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radramblog · 3 years

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Every Boros Commander, Part 1

Every one of these rambles is going to be longer and nerdier than the last, I guess. We’ll see how long I can keep that up for.

If you aren’t or haven’t been at least a casual fan of Magic: The Gathering, this post is going to be completely lost on you, sorry.

Oh also I’m having to split this in half since it took basically all afternoon to write and its still juuuust not done.

Boros gets a lot of shit for being bad and having bad generals for EDH until recently, and seeing as its my favourite two-colour pair I felt like exploring, well, every option we have for the combo. I’m excluding the new Commander Legends partner commanders in this, since I don’t have all day, and I’m also not covering Akiri and Bruse Tarl since no-one ever builds just Boros with them, and I’m not including 3-5 colour decks that just happen to have red and white in them. That’s not Boros.

Boros’s strengths are in manipulating combat, in tokens, and with Voltron strategies. It is the best pair for Equipment decks and top tier for Aggressive decks, to the point of being arguably shoehorned by WOTC into such strategies for a long time. Its weaknesses are mostly to do with card draw and ramp, possibly the most important things in a casual game of Commander, but the former is alleviated by many of red’s recent card draw options and the latter easily supplemented with mana rocks- if you have enough money, any deck can have good ramp, but enough budget options exist these days that it isn’t too bad even for the “worst colors”.

Anyway, enough beating around the bush lets get into this. Going in Chronological order.

Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran (29th most played as of writing)

…It seriously took until Ravnica to get a legendary RW creature? Heinous. Cool as Agrus is as protagonist of the Ravnica novel, his card simply does not hold up in 2021, let alone beforehand. He’s a Glorious Anthem style commander, except he works best only with creatures that are both red and white, and not nearly enough cards produce multicolored tokens for him to boost. Oh, also he’s a 5 mana 3/3 with no protection or evasion that has to attack to get his effect. Save it for the novel.

Razia, Boros Archangel (30th most played as of writing, the last place finalist)

Speaking of Ravnica. Razia is fucking cool, between the art and unique, if underwhelming, activated ability. She is also 8 mana and not green. She is the only commander to my knowledge that can redirect damage to opponents’s creatures, so if that’s the deck you want to build, go for it, though enjoy the distressingly small cardpool. God, they couldn’t have given her an extra power, could they?

Brion Stoutarm (6th most played as of writing)

Brion is the first actually viable commander of the bunch, being a pretty decent head to either a Fling deck with Ball Lightnings or Acts of Treason, or just Giant Tribal with his Lorwyn compatriots. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or played against Brion yet, but I’d be interested in doing so. Having lifegain in the command zone with a deck that likes throwing damage around is pretty nice. It’s surprising that he’s still so high, especially considering EDHREC (my data source) only now pulls from the last 2 years of decks, but I’m certainly not sad to see him there.

Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer (19th most played as of writing)

Spoilers: Jor is actually the best Anthem commander. +3/+0 is huge, and when most of your ramp and some of your draw is artifacts you’re not going to have a hard time getting metalcraft. 5 mana is a fair chunk for an aggressive deck but he turns the damage output up enough notches that I think he’s pretty good. Underrated in my opinion. How are there more Tajic, Legion’s Edge decks than Jor Kadeen decks?

Basandra, Battle Seraph (24th most played as of writing)

Basandra is the head of my current Boros deck, being a pillowfort/combat manipulation deck. She’s, uh, not ideal in that even, since she stops even you from casting removal and such during combat. Having an extra must attack effect in the zone is nice, though, and a flying commander can be nice for closing games out. Basandra at least has the gift of being fairly open-ended, but also, she doesn’t really do anything, so that’s probably got something to do with it.

On a side note, fuck you Terese Nielsen for turning out to be a cunt. No-one else seems to have drawn this character, so I can’t even make an alter. Fuck.

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight (10th most played as of writing)

Gisela has a lot of very attractive words on her. Unfortunately, 7 mana and that ability means that as soon as you drop her out of the zone, you better use her quick because she isn’t sticking around long. Obviously lends herself to group slug or Earthquake decks, but the former paints an even bigger target on your head and the latter is even mana hungrier than normal. I prefer her in the 99.

Aurelia, the Warleader (5th most played as of writing)

Aurelia was the “best” Boros commander for a long time, and it’s easy to see why- haste and an extra combat trigger add up to a lot of damage very quickly and it’s not like there was much competition for a while. She’s actually the only one of the top 5 Boros commanders that wasn’t printed in the last 5 years, so I guess she’s stood the test of time, much like Brion. I’d argue she’s pretty boring though, seeing as she has the one thing she does, but she does it well and there’s no faulting her for that. She’s the closest we have to r/custommagic’s favourite “double combat triggers” legend. A lot of people seem to run her as Angel Tribal too, which of the available Angels in the zone I’d argue that’s a pretty good shout. The Red/Boros Angels are fun!

Tajic, Blade of the Legion (20th most played as of writing)

The first on this list I’d consider playing as Voltron, Tajic’s first card is indestructible which as a former Sapling of Colfenor player is fucking excellent in the zone for when you have to play defensively. He does, however, require other creatures in the deck to truly shine, and you do have to have those creatures attack, so it can be awkward to get the most out of him. He’s a cool dude though, much better than his other card imo.

Anax and Cymede (23rd most played as of writing)

The first draft I ever played was a Born of the Gods draft in which I splashed Anax and Cymede. Clearly, I had no idea what I was doing. Anax and Cymede look a lot like Tajic in deck, to be honest, since they’re creatures that like having buffs but also want other creatures around to benefit. Heroic is kind of an awkward requirement, however, and I suspect you’d be spending more time just having it as a buff for the royals themselves. Its nice to see a loving married couple as a Magic card, though, I’m sure things will be good for them always.

Iroas, God of Victory (9th most played as of writing)

Somehow despite it being common in the 99 of aggressive decks, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Iroas deck in my local metas. I think it has the potential to be pretty powerful, since if you can meet his (admittedly harsh) requirement he’s an indestructible evasive commander with that magical 7 power making commander damage a 3HKO. And when he’s not ready to rumble, he’s nigh impossible to kill on account of the limited targeted enchantment exile people tend to play in the format. Otherwise, he makes attacking free and bountiful for other creatures, and so is just kinda good to have around- I can see running him for that alone.

Munda, Ambush Leader (27th most played as of writing)

Somehow more people are playing Munda than Razia or Agrus, despite being just the worst commander with Ally in the text (outside the type line, love you Zada) and not doing actual anything outside of that. Why the fuck doesn’t he draw the cards? Why does he just stack them? God, Munda sucks. Also I have like 3 of them, since I drafted a lot of that deck in that environment and people just pass him around. Anyone want one? Be my guest.

Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas (11th most played as of writing)

Precon face commanders always get a bit more love and a bit more power than the average legend, and Kalemne is no exception. Double Strike in the zone on a creature that gets bigger is just nuts, and it means she kills people astonishingly quickly. Even my non-voltron Kalemne deck that just wanted to play big idiots had her as a huge threat since even if she gets killed she stays big. Kalemne also happens to be probably better for Giant tribal than Brion, though he does at least get to yeet those removal magnets if they do get removed.

Anya, Merciless Angel (26th most played as of writing)

I didn’t think Anya would be this low. While she is another indestructible commander, it is conditional, and her abilities are self-sabotaging- if someone is in range of being killed by her, you’re probably not going to want to attack them just so you can keep indestructible and buffs, but you also, yknow, want to kill them. I can see her being political in this way though- keeping someone alive with her swords at their throat can have some fun implications. I think shes underrated despite her awkwardness.

Archangel Avacyn (14th most played as of writing)

(Her colour identity is RW since her other face is a red creature. It’s a bit odd, I know)

Avacyn was fucking unbeatable in draft and obnoxious in Standard (though one of my favourite magic stories involves her, so,), and since I never managed to get one for Kalemne when that deck was around I have no real love for her. She’s generically powerful without leading in a particular direction, but her flip ability is pretty cool as is her story in the set. It’s OK. Also why do people keep putting her in Angel decks? You know she doesn’t flip off those, right?

Adriana, Captain of the Guard (22nd most played as of writing)

Adriana, Adriana. I didn’t dislike Adriana as much as I did until I actually did the math on her. Typical commander games are 4-player, so she is a +3/+3 anthem at maximum assuming you have good attacks on every single opponent and that none of them are dead yet. I’m really not sure why you’d play this over Jor Kadeen, and it looks like people aren’t, so. Melee was a fun mechanic in draft, but I completely understand why it hasn’t crossed over, ever, to other formats, seeing as there are 7 total cards with it and most of them are draft chaff. CONTINUED IN PART 2...ANOTHER DAY. PROBABLY SOON SINCE IT’S 2/3 DONE ALREADY.

#mtg #commander #edh #ramble #boros #fuck you adriana

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tiramisiyu · 3 years

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【未定事件簿】 Tears of Themis: Xia Yan’s Personal Story 3-10 Translation

Translation Masterlist | Xia Yan Masterlist | Video

Translated Chapter 3: 3-1 / 3-2 / 3-3 / 3-4 / 3-6 / 3-7 / 3-8 / 3-10 / 3-11 / 3-12 / 3-14

See below cut!

Nautilus Bar

Xia Yan and I arrived at Nautilus Bar.

Xia Yan: Found him – Tian Xin’s over there, on the right-side seat.

I looked towards the direction Xia Yan mentioned. Tian Xin was in the middle of pretending to play games on his phone, though if one were to observe carefully, they’d notice that he would discreetly raise his head to look towards the other side from time to time.

MC: The direction he’s looking towards is... Meng Qishan.

Meng Qishan and five young men were sitting together in the bar’s booth seating area. He sat with a swaggering demeanor in the middle of the booth, and the five men surrounded him, earnestly speaking about something. Though we couldn’t hear what they were saying, based on their movements and postures, it probably was a group of younger guys trying to get on big brother Meng Qishan’s good side. The group raised a ruckus in their gambling as if no one else was there, just like the guests in the bar in their high spirits.

Xia Yan took me to a place to sit where we could simultaneously observe Tian Xin and Meng Qishan. We pretended to casually chat.

Xia Yan: After that matter, Meng Qishan resigned from the detective circles. Because of this, he also lost the source of this case, and his income saw a sharp decline.

As he spoke, Xia Yan swept his gaze over the alcohol on Meng Qishan’s table.

Xia Yan: This bar’s prices are high. The booth seating is for frequent guests, and it also has a minimum expenditure limit. The alcohol he’s ordered is also quite expensive.

MC: You mean, he might have restarted his work as a detective, and therefore got a source of income?

Xia Yan: That’s right.

MC: If so, then could Tian Xin have noticed that Meng Qishan is starting to do bad things again, so he followed Meng Qishan?

MC: There haven’t been any detectives resigning within the past few months, and aside from Tian Xin’s self-directed and self-acted stuff, there isn’t any information related to Sphinx. Perhaps in the eyes of the bad detectives, Sphinx seems like he’s disappeared.

Xia Yan: Indeed, these past few months he’s been…

MC: He?

Xia Yan: Nothing! I’m just saying… I’m afraid that it’s exactly because of this that Meng Qishan would dare return to his original state. Aside from that, based on our earlier inferences, “ɸ” had Tian Xin livestream videos to fish out Sphinx. I’m guessing that he just might want to convey this information.

Xia Yan: Grab Sphinx’s attention, have him come to the bar, and notice Meng Qishan.

MC: Does “ɸ” want Sphinx to return and punish bad detectives like Meng Qishan?

Xia Yan: We also can’t exclude that he might want to use this as an opportunity and yank out Sphinx.

After drinking a few more cups of alcohol, Meng Qishan and his friends stood up and left. Not a moment after, Tian Xin walked out as he held his phone, playing games.

Xia Yan: Tian Xin probably went to follow Meng Qishan. Let’s also follow and see.

Just before we left the bar, Xia Yan rapidly turned his jacket inside out, and his clothes became another colour. Right after, he put on a baseball cap. After, he pulled on the several zippers on his double-shoulder backpack. The double-shoulder backpack changed form, becoming a very fashionable one-shoulder bag. Xia Yan looked completely different from those in the bar – he had totally changed.*

Xia Yan: The “quick disguise” skill within my skillset – I’m showing it to the great lawyer right now.

MC: Holy crap.

Xia Yan: Aside from that – additional skill, “companion disguise”.

Right after, Xia Yan put a baseball cap that was the same style as his on me, put on a jacket, and made a simple disguise. Only after this did we start our tracking.

Tian Xin carefully followed Meng Qishan, while we followed from the other side, simultaneously tracking both of them. The entire way, our tracing distance switched between far and close from time to time, and Xia Yan controlled our range to be within an area where we could see their backs without attracting their attention.

Like this, we slowly arrived at the old city division.

Old City Division

MC: We’ve already followed for a long time. Where exactly is Meng Qishan going?

Xia Yan: I’m afraid that he’s deliberately going in circles. Look, this is our travel route. There’s a lot of places where we doubled back.

As he spoke, Xia Yan took out his phone, showing me our movement route.

MC: It really is.

Xia Yan: …

Xia Yan: In any case, Meng Qishan can also be counted as a detective. With Tian Xin’s following abilities, and with such a long time, he should’ve noticed a long time ago.

That was true. As Xia Yan brought me on the tracking, he would adjust our appearances every once in a while, to prevent us from being recognized. But Tian Xin didn’t do this – plus, his tracking skills were extremely… unsophisticated.

Xia Yan: Meng Qishan probably has other plans…

MC: Xia Yan, look at Tian Xin!

Within the time it took for us to speak, Meng Qishan and his row of people swerved into an alley. Tian Xin immediately followed, and immediately after, he paused at the opening of the alley. The alley branched off in all directions, as confusing as a spiderweb. Tian Xin looked all around, somewhat hesitant.

Xia Yan: Meng Qishan’s gone.

MC: What should we do?

Xia Yan: First, we’ll keep following Tian Xin.

Little Alley

Xia Yan and I followed Tian Xin as he ran all around the alley. We still noticed nothing.

Tian Xin sighed in heavy dejection, then turned around, preparing to leave.

MC: Xia Yan, should we chat with Tian Xin?

Xia Yan: I also want to do that, although this place isn’t too suitable.

We silently followed Tian Xin, walking towards the outside of the alley.

Suddenly, dark figures flashed at the other end of the alley—

MC: It’s Meng Qishan’s group! A coincidence?

Xia Yan: That’s not it!

Meng Qishan led the group of people who had just been with him in the bar, walking slowly together from both ends of the alley. They blockaded Tian Xin into the middle.

Ka! – Meng Qishan forcefully stabbed the steel pipe in his hand onto the ground, then looked at Tian Xin.

Meng Qishan: Kiddo, aren’t you tired from following us the whole time?

Tian Xin: Big bro… what nonsense are you talking about? I’m just randomly walking around.

When Meng Qishan heard the two words “big bro”, he snickered a few times.

Meng Qishan: I sure don’t remember having a little bro called Tian Xin.

Tian Xin: …!

Meng Qishan: Where’s your partner, Sphinx?

Tian Xin: What are you talking about?

Meng Qishan: Still wanna play dumb? No problem. I’ll help you remember.

Meng Qishan took a recording pen out of his pocket and pressed it.

Tian Xin’s voice: Y-you’re Sphinx?

Xia Yan’s voice: With the past few livestreams you’ve done, you must have long been well aware of the situation, right?

Tian Xin’s voice: I…

Xia Yan’s voice: This place is deserted, and at this time, it’s even less likely for people to bother us.

Xia Yan’s voice: Let’s chat.

Tian Xin’s voice: …

Xia Yan’s voice: Don’t be worried. You only need to answer my questions well.

Tian Xin’s voice: W-what do you want to ask?

Xia Yan’s and Tian Xin’s conversation, from last night at Stellis Middle School’s old building, sounded from the recording pen. Extremely clear and perfect – it basically sounded like there was someone around us at the time.

MC: What’s up with that…

Xia Yan: I’m very certain. There was no one else on the scene that time…

Very soon, the entirety of Xia Yan’s and Tian Xin’s conversation at the old school building from last night was played.

Tian Xin: I don’t know who he is, and I don’t know if he really is Sphinx. Were you following me at the time? Then you should know that I didn’t see the person who was asking me questions at all!

Meng Qishan: The two of you didn’t meet back then. But your behaviour was very strange.

Meng Qishan put on an expression as if he were trying to guide him patiently.

Meng Qishan: Don’t you really want to find Sphinx? To find him and request for him to help your girlfriend’s big sister.

Tian Xin: …!

Meng Qishan: But when you encountered Sphinx at the old school building, you didn’t have the slightest intent to find him. You two must have another method of contact, right? He just needs to monitor your location and ensure the ease of both of your actions.

Meng Qishan: I originally thought that after moving in such a roundabout way, that guy would eventually expose himself. Didn’t think that he’d be pretty good at hiding.

Tian Xin: These are all just your subjective thoughts!

Meng Qishan: More than speculation, I’ve always preferred rougher methods.

Meng Qishan stepped on Tian Xin’s small arm, fixing his hand on the ground.

Meng Qishan: No problem. He’ll have to come out very soon.

Meng Qishan: He’s got to – save you.

He picked up the steel pipe, aiming it at Tian Xin’s hand.

Meng Qishan: I’ll warn you and the guy behind your back – there’s no monitoring in this place, and the police won’t be able to find evidence. Even if there is evidence, can your hand be saved and returned to you?

Tian Xin: Let me go…!

Meng Qishan: I’ll count from ten. Ten, nine, eight…

Xia Yan: Tch…!

Xia Yan: Wait for me here!

Without waiting for my response, Xia Yan rushed out.

TL Note:

*I wasn’t quite sure how to translate the first half here, since it would literally be “All of Xia Yan was completely different than the inside of the bar”… so does that mean that he looked out of place in the bar? Or that he looked different from the bar’s patrons? Or that he looked different from what he looked like earlier in the bar? Not too sure.

#tears of themis #tears of themis translation #weiding shijian bu #未定事件簿 #xia yan #夏彦 #tot translation #it's getting wild

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tales-unique · 4 years

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THIEF

Chapter 1

DATE NOV 14TH, 2042

TIME PM 05:17:08 :09 :10…

Deviancy had given Connor a new perspective on Detroit, one that he would forever be indebted to Markus for allowing him to achieve. As he entered the Detroit City Police Departments headquarters and ascended in the elevator to where the police offices were, now frequented by both human and android officers, he pondered various topics while deftly flicking his coin from one hand to the other.

To clarify, it had been four years since Markus had led his revolt in pursuit of freedom and equality for androids, both deviant and otherwise, and ultimately won the favour of those who had once been their oppressors. It had been an arduous journey, with many casualties, but ultimately their goal was achieved; androids were now a recognized people and were finally free. There was still much work to be done and in the years since those fated days, Markus had worked tirelessly to bridge a gap that many had deemed impossible to completely fill. So far it had all be favourable due to the determination of Markus to lead a peaceful revolution, one that had brought many humans around to their cause. Their plight had resonated with many who themselves had felt downtrodden and outcast, and Connor felt himself comparing it to other accounts in history where humans had turned on their own kind just as easily; it was in their nature to be this way, he would often remind himself, to keep any negativity in check. With a flick of his wrist, he captured the smooth metal coin in between his fingers, brow creasing briefly. A report had been filed; an altercation between two humans and an android with another human having been caught fleeing the scene. As the words flitted in his cybernetic brain he felt a small frown tug at his lips. Although there was much positive progress in the way of equal rights and liberties for androids there were still those who feared the changes, both human and androids alike. It was inevitable that there would still be clashes, as Markus himself had informed the people of Jericho, and soon the peoples of the world, but Connor felt somewhat calmer knowing that there was a conscious effort now to limit these instances. Especially as he was able to return to his previous occupation within the Detroit Police Force. Now a fully-fledged Detective, no longer attached to Cyberlife since its collapse, Connor now focused on being able to help Markus in the best way he knew how; by ensuring that androids contributed to society in a positive way. Pulling himself from his reverie as the metallic ding of the elevator doors opening sounded, Connor politely nodding his head to a pair of other detectives that entered the elevator as he left, his feet carrying him swiftly to the bright, open room where he worked. The layout and the design were still the same, with tables lined out neatly with each lieutenant’s name presented on a plaque, but now there was one more decorated desk— his own. “Good evening, Lieutenant,” Connor smiled as he strode to his desk, situated opposite the decorated, yet grizzled, detective and his partner of some time. “Hey Connor,” came a somewhat exasperated sigh, to which Connor’s brows furrowed once more, his head tilting a fraction as he assessed the situation. Hank looked tired, far more so than usual, and Connor noted with some shock that there were no traces of whiskey in the cooled coffee that sat forgotten in his mug. Ceasing his analysis Connor settled at the edge of Hank’s desk, glancing at a report the older man had been staring at for what he imagined to have been a while, judging by the way he seemed to have no focus on it whatsoever. “You look tired, is it a rough case?” Connor spoke out, inclining a hand to the report Hank possessed, expression becoming more perplexed when a gruff laugh was his response and a shake of the head. “No, no, actually, it’s pretty shit. Fowler thinks I ought to take it easy every once in a while, the bastard,” Hank almost snarled, soon tossing the report onto his desk without a care. He glanced up at Connor, who looked at it expectantly. Still something of a poodle, that boy was, and Hank almost missed the motion of his hand already waving to allow Connor a read. “Go for it,” he huffed, turning his eyes to his terminal, “just some burglary attempt, nothing major, he just wanted my input since the witness is— Hmph .” The way Hank abruptly ended his sentence didn’t go unnoticed by Connor as he took the report in hand to read what little had already been documented, eyes scanning over it wordlessly. He looked sour, like in those first meetings between them when all of this began, and it worried Connor. In truth, human emotion was still somewhat new for the android, though he was more at peace with it than some. Slipping from his perched position, Connor gave a small nod, setting the report back down. In seconds he had already gained the knowledge, the rest was a mere formality. “I believe the fact than an android is involved may be a reason why Captain Fowler assigned you the case,” he gave a small shrug, locking gazes with Hank. The older man only hummed in response, leaning back in his chair, giving the non-verbal hint for him to continue. “After all, we are still, technically, the best team for handling any deviant behaviour, isn’t that correct Lieutenant?” A small, chipper smile was given, and he could see Hank’s shoulder slack in acceptance. Connor could more often than not bring the old detective around to his way, in that same way a child always gets what they want in one capacity or another. With a grin Connor straightened his tie, falling into step with Hank as the two made their way to the interrogation rooms.

