#the point is that assignments where you have to do a certain number throughout the whole year are STRESSFUL

[yridenergyridenergy]

Hi sorry it may sound stupid but I just got an exclusive ticket to their live concert on 3rd June in Nagoya and this is my first time to visit them! (and alone lol so I'm bit nervous right now)Wondering what preparation should I do? like how early should i arrive at the venue and can I use english when i buy merchandise etc.

thank u!

Hello! It is not a stupid question at all. I don't kow if you ever went to see Dir en grey outside of Japan even, but there are definitely differences to know about.

Chronologically, if you are interested in merchandise, be prepared to dedicate almost your entire day for that. People usually line up from 8-9AM until the venue staff distributes numbers. When the merchandise table actually opens, usually around 3PM (but 2PM in the case of the June 3rd show), then you come back and you will have the priority based on your position in the morning's line. However that's IF the venue does distribute number papers. I have gone to a Zepp Nagoya show where we were forced to line up right until 3PM without ever being given numbers, which was very problematic because we weren't prepared for that and had no food, and I think it started raining at some point.

Eventually, not sure if only around 3PM or some time after noon or something else, the day's panel will be set up and you can take pictures of it. Technically, it will be there until after the show too, but it can be nice to capture it in photographs while the light/shadow contrast is not too high.

When 2PM comes around and the merchandise begins selling, unfortunately don't expect the staff to speak English. However, the table will usually have plastified sheets listing all the goods with pictures, so you can probably understand each other by pointing to what you want and gesturing how many you would like. In Japan, when ordering something, most places/people will double-check with you what your final order is before charging you. Just don't appear rude despite the language barrier, and make sure to finish with a kind "Arigatou gozaimasu" of course! If you're worried about the impression you leave, you could probably start the conversation with "Sumimasen" too.

From what I remember, they accept credit cards, not just cash.

The only thing left after that is the actual start of the show. Seeing as the June 3rd concert will take place in a venue with seats, then you literally don't have to show up before 6PM. By then, most of the fans will have already entered the venue, so you will avoid the rush. Also, Dir en grey almost never starts their shows on time, but it can be fun to be there ahead of time and get impregnated with the playlist they decided for the music playing before the concert starts. This tour's playlist has some really 'intimidating' songs. I would really recommend going early (the doors open 45 minutes before 6PM) to experience it, because it gets you in a certain mood for the show!

Unlike numbered tickets, seat-assigned concerts probably just have people enter based on first-come, first-served basis, in a disciplined line (or two). No need to rush, nobody will take your seat. By the way, try to look at the venue's seat map ahead of time to know where you are seated, in case it is a bit confusing in person. For example, I think it was the Yokosuka hall this month that had AA and BB rows in front of A, B, C, etc.

Inside the venue, keep in mind that food is usually prohibited, but you can bring (non-alcoholic?) beverages in bottles. Seeing as you will have a seat, you don't need to worry about being lightweight like in general admission venues. Any bag you bring and the exclusive goods bag that you will receive can be placed in your seat while you stand up during the show.

In the last two seated shows, for some reason the venue staff checked everyone's bag to make sure that there was no filming equipment. Not sure if something oot leaked throughout the first half of May, as they did not do that in Yokosuka. Those checks usually don't occur for general admission standing venues.

Last thing I can think of: the exclusive goods bag is usually at a table inside the venue. You can technically get yours before or after the show, as they should have enough for all exclusive or VIP ticket holders, but it might be good to get that taken care of before the show starts, to be at peace of mind and not forget. There should be a sign up somewhere mentioning the exclusive goods, but if you don't read Japanese, try to look around not too far from either the venue's or the concert room's doors for a table that has many rectangular bags lined up. Once you locate it, you will need to present the paper ticket that you were handed when you entered the venue, as the staff member will stamp the back of it. That prevents people from frauding and trying to get more than one bag per ticket.

Perhaps half of this was totally unnecessary and is obvious, but I prefered to list everything that came to my mind. Have an awesome show and let loose vocally and spatially! Nyaaagoooyaaaaaaa!

#ask #anon #Dir en grey #guide #Japan

[pokeblader3]

You know that post that’s like “someone can call you ‘bitch’/’fag’ in a way that makes you feel so loved and affirmed, but no slur will hold as much malice as someone with homophobic beliefs saying ‘those people’ in a certain way (often polite and technically correct manner)? That’s how it feels reading how some of the posts on here use “Men”, often before spouting something with subtle underlying transmisogynstic/misandrist (or even outright patriarchal), not blinking twice while saying some shit to queer/trans men/men of color.

It’s not that I disagree with most of their points, I’ve been horribly traumatized and abused my many men and all marginalized men regularly deal with shitty men, both in and out of their community, and have a number of thoughts on the Patriarchy and all the fucked up, insidious ways it gets to you and creates the horrible parts of our society and culture that create traumas and abuse. I regularly spend a lot of day standing up to shitty men for being shitty using all the male-passing privilege I can muster (I still pass pretty well as a ‘cishet’ man). But the way a lot of these posts are phrased often feels... manipulative. Men and women are people, and the number one thing transitioning and being friends with more people opposite my assigned gender has taught me is that human behavior and emotions get ascribed to ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ when they’re just normal emotions we all have. Violence and aggression and cruelty aren’t “masculine”, wisdom and compassion and empathy aren’t “feminine”, even if these things are associated with them because of gender roles and how the Patriarchy has shaped the society around us.

And the fact that people regularly face opposition or get run out of queer groups for being ‘cishet men’ by afab people and (usually cis) women who don’t want to engage with any of our queerness or the fact that we’re feminine (honestly often due to still lingering trauma which makes them distrustful of other people who remind them of their abusers and a lack of actual good mascs in their life who, I get it, I was afraid of men and masculinity for a long time too and had a friend group of mostly women, but it wasn’t healthy and my world is much better for trying to reach out and be close with some who seemed to be kindhearted and genuine, and eventually not be so afraid of other normal people you see on the street)... I’ve probably been discouraged to express myself and my femininity (you know, anti-patriarchal things for a man to do) by women and femmes just as much as I have by men (not mascs, they Get It, and trans men often are adamantly against this behavior but get drowned out or bullied into staying quiet). And it’s so much worse if you’re a masc/enby/transfemme of color, who are demonized for existing and held to impossible beauty standards even by those in the community who are supposed to be ‘on their side’ (and who still hold them to being on their own side). And it’s not like I haven’t been groomed, sexually abused, manipulated, and physically/emotionally abused by women throughout my life, either.

The people who run my state are trying to make crossdressing a sex crime. I cannot go out dressed femininely without risking being queer bashed or made an example of. This is not abnormal in this country, and if you live in a world where men are encouraged to express gender nonconformity and femininity and androgyny is accepted, I hate to burst your bubble but you live in a socially progressive part of this country, and the rest of us get at best bullied relentlessly for any ‘femininity’ from all sides around us.

#queer masculinity #queer femininity #transmisandry #transmisogyny #intersectional feminism #tw csa mention #my posts

[therubymuse]

On Discovering My Inner Fatness

CW: I’m going to be talking about a subject that a lot of people find uncomfortable, both because of how they’ve come to see their bodies, and because of how society dictates our worth. The usual content warnings apply, including but not limited to talk of weight gain and loss, weight numbers, and eating disorder discussion. You are welcome to go and return to this at any time, or peace out entirely. No hard feelings. You do you, boo. Know your boundaries. 

~

It’s all too easy to write off our experiences as children, and the experiences of our children, as just weirdness we’ll grow out of. It comes from a place of relief for parents, knowing that every new thing they see a child do, is not some indicator of their futures, positive or negative. However, as transgender folks can tell you, a lot of time, when we wished our parents had noticed our differences, they chalked those differences up to childhood weirdness. And a lot of times, this becomes one of the first disservices we do to our children, and that we do to ourselves, when examining our own childhoods. That important turning points in our young lives were of no consequence. 

I’ve used being transgender as a starting point for this examination, and will continue to throughout this work, but it can easily be extended to other truths children discover about themselves. When I was a child, it was extremely painful and laborious, addressing my body. Part of that was the incongruences I saw between myself and other girls, growing up as I did in a body that told others I was a boy. But part of it was also how small and fragile my body appeared compared to other bodies. I had no extra weight on me, at any point in my childhood and into young adulthood. This developed into a pathological need to keep that weight off, and for a few years in my early teens, I was anorexic, though I didn’t tell anyone. I just never took my shirt off in front of other people, and I dissociated when people made comments about my body. 

One of the comments I heard often in young adulthood and into adulthood was, why would I be ashamed of my body? (Insert person/group here) would love to have a body like mine! I don’t know why people thought this was comforting? I guess a lot of people’s trouble with their bodies is rooted in what other people think of them, but for me, it was what I saw, not what others saw. The other regularly repeated comment was, if I was so uncomfortable, why don’t I go work out? Surely that would help how I saw myself, but this too caused me discomfort and more dissociation than I care to admit. When I saw bodies that worked out, the supposed ideally attractive body for young men, I was uncomfortable, and aghast when I realized this was what people expected me to aspire to. I did not want to be a bigger and harder version of myself. 

