to handle important life tasks and responsibilities.

2. You, a perfectly reasonable person, have to spend inordinate amounts of time with people who are sometimes not very reasonable, or friendly, or bright, or professional, or kind.

3. You, a person with much to offer the world, is often “supervised” by people who are not as talented or insightful as you.

4. You, a creative person, have to reign in your talents and prioritize the boring unexciting demands of your job routine instead of the all the ideas that race around your mind.

5. You, a person with relationships, hobbies, and interests, spend at least 40 non-negotiable hours of your peak productive time a week meeting the demands of your employer while your needs and desires sit on the back burner.

6. You, a person with material needs and obligations, never seem to make enough money at your job. If things arise in your life that require more cash than you have on hand, you cannot negotiate with your employer to pay you more just because you need it.

Any of that sound familiar?

After many years of working for myself and pursuing independent research in a doctoral program, I took a job with a large organization so that I could relocate back to my hometown of New York City, a move I’d been wanting to make happen for awhile. I couldn’t move my practice to NY straight away because of state licensing issues and I wanted so badly to be back in New York that I just couldn’t wait for things to sort themselves out.

So I took a job in the meantime while I figure out my next steps.

On very good days, I am thankful to have stable employment with great benefits which currently allows me to keep a roof over my head and food in my tummy while being in my most favorite city in the world. On these days, I am proud of the interesting work I get to do and for the opportunities and challenges that encourage my growth and development.

But on bad days, I am resentful of both the large and small indignities of my job and plot how quickly I can leave it. And I am not alone. To say that most people at my job don’t want to be there is an understatement. And while I am totally grateful and the job has its perks, it’s been a very long time since I’ve worked a full time job. There are supervisors, “chains of command,” office politics, and job hazards to deal with. And I have to admit that it has been a bit difficult readjusting. Personally, what’s been most difficult is not really owning my own time and no longer being able to do with it as I please.

In the five months that I have been working there so far, I have found a handful of coping strategies to help me maintain my sanity and stop myself from completely succumbing to negative thoughts and bitterness. And I’m sharing them with you here, just in case you are allowing your job to rob you of your happiness:

1 Bolster yourself with your morning commute

I take two different trains during my morning commute. It takes about 45 minutes on the subway followed by a 15 minute walk. So all together I have an hour between the time I leave my front door and the time I am walking through the front door of the office. In that hour I usually listen to audiobooks on self development, business, politics, and any other subject that I’m super interested in. I’m a very mental person and I love ideas. So beginning the day with a surge of ideas get my brain moving and I am reminded of how big the world is and that my job is a temporary place. Other times I listen to music to psych myself up, like my own soundtrack or theme song. I choose to listen to songs that build me up, and remind me that I am not my job.

2 Don’t seek validation

I have much to offer. And so do you. But my job description calls for me to contribute only a small bit of my knowledge and gifts at work and there is little to no room for me to veer from that. Also, the higher ups do not see, nor are they interested in my full potential. Not only is this incredibly frustrating, it can be downright demoralizing. But at the end of the day, the only thing my employer owes me is pay for the work that I do. That’s it. Full stop. Expecting more only leads to disappointment. Your job is your way to put food on the table and a chance for you to work out challenges and pushing yourself. It is not the source of your self-esteem or validation of your worth as a person.

3 Take ownership of your actions (wherever you go, there you are).

I know of many people who work in an office environment in which their coworkers are not very pleasant, or super competitive, or dismissive. My current work environment is one of these places. There is a deeply ingrained dysfunctional work culture that regularly takes down those at the very top and absolutely crushes those on the bottom. It is not fun. It can feel dehumanizing. But worse, it can make perfectly lovely and reasonable people begin to act like the very sour coworkers that they despise. This is how culture works and recreates itself.

If you have a similar work work environment, I compel you to be conscious of this and fight against adopting the personal destructive habits of an unhealthy place. Because the only thing that you will have to show for it is getting further ingrained in an unhealthy work culture that drains your spirit and your humanity. This sucks, don’t do it.

Instead be mindful of your thoughts and actions. Call yourself on it when you find yourself behaving and thinking like others around you. Remember, your abundance comes from within. And sometimes you have to guard it at all costs.

4 Manage your work space well

Maintain a neat and orderly physical work environment to the best of your ability. Walking into a chaotic office or trying to find things under a heaping, unruly mound on your desk makes an already undesirable situation almost insufferable. Don’t do this to yourself. I have found that disorganization and overwhelm can be a very slippery slope.

Awhile ago, I read this book on work space organization and it completely changed the way I thought about how I arrange my desk and work space in general. Set up your space to accommodate your most redundant and essential tasks. And if you’re a visual person, like I am be sure to have inspiring pictures, desirable colors, and quotes in your view so that you can see them when you need some momentary inspiration. I for one, have a bunch of yellow accents on my desk because that is my happy color.

Part of managing you work space is paying attention to your physical presentation. Be neat and take pride in your appearance. Look good for yourself because when you look your best, you are closer to feeling your best. Maintain your work clothes. Be sure to buy cuts, colors, and accessories that flatter you and accentuate your physical assets while detracting from your problem areas.

And if you have time and want a laugh, check out this video. Its an oldie but goodie, insanely hilarious and over the top but I think it has some takeaways that we all can use. The extremely snide narrator points out Barbara’s sloppiness, disorganization, and lack of preparedness throughout the course of a day from the moment she wakes up to the time she goes to bed. Poor Barbara. Don’t develop a reputation for being like Barbara at work!

And aside from your personal and physical appearance, be mindful to manage your relationships with others. Be purposeful about setting healthy boundaries and expectations. Show others how to treat you by exhibiting the behaviors you expect from them. Try not to let the poor behavior of others rattle you too much and make extra efforts to be professional and courteous with such people. This is not always easy and you won’t be able to do this 100% of the time, but be purposeful and make the effort. This is super important for both your immediate mental sanity but also in the long run. You know that you are not destined to say here, so rise above those that are.