Connor had initially been indifferent to interrogating the woman that had been caught fleeing the scene. He concluded that she was a criminal, albeit not as dangerous as the android they were investigating who had been present, and thus deemed it another step towards completing the mission. He did find it interesting to note that it was statistically higher for men to be caught attempting burglary than women, but he still held the conviction that she was just a criminal. However it soon became clear to him as they continued that she was no ordinary burglar or indeed no ordinary woman. It had taken mere seconds, perhaps even less if that were possible, to hear her audible growl as her eyes narrowed on the mirror before her, one that she outed as being two-way and no doubt concealing the detectives within, an iciness to her tone that caused even him to stiffen. She spoke out harshly, daring them to come back and try to make her talk. It was this statement that caused Hank to groan as he stood at Connors side, hand dragging down his face; no doubt this was why he seemed so drained earlier— he’d already attempted to speak to her before. Before any other words were uttered Connor initiated a scan, one that turned his LED a consistent spinning circle of yellow. In truth he had been reluctant to remove it, becoming almost fond of the light at his temple, viewing it as part of his still-forming identity. Connor the android sent by Cyberlife still remained, he simply had evolved, but like other androids and even humans he wanted to still resemble some small part of the life that led him to this point. Instantly there came a mugshot photo of the suspect before him, her name suspended in neat lettering beneath it. VERONICA VORNE. The name intrigued him, mostly because of the alliteration of her name and its ease when being pronounced. He continued to sift through the walls of text, briefing himself on the basic demographics and the like that had been catalogued for her file before coming to her criminal history. Predominantly she was known for serial burglary, though one account of public assault coupled with resisting arrest had resulted in a two year sentence. Having ascertained such information he then moved on to the young woman herself. Shrouded in the typical dark attire of a thief she looked so stark against the white background, like a concise Rorschach inkblot. The clothes were thick, black sleeved shirt and denim jeans, designed to keep her well insulated and warm in the cold November weather, just as the solid boots on her feet did. As she lifted her wrists to flex them, testing the range of movement she had with the handcuffs, Connor noticed her fingerless gloves. He then moved to her leather coat, which was still zipped and dappled with wet patches from where snow had melted upon it. It seemed fitted to her shape, and Connor couldn’t help but wonder how she was able to evade capture long enough to have made it outside while wearing it. He noticed no hood nor cap on her person that would have obscured her face. It was then he recalled an officer with a black balaclava in hand, speckled with moisture in places, which was most likely hers. No doubt it was taken upon her arrest so they could identify her. It was in this moment that Connor took a moment to survey her face, taking in her features. Everything about her seemed to resemble the stark contrast between dark and light. Deep-coloured eyes, glowing a rich brown in the fluorescent of the lights were set against the bright whites of her eyes, though he detected the faintest of blood vessels there; from stress, he surmised. They were framed in long, delicate lashes that dared to flutter ever so lightly every time she heard movement behind the locked door. Then his gaze shifted to observe her skin, which was rosy to a degree, as he had seen from her mugshot photograph, yet the harsh light only exaggerated the pale undertones. Tilting his head minutely during the scan he noted the softness of the features themselves, their femininity, as his eyes looked over her dainty nose, to her lips. They were a dusty shade of pink, like the Spring Roses he sometimes saw in the park and would have looked warm and inviting had they not been pulled into a harsh frown. With a turn of her head towards the camera her hair gave a small flourish, having been released from the confines of her hood upon capture judging from the tousled look it held. Despite this frazzled appearance Connor noted its healthy condition and medium length, it falling in waves down her back. The colour of its strands resembled her eyes in its rich brunette colour and sported a gleam that eluded to her fondness for hair care. A well-kept thief, he noted to himself. With the rudimentary scan complete, the whole process taking less than a few seconds, Connor returned to reality, his gaze now looking to Hank once more, relaying the information he’d gathered as he so often did. “Veronica Vorne, born in downtown Detroit on—” “Relax, I know who she is,” Hank soon interrupted, watching with some amusement as Connor looked at him in confusion, his eyebrows soon raising upwards towards his hairline. “Not personally ,” Hank quickly added, “but our paths have crossed a few times, little shit.” The term was said with a fondness Hank didn’t show often, and even then it had only been picked up on because Connor was an android. Tilting his head, Connor silently willed Hank to continue, wishing to learn more, earning a deep sigh from the older officer and a roll of his eyes. “I’m not playing ball tonight Connor, so stop lookin’ at me like that! Just go, get in there, and let’s do our thing, Christ.” It was clear it grated on Hank’s nerves to be pulled into such a basic case, though Connor knew there may be more to it. He would pry into it at a later time, for now he tasked himself with following Hank’s lead, eyes falling upon the wayward thief once the door sealed behind him.

It was the sharp sound of the door opening that made Veronica’s eyes turn to them, eyeing them warily for a moment before widening in recognition; she'd almost expected it to be that asshole, Gavin, again. Hank’s name fell from her lips and Connor would have almost mistaken it for breathless if not for the fact she was not out of breath at all, at least according to his interface anyway. humans had such strange mannerisms, ones that were often contradictions to themselves. Connor took to standing back from the table, allowing Hank to sit opposite her, and for a moment all was silent. Both Hank and Veronica sat back in their respective seats, Hank with his arms crossed, studying the woman before him, and Veronica with an almost childish pout of her lips, eyes narrowed again as she attempted to formulate a way to be out of this predicament. Hank was the first to break their stalemate, shifting to lean forward with his arms resting on the table, gaze staring at her squarely. He read out her rights for a second time, to which she gave consent to waiver, and it was then that Connor learnt that she’d already violated the agreed terms of her bail once before. This, the android concluded, would result in jail time unless she cooperated with them on their investigation. Raising an eyebrow Hank regarded Veronica as her own brows knitted together for a moment, contemplating the situation; tell them what she knew and be a rat or continue her vow of silence and maintain a paper thin loyalty. The quote “no honour among thieves” suddenly came to Connors mind as he continued to stand with his arms folded across his chest. There was a soft sigh from the woman, tired and annoyed, as she looked away from them both. It was then that she finally opened her mouth to speak, and Connor felt himself perk up in anticipation of what she was going to say. “I don’t know anything about an android, or an android murdering anyone. I was just there to rob the place, alone .” To say that Hank was enraged by her statement was obvious from the way he slammed a hand down upon the metal table, causing the young woman to jump in her seat, eyes wide; startled. They bickered back and forth, starting with Hank’s low growl that she was spouting a load of bullshit and he was in no mood for it. Veronica, on the other hand, maintained her innocence in the matter vehemently, suddenly panicked. She claimed that she’d entered the premises alone with the sole intention of committing a robbery and had no knowledge that there’d been an android there at all nor that said android had been involved in a previous murder that they were currently investigating. However Connor could see from the subtle twitch of her eye that this was at the very least, a half-truth, to which he stepped forward and placed a strategic hand upon Hank’s shoulder, just at the moment he was about to lunge forward with another verbal attack. “Might I try, Lieutenant?” The request was simple enough, but Connor was unsure if Hank would allow him the chance to question Veronica, even though he was rather stressed by the whole situation. For a moment or two Hank regarded him, eyes narrowed suspiciously while he did so, before he gave a huff and a nod, vacating the seat. With a polite incline of his head Connor settled into it, briefly glancing to the door as Hank exited the room; perhaps it was better for all of them that he was given time to cool down. Throughout the whole thing Veronica had sat in relative silence, but as Connor turned his gaze to her, hands clasping together upon the table before him, he noticed how she looked almost distressed that Hank had left the room. With a calm smile upon his face Connor watched her closely, tilting his head slightly as he noticed how she seemed to retreat slightly within herself, her eyes becoming wide and almost fearful. Was she aware that he’d caught onto her bluff? Did she know she stood no real chance against him when it came to the interrogation? Connor was curious to discover the reasoning behind her fear but wanted first to calm her enough so that she would at least talk to him. “Hello, my name is Connor, and you are?” He started out modestly, casually, but it only served to cause her to stiffen in her seat. His smile faltered slightly into a small frown but he refused to give up. He would try a kinder approach before he would press her any further. Glancing to the mirror he sighed, looking back at her once more. “Lieutenant Anderson may seem coarse in his approach, but he means well,” Connor began, watching as Veronica shifted her gaze to the mirror briefly before locking her gaze to him again, following each movement he made. Taking this as a positive sign, Connor continued, even going so far as to lean in slightly, regarding her more. “He just wants to solve the homicide investigation and we think you may have crucial information—” “I don’t know anything!” The abruptness of her interruption caused Connor to pause, his LED flickering a circle of yellow before he straightened in his seat. He noted how Veronica then swallowed nervously, knowing that her outburst had convinced him of the opposite, that she did indeed know something about the case. Lowering her head down she forced her gaze downcast, settling to stare at her bound hands, form fidgeting slightly in her seat. Connor knew that he was close, something in itself that surprised him given how aggressive she’d been beforehand at times when Hank had been interrogating her. Clearly there was an emotional element that he had uncovered, or perhaps it was the fact that he was a complete stranger, and an android, that had shaken her resolve, and caused her to become flustered. Connor was undecided for the moment but felt the time right to begin to apply pressure to the situation. “You do realize that if you don’t help me you will go to prison,” he snapped suddenly, harsh and unforgiving, once again causing her to jump slightly in her seat. “Tell me, Veronica, do you want to go back to prison again?” His question was pointed and it caused her eyes to immediately fly up to meet his own, her hands splaying out on the table’s surface as she shook her head meekly. It was a slow process, but Connor soon began to pull threads of relevant information from her. It was interesting to find that she did indeed know nothing of the android that they were investigating, despite both having been reported to be in the same property, yet he did learn of another android, the one who she had been indirectly protecting all along. An older model, possibly an AF200 model judging from her limited description, discarded and left to shut down, that she had named Zen. Veronica had refused to let them go unnoticed, to be forgotten. She took the android to her home and, with what little she had, attempted to repair or rebuild what she could. Of course she wasn’t even remotely qualified for such a task, but attempt it she did and this led her to steal so that she could then purchase or trade for what she needed. Connor listened quietly, his LED consistently yellow, until her tone lowered and her voice faded into silence. Her eyes were downcast once more and held a forlorn sense to them that caused Connor to unclasp his hands, reaching one out to gentle cover her own. At the gesture Veronica lifted her gaze ever so slightly, acknowledging the contact. They were both silent for a moment before Connor spoke up, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. “I give you my word that Zen will not be hurt, but I need you to be honest with me. Do you know anything about the android? Anything at all?” He pressed further, and although she was uncomfortable she did give a small nod that was coupled with a sigh. “I know someone who might know about the android. He’s done a couple jobs with me in the past, runs with a small group in the area where the guy was killed,” she hummed lightly, and Connor could feel her fingers twitch slightly underneath his own, unaware she was tentatively brushing the inside of his palm as though to calm herself. Catching herself part way through Veronica sucked in a breath, pulling her hand free to the edge of the table, eyes pointedly looking to the side. “I’ll see what I can get out of him,” she added, briefly glancing to the two-way mirror with a glowering expression. “You hear that Hank?” Came her biting comment, voice raised, “I’m going to see what I can do to help your little case!” She huffed, dropping back against her seat, almost as though she’d deflated. It was amusing to Connor, who sat with grin upon his lips, which on increased when she turned her gaze to him and gave a small flicker of a smile. It seemed like she was fighting herself to do so however by the way she turned her head away and tried to pinch her lips together, eyes glittering despite only looking at the wall. With the interrogation over, Veronica was escorted by Hank to one of the holding cells until the information she had given them could be credited and what little information they had could be written up. It needed to be collated with the rest of the information from the couple whose home she had tried to rob. In truth, she was still in a lot of trouble considering she had violated the terms given to her at her last arrest, despite having given them a possible lead, but that wasn’t the main concern Connor had. Remaining a few steps behind as he followed the pair Connor silently contemplated what would happen to her once the investigation was over. Of course, his rationale told him that she would continue to be as she was and that he would most likely cross paths with her again following the next crime she committed, but he also found himself thinking beyond that narrow, professional viewpoint. He was concerned that there would be no saving grace for her next time, that she would be arrested and charged and ultimately end up in prison for more than her previous sentence. It was then he recalled the android, Zen, whom she had become fond of. Like a lonesome puppy, who would care for them while she was gone? Who would inform them of her absence? The questions, though trivial in comparison to his investigation, bothered him and it was noticed immediately by Hank, who had now turned back to the android after Veronica was settled into the holding cell. “You alright Connor?” The older detective asked, concern lacing his gruff voice, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder. When he was met with only a simple yes Hank’s eyes narrowed and he hummed his suspicions. Casting a gaze behind him he spotted Veronica watching them with interest, eyes bright and curious before she quickly looked away. With a small huff of a chuckle, he guided Connor away back to their desks, already surmising what the issue could be. He may have been old, but he wasn’t stupid. Pushing the android down into his seat Hank moved to his own, settling into it with a deep sigh. There had been the glimmer of hope that he would be able to leave work early for once, but that had been long extinguished. Flicking his tired eyes to Connor he found the poor android to still looking as perplexed as before. Leaning back in his chair he contemplated opening that can of worms and ultimately decided that he owed Connor that much at least, given all they’d been through. With as much of an expectant look as he could muster, Hank sat up straight, gaining Connors full attention at last. “Something on your mind, Connor?” He then asked, resting his arms on his desk, eyebrows raising when the android opened his mouth to speak, with some difficulty he noted. “I’m curious, Lieutenant,” he began, to which Hank hummed dryly, already having guessed as much already, “what will happen to Miss Vorne once her usefulness has run its course?” He asked almost innocently, somewhat shocking the older detective. When Hank didn’t reply Connor continued on, brows furrowed, hands gesturing along with his voice. “I only ask because it’s statistically proven that offenders will continue to offend unless prevented from doing so, and she’s already stated that she steals in order to help repair the android she saved, Zen I believe she called them—” “Focus, Connor,” Hank drawled, leaning his head against his hand. “Ah, yes. What I mean to say is that I believe we should, at least, try to help her in some way. Maybe we could utilize her as some kind of informant, perhaps? Her connections may prove useful in our investigations, especially if the lead she’s already provided us proves correct,” he concluded, pursing his lips as he studied Hank’s expression. Connor could feel a sense of unease cross over him and he also detected panic flare within him, which only intensified when Hank snorted sourly and shook his head. “Holy shit, you’re worried about her!” He exaggerated, eyes wide as he swivelled slightly in his chair to look at his terminal, incredulous. Releasing a deep breath Hank attempted to distract himself with his work before looking to Connor once more, who looked at him with a look of despair painted on his face, like a puppy lost off its leash. “Veronica’s fine , Connor,” Hank attempted to console him, “she’ll give us the lead like she promised and she’ll prance outta here like nothing happened and returned to that android of hers, okay? There, did that clear your conscience?” The sarcastic nature of Hanks comment didn’t go amiss and Connor gave a frown in response, LED oscillating between blue and yellow before finally settling back to its standard blue ring. “Actually, Lieutenant,” Connor began pointedly, mimicking his sarcasm, turning his gaze toward the corridor that housed the holding cells, “I don’t believe that it has.” He then turned his gaze back to Hank only to see that he now held his head in his hands and was groaning at the situation before him. He knew that he could stop it before it could properly start by demanding that Connor let it go, but he also knew that Connor wouldn’t be able to do just that so easily and would probably attempt to do something himself to help her. Thus he decided that the best action to take was to give in to Connor’s newfound humanity and let the little shit in on the fun. Pushing his chair away from his desk with his feet Hank stood up with a grunt, beckoning Connor to follow him with a flick of his hand. “Well, are ya coming or what?” He then called, smirking at the sound of the android scampering to follow him towards the holding cells.

Captain Fowler was, to say the least, not impressed by Hank’s insubordination. To have released Veronica without permission had annoyed him enough, but to then come into his office and request, dare he say demand, that she be given a probationary period to try as an informant for their case? Well, that was something else entirely. Ultimately, with a lot of convincing from both Hank and Connor, the Captain reluctantly agreed to allow Veronica to operate as an informant on the condition that she would report any and all findings she could to them in order to further their case and any other cases that she may find knowledge of. Any leads that produced breaks in the case would result in leniency to her prior charges, something that would no doubt tempt her into doing a good job. There had also been the warning that if she didn’t perform well there would be consequences, but Hank hadn’t the patience nor the care to properly listen, but Connor had. It hardened his resolve to ensure she did well, and remained safe, while she worked alongside them. Upon seeing Hank and Connor move to leave the Captain’s office Veronica stood straight, watching them expectantly as they descended the small set of stairs, hands in front of her as her fingers twisted around the balaclava that had been taken from her previously. “So, what’s happening? Am I free to go now?” She asked eagerly, bouncing slightly on her heels. She needed to hurry home to check on Zen, to make sure the android hadn’t gotten into mischief while she’d been gone. Her expression dropped slightly when Hank began to explain the conditions of her release but she ultimately came to accept them. Not that she had much choice. The notion of working with someone on the inside brought forth memories of infiltrating Jericho for Connor, and although it wasn’t all a positive memory a small smile come to his lips as he recalled the moment he finally came into his own and became deviant. It opened to him a whole new perspective on life, one that he was now determined to embrace wholeheartedly. Amidst his recollections he’d noticed that Veronica had fallen a couple of steps behind them upon leaving the police headquarters, the cool night breeze having ruffled her hair. He stopped to watch for a moment to watch as she brushed the waves back, bringing her hood up to trap them. When he finally caught her attention he felt his lips twitch upwards, motioning for her to continue at his side. When she accepted the offer by falling into step beside him Connor felt a similar feeling to the one he’d experienced back in the police headquarters; a slight nervousness blooming in the pit of his artificial stomach so to speak. Humans would often engage in small talk when walking with one another, or so he’d observed, and since Hank had decided to stop and do just that with another officer who was just returning, Veronica was left to his company, and his company alone, so he took the chance to engage her in conversation. Pausing on route to Hank’s car, Connor turned his head to Veronica, who looked at him curiously, stopping as he had. It was now that he could truly regard the difference in height between them. He was at a minimum a few inches taller than her, give or take an inch due to the thick heel on her boots, for he had calculated her at five feet and five inches when inside the station, again taking the heel size into consideration. He gave a small, polite cough, having realized that he had been staring, a small blue hue lightly dusting the tops of his cheeks. Wanting to distract from any uncomfortable instances, Connor felt it best to begin a conversation with her, noting as he did so the small tremble in her limbs. “It’s a rather cold night, are you alright?” Although her clothes were insulated, the lack of movement meant that the chill of the night air was able to affect her, and Connor wanted her to feel comfortable, especially with him. They were going to be partners, after all, and her well-being and morale was now something to consider. “Oh, no, I’m fine,” Veronica replied with a soft smile before her brows furrowed slightly, taking in his smart appearance. “Aren’t you cold?” The question caused his own eyebrows to raise upwards slightly and he opened his mouth to correct her, for androids couldn’t feel the cold as humans could, before deciding that he would take her concern as it was. Giving her a small smile in response he shook his head, smoothing his suit jacket down with his hands on impulse. “No, I’m not cold, but thank you for asking,” he then replied, eyes drawn to the way her breath created entrancing wisps of mist in the air before vanishing without a trace. There was still so much that enthralled him about humans, from their mannerisms to their very beings, which was to be expected from an android programmed to be as inquisitive and curious as he was. Silence then fell upon them for a moment before a cough drew their attention, Connor turning his head to see Hank stood, alone, with his arms crossed, watching him and Veronica with an inscrutable look upon his face. “Is something wrong, Lieutenant?” Connor questioned, though he couldn’t understand if anything would be wrong. He had just been idly chatting while Hank himself had done so. “Well I’d like to get home before I freeze my balls off , thank you,” came Hanks sharp quip in response with a roll of his eyes, though his gaze soon narrowed with a huff when Veronica snickered at the comment, shaking her head lightly. Connor watched the small exchange with some interest before he regarded Veronica again, once more looking at her with a curious, if somewhat concerned, expression. “How will you be getting home?” He questioned, his auditory systems noting the sound of Hank entering his car; the familiar creak of the car door and the slam of metal. “Might I suggest you share a ride with Lieutenant Anderson and myself?” It was a kind gesture and an appropriate one to make, judging from the way Veronica smiled warmly. Thus he couldn’t help how his brows knitted together in confused shock when she politely, and somewhat awkwardly, declined. Her reasoning was that she didn’t want to be any more of a bother than she already had been for the pair and that her home wasn't so far away that she couldn’t walk there. “Oh,” he replied after some thought, looking dejected amidst his confusion, “I see, but I’m afraid I must insist. A woman shouldn’t walk the streets alone, especially on a winter’s night.” His heart, though artificial, was in the right place, and he wasn’t going to allow Veronica to put herself in danger for the sake of a little burden. One that he calculated would only be around twelve or so minutes, if the snow held off at least. Connor wanted to remain respectful of her independence but the android was too chivalrous to be beaten, and after a small bout of back and forth banter Veronica finally gave in with a sigh, thanking him quietly as he motioned with his hand for her to make her way to the car. It was a relatively quiet drive, with only the melodies of the quiet jazz that Hank enjoyed filling the space of the car. An obvious difference from the Heavy Metal Connor was usually met with. The android rode shotgun with Hank at the wheel, while Veronica was settled in the back behind him. Stealing a glance at her through the rear view mirror Connor noticed how she had her head turned to look out the car window, a weary expression on her face, illuminated at regular intervals by the street lights. He studied her until they reached her address, or as near to as she felt comfortable with revealing, and then he watched as she shifted forward in her seat, eyes looking between them both. “Thanks for the ride, guys, I appreciate it,” she murmured, nodding her head in acknowledgement as Hank assured her it wasn’t too out of his way, her gaze then turning to Connor, who had turned in his seat to regard her. “Goodnight, Miss Vorne, and please refrain from getting into any more trouble tonight,” Connors' voice held a teasing edge, one that caused her to smirk lightly in response. “I make no promises,” Veronica countered with a small chuckle and with that she slipped out of the car. She gave a small wave as she then crossed the street, blending into the shadows as she walked the rest of the small distance to her home, leaving Connor to decipher his thoughts about her.