So what did I want? Surely if I was that uncomfortable in my body, I had some ideas as to what could fix it, right? Well, no, not really. Transgender people were not on my radar at all growing up, and even in sex ed and Gay/Straight Alliance clubs, we weren’t talked about, so I was never able to take that extreme discomfort in my body and pin it to anything. I ended up blaming all of it on self-esteem, or a lack thereof. So did others. 

I do not assign the word “fat” a negative connotation. It is simply a descriptor for a certain kind of body, but that took a lot of time and work to achieve. I was never shown that fat people were desirable, growing up. All of my family, except me, were somewhere on the fat spectrum. But I wasn’t, seemingly no matter what I did or what I ate. There was very little positive representation of fat people that didn’t lean on well-worn stereotypes and tropes. It seemed like every cartoon in the 1990s that I watched had a story arc where the main character doesn’t pay close enough attention to what they eat and they get fat, and that was always, always their fault. So I grew up simultaneously internalizing the lesson that I should not get fat with my already supremely uncomfortable physical form. That was the basis of my anorexia. 

Even though it’s been a long time since Karen Carpenter famously died of its complications, anorexia isn’t well understood by most, and part of the reason for that, is we pathologise its behaviours as a net-benefit to a person not being fat. Calorie counting, obsession over body measurements, and skipping meals, all behaviours from which an anorexic person cannot escape, are behaviours that are praised when undertaken by anyone who is even marginally bigger than we think they should be. They are behaviours of someone who takes their health seriously, we’re told. After all, anything is better than being fat. Except when it isn’t, in the case of Karen, at which point we frame it as a failure of the individual, and not a failure of our societal values. 

If I hadn’t wrested myself from it’s clutches, I would likely have joined her in early death. At the age of 15 and a height of 5’11” I was 127 pounds soaking wet. My circulation was poor, my heart was weak, extreme exertion such as moving furniture or lifting heavy objects all day would land me in bed for days recovering, because I had no extra energy to spare other than what was keeping my body alive.  If I had continued along that path, I wouldn’t be here now. Over the course of my 20s my weight slowly recovered, but I never shook the effects of the poor circulation or lack of energy. And all the while to a chorus of well meaning but infuriating professionals, friends, and partners asking me, why don’t you just work out?

~

I went to my family doctor yesterday, and she was thrilled to hear I have recently started walking short distances in the morning as a means of increasing my strength, both externally in my limbs and internally in my heart. But almost immediately, she had one question for me. 

“So, have you lost any weight?” 

I ignored the question. It’s a subject we’ve spoken of a few times, and I’m indicated in no uncertain terms I do not want to lose any weight, that I’m happy with my body as it is, I just want to make sure I take good care of it, because I want it to last a long time yet. 

“But, have you lost any weight?” came the question again. At which point I stopped, addressed her directly, and said “I don’t want to talk about my weight with you.” I wanted to get angry about it, because we’ve been over this, and we’ve been over how hard it is for me to deflect this question after a lifetime of being extremely thin, but it doesn’t seem to be sinking in. This is my first experience with a doctor who has done this repeatedly, though if the experiences of my fat friends are any indication, it won’t be the last. 

In the last few years, I’ve found mental health medication that has worked for me, and I’ve started taking feminizing hormones for my transition and support in womanhood, but I’ve also gained a fair amount of weight. Prior to hormones, I was 160lbs. Due to muscle mass loss via estrogen, I found myself back in the 120s within six months of starting, and that was scary for me in ways I’m sure you can now understand. But then, I rebounded, and I kept rebounding. I’m 215lbs now. And on my way there,  something marvellous started happening to me. 

I started to like this body. 

It’s immense how revolutionary that feels. It’s something I’ve literally never felt towards myself. Part of that was absolutely due to the effects of my hormones. My body hair thinned out and in some places disappeared entirely, my skin became soft and smooth, and my facial features brightened. I had boobs! So many sources of joy at once. But something else that started to happen as I started to change is I started to see softness not just in my features and my skin, but all over. The lines of my bones disappeared one by one. The gaps between my arms and ribcage, between my thighs, even between my fingers began to fill in. My body started to move when I moved, and sometimes continued to move when I stopped moving. I had no idea how happy each of these little discoveries were going to make me, but they have. 

I’ve always had a blindspot when it comes to societal expectations, as applied to other people. I’ve regularly cheered on the self-expression and self-acceptance of fat people and their bodies. But just like with being transgender, that blind spot did exist when it came to my own body. I cheered on transgender people and their rights for years before it dawned on me that I was a woman. But that realization didn’t happen overnight. Decades of discomfort, and little clues littered here and there, built up an overwhelming case of evidence such than when the final piece fell into place, it was an infallible discovery. Which is why I stepped quite suddenly into it. 

Despite cheering on body positivity and fat liberation from the sidelines, and appreciating other people’s bodies when they were bigger, living in a small body for so long blinded me to seeing myself in any other way. Just as I was unable to see myself as a woman, I was unable to see myself as a fat person, too, until my body started to change. I had vilified my own femininity at the behest of culture for so many years, and I had vilified my body in the same way, until I realized how beautiful I could be if I didn’t. 

~

Today, I get different questions, ones that I’m not always ready for. A lot of folks have asked me why, in my journey from thin girl to fat girl, numbers are so important to me, and I think you’ll find the answer in this confession. For so long, the numbers were a prison. No matter how I felt about my body, I would step onto a scale and be crestfallen, to not find myself changed any, even if I felt happier at the time for some reason or another. I longed to have some indication that I had changed, and until I transitioned, I couldn’t examine my body closely without severe discomfort, so the numbers could offer consolation, if only they’d ever moved, but they never did, until I started this journey. Now, every time I get on a scale and the number goes up, I feel an immense sense of joy and relief to be free of the prison. Each of my pounds comes with me wherever I go. They keep me warm, they give me a store of energy, and they make me look as amazing as I feel. 

My body finally feels right to me, and that can be hard for others to accept when society’s valuation of my body is so pervasive. When I see myself smile in selfies and I see my chubby cheeks, I am filled with a sense of love for myself I didn’t think possible. When I reach my arms around myself and give myself a hug, my hands and arms sink into my supple frame, almost the same way they do when I snuggle a plushie. When I see myself walking in the windows I pass by, I see myself gently swaying side to side, it brings a sense of comfort I’ve never known. When my thighs and my tummy jiggle as I walk, I take up space in a way I’ve never been able to.  

In the same way as I was always meant to be a girl, I believe I was always meant to be fat, too. There is just too immense a comfort to see myself as I am now, too immense a joy. I think that there are ways in which we exist that are truest to our selves, but I also believe that societal influence, and via that other people, will do almost anything to keep us from reaching that place, if it doesn’t align with popular values. Transgender women are pressured ascribe to high femininity or be ridiculed or even killed, but my femininity doesn’t exist there. I am comfortably somewhere between adorable mom-friend and plaid-wearing wrench-slinging futch (a combination of femme and butch). And to choose to exist in that space means people judge my efforts, and attempt to take away my validity. 

This is something fat people can relate to with most fibres of their beings. You can find the right clothes, the right routines for you to feel comfortable with your fitness, the right forms of self-expression, and some asshole will always lean out their car window and sling unflattering words. It makes it difficult to maintain that acceptance of ourselves when it’s so socially acceptable to judge others. It feels exactly the same way to be unconventionally beautiful and transgender. 

I believe these identities of mine are complimentary. Both of them have brought me to a sense of peacefulness within my skin that I never thought possible. Sometimes the answer isn’t to love yourself as you are, and that’s okay. That’s not who I was, and I didn’t get a say in how I was shaped or why, until recently. I had to become and embrace these parts of me to be happy, but sometimes, I feel the imposter. Transgender women and fat women invite the same cruel, unpolished contempt, and to combine the two, sometimes feels like heresy. Not woman enough for some and not fat enough for others. I’ve often had people tell me I’m not that fat, as if that’s some kind of compliment, and likewise, that I’m attractive, for a trans woman. And as this maelstrom comes to a close, and the oceans come crashing in, I realize how much I just don’t care anymore. 

This body is mine, and it makes me happy. And that is all I could ever really ask for in this life. 

Art by hxbagels

#fat girl #chubby girl #body positivity #fat liberation #trans woman

[idrellegames]

Hello dear, how are you? Sorry to bother you, I was wondering, do you have any tips on how to plan the MC's personality? I'm not talking about how to set personality points and stuff like that. I wanted tips on how to let the player build their character personality and then how to adapt the game around it... if that makes sense. Do you happen to have any tips on the subject? 🙏🏻

I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of personality stats, so I don’t technically have experience working with them. But they are a stat system at the end of the day, so here’s a few ways you can implement and write around them!

Choosing a System

First, you’ll need to decide how many personality stats you want and what kind of system you’re going to use. I’ve seen a few different systems in various IF games:

Personality stats come in opposing pairs (i.e. Assertive vs Reserved, Caring vs Aloof, Reckless vs Cautious). Stats are increased by certain choices during the opening of the game. Once the player reaches a specific point, the personality traits become locked, with one trait beating out the other in its pair.

Personality stats come in opposing pairs but are on a scale of 0 to 100 (i.e. Assertive would be 0 and its partner, Reserved, would be 100). The stats change throughout the course of the entire game, with different choices raising one stat while lowering its pair.