5 Perform Your Job to the Best of Your Ability

Your job is crappy. You are capable of so much more. So show to yourself, your coworkers, your supervisors and the universe that you can not only meet the challenges in front of you with grace and style, you can exceed them. Take pride in the work you have now even if it is not exactly what you want to be doing.

And once you have mastered your job, also be on the look out to develop new skills and be more efficient. At the very least, the more efficient you become the more room you free up in your mind for things you actually want to be thinking about.

But by all means, do not allow you crappy job to stagnate you. In nature, if you are not growing, you are dying. If water does not flow, it becomes stagnant. So move, grow, and thrive.

6 Develop a rich life outside of the office

Work. Home. Sleep. Repeat. Work. Home. Sleep. Repeat.

This is no way to live. You owe yourself more. And the less developed your life is outside of work, the more you look for your job to fulfill your inner needs. That will not end up well. You are a multifaceted beautiful piece of work and you deserve to shine and grow in multiple arenas.

Develop yourself.

Host dinner parties. Train for marathons. Volunteer at an animal shelter. Join a club. Play the saxophone. Sing in the choir. Learn a language. Write a novel. Start a YouTube channel. Go talk to that interesting looking person who you see every morning in the train station. Make connections.

Do interesting things that give you something to look forward to and provide you with the opportunity to channel your energy, develop new skills, and use different parts of your brain and body.

7 Make Allies (or at the very least try not to make enemies)

I don’t care if its the receptionist, the janitor, a person who works in another department. The guy who sits in the next cubicle. The person who occupies the highest level job in the building. Whomever. Make friends and play nice with as many people as you can at your job.

If this is exceedingly difficult to do, find someone with whom you can at least exchange smiles. Even if this is infrequent. A friendly face is worth its weight in gold.

Do your best to minimize hostility in your workplace. Go the extra mile to form and maintain relationships. You don’t have to be best friends with folks, but at least try to remember names and exchange greetings. Once in awhile, volunteer to do things so that others don’t have to do them. Bring in food to share with your coworkers. Give compliments. Thank them. Be helpful. Allow them to shine. Be empathetic. Treat them like human beings.

When conflict does arise, make sure to address it directly and professionally. Do not hold grudges and make sure you show that you have moved past it once the issue is resolved.

8 Take time off

Go on 2 week long Caribbean vacations if you can. If you can’t do that, go on week long vacations. If you can do that, go on a weekend road trip. And if you can’t do any of this stuff, take mental health days. If you can’t do that, go on walks during your lunch breaks.

9 Plot Your Escape

When I was a little kid, I used to be really interested in stories about slavery, particularly stories about how people would escape from slavery. I would read about how most people didn’t just wake up one day and runaway. They did not take their freedom lightly because they knew if they escaped haphazardly, they could be captured, brought back and beaten or killed. In other words they would make their situation worse than it was to begin with if they did not plan well. So they did things to help ensure their success and survival: they did their best to save food for the journey, they gathered information from informed people, they were selective about who they shared their plan with, they waited until the time was right, they learned how to read the stars for guidance, they made connections, and perhaps most important of all, they had specific destinations in mind.

Now I certainly do not mean to trivialize slavery or liken myself or you to a slave, but I do find this metaphor helpful. We can plot your escape too. Life is too short to work a miserable job for very long.

So figure out what your specific destination is and make a plan for yourself on how to get there. Learn new skills in your current job that will serve you well in your next destination. Learn how to read the signs around you so that you will know when it’s the right time to move on. Lay the groundwork so that you will be ready when the right time comes along. Make connections with people who are also moving in the same direction or may already be there.

10 Save money (invest in your future)

Your time is your life energy. It is very precious and irreplaceable. When you work a job, you exchange your life energy for money. For a great perspective on this, read this book.

Do not waste the money that you earned because that is almost the equivalent of wasting your irreplaceable life energy. Respect your earned money. Save it. Spend it on things that improve you and bring you joy. Invest in your future. Make sure you are taking advantage of any discounts that are afforded you because of your job. Some employers are able to provide discounts on gym memberships, commuter benefits, savings club cards, access to credit unions, pensions and 401Ks, etc.

#work sucks #crappy job #employment #financial abundance #abundance #abundantliving #law of attraction #mindfulness #self reliance #self-help #self improvement #self-empowerment #adulthood #adulting

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rentahomeinmalaysia · 4 years

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Home Improvement - the Importance of Planning

Prior to starting any sort of home improvement task; if you may create a plan before you start, you will be better organized. You want to itemize the price of the job, in addition to the substances you will need; also recollect the duration of time it's going to involve. It is easy to over shoot your price range is you have not effectively formulated your plan. In this article, we are hoping to arm you with some data in order to ensure an uneventful and promising endeavor.

You want to ensure which you have enough money to do your home improvement task earlier than you begin one. It is absolutely critical which you know how lots the work is going to cost earlier than hiring all and sundry to do the job for you. This includes tools, components, exertions and every other applicable costs. It's usually a great idea to assume that a project is going to fee more than you at first estimate, as this is typically the case. The price of your activity, as predicted via the contractor, ought to be some thing you're acquainted with. You can discover this information at the agreement that they offer you with. Being privy to additional fees is something you have to preserve on pinnacle of each step of the preservation.

Making enhancements to the kitchen and rest room can do loads for a home, and you don't always ought to rebuild them from the ground up. It isn't always essential to fix the whole thing in those rooms; all you need to do is improve its preferred appearance. Some new appliances, a brand new sink or portray the shelves could make a huge difference. It truly is not necessary to update the whole lot in a room to make it look better; simple changes are much less luxurious and are every so often more powerful. Expensive renovations are truly now not important, mainly when making your kitchen or bathrooms look like new with a touch paint and a few new keep-bought items.