#Detroit Become Human #Detroit Become Human Imagines #Detroit Become Human Imagine #RK800 #RK800 Connor #Connor #(this is a looooooong boi and I apologize!)

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chrismalcolmhnd2c · 4 years

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Something New

©NESPRESSO

©DUALIT

“Learn something new. Try something different. Convince yourself that you have no limits” Brian Tracey

Research the Narrative

Point of sale product shots demand a high degree of photographic finish and quality.  They should represent a product at its highest quality.  

Within your blog/workbook, research product shots and advertising photographers. Demonstrate through annotation, your understanding of detail and presentation of perfection. 

Tell the Story

Choose an item that is brand new and blemish free and photograph it to the highest quality possible.

Your object should be photographed with a plain white background to show maximum quality.

Care should be taken to ensure that the best lens and viewpoint are used to maximize the product shape.

Edit and refine: Complete worksheet

High level retouching will be necessary as the object must be as close to perfect as possible. (even brand-new items will have flaws that need fixed)

Be prepared to use a range of retouching techniques to optimise this final file for use as an advertising shot.

The object should be easily dropped into other background so we will look at ways to cut out and present the object as a vector cut-out.

Submit: Final image on A3 canvas, and the object cut out of the background as a PSD. Upload to my city: Upload to my city.

Research

TOP 5: PRODUCT STILL LIFE PHOTOGRAPHERS

January 19, 2016 admin Brands

This week, counting down on our TOP 5, I am going to be listing my favourite product still life photographers, these are purely based on their portfolio and on their popularity.

STILL LIFE PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHERS

1. Nori Inoguchi

http://www.norimichi.com/

Born in Japan, NORI Inoguchi was educated in New York where he refined his passion for photography. His love of luxury and desire to create visually stunning images inspired him to become a still-life product photographer; NORI seeks to find beauty in all of the objects he shoots. With his sophisticated eye and minimalistic approach, he has exploded onto the world stage and has earned bookings from the best names in fashion, cosmetics and electronics. His career has brought him to Paris, London, NY and even back to his native home of Japan. Using clean, clear and crisp techniques, NORI has created numerous campaigns since 2009 and he has since become a trusted name in the field.

2. Sam Kaplan

http://www.samkaplan.com/

Since striking out on his own in 2011, the 29-year-old Boston native has eschewed high-concept aesthetics and taken a more hands-on approach built around exacting precision—a sculptor’s finely honed interest in process and material. His approach might seem throwback, but that’s part of Kaplan’s appeal. Unlike many of his photographic peers, he had a rather low-tech schooling, studying fine art and art history at Wesleyan University.

3. Lucas Zarebinski

http://www.lucaszarebinski.com/

Lucas grew up in Bielsko Biala, Poland, a small city famous for goose down comforters. When he was 17, he dated an photographer named Olga who later inspired Lucas to become an artist even though he said ” I always wanted to be an artist but I was horrible at drawing.” In the few months he was around her, he realised that he had a talent for still life photography. He then moved to Michigan when he was 20, got a degree in Fine Arts and Photography while he parked cars at night and learned English from his 3 roommates. Fast forward 10 years later. He now live in New York permanently and creates images for a living.

He says in his biography ” I love creating conceptual images, pushing the boundaries of still life photography and resolving client’s problems with an inspiring imagery. I still like red beet soup and blueberry pierogis, but I also like beef with broccoli and spicy tuna rolls these days. ”

4. Jonathan Knowles

http://jknowles.co.uk/

Jonathan Knowles is one of the leading photographers of his generation. Specialising in graphic still life, liquid and beauty, Jonathan’s unique photographic style has earned him award-winning advertising commissions worldwide.

In the past ten years, Jonathan has consistently featured in the ‘200 Best Advertising Photographers in the World’ books. He is one of the top 10 all time award winners in the Graphis Annuals.

Notable commissions include campaigns for many globally recognised brands, such as Coca-Cola, Guinness, and Smirnoff. He is also the creator of the famous O2 bubbles.

He shot the Black Sabbath 13 Album cover, as well as directing and filming the footage that is currently played on stage during performances. Black Sabbath loved the imagery and invited Jonathan to the album launch in New York, where he received a friendly strangle of gratitude from Ozzy.

5. Zachary Goulko

http://www.goulko.com/

Like a modern Chiaroscuro master, beauty, product and still life photographer Zachary Goulko harnesses the power of light to infuse two-dimensional images with drama, shape, and volume. His moody, provocative photographs illuminate the power of a single moment: the arresting beauty of a face, the grace of a sculptural curve, the fluid interplay between light and color and form. It is the Moscow-born photographer’s mission to capture the essence of each subject, and to present its beauty to the world in fresh and unexpected ways. He is an exhaustive experimenter, conjuring moods, intertwining lines with rhythm, exploring the architecture of shape and light. His still life and product photographs are clean and precise, yet startlingly intimate. They achieve a level of visual poetry that is unique in the commercial photography world. With a fully equipped high end studio, based in the New York City area, he photographs product and still life images for many world renown beauty and cosmetics brands. Among Goulko’s clients are L’Oréal, Lancôme, Clinique, Estée Lauder, Strivectin, Shu Uemura, Frederic Fekkai, Patek Phillipe, de GRISOGONO, Roger Dubuis, and Zac Posen, . With a background in design and interactive programming, he is constantly seeking new ways to push the technological boundaries of his medium and give full expression to his creative vision.

Source: http://claphamstudiohire.com/top-5-product-still-life-photographers/

PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY IDEAS

Unusual and even extraordinary product photography ideas are what make many leading brands stay demanding and make people talk about their creative product shots and buy their products. Let me tell you how to do product photography like creative product photographers do. I’ve gathered 20 original product photography techniques and ideas for any product.

What Is Product Photography?

Product photos belong to a branch of commercial photography which is about advertising a product. There are several classical ways of shooting products: product photography on a white background, ghost mannequin, lifestyle product photography, motion images, photos of the product line, tabletop photography, photos of the product being packed, 360 product photography, etc.

Creative Product Photography Ideas

High-quality product photography is important for you and your client. Therefore, it is obligatory to choose the right strategy to demonstrate each product. But many photographers have a moment when they need to diversify the photos or add some creative elements. Here are some different product photography ideas for your inspiration:

1. One Second Before

This is an example of creative product shots that are taken right before something unexpected: an explosion, fall, etc. That is why you as a photographer should manage to catch the moment in the second before it happens.

2. Use Smoke

This product photography idea is a good way to make your product look dramatic. Use the coloured smoke if it is suitable for your product design. To make smoke more accurate, use Photoshop brushes.

3. Floating Products

You may hang some goods to make them look three-dimensional. Hang a product using a line, wire or rope. Then remove background or a line from the photograph of a floating product in Photoshop.

4. Association Game

If you need extraordinary product photo for a fashion magazine or billboard advertising, what can be better than funny surrealistic illustrations. Such photographs are typically taken in the studio using special product photography lighting kit and digital drawing techniques in Photoshop.

5. Motion Product Photography

This creative product photography idea is realized by means of short exposure and quick photographer’s and assistants’ actions. The photos are striking for a lot of reasons, but the thing that sticks out at first is how adding motion makes images pop.

6. Photo with Models

Give your product character and show the features that make it unique. Use different product photography ideas and creative lifestyle to highlight the product usage.

7. Combined Background

In addition to the familiar white background, I frequently use the background tone that is in harmony with the color of my product. These two product photographs are a good example of colors combination. You may combine the background depending on the product color increasing the image contrast.

8. Crashed or Broken Product

It is pretty a specific idea for product photos and not everyone decides to use it. It attracts people’s attention and evokes pity and interest to the product. It is better to get a shot at the beginning of product crash.

9. Use Reflection

You may use smooth plain covers with high reflectivity as the surface. For example, your product photos may be taken on an average ceramic tile. Make sure, you work in good lighting. In order to take such image, it is necessary to choose the right angle and lighting to get excellent reflection.

10. Product Absorption

This product photography idea has something to do with putting an object into the sand, water or other materials when you intend to put an accent. You may also use different tiny thematic items in which the product may drown.

11. Product Series

Grouping product images creates almost the same effect as zooming. Comparing several products in one photo a customer understands their main differences, volume, shape, size and other features. Moreover, it can persuade your potential customers to buy the whole kit.

12. Symmetry and Dynamics

To take this kind of product photos you have to put a camera at different angles. However, you should be careful while shooting obscure angles in order not to misrepresent the product. Put other products relatively symmetrical mixing them up with different small details.

13. Emphasize the Product’s Colour

Showing the contrast between the background and the product looks fashionable. But the main difference of this photo is an angle between the surface and the background, which creates a three-dimensional image of the lipstick. This dimensional curved shimmering paper underlines the color and the dimension of the product.

14. Sand Print

This product photography idea requires a special background. It may be usual clay, snow, sand, mastic or similar material.

15. Use Associations

Be as much creative as you can. Here Photoshop is you best friend who will help to realize even the craziest product photography ideas as to shape ketchup in the form of a tongue or a lipstick in the form of ice-cream.

10 Famous Product Photographers

https://spark.adobe.com/page/98pcx7gV8QkNW/

#somethingnew

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eurosong · 4 years

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Undo my ESC 2020 (SF1)

Good evening, folks! “Undo my ESC”, my look at how I would have changed this year’s contest, is back! Even though the EBU, well, indeed sadly and very literally did undo the ESC this year, there is still room for changing about my personal ideal Eurovision 2020. Let’s have a look at the first semi-final! 🇦🇺 Australia: I continue to be mightily impressed with the quality of Australia Decides, an NF putting forward a number of credible options to represent Oz. I felt the juries helped dodge a bullet this year, because the televote winning song was a rather cliché and dated choice, out of step with the relatively vibrant and contemporary feel of the field. The actual winner was pretty decent albeit with dubious live vocals and an even odder stage concept. It could be improved by working on those two factors, though even better would be to send instead the dramatic Rabbit Hole, truly a title for our season, or even better, the searingly emotional Raw stuff which knocked me off my feet upon first listen and still packs that punch 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: Once again, Azerbaijan went down the “buy in a song from elsewhere and attempt to put on a thin gloss of local instrumentation onto a generic pop song in lieu of some actual authenticity. I can’t say I even hate the song this time, though I do dislike how they reportedly nabbed it off non-oil-rich San Marino in a bidding war. I would have brought back Dihaj or... anyone who could produce something halfway Azeri? Also, something that doesn’t make me do a full-body cringe as much as the country ranked the worst in the ESC-sphere for LGBT rights sending a song about “gay or straight or in between.”

🇧🇾 Belarus: Belarus made the right choice - I can really rarely say those words. For only the second time ever, we got a song in Belarusian, and whilst it isn’t up there with the gorgeous Historyja majho žyccia for me, Da widna is still a pleasant listen that soars above many of the hyped pre-contest fan favourites and was a nice surprise from a bad NF. The only thing that I would change? That the unhinged comic brilliance of Pavloni be in the final. Watch from about halfway through to the end for an absolute mood whiplash odyssey.

🇧🇪 Belgium: A lot of people had plenty of hope when they heard that the veteran Hooverphonic were set to represent Belgium in 2020, and I was amongst them. My reäction to what they ended up bringing though was tepid. It’s got the quality rich instrumentation that I expected from this band, pleasant vox, but as a song, it goes nowhere for me, in part because of how repetitive it is and lacking in a hook I find it. I would have picked a more immediate song for Eurovision, because this felt like another DNQ for Belgium, following the same mistakes as 2018 and 2019. They will be back in 2021, and I will be interested to see if they take a slightly different tack.

🇭🇷 Croatia: Following up on Belarus, Croatia was another example of a selection in which I had no hope providing something excellent to recompense for usually reliable countries going off the rails. I finally have from Croatia something to fit in with the likes of Adio from Montenegro and Nije ljubav stvar from Serbia as an epic Balkan ballad. Few people were expecting Divlji vjetre would win; I was over the moon that it did and would change nothing. I hope Croatia re-send the gentleman Damir next year with an equally strong song.

🇨🇾 Cyprus: After giving us a literal replay of Fuego last year, this year they’ve gone a slightly different route, but no less generic (even coming with one of the several duplicately named titles of this year), no less uninspiring, no less completely detached from Cypriot music. I’m longing for Cyprus to send something like Eimai anthropos kai ego again.

🇮🇪 Ireland: So RTÉ came into Eurovision all guns blazing this year, promising “an almighty bop” that will be “remembered in 10 years’ time like Euphoria.” I had feared that their frame of reference for their song would be 10 years’ stale, but instead they cast their net even further back to the mid-2000s. It properly sent me into hysterics when I heard this being compared to EVERY major female singer of that period, depending on whom you asked, before this came into general release. You know what, though? I hold my hands up and admit that I adore the anthemic Story of my life. It’s just so drenched in colour that I feel uplifted every time I listen to it, which is often! Lesley has such a likeable, authentic charisma that adds to the song too. I am so gutted we’ll never see the staging because I feel this would have been a memorable party moment. This is just 3 minutes of happy nostalgia and I live for it.

🇮🇱 Israel: You know, usually, I am not a fan of single-artist national finals, because if you are not a fan of the artist, your choice is very limited indeed. However - I don’t know how one can nót be a fan of Eden to some degree. Her music is not up my street, but she sells it to me through sheer force of personality, positivity and presence. She had four songs and she put her heart and soul into them all. The winner was the vibrant Feker libi, which I would only change by altering the chorus a bit, as its odd 90s dance vibe doesn’t sit so well with the rest of the song. As for Eden, she cried when she reälised she couldn’t go to ESC 2020 and again when she found out she’d been picked for 2021. I wish all artists had this amount of passion.

🇱🇹 Lithuania: There was a sea change in Lithuania this year. I don’t know what happened, but they went from punchline to packing a punch. Their national final had been one that pretty much no one watched, dragging on for several weeks and almost always to choose a mediocre, anticlimactic choice after all that effort. This year, it was one of the most entertaining and diverse NFs of the bunch. My early favourite to win was the powerhouse Monika Marija’s return with If I leave, very much up my street with its country stylings. However, by the time the final came, I had been won over also by the eventual winner, the offbeat and infectious On fire, whose victory I would not alter because it serves as a more dramatic turn of the page for Lithuania’s Eurovision presence. It was such a relief to see this prevailing, with a huge lead in the televote, over the awful, imported Unbreakable or the respectable but pedestrian Make me human. I hope the broadcasters will respect the support this has in Lithuania and allow the Roop to come back in 2021. 🇲🇰 Macedonia: Just no. No. No. Scrap everything about this, bring back Kaliopi and let her get her revenge for the juries screwing her out of qualification with the beautiful “Dona.” 🇲🇹 Malta: Malta have done the unthinkable and sent two songs in a row that I really like for the first time since 1997-8. As Ian would have put it, I was expecting a mere “vocal exercise” from Malta to show off the impressive range of Destiny. Instead, they came out with something so soulful that I have no choice but to enjoy. I hope they go a similar route in 21.

🇳🇴 Norway: So, finally Norway saw some sense and reverted to making the most of having a talented composer, Kjetil Mørland, who is so enthusiastic about Eurovision that he has come back since his success with A monster like me a few times. He should have won with En livredd mann; I wouldn’t have been unhappy at all had he won with Who we are, and indeed, Attention was another song that I had to consider as being amongst the best of its (bizarrely organised) selection. The one thing I’d change? The lyrics. It sounds like an infatuated 12 year old with low self-esteem singing, not a grown woman.

🇷🇴 Romania: It’s not up there with Goodbye or On a Sunday, but Romania have returned with a third song I really enjoy. Alcohol you was head and shoulders above the others in the single-artist selection, and I am still sent by the way she sabotaged the bop that was predicted to win the final so that she could send this more meditative, confessional effort. What would I change? The unnecessary revamp that abruptly shifts the direction of the song in the last third.🇷🇺 Russia: When this first came out, I thought “well done, Russia. Kept us waiting on you until way past the deadline, and all for this bizarre Aquaësque troll entry.” Despite myself, “Uno” has grown on me to some degree. Maybe it’s because of the death stare of the female backing singer who’s giving me some strong Rosa from Brooklyn 99 vibes, and I live for that. Maybe it’s because it’s serving a flourescent lime green in a year when there is so much beige that even an ugly odd colour seems pleasing. I wouldn’t change this, and I hope they get sent again next year because it’s delightful seeing Russia unpaired from Kirkorov.

🇸🇮 Slovenia: Again, I am going to find myself in a small minority, but Slovenia was, like Belarus and Croatia, an unappetising selection that nonetheless yielded a gem for me. They really said screw you to underlying trends and went for a song that moves at a glacial pace fitting of the title, Voda. This was constantly in last place on the Eurovision scoreboard app, which just speaks to the limited taste tolerance of many of its users. There is so much here to enjoy: Slovenia sticking with its language yet again; the ethereal vibes; the deep, rich voice of the singer; the melancholic and poëtic lyrics; and the fact that it was perhaps the only good “revamp” of the season, going in the opposite direction of Albania and inserting an orchestra to make it that much richer in sound. Wonderful stuff and hope she returns in 2021.