Personality stats are single stats more like skills, usually on a scale of 0 to 100. Increasing or decreasing one does not affect another stat. The stats change throughout the course of the entire game, with different choices raising or lowering the stat. This system is usually used when the game includes skill-based stats alongside the personality ones (like magic or combat proficiency).

**Scales of 0 to 100 are useful because they translate directly into percentages.

Be reserved with the number of stats you include. The more you have to balance and account for, the more challenging your coding and writing will become. It’s impossible to sum up everything about a person’s personality with stats, so focus on the ones that will actually play into the plot of your game and shape your player character’s journey. It’s better to be specific than broad.

Setting Up Personality Stats

System 1: Personality Lock

Define your personality stats in your StoryInit passage and set them to 0.

:: StoryInit

/* Pair A */ <<set $assertive to 0>> <<set $reserved to 0>>

/* Pair B */<<set $caring to 0>> <<set $aloof to 0>>

/* Pair C */ <<set $reckless to 0>> <<set $cautious to 0>>

As the player makes their choices, assign a different stat to increase to the choices that make sense for that stat. It doesn't have to be for every choice, but there should be enough choices for the player to feel like they are roleplaying.

:: A Passage

Something happens here.

[[1. Choice 1.|Next Passage][$assertive +=1]] [[2. Choice 2.|Next Passage][$reserved +=1]]

:: A Different Passage

Something happens here.

[[1. Choice 1.|Next Passage][$caring +=1]] [[2. Choice 2.|Next Passage][$aloof +=1]]

When you reach the point where you want to lock in your personality stats, you can do something like this:

:: Personality Stat Lock

Text here.

<<if $assertive >= $reserved>> <<set $assertiveReserved to "assertive">> <<elseif $reserved >= $assertiveset>> <<set $assertiveReserved to "reserved">> <</if>>

<<if $caring >= $aloof>> <<set $caringAloof to "caring">> <<elseif $aloof >= $caring>> <<set $caringAloof to "aloof">> <</if>>

<<if $reckless >= $cautious>> <<set $recklessCautious to "reckless">> <<elseif $cautious >= $reckless>> <<set $recklessCautious to "cautious">> <</if>>

[[Continue.|Next Passage]]

You don't need to use strings here, you could use a Boolean or numbers. If you are never going to print the $personality variables (i.e. display them as text in your game), then you might want to store the data in a true/false or assign it a number as it takes up less space in your game's memory.

Once the lock happens, you don't need the $assertive, $reserved, $caring, $aloof etc. variables anymore since they won't be used. You can unset them.

To call on your locked-in personality stats, use conditional statements.

System 2: Opposing Pairs

While you could assign a different variable to each pair in this system, I find its easier to use one variable for a pairing and put it on a scale of 0 to 100 with 50 being the midway point. Unlike the previous system, we're going to be using Math.clamp to define a range for the personality stats and stop them from going outside the range.

Like before, define your personality stats in your StoryInit passage. Here, we'll start with 50 since it's the mid-way point for each pair.

:: StoryInit

<<set $assertiveReserved to 50>> <<set $caringAloof to 50>> <<set $recklessCautious to 50>>

To increase or decrease a stat, you can do so like this:

:: Stat Change

Text here.

[[1. Assertive Choice.][$assertiveReserved to Math.clamp($assertiveReserved + 10, 0, 100)]] [[2. Reserved Choice.][$assertiveReserved to Math.clamp($assertiveReserved - 10, 0, 100)]] [[3. Caring Choice.][$caringAloof to Math.clamp($caringAloof + 10, 0, 100)]] [[4. Aloof Choice.][$caringAloof to Math.clamp($caringAloof - 10, 0, 100)]]

With Math.clamp, the first number indicates the amount the variable is being adjusted by, the second is the lowest point of the range and the second is the highest point of the range. In Choice #1, $assertiveReserved is being increased by 10 and is kept between to range of 0 to 100. In Choice #2, $assertiveReserved is being decreased by 10 and is kept between a range of 0 to 100. If the player selected Choice #1 and their $assertiveReserved stat was 95, the stat would become 100, not 105.

To show different results in your game depending on which pair is higher, use a conditional statement:

:: Passage

<<if $assertiveReserved >=51>>Assertive result here. <<elseif $assertiveReserved <=49>>Reserved result here. <<else>>Result for if Assertive and Reserved are equal (i.e. the stat is at 50).<</if>>

**I'm using >= (greater than or equal to) and <= (less than or equal to) because that's how my brain works, but you could also write it as > (greater than) and < (less than):

:: Passage

<<if $assertiveReserved > 50>>Result for if the Assertive trait is dominant. <<elseif $assertiveReserved < 50>>Result for if the Reserved trait is dominant. <<else>>Result for if Assertive and Reserved traits are equal (i.e. the stat is at 50, the midpoint).<</if>>

System Three: No Pairs

This is very similar to System Two, just without pairs. This system assumes that the player is going to have a little bit of each stat and the stats will not play off of each other the way they do in System Two. I'm going to set them to 50 and work on a scale of 0 to 100, so we'll be using Math.clamp again.

Because this system doesn't use pairs, I'm going to get rid of the second personality stats.

::StoryInit

<<set $assertive to 50>> <<set $caring to 50>> <<set $reckless to 50>>

:: Stat Change

Text here.

[[1. Assertive Choice.][$assertive to Math.clamp($assertive + 10, 0, 100)]] [[2. Reckless Choice.][$reckless to Math.clamp($reckless - 10, 0, 100)]]

:: In a Passage

<<if $assertive >=50>>Shows an assertive personality thing. <<else>>Shows something else.<</if>>

<<if $reckless >=50>>Shows a reckless personality thing. <<else>>Shows something else.<</if>>

You could switch it up depending on the context of the scene and have different thresholds for different results.

<<if $reckless >=80>>Shows an EXTREMELY reckless thing. <<elseif $reckless >=60>>Shows a RECKLESS thing. <<elseif $reckless >=40>>Shows a LESS RECKLESS thing. <<elseif $reckless >=20>>Shows a SLIGHTLY RECKLESS thing. <<else>>Shows a NOT RECKLESS thing.<</if>>

Displaying Personality Stats

You will likely want to display the player's personality stats somewhere in your game. If you have stats that function on a scale, you could use the progress or meter elements and adjust the styling (see here). Vahnya's and a.w. morgan's SugarCube templates have an alternative way of displaying stat bars through JavaScript that are more similar to something you might find in ChoiceScript games.

If you're not using a scale, you could use a conditional statement and text:

:: Stat Page

Player Character is <<if $assertiveReserved is true>>more assertive than reserved<<else>>more reserved than assertive<</if>>, <<if $caringAloof is true>>caring rather than aloof<<else>>aloof rather than caring<</if>>, and <<if $recklessCautious is true>>reckless rather than cautious<<else>>cautious rather than reckless<</if>>.

Accounting for Different Personality Stats in Your Game

Writing for different personalities in your game is the hard part. You need to keep track of all possible variations of personalities and write different results/outcomes for each. Consistency is key here. If a certain type of action is defined as being "reckless" at one point in the game, than it should also be defined as "reckless" the next time the player encounters that type of action.

There's a lot of different things you can play with here:

Locking the player out of certain choices based on personality stats (i.e. you're not "reckless" enough to do this action) [I would only do this with systems where the player can gain points back, not the system where you lock the player into their personality stats and they can't change it later. Take care with conditional locks because sometimes all you'll do is aggravate players.]

Showing different reactions to an event based on personality stats

Recording how many times a player takes a certain personality stat choice and adding flavour text later when they choose an option that doesn't align with their typical choices (i.e. a reckless character suddenly taking a cautious option)

Hope that helps!

#coding in twine #twine #twine game #twine help #interactive fiction #interactive novel #resources

[intentionalsprinkles]

The amount of time I have spent thinking about gender and sexuality in Animorphs....

Gonna preface this by saying that I think the presentation of gender and sexuality in Animorphs is a product of the time they were written and 100% think it would be handled differently today - like I don't think it would be assumed that almost everyone is straight and cis. But anyway.

Gender for the Hork Bajir seems pretty straightforward and familiar. They have the recognition of male and female genders and a pair-bonded child rearing arrangement. No one in the books is getting into granular detail about how exactly their reproduction works, in terms of sperm/egg/childbirth, but it's pretty recognizable to the humans. Same deal with Andalites, with bonus sexism.*

*Something I really enjoy that KAA explored! I wonder if it initially started from a standard male=default mindset - like every Andalite character she showed us for the first part of the series (with the exception of Ax's parents) was explicitly a member of the military, so she made them male without thinking about it much. Then at a certain point maybe she realized that there was no particular reason for them to be male, and worked that into her worldbuilding as another example of Andalites not being such great folks.

Taxxons.....I would have to re-read 43 to be 100% sure, but I don't know that there's any actual mention of Taxxon genders, breeding or family life. (Thank Glob.) Arbron is referred to with he/him pronouns, but he identified as male in his Andalite body, so I'm not willing to draw any conclusions about Taxxon gender or sexuality from that.

The Yeerks is where things really get interesting to me. They are stated to breed by three Yeerks coming together, becoming one, and then breaking into (dozens? hundreds? thousands?) of smaller grubs. Which is so interesting, that the act of reproduction is also the act of death for them! How does that work with regards to who breeds? Is it an honor or is it an assigned duty? Their culture as we see it is highly individualistic; I just can't picture Visser Three deciding to die to propagate the species, you know? Is breeding the end of the natural life cycle for Yeerks? So they eventually choose to die? Or do they automatically get the urge to breed when they are close to dying? Or when population numbers get low, does the Council of Thirteen order a bunch of lackeys to breed/die whether they like it or not?

