#but i would also need there to be a glossary and a detailed map and maybe footnotes or a basic bestiary-

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

sometimes i like to imagine a future where i write that (y/a or adult targeted) dragon book series i desperately want to, but i know that i wouldn't be able to do it without including art in the book. every time a new important character is introduced the next page would have to be a reference / art of them to Show What They Look Like

#i dont think id be able to handle like. publishing or whatever Without that #maybe that stems from my control issues maybe im just an artist at heart #but i would also need there to be a glossary and a detailed map and maybe footnotes or a basic bestiary- #but then sometimes i wonder if i'd want it to be like... a comic instead #manga style in a way??? i wouldnt color it. it'd be in b&w with only the occasional colored spread or somethin #but all of that If Possible or plausible is a very long way off which is okay its okay #ill get there ill get there #unless something changes and i want to do something Else but its been a goal for many years already #its only recently that ive buckled down on the worldbuilding and character crafting and genuinely considering the plot and themes #its a hot mess! but theres something in there! im determined to find it #its definitely a couple years yet of changing things and switchin stuff around and Thinking.... #who knows if ill ever get there! i hope i will! #but yeah it'd be a book with a bunch of art shoved in it httyd style (kinda) #bc if im gonna Make something im gonna combine my favorite hobbies as best i can #absolutely unprompted #its an exciting but daunting prospect. writing an actual Thing #mostly the plot part of it #i can craft characters i can do worldbuilding #but the plot? oof #there's this other one ive been working on since 8th grade #and its still... barely anything lmao #its for my favorite personal characters - my very first real oc my special boy light of my life but Man. #plot has hands!!! #and then ofc there's my beloved idiot squad... i want to do something for them some day maybe.... #so many ambitions so little energy... i will strive to make future me healthy enough to achieve Something we so desperately want!

[ijustkindalikebooks]

Reviews: The 2022 Guide To The Night Sky and The Night Sky Almanac both by Wil Tirion and Storm Dunlop.

For the last two years I have been fortunate enough to get both of these books so I thought here I would show you the pros and cons of both books - in my opinion they are both five star books for different reasons and of course different levels of Astronomer.

The 2022 Guide To The Night Sky.

I've been fortunate, like I said to get access to these books and they never disappoint as they offer the rookie astronomer reading them an insight into the skies above for the year ahead, and does it so well.

Giving us comprehensive guides to the stars for the year, this book covers every month with incredible detail throughout, giving us calendars, maps of the skies, and a glossary that includes the language you'll need to know to get the most out of this book and is a perfect book for someone who maybe is just getting started, or just wants to know when to sit in the garden for a meteor shower. I love the maps, which make it easy to find the horizon and to find what you're looking for, I love how easy this book is to figure out when and what things are happening above us and I look forward to finding out what is coming next year, as these guides always are accurate and I've never been disappointed.

The Night Sky Almanac 2022.

I have been lucky enough to get these guides again as they give you and me the reader a guide to the night skies over the next year combined with star maps, calendars and notes on the history of space and stars in the book too that gives you something interesting contemplate for the next twelve months - The Night Sky Almanac is a quintessential guide to anyone with a love of astronomy, with a little more knowledge to boot. The guide gives so much details on the skies with incredible maps of the heavens. Wil Tirion is a legendary Uranographer and his talents are put to incredible use in this book and any guide he works on as we are given maps of the stars but also given detailed sky maps over a few days that will enable the reader to find exactly what they are looking for in any given month. The extra details go a long way too, with moon phases for the oncoming year, dark spots that will enable you to see the stars whereever you are in the UK and in the world and there's also a glossary that enables you to figure out the language and guides for the skies at twilight in nine different cities - I think this book gives you everything you need to be as astronomically accurate as you want to be, and it makes for a must read for anyone wanting to see the stars!

If you love space, I think these books are quintessential to your space experience.

(I received ARCs from Collins/Netgalley for honest review).

#books #book review #the night sky guide #2022 #the night sky almanac #non fiction #astronomy #science #bookblr #booklr #book

[warsofasoiaf]

Hello, if I’m doing a fantasy world does that mean that I need to explain what the words are used to describe the clothes are? For instance if I use the term of a little known dress would it be easy to just do a glossary in the back? Or could I do art work? Like when grrm has art work commissioned of his charcaters and outfits they wear could I do that in my book? Also, maps are a just right? I’m allowed to do maps getting specific? I love worldbuilding so much but have been told not to :part 1

Part 2: over describe. My favourite thing about writing is describing, but so many people say not to go into too much detail over the clothes. I do go into big detail about clothes, food, how things work, and that kinda stuff I worldbuilded. I Think it’s nice to immerse the reader into the world even if it’s not necessarily relevant they can get lost in it if they wanted to, however I understand that’s not how to write a book so I’m trying to cut down on it, are glossary okay? Are at work okay

Well, it’s really a question of what you want to write. If you’re looking to create a setting book, or a supplement to a setting book specifically detailing clothing, go to your heart’s content. 

If you’re writing a novel, instead use the word in a sentence to establish its context. If you’re writing multiple POV’s, use that vocabulary as a means to emphasize the voice of the character, and refrain from using that terminology when the POV character wouldn’t be able to distinguish them. I wouldn’t spend too much time on clothes unless the get-up of the character was important to the story. For example, if a POV character is able to distinguish a key piece of information from a clothing style or pattern, that would be an excellent use of specific vocabulary because it’s in service to a plot point. 

You can be as specific as you want with maps, just remember, your audience might not care unless the destination and journey matter to the story to the point where they specifically have a map. Even then, you want direction to flow from the text, and not have the readers constantly switching back-and-forth to see the map; that interrupts the flow of reading. If you’re writing for a tabletop game or a supplement to a setting book, of course, map away!

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#writing

[behind-the-screen-of-bangtan]

The poet born from the Sea

This post is part of the TSU. It belongs to the second part: Towards adulthood.

In “Skit: on the start line”, RM concludes the monologue about his fears while he was a trainee with a metaphor:

[...]I am as inconsequential as a speck of dust. It’s as if though before me lies the bluest ocean, and if I turn to look back, a vast desert. In this hourglass-like mindset, in this mood, I spent my three years as a trainee. And now, my debut is finally drawing near. Even after I debut, new oceans and new deserts will likely await me. I am not afraid, because what has made me who I am are the oceans and deserts I have witnessed until this moment. I will never forget the oceans and deserts I have seen.

This image of deserts and seas is one of the most recurrent in Bangtan’s discography. Don’t mix it with the link between Jimin and water though.

The biggest occurrence of this idea is during 화양연화 (The Most Beautiful Moment Life). It starts in the concept for 화양연화 Pt.1 and in the last scene of “I NEED U” (original ver.).

There are 3 concepts: “In Bloom”, “Unrest”, and “Daydream” - that’s set at the same seashore as the end of “I NEED U”.

The pictures were accompanied by poems by Arthur Rimbaud, including a verse from “The drunken boat”:

Then I bathed in the Poem of the Sea, Infused with stars, the milk-white spume blends, Grazing green azures: where ravished, bleached Flotsam, a drowned man in dream descends.

And one from “Eternity”:

It’s found we see. What? – Eternity. It’s the sun, free To flow with the sea.

Jean Richier made interesting interpretations of Rimbaud’s poems in L'Alchimie du verbe de Rimbaud - note however that these interpretations were made on the original texts in French and thus can’t apply on the English translations used here so Big Hit’s artistic team most likely don’t know about it.

Details can be found in the glossary but to summarize, the verse from the “Drunken Boat” refers to Rimbaud’s beginning as a poet and the one from “Eternity” has hidden meanings such as human ignoring their god, and words, the main element in poesy, ending by death. There’s also a strong association between the sea and motherhood - for example, Rimbaud as a poet is born from the "Poem of the Sea”.

Similar ideas can be found in BTS pictures. The main theme of The Most Beautiful Moment in Life is Youth, which implies the death of childhood (also supported by the poem “The sleeper in the valley” used with these pictures):

And the birth of adolescence (from a pond):

The other two concepts are placed in parallel in the two books. “Unrest” is set in a flat and is in color while “Daydream” is set by the sea and is in black and white.

The second one could be their longing for the past (thus the black and white) and the mother sea.

The first one could be the present, namely the newborn youth (they’re still wet) facing the dangers of the youth (the exact theme of 화양연화 Pt.1 as explained in the 151208 interview from MV Bank Stardust for “RUN” around 3:40): alcohol, drugs, loneliness, death...

We find the same thing in “I NEED U” (original ver.): sad and alone in most of the MV but together and happier when they’re at the sea. They come back to the sea to escape reality, especially the two boys that possibly suffered the most in the BU: Seokjin and Taehyung. Indeed, Taehyung faces the sea again in the Prologue, he tries to jump to escape his crime but we see in “RUN” that he’s drowning instead of finding peace. As for Seokjin, the end of the Highlight Reel and his poster show how much he’s missing the sea - both the sea from the BU and the reassuring mother sea. He replaces Taehyung at the top of the scaffolder in Euphoria but instead of jumping, he frees himself from his camera by throwing it in the sea. All these videos - excepted  “RUN” - also have a shot of the sea in common:

Lastly, note that this second birth could also be assimilated with the beginning of the boys as artists, just like Rimbaud. It’s supported by the picture of V associated with the verse from “the drunken boat”:

He’s writing while being in the water, like a literal poet from the sea.

In 화양연화 Pt.2, the sea is slightly less present but still here:

This picture is placed in the middle of the photobooks, between the “Je Ne Regrette Rien” and the “Papillon” concepts. The boys oscillate between those two worlds, one being the reality and the other a dream. Just like they swang between “Unrest” and “Daydream”.

We thus have people in a foreign world, so aliens, who come from the water, like whales. Cue “Whalien 52″! (don’t complain about my humor, I know no one’s reading this).

Lonely lonely lonely whale Like this, try calling once again Until this song that doesn’t have a response Reaches tomorrow

The song can be about both the youth and the artist/celebrity not fitting in the world, how they feel lonely because they’re different - like the 52-Hz whale is lonely because it can’t communicate with other whales (more details can be found in Muish’s rambling).

Sadly for the youth/artist, they’re going to wander in the world for a certain time before they can find another sea. It’s the story seen in “Save Me” (they’re at a beach without any sea, so like a desert) and told in “Lost”, the only song from the Wings series including the image of the sea and the desert:

I’m still standing here with my eyes closed Lost between the deserts and oceans I’m still wandering Where should I go yeah I didn’t know there were this many Paths I can’t go and paths I can’t take I never felt this way before Am I becoming an adult?

Just like in “Skit: on the start line”, the boy is walking between the desert and the sea.

Love Yourself is the next step. In this series, the yellow and blue colors were heavily used (details here). Yet, there’s almost no view of the sea.

The first mention is in “Best Of Me”:

Though I’ve not seen the end for me too If such an end exists, would that be you Though I wished for tender waves Why didn’t I know that you are the sea How am I speaking your language And also breathing your breath I’ll be you you who’s grasping on I meet your lips on the knife

The whole Love Yourself 承 Her album is about finding a destined love, so the sea. It’s confirmed in “Serendipity”. Jimin is in a yellow room figuring the desert and the sea is right in front of him.

Sadly, as explained in the hidden track “바다 (Sea)” and later in Love Yourself 轉 Tear, this sea was actually a desert - just like a mirage, you see it but you can’t reach it.

Is this place that I’ve reached really the sea, or is it a blue desert?

The sea ending up being a desert can also be seen in “FAKE LOVE (extended ver.)” MV with the transformation of the main room:

The boy interrupted his search of the sea in Love Yourself 結 Answer, the time for him to realize he had to love himself first before trying to find the sea. Now  that he’s done with that, he’s finally rewarded in Map of the Soul Persona, where he meets the ARMY Bomb ocean:

It’s confirmed in both “Make it right”:

Across the desert and the seas I wandered across the Wide wide world Baby I

[...] In the desert that I waded through without you, I’m thirsty So please quickly come and hold me I know that the sea without you Will be just like a desert in the end

And “HOME”:

I left home Hoping that all of these imaginations Won’t end as a mere mirage

[...] I felt like I could achieve anything I wanted I saw the ocean yeah Before I even opened this door Oh yeah

BTS has found their sea, their source of hope and love in ARMY. And with all this power, they turn from a poet to a god and change the water (love) in wine (art) in “Dionysus”:

Right now I’m in front of the door of the world The cheers that I hear when I step on the stage Can’t you see my stacked Broken thyrsus Now I’m born again, finally

[...] Born as a Kpop idol The reborn artist The reborn artist The reborn artist

[...] Drink it all up up up My wine glass ay Everyone fall in in in Into the crazy artist One glass one shot Two glasses two shots Drunk on art, sing it Ong-heya 

#BTS #TSU #towards adulthood

[thefarrons]

Everything right with XIII

With opinions so mixed on XIII either going from one extreme to the other, those being either "XIII was the best game ever and has no issues" or "It was the worst game ever and a disgrace to the franchise!" I thought it would be interesting if I (someone who legitimately enjoyed the game and noticed dozens of problems in my over 100hrs of playtime) did a (almost) unbiased look at the game and go over everything wrong and right with XIII as well as give opinions on what could be improved or changed in a future port.

​

for the sake of time and page space im going to be breaking this up into two separate posts. this first one is going to be on everything right with the game.

​

\*EVERYTHING GOOD WITH XIII\*

​

\*STORY AND FLUIDITY\*

with XV coming and showing us just how much we take game narratives for granted XIII presents it's on-screen narrative particularly well. the games narrative flows pretty well as relevant and exciting cutscenes happen every half and hour or so always giving the player something to look forward to while playing. You never go for long stretches of playtime without something happening in the story unlike XV (don't worry im not going to just bash XV) and most chapters end in a cliffhanger like fashion giving incentive to players to keep playing to see what happens next.

​

The datalog is another debatable feature of the game but one that ultimately does more good then bad. say you missed a term, character's name or location in a cutscene? no problem cause the game essentially gives you an in game glossary to scroll through giving you all the data you need to keep up with or lean about the games plot or world. Now this does come with a downside "yes" but that'll be explained later.

​"no need for a wiki search now"

the game also has brief chapter summaries that can be read every time you load up the game. Say you last played a week ago and are a bit rusty on what happened last. No problem as you can now just read a quick paragraph and get all caught up.

​

the ending to the game is also pretty sound as conflicts brought up earlier are resolved and although there are two sequels afterwards you don't feel obligated to play them as the ending here is ultimately satisfying.

​"no need for a sequel here"

\*PLOT AND CHARACTERS\*

​

Im not going to delve super deep into either of the two as both topics could easily take up an essay each individually.

​

The plot of XIII is overall messy. While you certainly don't get the "obviously unfinished" vibe like you do with XV you also can't help but feel there was a lot left on the cutting room floor for XIII. The standard plot of XIII is alright more or less. the main conflict of XIII is fairly explained well. a group of (mostly) strangers are branded enemies of their home and have to find a way to complete their "focus" or suffer either eternal sleep or a zombified existence. The main plot of the game is explained as the characters do take the time to explain specific concepts and terms so the player just watching the cutscenes and not reading the datalog can stay up to speed with the story. XIII however looses it's players with it's finer details or abstract details never being explained well or never explained at all but more on this later.

​

tldr: the OVERALL plot of the story isn't too hard to follow but the finer details of the story are muddled and incoherent

​

The cast of XIII however is easily one of the two best reasons to play the game. The main party of XIII is a bunch of mostly strangers who have been thrown together and have to cooperate with one another or die. while the main story of the game can be a bit of a head scratch it's characters make up for it with their interactions with one another. The main party has a lot of problems with each other but also problems with themselves and the fun of being with this party is seeing when one confronts another, how they react and what change this causes. it's satisfying when they finally accept one another as they've actually grown with one another so when they finally start throwing some banter in the second half it feels earned as you the player knows first hand knows what these characters have been through together.

​"the game has great character arc's"

\*ART DESIGN & MUSIC\*

​

XIII is a linear game and by this time you and your grandmother knows about it however just because the lvl design itself sucks doesn't automatically equate to "boring". Although linear XIII easily boasts some of the most impressive areas in backdrops in the series in terms of visually alone. every "hallway" you travel is visually polished to the T and always relevant to the main story at hand. aside from two particular areas most usually aren't very long and before you know it your on to the next location. While it's unfortunate you can't "explore" much you can totally get a sense for what type of world the game is trying to convey to you. From the SI-FI bridges and highways on cocoon to the wilderness of pulse below you feel like your in another world especially with the fantastic ost from Masashi Hamauzu.

"I'll take this any day over an empty open world"

all and all while I definitely understand why XIII's linearity can be disappointing especially with what I just wrote above I still don't see why it's art design and music can't make up for that and still take you to another world.

​

\*THE BATTLE SYSTEM\*

​"this is how a paradigm deck should look"

arguably the best the best thing to come out of XIII and the franchise in general. The paradigm system is a great combination of gambits from XII and standard ATB. XII while deep got a lot of flack for its lean towards set ups rather than active play. XIII takes from the system it built while overall streamlining it and merged it with standard turn based combat. XIII requires players to prepare for battle by setting up strategies (paradigms) outside combat and then executing them during. It's a system easily rewards your ability to plan beforehand and your speed and timing once in battle. players are *incentivized* to play ASAP for a star rating. the quicker you are the more stars you get which gets you better loot for upgrading or selling.

​

"press x to win huh?

one of the more controversial topics with XIII are it's level caps and while they certainly are a detriment in the long run they actually serve a good purpose during a first time playthrough. In a lot of rpg's in general when a player is faced with a boss or enemy they can't beat they simply grind to overpower the enemy through sheer stats and numbers rather than actually beating them with skills or techniques. XIII mitigates this issue by limiting how much grinding the player can do in one given chapter. This in turn forces the player to lean the battle system and use the tools at their disposal to overcome whatever challenge the player faces.

​

"It's so pretty tho..."

\*POST GAME CONTENT\*

​"The place where I spent 100hrs"

XIII's post game content is a hard thing to sell overall. It's a post game that definitely requires how much the player enjoys the battle system or the characters. XIII has 64 overall missions to complete and each one of them is an interesting battle to overcome. doing these missions eventually unlock you Chocoboes to ride across the map and discover other areas of grand pulse. there's a survival like mode called "titans trials" in which players can compete in multiple lvls of pre set battles in which the player can net goods and rewards. there's also a couple hidden bosses hidden in a few select locations. The biggest downside to all this is that it's all one type of side content so the game is really banking hard that you fully know and love combat at that point and if you do then you easily have an extra 60 or so hrs added to your playtime.