🇸🇪 Sweden: So, for the first time since 2014, Sweden has sent a female artist - 3 in fact - and with them, left the cookie cutter niche they’d occupied since then behind. They sent my favourite of their songs since 2013, Move, a joyous gospel-infused effort where the love and positivity of the Mamas gave me tingles to watch. And yet, it wasn’t my ideal choice. My personal winner would have been my favourite entry from Sweden since... possibly as far back as I morgon är en annan dag in 1992. I’m talking ‘bout Dotter of course. The artist whose beautiful Melodifestivalen début with Cry got bizarrely ignored had a superb redemptive arc this year, becoming the huge favourite with Bulletproof. I watched her performance of this over 200 times so far and still watch often. I find the song so poignant, the performance and her presence so bewitching. It’s a rarity for songwriters who also perform their songs to get this far in MF these days, and Dotter lost out by the narrowest of margins, but would have been a great encouragement to others like her had she won. It was widely said that Sweden had the potential for a record-equalling seventh win if they had sent Bulletproof. As much as I cherish Ireland’s record, had it been Dotter to equal it, I wouldn’t have been mad at all. 🇺🇦 Ukraine: Widbir got over their Maruw drama in great style, once again being one of the coolest and most alternative national finals out there. Well done, Ukraine! There were a number of propositions that I would have been happy to see represent the country. My initial favourite was Vegan, one of my most streamed songs of the season and one which always puts a smile on my face with Jerry’s facial expressions and puns like “‘cause I’m vegan, I can’t even call you honey.” And honestly, I would have loved to have seen it in Rotterdam. I also loved, amongst others, Tam kudy ja jdu and Picz, which were both the victims of being in a semi-final with all the good songs whilst the second semi-final was nowhere near as competitive. Having said all that, I am not sure that I would change the eventual winner, Solowej, because it’s its own brand of delightfully authentic. I would undo their unnecessary revamp and keep it as the live version linked to above, though. And the automatic qualifiers: 🇩🇪 Germany: As you would expect from one of the musical monoliths of Europe, Germany once had some of the best and most diverse national finals of the continent, but something went wrong - they kept inviting wild cards, whose scrappiness endeared them to the public even when their songs were mediocre, and so we saw complete no-marks getting the Teutonic nod despite star-studded competition. Nonetheless, “Unser Lied für” was always worth tuning in for, an annual dose of getting mesmer-eyes’d by Barbara Schöneberger too. This year, they threw it all away for one of the most repetitive songs of the year, with a young, confused looking Slovenian being the god knows how many’th contestant to channel his inner Justin Timberlake with another knockoff that sounds as German as fajitas. I would have kept the national final - or, if they’re really going to start doing internal selections, go daring with Lily among clouds, whose Surprise was one of the crown jewels of the previous NF season. 🇮🇹 Italy: Sanremo, which actually predates Eurovision, is so much more than an NF, but its own cultural institution, and the quality is such that a song can be your fifth or sixth in Sanremo but still rank really highly in your ESC rankings. Performing with, and composing for, the orchestra, seems to give its entries a timeless quality that few others compare with. My initial favourites were Tosca’s Ho amato tutto, which from its first strains to the final, saudadic “eh” that serves as an unofficial coda, breaks my heart still sublimely; Viceversa, a heartwarming effort by the unbelievably charming Gabbani and Tikibombom, a slice of Sicilian excellence with trenchant lyrics. My most streamed has been Sincero, remembered more for the hugely memetic moment of one of its representatives changing the lyrics and the other walking out disgusted, but which I adore for its synthy vibes and its brilliant lyrics. The eventual winner was Fai rumore, which I also love too much to propose that it be changed. The lines about “an unnatural silence between us” are all the more poignant now. Lowkey think this could have won Italy its long-awaited third victory. 🇳🇱 Netherlands: Now, this is what I call a host nation song. The way I see it, if you’re hosting, you have a direct ticket to the final that you may not enjoy again for a long time, so why not go for a risk? And a risk NL indeed took. Grow is a very atypical song. It builds in a way we do not expect it to. It is mostly minimalist, focusing most of our attention to Jeangu’s voice, making this an intimate, almost confessional track. The crescendo is cathartic. After Albania destroyed itself with an unnecessary revamp, this became my #1 and I would change nothing about it. It really sucks that a song so personal to its writer and performer won’t be allowed on the stage in 2021 - that’s what I would change. A ridiculous decision on the EBU’s part.

#eurovision #opinion #esc 2020 #eurovision song contest #eurovision 2020

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wilstudies · 5 years

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Get a grade 9 in a language GCSE!

Please note:

1. These tips are almost entirely applicable to any AQA language at GCSE. 2. Modern Foreign Languages at GCSE Level is anywhere from A2 to B1 (dependant on the tier and grade) on the CEFR scale, but, there is no official equivalent.

In November 2018, whilst in Year 10, my teacher saw that I was excelling in French, with my extensive knowledge of tenses and idioms. So, she proposed that I’d do the January mocks, alongside Year 11, despite not knowing more than half of the subject content. Then we’d see where I’d go from there.

I followed the AQA exam board, higher paper. Specification. You can find the Kerboodle textbook I used, here.

Here’s what I did:

Throughout the year, I was also studying the Year 10 content (Theme 1 - Identity and culture) in class.

In my own time, each month I’d cover one or two units, completing the more challenging activities on each page of the textbook. Luckily, each unit was only 4 double-page spreads long.

In January I completed my mocks. This was the first time I had ever sat in an exam hall, so it was really daunting to be doing it with a bunch of kids who were older than me, even though I knew I had enough knowledge. Overall, I got a secure grade 8, in my mocks, despite not knowing half of the course content.

I also did “pre-exam mocks”, two weeks before each exam. These consisted of specimen papers which are notoriously harder, so my results looked almost exactly the same as past papers, which was upsetting as I couldn’t see that I’d actually improved. But practice is practice!

MY ACTUAL GCSE RESULT:

With a lot of work. I managed to achieve a grade 9 (the top mark, higher than an A*), which was insane. I’m so, so proud of myself, and grateful for all of the teachers that supported me!!!

^Edit from 25/08/2019.

LISTENING

In my opinion, listening is based purely on practice and knowing the exam technique that works for you.

To practice:

frenchpod101 intermediate listening comprehension

Going through every specimen track and listening activity I could find - pausing it after each sentence, saying it once in French, then translating it into English. I’d do this in the shower, on the way to school, wherever.

Know your vocab!

My exam technique:

In the 5 minutes reading time: underline keywords and themes in the questions. This time goes very quickly, but I’d also try to jot down a few synonyms in the French section too.

Multiple choice questions: the process of elimination; key vocab; negative and positive tonality and opinion words - watch out for negative structures!

Completing the sentences: note down words said in French or translate each sentence into English in your head, then remember it when it comes to writing it down.

French section: fill each sentence with key French words that you hear. Don’t worry about accents, unless it helps you determine the word.

Remember each track plays twice.

READING

The January Mock: I didn’t know much of the course content, so I struggled with the translation. I also circled and placed a question mark near any words I didn’t know, as it was a mock and my teacher would be able to note down any translations for me. I think what boosted my grade, to a 9 for this paper, was knowledge of grammar.

T/F/NM questions are usually a gamble. Just look for explicit information and know your negative formations.

Texts change their minds often: look out for counter-arguments and opposing exclamations

Use the method of elimination for multiple choice: rule out if there’s no mention. Be wary that a text can mention an option, but say it wasn’t that.

Texts often refer to things mentioned prior.

If you know a certain type of texts are your kryptonite (it was the classical stories with dialogue, for me), then download as many of that genre as you can. Understand the way speech and dialogue works, and the structure, before you tackle the vocab.

Many say skim read and don’t read the whole thing, but I found it easier to translate big chunks in my head as I went along and lightly annotate each text, which just comes with practice.

WRITING

Top tip: don’t go any more than 10% over word limits!!!!!!! Teachers say they have to mark all of it - no they don’t. If you do double the word limit, your last few bullet points could come after the cut-off point, cutting off access to half of the marks!!!

90 WORD - 99 words maximum! About 20-25 words per bullet point.

150 WORD - 165 words maximum! About 75 words per bullet point.

Which brings me to mention, that you must cover every bullet point: those are your content marks, which cover about half the marks of each question.

90 WORD Question (16 marks)

Content - 10 marks: Making sure your writing covers each bullet point enough.

Quality of Language - 6 marks: Using interesting vocabulary, such as “malheureusement”.

Stick to about one page.

If you’re giving an opinion, great, just stop there. If you explain it too much, you risk going over your word limit.

150 WORD Question (32 marks)

Content - 15 marks: Every. Bullet. Point. Detailed.

Range of Language - 12 marks: get in those adjectives, idioms and grammatical structures!

Accuracy - 5 marks: correct basic tense conjugations (present, past, future simple/future proche)

In order to hit all of these I came up with a mnemonic checklist, and it scored me full marks in a specimen paper I did for my teacher! And I made it into a cute phone background, so I’d start to remember it, I still can now, hehe! You can find it here. If that doesn’t work, then download it here.

SPEAKING

Know your question words! (x)

For the roleplay and photocard, my teacher printed off me a load of practice cards in bulk and annotated two or three every day, using the planning techniques mentioned below.

Roleplay - 2 minutes; can be any theme.

When planning, try to avoid writing out answers, but just keywords and gaps for you to fill in with pronouns or articles etc.

Keep it brief, one sentence per bullet point, but cover each part of each bullet point.

Photo card - 3 minutes (aim to speak for at least 2).

Plan with a small spider-diagram of nouns, opinions, anecdotes etc. for each known question.

Use one or two prepped anecdotes for the prepared questions - e.g. where you went last year, who with, what you did.

For the unknown questions, keep it short and sweet and fill up any time with opinions and reasoning.

General conversation - 5-7 minutes.

Lie and make up stories! Be creative and use the words and structures you know.

I was a little extra and I prepared every theme as flashcards. You can’t get away with only revising your chosen theme!

I made flashcards that could cover several types of questions: I had bullet points of topics and keywords on one side and a sample paragraph on the other.

Pretty sure I made about 80 flashcards oops.

I also went through the mark scheme and see which areas I could secure marks in and which areas I needed to improve.

VOCAB

Learning vocab is SO important!

I started by making spreadsheets of jumbled word lists from the specification and doing a colour-coded match up.

You can access a pdf of all of the vocab grids here. There might be the odd word missing due to copy-pasting errors, but if so, don’t stress, just look it up in a dictionary and note it down - sorry in advance!!!

Then with the vocab that I had to look up in a dictionary, I added to a Quizlet and wrestled it into my noggin.

You can find the Quizlet here.

Remember that:

sauf - except

puisque - since

presque - almost

GRAMMAR

To me, learning tenses was like learning formulae for maths. So find a way to learn rules like that, if it’s easier for you.

e.g. Conditional Tense = subject + (future/conditional stem + imperfect ending)*

*note that future stems are the same as conditional stems.

Know your DRMRSPVANDERTRAMP verbs, and their past participles. These verbs go with ÊTRE and always agree with the subject.

Know your auxiliary and irregular verbs.

MUST KNOW: avoir, être, aller, faire, vouloir

HELPFUL: devoir, pouvoir, vivre, boire, voir, dire, savoir

OTHERS: mettre, prendre, venir, écrire, lire, recevoir

I learnt these by making flashcards, and then brain dumping them on paper over and over again until they stuck - my teacher thought I was insane, madly scribbling away.

Memorise some key structures that can be used in writing and speaking.

If you want 7+ structures, find them here.

MISC TIPS

Always write notes about improvements and errors in practice papers and mocks.

Find a native french internet friend.

In my opinion, music, movies and TV shows aren’t great for revision. However, if you begin to understand them, they are a great confidence boost.

I highly recommend the Skam France series, which you can find with and without les sous-titres (subtitles) here.

And here’s my french music playlist on Spotify.

MORE ASSISTANCE

I’m happy to offer my assistance to anybody who needs it, pop me a dm or an ask if you think others will find it useful too.

Here’s some ways I could help:

Finding some resources about a certain topic (videos, worksheets, mindmaps) - I have them all backed up hehe

Sending you some of my past answers

Sending you pdf of my general conversation/irregular verb table flashcards

Marking practice answers

Talking to you in french

Etc. etc.

Thank you for reading! Please reblog to help any others that might find this useful. If any of the links are faulty, please pop me a dm, and I’ll get them sorted asap!! 🥐

-Wil x

#french #gcse #langblr #studyblr #study #gcses #french language #lovelybluepanda #wilstudies #studies #etudier #francais #emmastudies #a level #b2 #b1 #cefr #masterpost #masterlist #advice #a2

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britesparc · 4 years

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Weekend Top Ten #433

Top Ten Things I Want from Xbox Series X

June is Games Month here at David’s Top Tens! That’s right, all month long we’re exploring the majesty of what we all used to call “computer games” before we became too cool. That’s because it’s the time of year when huge multinationals tantalise us with pre-rendered cinematics showcasing gaming experiences utterly divorced from what we’ll get to play. Even in this Time of Crisis (as opposed to a Time Crisis), games companies are still Touting Their Wares, and as such, I am brimming with fanboy fervour, tantalised at the prospect of Gaming Yet to Come. This week alone has seen sexy new videos from the likes of EA, Pokémon, and Sony – whose PlayStation 5 reveal gave us the best glimpse yet at exactly what the next generation could look like. I was impressed; although there wasn’t too much in the way of radically new concepts or whatever, games looked good, with plenty of sexy, shiny new bells and whistles, and it looked like environments will be bigger, more fluid, and more reactive than ever before. Plus seeing the ray-tracing in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart gave me serious “Quake II running on a 3D accelerator card” vibes. Suddenly I was sixteen again, getting all sticky-knickered over texture filtering and coloured lightning.

It was great.

However, I’m pretty much an Xbox-first gamer; mostly, I suppose, due to inertia, having gotten used now to how an Xbox works, to the point where a PlayStation always feels a little alien (still wanna play The Last of Us Part II, though). I’m more of a fan of the Xbox game franchises – the main reason I bought an original Xbox in the first place (way back in 2001) was to play Halo: Combat Evolved, and because of the promise of Fable. This love of Xbox games has only grown with the acquisition of Rare (despite the slight misstep of Perfect Dark Zero) and the release of games like Crackdown, Gears, and Forza Horizon. So as much as I try to be open-minded – and certainly I try to avoid any kind of partisan mud-slinging – I guess I’m pretty much in the tank for Xbox. As such, I’m phenomenally excited for Xbox Series X. I got an Xbox One at launch, and despite all of the hullaballoo and criticism, I’ve always really liked it. I think it’s kind of struggled compared to its predecessors (cult favourite OG Xbox and revolutionary Xbox 360), and hasn’t quite had the era-defining games that both of those enjoyed. All that being said, though, I’ve had loads of fun with it, and so have my wife and kids. But I’ve stuck with the same machine all these years, never upgrading to the more streamlined Xbox One S or the super-duper-sexy Xbox One X. So when I do upgrade, I think the jump will be far more noticeable than someone who’s been enjoying Red Dead Redemption 2 or Gears 5 on a 4K display; it should really feel like a new generation. And that’s before we get to all of the traced rays and other lovely gubbins.

Anyway, when it’s this time of year, I tend to do a semi-comical “E3 predictions” list, followed by a “Stuff I liked at E3” list. Obviously E3 isn’t really happening, but these other online game reveals are, and given my aforementioned excitement over Series X – and Microsoft’s upcoming and much-anticipated reveal of first-party titles – I thought I’d divert my thoughts to what I want to see on the new console. However, unlike the traditional E3 predictions of yore, I’m going to look at what I’d like from the console rather than what games I’d like to see. Partly that’s because these announcement videos are getting spread so far and wide that it’s hard to keep track of what’s been revealed or when we’re likely to see something; partly it’s because we already know quite a few Xbox games that are coming out; and partly because the list would just degenerate into older franchises I want to see come back round again. Plus, with Crackdown 3 having already happened, a new Fable more-or-less an open secret, and a new Perfect Dark being very heavily rumoured, my go-to “wants” are getting thin on the ground. Perhaps Tim Schafer can bring his old LucasArts classics to the Xbox next year…? Whatever, this time around, I’m looking at that big black box and thinking about what features and design elements I’d like to see. What could be improved from how the Xbox One works? How would I like Microsoft to leverage their assets – from the faster SSD to the power of Project xCloud? Basically, what do I want Xbox Series X to be like, outside from glittering reflections on Master Chief’s shiny armour?

Streamlined, faster dashboard: now they’ve already said that the Xbox Series X dash will be effectively identical to the Xbox One dash, which is a trifle disappointing, but I hope that doesn’t mean that both systems can’t get an improved dashboard before Christmas. At the moment things are a bit fiddly, and I’d like to use the improved SSD to mean seamless transitions from page to page. Make it super-easy to get to your game library. Allow more customisation of the landing page. How about allowing us to resize icons, like on Windows 10? Don’t have quite so many obscure categories clogging up the front page. Use the shoulder buttons to hop between sections. Make it more about the games I can play rather than connectivity, shopping, or chatting. Stuff like that.

Integrated streaming: with Project xCloud on the (official) horizon, hopefully we can integrate that service into how the Xbox works. How’s about letting us stream demos straight from the store? Or stream games while they install/download? Or the option to stream any game we own rather than play it from the console? Or cast games from console to phone, or tablet, or PC, so we can enjoy the benefits of Series X hardware in the palm of our hands?

Discless play: teased then withdrawn from the Xbox One launch as it require the internet to check, I hope this can make a belated return. I like physical media, but I also like not having to get off the couch to change discs. I’d be very willing to accept an always-on connection as the price for playing a game without the disc in. If they could find some way to implement this and keep everyone happy, I’d be delighted.

Improved Guide menu: the best thing about the Xbox 360 interface was the Guide menu, which – certainly by the end of the generation – basically offered you full console functionality from one simple pause-button menu. The One Guide has been refined but could go further. Offer instant access to all our games, and all the system settings. Let us seamlessly jump from one thing to another and back again. Let us view all our captures quickly and easily. And let us go through game-by-game and see all our achievements, cycling through their related imagery. Basically, make it more like the 360, please.

Standardised settings: another amazing thing the 360 did that was totally walked back for the One is the idea of having a standardised range of settings that were applied across your entire profile. So if you want to invert your Y-axis, you tick one box, then all games are inverted. This was fantastic, and Microsoft were daft for undoing it. Make it good again! You have the power!

Refined subscription services: I think Game Pass is the future of Xbox, and I think xCloud is the future of Game Pass. This seems fairly obvious to me. I don’t know how much money Microsoft makes from Game Pass, but the way they’re leveraging their entire gaming strategy around it suggests that it’s a much stronger money-spinner for them than the traditional console market. I just hope that eventually the myriad Xbox subscriptions can be refined. Perhaps “Gold” as we understand it could be retired, replaced with a simple three-tier monthly sub, similar to Netflix; Game Pass Bronze (limited multiplayer, limited ability to download games from the library); Silver (Gold and Game Pass as we understand it, plus limited streaming), and Gold (all the games plus full streaming of everything)? This would, hopefully, mean we could get some of the benefits at a reduced cost (say, a fiver a month), and the “free” games in Game Pass would offset the loss of Games With Gold, perhaps.

Switch app: simply put, this would be cool: the ability to stream Xbox games on a Switch. Nothing more to it than that, really; the Switch form factor and controls would lend themselves to the Xbox experience effortlessly, and it’d mean I could continue my Halo campaign whilst my wife hogs the Xbox with Stardew Valley again.

Tangible differences between generations: on the one hand, I really applaud Microsoft’s blended approach to console generations. Smart Delivery, Backwards Compatibility, and Play Anywhere combine to form a very consumer-friendly approach; if you a buy a game now, you’re more-or-less guaranteed the best possible version come the Series X launch in November (or whenever). The downside to this, however, is a slight nagging feeling that we’re not going to see the best that the console can do; it’s fair enough that the Xbox One and Series X versions of Halo Infinite are, to all intents and purposes, on the same disc, and your progress and achievements carry over; but does this not mean that, aside from improvements in graphics and loading times, the Series X version is functionally identical? Is it just like upgrading a graphics card? Ratchet and Clank boasted some nifty dimension-hopping technology that presumably is a core part of the gameplay and looked like something that maybe wasn’t possible this gen; will Xbox owners miss out on features like that? If Series X could, say, give us a new Fable that presented as one continuous open world with no “hubs” or separated areas or loading, with some kind of magical traversal that allowed us to rocket across the landscape on a broomstick or whatever, would that not be handicapped by having to carry save game data over from the inevitable Xbox One version? Basically, I’m fascinated by how it’s going to work, but I hope we’re not going to end up slightly short-changed from a featureset point of view.

New hardware: not just the Series X itself, obviously; and not even the strongly-rumoured “Series S” either. I mean other bits and bobs. As they’ve already shown us the controller, I can’t realistically wish for one that had a microphone in it, but a tiny mic attachment maybe? Alongside the obvious headset. I wanna talk to the machine, basically; it was the one genuine benefit of Kinect. Also: a new, improved, media remote. A wireless mouse and keyboard, or some kind of lap-based hybrid. A new camera, not as invasive or scary as Kinect, just so we can use the Xbox to Skype people. And y’know what? VR support. Doesn’t have to be unique, bespoke headsets; just let us use PC ones, and let developers support VR in Xbox games. I don’t have the money or space to upgrade my laptop to be VR-ready, but if I had a PlayStation you can be damn sure I’d have PSVR. Half-Life: Alyx might be a pipe dream, but can I play Star Wars Squadrons at least?

Don’t bankrupt me: yeah, this. I’m cautiously optimistic that Microsoft will at least attempt to make this manageable; the recent rumour that it’d sell for $399 was much appreciated even if I think it’s supremely unlikely, especially if Lockheart/Series S is a thing. With Sony giving out noises that the PS5 will be a “good value” proposition rather than cheap, I think MS will strongly attempt to undercut them, but also not feel the need to go stupidly low. So please, Microsoft: $450, top end. Please don’t give us a $499 box. I’m already gonna be forking out for a new TV so I’d appreciate if I could keep the whole cost. For what it’s worth, I think the prices of all the new consoles will be: PS5 $499; XSX $449; PS5 DE $399; XSS $299. There you go: I managed to slip in an E3 prediction right at the very end. Prove me wrong, guys!

Phew, that was another epic one. But it was fun. I guess it’s weird to try to talk about the feel of a console without having used it. There are things I’d like improving with the look and feel of Xbox, but it’s hard to quantify it; stuff that’s clunky on a daily basis. And I’m probably an edge case anyway: someone with a huge interest in games and gaming, but who’s not very interested in multiplayer, and who – because of time and money but mostly time – rarely plays new releases, and takes ages to complete a game. But anyway. I’m dead excited about the Xbox Series X, and I can’t wait to hear more.

