here's how i spent my afternoon

full size cause i forgot that tumblr squashes things down

Okay, I’ve been planning this for a while, but I want to talk about the translator notes in Yona of the Dawn (the personal ones where the translator comments on the story, on the translations I’m reading) because they are absolutely fascinating. The next chapter is coming out soon, and the majority of the notes I’m going to talk about are chapters 180-229, so spoilers below the cut.

So first off, I want to say I love her little notes and the work she’s done on this translation. I feel like I’m reading it with a friend, and the words she uses do so much to convey the original story. This analysis is not meant to disparage the translator at all. I would have been making the same comments about five years ago, I’m sure. This disclaimer is that this post is meant to do nothing more than add some additional considerations that came to me after I read them. Here goes.

For some background, her notes are usually small, and usually comment on the Yona fandom more than anything else. Not verbatim, her comments are things like “all those people saying Il was a creepy cultist gonna eat those words” and “maybe this will knock Soo Won off people’s pedestal”. Nothing you wouldn’t find on tumblr.

But one of her comments put the rest of the comments into perspective for me. The chapter easily with the most translator comments was when Guen-Tae was monitoring the disputed lands that were reclaimed by some of Soo Won’s past exploits and he gets shot with arrows protecting a little boy we had met earlier in the story. Her comment goes something like: 

“As if this sacrifice makes up for him being a colonizer in the first place, but this is a shojo and everyone needs to have white hats and black hats. We’re just supposed to forget that he’s basically a warmonger who was literally enabling Soo Won’s plans for world domination just a few chapters ago. Nope handsome good guy, right here!”.

And this comment is so fascinating, because it literally contradicts itself! More than any other media I’ve encountered, Yona of the Dawn does not let anyone aside from our band of seven comfortably wear a ‘good guy’ badge. Every recurring character is incredibly complex and you cannot be comfortable labeling them good or evil as much as you want to. AND YOU REALLY WANT TO.

Seriously, come into my inbox and I will talk about any character in this series, their good and bad actions, and the flaws preventing them from achieving their goals. I might have to make a Soo Won post because I hate his guts and he is one of the most incredibly complex antagonists I have ever come across.

Which is why it is so fascinating that the translator is absolutely ready to put people in boxes and gets frustrated when the author doesn’t let her without realizing that’s exactly what is happening. I want to talk with her, because the author is doing the opposite of white and black hats, and better than anyone I’ve ever seen. 

The framing and action of Guen-Tae sacrificing himself when enemy soldiers aimed for the child is meant to be sympathetic, but you aren’t supposed to forget his other actions. He is the earth tribe general who spends most of his time, as far as the manga shows, sitting around complaining about not being able to go to war and kill people. He grew up a warrior that was expecting to be able to win the fame and glory of battle under Yu-Hon’s reign. He did fight in a couple of battles before Il stopped that, and gained some glory and the love of his people. 

But what’s a soldier supposed to do in a time of peace? He doesn’t question the murder of King Il because he wants to go to war. When Soo Won shows that during his reign wants to help the earth tribe and wants to go to war, (and some skill in battle tactics) Guen-Taw gives Soo Won his loyalty. 

This loyalty is tested against his idea of an honorable fight when he is put in the exhibition match against the dragon warriors that he was supposed to lose. You see it irritates him, he’s starting to chafe under being a puppet for Soo Won, but he bows head and you’re supposed to dislike that.  

His people adore him and his abilities as a warrior. 

His idea of war is a very honorable fight for glory/land/power/resources where you fight for your people (shown by refusing to reset when Soo Won offered during war game festival). 

His idea of war is in direct conflict to Yona’s experience, where people are tired of the same battles for the same blood-soaked ghost-filled land. 

You are supposed to be conflicted about him. 

Because he also cares deeply about the people that love him. He’s shown organizing rescues and resources for his miners. He absolutely loves his adorable pregnant wife and believes she’s capable of anything. He’s the only one left to tease Soo Won and the Sky General JooDoh about getting a girlfriend/wife. Lili loves him because she’s a derp attracted to older wild men. 