​

do you agree with what i wrote? please sound off below.

but yeah this is everything I think XIII does right. Thanks for reading all the way and I plan to also make a twin post about everything WRONG with the game. I actually really like this game but it has a lot of problems and I intend to break down all of them.

#ffxiii #lightning farron #lightning returns #lightning claire farron #hope estheim #claire farron #oerba yun fang #ff13 lightning

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Books

Divorce and Remarriage in the Church by David Instone-Brewer. Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, no, I’m absolutely not considering this. Friend is going through this and said it should be a general read in the Christian community because it also teaches theology and what questions you ask when reading the Bible, and how not to say things like, “Well, guess you can never get remarried,” to your friend going through divorce because it isn’t true. That prelude being said... I’m still not done yet, but I’m at least 3/4 through and it is blowing my mind almost every chapter and I will be reading this book aloud and posting it to Youtube, as I’ve been doing with other books recently, because it’s THAT important.

A Map of Days by Ransom Riggs. I’m not entirely sure what to think of this book. It definitely made me feel better about the too-many-coincidences-helping-our-heroes-out issues of the previous book. I think I’ll trek with this series a bit longer (she says, having come to the end of the book which cliffhangers off, promising ANOTHER in the works).

Watership Down by Richard Adams. I read this book a few times as a child and then again as highschool required reading (I was mortally offended when classmates referred to it as “the bunny book” as if it was some cute little hoppity hop hop fluff novel). It’s pretty much how I remembered it. Gritty. Puts you in with rabbits and the mindset of the animal (can’t really count higher than four, get to know each other through touch and smell and breathing rate and play, revere stories of tricksters, etc) and is overall a wonderful and absorbing read. I also greatly appreciate the inclusion of a glossary of terms in the back whenever the text doesn’t immediately explain a word. 2/3 through my re-read and it’s a comforting book to go through again, after all these years. My copy doesn’t even have a front cover anymore and the back cover is dogged and all the pages are near-brown and all the swear words are blotted out from my super puritanical phase where I wanted to censor all my books as a teen. It’s a lovely relic of bygone days and a comforting read. Though now I’m irritated at myself for all the blotted out words jarring me out of a good reading flow.

On Deck: Trauma Stewardship by Laura Van Dernoot Lipskey and Connie Burk.

Shows

Watership Down (Netflix). (before re-reading the book) I guess this could be classed as “miniseries” or “very long movie broken into four parts”. Last time I read Watership Down was in high school for assigned reading, though I had already read it as a morbid little kid and loved it. I can’t remember all details, but whoever made this show quite obviously loved the source material. It does similar things as the book, like dumping you into the rabbits’ vocabulary without explaining and allowing you to pick up what things mean as you watch (or hoping you read the book and already understand the words). Nothing rings very false to what I remembered. This is a well done adaptation. It’s a little hard to distinguish most of the rabbits from each other, but stepping back and watching with a general comprehension (instead of getting absolutely stuck on figuring out which rabbit is which) is useful in this case. Overall? Good watch. (revision of opinion post re-reading the book, see above point) So I’m starting to see where the Netflix version took a bit of a left turn. It did a fairly good job, though actually the book didn’t drop us into the terminology as sharply as I thought I remembered. The thing that stands out to me the most is that Netflix brought more females to the front of the story and that does actually bother me to a certain extent, and here’s why: where is the sense in dropping human morality onto an animal STORY? An animal FABLE is a whole different kettle of fish. An animal FABLE is like Animal Farm, where animal characters are intended to stand in for human counterparts to deliver hard truths. An animal STORY is like Watership Down or The Promise of the Wolves or Venus Among the Fishes and all stories that take place WITHIN the animal world as if we, the reader, are experiencing things from the animal point of view entirely. In the book, Watership Down, the female rabbits (does) are looked on mostly as acquisitions to be made and are not very plot relevant beyond that, but this is understandable because, simply, they are animals. This isn’t about human morality, this is about prey mammals figuring out survival, both day to day survival and survival of their warren. To this end, the males (bucks) do most of the planning and fighting and trickstering wherein lies the action of Watership Down. By bringing the does to the forefront, it feels like Netflix was trying to shoehorn in some human morality because saying otherwise would be distasteful to people watching. But. It’s. About. Animals. So this is a bit of a sticking point for me that does bother me. However, overall, I saw nothing that truly gutted the heart of the book and still consider it worth a watch.

Steven Universe: The Recent Upheavals. I don’t know. I love the new fusion designs. I absolutely adored That Scene (got chills when he shouted). But I’m not sure how I feel about a lot of the rest. Very conflicted.

Ditched after one episode list: Dragon Pilot (Netflix), Last Hope (Netflix).

Movies

Albion: The Enchanted Stallion. Okay, I guess? Writing was kind of mediocre, but another one where they were obviously trying with beautiful sets and costumes.

Shrek. It’s been a long time but it was a good rewatch. The gross stuff always gets to me a bit, but the thing is they built it to be totally in character and part of this creature’s fairytale existence which earns it more points. Shrek has always been one of the most loving fairytale deconstruction mockery movies and now I want to rewatch the second one because I remember it being superior in every way to an already wonderful first movie.

The Prince of Egypt. It’s been a long time. I was struck again how beautiful certain songs on that soundtrack are (any of the large chorus songs and the Heaven’s Eyes song especially) and the utter despair of coming to repeated dead ends, but how in spite of that, no. God was always there. I have a million questions about why the dead ends and heart-hardening was necessary in the first place BUT. God was still always there. And the Jews exist to this day. This movie isn’t, of course, completely accurate but it is beautiful and it reminded me of things I needed reminding about.

Games

Life is Strange 2, chapter 1. Conflicted on a couple of points. Character Caricatures don’t sit well with me in general. But it’s beautiful and gripping and I’m looking forward to continuing with chapter 2 soon.

#n00b gamer child #child loves books #child loves movies

[allenmendezsr]

Dcc Model Trains Ebook And Online Model Railroad Club Membership

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/dcc-model-trains-ebook-and-online-model-railroad-club-membership/

Dcc Model Trains Ebook And Online Model Railroad Club Membership

 Buy Now

    With DCC you can have truly realistic operation without complex wiring. Your loco’s can run more smoothly, start easier, and operate at more prototypical top speeds with more pulling power. Truth is; your can easily program your loco’s to perform better than they ever did under the old DC system.

Tiny decoders can give you complete control over the loco speed, direction, lights and sounds. With just the press of a button you can operate your locomotives, the points and all your accessories with amazing effect!

Easy To Understand, Easy To Use… Clever Tips, Tricks & Techniques … To Save You Time, Money, And Frustration … Getting Started On Your DCC Model Railroad

DCC works with almost ANY scale or gauge: HO, OO, N, Z, S, TT, O, G… and, despite what you might have heard about converting your layout to DCC operation – you won’t have to lose anything, or change everything.

Your DCC model railroad can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.

You don’t even need to convert your whole layout at once. Just choose which loco’s you want to fit with a decoder, and they’ll still run using DC control. When you’re ready to GO DIGITAL, you simply disconnect the old DC unit, and (using the same wires), reconnect your new DCC controller. It’s really easy!

However, that said; there are things you need to know to avoid costly mistakes and have your DCC model train layout up and running “trouble-free” with minimum effort.

That’s where this “DCC Model Trains Handbook” can really come in handy.

This ebook shows you step-by-step how DCC works, and how to have your DCC model train layout performing to perfection in no time at all. It’ll guide you through the process in an easy way, so you can avoid the problems other experience. You’ll be ready to operate your trains smoothly at amazingly realistic speeds, with all the lights, sounds and actions you could imagine.

You can have it at your fingertips within 5 minutes … so you’ve got no waiting… and no shipping to pay.

You can view this ebook on your computer, burn it on a CD, or simply print out the pages you need. It’s really easy!

All The DCC Information You Need To Master DCC Like An Expert

All the basics are clearly and simply explained for you from: how DCC works, the functions of decoders, boosters, busses, timed voltages pulses and much more. Diagrams are included to make things easy to understand. These’s even a comprehensive “Glossary of DCC Terms” as a handy reference if you get stuck.

“Oops! Costly Mistakes & How To Avoid Them”

DCC doesn’t need to be expensive, but mistakes can be costly, not to mention the waste of time and frustration they cause. That’s why it’s best to avoid them occuring in the first place. You CAN take the right approach to old loco conversions, decoder installation, lighting CV’s and other projects that would challenge the unenlightened.

The DCC Model Trains Handbook will guide you step-by-step to have your DCC model railroad running to perfection in no time at all. Keep the handbook (e-book) by your layout, so it’s close-by if you ever have any problems you want to solve about: decoders and packets, power districts, auto-reverse, consisting, programming, function key mapping and more. Packed with useful tips and ideas.

22 DCC Dos and Don’ts

This DCC Handbook even includes 22 questions and answers supplied by others in the hobby, as they explain their secret tips and how they overcame the kinds of problems you’ll experience too. “A must have!”

You’ll also get to keep a companion ebook – “Model Railroad DCC Help”. This ebook covers ALL the DCC basics, and answers ALL the questions you’re likely to ask about DCC model trains and railroading.

This supporting ebook, is a handy reference guide to keep in your train room alongside your layout. As an example, here are just some of the questions answered in this DCC Help ebook:

What are the Different “Power Districts” on a DCC Train Model System?

Can a DCC and DC train operate at the same time on the same layout?

How Much Power Is Needed To Run A DCC System?

Should I modify the points for use in a DCC system?

What Type of Wiring is needed for a DCC Layout?

How Can I Wire a DCC Layout?

Can DCC be run through a Computer? Is it Necessary?

How Can I Solder the Bus Wires and the Track?

How do I Deal With Reverse Loop in DCC?

Do the Trains need to be upgraded to Use with DCC?

And Many More Answers!

These are just some of the questions you’ll get answered in the supporting “DCC HELP” ebook.

DCC Wiring – KEEP IT SIMPLE covers everything you need to know about wiring from the ground up. It includes easy to follow wiring diagrams,wiring for reverse loops, how to program track, turnout control, using free software to control your layout and where to get it, controlling trains with computer technology and more.

You’ll also get the 7 Rules to help you avoid the BIGGEST cause of electrical problems. After reading this e-book you’ll realize DCC wiring isn’t hard. In most ways it’s much the same as DC wiring.

If you have reversing loops or wyes on your layout, you’ll need to pay some extra attention to be sure that the electrified frog issue is addressed… but don’t worry, that’s all explained step-by-step.

It’s only a matter of time before something stops working, and you’ll face the decision.Do I fix it? Do I replace it?

What the F#&!!X*?! ;is WRONG with it?

Model Railroad Trouble Shooting will help make your DCC layout a pleasure to construct and operate without ripping your hair out just trying to locate, or fix annoying or constant problems. This e-book is easy to read and will prove a valuable reference when something does actually go wrong. Secure your copy now!

You may be concerned that these excellent DCC resources will cost you the earth… However, you won’t need to worry about that. I’ve always had a policy of supplying value for money and that’s exactly what I’m offering you here. I’ve had others say I should be charging $150, $200 or more for the valuable information in these ebooks.

Truth is; I’m not charging $200, or even $150 for the useful tips and ideas you’ll get here… even though they are likely to save you thousands over the lifetime of your model railroad. These 4 e-books are available separately for $67, or you can grab the special discount offer below.

In fact; if you’re decisive and act now, you could grab ALL 4 – the “DCC Handbook”, “DCC Help”, “DCC Wiring”, and “Model Railroad Trouble Shooting” for a ridiculously low price of $67 just $37.

Terms & Conditions apply. Full details below.

And, you qualify for my full no-questions asked 60 day money-back guarantee. What could be fairer than that?

PLUS, with the offer below you’ll get even more … To give you even better value, I’m including 6 valuable bonuses at no extra charge (total value $263.90), but you’ll need to grab this NOW!

FREE BONUS GIFT #1

In this e-book you’ll learn the details for building a layout, including choosing the best track plan for your space, building low-relief and below track-level scenery, and really low-cost industries to make. There’s even 2 tutorials walking you step – by – step through the construction of a small railroad.

Now… I’m the first to concede, this informative ebook won’t detail totally everything. Truthfully; it would take literally thousands of pages of detail every aspect of this fascinating topic, but this ebook condenses the most useful ideas into 109 pages of useful help.

FREE BONUS GIFT #2

This e-book covers various aspects of this wonderful hobby of model railroading. Obviously to cover everything would fill a whole library, so instead we’ll look at some topics within the hobby that people have a particular interest in and want answers to.

I get dozens of letters and emails every week so I have compiled this e-book with many of the topics and questions in mind…. a wide range of tips from soldering and LED lighting, through to solving derailments and coping with S curves… and much, much more!

FREE BONUS GIFT #3

This “Confessions of a Mobile Layout Builder” manual gives the ins and outs of constructing a portable train layout. It looks at track design options, construction methods, operation and expansion possibilities… with plenty more ideas to make the process easy. A must read!

FREE BONUS GIFT #4

This 101 Handy Tips manual is a useful reference guide filled with tips and answers to common problems that confound most railroaders at some time or another. There are tips on: turnouts, couplers, shelf layouts, ballasting, power supply, track access, track cleaning, making scenery, flywheel problems, decoders, and plenty more!

FREE BONUS GIFT #5

You’ll also get 4 interesting and informative video clips which include lots of ideas for anyone in the hobby.

You can download and save them to your computer for future reference.

PLUS… An audio by veteran model railroader Tom Hobson who has personally installed 46 decoders in his locomotives. Tom shares some tips from his experience.

FREE BONUS GIFT #6

The Online Model Train Club is a month-to-month membership. You may have a look around the club and if you decide to cancel within the first 30-days you will not be charged again. The first months membership is free and you can stay on as a member for as long as you like (you will be billed just $27 mth) and get to keep the 6 bonuses (even if you do cancel). The choice is yours! You’ll gain access to more and more helpful resources each month. You may cancel in any month and you will not be charged again.

This bonus allows you to access for a whole month, all the Level #1 resources of the online model train club including a helpful DCC video, getting started videos and tips, lots of planning, design and scenery ideas and much more. Why am I giving you free access for an entire month? Simple – I know you’ll be impressed and not want to miss out on all the resources, tips and clever ideas inside the club. It is like a GIANT resource library for you to tap into when you need help.

* Don’t want the free bonuses and free one month club membership… one-off $67 payment option here

Or for just $67 $37 today you can get instant access to the DCC Model Trains ebook, PLUS the DCC Help ebook, PLUS DCC Wiring ebook, PLUS Model Railroad Trouble Shooting ebook, PLUS the other 6 free bonus gifts! Your initial charge will be $37. You will then be charged $27/month until you cancel after your initial charge has been made.

So why am I giving you this entire package (valued at $263.90) for only $67 $37?

Simple … This package is delivered by download immediately your payment is processed. So I’m saving on shipping costs and can pass those savings directly to you.

You’ll get PDF files which are readable on any computer, tablet, or Mac.

You can save the files to your hard drive, for easy access anytime, anywhere, day or night. They work on any computer!

The downloads are quick even on the slowest of dialup internet connections. Other internet connections are considerably faster.

You can freely printout whatever parts you want. I did investigate printing physical copies, but the price would have been more than 3 times the cost of this offer owing to printing & shipping costs. I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s best to keep it affordable. The videos easy-to-download mp4 format.

But, To Make This Decision An Absolute “No-Brainer”, I’ll Also Provide a 100% Money-Back Guarantee…

It’s Time to Save Yourself Time and Money in Creating the Model Railroad You’ve Dreamed Of…

Think about it… $67 $37 is a meager amount for such valuable step-by-step, easy-to-follow information. And, you could be underway within 5 minutes.

Even just one single idea from this package might save you hundreds of dollars, so investing $67 $37 makes good sense.

Getting started is simple. Just click on the ‘Add To Cart’ button below…

For just $67 $37 today you can get instant access to the DCC Model Trains ebook, the DCC Help ebook, DCC Wiring ebook, Model Railroad Troubleshooting ebook, PLUS the other 6 free bonus gifts!

Your initial charge will be $37. You will then be charged $27/month until you cancel anytime after your initial charge has been made.

* Don’t want the free bonuses and free one month club membership… one-off $67 payment option here

As soon as your payment is approved, you’ll be taken to your download page where you can access the DCC Handbook, DCC Help e-book, and all the bonuses within a few minutes.

So, within about 5 minutes you’ll have the precise information you need to get started with a “trouble-free” DCC layout that will impress both yourself and your family and friends.

Don’t delay; the sooner you access these resources, the sooner you’ll have your dream model train layout up and running! Take action NOW… not tomorrow!

P.S. At last you can have your DREAM layout that will impress both yourself, your family and friends. It’s a “no-brainer” investing the $67 $37 to save yourself time, money, and frustration when planning and building your ultimate layout. You’ll avoid all the common mistakes, and have answers to those difficult questions at your fingertips.

PLUS you get the exciting bonuses and ebooks together valued at $263.90…

PLUS as always, you’ll get my personal 100% money back guarantee… It doesn’t get any fairer than that !!

Value $263.90… Today Just $67 $37

For just $67 $37 today you can get instant access to the DCC Model Trains ebook, the DCC Help ebook, DCC Wiring ebook, Model Railroad Troubleshooting ebook, PLUS the other 6 free bonus gifts!

If you are new at ordering products online click here to get more information.

These e-books are NOT available in stores. You can only ge them through this web site.

ClickBank is the retailer of products on this site. CLICKBANK® is a registered trademark of Click Sales Inc., a Delaware corporation located at 1444 S. Entertainment Ave., Suite 410 Boise, ID 83709, USA and used by permission. ClickBank’s role as retailer does not constitute an endorsement, approval or review of these products or any claim, statement or opinion used in promotion of these products.