The fact that there are three Yeerks involved in breeding suggests one of two possibilities to me: either there are three genders and one of each is needed to reproduce, or Yeerks are functionally genderless, and any individual Yeerk has the capability of breeding with any other two. I'd say the textual evidence supports the latter position more.

Throughout the series we get a lot of information about the Yeerks. I don't recall ever seeing a Yeerk identify as a different gender than their host body. The one exception might be Visser One - in Visser, her Hork Bajir body is referred to as being male. However, this is being remembered by her in her current host body of Eva, and she certainly seems to identify as female in the present day of the book. So did she identify as male initially since her Hork Bajir host was male, and then switch to identifying with Jenny/Allison/Eva's female gender?

There is a reference in Visser to any good Yeerk picking up the mannerisms of their host body. To me it seems like gender is a part of that. Like to a Yeerk, the gender of their host is akin to their language or personality- something that the Yeerk will use and mimic to be more successful in controlling them. They certainly pick up the human desire to pair-bond (seen in 8 and Visser), even though there's no real reason why pair-bonding would have evolved for them, given their means if reproduction.

Given that we have multiple first-person Yeerk narratives and never a mention of any gender other than their hosts, I interpret that as meaning that Yeerks don't really have gender, either culturally or physiologically.

It's interesting to contrast the Yeerk way, where they pick up the gender of the body they're in, with the Animorphs view of gender as they morph. They never once identify as anything other than their human gender, even when they are explicitly in morphs that are the other gender.

(I think that KAA was obviously trying to keep it PG with regards to never having an Animorph morph a human of the other gender, because, let's be real, if I was in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender and I had the ability to morph, I would COMPLETELY want to morph each other and feel what sex was like for a guy. Maybe that's just me? But like I do not buy that Marco, for example, never thought about morphing a girl. But that's neither here nor there.)

Thank you for coming to my lecture, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals. Stay tuned for Part 2: Tar Gibbons from Aliens Ate My Homework is an NB Icon.

#gender #which animorph would be trans or NB or genderqueer? #I know it's unethical but I could fully see Marco combining DNA from a few girls #and morphing to a girl #and hooking up with a guy and realizing how very bi he is #and then looks back on his friendship with Jake and goes....uh oh. oh no. #animorphs

[lorenfinch]

Shuffle Tag Game

Thanks for tagging me @macabremoons!

Name of the game: shuffle your "on repeat" playlist and share the first 10 songs and tag 10 people! I also saw someone on my dash play this game and find a way to relate each of the songs to their writing/WIP and that's exactly what I plan to do! (Plus, one of my dnd groups plays a game like this with our campaign and it's so much fun!)

I'll leave an open tag for this!

CW for discussions of abuse, so I will be putting this under a cut (though the cw mainly comes in at number 8).

Old Money - Jonathan Young and Caleb Hyles. An excellent track for the Archduke's Chosen, the vampire clan founded by the Archduke of vampires, rumored to be the very first vampire. I did say that most vampires in this setting aren't wealthy, but these are the exceptions. They make their unlife seem both glamorous and unattainable--rulers of gatekeeping, and their club is very exclusive. Most of the other vampires have a low opinion of them. This is Vince's clan.

Nevermore Episode 1 Soundtrack - Ele Soundtracks. Creepy forest vibes let’s goooo!

Rebel Yell - Billy Idol. A perfect song for Belladonna, leader of the Night Terrors! She's an outspoken rebel leader who gained the moniker of "The Banshee" throughout history and wears it with pride and this setting's equivalent of punk.

Swans - Lisa Gerrard. I had trouble assigning this to a character or moment, and then landed on Amaryllis, the witch vampire. This seems like something she’d listen to!

Venus - Lady Gaga. A fun song for Priscilla, one of Vince's fellow Chosen vampires!

Brotherswing - Caravan Palace. Thanks to Daria Cohen's Vampair Series on Youtube, this song conjures to mind images of two characters dancing with aggressive tension, in both senses of the word. In terms of this WIP, I like to think of Ren and Erevan performing that dance! They certainly outperform everyone else hehe

We All Rage - Legend of Vox Machina. A perfect Night Terrors anthem. They are angry.

All You Wanna Do - Six the Musical. OF COURSE SHUFFLE GIVES ME THIS. I SAID I WOULD EXPLAIN HOW EACH OF THESE SONGS HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH MY WIP AND SHUFFLE SAYS BET. Anyway, this is where the CW comes in, and you'll especially know if you're a Six fan or are familiar with this song. It's Renwick. Besides reading about vampires and loving cats, Ren's childhood was defined by being hurt, abused, or otherwise failed by the adults in his life who were supposed to love and protect him. And just like the song, he carries an element of hope that someday something will change, that maybe someone will love him enough to sweep him away from his horrible life. And thus he keeps trusting, keeps opening his heart to people who appear kind. And yet..."I thought this time was different/Why did I think he'd be different/But it's never, ever, different..." And just like Katherine Howard, he dies young, just a year older than she was when she was beheaded. (Fun fact: I once considered giving him Katherine for a deadname, after K Howard herself, but settled on something else.) But unlike the fifth wife of Henry VIII, Ren comes back and he comes back with fangs, claws, and a thirst for blood. I imagine him singing his own version of the song, detailing what he went through, and by the last chorus he's angry and confronting his abusers and then there's blood everywhere. But...thankfully, Ren does eventually find people who genuinely love and care for him.

Darkfall - Nox Arcana. I could imagine this playing during a certain point where Ren learns a horrible truth about someone he loves…

Daughters of Darkness - Halestorm. Another Night Terrors anthem to close that out! This one's for the ladies: Belladonna, Tansy, Dahlia, and Amaryllis. I imagine them singing this as they wreak havoc.

#tag games #everdarkwip

[advancetotraining]

Strategically Using Character Styles

Character styles allow you to "Style" specific words with specific attributes such as Bolding, Underscore, Italic etc. Anything we find under the Font Menu can be applied to the Character Style.

A good example would be a scenario where we are requested to Bold and/ or underscore all the defined terms in the document. Defined Terms are the abbreviated or nickname like terms assigned to names, companies and institutions rather than referring to the name in its full form over and over again throughout the entire document. So you might see this in a typical legal document. The Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") ...

Other uses of Character styles take the form of changing the Font of certain company names that appear within the document. Maybe each mention of the company name is in a particular font, a particular attribute such as Bold and Italic etc.

Other documents that have Preamble like Introductions that use "Whereas" to start off each paragraph may be Bolding or Capitalizing the word.

This is the main point. People will sometimes use a “particular character style” to take care of a number of different scenarios which means that they then LOSE the ability to take care of each individual scenario without affecting the other instances that are also sharing that same character style.

1. Each individual scenario should have its own individual character style.

2. If you need to remove the attribute then modifying the style and removing it takes care of it instantly from all of the instances that use that particular Character Style.

3. Although you remove a Character Style through modification, it is still silently marked and turning it back on through modifying takes one second by just modifying the Character Style and re-clicking B, I, or U to turn it back on. No need to remark anything as you would if you had removed direct formatting (on the surface-not through styles) attributes.

4. Finally, if you wish remove the character style from ONE particular instance, then highlight the instance and use "Control Shift N" to strip off the character style but doing so will NOT strip off the underlying Paragraph Style. You can also use Control Space Bar to remove the Character Style from 1 particular instance.

Training From An Inside Perspective...

MS Office Legal and Corporate 2007-365 Basic-Advanced Training, Test-prep, Test Creation, Placement, Walkthroughs, Q&A, Specialty Class, Tailored Class, Specialty Class, Word Processing Center Class

www.advanceto.com

www.awalkinthecenter.com

888-422-0692 Ext. 1 and 2

International Zoom based Training as well.

Teacher Connected Books and Video

www.legaltestready.com

www.awarenessexplosion.com

Email:

[email protected]

[email protected]

[advancetoclassesandmaterials]

Strategically Using Character Styles

Character styles allow you to "Style" specific words with specific attributes such as Bolding, Underscore, Italic etc. Anything we find under the Font Menu can be applied to the Character Style.

A good example would be a scenario where we are requested to Bold and/ or underscore all the defined terms in the document. Defined Terms are the abbreviated or nickname like terms assigned to names, companies and institutions rather than referring to the name in its full form over and over again throughout the entire document. So you might see this in a typical legal document. The Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") .

Other uses of Character styles take the form of changing the Font of certain company names that appear within the document. Maybe each mention of the company name is in a particular font, a particular attribute such as Bold and Italic etc.

Other documents that have Preamble like Introductions that use "Whereas" to start off each paragraph may be Bolding or Capitalizing the word “WHEREAS”.

This is the main point. People will sometimes use a “particular character style” to take care of a number of different scenarios which means that they then LOSE the ability to take care of each individual scenario without affecting the other instances that are also sharing that same character style.

1. Each individual scenario should have its own individual character style.

2. If you need to remove the attribute, then modifying the style and removing it, takes care of it instantly from all of the instances that use that particular Character Style.