His wife just gave birth, and he’s taking time to talk to this small child that thinks he’s cool and is glad Kouka took back his village. It is absolutely in character for this guy to instinctively save a child from arrows. Interpersonally, he has a lot of charisma and care for the people immediately around him and believes in an honorable fight. 

The author wants you to be conflicted about him. Do you like him, even though he can be a pansy for Soo Won? Do you hate him, even though he sacrifices himself without hesitation for children? This is the opposite of black and white hats. 

You’re not supposed to forget his flaws. You’re supposed to further develop your own ideas of good and evil through him and every other character in this amazing story. 

The author makes other comments along the same vein. At one point she comments that she “wished Yona had confirmed with proof the government was the one who authorized the nadia selling, Kouka was still clearly the aggressor here and I’m really tired of the author calling this war justified.” 

Again, that’s the point! My goodness, the author got the translator because the translator engaged with the question “when is war justified?” and came up with a very nuanced answer.

But the translator missed the fact that the story does not in any way condone the war, just because our good guys are fighting in it. Our band of seven are prisoners here. South Kai delegates went to peace negotiations over the disputed land and intentionally poisoned one of the members with the intent of justifying a war. Soo Won wants to control the whole continent, believing that the only way to stabilize Kouka for a long time after he’s dead. You know it’s foolish to believe that Soo Won, even if he had the health to conquer the continent, believes that the region ALREADY embroiled in a civil war will be incorporated into their tiny neighbor. 

The author purposefully highlights the complex cultures, leadership personalities, economic resources, the awfulness of battle, and the beauty of courage and loyalty to fight for people you believe in. War here makes sense. It’s not justified, but you understand why it happened even when it isn’t justified. I could go on and probably will at some point, but I’ll end my thoughts addressing the translator comments here. This story refuses to let you sort people into “good people” and “bad people” and simultaneously makes you really, really want to. And that’s really what it means to grow up.

Pretty good for a shojo manga supposedly aimed at young women.

Time for today’s Rock Report, brought to you by Meriwether’s bistro! swing by for, breakfast, brunch lunch or dinner at Meriwether’s Bistro inside Hells Canyon Grand Hotel in Lewiston.Buy 1 Dinner entrée, receive the 2nd Dinner entrée for 25% OFF all through May at Meriwethers Bistro! Located inside the Hells Canyon Grand Hotel.

Skid Row recently released a music video for their latest single "The Gang's All Here," the title track from their upcoming album, due out on October 14 via earMUSIC. The band asked its fans to help create "The Gang's All Here" video by submitting live footage and photos from their recent 2022 concerts, as well as behind-the-scenes rehearsal moments. "By the fans, for the fans!" is the mantra for the video. "'The Gang's All Here,' for me, represents the brotherhood of this band," says Scotti Hill. "And with the addition of Erik [Grönwall], our bond is more solid than ever. Our fans have always been part of the family, so when it was time to shoot a video, we handed the camera work over to them. After all, they have the best perspective to capture the excitement of a Skid Row show."

The Alan Parsons Project have announced reissues of two of their platinum-selling albums, I Robot and Eye in the Sky, to mark the records' respective 45th and 40th anniversaries. Comprised of Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, the Alan Parsons Project released 11 albums during 1975 - 1990. I Robot, which came out in 1977, helped the duo break through in the U.S. The record's lead single, "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You," made it to the Top 40, while "Don't Let it Show," "Day After Day (The Show Must Go On)" and "Breakdown" also found radio airplay. Eye in the Sky, which arrived in May 1982, peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200, and the record's title track reached No. 3 on the Billboard 100. The song "Sirius," which became the introduction song for Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls, still has its presence in sports arenas around the globe. Eye in the Sky will be available as a 180-gram 45RPM two-LP package. I Robot will be available in the same format, as well as a 33RPM UltraDisc One-Step 180-gram LP box set.