Do you have got tasks around your own home that want to be performed? By doing those little matters, it is able to improve your own home in a massive way. Whether you are making plans to promote your house otherwise you simply need to improve it for yourself, apparently minor information can detract from the general surroundings of a domestic. Your home can dramatically enhance via solving leaky faucets, doorknobs, and by doing small however vital upkeep. Your residence can clearly look worse than it is if you permit these little maintenance to accumulate over time. It doesn't remember in case you make those repairs your self or hire a handyman or specialist; the essential element is they get taken care of. A principal preservation may be done by way of genuinely repairing the numerous matters that want to be usegrowth .

To help you are making higher selections, especially in regard to home development projects, this newsletter should assist you circulate in the direction of a proper course of action. Staying inside your budget, mainly in case you are going to settlement this exercise session, have to be a consideration. Everything you do must flow towards improving the cost of your home. Home improvement initiatives can be tough, and making the right selections early on is important in regard to the fulfillment of what you aspire to do.

Cost - Efficient Home Improvement Ideas Home improvement is the same old option particularly if there are motives that deliver extra really worth to the idea and it can just be a be counted of attractive at the important alternatives to make certain that results will be revealed consistent with your likings.

The idea of creating a greater stepped forward look for your private home won't be that easy however there are strategies in an effort to permit price-green consequences to emerge out of the efforts that you made. Here are a number of the primary issues that you have to hold in thoughts when imposing some development in your house.

Set your priorities: Home development can be as simple as placing your priorities. Even if it's going to seem like there are plenty of factors that require development in your home, you need to make it a point to position extra attention on the maximum essential things. There are matters that may wait and for positive, handling a certain challenge at a time will make manner for the timeliest improvements in your property. Consider the value of your home: Definitely, apart from the cultured upgrades that you are aiming for, it's going to additionally be important to look into the opportunity of making a higher fee for your property and this will be completed by way of investing at the proper things and ensuring that other than beauty, your own home also can boast of convenience and capability. Make way for savings: The simplest economic management will keep away from the danger of overlooking the things that can promise more savings. There are lots of options to be had for savings to be feasible without compromising the outcomes that it could guarantee just like the safety movie from a tape provider in order to ensure longer delight from the changes that you made. Develop a budget in a manner that interest is given to the matters that absolutely deserve it. Home development can without problems convey the wonderful adjustments which you want for your property and there may be no doubt that it is one of the simplest approaches to ensure the cultured attraction in addition to a miles more desirable value for your house.

There are cost-green thoughts which can guarantee its achievement efficaciously whilst making sure that upgrades are made even as exciting the satisfactory hazard for savings and becoming greater unique about the implementation of the things that you bear in mind sincerely worthy.

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freeplayonline-blog · 4 years

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Home Improvement - the Importance of Planning

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webbygraphic001 · 5 years

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5 Web Design Turn-Offs To Avoid

The Internet of today is a highly competitive place. With so many individuals and businesses spending money and time on digital marketing and SEO — trying to outperform their rivals and sit at the top of the Google heap — it’s harder than ever to get users to visit any given website over another.

Given the difficulty of acquiring new visitors, you might think that all the webmasters of the world would do everything in their power to provide a delightful user experience and ultimately retain each hard-won customer, but we all know that there are a number of unpleasant and off-putting bad habits that seem to crop up time and time again.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common offenders making users leave in frustration…

1. The Site is Too Slow

In a world where almost everybody has a super-powered smartphone in their pocket, the Internet has become synonymous with instant gratification. A user who might be idly wondering about some half-remembered trivia can have the answer delivered to them via Google within a few seconds, and if they want to contact a friend in another country thousands of miles away, they can do so basically as quickly as they can type the Facebook or Whatsapp message.

If the original click was motivated by nothing more than frivolous curiosity, the user is very likely to think, “ugh, never mind” and try somewhere else

We’ve all become spoiled by the speed and responsiveness of our hyper-connected world, and so when we click on a search result and sit on a blank loading page for three seconds or more it can seem like an eternity. If the original click was motivated by nothing more than frivolous curiosity, the user is very likely to think, “ugh, never mind” and try somewhere else.

The BBC reported in 2018 that they’d found that every additional second spent loading pages tended to cost them around 10% of their users, which in Internet terms is huge (by this measure, the passing of ten seconds can mean that your traffic is all but gone).

Google have also stated that according to their research, more than half (53%) of mobile users will abandon a site that takes longer than three seconds to load. After six seconds, it’s almost a guarantee that they’ll look elsewhere.   Of course, the functional needs of the majority of websites are not very complicated — the average e-commerce store or blog site really has no excuse for taking longer than a couple of seconds to load.

2. Too Much Popup Clutter

We’ve all had the experience of clicking a link in our Google search results and being taken to a page that seems to be doing everything in its power to stop us from reading the content. Within two seconds, an enormous screen-filling popup will appear, along with — something familiar to all Internet users in the EU — a GDPR/cookie popup, giving you two things to click on at once.

Combined with a browser alert that “this website would like to send you notifications”, the overall effect is one of being bombarded with irrelevant nonsense that entirely buries the actual content you were trying to reach — content that you are now expected to excavate yourself by manually dismissing each of the popups.

The use of popups continues to be a divisive topic; some designers and advertisers cite significantly improved conversion rates thanks to their use, whilst others are put off by their potential for user irritation (with one study from 2013 finding that a startling 70% of people consider them annoying).   However you feel about them, we can probably all at least agree that popups are often done badly. They may have their uses, but delivering too many at once and not respecting the user’s desire to see content that is relevant to their interests is more likely to result in a bounce than not.

As for GDPR and cookie notifications, whilst these are a legal requirement for all websites serving data to users from the European Union there are certainly ways of presenting them that are more disruptive than others — and web designers from outside the EU can sometimes forget that these messages can add another layer of visual clutter for a significant percentage of their audience.

3. Mobile-Unfriendliness

It’s remarkable to see in 2019, but many web designers still seem to treat the mobile version of a website almost as an afterthought. It’s still not uncommon to find a mobile site where items are misaligned, overlapping, formatted strangely or subject to some other oversight from the designer, all of which can signal to a visitor that your company doesn’t take the time to go over little details.