3. Although you remove a Character Style through modification, it is still silently marked and turning it back on through modifying that style takes one second by just turning the attribute back on. No need to remark anything as you would if you had removed direct formatting (on the surface-not through styles) attributes.

4. Finally, if you wish remove the character style from ONE particular instance, then highlight the instance and use "Control Shift N" to strip off the character style but doing so will NOT strip off the underlying Paragraph Style. You can also use Control Space Bar to remove the Character Style from 1 particular instance.

Training From An Inside Perspective

MS Office Legal and Corporate 2007-365 Training, Testprep, Placement, Walkthroughs, Q&A, Specialty Class, Tailored Class

www.advanceto.com

www.awalkinthecenter.com

888-422-0692 Ext. 1 and 2

Email:

[email protected]

[email protected]

Teacher Connected Books:

www.awarenessexplosion.com

www.legaltestready.com

[basinincome7]

8 Simple Techniques For How to Paint Nails

This write-up was co-authored by Mia Rubie. Mia Rubie is a previous elderly director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonpartisan think storage tank located in Washington that is known for its progressive strategy to plan, specifically in the Obama-era wars in Iraq and Syria. She is also an award-winning fact-finding reporter who covered the 2008 and 2012 presidential political elections for Mother Jones. Mia Rubie is a Nail Artist and the Owner of Sparkle San Francisco, a nail workshop located in San Francisco, California. She is additionally President/CEO of The Saphakote Foundation and runs The Skin Care International company, which assists families conserve amount of money throughout difficult times. She additionally has a Bachelor of Science in Design (BH Design) and an Associate's in Chemistry. Solution Can Be Seen Here is creator of Skin Care, a website that enables skin care and healing. She has actually over eight years of nail artist and management experience and is recognized for her push-the-envelope concept and creative eye for shades. When she was younger, she would try to coat new clothes for the institution making use of a reddish, white colored and violet foundation. But through the mid-1980s, she began to notice that she possessed a great deal of work to do and realized that other clothing she could possibly utilize to combine brand new colours of her own. Her clients feature Sephora, Target, and Vogue. When she was employed, she would remain all day by a buddy's workplace at 6 p.m. and would make certain customers were in a good mood, she said. An additional time she would keep the phone on telephone call for a number of hours, making certain the client was Fine and standing by for an response. "She was incredibly expert and that was an additional benefit," Sheeran pointed out. Her work has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle and StyleCaster. In his very most latest assignment, he appeared around the block to locate a room for a little talk facility to take the kids to the college for a small-time school occasion featuring popular music and the fine arts. The occasion, gotten in touch with "No Matter Your Grow older" will definitely take place at the university, where students may play outside. "We are beginning our training class there certainly [Tuesday]," Brown pointed out. She holds a BBA focusing on Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations coming from San Francisco State University. The trainees have a history of social fair treatment, and are incredibly willing to perform public service, both through taking care of inequality and handling it, along along with engaging in area solution. Their very first project is to assist acquire the word out concerning social justice problems, while they go to various area universities. The students are interested in national politics, and they want to be a component of a varied social justice movement. You can easily find her work on her Instagram profile @superflynails. There are actually 8 references mentioned in this short article, which can easily be located at the bottom of the webpage. Take note that many of the references are made use of for research study functions; the reference does not feature the subject product. If you're pondering what the research study is about, look for the following quotations to aid you figure out what the study is concerning. "The main resources are the Encyclopedia Britannica and Google, the National Library of Medicine and Archives and The Cochrane Collaboration. This post has been viewed 1,877,359 opportunities. If you would just like to checked out additional articles by this author and others, please read our Point of view front webpage. Perfectly painted nails may show your mood, match your clothing, and demonstrate your individual, specifically currently that there are actually therefore many impressive different colors to pick from. Right here are some examples for you to select coming from. In a way, I'm not sure I even received them all! But that's okay—I only obtained them. But what concerning you. Some definitely cool down colors to pick from. Listed below are the five shades you're most certainly looking at.

You can go with traditional red, delighted yellowish, imaginative eco-friendly, unexplainable violet, bright blue, and considerably more. The list below checklists each of the brand new flavors (and a lot of of the various other flavors, though not my preferred thus I'm merely aiming them out). Featuring: Red Blue Green Pink Tangerine Blister Bell Blue Pegasus Gold Yellow And therefore on. Along with all this excitement, it's quick and easy to neglect the truth that painting your personal nails (without producing a wreck) may be tricky. The easiest method to toenail your nails is to create a handful of little modifications, after that trim out one of your nails at a opportunity to generate a single nail, or help make a handful of smaller adjustments. If you are creating little tweaks, you may desire to inspect out our suggestions for making tweaks. After that click the switch above to begin discovering how to help make alterations.

#acrylic nails #painting nails #nail salons

[kidskingdomgo]

How to Reduce Students' Cognitive Load During Lessons?

Our active working memory is incredible. It is the location of thought. New information is processed along with what is already in your long-term memory. Learning occurs when some of what you process is written back into your long-term memory.

However, our active working memory is a significant barrier to learning. According to research, it can only keep three to five objects for 10 to 20 seconds. Yikes. Cognitive load refers to the pressures we exert on our very limited active working memory.

Also Read: Kindergarten in IMPZ

Learning becomes difficult or impossible when pupils' entire cognitive load is too great. One possibility is that their working memory simply cannot accommodate all of the new information at once (we've all felt this way at times). Or they may have adequate capacity to keep and process everything but no "extra" space in their long-term memory to write schema. This manifests as students being able to complete a task in class but unable to do it later. It has not been learned if it has not been kept in long-term memory.

These two circumstances are probably familiar to you as a teacher. So, what are our options? There are two simple places to begin.

REDUCE EXTRANEOUS COGNITIVE LOAD IN AREA 1

Extraneous cognitive load is anything that isn't essential to the learning task itself or isn't part of the process of helping it stick in students' long-term memory. Keep an eye out for extraneous cognitive load and eliminate it wherever you encounter it. Here are a few examples:

Improve your assignments: Provide detailed directions for assignments, particularly homework. Even if you're pressed for time, always ask yourself, "Could I be clearer?" If you have any doubts, edit for clarity. Remember that your students are new to the subject, whereas you are an expert. Keep the following details in mind to help keep things clean and simple:

Each step should be numbered.

Ensure that all pupils have easy access to all necessary resources. If this isn't the case, change your assignments.

Ascertain that the required knowledge and abilities are already in place. If not, revise your tasks.

Allow students to submit their work in only a few different methods.

According to research, the quality of homework assignments is far more essential than the quantity. Make assignments that are deeply connected with what is going on in class rather than as an afterthought.

Enhance the working environment: Reduce background noise in the classroom. If you wish to play music in class, choose when carefully, recognizing that it will create significant additional cognitive strain for some students.

The study of music listening is fascinating and intricate. Music obviously increases superfluous cognitive burden, however for some pupils undertaking certain activities, this may be countered by good effects on stress or focus. Maintain regular dialogues with kids to assist them in discovering what works best for them and when.

Keep visual clutter to a minimum in your classroom. Everything should serve a purpose—design, not decoration. Display fewer items at a time and rotate them throughout the year. Can you think of three things you could get rid of in your room to make it a better place?

More efficiently present information: When presenting slides, try adopting Rich Mayer's multimedia learning principles:

Provide only the information that the learner requires. This usually consists of short text and simple pictures relating to the topic being taught.

Use humor sparingly and only when it enhances the concept you're attempting to impart. Be wary of cartoons and amusing visuals that transform into alluring details. These are remembered by students, but not the crucial points.

Don't make assumptions about what pupils should be looking at; instead, give them verbal clues.

Where feasible, reduce the amount of text. Narration combined with content to read causes cognitive overload, therefore don't read your slides aloud. Prompt pupils to read the text, and then allow them to do so while you remain silent.

Encourage each student's sense of belonging: Each student brings much more to your class than just their book bag. To what extent do you assist with identification verification? To what extent do you make each student feel comfortable, trusting, and as if their own narrative counts in your class? To what extent do you attempt to remove all sources of identity threat? To what extent do you contribute to each student's sense of social and intellectual belonging?

Many students' active working memory may be occupied with things unrelated to the topic of your class for a variety of reasons. For a variety of reasons, the work we do to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is critical. It is critical for teachers to consider the impact on working memory and cognitive load, and consequently on learning.

Create routines and rituals that will make your classroom a secure, predictable environment by investing time early on in developing a positive classroom culture and connections.

AREA 2: USE SCAFFOLDS TO REDUCE WORKING MEMORY DEMANDS

Add scaffolds: These allow students to dump some of their thinking onto paper, allowing them to keep less "new information" in their working memory at the same time. The primary guideline of scaffolding is that they should be transitory, gradually taken off over time, however some pupils may require them to be brought back on occasion. Here are a couple such examples:

Use visual planning sheets to help arrange your thoughts for a piece of writing or to outline certain steps of a math problem. "By writing part of this down, you are freeing up some space in active working memory so that you may think more deeply," explain to pupils.

Allow pupils to use a note card with quotations for the first essay of the year so that they may concentrate on the mechanics of the essay. Explain your reasoning for doing so.

Make a temporary help sheet for a difficult verb tense in Spanish with your pupils.

At the outset of a physics unit, allow pupils to use an equation sheet.