[theliterarywitch]

Magical Literature: The Grimoire

If any of you are like me, you’ll know that when you begin practicing/studying Witchcraft, you’ll come to find that there are many different bits and bobs one can use in their practice depending on the paths/studies they’ve chosen. For example, if you’re undertaking a sit-down ritual complete with an altar, it’s always handy to have a wand or an athame handy to use as a focus to direct/conduct energy. Depending on how you feel, you may keep a bell handy at your altar just to help cleanse the area before beginning your ritual. Either way, a Witch always has certain tools available to them that help them along in their craft. However, in my opinion, there’s one specific tool that is absolutely crucial to a Witch as he/she follows their chosen path; Knowledge. 

Like I said, in my own opinion, knowledge is perhaps a Witch’s most powerful aid in regards to implementing magical practice. I’m sure it seems like that should go without saying, I mean duh, of course you need knowledge if you’re going to practice Witchcraft. What I mean is, I think it’s not only healthy, but incredibly lucrative in terms of experience and broadening your horizons to expand your insight to different magical cultures/practices. I don’t necessarily mean you have to bog yourself down with tireless reading and heavy books, because not everyone’s an avid reader. However, even something as simple as swiping through Witchblr or another Witch’s blog can really enlighten you in different spells/rituals/prayers, etc. However, following extensive research brings about the question; Where to put it all? I’m glad you asked, hypothetical voice in my head. Let me explain.

See, your average Witch usually carries about three to four types of books with him/her at all times when practicing, or they at least have copies at home in their practice area: A Grimoire/Book of Shadows, a collection of certain herbs/herbal remedies, possibly a dream journal, and maybe even a separate journal where they just jot down different things they’ve experienced/wanted to practice with Witchcraft. Some Witches gather two or three-if not all-of those texts into smaller condensed versions, but each gathering of text can be a Witch’s greatest asset in her craft. However, in my opinion, a Witch’s Grimoire is their absolute best friend, especially those implementing Literary Magic. 

To put it simply, a Grimoire (also known as a Book of Shadows, to the Wiccan) is a collection of different spells/prayers/rituals that a Witch has practiced or implemented at one point. It can also include different practices that a Witch wants to try in the future, but ultimately a Grimoire is sort of like a Witch’s magical thumbprint, if you ask me. If you were to skim through it, you’d find the private annotations and quirks of the creator, basically giving you a big idea of who they are as a Witch. See, one of the biggest principles of magic and Witchcraft is that even though there’s a few shared guidelines and concepts that all Witches share, you can pretty much make whatever adjustments and changes that fit your need and accommodate you. Some Witches may feel like one incense works better in that cleansing ritual than other Witches, so she’s gonna grab her Grimoire and jot down that when she does that prayer, it’s going to have a slight deviation. Basically, a Grimoire is sort of like a Witch’s diary of the different practices and approaches they take in their craft, and below I’ll be touching up on what sort of things are generally found in one.

I. Your coven’s laws/rules/guidelines, or if you’re a solitary practitioner, the basic concepts that you personally follow. (The Law of Threefold Return, The Seven Hermetic Principles, etc.)

II. Different correspondences, topics and ideals that will be helpful for your practice. I personally input a Wheel of the Year and different planet correspondences around this section of my personal Grimoire, but generally this area is going to be used for correspondences like symbol meanings, special dates in your practice, etc.

III. Guides to certain practices. A brief excerpt on charging and using crystals maybe, possibly different tools and uses for them. Basically I would use this section to be like a guide for different little activities you do, like preparing herbs or a quick blurb on Tarot reading. DEFINITELY INCLUDE A PAGE OR TWO ON CIRCLE CASTING AND GENERAL RITUALS. 

IV. Any prayers or chants you may have. THESE DO NOT HAVE TO BE FOUND ONLINE OR IN BOOKS. If you have a prayer or a chant that you’ve written or borrowed from another Witch’s work, feel absolutely free to jot it down in your Grimoire. Of course if you’re borrowing it from someone else, please try to get consent from them to include it in your Grimoire if you’re going to share it with others. If you don’t answer to/associate yourself with a deity/deities, then you don’t have to use this section for prayers, just jot down a few chants or basic verbal spells you may know.

V. Actual spells and rituals. This section would be where you actually map out full on spells, their ingredients, executing them, etc. This section only need be as thorough and detailed as you need it. 

VI. If you wish, you can include a section on herbs and uses for them, possibly a section on different herbal/cooking recipes, if you’d rather not have a separate herbal Grimoire. If you’d rather not implement herbal stuff in your Grimoire, you can also use this section as an Astrology guide or something like that, something specific to your craft perhaps. It’s your Grimoire, go nuts. :)

VII. Personally, at the end of your Grimoire, I would definitely include a glossary of some sorts for certain terms, especially if you abbreviated anything in your book or if you plan on sharing it with others. 

All in all, like I said a Grimoire is basically like a Witch’s diary for their spells and practices. A lot of Witch’s find it easier to keep their Grimoire strictly digital or online, but like I said before, it’s your Grimoire. Go nuts! If anyone has questions or ideas for this post, or just want to discuss different additions or whatnot, feel free to message. Merry meet, and merry part!

#witch #witchcraft #literarywitchcraft #witchbooks #wicca #Magic #spells #books #wizard #grimoire #book of shadows #book

[brand-happiness]

A Thorough Guide to Digital Marketing for New Startup Founders

Lately, I have come across several founders who have registered their companies, and now they look forward to building their digital presence. I have met several of them though UPWORK and a few through the good old word-of-mouth. I observed a few common questions that plague these founders. So, in this article, I answer them all. If there be still any questions, use the contact form.

1. What is Digital Marketing? 

Gone are the days when people wanted something they would go to a market and buy. Instead, they go online, check and compare the product/service they need, read reviews, and then finally go for the best. Not only as individuals, businesses too operate in the same way.   What individuals and businesses eventually decide is the outcome strategized by a digital marketer. The entire activity of placing your product/service online for a potential buyer to purchase your offer over other potent offers is digital marketing.

2. Where Do I Get Started with Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing is a vast subject. So, I will keep things very simple and to the point so that busy founders waste no time in understanding the subject as fast as possible. 2.1- Website The very first thing to get started with your digital marketing is to have a website with exceptional user-experience, look, and feel. Your website is virtual office; keep it clean, precise, and functional. Your website should include a few essential sections that satisfy your visitor's query in no time. About, Contact, Products/Services, Glossary, and the main engine to set wheels to your website, the Blog. 2.2- Create your Google Properties How do you know that everything you have put up on the Blog is making sense to the world? You need analytics to measure that. Digital marketing without analytics and creativity is non-existent. So, register for Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Tag Manager, and Google Ads. You may use Adsense if it is not a Business to Business (B2B) but Individual to Business or Business to Customers (B2C). 2.3- Register your Social Media Properties Social Media is the modern marketplace depending on the kind of product/services you offer. You use this audience either for branding or for sales or both. If yours is a B2B venture, you must create your company profile and showcase on LinkedIn. You then create accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Medium. These properties give you a solid landing. If yours is a B2C venture, the order of priority should be TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Medium, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Reddit. 2.4- Content Marketing Tools Here are two things. Give it a think; social media accounts help you market your content, but how do you even create your content? Search queries are essential nutrients for your content consumption. How do you harvest those queries? Later, you have so much content to be scheduled across so many platforms according to traffic hours, how do you do that? Here's you need a subscription to SEO (will explain below) tools such as HubSpot, SEMRush, Sprout Social etc. These tools come for a price, but they bill you for a reason, and that is the value they add in fortifying a solid content marketing strategy. So, you go the website, the web content and e blogs; you got the resources to grow your Blog and resources to market them. End of it, you also have a fully armed Google to analyze, implement, and measure your impact and give your website a solid start to digital marketing.

3. Why is it Important to Have a Great Website?

I continue from 2.1 that introduces the role of a website in Digital Marketing. Here, let me explain why your website has to be a great website and its qualifying parameters. If your iPad crashes, would you go to a small roadside stall that's pretty dark and doesn't illustrate its capabilities to fix an iPad the desired way? Or, would you choose to go to a well-lit shop, with great ads running on indoor digital display busy with professionals in crisply ironed tees? You may believe in merit, but you know it in your heart that the shop is where you'll go over the roadside fix-shop. If that's the case, it is the same with having a "great" website. A great website is the one where visitors should exactly know where to find what; how to navigate, how to sign up for newsletters, send business queries, browse through your content, and understand the ethos of your existence. A great website should have clear and comprehensive communication that is distinctly different from the competition commanding excellent thought-leadership and steadily acquired domain authorship. The technical aspects include a wireframe with a distinct main menu, sub-menu, categories, call-to-action, a site-map, display banners and company details. Big, bold graphics that easily slip into one's head with attractive creative elements lubricate reception of your website content.

4. What is a Blog? What is Blog Marketing

4.1- Blog A blog is the pilot's cabin—the central digital marketing engine of your website. You drive content about our product, services, wins, case studies, testimonials, and talk about your distinct social ventures to stay relevant to the broader world. Example: As a startup founder, I am sure that you are aware of Medium. I refer to Medium to allude to the nature of content that you should have on your Blog; i.e., your company's Blog. 4.2 - Nature of Blogs & Intention The kind of content that you should begin with for at least the first 6-8 months shouldn't be jargon driven and yet must deliver on the topics. They should be easy to read as the primary goal is to build website authority through high-traffic, backlinking, and SEO, to spread the net in a way that from an entry-level executive to the C-suite executives, all can consume it. 4.3- Blog Marketing & Preparation of an Audience First of all, your blogs should be potent enough to fetch the audience. Secondly, they should prepare the audience through engaging, informative, and delightful content. It is no different for either B2B or B2C when you leverage the Business to Human sentiment. Market your blogs through Social Media, Emails, and other content platforms to build desire audience. Remember that this is an ongoing process audience. Later, with time, you take up more responsibilities for your teams. Once you have built that authority evidenced by your Google Analytics, you have an audience to receive more crucial information about your products and services to push them toward the middle of the funnel where you can intensify At this junction, you introduce other content marketing assets (I've explained it below) to convert this audience into your sales lead.

5. What are SEO, SEM, & SMM? How are they Helpful?

5.1- SEO is Search Engine Optimization While it is always Ecosia on the top of my mind, Google is our primary search engine followed by Bing. Optimizing content for search engine means to make your content suitable for search engine parties. :) Technically, SEO is the process of fetching quality traffic to your website by improving its visibility. SEO is an organic effort to increase your web traffic. It is not suitable for quick results or website promotion when you have just launched your business. Here, you'll need an experienced SEO professional to catch the trending keywords to cook delightful content. 5.2- SEM is Search Engine Marketing Search engine marketing fetches results that are specific to SEO, but this time, you have to pay for it instead of waiting for your luck to shine someday. New businesses are recommended to consider both SEO and SEM to market to promote their websites and increase the visibility without delay. It is almost like if you take the last minute flight for the earliest arrival, you have to pay for the extra convenience. For Google to prioritize your request over the pending ones, you have to leverage SEM through paid advertisement. 5.3- SMM is Social Media Marketing SMM or Social Media Marketing refers to the marketing done through the various social media platforms listed above in 2.3. SEO is helpful not only for your Blog but for anything. Does this intrigue you a little? Use the contact form and reach out to me; I'll explain it. Anyway, so starting from web content to blog content, to content on social media platforms, SEO is a beast for the best everywhere. Good SEO punched with SEM, is a heady mix for SMM. For example, if you use any social media platform, borrow its pulse to tell a story that intelligently anchors your blog article, and also do a paid promotion, imagine the results. Can't you? It's going to be astounding, I say.

6. What Skills should a Content Writer have?

It is very evident that at this stage you got to be very careful with selecting your support system. Content writing has been downplayed for a very long time, but today it is everything. It starts from defining your products to wording your mission and vision to marketing your business. Selecting the right content writer is tougher than choosing a life partner, and I am not joking, mean 100% business. Content writing, I tell you, is playing the chess both as a player and the opponent. Anyway, it is essential to find a writer who can see thorough what your potential customer is seeking and then write accordingly to answer to that demand. Listen, everyone can read, write, and speak in English, not a big deal, at all. But, a successful writer is a salesperson under their skin; they should be able to pack your shit and sell it with a winning story. Excuse me, I know that is not shit, I am referring to the preparedness you should seek in a writer. :P In addition to all that, here are a few more to expect both from yourself and your potential content partner. A voracious reader (a reader is always learning) A thinker who can challenge practices (than lamely accepting conventions) Someone who has the guts to prove you wrong (yes, you should expect this) A person who advocates the romance of Content and SEO (with reasons backed by research) Someone nimble to switch from an ad copy to a 1500 word article to a whitepaper and back to writing kickass social media content (trust me, you aren't expecting too much) Someone who will take it on their stride to maintain a standard brand voice that's susceptible to the changes of the world and echoes empathy through Industry 4.0 jargons (of course, someone who doesn't have to use jargons for public display of intelligence. )

  7. What Kind of Resource Allocation and Budget is required to Start Digital Marketing?

You need an army of a minimum of six people to get started with your digital marketing for optimum results. You need a writer, a designer, an advertiser, an analyst, and a marketer, and someone to supervise them all and manage the projects. It is on you to believe that I am very considerate of the limited funds available to you as a startup. Organizations go on to hire entire agencies and at times, a couple of them for each of the above activities. I know that you are waiting to see that startling figure to jump off this article and think of alternatives immediately. Let me tell you that I am sorry if you think you can run your business without digital marketing as outlined in this article. So, what is your wild guess about how much you have to invest? Here, I turn the table and ask you to think about how much you would like to be paid for everything we have discussed so far? End of the day, this should be gainful, allow you to live a life of comfort and dignity, right? Well, that's how much you should be ready with, not a dime less or more. Okay, be honest when you play this card :) Just one more thing to keep in mind when you negotiate, you get as much as you invest it you get as much as you buy. Intrigued? Email me here, and I will explain Read the full article

#DigitalMarketingforNewFounders #GuidetoDigitalMarketing

[fountainpenguin]

WORLDBUILDING NOTES FOR FRAYED KNOTS +

No fanfic update this week, but I have a worldbuilding dump of some notes instead. It starts out with a simple ref sheet of color meanings we’ve previously discussed (Magic and zodiac bonds), but mostly discusses Anti-Fairy culture. These notes mostly apply to Frayed Knots stuff and should come up in the story bit by bit, but story flow takes priority over info-dumping, so this is here if you want to know how things work sooner rather than later.

Slight spoilers I guess, but nothing that’s going to affect your read. It’s just stuff like, “This is what daily life in the executive building is like”, “This is why Anti-Fairies respect the land”. And like I said, the color cheat sheet was included.

I’ll probably throw a link to this post in every time I do a Knots chapter update, because none of you can stop me. Who knows? Maybe you’re one of those people and you want to like, open it in another tab for reference. It’s possible.

I just like reminding you guys that my fanfics are needlessly complicated because I like micromanaging everything. You don’t need, nor would I expect you to, memorize everything, so it’s nice to have a ref sheet around at times.

GENERAL THINGS TO REFERENCE

THE CLOUDLANDS

Legal names of Fairy World / Anti-Fairy World / Pixie World and name meanings

Cloudland maps (Time zones included) 

Cloudland flora and fauna

FAIRYKIND BIOLOGY

Fairy social ladder / caste system / subspecies list: Part 1 | Part 2

How Fairykind aging works in my fanfics 

Vague magical races phylogenetic tree

Physiology post

> Anti-Fairies and their pouches 

Fairykind and diseases 

Magic pools

CULTURE

Culture and politics overview post

> Another Fairykind culture post (This one includes the Refracted)

Fairy ethnicities / cultures / architecture post

The Fairy zodiac

> That way more detailed post about the zodiac spirits

> Sunnie’s reference (Other nature spirits possibly to come)

School and cohorts

That post about Anti-Bryndin

The camarilla court / Names and zodiacs

OTHER

My Origin of the Pixies / Frayed Knots parallel timeline

My FOP fanmade terms glossary

My FOP story bible / dump doc

Detailed explanation of how wands work

That page on my blog with links to character ref sheets

Lohai’s reference | Norm’s family tree (Note: I know them all, A.C. doesn’t)

The “Bat cube and associates” tag if you want to see all my Anti-Fairy stuff

Headcanon masterpost list if there’s something else you’re looking for

Meanings of the magical colors / moods in more detail

FAIRY ZODIAC:

SEASONS:

SPRING: March 15th - June 19th

SUMMER: June 20th - September 14th

AUTUMN: September 15th - December 19th

WINTER: December 20th - March 14th

Map

Faeheim - Above California; Inkblot - Above Kansas; Luna’s Landing - It was above Spain on the last map but now it’s above England because I messed up while doing this and I’m too lazy to fix it right now. It’s somewhere.

Luna’s Landing is 7 hours ahead of Pixie World and 8 hours ahead of Faeheim. The Divide Gate is located in Greece, on Mount Olympus, and appears on Planes 1-12. The Barrier does not exist from Planes 13+

Fairies who fall out of the cloudlands and into the ocean will drown, unless they can save themselves with magic. Most subspecies struggle to fly with wet wings. Falling out of the cloudlands and hitting solid ground is risky too.

The Refracted refuse to nominate anyone to the position of Robes. The actual robes exist, but the positions are currently empty, as the Refracts don’t believe in placing some people so high above the rest.

The table is always set for them in the Council meeting room, and the meetings always start ten minutes late to give them time to show up; the Council treats them as though they could show up at any time, even though they never do.

MOSTLY THE CLOUDLANDS LOOK LIKE THIS:

Lots of different clouds slightly above and below. Not a great environment for animals, so you don’t see deer wandering around. Some clouds are larger than others. That’s where people build cities. Plane 7 has lots of flat, connected land and is a better environment for wildlife, especially unicorns and such. 

Plane 11 has very few clouds, and they’re super spaced out like distant islands. It’s a dangerous place to fly, especially since Plane 10 is right below it and full of lava and sharp rocks. You would want to traverse Plane 11 in a cloudship.

Skyship - A flying merchant or passenger ship meant to travel outward from Fairy World to other planets. Designed for travel only between Planes 2 and 6 and not intended to travel higher than that. This travel through the universe is called starsailing. We saw docked skyships in “Love Struck Out”. 