Peter Gabriel one of the winners of this year's O2 Silver Clef Awards. Peter Gabriel won the big title prize - O2 Silver Clef - for outstanding contribution to music. "It's wonderful to see Nordoff Robbins using music to reach young people, who otherwise would feel much more isolated and vulnerable, and giving them a means of expressing their emotions," Gabriel said. The former Genesis musician revealed that he is working on a project called Reverberation - on the impact of music on the brain and body, adding that this award is "very timely."

Here’s the full sequence vid put together which shows the Jikook selfie being taken. twitter. com/heavenskm/status/1516986800069550080 JM stopped and was posing first. JK stopped and turned to look for JM while walking to the car (obviously to leave together) and he saw JM & appears this is when JK joined him. He really stayed back to wait & join JM and take a pic before they left. Then they agreed in the car on their way home from the airport and said let’s post it and watch the world burn.

Lol anon, love the freeform interpretation.

Well, we see how things rolled.

Now to a couple of asks I had in my box and was going to answer separately, but I think would be most appropriate to answer here.

To the anons that sent me the asks telling me that JM's photo was a promo:

I'm rofl here.

You know why?

I bet you wanna know...

I'll start with SO WHAT???

JM posted a cute pic of the two on his IG account, those two, not any of the others that were also wearing the merch.

The promo was them ALL wearing the merch during the concert.

Him posing for the pic could have been a pre planned promotion, but obviously JK joining him wasn't part of the plan.

There are a few options here:

It was pre-planned and both JM and the company posted.

It was a promo pic, that the company were supposed to post, and JM liked it and posted it too.

It was unplanned and JM liked the photo and posted.

It was unplanned and JM posted, so the company jumped on the band wagon and posted it too.

So, could or could not be a promo, and at the end of day it makes no difference what so ever.

My point, the reason I'm dying here laughing is what's coming next.

Let's say he did.

Let's say the whole thing is a big ass promotion.

Wow, big surprise (well, not to me, dah).

JM posting a promo photo on his public, company assigned, IG account.

So now the cult is screaming JM is posting a promo photo on what they have been screaming were their private accounts all this time?

When JK and JM weren't interacting on IG there was rejoice that the two are clearly not on speaking terms or close, because, well, these are clearly their private accounts and if they aren't interacting on them, well the conclusion is clear, right?

What have I been saying for months now, eh?

The IG accounts are work accounts!!!

They are not their private accounts.

These accounts are for the members to stay in touch with the fans, individually rather than as a group. It would usually be their choice what they post (which is why I'm really not convinced the photo was supposed to be a promo photo), but they have posted photos of themselves wearing sponsored merchandise over the past few months, so even if it is a promo, no surprise there either.

The hypocrisy is rampant here.

The IG accounts being their private accounts when it suits them, and in one second same said accounts are no longer private, but work accounts, anything to justify the JM JKK posted photo.

Just another example of the cult's 180 degree turnaround, story changing, to suit their narrative.

IG account private, no IG account work.

TKK closeted and hiding, no TKK are out and showing us all their undying love.

So, this is me here laughing at the once again idiocy.

Well, not only me...

At the end of the day it doesn't matter.

The photo, as we can see from the full clip was most likely unplanned.

It's a cute photo.

JM posted it.

And promo or not it's a fun addition to JM's IG account. His public work IG account!!!!!!

A Deafened Bard (Stephen Strange x Female!Reader) pt. 2

Doctor Strange and y/n confide their tragic backstories in one another. Y/n struggles with her feelings for him.

Trigger warnings: abusive parenting, use of firearms, discussion of death and grief, mention of alcoholism

"On the outside, always looking in

Will I ever be more than I've always been?

Cause I'm tap, tap, tapping on the glass-"

You stopped yourself before you could indulgently belt out the titular lyric.

"Ew, why was I singing that?" You muttered to yourself. "I don't even like that song." 