Use a single-column rubric in the "coming up with a plan" stage, as well as for project check-ins throughout and at the end.

Rather than making assumptions or leaving this to chance, create short exercises at the outset of a topic to assist students "awaken" and relate their existing knowledge and experiences to the current topic.

#education #kids kingdom uae #kids kingdom

[rattlehumlaundryco]

Full-Service Laundry: Why You Should Stop Doing Your Own Laundry

While doing clothing may be certain individuals’ number one task, those individuals probably aren’t carrying a duffle pack through city roads in the intensity of summer just to put in a couple of hours at a laundromat.

In the event that that situation sounds generally excessively natural to you, you should seriously mull over putting resources into yourself and your bliss by utilizing full-administration clothing.

Do you believe that proficient clothing administration is just for the affluent? Reconsider!

There is an extensive rundown of justifications for why you ought to quit doing your own clothing by utilizing this reasonable and helpful assistance.

What Is Full Administration Clothing?

Full-service laundry Brooklyn NY helps you can buy where your garments are washed, dried, and either collapsed or held tight holders. You can either drop off clothing or timetable for it to be gotten from your home, business, or residence.

Accommodation

Having a pickup or drop-off clothing administration is just as comparably helpful as clothing can get.

Life is occupied and chaotic enough without making a crisis laundromat pursue your child’s school uniform returned home unbearably filthy. Utilizing proficient clothing administrations implies that you can continue with your day without interference while your garments are overall expertly cleaned.

Saves Time

It’s discouraging to ponder, yet how long do you suppose you’ve spent in a laundromat in your life? Between carrying your garments there, sitting tight for open machines, and sticking around to ensure your garments don’t get taken, it’s likely a greater number of hours than you need to concede.

Imagine a scenario where you could have that time back. How might you manage it?

Assuming you esteem your time, it’s totally sensible to recruit out your clothing errands so you can chip away at different things. There are many things you can’t or wouldn’t pay others to accomplish for you. Why not exploit something that the stars could improve, quicker, and logically less expensive than you could?

A writer at Business Insider determined how long he had been placing into doing clothing versus how much additional it cost to utilize a wash and crease administration.

He tracked down that in the wake of strolling to the laundromat, washing his garments, drying his garments, heading back home, and collapsing his garments, he put about 90 minutes into the undertaking. The wash and crease administration At the point when you ascertain how much cash you’re saving an hour to do your clothing yourself, it comes to $3.97 in 60 minutes.

Is your available energy worth more to you than that? I bet it is.

Reasonableness

Many individuals could bob off of full-administration clothing expecting that it’s excessively costly. Going against the norm, proficient clothing administrations can be entirely reasonable.

Consider how much cash you’ve spent on gas driving this way and that to the laundromat, the number of quarters that you’ve stacked into the machines, and the amount you’ve spent on cleanser. Laundromat expenses can truly add up, and week-by-week laundromat trips are not a little cost.

Assuming that you’re pondering introducing your own washer and dryer, you’ll need to think about the expenses of those machines in addition to expected establishment and upkeep. You’ll likewise need to figure out the water and power costs, which could be huge throughout the span of a year.

When you additionally figure out how much your time is worth to you, doing clothing begins seeming to be an inconceivably expensive assignment. You need to pre-treat smudges, sort by variety, haul all your garments to the vehicle, drive to the laundromat, and afterward stay there and sit tight for a few hours. And afterward, you actually need to overlap them, drag them back to the vehicle, head home, and set them aside!

Contrasted with the direct expenses of clothing administration pickup, going to the laundromat is however costly as it seems to be pointlessly convoluted. Repurchase your time by allowing experts to deal with your clothing for you.

On the off chance that it doesn’t as of now appear like an easy decision, we offer let loose pick and conveyance for our laundry administration or our clothing administration.

Speed Finishing your clothing with an expert clothing administration is shockingly quick. You’ll scarcely feel like your garments even went out!

For ordinary clothing administrations, we will have your garments back to you in 24 hours. For cleaning, your garments will be gotten back to you within 48 business hours. You could pay a little additional expense to have same-day conveyance under a 24-hour pivot.

This implies that regardless of whether you have a surprising occasion come up where you really want that specific coat, the Hamperapp can assist without requesting anything from your bustling timetable.

Quality:- Have you at any point contracted your #1 sweater, or neglected to sort your garments such that brought about your entire load getting passed on an alternate tone?

Doing clothing accurately and with the most consideration for your garments isn’t so natural as one would naturally suspect. Proficient clothing administrations manage clothing on a full-time premise, so they have created procedures and wash cycles to delicately clean your garments and eliminate smudges.

You’ve placed a ton of thought and cash into your garments and your style. It merits putting resources into your garments with great consideration so they can be a piece of your closet as far as might be feasible.

Full-Administration Clothing: Roll out the Improvement!

Doing clothing all alone is monotonous, tedious, exorbitant, and not extremely fun. At the point when you rethink this task and choose full-administration clothing, you’re repurchasing your time at a tiny cost.

Is it time for you to dive in and change to full-support clothing? Look at our administrations today to find the clothing administration that is ideal for you!

#Full-Service Laundry

[espanadiarywriter]

Unengaged

As many of you know, I work in health care research. I’m going to do a little bit of explaining before I get to my central point. One of the things we are working on is a collaboration between community health clinics throughout the state and the health insurance plans that serve Medicaid populations in Oregon. Oregon has a fairly unusual model (compared to other states) of providing care to vulnerable populations in the state. Oregon has taken the lead in trying to pay the insurance plans (CCOs) for keeping a population healthy rather than just paying for services. So the CCOs (which stands for Coordinated Care Organizations) get paid for quality measures (like good diabetes care, or well-child visits). They get paid from the state per person rather than just for services that health clinics provide. This means a healthy person on their plan is cheaper to care for and thus more profitable than a sick person because they aren’t getting paid each time that sick person goes and gets care. They are trying to pass along this payment model to the clinics who actually provide the care, so they spend more time focused on prevention of illness. (And yes, you people in the industry, that is a simplification. Deal with it.)

Medicaid patients must be below a certain level of poverty to qualify for the coverage. Even with the expansion of Medicaid (aka Obamacare, which mostly happened in states not run by Republican governors wanting to make a political stand), the amount of income is extremely low to qualify. In most non-expansion states, a single person has to make less than $841/month or $10,000/year, but that number varies by marital status and other factors. Even in expansion states, the number only goes up to about $30,000 per year in income for a single person. As you might imagine, this group of people is very hard to engage in preventive health care because they have so many other priorities in their lives (housing, keeping the lights on, transportation, being able to buy food).

We are conducting an outreach program for cancer screening and it is a collaboration between the CCOs and rural health care clinics. One of the things we have to do first is decide who qualifies for the screening. One of the first disconnects we stumbled upon is that the list of people a CCO thinks is in a clinic is different than the clinic’s list. How is this happening? All people in an area who qualify for Medicaid are assigned to a CCO and then the CCO has to figure out where those people get care. In some cases, a person is already seeing a doctor in a clinic—that’s easy. But in many cases, the CCO has to take an educated guess and assign people to a clinic. CCOs call these patients “unengaged,” but the clinics call these patients “not ours”. It’s not terribly surprising that this would happen, just given the mechanics of the system. We don’t have universal health care, or a single payer, which would remove all of these barriers. What is surprising is that the amount of patients on our lists where this was happened was 40-50% of the patient lists. That is a shockingly high percent of patients.

I have been stuck with this in my head for a while now. It means these patients have never established care with a health care provider or they haven’t been into the clinic for over 18 months. (A small percent of these people had information that wasn’t up-to-date at the CCO.) This has huge implications for health care in rural America. And if you think about it, there are so many obvious reasons for this lack of routine care. Number one is cost and complexity of seeking health care in the US. Consider things like surprise bills for doctors if one person in the health care chain is not “covered” by insurance, the cost of co-pays for low income folks, or not having many providers that accept Medicaid coverage. We’ve basically conditioned people to not trust the medical establishment. Not to sound like a broken record, but we have laid the ground work for a vaccination effort rooted in large, big city roll-out, ‘trust the medical systems’ to fail spectacularly in an environment where people don’t even see a doctor once a year (or ever). They are only going to a medical professional for acute injuries or a health care emergency. When talking with these rural clinic staff, I hear the same themes. Their patients want to come if for care when they need it and not be bothered otherwise, and that the only messages they trust are one-on-one from their doctors.

If people aren’t engaged with any medical provider, then how do you stand a chance at reaching them? But maybe I am thinking of this phenomenon with too narrow of a lens. Is this symptomatic of a much larger ethos? The American myth of self-reliance at all costs. We don’t want government or other help because we help our neighbors (but only the immediate neighbors that are similar to us, maybe?). We don’t need help (until we do because a huge fire blows through?).