It’s worth remembering that catering for mobile users is not “serving a niche”, it’s now the most important part of the job. Statista reported that 52.2% of all Internet traffic happened on mobile phones in 2018 (up from 50.3% the previous year), proving that desktop browsing is actually now the less-used way to explore the web.

Coupled with Google’s algorithm change in March 2018 to prioritise mobile-first indexing, there is now no reason at all to neglect the mobile experience of your website. A low-quality mobile site can negatively affect your SEO performance as well as the experiences of your users, so it’s important to get it right.

4. Too Much Animation

We get it: animation looks great. Nothing says, “I’m a professionally-designed website!” like some nice smooth transitions, transforms and appearances, and well-deployed animation can breathe vital life into an otherwise static and sterile layout.

animation is a spice to be used sparingly

However, animation is a spice to be used sparingly and it can be distracting if overdone. Ideally it should support and draw attention to key content and call-to-action buttons – and not overwhelm the user with things popping up and swooshing around to the point that they’re too bewildered to read the actual text.   Animated introductory screens, too, are great attention-grabbers when users first arrive on your site, but don’t make them sit through the same animation every time they want to return to the homepage.   In general, the function of website elements shouldn’t be dictated by their aesthetic presentation; requiring users to wait for an element to appear or to become interactive because of an animation is not a great tactic, and this can cause users to resent the animation for getting in the way of what they’re trying to do.

For example, a returning user may know as soon as they arrive that they’re intending to click the “About Us” button, but making them wait while the navigation bar unhurriedly does a fade-in animation to show them the button before they can click is likely to cause irritation.

A related note is that some animations can cause accessibility problems; using a lot of moving parts or content that flashes can pose problems for some users (such as those who might have an attention deficit disorder), making it very difficult for them to concentrate on the content.

5. Autoplay Media

No discussion of irritating web design faux pas would be complete without mentioning autoplay media. It’s been the bane of web users since the early days of the Internet, but unlike status bar marquees and GIFs of CGI dancing babies it still hasn’t gone away.

There are ways to do it tastefully, but it’s so often misused that it certainly deserves a spot on our list. Whereas autoplayed MIDI music and Flash sites with audio were the scourge of the 1990s and early 2000s, the pox of today’s world is autoplay video.   Many sites today will put a video playing next to the body text of an article or blog post — often this is entirely irrelevant to the content of the page, and if you close it before navigating to another page, it quickly reappears. Of course, this is highly distracting and often feels rather presumptuous (as though the website is saying, “hey, I know you clicked to read an article about digital design trends, but wouldn’t you prefer to watch this video of our glitzy charity gala?”)

Even worse, many sites preface these videos with automated advertisements which, given that the videos themselves are generally advertisements in one form or another in the first place, is tantamount to asking visitors to sit through an advert for an advert.

One small mercy, at least, is that modern browsers such as Chrome have been moving towards only allowing autoplay on videos which are either silent or muted, significantly curbing the frequency of the extremely annoying user experience of having unsolicited audio played at you.

Wrapping Up

Ultimately, all of the problems discussed in this article are issues of bad UX design. Every element of the site must be appraised for its impact on the function of the page: Does it help or hinder the user in finding what they’re looking for? Does it enhance or detract from the actual content of the page? Does it shorten or lengthen the process the user must undergo in order to complete a transaction?  

Attracting users to your website is often no mean feat, and it makes sense to reward those who do arrive by anticipating their needs and treating both their time and their attention with the respect they deserve. In this way, well-treated users can become loyal repeat visitors, and a website can never, ever have too many of those.

Featured image via DepositPhotos.

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Source from Webdesigner Depot http://bit.ly/2VTpCj2 from Blogger http://bit.ly/2I6aw4Y

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technicaldr · 7 years

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How Doctors Should Respond To Negative Online Reviews

Most businesses have mixed emotions about online consumer reviews, but the doctor community has opposed consumer reviews of their services to an unusual degree. Why? Some possible explanations:

Doctors are sensitive about their reputation. Small business owners (including doctors) have strong linkages between their personal identity and the business’ identity, but doctors often take negative patient reviews even more personally than most business owners. Sometimes, this reflects the doctor’s passion for delivering high-quality services, so doctors are frustrated if they don’t achieve that goal. Other times, doctors may feel like the patients weren’t grateful, especially when the doctor did the best he/she could in complex circumstances.

Patient reviews matter. Historically, patient opinions about the quality of their healthcare didn’t matter too much. Many doctors got patients through hospital/insurance affiliations and referrals from other doctors. Patient word-of-mouth also played a role, but doctors who failed to keep patients happy didn’t always suffer the professional consequences. Now, because patients can speak publicly about their experiences and influence other prospective patients, they have new-found leverage over doctors.

Patients can’t judge the quality of medical advice. Doctors often complain that patients lack the medical expertise to evaluate whether the doctor gave sound medical advice. While doctors are the “experts” in the doctor-patient relationship, this usually overstates matters by a lot. Patients are more sophisticated about medical services than ever before (due, in part, to their independent Internet research), and patients often can and do obtain second opinions from other doctors. Furthermore, as I’ll discuss in a moment, patient reviews often address matters unrelated to a doctor’s medical advice, and in those cases the patients' lack of medical expertise is irrelevant.

Confidentiality obligations restrict doctors’ ability to respond. Unlike many other small business owners, doctors owe their patients a duty of confidentiality. As a result, doctors feel like patients can criticize their medical advice but the doctor can’t respond adequately due to confidentiality obligations.

Preying on these fears, for years an outfit called Medical Justice helped doctors suppress reviews by their patients. Medical Justice provided form contracts that asked patients to sign away their right to review the doctor or transfer the copyright in any unwritten reviews to the doctor. Many doctors--I estimate about 1,200 at the peak--embraced Medical Justice’s attractively pitched “solution” to the purported problems associated with patient reviews.

Encourage, Don’t Discourage, Patient Reviews

Everyone--even Medical Justice--now realizes it was a huge mistake to discourage patient reviews. Doctors should want and encourage their patients to write reviews because:

Most online reviews by patients are positive. The vast majority of patients’ reviews of their doctors are positive. Doctors should get the public accolades for the excellent work they do.