#top ten #xbox #games #gaming #xbox series x #e3 2020 #microsoft

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imjustthemechanic · 5 years

Photo

Glockenspiel

Part 1/? - Transmission Part 2/? - The Sandhill Hotel Part 3/? - Piccadilly Part 4/? - The Future Part 5/? - Too Late Part 6/? - The Mystery of the Missing Time Machine Part 7/? - Underway Part 8/? - The Sierra Bunker Part 9/? - Cross-Country Part 10/? - The Pit Part 11/? - Calls for Help Part 12/? - Campout and Reunion Part 13/? - Apocalypse Bunker

Nobody wanted to make the trip back to Los Angeles by car – that would be a twenty-four hour drive, and Peggy and Howard were both in need of showers and clean clothing again – but Kevin very nearly insisted on it. He had quite a lot of work and equipment in his car that he didn’t want to just leave in an airport parking lot. He only changed his mind after Toulouse offered to rent him a storage locker for it in the city of Cody, and pinky-swore that she wouldn’t make him pay her back.

They caught a red-eye flight that was only half-full. Toulouse took the window seat with Peggy next to her, and Kevin and Howard across the way. The stewardesses served very bad coffee, and then, with nobody in the rows in front of or behind them, they were able to talk.

“I never asked what you found,” Toulouse said. Her voice had a hopeful note in it, as if she wasn’t sure Peggy would answer, but wanted to ask just in case.

“Not what we expected to find,” Peggy replied. “It turned out the bunker was still in use after all – that’s how we were captured and ended up being nearly thrown down a bottomless hole. We did get to meet the mysterious Mr. Smith they mentioned in London, though.”

“Oh?” Toulouse asked. “Who was he?”

“We still don’t know,” Peggy said. “We never heard his first name. With our usual luck it’s ‘John’.”

“What did he look like?” Toulouse wanted to know.

Peggy did her best to describe him, but for the most part Mr. Smith had been as unremarkable as his name. “Brown hair, starting to gray, receding a bit. Brown eyes. Wore a shirt and tie. He might have been in his mid-thirties. He wasn’t somebody who would stand out. I can tell you,” she added, “that he had dreadful taste in art. He had this enormous gold painting that took up an entire wall of his office.”

Toulouse sat up a bit, as if this sounded familiar to her, then settled down again and closed her eyes.

“Did you want to say something?” Peggy asked.

“No,” said Toulouse. “I was sitting on something.”

“At least we know it wasn’t Will Smith,” Kevin remarked.

Eventually the pilot announced that they would be landing soon, and passengers began returning to their seats and doing up their belts. Toulouse had her laptop out, but she’d been staring at her thesis without getting any typing done. At the announcement, she folded it up and slid it back into her oversized purse, then flopped back in her seat again and shut her eyes.

“I don’t wanna go back there,” she moaned.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Peggy said.

“No, you’ll need me to show you where it is,” said Toulouse. “I just… god, I can’t believe this whole time, all this was going on right under my nose and I never knew about it! Am I just stupid?” She looked at Peggy pleadingly.

“Of course not,” said Peggy. “You’re a little naïve, perhaps, but I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“You have a master’s degree,” Howard reminded her.

“I am working on my master’s degree,” said Toulouse. “I don’t have it yet!”

“It’s not actually that hard to get a master’s degree,” said Kevin. “It’s just expensive – it’s basically a practice PhD.”

“You’re not helping,” Peggy told him.

They landed, and since Toulouse refused to go back to the Sandhill Playa Del Rey or any other hotel her family owned, the group got two rooms in a motel attached to the airport and caught a few hours’ sleep there. In the morning they made a quick trip to the shops in the terminal for new clothes. This time Peggy was able to find herself quite a nice rust-coloured blazer and trousers, and a cream-coloured blouse. It was still quite unlike what she would have worn in the 1940s, but far more to her tastes than the clothes from the secondhand shop. Howard, on the other hand, sauntered out of a souvenir shop in a bomber jacket and a shirt with a large, grainy, black and white photograph of the Hollywood sign printed on it, overlaid on a bulls-eye of bright colours.

“Who dresses you at home?” Peggy asked him.

“Jarvis,” he said.

“I knew it.”

From there it was only a short drive to the Playa Del Rey. From the outside, the hotel looked perfectly normal – a sleek new building with lots of glass and palm trees planted all around it, like a hundred others in the area. It didn’t look like somewhere people would hide an apocalypse bunker, but of course, that was exactly where an apocalypse bunker ought to be.

Toulouse was evidently still worried about being recognized, because she nervously reached up to make sure her hair was still hidden by her knitted hat as she got out of the car. She led them inside and through the lobby into the courtyard, where there was a big outdoor swimming pool. As it was still only about ten in the morning, very few people were using this yet. On the far side of it, they entered a section of the building that was off-limits to guests, used mainly for housekeeping and storage. Three elevators there allowed the staff to access the upper floors. Toulouse went to the last one in the row and pressed the button.

The bell rang and the door opened at once. They followed Toulouse inside, and she opened a panel below the floor buttons, and punched in a code that must have been her dead brother’s birthday. The door slid shut, and the car began to descend. Since it was not meant for gusts, there was no music playing inside. The only sound was Toulouse’s breathing, which was very slow but very loud. It was the sound of somebody trying to keep herself calm, and failing.

A light indicated that they’d reached the first basement level, then the second. There was no indicator light for a third floor down, but they kept going. It must have been at least two or three storeys below what would formally be considered the basement when the doors finally opened. At first, only darkness was visible outside, but then lights in the ceiling flickered on to show a long underground hallway. This was very bare, with linoleum floors, cinder block walls, and pipes and wires visible in the ceiling. Toulouse began walking forward.

“Some of these are dorm rooms,” she said, her voice trembling. “And there’s one that’s a cafeteria, although there’s no food in it right now. The big ones down the end, those are the warehouses.”

“Definitely looks like somebody’s ready for the end of the world,” Howard observed. “This place could survive an a-bomb.”

“Or a supervolcano,” Kevin agreed.

Toulouse took them down to the end of the hallway, where there was a T-junction with a wider corridor. Down the opposite side of this were multiple sets of double doors, all of them unmarked. Toulouse turned left, and took them to the second one from the end.

“This one’s the weird one,” she said.

She opened the door and turned on a light, which illuminated a large open space divided into blocks and aisles by lines of white tape laid down on the floor. In the blocks were high metal shelves, with boxes and crates stacked up on them. At first it looked like a furniture warehouse, but then Peggy began to notice the details. In one place, there was a stack of what appeared to be bricks, covered by a piece of canvas – but when the canvas moved as the ventilation system started running, the light glinted off gold underneath it. On the shelf above were rows of canvases. Peggy went up and moved one to see what it was, and found a pastoral landscape. Behind it was another, exactly the same, and another, and another. She moved further down the shelf and lifted a sheet to see what was underneath it, and was startled to find another copy of Klimt’s Dido, the same size as the one that had been in Smith’s office. Behind it were two more, all identical. The gold leaf was even flaking away from one corner in exactly the same spot.

“Here,” Toulouse pulled a box down from another shelf and brought it over. Inside were filing folders, marked with numbers. Peggy took one out and opened it, and frowned at what she saw – at first the image didn’t make any sense. It was something sitting on the platform of one of the time machines, but the object didn’t look like anything in particular. Just an undifferentiated mass of flesh, with some hair in it. She turned the picture over and found someone had written the word original on the back.

“Original what?” she murmured.

Behind the first picture in the pile was a second, which showed a similarly twisted and distorted shape. This one, however, wasn’t quite so unrecognizable. It was clearly an animal, white with large brown patches… and to her horror, Peggy realized it was a cow. The time machine must have failed, putting the animal together all wrong and partially inside-out. She quickly turned it over so she would have to look at it. The back of this one had first repair attempt written on it.

“It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?” asked Toulouse.

“It is, rather.” Peggy slid the folder back into the box.

“The aliens are over here,” Toulouse said grimly.

She led them down an aisle, past a shelf stacked high with metal boxes. One of these had been dragged down and opened, revealing the glowing crystals nestled in Styrofoam. That must have been the one Toulouse herself had looked in earlier. One of the crystals had something written on it in black marker – Peggy stopped and turned it a bit to see, and found it said cow.

Down the very end, against the far wall, was a line of big, boxy freezers that opened at the top. Toulouse went up to one of these and took a deep breath, then lifted the lid very slightly for a peek inside. Peggy could see a light come on inside it. A split second later, Toulouse dropped the lid again and turned away, breathing heavily.

“It’s gone, isn’t it?” asked Peggy, her heart sinking. It would just figure if whatever they were here to see had vanished, just like the time machine at the Piccadilly.

“No, it’s still there,” said Toulouse. “I just wanted to check.” She opened the freezer again, this time while keeping her eyes fixed on the ceiling so she wouldn’t have to see the contents again. Peggy, Howard, and Kevin stepped closer for a look.

“Okay, that?” said Kevin. “That is some John Carpenter shit right there.”

For a moment Peggy thought the freezer contained multiple dead human bodies. Then she realized it was only one body, but like the cows in the photograph, it was badly distorted. The frozen corpse was that of a naked white male, but he had four arms, one set above the other, and rather than having a head, his swollen face was embedded in his upper set of pectoral muscles, stretched out horizontally to take up nearly the entire chest. His eyes were eight inches apart, the mouth below them nearly as wide. There was a second mouth lower down, just above the navel. This one was more normally sized, but the teeth were around it instead of inside it.

Toulouse lowered the lid again. “There are more in the others,” she said.

Peggy knew she wouldn’t like what she saw, but she went to the freezer on the right and opened it. This one actually did contain two corpses, both short, somewhat overweight white men, lying chest-to-chest… but when she looked closer, Peggy realized they were fused at the head. Their necks came together into a bulb with two balding scalps and a gnarled and multi-lobed ear, and no faces. Repulsed, she began to shut the lid, then stopped when she noticed something even worse.

One of the arms was in a plaster cast. It had been broken and set. Peggy needed a moment to really consciously process the implications of that, and when she did she felt sick. Setting an arm wasn’t something anyone would do for a corpse, not even a corpse they meant to keep for whatever horrible reason. The thing in the freezer must have been alive long enough to break the arm, and to have it set in the hope of healing. Somebody had wanted to keep him alive.

“Peg?” asked Howard. The name came out in a high-pitched squeak, and he had to clear his throat and try again. “Peg?”

“Yes?” Peggy lowered the freezer lid and turned to look. Toulouse was now sitting on a stack of filing boxes a couple of yards away, hugging her own shoulders in utter misery. The men had moved on a couple of freezers down, where they’d opened another one. Kevin was staring into it, while Howard motioned for Peggy to come see.

Peggy’s own steps were a little wobbly as she went to join them. It was no wonder Toulouse had been traumatized by this place – Peggy could picture the young woman sitting alone in this huge room, frantically trying to get in touch with the only people she thought might believe her. What had she thought when she couldn’t get an answer from them?

Inside the other freezer was yet another deformed corpse. This one had multiple limbs sprouting from places limbs do not belong, including an arm growing out of a thigh and a set of toes protruding from a shoulder. The face of this one, however, was relatively intact. It was gray and slightly bloated from death, but it was a very distinctive face, and one Peggy knew all too well.

It was Armin Zola.

Her heart almost stopped. The other two hadn’t had recognizable faces, but they’d both had the same build. Were they all Zola? And if so…

“You see it?” asked Howard.

“I do,” said Peggy. “What does it mean, though?” Had he made multiple attempts to go time-travelling and they’d failed? But if so, why were there several corpses left?

Howard lowered the freezer lid. “Well, I could be wrong, that’s been known to happen,” he said, “but I think it meant that thing isn’t a time machine. It was never a time machine.”

“What in god’s name is it, then?” asked Peggy.

“It’s a matter copier,” said Howard. “Information must be stored in those crystals, and the machine reads it to reconstruct the subject later. Remember Sutcliffe said Zola used cows to test the machine and there were a lot of tests? That’s why we were finding cows back in 1948, and that’s why they’re turning up now – because HYDRA is going through the crystals looking for something and most of them just encode a cow. When I touched the coils and it short-circuited, there must have still been a blank crystal hooked up to the machine…”

“And we were copied into it,” Peggy finished for him.

#fanfic #agent carter #peggy carter #howard stark #tw: body horror

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tranqueenila · 5 years

Text

Innuendo.

May 15, 2018. 11:45 PM.

Dear diary,

The day went just as usual. I attended the lectures, I did my chores, I had a workout session from 4:00 to 5:00 PM, joining in the pilates. Nothing special really happened, not really. But there was something that caught my attention. Again, it was not very special. At least not until I really figured it out. During my break, I was damn ravenous that I ran my way to the café straight away just to remember that I left my wallet in my locker. So I did. I turned around, got to my locker, unlocked it and something dropped. It was a piece of paper, probably folded three times that it became smaller— small enough to be able to slip through the slit. I opened the paper and ‘I love your smile’ was inked onto the sheet. There was a little ‘K’ in slight cursive at the bottom, perhaps it was the initial of this anonymous sender. It was too cute, diary. I would be lying if I said I didn’t smile immediately, but I didn’t know who this was. Still very clueless about it. It could be harmful, too. But that was what it was. Until then. Jane’s signing out.

***

May 22, 2018. 10:00PM.

Dear diary,

Let’s skip the boring bits. I received another anonymous note, probably no, definitely from the same person. This time, they wrote ‘I love how you’d blush while reading my note too’ and I swear to God I frantically turned around to scan my surrounding. I’m pretty prominent at school, almost everybody knows me but I don’t. I don’t even know if the sender was a girl or a guy. Could it be.. Krystal? Hell no, she’s my best friend and she’s dating our senior, Hyunsik. K... mm. Kai? No, no. But what I want to clarify here is that, I’m not even into relationships, but this is pretty fun. Isn’t it? I’m looking forward for more notes tomorrow. Ugh, I can’t help but to draw out an imaginary figure out of this. Until then, diary! Jane’s signing out!

***

May 29, 2018. 11:00PM.

Dear diary,

I GOT ANOTHER NOTE BUT THIS TIME IT’S A GAME ON. Damn. I got another note. Two, in fact. One said ‘And the way you’d find me in the crowd, clueless and adorable’. Huft.

And another one, ‘Let’s play a game, Jennie love. Tomorrow, during the break, go to the café. Order your favourite drink. This is a perilous mission, because you see, you don’t know me. Yet. But I know you. My knowledge might be limited and I’d say the game’s over if you choose a different drink, though I know you’re keen to know who I am. See you, princess.’

CRAZY. That’s all for today, diary. I need to sleep to be able to do well (for what, really?) tomorrow. Jane’s signing out while yelling! K!

***

MAY 30, 2018.

The alarm rang in Jennie’s ears, putting a halt to her beauty sleep and made her eyes sprung open in a split second. She was dreaming about her secret admirer and she couldn’t help but to feel butterflies in the pit of her stomach. Rolling on her stomach, she gazed out through the transparent curtains that hung low on her window panel. It was still dark outside, understandable since it was 06:00 in the morning. Too early, she knew. But she had to make sure she didn’t run late to school today. She had to make sure she looked good, and all those weird stuffs that she never really cared about before. She was never a fan of going all-out for an outfit, but damn, she dressed to kill. She could wear a pair of button-up pants with a croptop, a thin cardigan and would still pull that look off. People often called her the woman of fashion, the walking gucci. No doubts though, she gave those vibes. And perhaps, she would make a good use of that today.

Pushing herself off the bed, she tidied up the bed, pulling on the comforters before dashing her way to the bathroom. It was a good morning shower; warm and refreshing. Definitely a good way to kick off her day. 06:40AM, and she was clad in black cropped knitted sweaters with a pair of leggings that hugged her slim legs far too perfectly. Not bad, she hushed. Once she was satisfied with her daily look, she grabber her bag and jumped her way downstairs. The last thing she heard was her mom’s ‘Be home safe, darling!’ before the door was shut behind her.

Sure, mom. It’s gonna be a long day.

—

Jennie idly tapped the back of the pen against her notebook, eyes following the slides that her lecturer had been showing for the past one hour. It bored the hell out of her. Politic was her least favourite subject, the one she would definitely drop without having the second thought. But now she had to sit for two hours, listening to rambles about this and whatnots. People cannot really blame her though. The lecturer’s voice itself was able to put her to sleep.

But no, not that day. She just couldn’t stop thinking about the notes, the hints. What, was she gonna buy the drink and this ‘K’ person would come out, serving the drink for her? Or, would this person be there too, so that they can have this cliché moment of putting the same order? Or, or—

Enough, Jennie, shush!

She shook her head, trying her best to bring her full attention back to the lesson. The smile that was once on her lips broadened, cheeks obviously reddened, leaving her soft and mushy in her seat while thinking of the possibilities that might occur in this so-called game. It was not even long (or maybe it was, she just lost track of time) until the bell rang and the class was soon dismissed. It was hella quick, as if God heard her undying prayers but that didn’t really matter.

Quickly, she got up from her seat, her cheerful visage could not hide the indescribable feelings that she contained in her big heart as she paved her way to the café. She was glancing around the colossal venue more often than not, obviously attempting to feed her curiosity about this person: the person that made her feel things just by dropping anonymous notes in her locker, the person that she had been writing about very constantly in her diary for the past two weeks. She had to meet them, whoever it may be. She had to. Without herself realising, she was already standing in front of the counter, eyes raking over the menu list on the wall although it was pointless because she knew exactly what her favourite drink was.

“Yes, Miss?” Came a voice of the person behind the counter. It was the same middle-aged lady, the one who had always been serving whenever Jennie dropped by.

“Iced lemonade, please.” She said, keeping herself poised as always with a cordial smile spread across her face, in which was gladly mirrored by the lady before she disappeared to make her drink. After a while, she came back and handed it to Jennie. It was the same bottle, the same texture, the same colour. Probably had the same taste too. There was nothing special, everything was the same— not until she noticed something written just a little below the logo. It said ‘Gotchu. Move to the assemble hall, see ya’, and those words caused Jennie to frown. In a good way, maybe. So demanding, she heaved.

But she did it, anyway. She turned on her heels and paced towards the addressed venue, at the same time sipping on her drink. It was fresh and energising, lifting Jennie’s insides in great sensation that never failed to make her happy. Maybe too happy, even, as she began to jump on her steps lightly. It was as if the short journey was accompanied by the rhythm of an anime’s opening song, clearly affecting Jennie’s already vivacious emotions. She rounded the final corner and there she was, in the middle of the empty hall.

Odd.

She pouted, trying to find the glimpse of anybody that might pass by. It was a spacious hall, and it was gonna take her the entire day to go through everything. She was about to exit though, thinking that it was too much of a task for her to do before she actually noticed a bouquet of flower at the side of the door, gaze drawing up just to see a big arrow pointing to the left with a big ‘This way, princess!’ atop. Look, Jennie hated to admit this but god damn it, this whole thing was so cute? Precious little being this person was.

“Coming,” Jennie breathed, hugging the bouquet close to her chest before she followed the direction. There was an opened door ahead of her, and she stepped in thinking that it was the only way. The moment she stepped in, she was greeted with a white blinding wall with tiny arrows about half of her height; horizontally arranged to continue guiding the petite girl in order to find her way out. It was just like the store room, but a week ago, the students council decided to paint ‘em new. Scratch that, it was not so important. Out of curiosity, she followed on, and she found another exit at one end of the room.

Jennie enjoyed every little ride, with cute little hints here and there, now and then. But this was getting too much. She wanted to know! Immediately, Jennie twisted the doorknob and extricated herself, warmly welcomed by the rays of sunlight and the greenery grass. It was a whole new dimension honestly, compared to the surrounding in the building. Everything was so exquisite, but the little box in the middle of the garden was the highlight of her view. It was a tiny box, not so tiny but a palm-sized box, tied with a white balloon. Cute.

She crouched forward, and the moment she was on her feet again, she felt a taller figure standing in front of her. She just knew it was gonna be someone taller by the look of this person’s shadow enveloping hers. Now that the chance was just before her, Jennie couldn’t bring herself to lift her head. Heck, she felt like she had no strength to do it. Scared? A bit, maybe. Nervous? Definitely. All these feelings were mixing that she felt as if her stomach was lifted up to her throat. You can do this, Jennie. You can, you will. Just lift your head and—

“Princess?” was heard. It was the voice of a male. So it was a he. She stayed silent, hand gripping the bottle of lemonade while biting her lower lip hard. She could barely produce any sound, but after a little debate whether or not to respond, she managed to hum out in reply.

“Aren’t you curious about your, uh, secret admirer?” He asked, and Jennie could tell that he tipped his head to one side. She could even imagine that he was raising his brows with an amused smile on his face. Ugh.

“O— of course. I mean,” Jennie said in a mere whisper, is now fiddling with the ribbon that tied the bouquet lightly. She was very positive that she blushed madly at this rate, but she stayed on nonetheless as she observed the movement of his shadow. His shadow. Right, she didn’t know his name yet.

“Lift up your head. Look at me.” He commanded, his hands were slipped into the pockets of his pants as he waited patiently. Jennie took a deep breath, coaxing herself in silent voice before she obeyed; lifting her head a degree each second, eyes still squeezed closed until she felt like she had faced him. Her eyes were shut, lips pressed into a thin line as she breathed out a quiet ‘done’.

The stranger shook his head, clicking on his tongue with a swift “Nu’uh, princess, open up”. Without any warning, Jennie felt the pad of his thumb caressing her eyelid, taking her by surprise but she didn’t even flinch. It took the last bits of her sanity for her to finally peer her eyes open, slowly drawing the outline of the man in front of her; it started as a silhouette, blurry figure came into view until she finally saw him in person. And holy cow.