You knew, subconsciously, that it was because you were trying to avoid what you really wanted to sing. For the first time ever, you had an audience. Someone was paying attention. 

"Love of my life, you've hurt me-"

"Oh, come on, butterfingers." He interrupted. "Love of my Life by Freddie Mercury. Give me something hard." 

"I wasn't aware it was classic rock trivia night." 

"Then why were you staring straight at me while singing?" He smirked. 

"Was I?" You cocked your head, expertly deflecting his implication. "I'm so spaced out I don't even know where I'm looking." 

"It's Freddie Mercury." He insisted.

"Uh, yes and no." You corrected, drawing on your encyclopedic knowledge of Queen from one particularly weird summer in high school. "While Freddie Mercury wrote the song, it was recorded on a Night at the Opera. Which was accredited to the whole band." 

"That's a nitpick," he shook his head. "I'm still right." 

You couldn't wear your heart on your sleeve anymore. You could only distract him with 70s glam rock trivia for so long before he started to notice a pattern. Although a sappy love song was in your heart, you sang the anthem of the depressed theater kid. 

You were staring straight at him, though. But who wouldn't? You studied his features only for artistic inspiration. His sharp jaw and high, high cheekbones were… inspiring. 

You couldn't lie to yourself. You fell and fell hard.

"Butterfingers!" Master Strange called out from the other side of the sanctum. "I need you!" 

You dropped your pencil and pushed yourself out from the chair. "Coming!" 

You followed the voice into his chambers. This was a new development, you thought. Out of respect for his privacy, you'd never dared to snoop around in his bedroom. But this was practically a written invitation. 

The room was spotless. Not a book or a scrap of paper out of place. Nor was there much to look at at all. A handful of picture frames, some magazines from when he was a surgeon, all featuring himself on the cover. 

"Butterfingers!" He called again, as if he knew you were about to snoop.

"I'm here!" You yelled back, eyes wandering around the room. "What do you need?" 

"I left my watch somewhere in the library!" He sounded disproportionately panicked for what was just a minor inconvenience. "I need you to go get it for me." 

"What does it look like?" You asked. 

"It's a $27,000 watch." He snapped impatiently. "It looks like one." 

"Jesus." You cursed.

"Don't give me that shit, [F/N]." He ordered, slamming his fist down against the sink. "Just do what you're goddamn told." 

"Alright, alright!" You put your hands up. "Fine, I'll get it." 

You hurried down the stairs and into the library. On the floor between his favorite chair and a stack of musty old books was a slim, silvery watch with a plain black band.

You picked it up and examined it. Apart from the price tag, was there really any reason for him to be so worried about it? He knew exactly where he left it. Did he have reason to believe it wouldn't be there when he returned? 

All you needed to do was flip it over to get your answer. You read the inscription on the back. 

Time will tell how much I love you -- Christine 

You should have known that his massive ego wouldn’t keep the women away forever. Hell, it certainly didn’t deter you. Much uglier douchebags have gotten far prettier girlfriends than they deserved.

You closed your fingers around the watch and sighed. The fantasy you created for yourself, of slowly, deliberately earning his love was shattered. Christine already beat you to it, it seemed. You tried to smother the part of you that resented this person for her exclusive right to Master Strange's affections. You didn't know her, but you loathed her. And you felt filthy for it.

With a heavy heart, you brought the stupid, criminally expensive little timepiece back to its rightful owner. 

"Here's your all-important watch, master." You mumbled, placing it on the bedside table. 

"I know I told you I would give you space to question things," He said, swiping it from the table and expertly affixing it around his wrist. "But I'd really appreciate it if you didn't question this." 

You tried to sound as non-passive-aggressive as you could. You attempted a more forgiving tone, but you couldn't hide your hurt. "It's fine. I don't care." 

"I didn't mean to get short with you, [F/N]." His voice softened. "I'm sorry. But this watch-" 

"It's fine." You cut him off, peering at the floor. 