Cloudship - Technically a type of skyship. These ships travel from lower Planes to higher ones by sailing back and forth until they find the different Bridges. They are not designed to travel to other planets. Usually a simpler design than the merchant skyships, built for strength to muscle through various harsh environments instead of speed and tourist pleasure. It’s difficult and expensive to travel to the higher planes from lower ones, whereas traveling via Bridge is free, and you get to see the sights. Also it’s just safer that way, usually.

The Bridges have existed for a long time and are hard to create. They sprang up before cloudships did, and the cloudships go and find them. Let’s go with that. Don’t question why they aren’t all in one general location to allow quicker travel. We’re lampshading that plot hole because that would be lame storytelling.

PLANES OF EXISTENCE:

The Planes of Existence are complicated. There’s a general sense that the universe still exists beyond the cloudlands, and that the Planes of Existence stretch on forever. Only certain creatures - namely the Fairykind, as well as their godkids - have the ability to scale the planes. I think they don’t like spreading around word of different Planes to alien races who may want to take over. The Planes stretch on “forever”, but all the Bridges to get higher are located only in the cloudlands. You don’t have to cross the entire universe to reach other Bridges, just the general cloudland area.

You can descend the planes by falling from clouds on higher planes. You have to ascend the planes either using a Bridge, or a wand with a chip that lets you skip them. Fairies and Anti-Fairies live in the Deep Kingdom, divided by the Barrier. The Refracted live in the High Kingdom.

1) Abracatraz, stars, and black holes, 2) Planets (Most famously Earth) 3) Lowlands - Pixie World, Novakiin, Lau Rell, Patio World, Mistleville... Sometimes rains acid from GBA World 4) Barrenglades - Giant Bucket of Acid World, Cherish Jungle, Anti-Pixie Isle 5) Fairy World Proper - Faeheim, Serentip, Amity Headquarters... Lots of "main" Fairy World locations. 6) Fairy World Outskirts - Burger World, Ivory Wand and Comet Blood 7) Wanderplains - Animals and fields; also known as Dairy World 8) Anti-Fairy World Proper - Blue Castle, forests, and small towns; the Eros Nest is on this plane too, on the Fairy World side 9) Anti-Fairy World Outskirts - Very occasional small towns, mostly just a wilderness for roaming colonies; always red / gold like autumn 10) Harsh, fiery world. Lots of rocky cliff areas, tons of lava; famous and popular crystal caves; interesting plants (especially medical herbs) 11) Very open landscape. Few clouds; lots of empty sky; those who travel the planes usually dock cloudships here for easy take-off 12) Hush World - Wilderness; sense of unease / reverence; emormous monuments to ancient races carved into mountains; purple sky

There's some kind of barrier separating the Deep and High Kingdoms. There's a joke to be made about scaling a beanstalk to get higher.

13) Very bright and oddly sunny, grassy world. Now entering the High Kingdom; no Barrier. Hunter / gatherers, not farmers here 14) Dry desert world. Not a lot of water here, lots of sand 15) Crazy windy world. Erosion is intense; few buildings; maybe some windmills 16) Scary World - Basically the Negaverse; Nega-Timmy was born here. Don't ask for specifics because I don't know. 17) Hairy World - Bizarre jungle that's very orange and furry. Flora and fauna are huge. Lots of enormous predators. 18) Complete darkness, landscape difficult to determine, seems mostly rocky. Occasionally lit by geysers and things. 19) Avalon - Most Refracts (especially the Dame Head and pixie refracts) live on this plane. Others live below, not above. Good farmland. 20) Misty swamp world. It's misty and swampy. Fairly dark and spooky. 21) Ice and water world. Planes below this one sometimes get rained or snowed on due to leaks. Plants get watered. 22) Rest stop! More or less. Ships that gather Kiiloëi's water make camp here. A cold, lonely, creepy place. 23) Tír Na NÓg - Alleged ancient home of the Tuatha long ago, current home of the nature spirits; world of cliffs and chasms; "Fairy heaven" 24) The Kolobian Plane - Kiiloëi (the sacred rosewater fountain)

BRIDGES TO PLANE 2 (EARTH)

Rainbow Bridge (Plane 5) - Main Fairy World Bridge - Faeheim, Central Star to Dimmsdale, California (USA)

Pastel Bridge (Plane 7) - Secondary Fairy World Bridge - Hiero Town, Lower West to Cairo, Egypt

Night Bridge (Plane 6) - Main Anti-Fairy World Bridge - Shadeblink, Far West to Tasmania -  Destroyed pre-Origin of the Pixies

Shadow Bridge (Plane 4) - Secondary Anti-Fairy World Bridge - Crowfeld, High South to Ireland - Destroyed pre-Origin of the Pixies

Bit Bridge (Plane 3) - Pixie World Bridge - Inkblot City, Central Star to Mushroom Rock, Kansas (USA)

Dot Bridge (Plane 4) - Anti-Pixie World Bridge - “Connects” Anti-Pixie Isle, Lower West, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; never finished

FIVE FAIRY WARS:

The Sealing War - This is the war that was taking place during the “That Was Then” Prompt. It went on for eons, supposedly, and resulted in the fall of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the deaths of many Aos Sí. The nature spirits were sealed in their Temples during this war. Daoists believe the Tuatha and a race of people called the Molpa-Pel (mole people) were sealed inside the Earth at the end of this war, and that after the Tuatha died, their magic nourished the planet and caused plants to grow. The Zodii just believe the Tuatha were killed off. Nature spirits shaped the Earth.

The Sacred Revolution - Occurred shortly after the Sealing War. Was mostly the Fairies making a big stink to the rest of the universe that they exist and should be treated as big kids in the universe. There wasn’t much fighting actually going on. More of a cold war than anything else. It was a big deal to the Fairies though, so it’s considered one of the Fairy Wars.

The Struggle With the Darkness - “Wishology” stuff. Ancient Fairies chased the Darkness off. I’m still unclear about the rate at which Turbo Thunder ages.

The [War of the] Sunset Divide - A war that started before H.P. was born and finished thirty years after. His dad fought in this war. It was after this war that the Barrier went up, dividing Fairy World from Anti-Fairy World. Before then, Fairies and Anti-Fairies could travel between the two. My original plan was that all sky in the cloudlands used to be blue and this was the war that split Fairy World from Anti-Fairy World and gave Anti-Fairy World a red sky, but I’m uneasy about it now. Maybe it’s just metaphorical.

War of the Angels - The war between Fairies and Anti-Fairies over human godchildren (called angels back then). This war was mentioned in the Season 7 episode “Balance of Flour” and gave us the annual Bake-Off. We’ll see this war in both Origin and Knots.

The 1st and 2nd Creature Wars exist too, as we learned in the “Opportunity” Prompt. Not much is known about those now except that the 2nd one is the one that drove the Beasts underground. Neither will be important in Knots.

DAOISM VS. ZODIISM

Daoism - H.P. and most pixies consider themselves part of this religion, as do most Refracts. Daoists believe in the literal splitting apart of the Aos Sí into Fairies, Anti-Fairies, and the Refracted. They believe that what has come apart will come together again after death, and that three counterparts will become a single creature in the afterlife: Daoine Síth. 

There is a book of scripture (known only as King Nuada’s scripture at this time) and it’s custom to avoid using magic on Thursday, the holy day of the week. There are no deities of creation that are worshiped or prayed to. It’s a religion of reflection and self-actualization. The belief is that you should strive to become the best that you can, and help others become the best that they can. However, some Daoists do pray, just to the general universe. They kneel down and place their right hand in front of their forehead, thumb curled in so it touches the palm. The same sign (minus the kneeling) means “I come in peace” in Fairy culture.

Daoists tend to freak out around fairy dogs, who are said to carry souls to the afterlife. Actually, they are said to SWAP souls, switching bodies with those they catch sinning. Daoists believe fairy dogs can die, and that if you die while in the body of a fairy dog, you don’t go to heaven. You just cease to exist. Certain sins will likewise cause you to “die a dustless death” and lose your right to heaven.

H.P. actually doesn’t follow most of the Daoist teachings. He just believes in life after death. He was raised Daoist, so he just shrugged and went along with it. During the time he was growing up, there wasn’t separation of church and state. Daoism was taught in history class at school. Thus, it’s basic fact for him. He considers Zodiism a waste of resources (Temples, murals, monuments, time, etc.) and sees it as a philosophy that teaches you can do whatever you want without consequences, even if you’re hurting people.

Zodiism - Anti-Cosmo and many Anti-Fairies follow the teachings of this philosophy. There are no “holy” texts, as Zodiism is a philosophy, not technically a religion. However, there are myths about the nature spirits. Zodiism is basically, “Astrology meets Greek gods”. The Zodii believe that Tarrow, the cosmic jellyfish and deity of fate and destiny, selects a path and soulmate(s) for everyone. You can choose to reject his plans, but you won’t have his influence in your life anymore, and things will probably go very wrong very soon. The Zodii also believe in reincarnation after death, and that you’ll either return as one of your descendants or as some aspect of nature, such as a tree or stream.

While there are hundreds of nature spirits, the main seven control the elements and are therefore placed on the Fairy zodiac. The days of the week are named after them. It’s said that their power is strongest on their day of the week, not to mention their year in the seven-year cycle. Similarly, the Zodii believe that the day of the week and year of the zodiac cycle affects the flow of luck that influences you. They tend to be very superstitious people, and will postpone events until the right moment- for example, marrying in a Love year.

Then there are bonds. The Zodii believe in fate, and that the year of your birth has a major impact on your personality. As such, they believe in automatic compatibility between certain signs on the zodiac, and automatic incompatibility between others. It’s not unusual for a Zodii to refuse to even have so much as a one-night stand with someone of an “incompatible” zodiac.

Anti-Cosmo considers Daoism sacrilege. As far as he’s concerned, the nature spirits are very real. They interact with mortals who are willing to accept and believe in them. When they’re bored or angry, they cause mayhem in the forms of floods, quakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, blizzards, and so on. When they’re pleased, everyone is blessed. There is documented proof of the nature spirits. Less so for the Daoine. Anti-Cosmo doesn’t believe in becoming Daoine after death like H.P. does.

Other belief systems exist in the cloudlands. These are just the only ones that are going to come up in my works.

ANTI-FAIRY BASICS

What is Hy-Brasil?

All of Anti-Fairy World. It encompasses nothing else. It literally just means Anti-Fairy World.

The Zodii (usually Anti-Fairies) believe Hy-Brasil to be the name of the land spirit (Note: The land consists of clouds and stuff; land does not mean only Earth or dirt). Hy-Brasil is considered to be a spirit bear and one of the Wise Ancients, but in a sort of dormant state most of the time.

Non-Zodii believe their ancestors manually created the cloudlands.

What is the Hy-Brasil landscape like?

Rule of thumb: Lots of crags, crevices, lava pools, acid pools... Not the kind of place you want to build a stable home. Rarely is the land flat, so you’d have to do some massive work. There are also rivers and forests (usually with leaves black, red, or orange... but not green). 

Near the border with Fairy World, it’s warm enough that the rivers remain in liquid form. The farther away you go, the colder it gets. The rivers and lakes freeze (though acid and lava pools don’t). Sunnie, the Water spirit, is highly associated with cold and ice for this reason. Ice is a form of water, after all.

Most Anti-Fairies deeply value the land and don’t want to damage it and offend Hy-Brasil. Their buildings are usually made of materials taken from Earth instead (or from the Fairy World spirit, Tír Ildáthach, when they really want to be spiteful). The Blue Castle was allegedly a gift from the spirits, so it’s ritzier.

The cloudlands are a cold realm as a whole. Anti-Fairy World even more so than Fairy World. Changes of the seasons are limited. I imagine that leaves still fall off trees at certain times of the year, but you won’t lose crops to frost. Apart from a few rare exceptions, it doesn’t rain or snow in the cloudlands.

Why aren’t the Regions named after their colors / Why don’t the Temples match up to the Region colors?

Because I didn’t think this through and I have regrets Because the Regions were named generations before the position of Council Robes were created. The first members of the Council each took a Robe, and that color became associated with their Region.

It would also be very offensive to the Zodii if all seven zodiac colors were on well-dressed authorities gathered in one place, and yet the people wearing them hadn’t been born in the zodiac year whose color they were wearing. 

Thus, the colors don’t match up with the Temples because if they did, the Zodii would make a stink about it. Council Robes are elected, but if the Robes were all the zodiac colors, the Zodii would insist they represent nature spirits instead of regions and it would be a political nightmare.

Where is the Anti-Fairy capital city?

Luna’s Landing is on Plane 8. It is located in the Blue time zone, which puts it 7 hours ahead of Pixie World, and 8 hours ahead of Fairy World’s capital city, Faeheim.

The Blue Castle and Grand Archives building are both counted as part of this city, though the Blue Castle is removed from the main city bustle by a path and drawbridge.

Luna’s Landing can legally be called a city due to the presence of the Love Temple.

What is the Blue Castle and who lives there?

The Blue Castle is the executive building, and it’s like the White House. This is where the High Count, High Countess, the camarilla court, and their families live day to day. And the housekeeping and cooking staff too. 

In Anti-Fairy World, which is usually lacking in stable jobs, the Castle gets lots of eager applicants for housekeeping. The camarilla conduct job interviews as necessary, and the High Count and Countess both stamp the paperwork (usually without looking at it). That sort of paperwork rarely passes through Pixie hands, since it’s pretty quick and easy, and it’s best not to release that information to potential enemies.

In Knots, the staff are referred to as servants because that’s the time period, but rest assured that the position is paid and they can resign if they want to. They pride themselves on working quickly and being unnoticed. But of course, Foop gets his fun out of catching them in the act. As we saw in “Step Back”, he likes wandering around via the housekeeping tunnels. Anti-Cosmo, being both oblivious and the opposite of subtle, never uses them and usually forgets they exist. Even as a kid, he’d rather hang with the camarilla than the servants.

The High Count and High Countess have conjoining offices with a door that shuts between them. They do their political work there. Paperwork and evil plans and stuff. Anti-Cosmo tries to keep things orderly, but he never does- he’s just a cluttered person by nature, since he follows so many trains of thought at once. Anti-Wanda, unsurprisingly, doesn’t do much better.

What is the Grand Archives Building?

The Grand Archives building is the Anti-Fairy parallel of both the U.S. Capitol and the National Archives. And probably other buildings in other countries, but I’m an American, so I know these ones.

This is where census records and other important documents get stored. The lower two floors are a grand public library. The third and fourth floors are where the archives are, which is special access only. On the fourth floor is the open-roofed building where the Anti-Fairy Council meet and do legislative / judicial things; that’s where we see them in the show.

What is Anti-Fairy clothing like?

Much fancier than Fairy clothing. Fairies tend to use color to show off. Style is less important (They like things they can move around in easily, and the general style is loose clothing so nymphs can easily crawl into their parents’ pouches).

Anti-Fairies use style to show off. They have fancy coats, vests, cloaks, the works. As a culture, they favor dark colors for camouflage, making hunting and stalking easier. Additionally, the Fairy zodiac is so heavily associated with its colors. Anti-Fairies only wear colors ceremonially, and then it’s almost always their zodiac color.

There are exceptions to this rule, as it is a tradition, not a law. However, you would likely be shunned were you to wear bright colors outside of certain events. The anti-pixies figured that out the hard way.

Who are the anti-pixies?

Green-furred, yellow-haired, genetically identical bundles of chaos brought to us by “Clash With the Anti-World”. I’m just going to assume that if you’ve been following my works enough to want to read this post, you already know them.

What is Anti-Fairy technology like?

They don’t even have printing presses. Their lighting is torches hanging on the walls, or candles in dishes. They often use scrolls instead of individual sheets of paper. Anti-Fairies also have these things called anti-gravity platters, which are basically floating platters that hold food up high so a roosting Anti-Fairy can reach them easily. The Seelie favor scrying bowls, but Anti-Fairies favor crystal balls for long-distance communication.

We know from the Musical that Cosmo owned a car before he and Wanda were married. I invented these things called cloudcars, based off the car Sanderson was driving during the “Pixie Rap” song. These cars travel through the clouds, jumping gaps between the clouds and stuff. Those aren’t really things in Anti-Fairy society. Anti-Fairies are usually faster fliers than Fairies anyway, due to their wings being tools of propulsion. And, Anti-Fairies live in colonies. They’re social creatures who like to fly together, or poof. Cars are lonely for them. Not to mention it’s often difficult for them to get comfortable thanks to their wings.

Technology changes over time. Above are the things that hold across the ages. There are other nuances. For example, at the start of both Origin and Knots, no one has running water indoors. They have wells and things. Eventually, that will be a thing. Even Anti-Fairies enjoy indoor running water, and like to shower.

As a rule of thumb, Anti-Fairy tech is simpler and often considered “backwards” compared to Seelie tech. Pixie tech is even more advanced than Fairy tech the majority of the time.

What do Anti-Fairies eat?

Depends. Technically, Anti-Fairies don’t need food to survive. However, if they don’t eat well, their health will suffer. Mostly they eat the same food Fairies eat, although Anti-Fairy meals tend to be extravagant. Not a lot of fast food in Anti-Fairy World.

Sometimes, Anti-Fairies do chase after and eat the bugs that flit about their world, for sport or as an actual food source. While it isn’t healthy to survive entirely on that diet, it’s a better alternative than going completely hungry.

As it stands in Frayed Knots right now, the Anti-Fairies hold one of the four treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann. The Blue Castle possesses the Dagda’s bottomless cauldron. The Fairies have King Nuada’s unavoidable sword, the Refracted have Lugh’s peacemaking spear, and they all share the Lia Fáil (the coronation stone, which we saw for the first time in “Playing With the Big Kids”).

Marriage customs in the cloudlands?

Such things vary by subspecies, and are details that you don’t really need to know. The only important Seelie one is that the fairy subspecies are said to be monogamous for life, meaning that they “only give their souls away once”, and that they never remarry if their spouse separates from them or dies. It’s fairy culture to take an interest in someone young and stick with them. For example, Juandissimo “gave his soul” away to Wanda, and part of the reason why he can’t move on is because of this. The rest is just him being a clingy type by nature.

The fairies have this tradition called the Year of Promise, which involves engaging in intimacy on the first night of serious courtship, and then spending a year not touching people at all (They wear gloves and socks all the time and avoid skin-to-skin contact). At least, they’re supposed to. When the year is up, they either reinstate their commitment to one another, or agree to separate (if they haven’t already). Supposedly, this helps fairies figure out if they truly want this person to be their one true spouse. Because fairies tend not to remarry, it’s a big deal to choose right. 