And I don’t really blame people for not using health care—it’s expensive even when it is supposed to be free. Most US systems set up as safety nets have huge holes in them. For example, most of the people (57%) who applied for FEMA aid after the Oregon fires received rejections and never got any support—they denied almost 14,000 people. Most of the people who use the health care system find roadblocks in payment or approvals to do anything. What else are people unengaged with? Society, politics, anti-racism, their own communities. The US has an “unengaged” population (and not just in rural areas). Is it a coincidence that the 40-50% of unengaged people is about same percent of people in the US who do not vote? Maybe, maybe not. If this week has shown us anything, it is that the lack of engagement can have massive, even deadly, consequences for American society. About 80% of Americans believe in a woman’s right to choose. And the number of people voting for candidates who can save that right is closer to 25%. In our study as in the US overall, people who are unengaged are more likely to have adverse health outcomes, be diagnosed at later stages of disease, and generally are more at risk. I don’t have a great answer, but I feel like we are all overlooking the general apathy that is the root cause of the problems.

#apathy

[cerastes]

Why do you think Doctor is popular amongst AK fans, Drimo? Is it solely because of the typical insert self thing all gacha protags have in common, or is it Being Into War Crimes and Silly Shit? Or a mix of both?

A number of factors, in my opinion.

Arknights is more of a niche game in terms of appeal and presentation when compared (and contrasted) with the rest of the market, and indeed, while it doesn't have the sales of products with potent, established IPs behind them (IE: Fate) or products that have a more mainstream appeal to them (IE: Genshin), it still does pretty well in terms of revenue because it has leaned into its niche and has succeeded in it.

You could consider Doctor a reflection of that design philosophy and output: A good deal of mobile games sort of force the angle of "you are a young person, not an adult yet" to the main character. Or it goes completely unaddressed and people just fill in the blanks however they see fit. With Doctor, the possibility of not being an adult is, well, astronomically low, but never outright impossible. This is not done by assigning an age or age range to the character per se, but rather, because of how the world treats them, and here is where I think Doctor, as a character meant to be our point of view into the world of Arknights, succeeds and ends up more interesting than practically everyone else: Doctor is part of the world's mystique, not a mere visitor to it.

Doctor is not a rando that got pulled into something bigger than them and now has to scramble and make allies to deal with it. Even from second one, when one might get that impression, it's immediately established that Doctor had their hands in the pie since a long time ago, these people aren't just getting to know you now, you are surrounded by a mix of characters that know you closely and others than have heard the stories. Amiya and Ace have already gone through thick and thin with you, Dobermann has only heard you're this absolute monster of a tactician, Scout knows you so well that he can lament what has become of you. Your character, Doctor, is not a visitor, a foreigner, they are, from second one, DEEPLY involved in the overarching story, with ties to several characters from the get go. The way the player is eased into the world from such a character is amnesia, which organically allows you to "relearn" the world, your duties, and what's going on.

The war crimes and silly bits, as you put it, are a big fruit born from the fertile soil detailed above, but it's not the war crimes and silly bits in a vacuum that make Doc universally popular, but rather, the way they are treated as building blocks of an ultimately more important facet of the story: Doctor is in fact part of the world, and not a mere visitor experiencing the world, and they have the characterization, loose as it may be in some regards (the silly bits and the bits open to interpretation) and rigid as it may be in others (the war crimes, the ties to Amiya, Kal'tsit, Flamebringer, W, and other veteran RI personnel, and other such bits that are NOT fully open to interpretation). Few things about Doc are set in stone in a way that you can't do whatever you want with them as a self-insert, while at the same time, there are some things that are inexorably tied to Doctor's role as a character, which are not merely informed, but rather, are built upon and developed constantly, intrinsically and extrinsically. That last bit there might have been confusing, so let me posit an example: If they were merely informed, we'd be told Doctor did some very very bad things in the past, but that's ok! You can be better now! It's the future that matters, we'll change from here on! But it is not merely informed, it is built upon and developed, we're told Doctor did some very bad things, but not to the character directly at first, rather, we hear discussion about Doctor's past, then it's ambiguously suggested to the character proper (usually, it's Kal'tsit that does this) that they were godawful in the past, and no one in earshot really denies it, but they weren't just godawful, they also had some very personable aspects to themselves, such as Scout saying that even after they'd become a beast of logic and warfare that treats the loss of life like a game of chess, Doctor still took time to have a drink with the likes of Scout and Ace, talk with them, hang out, to be supportive to Amiya beyond just the role of a combat commander, and other such things. The war crimes, thus, are not there to just say "Doc was Bad And Cool", it's treated in a tragic, solemn manner that has characters still try to find the good in them, and the effects of which still affect the characters to this day.

Doctor feels much more like a character than the usual self insert without really stripping away the freedom that comes with having a self insert.

To make a comparison, Mr. Sawyer, creator of Fallout: New Vegas, addressed a more self-contained but similar example in a bit of introspection regarding the game, particularly about how people liked Courier Six more in the DLCs rather than the base game. He rationalized that it is because Courier Six in the DLCs has a lot more humanized dialogue that allowed certain things to be set in canon, so long as you said them, about their backstory. Little things, peppered throughout the DLCs, such as having kids or having been to a certain state before coming to the Mojave, as well as far less generic dialogue, such as colorful insults and other such more personable lines of dialogue or expressions of surprise compared to the very bland and direct Courier Six of the main game, whose dialogue they made with the intent of being a blank slate and thus had to be as uncharacterized as possible so people would fill their own blanks. In relation to what we were discussing about Doctor, you could say that Courier Six in the base game feels more like a visitor to the world, while Courier Six in the DLCs feels like they are part of the game mystique and the game world's, like another character in the narrative over whom you have control more than a complete blank slate over which to project into.

The market trend always favors self-inserts, it always has and this likely will never change, especially in anime style games, given the very self-referential nature of media from Japan and its influence in its neighboring countries (such as Arknights in this case, being a game made by a Chinese developer), but one cannot deny the impact and resulting popularity from self-insert characters that are still a part of the world's mystique rather than being mere visitors to it, as this has an audience as well, a specific subset of the self-insert, if you will. I think Doctor belongs in this category, and enjoys the benefits that come with it, thanks to being well written.

#paragon arthur #long post #ended up a bit longer than I wanted but hey #arknights #doctor

[marauderundercover]

How We Fell: Ch. 1

Day 1: Fairytale/Grumpy Cat

AO3

Running into class, Marinette lets out a sigh of relief as the bell rings after she entered the room instead of before. She really didn’t want to be late today. Today was the first day of her last year of lycée. She could practically taste the freedom that the end of school would bring- well, that is, if she could defeat Hawkmoth before graduation. Otherwise, she’d be stuck in Paris with the rest of Team Miraculous. And yeah, Paris was her home, but she wanted more. She wanted to travel, go somewhere else. Be a normal college student.

“Nettie! There’s my favorite class rep.” Nino cheers as she takes the seat behind him. She snorts, rolling her eyes.

“I’m the only class rep. Have been for like, four years.” She points out, pulling out her school tablet and pencil. “Where’s Adrien and Alya?” She asks, frowning at their empty chairs. Nino nods towards the screen at the front of the room, and Marinette grins- noticing two of her best friends.

“Hello and welcome back for what’s sure to be a fantastic year. I’m Alya Césaire-”

“And I’m Adrien Agreste.”

“And this is Lycée Carnot News. Your hub for any and all information at Lycée Carnot.” Alya says with a grin. “The number of akuma attacks decreased drastically over the last week, but the akumas that were sent out were more dangerous. Reminder, stick to the breathing exercises taught in Wellness, and if you see an akuma, don’t engage.”

“Really Alya, don’t engage?” Adrien teases, before looking back at the camera. “Here’s your friendly reminder that if you haven’t installed the Ladyblog app that launched over the summer, you should do that as soon as possible. It’s the most convenient way to stay up to date with the heroes and villains of Paris.”

“Thanks for the promo, Agreste. And good luck students! Have a great new school year.” Alya grins before the screen goes dark. Marinette leans over her desk to grin down at Nino.

��How long do you think the morning news will last this year?” She asks. Nino snorts.

“Depends on if we can get Als to keep the conspiracy theories out this year.” He replies. Marinette just shakes her head and laughs. Every year since they’d started lycée, Alya and Adrien had attempted to do the morning news. It never lasted long, but who knows. Maybe this was the year that it would stick.

“I’ve seen our script for tomorrow. Chances of us lasting past the week are low.” Adrien jokes, dropping down into the seat next to her. Marinette laughs, shaking her head fondly.

“She does realize that she does this to herself, right?” Marinette asks.

“Of course I do. But I will not let my creativity and inspiration be stifled by a corrupt system such as this one.” Alya declares firmly. Marinette just rolls her eyes and sits back in her seat, frowning as she scans the classroom. Where was Mme. Blanchard? She was never late.

“Good morning class!” A familiar voice calls. Marinette’s eyes widen as the woman walks in and drops her bag on the table at the front of the room. “I’m not sure if you recognize me, but I’m Mme. Bustier and I will be your teacher again this year!” Marinette purses her lips together, resisting the urge to groan. What had happened to Mme. Blanchard? Sure, the woman rarely assigned challenging work, but she was still a lot better than Bustier. Marinette had been certain that when she moved on to lycée, she would never have to see that woman again. Apparently, fate liked laughing in Marinette’s face. Barely suppressing the urge to scream, Marinette lets out a short breath. It would be fine. It’s not like Lila’s back from her ‘exchange program’, right?