"It was a gift." He finished anyway. 

You felt the lump in your throat rising. You knew what the watch represented and you wanted to smash it to pieces. Along with the sting of rejection, you felt the sting of tears in your eyes. "I know. I saw the engraving."

"She died two years ago." He lowered his head. 

Suddenly, all your ill will towards this woman turned into guilt. 

"I'm sorry to hear that." You said. "I can't imagine what it's like to lose someone who loved you so much." 

"She had agreed to come to a speaking engagement with me. As a second chance, and-" Pain wrapped his voice. He closed his hand tightly around the watch and held it close to his chest. "Have you ever been in love before, [F/N]?"

From the way your heart ached, and how easily the thought of never being with him made you cry, you knew the answer. You'd been avoiding speaking it into being thus far, but you couldn't lie to yourself anymore.

"Yes." You whispered. 

"You'll learn soon enough." He muttered. "It only brings more suffering." 

The tears finally breached and you tried to blink them away. You didn't know what emotion was causing them: guilt, shame, contempt, anger, sadness-- they were all present.

"Master Strange, I-" you stuttered, tripping over your breath. "I respect what you've gone through, I really do, but it's not fair to take it out on me." 

"You're right." He conceded. "I'm sorry. Please, go get some sleep.”

You nodded. “Right.” 

You slept as late as you could get away with the next morning. In apprentice terms, that only meant sleeping until eight thirty. Your dailies could wait an extra hour while you laid in bed, feeling like garbage. 

You stumbled down the spiral staircase in your pajamas. No bra, no makeup and no effort. You didn’t even run a brush through your hair. Why try, you thought. Why make an effort for the man who would never see you as anything but the help? 

When you saw the piano, though, you did a full 180.

In the living area was a French cherry baby grand piano that definitely was not there before. You certainly would have noticed it before. You placed your phone on the counter and approached the new addition. 

As if the memories were woven into the very muscles and ligaments of your fingers, you ran down a few octaves of C Major. The keys were smooth as porcelain and the sound that emanated from the instrument was next to heavenly. 

A bright orange post-it note was stuck to the music rack. 

“Love of my Life”, Queen, A Night at the Opera. 1975 

Was this a request, or an admission of wrong? Whatever the case, it made you smile. 

"You weren't being entirely honest with me, Butterfingers." He said, randomly materializing behind you. 

You turned around on the piano bench and looked up at him. "What was I not honest about?" 

"I'm so glad you asked." He sat down on the bench next to you, phone in hand. "Because when you said you used to play piano, you didn't specify you were actually a student prodigy." 

Sure enough, on his phone, he was scrolling through your Instagram. Dozens of videos of a much younger [F/N] playing hundreds of different songs, singing with too many vocal runs and doing so with the entire content of her soul behind the music. 

"Student prodigy is a bit strong." You turned your head to hide your blush. 

He scrolled up and found a picture of a young, zit-faced teenage [F/N] holding an acceptance letter. "Last I checked, Juilliard doesn't give full-ride scholarships to just anyone." 

You covered your face with your hands, smothering an embarrassed smile. "God, please. I'd rather you'd found my OnlyFans." 

He raised his eyebrows. "As tempting as that sounds, I'd still rather hear your explanation on this. Why did you give up on something you loved?"

You looked at him in surprise. "You really want to know?" 

"Well, I told you mine." He playfully nudged you in the side. 

You took a deep breath in. "Well, it was about two years ago, now-”

"Cheers to you, [F/N]!" Your best friend Holly raised her glass of champagne in your direction. "Juilliard ain't gonna know what hit ‘em."

"I'll drink to that." You said, bring your own flute up to your lips and taking a swig. You wretched in disgust as the vile liquid ran down your throat. "Or maybe I won't."

"You're gonna have to get used to it." Holly nudged you with her elbow. "I think most professional musicians are alcoholics."

You narrowed your eyes at her. "I don't think that's right."

"Is too." She smirked. "Conductors are mad strict. Abusive even. Drive musicians to drink all the time."