This isn’t to say fairies can’t remarry. It’s just that these are their biological instincts. I wanted a custom that was similar to real-life dragonflies, who tend to take the first mate they can. That’s what I was going for with “traditionally engage in intimacy on the first night of serious courtship”. Something quick.

Wing notches are fairy culture because fairies don’t usually remarry. They’re basically permanent wedding rings, but they’re slits in the costas of your wings. The pair have matching notches, so it’s like a ring, but you can see the pair match. Speaking of notches, you may have noticed that in the cover image for Frayed Knots, Anti-Cosmo has holes in his wings. Those mimic the notches Cosmo has on his wings. I accidentally drew them when he was a pup in the preview image of “Growing Pains”, but no, Anti-Cosmo only gets these later.

Anti-Fairy society has a different view of marriage. Remember, they believe in the zodiac and in soulmates. It’s not uncommon for Anti-Fairies to be involved in arranged marriages courtesy of their parents. Most notably, the Anti-Fairies who live at the Blue Castle are considered nobles and are frequently betrothed by the age of seven. To an outsider, these matches appear random, but the Anti-Fairies view the matches made as fate.

Anti-Fairies consider a soulmate to be your best friend and closest companion. This can lead to some things that gross out the Seelie Court. Namely, Anti-Fairies being married even to their siblings. However, Anti-Fairies just consider marriage a bond between soulmates, and it’s not as weird for Anti-Fairies when you pair this with their more relaxed view of, well, engaging in intimate acts. Anti-Fairies can’t get pregnant if their counterparts aren’t, which removes some of the risk of certain intimate acts.

Basically, Anti-Fairies believe in soulmates, and acknowledge that you don’t have to have romantic feelings for your soulmate. Especially if your soulmate is your sibling. Anti-Fairy culture would rather promote going after someone you’re attracted to rather than engaging in intimacy with someone you’re not. Soulmates are supposed to support each other, and not be hurt when their partner wants to spend a night with someone else. In Anti-Fairy culture, two consenting partners coming together is completely acceptable, and one’s wife or husband is meant to respect and support their partner’s choices.

In short, you’re supposed to marry your soulmate, who is probably the person you were betrothed to when you were little. This soulmate is meant to be your best friend and support you, and you support them. Cheating isn’t considered a real thing and isn’t frowned upon; it’s just “his other family” or “her friend with benefits”. Soulmates are married, so you’re expected to raise your respective children together (For example, if your counterparts married different people and had kids with them, then there would be two different Seelie families, but the Anti-Fairy children would be raised together as one family with married parents). 

There is a certain parental duty that comes along with marriage in the hopes of preventing deadbeat parents running out on responsibility. It can still happen, but the idea is that it’s your obligation to support your soulmate (who may not be the person you had kids with). These customs are less strict farther from the Blue Castle, though; they’re traditions, not laws, and not harshly enforced. In many areas of Anti-Fairy World, Anti-Fairies scoff at marriage altogether, and instead just engage in casual relationships without any sort of commitment. Anti-Fairy culture is okay with this as long as there’s mutual consent. Consent is easy to monitor in colonies, but among the loner types, it can be more difficult. 

The important thing to remember is, consent is super valued in Anti-Fairy culture, there are just as many platonic marriages as there are casual flings, and Anti-Fairies don’t see anything wrong with what we would call cheating on your partner. They don’t really have a word for it, and have to describe the concept with general words.

Are there language barriers between the Fairies and Anti-Fairies?

The famous one is “sleep together”. Anti-Fairies often live in colonies, and hang together when they roost. “Roosting together” means roosting in the same general location. “Bundling” means hanging together so close that your bodies touch. You get lots of platonic cuddles in Anti-Fairy World. They’re meant to survive the cold, but even they get sick when it’s TOO cold. So, they snuggle for warmth a lot. Lots of casual hugs. 

And casual hand-holding, since when you have a visitor to your [large] home, it’s common decency to lead them around by the hand so they don’t have to echolocate to avoid walls as you two talk. It’s weird, but Anti-Fairies have trouble seeing at all when they can’t echolocate. Like. Their eyes are right there. If you cover their mouth and show them something, they’ll look at it like they understand it’s there. But they’ll still jump in surprise when you take your hand away and let them echolocate again. It’s like their brains absorb some information through their eyes, but they can’t process it without really sensing the shape, size, distance, etc. their echolocation gives them.

To some degree, Anti-Fairies can see you when they’re talking, but not very well. It’s weird. For storytelling purposes, Anti-Fairy narrators have enough vision to help the reader follow along. When not narrating, I sometimes tone them back. Also, windows in Anti-Fairy World are usually covered by vertical bars, not glass panes. They can’t see glass, but can see through glass, and glass windows register as walls when they echolocate. They tend to run into windows. You should assume all windows in Anti-Fairy World have bars.

Back to the language stuff, Anti-Fairies tend to be super touchy-feely. They cuddle platonically for warmth and comfort, and rely on nonverbal cues like the twitching of ears or adjusting of clothes to progress to more intimate acts. The Seelie tend to be more verbal, and are likely to interpret platonic Anti-Fairy cuddles as signs of affection. 

As I said earlier, to an Anti-Fairy, “sleeping together” literally means sleeping near each other, possibly cuddling each other in your sleep. To a Seelie, it’s of course a euphemism for mating. Anti-Fairies get confused when they hear gossip about who is sleeping with who. It’s just sleep, right? What’s the deal? Yeah, they slept with that person once. You want to know who else they slept with? They slept with this person one day, and this one after that, and the next week they slept with this one...

Also, because they sleep and mate upside-down (most of the time), Anti-Fairies don’t associate beds with mating. So if you say you went to bed with someone, you’ll get the same cautious, blank nods. Anti-Fairies have more words for platonic sleeping together than they do for mating. It’s mostly a nonverbal thing for them. I mean, they’ve got ears to twitch! Gotta use ‘em! I say nonverbal, but I suppose singing their courtship songs is technically verbal.

Actually, “singing” would be a casual Seelie word that causes Anti-Fairies to do a double take. Anti-Cosmo gets weird looks when he tells Seelie about the time he slept with the Head Pixie (when they fell into the chasm together during the War of the Angels, as we’ll see later). Sanderson gets surprised looks when he tells Anti-Fairies about the people he’s sung with. Like I said, Anti-Fairies have courtship songs. Saying you sang with someone is the equivalent of saying you slept with them in Anti-Fairy culture. There’s no look of horror like the one that crosses an Anti-Fairy’s face when you’re at a party talking about that time you sang with a human... or your mother.

The other famous language barrier is licking. In Origin of the Pixies, H.P. licks lots of people (mostly his pixies). He licks their faces as a nonverbal cue to remind them he’s dominant. His subordinates lick his neck to show they recognize and accept his dominance. This is basic biology for them and they don’t think much of it. In Anti-Fairy culture, licking the neck is one of those nonverbal cues to proceed to more intimate acts. Definite culture shock there. Wasps and bats. Whatcha gonna do?

There are also certain phrases that the other culture takes literally. Anti-Cosmo especially tends to be literal, and answer rhetorical questions, which again earns him weird looks from the Seelie. H.P. adapts to new phrases well in general. I don’t know if any of you guys noticed, but before he met Emery in Origin, he would say “Wait a wingbeat”. After hanging out with her, he picked up saying “Wait a second” instead. He also picked up “Roger that” from China, and “Dude” from Sparkle (and living in Lau Rell). He quickly picks up on new slang terms.

H.P. is better at separating literal and figurative language than Anti-Cosmo is sometimes. Anti-Cosmo is usually good, but there are certain things that throw him. Anti-Cosmo is very much a person who needs to learn things for himself. H.P. is the kind of person who subtly adapts to those around him. Writer humor.

The slang word Anti-Cosmo had to teach H.P. was “cool”. Before that, he would refer to people as “hot”, again earning him uncertain looks. Hey, he’s a busy guy and he can’t always keep up with the young whippersnappers. I just find culture differences and language barriers hilarious.

What are Anti-Fairy senses like?

Fairies and Pixies basically have 360° vision. 270° of that is visual. However, they can sense the auras of magical creatures around them and behind them, to the point that if someone were to stick their tongue at them from behind, the Seelie Courter could sense that just as well as they could if they saw it with their eyes. They can read facial expressions of those they aren’t looking at directly. In “China’s Finger Trap”, H.P. even sensed China slow her pace and put her hand over her mouth from the other side of a door. We’ll see Poof getting super uncomfortable during “Watch and Learn” due to what he can sense too.

The distance one can sense depends on one’s share of their magic pool. It can be mathematically calculated by measuring the distance between head and floating crown. Don’t ask me to invent that formula. I don’t want to know. Yet.

Anti-Fairies cannot sense auras like this. At least, not in the same way. Instead, they just get super intense hearing. We witnessed Foop’s extreme listening sense at the beginning of “Hidden”. Each magical creature registers as a different sound in the energy field. Fairies sound like tearing velcro. Pixies sound like a finger flipping through the pages of a book. In “Think Positive”, Anti-Cosmo said all genies register as gongs to him, even when they aren’t snapping their fingers to use magic. He also said anti-pixies sound like screeching brakes on a car out of control.

But, Anti-Fairy vision is much narrower than that of the Seelie Court. It’s much easier to sneak up on an Anti-Fairy than on a Fairy or Pixie. Though of course, it depends on how distracted they are, and how well they’re listening.

Can Anti-Fairies flip their eyes into field-sight like the Seelie Court?

Anti-Fairies cannot see the energy field or magic lines. You could say they have their own energy field they can see. They can see influences of luck and fate, called “karmic weaves”. We’ll learn more about that in “Fun With Yarn”.

BookwormGal and I were talking about Amanda Adams and the Fairy zodiac this one time. I joked that if I had written the confrontation scene between Timmy and Amanda vs. Anti-Cosmo and H.P. during “Never Had a Friend Like Me”, things would have gone very differently. Like, Anti-Cosmo realizing that Amanda balances the two end points of the positive and negative Leaves year traits (Bravery and Rashness) unusually well, and so he abruptly screeches to a halt to throw a huge ceremony in her honor. Just. In the middle of the revenge plan. I drew Amanda decked out in Leaves year green HERE, though I’ll have to redraw her someday since I’ve never been happy with how I did. Someday.

I wasn’t being completely serious about equilibrium, but then I ran with the idea and it got super out of hand. Specifically, if Amanda can embody Rashness in combination with Bravery, then it seems logical for H.P. to embody equilibrium for the Soil year traits (Perseverance and Obsession). You’ll see that very soon in “What Karma Is”. The Anti-Fairies drool over his karmic weave. And it’s going to keep coming up. Don’t forget. Not that you could. It’s hilarious. I’m hilarious.

Anti-Fairies can’t see the energy field like the Fairies can, but they can see karmic weaves. Or at least they can under certain conditions, such as when you cross your fingers behind your back. They know. They always know.

I’ve actually written some of that AU confrontation scene, since Bookworm gave me permission to make it a Prompt towards the end of the 130 called “You Deserve It”. Here’s a cool rough draft snippet of it, because I think it’s funny:

Timmy raised his eyebrows. “I don’t trust you.”

The Head Pixie grabbed the first three hangers from the closet. “I’m not even going to make up an excuse as to why you should. This wasn’t my idea.”

“Teleporting me away from my fairies? On Christmas? When they have no magic?”

“It wasn’t my idea,” he droned again. “Anti-Cosmo has been interested in your friend for some time now. I don’t know if you know this, but he has a long affinity with genies.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Until your fairies came along, he and Anti-Wanda were childless. He filled that void in his life by raising young genies instead. They’re an endangered species, so he bred them and they had babies. Recently it has come to his attention that your friend…?”

“Amanda Adams.”

“Ms. Adams has been in possession of a genie for a curious amount of time. The girl isn’t known to have the most attentive parents, so he thought he might surprise her with Christmas dinner and discuss her relationship with the genie in the process. Apparently, you happened to be in the room and got picked up along with her.”

Timmy wrinkled his nose. “Nope. Still don’t trust you.”

“Still wasn’t my idea.” H.P. sat on the edge of the bed with the mound of navy blue clothes in his lap. “If it makes you happier, genies do not surrender their powers as Fairies do. Thus, spending Christmas Day with a genie’s master is hardly as antagonistic as spending it with a fairy’s godchild.”

“Well, I’m a fairy’s godchild. And I think this is suspicious.”

H.P. blinked in a dull way. For him, that was probably a pretty normal blink. “Since you’re not the one Anti-Cosmo wanted to have dinner with, I would offer to return you to Dimmsdale. In fact, I would offer to go with you. The traditional Anti-Fairy foods are not exactly to my liking. Much too flavorful. However, I don’t think you would be pleased if I sent you there while Ms. Adams remained here.”

Timmy reluctantly acknowledged the truth of that statement, but didn’t pick up the offered jacket. “Are you going to be wearing colorful clothes to this dinner too? Man, you must really hate that.”

“Actually, I was born in a Soil year. I get dull brown.”

“Of course you do.”

Don’t mess with the Anti-Fairies when they find someone at equilibrium. The karmic weaves are both gorgeous and delicious. They feed on this kind of stuff.

That’s that for today. I was going to have some nature spirit stuff in this post, but they got their own giant post a few days ago instead. You’ll see this stuff in Knots, but it’s also here too. Feel free to ask questions if you have any.

#FAIRIES! #ridwriting #Bat cube and associates #Frayed Knots #130 Prompts #I'm wasp dad trash #Origin of the Pixies #Perfect pink beaver boy #BookwormGal

[another-rough-draft]

The Bone Season Review

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

★★★★★

Also available on Goodreads

Read: 2013, 2015, 2017

My review for The Bone Season comes four years and three readings late. With a book this old (published 2013 --a practical dinosaur) I wondered if writing a review would even be worth my time. Worth anyone’s time, for that matter. This book is old news.

Except it isn’t old news. There is something about The Bone Season that separates it from other contemporary science fiction novels, and that is its ability to transcend modern tropes and literary crazes. It continues to rely on its own merit as a work of fiction rather than on whatever readers want from a novel in that particular year (what was 2013? Faeries?). Just as I was relieved in 2013 not to have another Divergent shoved in my direction, I find that The Bone Season continues to stand out against a slew of generic YA novels. That being said, I can’t ignore the fact that after the first two times I read this book I only gave it 3 stars. While I’ve come to appreciate it a bit more after the third read-through, the issues I found before are still there.

Didn’t it like then, appreciate it now:

Info-dumps and sci-fi jargon

The trick to approaching Shannon’s immense world of Scion London and Sheol I is commitment. This is not a book to pick up and put down every five minutes when the professor looks elsewhere during a lecture. It’s also not a book you’ll want to download on your phone, as I found myself flipping back and forth between the text and glossary quite a lot. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Shannon understands how much/how little she needs to assume the reader knows throughout the novel. Her balance between being too vague and too repetitive is very nearly perfect.

My one condition when reading novels like this is that the worldbuilding has to be thorough and it has to make sense. I am so so tired of reading books (some of which received even more hype than The Bone Season) that are littered with plot holes. Fortunately, Shannon leaves nothing unaddressed in the world she has carefully created, and her execution is strong. I’d much rather flip back to a map or glossary every few pages than have to sit through a book that lacks common sense.

Flashbacks

Like info-dumps, “flashbacks” is one of those buzzwords that immediately turns readers away. I will often just skip through chapters that involve agonizingly long flashbacks, which usually serve as secondary info-dumps about some character’s troubled history. I hate them.

For this book, I make an exception. I’d go as far as to say the flashbacks are just as entertaining as the story itself, if not more so. Paige is abducted from Scion so early on in the book, it would have been criminal to leave it at that. Shannon uses well-placed dream flashbacks to help the reader piece together the story of Paige’s life before coming to Sheol I, and let me tell you: it was awesome. Paige’s history with Nick is my favorite part of the book, hands down. I won’t go into detail, but that one flashback is what made me love Paige as a character, despite her obvious flaws, which brings me tooooo

Liked it then, questionable now:

“Headstrong” heroine

I’m an adult. Many of Shannon’s readers are adults. We know that you don’t have to want to fight all the time to be considered “strong”. Paige does not seem to understand this, which at times made me feel like I was reading about a rebellious 16-year-old princess, not a 19-year-old gangster. This book deserved better than Paige’s personality, which I found to be pretty frustrating at times. But maybe I was just thrown off by her insistence on hating her love interest.

Romance

Because I’m a sucker for romance, and because The Bone Season had amazing potential (and it does get better in the next books, so don’t throw it to the side just yet), I was pretty annoyed with this poor execution of a “slow-burning romance”. Paige goes from hating Warden with every bone in her body to making out with him in the last few pages. Um… what? While we are basically told they’ll end up together from the start (thanks to some truly cringe-worthy character exposition that involves Warden watching Paige with glowing sexy eyes from across the room), the question is when will Paige go from despising him, to being his friend, to eventually falling in love with him? The answer: she doesn’t. One minute she’s spitting in his face, the next she’s sucking on his face. It definitely made me question the validity of their feelings for each other. But honestly I’m so tired of insta-love at the beginning of a book that I’ll take insta-love at the end.

Bottom line: read it. Shannon’s attention to detail (particularly to her characters and setting) are what makes this a 4-5 star book.

#the bone season #goodreads #book review #samantha shannon #the mime order #the song rising

[stacks-reviews]

October and November Awesomeness

A while back I mentioned that October and November were going to kick ass this year. Thought I would finally share the reasons why.

In Books --A 10th anniversary edition of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (10/3) New cover, never-before-seen illustrations, updated and detailed world map, new author’s note, appendix with calendar system and currencies, and a pronunciation guide.

--The Illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (10/3)

--Rat Queens Volume 4 by Kurtis J. Wiebe and illustrated by Own Gieni (10/17) Very excited to read more about the Rat Queens.

--Harry Potter: A Journey Through a History of magic by the British Library (10/20) The first of the two new HP books set to be released this year.