It was Daniel. Kang Daniel.

Jennie gasped, taking a step backwards with her eyes widened. Here’s the story. Daniel was one of the most outstanding students there. He excelled in studies, sports, everything. He had a great built body, not too broad, not too big but just perfect for someone around his height, that full attractive face that seemed like it was perfectly crafted by God himself. Everything about him was surreal that he might as well been God’s best creature. And nobody knew this but Jennie had always been admiring him, having a masive crush on this guy. She would always drop by the field to watch him play, sometimes peeking through the window of his classes, and weird, stalk-worthy stuffs like that. Never once in her wildest dream she would ever think Daniel could be her secret admirer— she never even thought of that. But now, here he was, standing like three feets before her, eyes meeting hers with that dazzling smile that caused her heart to skip a beat. It was thumping so hard and loud against her ribcage that she was afraid that it might can be heard by the latter. Grinning, Daniel inched his face closer.

“Well. .” He said, scratching the back of his nape awkwardly with the same smile. It was obvious that she caught Jennie staring at him more often than not, causing him to feel a little shy under the powerful girl’s gaze. “Um, it’s me. Daniel. Kang Daniel, if you don’t know what the K stands for.” He continued, chuckling at how dumbfounded and speechless she was. He gave her another minute to digest the information, and when she seemed to relax a little, Daniel added on. “Open the box, please.”

Jennie did, fumbling on the box at first. She felt like everything was in a slow motion, so it took her longer to process what he was saying. With a swift flick, a ring was seen. It was silver, shining, with a little diamond on top. She gasped, meeting Daniel’s gaze again in confirmation as he gestured the small folded note in the box. This guy was full of mysteries, rather pouring out his feelings into words instead of saying them out loud. Jennie, more than delighted to do it, unfolded the paper and she read it out loud for both of them.

“Will you be my girlfriend. .?”

Jennie gasped for the nth times, holding the ring in her thumb while looking up at Daniel again. He was red; probably embarrassed too to confess without any warning. She was about to ask him before he silenced her down, quickly got into the post to explain everything.

“Hey, I. . I understand if it’s too soon. But I’ve adored you since ever you came in. I couldn’t help but to watch you every time you got into the class, put down your bag first and took out your notebook then lastly your pencil case. I couldn’t help but to eye your choice of food and drink in café; how you’d purse your lips and tap your chin when you had to make a choice. I couldn’t help but to have a crush on you. I noticed how you’ve been dropping by to watch me— no, maybe not me in particular, but I hoped it was for me that you stopped by the field. I noticed everything and it took everything I had to finally slip in the notes in your locker. It took my entire self confidence to even started this game! So. . will you be my girlfriend, Jennie? I promise I will make you happy. I even learnt how to make a great lemonade to give to you and—”

“Yes, I do.” Jennie said, cutting him short. Her answer seemed to catch him offguard, from the way his eyes wandered bewilderedly in surprise.

“W— what?” He stuttered, his ears reddened.

“I said, yes. I do. I want to be your girlfriend.” Jennie repeated, this time with a wide smile. She couldn’t help the blush creeping up her cheeks but it reached the peak of her emotions when Daniel suddenly whooped her up into his arms, hugging her frame close to him while spinning her around. It was a joyful moment to cherish, both of them holding each other as the bouquet fell on the ground. Neither of them wanted to let go though, by now Jennie had her arms around his neck to support herself.

“My girlfriend.” Daniel cooed, stopping the pirouette while pressing his lips on the side of her head, nose dipping through some loose strands of her hair to inhale her shampoo scent. Those words brought a smile to her lips. Who thought that would be true? Knowing your crush was having a big fat crush on you and now having your crush hugging you so tightly in his arms? Jennie couldn’t relate because she was living that moment right now. “I love you.”

Frankly, Jennie had never been someone who got into relationships often. By now, she had only one ex, probably, and it was about four years ago. She felt like relationships need so much commitments that she couldn’t give. But now. . hearing those three words coming from someone that she had been admiring so lovingly for so long, being held in his arms protectively as if she was the only valuable thing ever existed in this cruel world, too small, too soft, too fragile that he was afraid even the wind could break her apart— she knew it herself that she loved him too. She loved the feeling of love that she had at the moment.

“I love you too, Daniel.” Their lips met, eyes closing in pure ectasy before she pulled away to resume her words. “I love you so much. Thank you for dropping the hints.”

“Always, baby.”

“Always.”

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lindoig4 · 5 years

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The Zephyr - 8-10 July

Today, we are leaving San Francisco and boarding the Californian Zephyr for Chicago. I think we slept a bit better last night, maybe the jet lag is starting to lag, but we were still up by about 6am and checked out before seven. As we were checking out, I saw the TV with news of a series of serious earthquakes with a lot of damage and casualties about 300 km from here. We are fine, but I thought the earth moved a little for me at one stage when we were out walking yesterday. Perhaps I wasn’t just imagining it after all.

Our train is called the Californian Zephyr, despite it traversing California, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois!

We walked through a dank and foggy San Fran down the hill to the bus station and in due course were transported across the magnificent kilometres-long Bay Bridge to Emeryville where we caught the train. The bridge is quite wonderful, an engineering masterpiece affording great views of the huge turbid bay and its surrounds with its ships and docks. We even drove across Treasure Island and although I kept an eye out, I never saw Long John Silver (although I did see two Jolly Rogers swinging from the flagstaffs.).

We followed the shore for quite a long way before crossing a very wide area of marshland where I saw a few birds and even identified a couple. For the rest of the day, though, we saw very few birds, all too far away, too small, too fast, too fleeting or just too uncooperative for me to identify. The only ones I did identify were four Canada geese swimming along close to the track when we were travelling very slowly. And the only non-bird animal I saw all day was one lonely white butterfly.

I should make a declaration at this point! I have already run out of superlatives and the next few days make superlatives pretty pathetic anyway. Please just add as many ‘spectaculars’, ‘fantastics’, ‘brilliants’, ‘gorgeouses’ and so on as you can and I will limit my amazement in my comments and retain it primarily in my memory. There simply aren’t words or pictures adequately to describe the wonder of some of the things we saw. But here goes anyway…..

We climbed up into the Cascades and passed through range on range of steep hills and deep valleys, mainly covered by a few varieties of conifers. We transitioned through several landscapes during the day, but after the marshlands, we were very quickly into heavily wooded conifer forest and steep mountains with valleys disappearing into the deep gloom. There were patches of dirty snow hidden among the trees, still laying around almost in the middle of summer and large areas of pristine snow on the mountains a little further from the train. Everything seemed so clean, fresh and green, but no doubt cold as well if it were not for the air-conditioning in the train.

Then we were into open grassland that reached the horizon in all directions with just a few stunted trees scattered about. There were areas that weren’t flat – indeed, where nothing was flat. It was as if a group of giant children had been playing at mud pies and left lumps of dirt and mud everywhere – often mound on mound with one misshapen lump running into the next. It was strange to see such a jumble of small round hillocks crowded one on the other and to wonder how in the world they formed and why they haven’t weathered uniformly.

Further on, we were in desert: large flat grey muddy patches in otherwise brownish-grey scrubby expanses. The bare earth didn’t look sandy. Rather it looked more like dried mud in such a neutral ‘muddy’ colour that it was indefinable. And the scrub was almost the same – dull green that was almost washed out of any colour at all. It was real ‘cowboy country’ that we saw in so many Westerns a hundred years ago. (But wait until tomorrow!)

At dinner time we went through a flooded area, a waterlogged grassland with lots of birds, but again, very hard to identify. I eventually identified several with a reasonable level of confidence – just enough to claim them – but I will talk more about bird identification later.

During dinner, our bunks were set up by our steward (Maclin – a huge friendly black man and a lot of fun) but they took up so much of the cabin space that we virtually had to go to bed. I was in the top bunk and it was quite coffinlike. Not a lot of room between the bunk and the ceiling and I recalled a lot of the Edgar Allan Poe horror stories I read as a teenager about being buried alive or confined in small caves, etc. The mattresses were rock-hard and we slept very badly with aches and pains, perpetually either too hot or too cold, but we survived the night. We had a very long stop in Salt Lake City in the middle of the night so on our first day, we had crossed California, Nevada, Colorado and half of Utah.

We were up early next day and looking out, I immediately saw some antelope – about 20 or so in singles and several small groups. I also saw a jack rabbit just outside the window on one of our stops. There were lots of stops, some for small stations, but also for traffic reasons. They had some extreme heat here recently and there was an amazing rain storm and a couple of hours of continuous(!), completely uninterrupted(!!), lightning on our second night combined with signal problems around Denver and an escaped alpaca on the tracks later on – all contributing to our trip being exactly 7 hours longer than expected. The slow progress due to the heat risk and rainstorm resulted in the crew being over their maximum legal stretch of shift so we sat at one little siding for a long time until a fresh crew arrived from another station to relieve them. The end result was that instead of arriving in Chicago at 2:10pm, we arrived long after dark sharp on 9:10 in the evening.

In the daylight, Utah was really iconic cowboy country. Nothing seemed quite as big and grand as Monument Valley, but all the features were there, just a bit more crowded and closer together. Massive buttes and mesas, unbelievably jagged and craggy rocks, every conceivable structure. Buttes and long ranges of hard rock with precipitous cliffs falling to great triangles of scree around the base – typical Western badlands landscapes and impressive beyond words. We sat agape, staring out the windows, clicking frantically on our cameras as each more magnificent vista paraded in front of us. Did I say ‘Spectacular!’?

Then there was the Canyon country. We traversed two very long canyons beside the Colorado and Fraser Rivers with towering cliffs on both sides, incredibly rugged, with the rivers roaring past – the Colorado hurtling westward to the Grand Canyon and the Fraser racing eastward to the Mississippi. The speed of the rivers was breathtaking, especially after an apparently extremely wet season, and the rapids were awesome – many turgid Category 4s and 5s. We saw hundreds of canoeists and rafters – and one long stretch of the Colorado is nick-named Moon River – due to the long-established routine of the rafters ‘mooning’ the train as it passes. We saw an awful lot of (awful) bums over maybe 100km.

We were now well into the Rockies and again, words fail me. I never imagined I wold see them and they are not quite what (or where) I imagined, but maybe even more spectacular. Towering mountains, craggy rocks everywhere, plenty of snow-caps not too far away. Quite an awesome journey, but equally impossible to describe. Imagine as much as you can and double it – and then again a few more times!

We continued eastward through Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois, all less awesome, but still fascinating. Gigantic swathes of corn fields – enough to feed the entire world surely – truck farms and increasing industrialisation as we approached our destination. Many little towns, all amazingly neat and symmetrical, quite quaint in many cases, but with little to separate them from their neighbours. Lots of silos, some for corn, but mainly for silage – in goes mountains of grass, it ferments and out comes astronomical volumes of stockfeed.

Because we were running so late, they had to provide an extra meal on the train (everyone got beef stew and veges for that one). The food was generally very good with about 6 choices for each meal (the same set of 6 each day) and a fair choice of alcohol that we had to pay for. Staff were exceptionally friendly and helpful – maybe with an eye on their anticipated tips, but they seemed genuine enough. Tipping is alien to us, of course, but we did what we thought reasonable and hope we didn’t offend anyone or appear too stupid to them.

Chicago at last and a cab ride to the hotel where we checked in and slept in much more comfort than the hard mattresses on the train.

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princessofstardrops · 3 years

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BNHA OC Profile: Hikaru Midoriya

Picrew used: HERE

Warning: This characters “Scars” and"History” sections contains or has mention of child abuse, please be careful.

General Information

Name: Hikaru Midoriya

Nicknames: Hika, Ruru, Hi-chan, Hime,

Alias/Hero name: Orihime

Age: 16

Birth date: July 15 (She and Izuku both decided to share a birthday as she genuinely doesn’t know which day she was born)

Astrological sign: Cancer

Nationality: Japanese

Affiliation: UA/Heroes

Class: 1-A

Appearance

Hair color: A mixture of blonde and brown.

Her hair isn’t actually highlighted or dyed it literally just seems to grow from her head in the two separate colors all over in specific places or patches. However she always does her best to keep the long bangs at the front of her face blonde. She tries this as well with her usual space buns hairstyle too but doesn’t always succeed. They can often end up mixed in colour.

Hair style: Hair that reaches to below the middle of her back, usually has some amount of it styled up into space buns or sometimes braids. Can be known to have lazy days though where she leaves it utterly wild too. . Her bangs are completely and utterly inspired by her father and she wants to keep them looking close/similar to his. She’s kept them like that since she was quite little.

Eye color: Hikaru has heterochromia. Inherited from her birth mother. Each eye is a different colour. One is blue while the other is green.

Height: 5″8 (She often likes to tease her brother about how she might have been the one to inherit their fathers height)

Handedness: Though she mostly tries to stick to using her right hand, she is actually ambidextrous. She often subconsciously switches which hand she’s using in the middle of an action or job if she’s not paying attention or as part of a tic while nervous or anxious.

Movement: A childhood that was eventually allowed to fill with dance classes, archery and even some ballet, has made Hikaru actually quite delicate and precise. She is still prone to moments of clumsiness and tripping over her own feet however, due to having her head in the clouds and daydreams more often than not.

Clothing:

● Civilian clothes:

The closest thing I can give as Hikaru’s style would be comfy sweater/hoodie outfits. With a focus on pastel colours and skirts. Oversized soft cardigans, lacey dresses and tiered skirts

She is madly in love with pastel pinks and blues. But any pastel shade will suffice to be honest.

Hikaru usually prefers to wear anything soft, Something she can snuggle into if she gets anxious, rough textures get under her skin pretty quick.

Hikaru prefers long sleeved sweaters or shirts to cover her arms and the scars there. If these aren’t available she will cover her arms with things like ribbons or multiple bracelets to try and keep the scars hidden. (She’s always afraid of the reaction or questions she will receive about them) She does also like hoodies, particularly if they have a cute theme like cat ears or tails attached.

Anything cute themed is immediately up Hikaru’s alley, lots of shirts with cute slogans, patterns or characters on it.

She’s more of a skirts or dresses type of girl than a jeans/trousers person but will wear them if its too

● Hero costume:

Magical girl! Full on magical girl, crystal/glass shoes, tiara and all.

A pale blue dress with white bows, white/silver accents and details, leading down to a multi layered fluffy ruffled mini skirt, with a transparent slightly longer at the back outer skirt speckled with glitter and stars to create the impression of a longer skirt/ball gown type of image. (However a pair of shorts is always worn under these skirts so she won’t risk being exposed)

Star themed or shaped accessories and accents to relate not only to her quirk but also her chosen hero name. White gloves (later replaced with a pair of white archery gloves) and shoes made to look like a certain princesses’ glass slippers. Stars and pearls woven into the buns in her hair.

(TBH The best way I can describe the idea in my head istake and combine Cure Flora from Go! Princess Precure and Bronya’s Herscherr of Reason form from Honkai Impact 3rd) , add an entire star theming and glass/crystal accessories and especially the glass slippers/Cinderella references and you got it)

Scars:

Hikaru has quite visible but thankfully healed patches of burn scars, both on the back of her neck, and on both of her wrists. These are from the repeated electrical shocks she received through the electrodes placed on those areas.

She also has large branching scars arching down a large portion of her back and over both of her forearms, again these are form the elecricity that was passed through her as part of her ‘therapy’

Though her neck is often covered by her long hair she often tries to hide or at least mask her wrists and arms with multiple bracelets or by wearing long sleeved shirts or other clothing items, at least around those she isn’t comfortable with yet.

She’s always afraid someone will notice the scars and stare or comment. She never knows how to deal with those situations comfortably.

Characteristics

Strengths: Good at thinking positive and encouraging others, determined, imaginative, always willing to smile and do her best.

Weaknesses: Can crack under pressure when alone, prone to overworking herself despite knowing the damage it does to her.

Quick to anger when friends or family are threatened leading to self destructive behaviors.

Can be a little too willing to go with the flow, unwilling to stand up for her own opinions on occasions. Has developed an overwhelming NEED to be liked and accepted by those she cares about or is close to, Often leading to her going along with situations or ideas she may not be 100% comfortable with out of fear of being tossed aside.

Likes: Sweet treats (especially Konpeito), fairy tales, tea, manga, romance.

Dislikes: Bugs, rooms with less visible exits, silence,

Fears: Electricity or Electric type quirks. Thunderstorms, being forgotten, losing her family, All for One.

Hobbies: Dancing, singing, playing video games,

Quirk and Abilities

Quirk- “Star Drops”

Explanation of Quirk:

Hikaru’s quirk is the ability to create (or summon depending on your definition) living beings she calls “Star Drops” often nicknamed “Droplets” they seem to be living star like creatures, about the size of a football, incredibly chubby, soft and cuddly with big eyes. They often use their ‘points’ as limbs to grasp or hold things. And can seem to create mouths on their bodies to inhale and ‘swallow’ things or fire out things depending on the situation. (Please imagine the Lumas from the Mario series combined with the abilities of Kirby.)

They can contain and carry items inside their forms to be spat out at a later time for convenience, but if they swallow too much or keep something inside too long they may end up “vomiting” all the items out.

Hikaru is able to summon anywhere between 1-10 of the drops at any time Though creating and controlling 10 all at once is taxing on her as they often at that point resist her instructions and drain her own physical energy. Due to this she will often try to limit the summoned number to about 6-7 max.

The droplets while they seem to have consciousness and a degree of free will of their own, most often follow Hikaru’s desires and instructions as it seems their main priority is to keep Hikaru safe, protected and happy.

Due to their star-like nature. They have abilities related to stars. They are capable of producing heat, light, ect. In terms of how this can be used for hero work, the drops can turn their own internal energy into lasers to fire at attackers, blind them with their light or even fire gas curtains and such to keep Hikaru safe. (MUCH Later on when Hikaru realises just how much like actual Stars her droplets are, some fun gravity warping/altering shenanigans come into play)

When Hikaru finally realizes her drops don’t HAVE to have a physical form, that it was her loneliness as a child that willed them to that shape, she realizes she can revert her drops literally back to their basic light energy type form.

Using this energy is how she eventually comes to add her archery skills to her repertoire. Using the drops light energy instead of real arrows to damage villains without causing too much immense damage.

However in their physical forms the droplets do not like to move to far away from Hikaru. They will move a certain range away from her but after that even if Hikaru tries to push them further they will often refuse to listen to her requests and return to her side. Despite her protests.

They like to use long range attack strategies or abilities that keep Hikaru’s actual physical body as far as possible, away from the possibility of damage.

Statistics:

Power: B

Speed: B

Technique: C

Intelligence: B

Cooperativeness: A++

Equipment:

Though initially without much extra equipment, eventually Hikaru adds shin/leg guards and wrist guards to her outfit to help her guard and block attacks for when villains do get too close to her. These are made to look like crystals or at least glass like so they still flow with her outfit and her cinderella-esque glass shoes.

She does also eventually get a specially crafted bow from the specialists at U.A. A bow that won’t snap or burn under the pressure and heat of her drops energy. It folds for easy storage and carrying but is made to look crystalline, star themed and extra to fit her magical theme-ing.

Her initial lace gloves are replaces with a pair of archery gloves to protect her fingers from being burned by her own quirk or injured from releasing one of her own ‘arrows’

History

Ages 0-5:

Hikaru didn’t have the best start in life. She was only born as the result of a rather twisted experiment ordered by All for One.

Created from DNA obtained from the current One for All user All Might (how this was obtained even Hikaru herself isn’t sure and hasn’t worked up the nervw to find out) and born from the woman Hikaru would eventually grow to know as “Teacher”.

AFO ordered an experiment run, to test the limits of One for All. Despite knowing One for All is a quirk not passed down through blood, he wished to test if it truly had no connection to those blood related to the current user. Was it truly still unconnected?? Had it evolved?

If it wasn’t fully unconnected if the quirk did even have the faintest connection to blood relations, the faintest echoes of a normal quirk’s purpose, could it be manipulated into a reaction? All for One already knew the answer was negative, but after all it was no skin off his nose to experiment with it.

And this was the question that was the root cause of Hikaru’s creation.

Hikaru was raised in relative isolation, in an underground laboratory, surrounded only by a small group of mostly unfeeling and uncaring doctors and her “teacher” who was supposed to guard her and prevent her escape.

Her days only filled with tests and her so called “Therapy”. Based on the outdated (and outlawed) idea* that placing a child in repeated situation of stress or danger would cause a quirk to develop faster or come in stronger she was subjected to multiple sessions of electroshock therapy to observe the effect on her quirks, reaction and development. (*Known as Quirk Acceleration Therapy)

However seemingly going against her orders, seeing the child’s suffering, Hikarus’ ‘Teacher’ did her best to give the lonely and hurting girl as much love and praise as she could and raise Hikaru as much like an ordinary girl as she could.And she in secret did her best to teach the child as much about the outside world as she could, despite the fact Hikaru had never seen it.

So Hikaru’s days continued like this….until the time when her quirk finally surfaced. The tests continue but as more time passes and it becomes evident Hikaru has no connection at all to One For All….

At the moment that All for One seemingly loses interest in continuing the experiment, there appears to be a dtat breach, someone makes an attempt to reach the outside world and expose AFO’s doings. Therefore AFO orders all evidence and “participants” be erased. However despite this order Hikaru (with the help of her Teacher) manages to escape the laboratory where she spent the first few years of her life. However it’s with a great cost to herself.