Reviews provide doctors with useful feedback. In addition to (rare) concerns about medical advice, patients may encounter issues with parking, office managers, billing practices, operating hours or bedside manners. Indeed, most patient reviews address issues other than medical advice (see this press release). While none of these detract from the quality of a doctor's medical advice, these issues do matter to existing and prospective patients. Patient reviews provide doctors with honest and incredibly valuable feedback about what they are doing right with their practice, and what aspects they might want to revisit.

Individual reviews may not be credible, but the wisdom of the crowd is credible. Doctors are sometimes petrified that a single patient will post an unfair review online, and that review will permanently damage the doctor’s practice. Although this fear is easily overblown (prospective patients typically don’t make such an important decision based on a single review), it is quite easy to avoid this issue. As the First Amendment maxim goes, the solution to “bad” speech is more speech. Consistent with the “wisdom of the crowds,” any individual review isn’t necessarily credible, but the aggregate assessment of all patients becomes increasingly credible as the number of reviews grows. If a doctor's only online review is negative, that review gains power from its uniqueness. By expanding the number of online reviews, prospective patients get a more complete picture.

This reinforces why Medical Justice’s so-called solution was so counterproductive. Doctors need a large enough set of patient reviews to achieve the wisdom of the crowds, yet Medical Justice helped and encouraged doctors to suppress patient reviews--increasing the odds that doctors would have only one or two patient reviews online, giving those reviews heightened significance for prospective patients who were starved for that information. Doctors who followed Medical Justice's system are now scrambling to grow their review numbers; those who never tried to suppress patient reviews have a decided advantage over them.

It is unethical, and perhaps illegal, to restrict patient reviews. Medical Justice’s contracts have not been definitively tested in court yet, so we don’t know for sure if they’re legal or not. However, efforts to restrict patient reviews face some serious problems, such as:

In the late 1990s, software company Network Associates tried to impose a contractual clause restricting buyers from publishing reviews of the software. In 2003, a New York court enjoined Network Associates from continuing to use that clause.

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Service’s Office of Civil Rights required a doctor to stop using Medical Justice’s anti-review form.

In one case where a doctor threatened to enforce the Medical Justice form against a patient, the patient instead preemptively sued the doctor. The court’s initial opinion signaled serious skepticism about the legitimacy of the doctor’s conduct.

Even more importantly than the legal risks, asking patients to restrict their rights sends a terrible message to a doctor's patients. Basically, it tells patients that the doctor doesn’t trust them enough to tell the truth online. That distrust, at the beginning of an often long-term and vital relationship, permanently undermines the doctor-patient relationship. How can a doctor expect patients to talk honestly and openly about their personal medical conditions, if the doctor has told them from day 1 that he/she don’t trust them to be honest elsewhere?

Dealing with a Negative Review

If the number of patient reviews is large enough, any outlier negative review will be diluted by the others. Still, some things a doctor might do in response to a negative review:

Learn from the review. Negative reviews offer doctors valuable feedback (no matter how poorly expressed), including feedback that patients are too afraid to tell their doctors directly. Doctors should try to overcome their emotional reactions to a negative review and think objectively whether the patient might have a point--and if so, how the doctor will improve his/her services.

Respond privately. If a doctor runs into an incredibly unhappy patient, it is worth trying to reach out to the patient privately. (Not all patient reviews are attributed, so this isn’t always possible). Doctors should show sincerity, sympathy and contrition. When done properly, doctors frequently can turn their worst critic into their most loyal ally.

Respond publicly only if necessary. Repeatedly, I’ve seen a doctor’s happy patients rush to the defense of a doctor under attack and independently rebut a negative review. If a doctor's patients are satisfied, the doctor can trust them to correct misinformation.

Where a review criticizes a doctor's medical advice, the doctor can’t respond with specifics about the patient’s circumstances (unless the patient consents), but the doctor can describe his/her standard protocols under specified conditions.

If the negative feedback is accurate, the doctor might apologize in public and explain how he or she will going to avoid the problem in the future. Patients don’t expect doctors to be perfect, but they do expect doctors to learn from their mistakes. Owning up to a mistake helps prospective patients trust their doctors even more. Note that responding to the review at all could provide extra visibility to the review, so public silence might be a rational choice.

Complain to review websites about fake reviews. Review websites often won’t intervene when doctors claim that reviews defame them, and they are not legally obligated to do so (or legally liable for their failure to intervene) due to a statute Congress enacted in 1996 (47 USC 230). However, if a doctor has credible evidence that the review is fake, review websites may be interested. Review websites hate fake reviews as much as doctors do.

Lawsuits are almost never a good option. Suing patients is a categorically bad idea, even if they’ve lied. Inevitably the patient will respond with a malpractice claim or will bring a complaint against the doctor's license to practice; a lawsuit calls more attention to the patient’s assertions (the Streisand Effect); doctors suing patients often look like they have something to hide; and perhaps most importantly, the doctor isn't likely to win. Over the past decade, I’ve identifiedabout two dozen doctor vs. patient lawsuits over online reviews. Doctors rarely win in court, and even worse, some doctors ultimately must pay the attorneys’ fees of their patients as well as their own. That’s a really bad business outcome.

The legal analysis is more complicated if the doctor can prove that a competitor or vindictive party is posting fake reviews. Those lawsuits are more winnable than lawsuits against patients, but often the time and costs required to win simply aren’t worth it. If a doctor decides to go this route, the doctor should clarify with his/her attorney what the ideal outcome is, the odds of achieving that ideal outcome, and how much it will cost to try.