--A collectors edition of A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab (10/31) A new cove with metallic ink, fan art end papers, a glossary, an interview between the author and editor, original Tales from the world, and a ‘reading ribbon of great fanciness’. There is a B&N exclusive edition of it that is listed as including “A look at Lila Barn’s London” which is not listed on the other edition. Though I would classify that as being part of the Tales. I’m not positive and I’ve been having some trouble trying to find a resource listing all the differences at the moment. Other than that, the main difference is the B&N edition’s cover is similar to the standard cover in appearance. While the other CE has a black cover. I like the black cover better cause it helps it stand out as a collector’s edition but I might end up getting the B&N if it has exclusive, additional extras.

--The Perfect Shadow by Brent Weeks (11/7) The prequel novella to the Night Angel Trilogy that I have been waiting to see a physical release of for a long time. Can’t wait.

--Ghost in the Shell manga box set by Shirow Masamune (11/14) This one makes me a bit mad. If I had known they would be releasing a set I would have held off on buying them all when they were rereleased back in February. March for me though cause it kept getting pushed back where I order them. Other than its box (which there is currently no image of that I’ve seen) it comes with a lithograph created by Masamune.

--Rose Volume 1 by Meredith Finch and illustrated by Ig Guara (11/28) I can’t wait to try out this series.

In Movies --Spider-Man Homecoming (10/17)

--Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, and Ponyo The first wave of Studio Ghibli films to be rereleaed by GKids with Shout Factory. If you were not aware, when these films were first released by Disney they did not give the Japanese audio tracks a proper subtitling. They used dubtitles (when watching some in Japanese it gets you the subtitles to the English version. But GKids is supposed to be giving them the actual translation.

--Anohana The Flower We Saw that Day (10/31) I really love this show. I already own it but I’ll need to get this edition so I can cry my eyes out in two languages.

--Castle In the Sky, Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind (10/31) The second wave of the Gkids rereleases

--Project Ito: Genocidal Organ (11/7) I enjoyed Empire of Corpses but I still need to watch Harmony and this one.

--Your Name (11/7) I haven’t had an opportunity to see this hit film. I want to know if it really lives up to the hype. There is a standard edition and a limited. The LE has a clipboard box, a 60 page art book, an art digipack, and the soundtrack by RADWIMPS on two discs.

--Haikyu S1 (11/14) All twenty-five episodes of the hit volleyball series. There is a standard edition and a collector’s edition. The CE has a clipboard box, a hardcover booklet, art cards, character trading cards, a Karasuno token, and a set of nine bird pens. S2 has a CE that comes out in January and is listed to having the exact same items but with different images. For example the trading cards for S2 shows some of the characters from different teams while S1′s is everyone from Karasuno. 

--Porco Rosso, The Secret World of Arrietty (11/21) Third wave of the rereleaes by GKids.

In Games --Fire Emblem Warriors on Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch (10/20) I’m always excited for a new Fire Emblem Game. The Switch copy is about $20 more than the 3DS version. I might end up getting the Switch edition because I want to build its library but I haven’t decided yet. The Switch did get a special edition that includes character art cards, slip case for the cards, a dual-sided poster, and three cd’s of game music.

--.hack//G.U. Recode (11/3) I’ve never got to play a .hack game so I really want to get this. I love .hack.

--Rime for Nintendo Switch (11/4)  It is already out on the PS4 but I’ve been debating if I’d rather take it with me on the Switch. But the Switch version is $10 more than the PS4 version.

--Pokemon Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon Nintendo 3DS (11/17) I wasn’t that crazy about Sun and Moon. I didn’t pour as much time into it as I usually do with any Pokemon game but I still liked them. I have every game (minus the Ranger and Mystery Dungeon titles) and I still love playing them so I’ll be getting the new editions.

--Skyrim for Nintendo Switch (11/17) I just got this last black Friday for my PS4 so I don’t know if I’ll be getting this edition. But I know this one is highly anticipated by fans.

Manga There’s a lot of new volumes I’m looking forward to.  --Assassination Classroom Volume 18 by Yusei Matsui (10/3) --The Water Dragon’s Bride Volume 3 by Rei Toma (10/3) --Gangsta: Cursed Volume 3 by Kohske and illustrated by Kamo Syuhei (10/10) --Tokyo Ghoul: re Volume 1 by Sui Ishida (10/17) --Nekogahara Stray Cat Samurai Volume 3 by Hiroyuki Takei (10/17) It’s exactly what it sounds like. Is surprisingly violent. The first volume was fun but there was something in the second volume I wasn’t very fond of. --Land of the Lustrous Volume 3 by Haruko Ishikawa (10/24) --Erased Volume 3 by Kei Sanbe (10/31) --The Girl from the Other Side Siuil A Run Volume 3 by Nagabe (10/31) --To Your Eternity Volume 1 by Yoshitoki Oima (10/31) By the same author of A Silent Voice. --My Hero Academia Volume 10 by Kohei Horikoshi (11/7) --Descending Stories Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju Volume 4 by Haruko Kumota (11/7) --A Silent Voice Box Set by Yoshitoki Oima I’ve only read the first volume but I know it is a great series. I am debating about someday getting the box set so that I can continue it. --Fairy Tail Volume 62 by Hiro Mashima (11/14) --Frau Faust Volume 2 by Kore Yamazaki (11/14) --Arakawa Under the Bridge Volume 1 by Hikaru Nakamura (11/21) I have the anime. It’s crazy and fun. I still need to finish the second half. --Children of the Whales Volume 1 by Abi Umeda (11/21) --Fairy Tail Volume 63 by Hiro Mashima (11/28) Final volume of the main series. I do find it a little odd that 62 and 63 are coming out within a week of each other. I’m not surprised that the might release at the same time, but why would they put a week in between them.

There are a couple of books that was originally supposed to be released in these two months but they were pushed back. December also had a great list of new releases but since this one is already so long (by time I thought about making it two separate posts for each month, it was too late to go back) I’ll hold off on it for now.

#the name of the wind #Patrick Rothfuss #harry potter #prisoner of azkaban #j.k. rowling #a journey through a history of magic #rat queens #Kurtis J. Wiebe #owen gieni #A Darker Shade of Magic #V.E. Schwab #the perfect shadow #Brent Weeks #night angel trilogy #ghost in the shell #gits #shirow masamune #rose #meredith finch #ig guara #spider-man #Spider-Man: Homecoming #studio ghibli #gkids #spirited away #howls moving castle #princess mononoke #Kiki's Delivery Service #my neighbor totoro #ponyo

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Across the Face of the Bored

by Dan H

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Dan feels like he's kicking a puppy.~

Ferretbrain regulars should already know about my sordid love affair with Trudi Canavan, an Australian novelist whose work I am guiltily fond of (I'm anxiously looking forward to the paperback release of the Black Magician prequels). Trudi writes wonderful, pacey books about spunky heroines with magic powers which are amazing fun and never get boring (well, Last of the Wilds sagged a bit if I'm honest). It was on her recommendation (well, her blurb, which isn't quite the same thing) that I picked up Russell Kirkpatrick's Across the Face of the World. 

I'll admit, I was also attracted to the sheer old-school nature of it. It's called “Across the Face of the World” for a start, and the cover depicts five people on horses riding in front of a gigantic moon. There are no fewer than five maps at the front, and at the back is a glossary which is only two pages shorter than the first chapter. It's the product of “fifteen years of careful worldbuilding” and when I say “worldbuilding” I mean “this guy is a professor of geography and boy does it show.”

So I kind of knew what I was getting into when I started it. But it came with the Trudi Canavan seal of approval, so I figured it would be slightly cheesy but good fun.

It was not good fun.

Oh, spoilers, FYI.

The story concerns a boy called Leith who lives in a remote village where he isn't terribly popular because he's slightly smaller and weaker than the other children. He has a crush on a girl called Stella (yes, Stella) but she is betrothed to another boy called ... Druin? I think? Not really sure. He is miraculously cast opposite her in the Midwinter play, and gets to do flirty improv theatre with her, before getting dragged away by his mysteriously-returned father, who has brought Terrible Danger with him.

So Leith's father and mother get kidnapped by the Lords of Fear (I kind of feel that I should have bolded that. I mean dudes: Lords of Fear) and Leith, his crippled brother Hal, the village “Haufuth” (think elder or headman) and a Simple Farmer Who Is More Than He Seems named Kurr set off to find them, and to warn the people of Faltha that they are about to be invaded by Bhrudwo.

Finding the names confusing yet? Just wait.

Stella stumbles upon the council of war, and since Leith and Hal are supposed to be dead, and they can't have anybody spreading rumours about their plan, they decide to take her with them (why no, she doesn't get any say in this, why do you ask?) when they head out to do their mission.

They pursue the Bhrudwans across the face of the ... well you get the picture. They do this very, very slowly. Very, very, very slowly.

Kirkpatrick has mapped out his world in exhaustive detail, and he leads you through every inch of it. Down every glaciated valley, past every erratic boulder, up every fold mountain and over every waterfall into every plunge pool. The single biggest impression you get from the text is “gosh, this person knows a lot about geography.” The second biggest impression you get from the text is “gosh, this dialogue is terrible and stilted and these characters are wooden and poorly realised.”

Sorry, that was bitchy of me, and I feel genuinely bad about saying it, because Russell Kirkpatrick comes across as a lovely man who has a genuine enthusiasm for his world and his story. The flyleaf informs us that:

“Russell Kirkpatrick's love of literature and a chance encounter with fantasy novels as a teenager opened up a vast number of possibilities to him. The idea that he could marry storytelling and mapmaking (his other passion) into one project grabbed him and wouldn't let go.”

How sweet is that? Unfortunately while Kirkpatrick's love of mapmaking has translated into an ability to draw pretty good maps, his love of storytelling has failed to yield similar results.

Where to begin.

Destiny Is Not A Virtue God Damn It

Throughout Across the Face of the World there is talk of “The Right Hand of God” (not to be confused with the Left Hand of God, which is Hugh Jackman). This is a dude who is totally destined to rise up and unite the disparate kingdoms of Faltha and fight off the evil Bhrudwans and defeat the Destroyer and generally be Awesomeness Personified.

The Right Hand is pretty clearly Leith. There are gigantic hints about this, almost to the extent of people coming up to him and saying “Leith Mahnumsen, You Are The Right Hand of God”.

It does not, in fact, bother me that nobody works out this extremely obvious fact. It does not bother me that Leith remains totally oblivious to the idea that he might be the Right Hand, despite meeting (a) a seer who says “you have a great destiny and will become a great leader of men” and (b) a bard who says “Hi, I'm looking for the Right Hand, who is destined to be a great leader of men, I think he might come from your home town.”

What bothers me is the fact that I am expected to give a crap.

I really hate destiny in fantasy. It's so often used to avoid explaining how a character was actually capable of achieving something. I don't mind the young orphan boy being able to pull the sword from the stone. I do mind him being able to use the damned thing without any training.

Leith has nothing to recommend him as a character. He's mopey, miserable, self-pitying and indecisive. He doesn't have hidden leadership qualities (or if he does they are fantastically wellhidden) he doesn't even have tremendous compassion (his adoptive brother Hal does, but he's clearly an angel which is kinda cheating) or unusual courage. Hell, he doesn't even get described as possessing any of these quantities. All he does is mope about the fact that Stella seems to fancy somebody else and display a vague determination to get his parents back.

I wouldn't object to this if I thought it was deliberate, if I thought somebody was going to sit Leith down and say “seriously dude, stop being such a douche” and he was going to realise that dag nammit he had a kingdom to save I'd be okay with that, but it seems very unlikely at this stage.

The thing is I do understand why you get so many fantasy heroes like this. He's an everyman or, more precisely an everygeek. He's the speccy outsider who isn't very good at sports and is no good with girls, but who is secretly special because of some innate quality which is never really explained, and which he never has to demonstrate. The recognition and validation of your individual special-unique-snowflake-ness is basically every geeks ultimate fantasy (hell it's why I write these articles, I fully expect to be given a column in the Times any day now) and like Leith we expect this validation to come not as a result of anything we have done but in recognition of who we are. It's the slightly tragic result of being picked on at school.

Where was I? Oh yes: Leith is boring, self-pitying and has the leadership potential of a pillow with an anxiety disorder. He's going to wind up saving the world and I really don't care.

Stella By Starlight

Across the Face of the World almost avoids making it onto the Fantasy Rape Watch list, but not quite. I'm not going to talk about that quite yet, though. Instead I'm going to talk about Stella.

Since pretty much forever, there's been a strong tradition in literature (particularly heroic literature – including fantasy novels and action movies) of female characters whose sole function is to act as a reward for the hero. The fact that I'm not particularly squicked out by the fact that our society sees “getting the girl” as a natural consequence of “killing the baddies” (rather than anything the “girl” has – y'know – a choice about) is one of those things which makes me rather ashamed of my own internalised prejudices. It's a trope that comes up time and again in pretty much every book you've ever read and every film you've ever seen. It should bother me more than it does, frankly, and for some reason it really bothers me here.

Maybe it's because I really didn't like Leith, but the idea that this girl had been created purely so that, at the end of the series, she could complete the protagonist's wish-fulfilment fantasy by winding up with him had me beating my head against the wall. I wouldn't mind but he isn't even particularly nice to her. He shows no actual interest in her as a person, they don't have a relationship, he sees her as a trophy just as much as Druin, the boy she's betrothed to and terrified of.

Oh yes, about that.

Stella starts the story being abducted by the company because they want to keep her quiet. This is, itself, all kinds of fucked up. I mean, I get that it's better that nobody in the village know where you're going (they say it's for the safety of the village, but seriously, when has ignorance protected anybody from anything – if Dark Lord Psychopathus thinks you know something, he'll torture you to death, period) but seriously, you guys were the ones who had a secret meeting in a public building with no locks on the doors. The fact that they won't trust her not to tell anybody (because her mother's a gossip, apparently) is also a bit iffy, it's got slight overtones of “women need to learn to keep their mouths shut” - sorry, I'm Minority Warrioring again – so, yes, abduction.

Stella does not get a choice about joining the company on their quest, but she goes along with it in the end because the alternative is to marry Druin, and be subjected to a lifetime of socially sanctioned marital rape. Being the courageous, self-actualising fantasy heroine that she is, Stella sees her abduction by the company as an opportunity to throw herself at somebody else, so she can be subjected to a lifetime of socially sanctioned marital rape by somebody less horrible.

It doesn't occur to her that she could – y'know – make a life for herself in the enormous cosmopolitan city they're going to. I know she's a girl from a small village and was probably raised with a very narrow view of her future, but I think once you've broadened your prospects to include “saving the world” I really don't think “living without a man” is too much of a stretch.

Ethnic Jokes Are So Uncouth

So the basic plot of AtFotW is that the proud lands of Faltha are home to the First Men, the chosen of God who screwed up n-thousand years ago but who are destined to reclaim their rightful place as the Chosen of the Most High and redeem the world and stuff.

Anybody want to guess what their defining racial characteristics are? I'll give you a clue, it isn't dark hair and brown eyes.

The enemy of the First Men is the evil empire of Bhrudwo. Now I'll admit here that I've not seen much actual description of Bhrudwan ethnic characteristics but they do seem to live in a desert, is all I'm saying.

Now I know making allegations of racism about a fantasy novel is, as a great man once put it, about as difficult as putting on a hat. But when your novel has as its premise that some races of people are better than other races of people, you need to be really careful before making your chosen people look quite that much like Nazi poster children.

This again probably wouldn't bother me as much as it does, but Kirkpatrick seems to have actually noticed the problem and sort-of-not-quite tried to address it. There's quite a lot of evil races in his world (the Bhrudwans, the Widuz), but Kirkpatrick keeps making embarrassingly perfunctory efforts to pretend that they are not, in fact, totally evil. Mahnum (the protagonist's father) explains at great and patronising length how the common people of Bhrudwo are really excellent people no different from you or me, before explaining how he was captured by them, tortured by them, then rescued by one of them who, when said rescuer discovered that he was not as rich as he had pretended, betrayed him to the Lords of Fear. Similarly, when the Companions encounter the Widuz, we are told carefully that they have been cruelly treated by the other people of their land, and driven ever further into the most inhospitable parts of Faltha, only to be subjected to a sequence in which the Widuz line up dozens of naked, drugged captives and throw them into a dormant volcano to appease a hungry god. And lest we forget, there is only one God that canonically exists in the setting, so while they're ill-treated they're also violent, barbaric and wrong.

Now I admit, I've only read the first book, and it's possible that it will defy all my expectations and preconceptions. It's possible that Leith will grow the hell up and show some kind of leadership qualities. It's possible that Stella will learn that she doesn't actually need to get married, and will reject Leith on the grounds that she doesn't fancy him. But I'm unlikely to find out because I'm unlikely to want to wade through another twelve hundred pages of tedious geography for the privilege.

And finally:

Fantasy Rape Watch

Approximate Number of Named Characters Who Travel with the Company: 12

Of Which Female: 3

Of Whom Have Dialogue: 2

Of Whom Motivated by Past Sexual Abuse: 1

Of Whom Motivated by Fear of Future Sexual Abuse: 1

Of Whom Die: 1

Total Deaths Among Company: 2

Number of Women Abducted by Villains: 1

Number of Women Abducted by Heroes: 1

Number of Societies Encountered in Which Women Are Treated Literally As Property: 1

Number of Male Characters Who Object To This: 0

Number of Female Characters Who Object To This: 0

Reaction of Party Member On Being Told That His Wife Is Now The Property Of Another Man: “Oh good, he'll look after her until I get back”Themes:

Fantasy Rape Watch

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Books

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Sci-fi / Fantasy

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Judging Books By Their Covers

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http://serenoli.livejournal.com/

at 12:00 on 2009-04-15Lol the last line. Like, seriously?

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Rami

at 13:52 on 2009-04-15I was mostly struck by the resemblance of the cover to

a Wheel Of Time book

, when I first saw it...

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Arthur B

at 13:57 on 2009-04-15Hey, I remember that cover - it was on the only

Wheel of Time

book I ever attempted to read.

I got halfway through the prologue before I gave up.

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Rami

at 14:26 on 2009-04-15Don't worry, you won't have to miss out entirely -- it's allegedly coming to the big screen in 2011!

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Wardog

at 16:00 on 2009-04-15They're making a movie from The Wheel of Time? Wtf?! It isn't even finished... and it's really boring...