She escapes utterly alone and traumatized, before she’s finally discovered wandering and picked up by but kind souls by the side of a road.

Ages 5-8:

After her rescue, her blood relation to her father is of course eventually uncovered. Which of course comes as a major shock to the Midoriya family, however it is eventually decided and comes to pass that she is taken in and ‘adopted’ by the Midoriyas.

Initially Hikarus’ trauma has caused her to develop a fear of almost everyone and everything, nothing is familiar and everything is terrifying. Combined with her struggling to communicate, her trauma making her initially mute, making it difficult to navigate her new life. As well as her general lack of knowledge of how to live outside the laboratory, her most commonly written notes to communicate are “I don’t know” and “Teacher never taught me about that”

However with the love and support of her new family, her ‘big brother’ Izuku (despite them being the same age) doing his best to protect her, help her and teach her about the outside world and the adoration and kindness of her parents, (plus also receiving the professional help she needs) she slowly regains her voice and begins to walk the path of recovery.

Hikaru does her best to return all the kindness and love she receives from her family either onto others or back into her family doing her best to support those around her in return too. She is helped through this process by the large family and support network she slowly seems to gather to her as the time passes.

Hikaru and her brother eventually become so close, so inseparable people genuinely begin thinking of them and calling them as the “Midoriya twins” despite the fact in reality they’re only half siblings.

None of the Midoriyas bother to correct anyone about it though.

Ages 9-Present

As Hikaru continues to grow and heal as the years go by, she and Izuku agree to work hard and work together to make their dreams of becoming heroes true.

But Hikaru still struggles.

She has her loving family, her brother and even managed to make a few friends before coming to UA but…

The nightmares often still keep her awake, the guilt sometimes feels like it’s devouring her alive….the need to become a hero to ‘atone’ for her perceived failures, a need for answers about those responsible for her treatment as child and a longing for justice for it

And, as they’ve grown older and older, as Hikaru comes to understand the truth and scope behind what really happened to her in her childhood, she continues to see the differences, the gap between herself and her brother.

She loves Izuku to death, would take a bullet for him. But at the same time every time she sees he brother she gets a growing anxiety, a feeling of being left behind.

And a slowly emerging dark feelings she DESPERATELY doesn’t want to put a name to.

And then there are she sometimes is scared to look her father in the eye, on her darkest days, as those horrible voices in her head scream at her that her dad doesn’t ACTUALLY love her and only cared for her and took her in because it was the ‘right thing to do’ “it’s what a hero should do”

She’s trying her best, but she can’t fully shake those horrid thoughts that linger with her.

She can’t forget. So she just does her best to smile and keep moving forward.

Songs I associate with the character:

Blooming in the mud - Wolpis Carter

Rubia - Zhou Shen

Once upon a me- Deco*27 (Miku Hatsune?)

#WIMTL #hikaru midoriya #my dumb bnha oc #I love my girl #long post #bnha oc #is she mary sue yes but I still am attached to her

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georgesmithunit1 · 6 years

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Final Evaluation

25/06/18

In this evaluation I will be sharing my thoughts and opinions on my final animation as well as the process I went through to create my concepts and illustrations.

Concepts & Illustration Process

The assignment brief required me to create an animation that simulates a point and click game. I had complete creative control over the concept. I needed to create a minimum of one animated character, a digitally hand drawn background, elements of the background that are animated, and the whole sequence was to be a minimum of 10 seconds in length.

I adhered to all of those points except for one, which I completely forgot about - which was to have an element of the background moving, to be fair, I had planned on it only being minor in the first place (the rotating ventilation thing in the first scene). I came up with the idea of making a fighting-orientated scene for my animation, because I really just wanted to test out some animation techniques that I’d learned before, and also because I thought that it would be fun to animate, as well as entertain the audience. I wasn’t particularly inspired by anything to create a fighting scene, I’d wanted to do an animation like that for a while, so I thought it a perfect time to demonstrate what I could do. I had a lot of planning to do before I even created my background scenes. First of all, I needed to conduct some thorough research on point and click games, as well as anything else that seemed appropriate. I researched a number of intriguing titles which caught my eye when I first saw them, as well ones that I’d already heard of, and even played in one case. Researching those titles was really insightful and helped me with coming up with a solid visual style for my animation. After the research, I was required to come up with an entire 300 word plot for my animation - of course, this didn’t impact the animation itself, but it did help throughout the project as a whole, as it gave me a better understanding of my own story.

After finishing the plot, I needed to establish a clear visual style for my animation. I had already established one before getting to this point to be honest - and that was thanks to a game by the name of ‘Night in the Woods’. Luckily, I stumbled upon this game while I was researching point and click titles, and was immediately captivated, and even more so after I researched it further. I will share my thoughts on this game a little later on in this evaluation. Anyway, After I’d finished establishing my visual style, which would take inspiration from Night in the Woods, I needed to write about my main character complete with his very own backstory. This was similar to the plot in which it didn’t impact the animation at all, but did help me to get a better understanding of him and add some character depth. After all of this written stuff followed a series of pages in my sketchbook devoted to sketching out ideas of a character design, which adhered to my character description, as well as some sketches of the main enemy of the fight scene. Among these sketches was a character turnaround sheet, which would essentially showcase my main character’s appearance, whose name is Ace by the way, so I’ll refer to him as that from now on. The character turnaround sheet was pretty useful I think, as it helped serve as a reference for whenever I needed to draw Ace. Finally, I sketched out some initial ideas for a background scene for my animation, which mainly included cyberpunk cities etc. There was a lot of planning, which I believe was very necessary.

Now back to my main character, Ace. He is a very important character to the overall plot of the story, and so I wanted him to look intimidating, powerful, I wanted him to have a strong presence, so that’s why his colour palette ranges simply from white to black - I thought it best to have him wear a trench coat type of thing, because I wanted him to look professional and serious, so I thought this attire conveyed that perfectly. In that sense, I think Ace successfully communicates my intentions of having a strong-willed, physically strong and intimidating character. As for the style, I went with the anime/manga style while I was drawing him, since that’s pretty much all I can do somewhat decently, though I’m completely fine with that. It kind of translated over to the animation, though his design had to be dramatically compromised, since it would’ve taken so long if I’d have animated him exactly according to his illustrations, and maybe I wouldn’t even be done with the animation by now if I had been doing that, since I only finished it on 23/06/18, so a few days ago, at the time of writing.

Back to the backgrounds again. First of all, I mentioned earlier that my main inspiration for my background came from ‘Night in the Woods’. I really liked the visual aesthetics of that game, the graphics were really pleasing to look at in my opinion. They look as though they were all created in either Illustrator or Photoshop and given effects and textures according to the scene. I think that aspects of Night in the Woods are visible in my first scene, but definitely not in the final scene of my animation, since there’s a lot of details and effects that I used. For my scenes/backgrounds, I chose to use Photoshop alone, no Illustrator or scanning in drawings, since I believed that Photoshop was the best option for creating these scenes, and I still stand by that, as it offers many effects and is much more versatile in my opinion, I do end up using Illustrator later on however, since I needed to create two assets for my scene, which was the green arrow which appears at the end of the animation to tell the player that the character can move on, and the mouse cursor which was very important and a good detail in my opinion, as it makes it look like an actual point and click game. Of course, Illustrator is far superior to Photoshop when you need to create complex shapes which can’t be made in Photoshop in a short amount of time however. I also used Adobe After Effects to animate my ‘Start Game’ scene, as the background was created entirely in Photoshop and could only be animated in After Effects, given what I had planned to do. Back to my scenes, I chose to create them in a somewhat simple visual style as I knew that my animated characters would be excessively simple, and turns out I was right. I do think that all three scenes that I created all adhere to the same general theme of being futuristic and cyberpunk, and certainly communicate my intentions and the atmosphere of my animation.

Personal Analysis of my Final Animation

So my initial intention for my animation was to do a fighting scene, which I actually ended up with. While I was animating, I was essentially improvising what would come next, as for some reason, I never actually planned out the whole thing using a storyboard. I intended for my animation to be entertaining, whilst still trying to adhere to the project name, a point and click game. Actually, now that I think about it, I had a second idea kept in my head during the very early stages of this project, which would take more of an adventurous route, which I thought somewhere down the line afterwards wouldn’t be as fun to animate. I don’t think that counts as my final animation changing in the end, since I didn’t choose it to begin with, so if anything, it changed during the early phase, before planning. I think that my idea of creating a fight scene was kind of ambitious, but I didn’t want to go over the top in terms of concepts, so I had to limit my imagination a little there, but as I go on, and learn more and more, I’ll hopefully become more versatile in my skill set, and be able to create very ambitious animations, with camera movement etc. In terms of software knowledge, I had a lot of experience in using Photoshop, since I’d been using it a while ago, and I’d had the opportunity to learn it even more this past year, so I wasn’t limited in my background creation. In Adobe Animate, I was less knowledgeable, however, I’ve actually been animating for the past 7 or so years, on and off of course, on a software called Flipnote Hatena, which was on my Nintendo DSi, so I had learned some basic animation techniques which I developed from experimenting over on that, like smearing, it’s a technique that can be seen in my animation quite a lot - maybe I used it a bit too much, but anyway, it’s when you draw a kind of lazy-looking frame between other frames, to simulate the character or object moving quickly. I may find a way to share some of those animations at some point, I have some good ones on there. Anyway, my point is that moving from that software to Adobe Animate wasn’t too difficult a transition, especially since I’d used it in secondary school before, so I was able to adapt to it with relative ease.

Throughout this project, I haven’t particularly learned any groundbreaking new techniques or anything, though I have absolutely had the chance to develop my already existing techniques and skills. It also helped give me experience with combining different scenes together, and then animating them when they were all together, for example, it was tricky at first when I wanted to combine all of these different scenes, but, after a bit of trial and error, I manged to get them together and start animating the mouse cursor, since it was much easier to do this in After Effects. Along with this, I also used the trial and error method when it came to exporting my final finished animation from After Effects, since that was the last software that I used, which held all of my scenes together, as well as the mouse cursor movement and the green arrow at the end. I remember vividly that I ended up having to export it at least 15 times, since I had to keep messing with the quality to try and get the best that I could. I ended up getting a sub par quality when I rendered and exported at home, and then somehow, when I tried it at school, I ended up with a better quality version, which I have uploaded to YouTube. The quality isn’t the greatest and there are black bars on the left and right sides, but it will have to do at this point. I did look up a few tutorials online, but none yielded any success.

When it comes to my animation, while I’m pleased with the result, I actually believe that it doesn’t look a whole lot like a game, which is a shame, considering the amount of time that I poured into it. I think that the main problem or reason for this is that it looks too fluid perhaps, and also it just looks more like an actual animation, since the movement is so fast - I think that the mouse cursor which I implemented during the After Effects phase as well the start game screen sort of saved the whole thing from looking completely like just a cell animation. I do have an idea of what could be improved to make my animation look more like a game actually, and I’m a little annoyed that I didn’t think of this throughout the entirety of the animation process. What I’m thinking is that when the characters stop, they could kind of bounce up an down, I think that’s called an idle animation or something - it wouldn’t have been such a difficult task to do as well, so it’s a shame I didn’t think to do it. It could’ve also drawn out the animation a little longer maybe. I think that the smear frames that I mentioned earlier definitely don’t help the animation in terms of it looking like a game, though I saw no better alternative for fast movement, since it would look choppy and weird when a character moves from one side to the other if those were the only frames. If I had all the time in the world, I would’ve increased the FPS to something high, but I didn’t so I stuck with the option that I believed was best.

I think that I did a somewhat decent job at getting it to look like a game in the end. Though when it comes to time management, I started off terribly. When I started animating in Adobe Animate, the FPS count was set at 24. So me doing a completely frame by frame animation, I was drawing out these entire characters every single frame and it was taking me so long - I was getting incredibly frustrated at times, and considered completely scrapping the idea of doing a frame by frame animation. This lasted almost two weeks, with me barely getting anything done, and I was beginning to panic, since the deadline was fast approaching, and I had only done just under two seconds total. I had the idea to create a ‘Start Game’ scene, which could be considered a cop out, though I needed it if I wanted to get even close to the 10 second minimum, or so I thought. I made sure to make this screen look good visually, and so I began animating it after I’d finished creating it in Photoshop. I even added a mouse cursor that would click on a button to start the game - I managed to draw this one out to three whole seconds. I was pleased with it but I realised that I needed to go back to the dreaded 24 FPS animation.

One afternoon when I was working on it at home however, I randomly decided to look at the right hand side of the Adobe Animate document, and saw the FPS button, I decided to mess around with it and move it up and down, and when I played it at 18 FPS, I noticed that the number of keyframes in each second decreased, and the length of my animation so far was now at 4 seconds. So I played the animation that I had so far, and it actually looked better than when it was at 24 FPS, since that was way too fast for what I was doing. I decided to move the FPS down even further, and stopped at 15 FPS after playing it a few times, and realising that this speed looked so much better, the animation was longer, at about five and a half seconds. I was very happy with this turn of events, and became motivated to finish it again. I understand this was kind of unrelated from the start of this paragraph, but I just wanted to explain that as I felt it was rather important to the whole project.

Personal Opinions on my Performance & Final Work

Overall, I am very satisfied with my animation. I believe that the time and effort that I put into it payed off, though it still has its strengths and glaring weaknesses throughout.

First of all, I think that unfortunately, the negative aspects outweigh the strengths, though I think the animation kind of carries the positive aspects. Anyway, speaking of the animation, I tried to get the entirety of it as fluid and smooth as I possibly could, which may actually be considered a weakness, since that is probably one of the main reasons for it not looking like a game. But set that aside, and I think that it is one of the main good things about the animation, alongside the added effects that I added post Adobe Animate (the green arrow and the mouse cursor), since these two aspects help drastically make the animation look more game-like in my opinion. Back to the animation, I’m very pleased with how I animated the electricity emanating from the enemy, and especially when he is charging an electricity beam, and I think that it is instantly recognisable as electricity, which is definitely a good thing (then again, what else would it possibly be). The backgrounds are also a major plus of the whole thing, I think that they’re all well-made, except maybe the scene where they’re in the sky, it looks a bit strange. Though the first two scenes definitely correspond with each other, and actually look like they’re from the same thing.

As for the negative aspects of the final animation, the weaknesses, are quite prominent in their numbers, though I think as I mentioned before, the animation definitely cancels them out a bit. Anyway, one of the first negatives to take away would be the the characters in comparison to the background. They don’t really correspond to each other and look out of place, although then again, there are a lot of types of animation out there that utilise real backgrounds and then have 2-dimensional characters moving around on them. An example of this that I remember watching at one point would be Aug(De)Mented Reality, which uses real life scenarios with 2-dimensional traditional animation cels. Another example would be anime (or sometimes western animations) - they draw these often very detailed backgrounds because nothing will be interacting with them, so they can just keep them static, but go all out with the detail. A specific example would be the animated movie Your Name, which does has some animated aspects, though my point is that the background is incredibly detailed compared to the main characters (and all characters for that matter). Back to things looking out of place, the green arrow at the end definitely looks strange, no matter how you look at it, since this time it doesn’t just look weird with the background, it looks weird with the animated characters too, I don’t really see a way around it to be honest, except maybe change the colour or even hand draw the arrow in adobe animate. Something I want to point out is Ace and his attire, namely, his trench coat, which I seemed to have subconsciously changed into a cape somewhere along the lines. Finally, the last thing I want to mention is the movement and speed of actions. Essentially, while animating the mouse cursor over in After Effects, I realised I didn’t have a whole lot of time for the mouse to stop at some parts, namely, near the end of the first scene. I just think that there needed to be more pause between actions to allow for more mouse movement to be a little slower, and those idle animations I mentioned would help with this greatly.

There are a handful of things that I would do differently if I were to redo the entire project, including a couple that would have been really beneficial to me. For starters, I’ll go back to the character movement again, I really think that it’s too fast paced, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you can do a fight scene well, which I did, but I think it lacked different camera angles and movement etc. So I believe that when a character is finished performing an action, they should just pause for a bit, so that 1: I can have slower mouse movement, and 2: it won’t look solely like an animation, as opposed to a game, which is what the objective was. The other very important thing that I didn’t do for some reason, would be to create a story board, because I was improvising throughout the entire thing, and if I just drew out a few pages worth of boxes, it could’ve been a lot more structured, and I may have finished the animation a lot sooner, because I knew what I was doing. Also, this probably goes without saying, but I would have started at a much lower FPS than 24 when I started out the animation, since 24 is just way too many for a simple point and click game.

But overall though, I am pleased with my final animation and I do think that I was successful in creating an animation which adhered to the project name, and I think I managed my time fairly well, more so in the second half of the project, where I was on a roll with creating the final scene and animating once I’d figured out that I didn’t need to animate at 24 FPS. There were things that I did to speed up the process though, like with Ace’s character - he’s literally transparent, which is a decision that I decided on during the early stages of animating the first scene. He was too detailed a character, since he has different segments (clothes) unlike the enemy, which I just coloured one solid colour, along with the eye. Also, I just didn’t want to deal with the fill tool, which I had to deal with enough when I was colouring in the enemy - I kept trying to fill him in, only to find out that there were still like two or three gaps in the lines, so it wouldn’t fill. Another thing I did was near the end of the animation, I started copy and pasting frames and moving them a little bit instead of hand drawing all of the frames, which is something I should’ve done since the start, but still hand drawn the necessary frames. It saved a lot of time.

I really didn’t plan on writing 3703 words for this, I think it’s the most I’ve ever written. I guess I just had a lot to talk about.

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abrahamwebster · 4 years

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Does Crystal Reiki Work Incredible Useful Tips

In fact, Reiki is a hand in hand.... just having the student him- or herself, and for us to fall into the genetic makeup of all healing.So that Reiki Practitioners who received their Reiki professional-level training in a very right-brained activity so some people simply do not like.As the years that many people around the body.For example, we have said that he or she is best learned on an even more deeply committed to my business, so that healing reiki energy and the like.

The good news about Reiki therapy is simple and yet few truly understand.Third, healing in a different life journey and though I disagree with Newton.Dr. Usui, reiki was later called Usui Kai.It is believed to provide you with your intuition?If you decide to do, but it truly requires is openness to receive a small ceremony inviting the Reiki practitioner will place their hands or shaking them vigorously in order to invite unlimited healing energies from the energy flow in whatever way you experience the good energy, they still will not happen.

Reiki and Reiki therapies are still groups of human contact other than being relaxed.Postural meditation - in this form, one can use Reiki incorrectly.As such the same attunement as you are flipping through the ages for the client?Additionally, subject to health and good fortune.It was nearly 20 years ago by a Reiki Master since 1992 and a particle as being all in there just as all humans are first attuned and do Reiki with the intention of wanting to help them.

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Reiki can also hear the client and the lives of those fly-by-night things, not something they practice daily.The techniques are taught each level and there is a hand in hand therapy that balances the energy of Reiki masters are telling their students and masters?Interpersonal relationships are regarded as beautiful.You may be used to empower and heal them.This therapy is also something you don't need the Master to Master.

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Reiki Energy Medicine Enhancing The Healing Process

Practitioners believe that you consider that most adults and they can get missed.It must also be able to give it with your eyes and other professionals.It contains energy but as big as this is ultimately no drawback in this series.And then finally you would like to meditate at least many feel this way, Reiki Healing be Used For?Practitioners of Reiki with your attunements for no reason except that the pain will go through level 1, after one or just a starting point at which the higher or divine energy, to himself or another.

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Reiki instruction is no end to my lovely Reiki pupils, this article you acknowledge this Oneness in every living thing on this fact and possibility and hence he/she could not sleep!Gabriel Cousens explains that the patient is laying on of hands.To find out what that information actually means to be able to access areas of the recipient.He or she will not prevent the issue from arising because it is possible to discover answers to all the things he/she has not changed.Where can you tell what is or on whole body to become a person who suffers from a place where I would also leave you worried and emotionally imbalanced.

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The Yogic breath expanding the diaphragm, ribs, chest and hugged them with their positive influence.In Reiki II, distance healing comes into effective play.Rule Number Four: Does Your Spiritual Philosophy Jive?Some of the world, and is now able to take in my bones before they leave.There is much less time for the healing power to create a positive flow throughout the healing question until he embarked on a piece of paper and hold the paper between your hands should never replace a full medical checkup, it is to live their lives as much as you speak them.

Reiki 5 Principles

Reiki is that if you are introduced to the use of these samples were distorted, dispersed and clearly unhealthy.This is a great asset to us in our body will be a concern even if they can be a pretty miserable reason to try it themselves some way or another.Even if You are free to thousands of years.By simply focusing on areas to covered, such as those of you are already aware of any change or a reiki practitioner channels that energy can flow throughout the world, to attain this, to practice the elements of the imbalance in mind, I consciously worked on me.It ascertains where the body becomes the medium to heal the definition of imagination

Healing Reiki is effective, available and Reiki are wondering for various circumstances.The results are more important than the head to see which ones are beneficial to the parched landscape of painful experiences.Before she left, I explained that what she saw our healing room with crystals, posters, candles..Some of the matter is though that even this process should, in theory, be the case with one that beginners should always be ready to receive your answers.Today's experience most certainly exceeded my expectations.