Technical Dr. Inc.'s insight:

Contact Details :

[email protected] or 877-910-0004 www.technicaldr.com

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kingdomofhellfire · 8 years

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Shaw: A History

 Full Name: Sebastian Hiram Shaw My name Means: Sebastian derived from a Latin name that means “from Sebaste” and Sebaste is a town means “venerable”. Hiram is Hebrew for “Exalted Brother”. The Shaw name has been in America almost as long as white people. The earliest noted American Shaw was the Reverend of Salem in 1692 (and was also the Sorcerer Supreme ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). Nicknames: When he was younger, people shortened his name to Seb, but now that he is older he finds nicknames detract from the image he has built for himself. Birthdate: December 18th, 1989 Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA Age: 28 Nationality: American Race: Caucasian  Astrological Sign + Traits: Sagittarius. Strengths: Generous, idealistic, great sense of humor. Weaknesses: Promises more than can deliver, very impatient, will say anything no matter how undiplomatic (Shaw would argue none of these are true and he has the track record to prove it). Hair color: Brown  Eye color: Dark brown  Prominent features:  Skin tone: A slight tan.  Blemish, Distinguishing marks or Scars?: Shaw is notoriously hard to mark. He has accelerated healing, which is not incredibly fast, but works well enough to heal up any surface wounds that he may suffer. Build/Body Type: Shaw is tall and broad Height: 6'2" Weight: 210lb Speech Patterns: Shaw worked very hard in college to rid himself of his Pittsburgh accent. Now he speaks in a slightly formal American accent. He would not be out of place announcing the nightly world news. Tag words: Strengths: Planning, manipulating, understanding what people want. Weaknesses: overconfidence, inability to trust

Sebastian Hiram Shaw was named by his father, Jacob Shaw. Jacob’s father desperately wanted to be part of the long line of successful and intelligent Shaw men his family is so well known for. However, he failed his family, driving them into bankruptcy. Even as a poor man, Jacob knew the power and influence behind a strong name. He chose Hiram as the middle name so as to further connect his son to his lineage, and Sebastian for its meaning and he approved of the sound of it, thinking it was sophisticated. Shaw has very few nicknames. As a child, those close to him would call him Seb (Sebastian is a bit of a mouthful). Now that he is an adult, Shaw understands the importance of a name, especially since his name is the name of the company he built. Calling him Seb will most likely get you a raised eyebrow coupled with a stern look. Continuing to do so shows a lack of self-preservation. If one cannot manage all of the syllables of ‘Sebastian’ then ‘Shaw’ will work just as well. Shaw is 28, having been born the night of December 18th, 1989. He is a college graduate and CEO of a major corporation he built by hand. He seems older for his age, partly because he has done so much in so little time and holds so much sway in the world that the idea he could possibly be under thirty seems impossible. Shaw’s mutant ability will slow his aging ability down, so the air of experience will help him down the line. One thing that Shaw stresses the importance of is appearance. He is tall, 6 foot 2, and broad. He works out consistently, both for vanity and to heighten and strengthen his mutant abilities. Shaw is brown eyed and brown haired. He sports a well maintained beard. (The faceclaim is Jamie Dornan and the only issue I have with this man is he is too skinny. Shaw is built and not just a six pack. Look up his comic version and you’ll see what I mean. He’s got a wider chest than some forms of Superman. Sebastian holds a belief that you can always be better. He trains himself mentally and physically as much as possible. And his mutation is so wholly physical and the more he works, the more energy he builds up, the stronger he is. It only makes sense that he would have the physique of a weight lifter and fighter as opposed to a runner.) The reason I am so focused on his build is because otherwise Shaw is rather average in appearance. Brown eyes, brown hair, slightly tanned. As a rule, he will never scar, there are no blemishes or even freckles. If not for his training, the way he holds himself and his importance Shaw would be really average looking. It is oddly important to discuss Shaw’s attire. I’ve based a lot of him off of the comics and the movies are set in 1962 which means by all accounts he should be wearing the dumbest clothes. Comic’s Shaw is super into period clothes. He looks like he’s ready to grab a drink with Benjamin Franklin. The reasoning there is that he views it as a time where there was great freedom (and there was for white dude so there’s that). Comics Shaw lives in the current age and has oddly romanticized that time period for clothing. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t and maintain any sort of dignity for him in this universe. He would be laughed out the door. Worse, he would attract too much attention; for all of my ‘Shaw wants to be noticed and show off’ chatter, it makes more sense for him to do this in a socially acceptable way. Shaw is showing you his power and appearing up front about himself when he dresses like this, keeping up the vain appearance of a young CEO, but he’s so much more dangerous than that and would not want more attention beyond his only legitimate business. Rather than frilly shirts and tailcoats, Shaw splurges on the best modern/classic clothes he can get his hands on. He does wear a three piece suit most of the time, but does understand the importance of dressing down (no vest). Shaw doesn’t wear jeans, he doesn’t wear tee-shirts on their own, perhaps accented with a lighter jacket. If he isn’t wearing a tie, he most likely has a number of top buttons open, showing off his chest or has replaced it with an ascot (think Fred from Scooby-Doo). He has absolutely no issue running around without a shirt and would do so more often if he wasn’t a professor and surrounded by children. He fights without his shirt, and in black pants. He saves more shirts that way. He accessories with cufflinks and a large wristwatch. When he’s headed off to be alone, pajama pants, boxers or absolutely nothing. Shaw’s clothing, like most things about him, are a reflection of his status. He favors dark blues and black to tie in with his Black King status. He wears these thing, not for comfort, but as a sign of power and status. Notable relationships: Emma Frost: Starting off with one of the few people to make it out of Shaw’s life alive. Shaw first noticed her off stage and was struck by her. It was during his more sentimental days, he was in love with Lourdes and best of friends with Ned, but he saw something of himself in her. Someone who was unwilling to be trapped by the circumstances they were born into. Later, after a conversation with another worker, he found out the circumstances were ones of riches rather than poverty which broadened his respect for her. It is far more difficult to walk away from a gilded cage. It wasn’t until he saw her act, and more importantly her diamond mutation, that he stepped forward and introduced himself. From there he discovered she was a telepath and dedicated a portion of his time to honing her skills and training her to be a person worthy of the Hellfire Club. When Ned Berkman betrayed Shaw, he was able to count on Emma to overthrow him and take his place as Black King and crown her his White Queen. From then on Emma is the closest person to Shaw and quite possibly the person he trusts most in the world. Through their time together Emma was the first to suggest a deeper romantic connection. At first, Shaw refused, still too sore from the loss of his fiancée and the betrayal of his closest friend. Over time they grew closer and did attempt a relationship which they later dissolved amicably. Even if they are no longer seeing each other, the comfortableness and physicality between them remains. She continues to run the Hellfire Club as his second and most likely will, saving some great fallout between them. When mutants started being called to learn at a SHIELD facility dressed up as a university, Emma was sent to investigate this . Within a year, Shaw lost all contact with her. Frustrated and concerned about a serious threat rising to the Hellfire Club and mutant kind coupled with the real possibility Emma was dead, Shaw reached out to SHIELD University and offered to teach with them. Now that the two are together again, they are working to thwart President Kelly’s anti-mutant agenda.