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Arthur B

at 16:07 on 2009-04-15The long and boring nature of the Wheel of Time is actually helpful there: if they film everything then they'll still be on schedule even if the final book isn't published until 2050...

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Rami

at 16:14 on 2009-04-15You never know, they could do something miraculous and tighten it up a lot (like the LOTR films, for instance, were tightened up) into a reasonable story...

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Shim

at 16:19 on 2009-04-15I can see that. I mean, if you cut out most of the characters and all the sitting around angsting, it would be manageable.

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Guy

at 16:22 on 2009-04-15I understand that, since Jordan is now writing generic fantasy for the angels, they have found someone else to finish the Wheel for him. Who was intending to write one book, but, haha, said that there was far too much stuff to wrap up in just one book so he is going to write a concluding *trilogy*.

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Dan H

at 20:16 on 2009-04-15

Lol the last line. Like, seriously?

Seriously, but deliberately taken out of context for maximum d'oh value. Said character is, in fact, a member of the treats-women-as-property community (albeit an adopted one) so it's not like his wife was just snatched away from him by people they met on the road, and he does know the guy she's given to personally so it's not completely psychotic. So the line is more "I know X will take good care of her". It's still kind of messed up though.

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Dan H

at 20:38 on 2009-04-15

there was far too much stuff to wrap up in just one book so he is going to write a concluding *trilogy*

You know what's going to happen, don't you?

He's going to write books one and two, and then die horrifically, at which point somebody else will get brought in to finish the trilogy, and decide that actually they'll need to divide the final volume into two parts, finish the first part and then they'll die as well at which point somebody else...

It'll become this terrifying horror story about the fantasy series that kills anybody who touches it.

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Guy

at 03:56 on 2009-04-16I thought you were going to say, he's going to write books one and two, then realise that one book just really isn't *quite* enough to wrap up everything that needs to be wrapped up, so he'll extend the series by just a few more books... &c... but I like your version too. :)

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http://pozorvlak.livejournal.com/

at 11:51 on 2009-04-16I just wanted to say that Leith is the name of where I live. I don't know if that's a coincidence or further evidence of Kirkpatrick's deep love of geography, but it made the review rather confusing for me to read.

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http://sistermagpie.livejournal.com/

at 21:02 on 2009-04-21Awww. It really is kind of a textbook fantasy book. I find myself liking the author even while cringing at the thought of reading the book.

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Rami

at 10:54 on 2009-04-22

liking the author even while cringing

Yeah, me too. If he spends that long lovingly building a fantasy world I get the feeling it'd be really fun to be sitting there exploring it with him, just riffing on ideas like what the people in the desert kingdom to the south wear.

On the other hand, that has very little to do with actually writing a good book :-(

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Dan H

at 13:31 on 2009-04-22There's a rather cute bit on his website where he says that writing his books takes roughly 500 hours to write, with a further *thousand* hours of worldbuilding...

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Wardog

at 14:38 on 2009-04-22Sigh. I'm pretty damn sure it should be the other way round ...

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 18:23 on 2012-04-03

Now I admit, I've only read the first book, and it's possible that it will defy all my expectations and preconceptions. It's possible that Leith will grow the hell up and show some kind of leadership qualities. It's possible that Stella will learn that she doesn't actually need to get married, and will reject Leith on the grounds that she doesn't fancy him. But I'm unlikely to find out because I'm unlikely to want to wade through another twelve hundred pages of tedious geography for the privilege.

Kind of, as far as Leith goes. Instead of displaying any fantastic qualities book 3 becomes a rather hilarious deconstruction/parody of the idea of the Chosen One, as he leads his followers from one epic fail to the next before God and Hal save the day at the last possible second.

Stella on the other hand is treated rather savagely; by the end of the trilogy she's been seduced by the Dark Lord's trusted lieutenant (whom she does, in fairness, cause to be killed by the Dark Lord), then prematurely aged and palsied down one side by the Dark Lord during his enslavement of her, develops kind-of Stockholm syndrome before being rescued by God, and still marries Leith at the end.

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Dan H

at 18:11 on 2012-04-04

Instead of displaying any fantastic qualities book 3 becomes a rather hilarious deconstruction/parody of the idea of the Chosen One, as he leads his followers from one epic fail to the next before God and Hal save the day at the last possible second.

Obviously I've not read the book, but based on this very loose description, I'm not sure that constitutes a parody or deconstruction, so much as a fairly straight implementation of the trope. Sometimes it's authorial fiat, rather than a literal divine intervention, but the way the Chosen One narrative usually works (in my experience) is that they fuck up continuously for most of the story, then have everything come out alright at the last possible minute.

c.f. John Sheridan, Harry Potter, later Buffy, and so on.

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James D

at 20:10 on 2012-04-04Yes, a better deconstruction of the trope would have the "Chosen One" be actually worthy of the title, but simply lose because the enemy is better at fighting and it was stupid to expect to win or even try to fight. The bad guys end up being magnanimous in defeat and things go back to the way they were, which wasn't so bad anyway, minus a bunch of warmongering rebels. The End. Maybe throw in a dash of how the former Confederate US is with its "The South Will Rise Agin!" mantra, playing up big gubmint being evil, states' rights being good, and conveniently lionizing the rebels while whitewashing the whole slavery issue. I guess the protagonist could be some sort of impressionable youth who buys the whole story.

There are probably already a hundred authors who've deconstructed the trope at length, to the point where its deconstruction is itself a trope. Such is modern fantasy. To be perfectly honest though, it just doesn't seem like a particularly interesting trope to deconstruct, because once examined at all it becomes so transparently stupid that hardly any deconstruction is required to lay that inherent stupidity bare. As mentioned in the review, the concept of a "Chosen One" is just more bald-faced adolescent wish-fulfillment fantasy.

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 17:45 on 2012-04-05

Obviously I've not read the book, but based on this very loose description, I'm not sure that constitutes a parody or deconstruction, so much as a fairly straight implementation of the trope. Sometimes it's authorial fiat, rather than a literal divine intervention, but the way the Chosen One narrative usually works (in my experience) is that they fuck up continuously for most of the story, then have everything come out alright at the last possible minute.

I think the difference is one of textual support. You can read the later Harry Potter books as the story of someone bumbling from one disaster to another, but that is not supported by the text which insists that Harry is a Hero with capital H to the point that even after his apparent defeat and death people remain loyal to his memory.

On the other hand, when Leith is loudly called out for every mistake he makes, called out for sulking about getting called out, and by the end of the war is getting pissed on by the common soldiery for his suckage (even Charlie Brown thinks he's a loser by this point) it's hard to argue that 'Leith is Useless' is not what the text expects you to take away.

It's also possible to interpret that Hal, who bears his brother's accusations of treason without complaint, dies in Leith's place and then comes back to life temporarily in time to save the day, was the real Right Hand of God all along, but then Leith was the one hearing God's voice in book 2 so that would be strange.

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Tamara

at 23:08 on 2014-01-28How geekily-particular is it that what bothers me about this review is the implication that geographers make for tedious worldbuilding? I'm not-so-many credits away from a geography degree and love it to pieces, and it's totally obvious to me that the use of a solid foundation in geography in fantasy worldbuilding should be one of experimentation and exploration of spaces and landscapes that can't exist in reality, not the fussy construction of super-accurate worlds. The City and The City or The Half Made World is my idea of a great geography porn genre book, not something with really nicely mapped drainage basins. Just needed to say that, oh very old article about a series long since off the radar.

#Ferretbrain #Across the Face of the World #Russel Kirkpatrick #Dan H #Fantasy #Fantasy Rape Watch

[transhumanitynet]

Volunteer to Help Build Artificial General Intelligence based on Human-like Emotions

Essentially, we are asking for volunteers to be part of one or two of three groups that will help us conduct a cognitive function high-level study of a type of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) based on a cognitive architecture termed the Independent Core Observer Model (ICOM). Yes, I realize this is a lot of complex technospeak, but if you want to really get technical you can refer to a glossary and references (at the end of this document)—but primarily, I’ll try to keep the details in a more non-AI scientist sort of language (meaning normal English).

That said, what you are volunteering for is, again, to be part of one or two out of three research groups that will perform a type of task depending on your ability to participate—and you get to select the group that works best for you.  From our statistical standpoint, our resident research psychologist Dr. Amon Twyman) has stated that we need these groups to be a certain size to ensure that we can obtain even vague conclusions—so we need more help to ensure our pool size is large enough.

Three Groups: What to expect

For this study have we are using three groups to compare individual humans to groups of humans to behave as an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that uses a collective group of humans to function like (for those super nerds out there) a meta-organism that we’ve termed a Mediated Artificial Super Intelligence (mASI), which is likely to (1) exhibit some features that could be construed as superhuman and (2) be relatively slow for normal tasks.  Based on how the groupings, you could be in Group 1 and Group 3, Group 2 and Group 3 or just any one of the groups.  (You cannot be in Group 1 and Group 2 as it’s not a valid comparison from a statistical standpoint.)

These are the groups:

Group 1 will be sent a type of IQ test that they take on their own.  That said we may also do some proctored ones so we know how much people cheat.  We are not tracking the results tied to a specific person but we are dealing with humans.

Group 2 will do the same test as Group 1 but will do it as a group using a tool like Skype or WebEx.  The point is to treat a collection of humans as a collective intelligence of sorts and analyze the results.

Group 3 will act as mediators helping to create cognitive models that will be used in real time by our AGI system to take the same test, as well as other short, more subjective tests.  We can then compare the mASI system to Group 1 and Group 2.

What we will do with the data:

Essentially what we are doing with the data—besides protecting it from a Personally Identifiable Information (PII) standpoint—is to keep the data scrubbed and isolated.  We are not interested in in the results of a specific human and will make sure that resulting data cannot be mapped back to any one individual.

We then will compare results between these groups to see if the ICOM-based mASI system is significantly able to outperform humans individually and in groups.  If there is enough evidence to support this line of reasoning, further research will be done along these lines.  If, however, the mASI proves broken in some way. we would then go back to the drawing board, redesign and retest, etc.

Final Thoughts

It should be noted that (1) a study of this nature is too small to prove anything statistically significant, and (2) while the mASI system we are designing is running an architecture designed to be an AGI, it really is more of a collective intelligence that has its own sort of consciousness and self-awareness but cannot yet function in the current implementation as an independent AGI.  In fact, this mediating method of was initially designed as a training technique to jump-start the time it takes to train ICOM based AGI systems.  Essentially, when playing with this model in the lab to do training someone said, “What if we try this and it’s like “holy #$@^’ that might work…”.  We played with it a bit and saw that it seemed to work unexpectedly extremely well—so here we are. We’re also unsure how close it gets us to human-level AGI as such, since the models that are created so overpower the personality that initially develops in the machine that it’s like dumping an encyclopedia onto a blank slate—but this does give us a framework of emotional data (remember ICOM doesn’t understand things like a computer does, but only in so much as it experiences things emotionally).

If I were to break this down if the study goes wildly well, it gives us a functioning mASI that can be used as a container for working with the independent AGI systems we are working on, and help teach us how to better train our models with emotional experience so that the AGI systems we build will behave more or less like humans.  We want systems that experience ethics and feel guilty when appropriate, and we think this mASI system and ICOM, in general, can do that—but we need to test it.

to help sign up here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QKFZXNY  

  Glossary:

  Cognitive Function (how smart it is): Cognitive functioning is a term referring to an individual’s ability to process thoughts that should not cause large scale depletion on a in healthy individuals. It is defined as “the ability of an individual to perform the various mental activities most closely associated with learning and problem solving.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_skill

  Cognitive Architecture: A cognitive architecture can refer to a theory about the structure of the human mind. One of the main goals of a cognitive architecture is to summarize the various results of cognitive psychology in a comprehensive computer model. However, the results need to be formalized so far as they can be the basis of a computer program. The formalized models can be used to further refine a comprehensive theory of cognition and, more immediately, as a commercially usable model. Successful cognitive architectures include ACT-R (Adaptive Control of Thought, ACT) and SOAR.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_architecture

  Artificial Intelligence (AI): In computer science, artificial intelligence (AI), sometimes called machine intelligence, is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans and other animals. Computer science defines AI research as the study of “intelligent agents”: any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals. More specifically, Kaplan and Haenlein define AI as “a system’s ability to correctly interpret external data, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation”. Colloquially, the term “artificial intelligence” is applied when a machine mimics “cognitive” functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as “learning” and “problem solving”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

  Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the intelligence of a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. It is a primary goal of some artificial intelligence research and a common topic in science fiction and future studies. Some researchers refer to Artificial general intelligence as “strong AI”, [1] “full AI”[2] or as the ability of a machine to perform “general intelligent action”[3]; others reserve “strong AI” for machines capable of experiencing consciousness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence

  Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI): or just Super Intelligence; A superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds. “Superintelligence” may also refer to a property of problem-solving systems (e.g., superintelligent language translators or engineering assistants) whether or not these high-level intellectual competencies are embodied in agents that act in the world. A superintelligence may or may not be created by an intelligence explosion and associated with a technological singularity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superintelligence

  Personally/Sensitive Identifiable Information (PII):

Personal information, described in United States legal fields as either Personally Identifiable Information (PII), or Sensitive Personal Information (SPI),[1][2][3] as used in information security and privacy laws, is information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context. The abbreviation PII is widely accepted in the U.S. context, but the phrase it abbreviates has four common variants based on personal / personally, and identifiable / identifying. Not all are equivalent, and for legal purposes the effective definitions vary depending on the jurisdiction and the purposes for which the term is being used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_information

      Glossary of Special Snow Flake Terms We Created

   ‘Mediated’ Artificial Super Intelligence (mASI)

To quote our paper already under peer review on the mASI version of ICOM:

“Mediated Artificial Super Intelligence (mASI) is an Artificial General Intelligence system that is heavily mediated by humans in such a way as its thinking and operations don’t work without humans being involved to ‘mediate’ the process.  In the case of our implementation, the consciousness model implemented in ICOM (the cognitive architecture we are using) is based on the ICOM Theory of Consciousness (Kelley), which itself is based on Global Workspace Theory (Baars), the Computational Theory of Mind (Rescorla), and Integrated Information Theory (Tononi) and at some level is demonstrably conscious (Yampolskiy).  In fact, in some ways mASI architecture is much like a super version of Global Workspace Theory (Baars) as it extracts from multiple neural network systems and humans in feeding the machine’s context ‘engine’.”

  (pending review) Architectural Overview of a ‘Mediated’ Artificial Super Intelligent Systems based on the Independent Core Observer Model Cognitive Architecture

Submitted to Informatica 1 OCT 2018 Journal for Peer Review

http://www.informatica.si/index.php/informatica/author/submission/2503

  Independent Core Observer Model (ICOM): a cognitive architecture based on the ICOM theory of consciousness for independent self-aware intelligence that is able to experience things emotionally with an internal subjective experience making decision purely based on how it ‘feels’ about a thought.  Note: Before you question us on this or even consider a debate, please review the following references so we can have a reasonable conversation without explaining the universe:

“Independent Core Observer Model (ICOM) Theory of Consciousness as Implemented in the ICOM Cognitive Architecture and the Associated Consciousness Measures”

  AAAI Spring Symposia (AAAI SSS19) – Stanford, CA March 2019 – By David J Kelley http://diid.unipa.it/roboticslab/consciousai/

Published Volume – http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2287/

Published (PDF) – http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2287/paper33.pdf

http://transhumanity.net/independent-core-observer-model-icom-theory-of-consciousness-as-implemented-in-the-icom-cognitive-architecture-and-the-associated-consciousness-measures-2/

  “The Independent Core Observer Model Theory of Consciousness and the Mathematical model for Subjective Experience”

Conference/Review Board: ICIST 2018 – International Conference on Information Science and Technology – China – April 20-22nd. (IEEE conference) [release pending]

https://www.itm-conferences.org/

http://transhumanity.net/the-independent-core-observer-model-computational-theory-of-consciousness-and-the-mathematical-model-for-subjective-experience/

  “Human-like Emotional Responses in a Simplified Independent Core Observer Model System”.

Conference/Review Board: BICA 2017 – Proceedings/Journal

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050918300358

https://ac.els-cdn.com/S1877050918300358/1-s2.0-S1877050918300358-main.pdf?_tid=486a97ac-a49b-42fa-ac01-04dc5ffa4b9a&acdnat=1532023084_2cac69453106815853b7c6fee0ea4d82

  if your interested in our published research material (super technical…)  see here: http://www.artificialgeneralintelligenceinc.com/current-published-research/

Volunteer to Help Build Artificial General Intelligence based on Human-like Emotions was originally published on transhumanity.net

#agi #AGI Laboratory #AGII #AI #artificalintelligence #Artificial General Intelligence #Artificial Super Intelligence #ICOM #crosspost #transhuman #transhumanitynet #transhumanism #transhumanist #thetranshumanity

[wordacrosstime]

The Prince

[The Prince, by Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli [1469-1527]. Written 1513. Edition reviewed: Translation and introduction by George Bull, 1961, revised 1975, reprinted 1977 (c) George Bull 1961, 1975, published by Penguin Classics]

Summary: it’s easy to read.

Two quick conclusions that can be made without starting the book proper: Obviously Machiavelli is Italian and the dedication To My Wife shows he’s clearly a good bloke.

Let’s pass on the word Italian because there’s debate about exactly when Italy started to exist rather than being cities and principalities sharing a piece of land. Hence, of course, this book. And the dedication turns out to be from the translator George Bull.

The Prince is an extremely well-written and clear set of rules to achieve power as a prince - that is, an individual ruling a country with absolute power.

It is amoral, not immoral - its ideas exist outside of a moral system -  and nothing is ruled out. Machiavelli covers all the problems that can arise in achieving absolute power and keeping it, one by one, frequently referring to ancient history and contemporary events.

Its genius is the writer’s own. He sets out a comprehensive list of circumstances to be dealt with by a prince in easy, flowing language. In this edition George Bull’s English translation is graceful, a grace which must in turn derive from the original.

The Prince comes in at approximately 32,000 words, Animal Farm by George Orwell at  28,000 words: two incredibly short books providing a great and lasting impact, both written by writers who knew exactly how to use language to bypass the obstacle of reading and get straight to the brain.