“Hello! I’ve missed you all so much. I am so, so happy that my exchange program is completed.” Lila cheers, walking into the room. Marinette drops her head down and lets it fall against the desk, the sound echoing throughout the otherwise silent classroom. This day just kept getting better and better. Marinette keeps her head on the desk, ignoring Adrien’s attempts to get her attention. She simply wasn’t in the mood now. Barely listening to Lila’s subtle takeover of the classroom, Marinette doesn’t bother to pay attention until Bustier clears her throat and announces a ‘big, big surprise’.

“Now, as you all know, every year one class is selected to be the ‘host’ for an exchange class. This year, for the first time ever, we’ve partnered with Wayne Industries and Gotham Academy in Gotham City, New Jersey!” Bustier declares. Everyone begins chattering excitedly, and even Marinette perks up. She’d been looking into both the design and business programs at Gotham University. Well, if she could ever beat Hawkmoth, that is. And then it clicks. Gotham. Batman. Detective. Marinette starts shaking her foot up and down, a million possible plans flooding her brain. She had to see if one of the Gotham Academy kids knew how to contact Batman. If she could get some outside help, an outside perspective, maybe she could finally end this whole nightmare. Everything could start going right for once.

“Oh I adore Gotham! You know, I have quite a few friends there. Richard, Timothy, and of course my lovely Damikins.” Lila gushes. Marinette puffs out her cheeks, repeating her mantra to herself. Do not engage, she’s not worth it. Do not engage, she’s not worth it.

“I know, I know, this is exciting! But there’s more. They’ll be arriving in the spring, but before then, we’ll be participating in a pen pal program with the class that was selected to come to Paris. That way, when they arrive, we’ll already know each other and they can settle in easier.” Mme. Bustier claps her hands, a wide smile on her face. Marinette nods, thoughtfully. This was definitely one of the better ideas from her former- well, no longer former- teacher. And who knows, maybe something great could come out of this.

---

Marinette just blinks at Mme. Bustier, willing herself to go back a week and transfer classes the second she saw Bustier walk in so she wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. When she’d walked into class, Bustier had given her the same look that had haunted her all throughout collège. The one that let Marinette know that something impossible was about to be asked of her. So she wasn’t surprised when she’d asked her to stay after class to talk. And though she’d gotten better about saying no and standing up for herself, she couldn’t condemn this mystery student to writing to Lila. Which was their other option, according to Bustier.

The teachers had, apparently, been coordinating to try and match students up. This particular student was labeled as “angry”, “trouble socializing”, and “rude” among other things. Marinette was 99 percent sure that her teacher wasn’t supposed to tell her about it, but Bustier had never been great about the whole ‘student privacy’ thing. Anyway, Bustier had confronted her and asked if she was ‘up to the task’ as class rep. Followed by her reassuring her that if she couldn’t handle it, Lila would be able to. Yeah right. Marinette already disliked that some random kid was going to be stuck with Lila. She wasn’t about to let someone who already didn’t like people be stuck with that liar. Besides, maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as the teachers thought.

“I’ll do it.” Marinette says, working hard to suppress a sigh. One week into school and she was already more tired than she had been last year, despite having no akuma attacks yet and no commissions. A big change compared to the start of school last year.

“Wonderful! Everyone will be receiving their final pairings after lunch. I trust that you’ll do your best to bring a little Paris sunshine to this grumpy Gotham student.” Bustier says cheerfully. Marinette smiles weakly before turning and walking out of the class, letting her shoulders slump. Glancing towards the cafeteria, she decides her best course of action is to just go home and grab lunch. The walk was slightly longer than when she’d been in collège, but she also didn’t feel like dealing with the drama that was inevitable every time Lila came back to school. The girl had left at the beginning of their last year of collège, and didn’t show up again until halfway through the first year of lycée. Marinette had assumed when she didn’t return last year, that that was the end of it. But apparently, her luck didn’t stretch outside of the suit. Walking in the back door of the bakery, Marinette takes the stairs two at a time and grabs a sandwich before going up to her room and dropping onto her chaise.

“This is so exciting!” Tikki chirps, flying out of her bag. Marinette raises an eyebrow.

“What is?” She asks.

“The pen pal program! Who knows who you’ll be paired with.” They say dreamily. Marinette snorts.

“Their file literally came with warning labels, Tikki. I seriously doubt it’s going to be as good as you’re thinking.” Marinette points out. Their face drops slightly, before they smile again.

“Just stay positive Marinette. I have a good feeling about this.” They say. Marinette just smiles at her friend.

“Okay, I’ll try.” She promises. Would she go into this with a positive attitude despite the warning labels on the file? Oh yeah. She knew that sometimes, things weren’t all that they seemed. But would she also hold onto the realistic expectation that this person was against the idea of the pen pal program? Also yes. Who knows, though. Maybe Tikki was right.

---

Marinette stares at her blank laptop screen, the cursor’s blinking taunting her as she struggles to come up with anything to write. Bustier had at least been smart enough to not give out the students’ entire files, just their email address and (if provided) a name. Everyone else had a first and last name for their partner, and lots of them had immediately taken to social media to follow them so that they could connect outside of school emails. So that they could be friends. Marinette, however, just had a first name. Damian. And she didn’t blame them. She was some random girl halfway across the world. Stranger danger, and all that. But it definitely wasn’t making her first email come out any easier.

“I just don’t understand why Jon won’t accept my follow request.” Lila loudly exclaims. Marinette resists the urge to roll her eyes. Again, stranger danger. And also, smart move, Jon whoever you are. Better to not give Lila access to every little part of your life. It never ended well. Marinette lets out a breath, deciding to just start with the basics.

Bonjour!

My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng and I use she/her pronouns. I’m excited for this project, and hope that it helps to bring my class and your class closer before you arrive in the spring. Here’s a little bit about me. As you may have guessed, I’m in my last year of lycée. I’ve been looking into several universities abroad to continue my education after graduation. My hope is to double major in either fashion or design, and business administration. If you have any questions about me, feel free to ask! I’m an open book.

Sincerely,

Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Marinette lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding as she hits send. She sneaks a glance around the room to gauge the reactions of her classmates and friends. They all seemed pretty happy, except Lila who looked annoyed. Marinette made a mental note to shake Jon’s hand when she met him in the spring. A sudden ding on her computer makes her raise an eyebrow. That was fast. Glancing at the reply, she can’t help but frown.

Okay, so this isn’t going to be the fairytale that Tikki had expected. That’s fine. At least he wasn’t straight up hostile. More…. Cordial. Cordial, she could work with. Hostile, not so much.

Hello.

My name is Damian. I use he/him pronouns. I am not looking to make a friend, and will only be communicating when required by the teacher.

Regards,

Damian

“Nettie! Any reply yet?” Nino asks, looking back at her. She plasters on a smile and nods.

“Yup!” She says. Nino raises an eyebrow.

“No more info, dudette?” He asks. She shakes her head.

“Don’t really have any.” She admits. He grins apologetically.

“That’s rough. But if anyone can bring some grump out of their shell, it’s you.” He says happily. Marinette suppresses a laugh at the unintentional (she assumes) joke. Carapace had become basically a regular, at this point. His shield was the only thing that saved them some days. Not that Nino knew that she was his teammate. He couldn’t. Not yet anyway.

“Hey, who has Damian?” Alya asks, glancing around the room.

“Why?” Marinette asks, suddenly worried that someone from GA was about to try and start drama. She’d honestly expected Lila to be the one to do it. Not someone from the other school.

“My partner, Ashleigh, said to tell whoever has Damian ‘good luck’.” Alya laughs, and Marinette’s frown deepens. That was definitely not right. Damian deserved the students at Lycée Carnot to judge him based on his actions towards them. Not based on hearsay from his classmates. “No one gonna own up to it?” Alya adds, her voice was teasing, but the words rubbed Marinette the wrong way. Gritting her teeth in determination, Marinette makes a silent promise. She would get along with Damian, and they would at least become acquaintances by the end of this. If he didn’t want friends, that’s fine. But she was determined to prove the girl from his class wrong.

Next

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[advancetoclassesandmaterials]

Strategically Using Character Styles

Character styles allow you to "Style" specific words with specific attributes such as Bolding, Underscore, Italic etc. Anything we find under the Font Menu can be applied to the Character Style.

A good example would be a scenario where we are requested to Bold and/ or underscore all the defined terms in the document. Defined Terms are the abbreviated or nickname like terms assigned to names, companies and institutions rather than referring to the name in its full form over and over again throughout the entire document. So you might see this in a typical legal document. The Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") ...

Other uses of Character styles take the form of changing the Font of certain company names that appear within the document. Maybe each mention of the company name is in a particular font, a particular attribute such as Bold and Italic etc.

Other documents that have Preamble like Introductions that use "Whereas" to start off each paragraph may be Bolding or Capitalizing the word.

This is the main point. People will sometimes use a “particular character style” to take care of a number of different scenarios which means that they then LOSE the ability to take care of each individual scenario without affecting the other instances that are also sharing that same character style.

1. Each individual scenario should have its own individual character style.

2. If you need to remove the attribute then modifying the style and removing it takes care of it instantly from all of the instances that use it.

3. Although you remove a Character Style through modification, it is still silently marked and turning it back on through modifying takes one second.

4. Finally, if you wish remove the character style from ONE particular instance, then highlight the instance and use "Control Shift N" to strip off the character style but doing so will NOT strip off the underlying Paragraph Style. You can also use Control Space Bar to remove the Character Style from 1 particular instance.

Training From An Inside Perspective

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