Lourdes Chantel: Shaw never mentions his relationship with Lourdes. He will not speak of her and unless you were in his life before Ned Buckman’s betrayal, you will not have had the chance to meet her. Shaw met Lourdes at one of his first galas, making friends and networking with so many older and richer people who were trying to steal from him the secret of his success. She spotted him and drew his attention to her, captivating him from that moment onwards. They started a whirlwind romance, she would visit him on jobsites and text him in the boardroom. With her teleportation powers and her family’s money and clout, they were able to go anywhere, do anything. She was the one to introduce him to Ned Buckman and the Hellfire Club, which she was already a member of. It was a decision she would soon regret. As Shaw listened more to Ned and spent more time with the Club he began to change. Less time enjoying life with her and more time ruining the lives of other in the pursuit of money and power. She begged him to leave, told him he was changing, but she couldn’t leave the man she loved. On Christmas Eve, Shaw got down on one knee and proposed to her. By the end of the year she would be dead. Ned Buckman, hated mutants, a secret he had kept close to his heart until he unleashed the first sentinels and attacked all of the mutants in the club. Shaw and the rest of the Club members fought valiantly, but in the action Lourdes was shot through with a harpoon, dying in his arms. The rage and sadness propelled him through the rest of the fight, calming only slightly when he snapped Ned’s neck. Without Lourdes there is no reason for Shaw to leave the Club he now runs. He misses her desperately, not quite sure if he will ever love someone as openly and truly as he did her.

Ned Buckman: If Shaw ever had an inciting incident to propel him into villainy, it was the betrayal of Ned Buckman. When Lourdes introduced Shaw to the Hellfire Club, she introduced him to Ned Buckman, the White King of the Inner Circle. The man took an instant shining to Shaw, taking the young man under his wing. With Ned’s guidance, Shaw’s work took a darker and more profitable turn. A sizable chunk of the dirty tricks Shaw knows today he learned from Ned. Most of all, Shaw trusted him. So much so that when Ned came to Shaw in secret, toting a new project capable of trapping mutants and taking their power so the Hellfire Club could have their own personal powered military, Shaw agreed. Not only did he agree to help with Ned’s Sentinel project, he supplied metal, man-hours and a substantial amount of funds. The end result, Sentinels running through the Hellfire Club’s base of operations and murdering mutants, particularly Lourdes, shattered any trust Shaw had in Ned and any other person in existence. So Shaw snapped Ned’s neck and had him collected. Like a good friend he spoke at his funeral and set up a fund to support research into brain tumors like the one the press was told Ned died from. Shaw saw all of this death and destruction as a product of his naïveté. He had wanted to impress Ned, he cared too much about what the older man had thought of him.

Jacob Shaw: Sebastian Shaw’s father. An engineer, he often created new inventions and improved faults in other products. He raised Sebastian with an understanding of the strength of their family. It was difficult, hearing Jacob wax poetically of every other ancestor as Sebastian watched his father struggle to keep the lights on. But Sebastian always felt loved in his home and loved his father in return. Jacob He was inspired to follow in his father’s footsteps and take up engineering as his major. However, the fiscally challenging times and his father’s lack of success also taught him he needed to learn how to promote himself and his talents. Soon he switched over to business, focusing his attention towards business.

What is in your character’s memory?

Shaw’s memory is nothing special. He does have a high IQ and a strong memory to support that, but there is nothing super about it. There is one incident from his childhood that he does vaguely remember. At one point in his early childhood, Sebastian’s father handed him over to Mister Sinister. He was experimented on and altered so that Sinister could use his body after he died. When Jacob realized what was happening, he took his son back and built a machine to counter the effects. So, since Shaw was drugged up and traumatized he wouldn’t remember everything. As for traumatic events in his adulthood, Shaw is more likely to investigate them than forget.

Where does your character live?

Shaw currently lives in his SHIELD provided apartment. The space is altogether much too small, which is why he spends so much time in his office or one of the places in town he has purchased under aliases and shell companies. Upon moving in Shaw redid all of the interiors, choosing to upgrade the furniture but stopping at physical changes such as wall color or faucets and fixtures and equipment. It’s tasteful, not cluttered, with art on the wall and dark hardwood furniture. Fabrics are most likely black or purple or a series of colors to compliment those two colors. In my mind, I consider it to look like the furniture was taken from a restored colonial historical house. The furniture is ornate and beautiful but not necessarily comfortable. The apartment is really more of a place to host guests on campus than anything else. He sleeps there. He eats at his office or a restaurant, he works out in the gym, performs his professorial tasks in his teacher’s office and saves his personal business for the Italian restaurant or an off campus apartment.

What is your character good at:

One of the things I love about Shaw is that if he lost his superpower today he would only lose a small fraction of his actual power. Shaw awoke his mutation late in life. This means that Shaw got where he is today through physical and mental hard work and rarely relies on his powers for professional (non hellclub) business.

Shaw’s power is kinetic energy manipulation.

What does your character want?