The Prince deals with how to achieve total power; Animal Farm watches the process from those about to suffer the consequences.

The quickest way into The Prince is to skip the translator’s introduction and notes, skip Machiavelli’s letter to his sponsor, read the book itself and disregard the glossary of names at the back. In other words, just read it.

Particularly avoid all the rubbish that’s been written about The Prince and Machiavelli ever since and its mystique. It has none. It has a simple purpose - forget morality; if you want to sieze and keep power, read this.

Its very simplicity encourages and has encouraged for 500 years, idiots to read into it terrible things it simply does not possess. It has plenty without adding more. A quick summary could include (all are contained in the book):

(1) kill

(2) don’t seize your subjects’ property

(3) don’t have sex with their wives

(4) it’s often cruel to be kind

(5) kill

For readers who prefer guidance before reading: skip the translator’s introduction and notes, read the table of contents (see below), read Machiavelli’s letter to his sponsor, then read the book as above. Only then read the glossary of names at the end (excellent), and finally - if you want to - read the translator’s introduction and his note on the book’s editions.

This is not at all to be rude about translator George Bull’s introduction, notes and glossary. All are superb, but Machiavelli is the star and it’s his words alone that count. They don’t need interpretation:

A man who is made a prince by the favour of the people must work to retain their friendship: and this is easy for him because the people ask only not to be oppressed [p 69]

He should never let his thoughts stray from military exercises, which he should pursue more vigorously in peace than in war. These exercises can be both physical and mental [p 88]

A prince also wins prestige for being a true friend or a true enemy, that is, for revealing himself without any reservation in favour of one side against another [p 121]

are easy to read and understand as sentences, and the chapters which contain them explain exactly why, in easy language, these statements are made.

A suggestion while reading this review is to read Machiavelli’s table of contents (below) which explain quickly the scope of the book; and Machiavelli’s letter to Lorenzo De Medici (below) which explains both why he is writing it, his qualifications for doing so, and his position in society.

Machiavelli knew powerful men and worked with them or studied them. He evidently read a great deal, both in history and in current affairs and had the gift of (a) distilling exactly what could be applied to his times (b) forming that into principles and ( c) expressing them very simply and briefly in this book.

Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849] wrote of Machiavelli in his short story The Purloined Letter [1844]:

the schoolboy lies at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been attributed to Rochefoucauld, to La Bougive, to Machiavelli, and to Campanella

which is a bit rich coming from Edgar Poe (as he was born), master of, well, spurious profundity and the unreadably embroidered gothic sentence.

Machiavelli, by contrast, is crisp:

[French King] Louis had, therefore, made these five mistakes: he had destroyed the weaker powers; increased the power of someone already powerful in Italy; brought into that country a very powerful foreigner; stayed away from Italy himself; failed to establish settlements there. Even these mistakes, if he had lived, need not have been fatal if there had not been a sixth: his dispossessing the Venetians of their state. If he had not made the Church strong, or brought Spain into Italy, it would have been reasonable and necessary to crush the Venetians. But, having taken those steps, he should never have let them be ruined; [pp 42-3]

The Prince features advice on achieving and holding power, and what can go wrong:

So these princes of ours, whose power had been established many years, may not blame fortune for their losses. Their own indolence was to blame, because, having never imagined when times were quiet that they could change (and this is a common failing of mankind, never to anticipate a storm when the sea is calm), when adversity came their first thoughts were of flight and not of resistance. They hoped that the people, revolted by the outrages of the conqueror, would recall them. Now this policy, when all else fails, is all to the good. But it is wrong to have neglected other precautions in that hope;  [p 129]

Should one keep a standing army in peacetime? There are several arguments both ways which Machiavelli discusses in detail; eg a large armed force can be either for or against a prince, and the demands of soldiers are different from those of civilians:

So if in Roman times it was necessary to satisfy the demands of the soldiers rather than those of the people, this was because the soldiers had more power than the people. In our own times it is necessary for all rulers, except the Turk and the Sultan, to conciliate the people rather than the soldiers, because the people are the more powerful. I make an exception of the Turk, because that ruler maintains a standing army of twelve thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry, essential to the security and strength of his kingdom; and so he must subordinate every other consideration to that of retaining their loyalty. [p 113]

There are ready examples of this in current and recent history - the balance within large countries between the power of their armies, navies, air forces against elected goverments; countries without enough military power to defend themselves; countries ruled by the armed forces.

There are plenty of applications of the whole and parts of The Prince to current times, many of which have been made usually bundled under an adjective made of Machiavelli’s name.

Often they are tedious, often they are wrong. Usually they are intended to inflate the importance of those making the comparisons. Usually they don’t. It’s best - a suggestion - to read the book yourself and easy then to map its ideas and conclusions onto any struggle for power around the world. The Prince is the road map to the remarkable results that can be achieved by subtracting morality.

Ideology and powers larger than individual countries and states can have a powerful influence on events:

You must realise that as soon as in more recent times Italy started to repudiate the Empire, and the standing of the papacy became higher in the temporal sphere, the country split into several states. What happened was that in many of the big cities there were uprisings against the nobles who had formerly, with the backing of the emperor, held them in subjection; and the Church, in order to increase its temporal authority, supported these revolts. In many other cities one of the citizens became prince.[pp 81-2]

There are histories of the man Machiavelli, and a short version is given in the translator’s introduction to this edition. But they don’t really matter. For our purposes Machiavelli declares himself sufficiently in the book: in his opening letter, in the breakdown of how he will tackle the achieving and retaining of power - for which see his simple table of contents - and finally in the work itself. He delivers The Prince in the first person using a vivid DIY format, politely discussing some methods moralists would consider extreme as if The Prince were a helpful and polite guide to gardening.

Best to finish with the great man outlining another tactical quality no prince should be without - lying:

a prudent ruler cannot, and should not, honour his word when it places him at a disadvantage and when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist. If all men were good, this precept would not be good; but because men are wretched creatures who would not keep their word to you, you need not keep your word to them ... Men are so simple, and so much creatures of circumstance, that the deceiver will always find someone ready to be deceived. / There is one fresh example I do not want to omit. Alexander VI was always, and he thought only of, deceiving people; and he always found victims for his deceptions. There never was a man capable of such convincing asservations, or so ready to swear to the truth of something, who would honour his word less. Nonetheless his deceptions always had the result he intended, because he was a past master in the art. [pp 99-100]

[Above from top down: table of contents, Machiavelli’s letter to his sponsor, cover to this edition, cover to the original, portrait of Machiavelli; copyrights belong to the copyright holders, including Penguin Classics for illustrations and quotes within the text from this edition of the book]

John Park

wordsacrosstime

Friday 18 January 2019

#Machiavelli #The Prince #Words Across Time #wordsacrosstime #January 2019 #Amoral #Power #Politics #Deceit #Manipulation #Theft #Rapine #Penguin Classics #George Bull #Edgar Allan Poe #The Purloined Letter #Animal Farm #George Orwell #Eric Blair

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Dcc Model Trains Ebook And Online Model Railroad Club Membership

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Dcc Model Trains Ebook And Online Model Railroad Club Membership

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    With DCC you can have truly realistic operation without complex wiring. Your loco’s can run more smoothly, start easier, and operate at more prototypical top speeds with more pulling power. Truth is; your can easily program your loco’s to perform better than they ever did under the old DC system.

Tiny decoders can give you complete control over the loco speed, direction, lights and sounds. With just the press of a button you can operate your locomotives, the points and all your accessories with amazing effect!

Easy To Understand, Easy To Use… Clever Tips, Tricks & Techniques … To Save You Time, Money, And Frustration … Getting Started On Your DCC Model Railroad

DCC works with almost ANY scale or gauge: HO, OO, N, Z, S, TT, O, G… and, despite what you might have heard about converting your layout to DCC operation – you won’t have to lose anything, or change everything.

Your DCC model railroad can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.

You don’t even need to convert your whole layout at once. Just choose which loco’s you want to fit with a decoder, and they’ll still run using DC control. When you’re ready to GO DIGITAL, you simply disconnect the old DC unit, and (using the same wires), reconnect your new DCC controller. It’s really easy!

However, that said; there are things you need to know to avoid costly mistakes and have your DCC model train layout up and running “trouble-free” with minimum effort.

That’s where this “DCC Model Trains Handbook” can really come in handy.

This ebook shows you step-by-step how DCC works, and how to have your DCC model train layout performing to perfection in no time at all. It’ll guide you through the process in an easy way, so you can avoid the problems other experience. You’ll be ready to operate your trains smoothly at amazingly realistic speeds, with all the lights, sounds and actions you could imagine.

You can have it at your fingertips within 5 minutes … so you’ve got no waiting… and no shipping to pay.

You can view this ebook on your computer, burn it on a CD, or simply print out the pages you need. It’s really easy!

All The DCC Information You Need To Master DCC Like An Expert

All the basics are clearly and simply explained for you from: how DCC works, the functions of decoders, boosters, busses, timed voltages pulses and much more. Diagrams are included to make things easy to understand. These’s even a comprehensive “Glossary of DCC Terms” as a handy reference if you get stuck.

“Oops! Costly Mistakes & How To Avoid Them”

DCC doesn’t need to be expensive, but mistakes can be costly, not to mention the waste of time and frustration they cause. That’s why it’s best to avoid them occuring in the first place. You CAN take the right approach to old loco conversions, decoder installation, lighting CV’s and other projects that would challenge the unenlightened.

The DCC Model Trains Handbook will guide you step-by-step to have your DCC model railroad running to perfection in no time at all. Keep the handbook (e-book) by your layout, so it’s close-by if you ever have any problems you want to solve about: decoders and packets, power districts, auto-reverse, consisting, programming, function key mapping and more. Packed with useful tips and ideas.

22 DCC Dos and Don’ts

This DCC Handbook even includes 22 questions and answers supplied by others in the hobby, as they explain their secret tips and how they overcame the kinds of problems you’ll experience too. “A must have!”

You’ll also get to keep a companion ebook – “Model Railroad DCC Help”. This ebook covers ALL the DCC basics, and answers ALL the questions you’re likely to ask about DCC model trains and railroading.

This supporting ebook, is a handy reference guide to keep in your train room alongside your layout. As an example, here are just some of the questions answered in this DCC Help ebook:

What are the Different “Power Districts” on a DCC Train Model System?

Can a DCC and DC train operate at the same time on the same layout?

How Much Power Is Needed To Run A DCC System?

Should I modify the points for use in a DCC system?

What Type of Wiring is needed for a DCC Layout?

How Can I Wire a DCC Layout?

Can DCC be run through a Computer? Is it Necessary?

How Can I Solder the Bus Wires and the Track?

How do I Deal With Reverse Loop in DCC?

Do the Trains need to be upgraded to Use with DCC?

And Many More Answers!

These are just some of the questions you’ll get answered in the supporting “DCC HELP” ebook.

DCC Wiring – KEEP IT SIMPLE covers everything you need to know about wiring from the ground up. It includes easy to follow wiring diagrams,wiring for reverse loops, how to program track, turnout control, using free software to control your layout and where to get it, controlling trains with computer technology and more.

You’ll also get the 7 Rules to help you avoid the BIGGEST cause of electrical problems. After reading this e-book you’ll realize DCC wiring isn’t hard. In most ways it’s much the same as DC wiring.

If you have reversing loops or wyes on your layout, you’ll need to pay some extra attention to be sure that the electrified frog issue is addressed… but don’t worry, that’s all explained step-by-step.

It’s only a matter of time before something stops working, and you’ll face the decision.Do I fix it? Do I replace it?

What the F#&!!X*?! ;is WRONG with it?

Model Railroad Trouble Shooting will help make your DCC layout a pleasure to construct and operate without ripping your hair out just trying to locate, or fix annoying or constant problems. This e-book is easy to read and will prove a valuable reference when something does actually go wrong. Secure your copy now!

You may be concerned that these excellent DCC resources will cost you the earth… However, you won’t need to worry about that. I’ve always had a policy of supplying value for money and that’s exactly what I’m offering you here. I’ve had others say I should be charging $150, $200 or more for the valuable information in these ebooks.

Truth is; I’m not charging $200, or even $150 for the useful tips and ideas you’ll get here… even though they are likely to save you thousands over the lifetime of your model railroad. These 4 e-books are available separately for $67, or you can grab the special discount offer below.

In fact; if you’re decisive and act now, you could grab ALL 4 – the “DCC Handbook”, “DCC Help”, “DCC Wiring”, and “Model Railroad Trouble Shooting” for a ridiculously low price of $67 just $37.

Terms & Conditions apply. Full details below.

And, you qualify for my full no-questions asked 60 day money-back guarantee. What could be fairer than that?

PLUS, with the offer below you’ll get even more … To give you even better value, I’m including 6 valuable bonuses at no extra charge (total value $263.90), but you’ll need to grab this NOW!

FREE BONUS GIFT #1

In this e-book you’ll learn the details for building a layout, including choosing the best track plan for your space, building low-relief and below track-level scenery, and really low-cost industries to make. There’s even 2 tutorials walking you step – by – step through the construction of a small railroad.

Now… I’m the first to concede, this informative ebook won’t detail totally everything. Truthfully; it would take literally thousands of pages of detail every aspect of this fascinating topic, but this ebook condenses the most useful ideas into 109 pages of useful help.

FREE BONUS GIFT #2

This e-book covers various aspects of this wonderful hobby of model railroading. Obviously to cover everything would fill a whole library, so instead we’ll look at some topics within the hobby that people have a particular interest in and want answers to.

I get dozens of letters and emails every week so I have compiled this e-book with many of the topics and questions in mind…. a wide range of tips from soldering and LED lighting, through to solving derailments and coping with S curves… and much, much more!

FREE BONUS GIFT #3

This “Confessions of a Mobile Layout Builder” manual gives the ins and outs of constructing a portable train layout. It looks at track design options, construction methods, operation and expansion possibilities… with plenty more ideas to make the process easy. A must read!

FREE BONUS GIFT #4

This 101 Handy Tips manual is a useful reference guide filled with tips and answers to common problems that confound most railroaders at some time or another. There are tips on: turnouts, couplers, shelf layouts, ballasting, power supply, track access, track cleaning, making scenery, flywheel problems, decoders, and plenty more!

FREE BONUS GIFT #5

You’ll also get 4 interesting and informative video clips which include lots of ideas for anyone in the hobby.

You can download and save them to your computer for future reference.

PLUS… An audio by veteran model railroader Tom Hobson who has personally installed 46 decoders in his locomotives. Tom shares some tips from his experience.

FREE BONUS GIFT #6

The Online Model Train Club is a month-to-month membership. You may have a look around the club and if you decide to cancel within the first 30-days you will not be charged again. The first months membership is free and you can stay on as a member for as long as you like (you will be billed just $27 mth) and get to keep the 6 bonuses (even if you do cancel). The choice is yours! You’ll gain access to more and more helpful resources each month. You may cancel in any month and you will not be charged again.

This bonus allows you to access for a whole month, all the Level #1 resources of the online model train club including a helpful DCC video, getting started videos and tips, lots of planning, design and scenery ideas and much more. Why am I giving you free access for an entire month? Simple – I know you’ll be impressed and not want to miss out on all the resources, tips and clever ideas inside the club. It is like a GIANT resource library for you to tap into when you need help.

* Don’t want the free bonuses and free one month club membership… one-off $67 payment option here

Or for just $67 $37 today you can get instant access to the DCC Model Trains ebook, PLUS the DCC Help ebook, PLUS DCC Wiring ebook, PLUS Model Railroad Trouble Shooting ebook, PLUS the other 6 free bonus gifts! Your initial charge will be $37. You will then be charged $27/month until you cancel after your initial charge has been made.

So why am I giving you this entire package (valued at $263.90) for only $67 $37?

Simple … This package is delivered by download immediately your payment is processed. So I’m saving on shipping costs and can pass those savings directly to you.

You’ll get PDF files which are readable on any computer, tablet, or Mac.

You can save the files to your hard drive, for easy access anytime, anywhere, day or night. They work on any computer!

The downloads are quick even on the slowest of dialup internet connections. Other internet connections are considerably faster.

You can freely printout whatever parts you want. I did investigate printing physical copies, but the price would have been more than 3 times the cost of this offer owing to printing & shipping costs. I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s best to keep it affordable. The videos easy-to-download mp4 format.

But, To Make This Decision An Absolute “No-Brainer”, I’ll Also Provide a 100% Money-Back Guarantee…

It’s Time to Save Yourself Time and Money in Creating the Model Railroad You’ve Dreamed Of…

Think about it… $67 $37 is a meager amount for such valuable step-by-step, easy-to-follow information. And, you could be underway within 5 minutes.

Even just one single idea from this package might save you hundreds of dollars, so investing $67 $37 makes good sense.

Getting started is simple. Just click on the ‘Add To Cart’ button below…

For just $67 $37 today you can get instant access to the DCC Model Trains ebook, the DCC Help ebook, DCC Wiring ebook, Model Railroad Troubleshooting ebook, PLUS the other 6 free bonus gifts!

Your initial charge will be $37. You will then be charged $27/month until you cancel anytime after your initial charge has been made.

* Don’t want the free bonuses and free one month club membership… one-off $67 payment option here

As soon as your payment is approved, you’ll be taken to your download page where you can access the DCC Handbook, DCC Help e-book, and all the bonuses within a few minutes.

So, within about 5 minutes you’ll have the precise information you need to get started with a “trouble-free” DCC layout that will impress both yourself and your family and friends.

Don’t delay; the sooner you access these resources, the sooner you’ll have your dream model train layout up and running! Take action NOW… not tomorrow!

P.S. At last you can have your DREAM layout that will impress both yourself, your family and friends. It’s a “no-brainer” investing the $67 $37 to save yourself time, money, and frustration when planning and building your ultimate layout. You’ll avoid all the common mistakes, and have answers to those difficult questions at your fingertips.

PLUS you get the exciting bonuses and ebooks together valued at $263.90…

PLUS as always, you’ll get my personal 100% money back guarantee… It doesn’t get any fairer than that !!

Value $263.90… Today Just $67 $37

For just $67 $37 today you can get instant access to the DCC Model Trains ebook, the DCC Help ebook, DCC Wiring ebook, Model Railroad Troubleshooting ebook, PLUS the other 6 free bonus gifts!

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