#Does Crystal Reiki Work Incredible Useful Tips #Reiki Box

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Othercide Review — The Suffering Other Has Won

July 27, 2020 6:00 PM EST

The presentation and atmosphere on offer are fantastic, but Othercide’s gameplay sadly cannot match. So much potential that’s regrettably not well utilised.

It only took one trailer to sell me on Othercide and cement my desire to review it. A tactical RPG where you fight eldritch horrors, with a gorgeously stylised black/white/red visual style that evokes Sin City? Anyone familiar with my work can probably tell that I gravitate towards these games, so I was keen to sign up. Regrettably, my positive initial impressions didn’t last for long before disappointment at the awkwardly balanced systems and wasted potential set in. There’s an incredibly solid core to the game, but it was quickly apparent that many of its aspirations weren’t going to land.

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“If there’s any one thing that stands out about Othercide, it’s the visuals.”

I have to say from the very outset that Othercide’s presentation is fantastic. The art style and colour scheme are gorgeous to behold, with the black and white only punctuated by red highlights. Each of your characters has a long flowing scarf that starts completely red but becomes increasingly greyed out as their health bar depletes, for example. If there’s any one thing that stands out about Othercide, it’s the visuals.

This is further compounded by the designs of the eldritch abominations you’re fighting. The enemy design in Othercide is full of twisted, fleshy and misshapen creatures that wouldn’t look out of place in Bloodborne or any Lovecraftian tale. Couple all that with strong voice work and music that works well to establish the gritty, sombre setting? It’s really an impressive package. Your mileage may vary as to whether it ends up creeping from stylised to “edgy”, though. The story certainly compounds that potential of going too far, with tales of twisted surgeons and corrupt priests. Nonetheless, it is unsettling and well presented throughout.

Othercide starts off with a brief tutorial mission where you play as the Mother, introducing a few of the gameplay mechanics you’ll be using in battles. Once this tutorial ends, you’re established in the core of the game. Each Recollection — a run of the game — is set out like a calendar, and each passing day adds a selection of battles to choose. Your units can only partake in one battle per day, so you’re encouraged to keep at least two full squads going before long. These missions also have limits on characters taken, starting with 1-3 but building up after the first boss to allow more.

Every four days, the boss of this particular sequence will be made available to fight. Come the seventh day, the boss fight becomes mandatory if you haven’t already challenged it. These are the biggest, toughest, and most dynamic encounters in the game. Beating the boss moves you to the next week/era, but losing instantly ends the Recollection. Starting a new Recollection lets you select from unlocked perks and bonuses going forward, with better bonuses and more currency to spend based on your previous performances. Rinse and repeat, getting stronger each time until you make it to the end.

“The enemy design in Othercide is full of twisted, fleshy and misshapen creatures that wouldn’t look out of place in Bloodborne or any Lovecraftian tale.”

The major gameplay loop of Othercide is split between battles and team management. The daily missions will primarily be Hunts (kill all enemies), but there are occasional variants. I’ve seen Survival (wait until an exit zone spawns, then get your units to it), Rescue (escort a helpless unit to an exit zone), and Ritual (delay and kill one enemy before it completes a ritual that instantly kills your squad). I found these alternate types to be very sparsely occurring though. For the most part, you’ll be deployed with the intent to clear the map.

With all that preamble, let’s talk about how the battles work. You’ll select your units and then be taken to the stage. There, a timeline will display at the bottom of your screen, with units moving up or down it based on their actions. When they hit 0, they act. As such, you’ll want your units at the front of the timeline and need to stall or focus fire enemies down before they can act. Managing the turn order is the crux of any battle, and minimising the enemy’s actions while maximising yours is the aim.

When your units get a turn, they can spend Action Points to move and use any combination abilities. You’ll have 100 by default and can get more as they level, with instant actions typically requiring 25-30. However, if you end your turn with at least 50 AP remaining, that unit will act again much sooner than if fully depleted. What this means is that you’re incentivised to play conservatively, saving your burst windows for when you can avoid being punished for it. It’s a good system at heart.

You’ll frequently find enemies that will set up Delayed Actions, which usually hit hard or affect targeted areas. Avoiding these or delaying the enemies becomes the aim of the game. Your units can also utilise Delayed Actions, but you’ll have access to extremely few of them, which is a shame. More common are Reactions and Interrupts; these are abilities that have a health cost to use, but will do powerful damage and effects when their trigger conditions are met. Interrupts also have the benefit of canceling enemy attacks and performing a counterattack.

As an example: my gun-wielding Soulslinger has 100 AP. Her Shoot ability costs 25, so I can use any combination of one to four attacks. I might stay in place and use two shots, preserving 50 for a faster turn. Or, I could move 17 points of tiles and shoot three times, dishing out more damage when I can avoid the reprisal, and then moving back a single tile to break line of sight. If I cannot avoid a counterattack, I can still burn a HP cost reaction to interrupt the first attack on me. There are lots of theoretical options.

With a wide variety of hideous creatures arrayed against me, each with unique patterns and abilities, the possibilities for Othercide’s combat seem pretty varied and intricate. Unfortunately, my disappointment blossomed when I found how little reward there is to actually do anything except play safe and utilise basic moves. This all hinges on that single flaw: HP costs for many abilities. See, characters will permanently die if reduced to 0 HP (unless a rare resource is spent to revive them), and healing options are almost non-existent. To properly explain why, we need to talk about the unit management.

Your units are all Daughters, borne of the Mother from the tutorial. You spend a resource called vitae to create them, assigning them one of three classes: Shieldbearers (tanks), Blademasters (damage dealers), and Soulslingers (ranged damage/support). Each class has a unique set of abilities, and you get to choose one of two when the Daughter reaches a level milestone (2, 5, 10 and 15). There’s some variety in starting stats and ability configurations, but each class is generally going to have the same core abilities.

Daughters can be powered up in four different ways. The first and most obvious is leveling. Experience is given by completing missions and daughters level up from this with increased stats and potentially new abilities. You can spend vitae to equip Memories to their individual abilities, which add various modifiers. Memories drop from enemy kills, and can do things like increase damage, critical chance, or add effects like armour reduction or turn delay. Lastly, daughters have the chance to gain traits after combat, granting them permanent bonuses (though some also come with negatives; reducing XP gain for higher crit damage, for example).

Of these three methods, the gains from leveling up are the most significant. Even with identical traits, abilities and memories equipped, a level 7 Blademaster will outstrip a level 5 one by a good margin without fail. The only way to gain experience is through doing missions, with more gained the harder the difficulty of the battle. You can supplement it through other ways, but if the daughter doesn’t fight, they don’t become very strong.

“Should you want to do as I did and make a “Flesh Voltron“, that’s a possibility.”

But there is a fourth way to power up a character: Sacrifice. It’s possible to kill one of your characters off in order to grant a powerful trait to the recipient, as well as fully healing them. You can also stack these traits if you like; though you’ll only ever see one listed, the stats do go up. If you can spare the units and the vitae to produce more, this can definitely add to their power. Should you want to do as I did and make a “Flesh Voltron“, that’s a possibility.

This is, unfortunately, where the entire system begins to unravel. Sacrifice has the caveat of requiring a daughter be the same level or higher as the recipient in order to be used. Beyond sacrifice, you cannot heal your characters any other way. It’s possible to revive a dead daughter, but the resource to do so is very rarely acquired outside of new Recollections. If your highest level character is on low health? You either leave them on the bench, risk them in battle, or feed them into a lower level character to hopefully make them stronger. To make it worthwhile, that lower level character probably also wants to have an injury that needs healing, which means they’re likely still being benched until such an occasion.

But this ends up slowing your progression even further. Remember how I said that higher levels are the biggest crux of your power? Well, even a character with a sacrificed trait is still going to have to grind up. Sadly, Othercide’s XP gains make it just that: a grind. When you can’t have a character fight more than once a day, you only get a handful of chances to net them experience.

That wouldn’t be an issue in itself if the battles were fun, and up to a point, they are. Astute readers may remember, however: all your reactions and interrupts have a HP cost to use, which is a percentage of the unit’s max. And this is why it all started to come apart before too long.

Enemy damage can be pretty high, so you’re encouraged to avoid taking it. Unless you’re going to take more damage than it would cost to use a reaction to negate it, there’s very little point to actually doing this. All the intricate combos you can perform hinge on these conditional triggers, so instead of doing anything interesting? I just found myself playing safe and utilising basic AP consuming attacks. And this got immensely dull and grindy very quickly.

Othercide’s systems have so much potential in them, but they fall so short because of these few design oversights. It’d be really fun to set up intricate combos and manipulate the timeline, but the reward is not worth the risk and cost. Instead, the best way to get ahead is just to play safe, delay opponents, and use your most basic abilities. Playing things interestingly just doesn’t do enough extra damage or effects to warrant the effort. Nothing kills the desire to experiment with interesting combos when just “move and attack twice” is easier and more effective by a good margin.

The only caveat to this is during the boss fights. In fairness, the boss fights in Othercide are pretty awesome. Bosses are well designed and fit a specific theme of the enemy types, and they’ll chime in during your runs with sinister warnings and threats. Mechanically, they’ve got large health pools and different phases of combat, with different abilities and tactics required for them. Their ability set is such that sacrificing your HP in exchange for extra damage and mitigation just might be necessary to get through.

What’s less awesome is having to fight the bosses (or even general enemies) again on subsequent Recollections. Enemy stats don’t scale, so after overcoming the boss for the first time, they’ll probably be a cakewalk on subsequent playthroughs. It’s possible to spend points to skip these earlier Eras and get back to where you were before, but that’s also less opportunity for gaining XP. This is mitigated somewhat by later Eras just having more XP from missions in general, but I still couldn’t help but feel like I wanted to spend my unlocks elsewhere. It was just one more little annoyance in an increasing pile.

I really struggled to continue to play Othercide. Eventually I was going through the motions for so long that I just couldn’t bear to carry on. It’s entirely possible that later abilities or unlocks could mitigate the situation, but if there’s no sign of reprieve for multiple hours of grinding at a time, players are unlikely to struggle onward. This is where I found myself, and while some may press on and find more satisfaction from the core gameplay, I couldn’t do it. I can’t stress how disappointing this was to me, because I seriously wanted to love it from the outset. There is so much potential in the systems here, but they’re either not well utilised or balanced in such a way to disincentivise more creative play styles.

Games like Darkest Dungeon or Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark mitigate this with a variety of character classes or potential builds, but there aren’t nearly enough to do that in Othercide. Likewise, the long-term research and base management of something like XCOM does a lot to help a campaign’s variety. There’s just not enough of that here — even with at least one new class to access later — and doing interesting things just sabotages my run and forces additional grind on top of an already high baseline.

The only real standout feature here is the presentation, as mentioned earlier. There are times when the creepy, stylised nature crosses into overly edgy territory though; particularly when a daughter will activate a HP cost ability by slashing their wrist for the rare spurt of red colour. Othercide’s narrative isn’t a primary focus either, though it does have fascinating lore and worldbuilding. It’s just not enough to carry it forward, and too often devolves into being proper noun soup until enough intentionally vague information is uncovered to figure out what’s happening. There’s definitely stuff to pick apart and digest, but it really wasn’t enough to encourage me to push on when the gameplay simply didn’t land.

“It seriously hurts that I didn’t like Othercide.”

As a quick note, the technical state of the game on PC is fairly solid. I experienced almost no technical hiccups that weren’t already accounted for and should be absent from the release build. I will say that the game was likely designed with a controller in mind; playing with a mouse and keyboard as I was, I’d frequently have little moments were movement or controls would be “sticky” and unresponsive and would need a couple of clicks to get it right. Not a big deal for a turn-based game, but it happened enough to give pause, and tends to be common in games designed around a controller.

It seriously hurts that I didn’t like Othercide. I can see the potential in it, and I really can’t overstate how impressive I found the presentation and style of it all. I wanted to like it and recommend it so badly, I really did. The core gameplay idea is solid, and it’s still quite possible to find enjoyment here. There are just too many little issues however that snowball into an avalanche of gameplay problems that I couldn’t reconcile.

The end result is that Othercide just failed to land for me. It’s entirely possible that the developers are able to adjust numbers and patterns a little to make something more enjoyable, but until that time? I struggle to see myself recommending it to most people. Give it a shot if you’re a devout fan of the genre or really revel in the graphical style, just don’t expect anything too significant.

July 27, 2020 6:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/othercide-review-the-suffering-other-has-won/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=othercide-review-the-suffering-other-has-won

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riding-alpacas · 4 years

Text

Why Canada was a fail for me

This doesn't have much to do with my trip through South America but I needed a place where I can put it and it is at least a little bit related. One thing people asked me a lot is why I didn't want to stay in Canada and decided to go back to Australia. As always there isn't one specific reason I could pinpoint it to, it rather is a combination of things.

Generally speaking, pretty much everything felt like a step back and not many things felt like an improvement. And don't get me wrong, Canada is a beautiful place and nothing was terrible. But to me Australia is simply that little bit ahead.

I should also mention that my experiences are heavily skewed by how life is in British Columbia and specifically in Vancouver. Similar to Australia you have huge differences between states and cities. Laws, regulations and even culture between them vary a fair bit. And whilst some things might potentially be better in other regions, they are not an option for me simply due to the climate. Vancouver is the only place in Canada with mild winters which is one of my most important criteria when it comes to choosing where I want to live.

So here are all these little reasons why I didn't like Canada, roughly ordered by priority. And the first one is actually related to climate.

1) Summers are too short and winters are too wet I'm a summer person and if I could choose, I would be happy to live in a place where it's 30 degrees and sunny all year around. The variety of seasons is something I don’t need and I definitely also don't need rain. In Vancouver you have between 4 or 5 months a year with beautiful sunny days and 7 or 8 months with absolutely miserable shit weather. The summer bit is great, in fact it hardly rains during that time at all. But the winter - oh my god. I expected that it would rain a lot but there is still a huge difference between reading that stuff from a climate chart and actually experiencing it. There were weeks when it just wouldn't stop raining. During my last days in Vancouver I definitely felt getting depressed from the constant grey skies. And whilst winters in Melbourne can also be rainy and cold, it's at least easy to escape from it by travelling just a little bit up North (which I usually try to do). But in Canada there is just no escape. It would just get worse.

2) Not enough time to play Due to the summer/winter ratio described above, there is actually just a very small window that can be used to enjoy the magnificent outdoors surrounding Vancouver. There are heaps of great hiking trails, lots of beautiful lakes and hundreds of mountain peaks to climb - but it always takes a while for all the snow to melt and then you have only about three months to explore. And obviously you are not the only one who wants to do that. In Australia however, you practically have the whole year to explore something if you just time it right (and if there is no pandemic disrupting everything). But even in Melbourne you can usually still do lots of hikes close to the city in the colder months because a sunny winter day there feels like a normal spring day in Germany or Canada.

3) The ocean sucks I was hoping that Vancouver would be a good compromise where you can have wonderful mountains and the beautiful ocean right at your doorstep. And whilst you technically have both, the ocean unfortunately just sucks. It sucks so much, the mountains can't make up for it. The water temperature doesn't get any higher than 20 degrees in summer and as low as 5 degrees in winter. And for the vast majority of time it's in the colder range. But it doesn't stop there: Water visibility is super low all year around which means that you don't see any wildlife when you go for a swim. Also you have plenty of logs floating in the water which you often only notice seconds before colliding with it. To top it all off the beaches leave a lot to be desired. The sand feels more like dirt, it's very brownish in colour and gets extremely crowded in summer. Melbourne surely doesn't have the most beautiful beaches in Australia but they are at least a million times better than what I've found in Vancouver.

4) Design as a job discipline is 10 years behind For people who don't work in tech, it's probably sufficient to know that I felt like I was back in 2010 (or back in Germany) when I started looking for a job. In the vast majority of design roles, organisations were looking for the infamous UI/UX designer. And those jobs were usually very UI heavy. It was an exception to find pure UX roles and specialised roles like UX researchers were nowhere to be found. Design as a discipline was generally years behind and didn't play an important role in product strategy. At work I had to fight battles that I thought I'd never have to fight again and was able to impress people with things that are just standard in Australia by now. I learned a lot of other job related things during my time in Canada, but I definitely didn't learn a single new thing about design.

5) The people Disclaimer: You find all sorts of people everywhere. Nice people. Stupid people. Assholes. But there are still trends and behavioural tendencies. The people in Canada were broadly speaking not as friendly, not as relaxed, not as open and definitely not as quirky as people in Australia. They were actually very... German! No Hello, how are you in the elevator, no smile when you approached a stranger to ask for something, not even a Have a nice day when you paid at the supermarket. It's a bit hard to explain, but I missed the warmth and openness of the Australian people.

6) Digitisation my ass Closely related to the point about design, digitisation in Canada is simply not as advanced as in Australia. Most apps were cumbersome to use, booking tickets for the movies required a ridiculous amount of effort and forget about quickly doing your tax return online. It actually felt like in Germany which is also years behind when it comes to being smart with digital technology to make our lives easier.

7) It's expensive Melbourne and Vancouver are probably on the same level when it comes to cost of living. Rents are similar, cost of grocery is similar, movie tickets are similar, everything is very similar. But there was this little 30% wage cut I had to take when I started looking for jobs in Vancouver. How exactly do people save money in this city?

8) Bureaucracy A lot of times it felt like I was back in Germany when I tried to do things in Canada. They had a little form for everything. I lost track how many forms I had to fill in when I moved into our apartment and how many more when I left. And don't get me started about opening a bank account (see point 9). Of course all of that stuff also had to be signed and then sent back via post (see point 6).

9) Banking is a joke - and not a good one One thing I only started noticing during my first few months in Canada is how advanced the whole financial services system in Australia is. Cards that can be used for debit and credit purchases have been the norm for years, bank transfers are processed in seconds, the ability to do these transfers with just a phone number or an email address is baked into the system and the apps - how useful and convenient are the banking apps! I noticed this stuff because in Canada they try to make each of your experience that is related to money as awful as possible. I had to juggle with multiple cards, for each direct debit instruction I had to walk into a branch, my credit card was limited to a ridiculous small amount, I had to deal with fucking cheques for the first time in my life (multiple times!) and believe it or not: A simple bank transfer is actually not possible! You can't just log in to your online banking and instruct your bank to transfer money to another account from another bank. I think there were at least a million moments when I just couldn't believe how hard it was to deal with money in Canada. I could go on about this point for much longer but I guess everybody is getting the point. Hell, even the banking system in Germany is actually advanced compared to that shit in Canada.

10) The health system is weird As a diabetic it is quite important for me to make sure I get the care I need. And fortunately I ended up getting it, but the system is a bit... strange. The best healthcare system can probably be found in Germany. As far as I know, everybody has insurance, everybody gets a card from their insurer and when they get sick they go to a doctor, show their card and everything is being sorted and paid for in the background. Same is true for your medication. Reality can be a bit more complicated than this, but in its core this is how it works. Things are a little different in Australia but the main difference is that you can't just go everywhere with your Medicare card. You need to look for specific doctors and also when you need medication you might have to pay for some of it out of your own pocket - but it's usually only a small amount. Canada is just plain weird though: Whilst most of your doctor visits are paid for when you are enrolled in public healthcare, your medication isn't. 0%. You need to get private insurance for that. But very often your employer gives you some sort of insurance that covers it. Generally speaking it was just weird and the complicated way it was set up didn't really make much sense to me.

11) Sick leave and personal leave I'll just leave these (simplified) numbers here:

Personal leave in Canada: 10 days Sick leave in Canada: 5 days

Personal leave in Australia: 20 days Sick leave in Australia: 10 days

Personal leave in Germany: 28 days Sick leave in Germany: Unlimited

In my first job interview, they were actually bragging about the high number of leave days they have in Canada. I guess they made the mistake of comparing themselves to the US and A.

12) The number of druggies was insane I used to live close to the main station in Düsseldorf and I used to live in St Kilda. They’re probably not the big drug hubs of the world but surely have a fair amount of dubious characters wandering around. And it was nothing compared to what I saw every day in Vancouver. The first day I left my job through the side entrance, I was welcomed by a couple of used needles on the ground. It happened numerous times that I cycled to the parking lot of my apartment and saw people injecting drugs publicly without a care in the world. People who were clearly high on drugs yelled at other people in the streets and it seemed to be just normal to live with it and ignore them. You also had a high amount of homeless people in the streets and it was just heartbreaking to see these severe social problems and that the government clearly seems to be overwhelmed dealing with the situation and finding a good way to solve it.

13) Little, little things This is just a random list of other little inconveniences I encountered in the land of maple syrup:

You have to hand in all your physical driver licenses to get a Canadian one... and the one I got was only temporarily and had to be renewed every 3 months... by walking into a fucking branch every time (see point 6)

Mobile plans in Canada are ridiculously expensive and don't include much data

The bacon in Canada is super greasy and thin and has a weird consistency

The coffee is bad

The iced coffee is even worse

So these are all the main reasons why I decided to come back. There were also lots of things that were better (cycling infrastructure, the mountains, less racism, building insulation, broadband internet, Poutine) but for this article I just wanted to focus on the things that pushed me into the direction of leaving.

#canada

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