Power. Shaw will kill all of you if he has found that the amount of power he would gain is greater than the amount of energy and trouble it would cause him. This is why I view him as a villain. Even if he is doing the right thing, he is doing it for power. He would do terrible, terrible things to get what he wants and due to his personality and how he view the world, he would rarely seek out power through good deeds in the long run.

What does your character do when they are not at home?

When Shaw isn’t at home, he’s at work or the Hellfire Club. If he isn’t at work or the Club, he’s most likely at a function or on a mission for work or the Club. Or he’s working out. What I’m trying to get at is that Shaw isn’t one to waste idle time. He’d rather be improving himself, his station in the world, or elevating the Hellfire Club (which is really an extension of him).

How does your character love?

Shaw loves deeply. He commits himself fully to his partner. The issue is that he has already loved and it ended in bloodshed. Rather than reflect and repair his heart, Shaw now considers love to be a potential weakness. Sex and causal relationships are where he thrives. He is rarely monogamous. He has a history of preferring women, but has no issue with starting relationships with men.

What will ultimately destroy your character?

Telepaths.

Okay, bad joke, but not completely untrue. Shaw thrives on his own. It’s his control that makes him a strong leader. The number of people who can physically overpower him is short, but no so for people who can control his mind. And yet, Shaw is so close to Emma. He knows there’s that potential for her to turn on him, that she could undo him just as easily as he could snap her neck.

Things that can defeat Shaw’s power. He has to touch the item to stop them, so extreme temperatures would burn. He can suffocate. Telepathy can force him to turn off his ability.

#headcanon #suchallenge1 #[im going to format this correctly later I promise] [Work in progress]

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markjin-angel-blog · 8 years

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Things To Do In Order To Look Young

Getting Older gracefully is not governed by one overriding formula that suits everyone's needs. However, building your own strategy can begin with the right information and suggestions. Have the determination to live your life the best way possible, and look forward to health and longevity. The tips in this article will help you deal with getting older the right way. Frowning creates far more wrinkles than smiling. It sounds silly, but it really is true. If you find yourself frowning, give yourself a sharp pinch. Over time, you should be able to break this unattractive habit. Do not preoccupy yourself with numbers. You are paying doctors good money for them to worry about your age and many other things. Paying too much attention to the numbers, may mean missing out on things in your life.

Slow the getting older process by eating a healthy, well-balanced diet. Make sure that your diet is full of fiber, vegetables, whole grains and fruits. Be certain that you are only eating foods that don't have a lot of cholesterol and bad fats. This gives your body all the nutrients and vitamins it needs to be strong and healthy. To live as healthy of a life as you possibly can you should continue to learn new things. Learning should be a lifelong goal. As we age, sometimes we get to a point when we can no longer take care of ourselves. At some point, the elderly are no longer able to care for themselves. As we lose the ability to care for ourselves, we should look into nursing home or assisted living situations. This may not be the best option for everyone, but it may be the only one and is a reality to be prepared for. These facilities employ licensed professionals to help residents with a high quality of care. Make your home feel like it is part of you! As you age, you might discover that the home you are in isn't the home you expected to grow old in. If you have relocated to a new home, fill it with items that make you feel comfortable. If you want your skin to look its best as you get older, do not use foundation or powder makeup. Hydration only gets more important as your skin ages, so the effects get more severe. You may find that simpler cosmetics such as mascara, lip gloss and eye liner are better suited for you. Take care of your eyes as you grow older. Some decrease in your vision is natural with growing older, but regular eye exams can detect any serious conditions before they do too much damage. Your life expectancy can be shortened if you eat too much sugar. Sugar shortens your life and makes you age more quickly. Studies have shown in every animal on the planet that sugar will reduce the lifespan by significant reductions. Have you health care provider check your blood pressure on a regular basis or do it on your own at pharmacies that offer a free blood pressure machine. High blood pressure can be called 'the silent killer' because it is possible to have high blood pressure but not have any symptoms. Having high blood pressure can cause damage to various areas of your body and these risks increase with age, so be sure to have your blood pressure watched closely. Periodic monitoring will help you notice and treat any problems before they get worse. Smoking will prevent you from looking your best - so quit! Smoking causes wrinkles and can also make your lips thinner, which detracts from your appearance. Smoking will add years to your appearance and your life. Improving your diet will make a big difference in your battle against growing older. Consume a large variety of nutritious foods to ensure you get the nutrients you need. Make sure to include lean proteins, fruits and veggies, low-fat dairy and hearty whole grains. Avoid sugary snacks and sodas, and eat three balanced meals a day. Do not throw away medical records. This will allow you to have a complete medical history whenever you see a new doctor. Not only is smoking bad for your health and the health of those around you, but it can also cause unsightly wrinkles. If you smoke you are likely to get wrinkles prematurely, especially around your eyes and mouth. So, to stay young and vibrant looking, find a program to help you put those cigarettes down. Restoring hormones can be helpful for dealing with growing older issues. Loss of hormones in your body can cause all sorts of problems, including low exercise tolerance and depression as well as a decrease in endurance and your sex drive. Talk to a doctor to see if it is possible to take hormone supplements if this is a problem for you. Consider giving injection therapy a try. Injection therapy is a relatively new and highly effective way to get rid of unwanted wrinkles. This type of therapy reduces wrinkles by relaxing the muscles in your face. Also, these treatments tend to be safer than surgeries. Be aware that in order to get the results that you want, you may need more than a single treatment! For younger looking skin, get a facial massage. These massages can bring blood up to the skin which removes bags under the eyes. Massage your face with circular motions, using three fingers. Make sure to get checked out by a physician regularly. Completing these exams will help your doctor find any potential problems or diseases before they turn into a major health concern. Treating diseases such as cancer are much easier caught in the early stages. Hopefully these tips will give you a more empowered approach to the growing older process. You must apply what you have learned. You must take responsibility for your health even as you are faced with these challenges. Do not allow yourself to become complacent; it is in your best interest to develop a lifestyle that will allow you to age gracefully.

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freeplayonline-blog · 4 years

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Home Improvement - the Importance of Planning

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