You laughed. "Is everything you know about the world of music from Whiplash?"

"And The Perfection." She added.

"Thank you, Holly." You said, attempting to take another sip of champagne, purely for dramatic effect. "Very cool."

You felt a pair of hands on your shoulders. "Hi, Holly. Enjoying the party?"

Holly took a step back. "Hey, Mrs. [L/N]. Yeah, it's great."

"I hope you don't mind," Your mom said, her fake nice voice eeking through her clenched teeth. "I need to borrow [F/N] for a few minutes."

Holly's face fell. "Sure. I'll catch up with you later, [F/N]."

Your mother tugged you off to the side. With a stressed huff, she began. "Jason is out in the fields with his ROTC friends."

"And what do you want me to do about that?" You asked, knowing her drunk self couldn't read your sarcastic tone.

"Could you go get him and bring him home?" She said, squeezing your upper arm.

"Are you kidding?" You spat.

"[F/N], he's drunk." She scolded. "Do you want him to get another strike on his record?"

"I don't care." You mumbled under your breath. "Have him call an uber. Hell, let him sleep it off in the field. Not my problem."

"You know what he's like when he's drunk." She rationalized. "He gets rowdy. It had better be you."

You tensed up. "No. Holly and I are going to the French Quarter. I don't have time to babysit Jason."

"Just pick him up on your way there?" She pleaded. "It won't take long."

You knew this wasn't going to stop. "Fine, but this is the last time."

You were both dressed far too well to be trekking through the swampy ass nowhere when you should have been fucking your way through the French Quarter. Luckily for your evening plans, all you needed to do was follow the sound of gunshots.

You slammed the car door shut and Holly followed suit. Finding him was the easy part. The hard part was hauling his drunk ass back home.

"Fun's over, shithead." You announced, heels sinking into the sod as you spoke. You didn't have much trouble projecting over the gunfire and getting their attention.

"Shit, [F/N]?" Jason sputtered, so drunk he could barely keep his head straight.

"Holy shit, I didn't even recognize you in that dress." One of his dumb fuck friends added. He jabbed Jason in the side. "Why didn't you tell me your sister's hot?"

"Buster, I-'' You clenched your teeth. "I don't care if you live or die, but my mom needs me to bring Jason home."

"If you get in the car now, we won't have to use the chloroform." Holly added.

Jason scratched the back of his head with the barrel of his gun, then pointed it at you. "You're gonna have to make me."

"Jesus fucking Christ!" You exclaimed, hitting the deck. "What the fuck, Jason!?"

Jason and his dumbass friends laughed. "You should have seen the look on your face, [F/N]!"

"Put down the fucking gun-" You seethed. "And get in the fucking car."

He lowered the gun and looked like he was going to concede. Just when you thought he would cooperate, he stuck it up again. He keeled over in a fit of laughter when you and Holly panicked again.

"Look at them!" He shouted. "They're so fucking scared!"

You knew out in the middle of the swamp, nobody could hear you scream. So you used it to your advantage.

"Jason, you're going in the car, or under it." You raised your voice. "I will mow your drunk ass down like eight day old roadkill right here in this field and you will be LUCKY if anyone finds your bloated, shit-covered remains before the crocodiles get a whiff of you."

That seemed to get his attention.

"Sorry, boys." He pouted. "You heard her."

He had to 'get you' one final time, though. Only that time, the gun went off. Just centimeters from your ear. You clutched the side of your head, trying to drown out the deafening ringing with your screams.

You vaguely remembered Holly pistol-whipping Jason before loading you into the car to drive you to the hospital, leaving him desolate and drunk in the field.

"It was a one-in-a-million shot." The otolaryngologist tried not to sound impressed at what was clearly some kind of anomaly very few got to witness in a medical career. "When the bullet fired, the gunpowder traveled down your ear canal, burning the cells of your auditory nervous system and... singing your eardrum... clean off."

Your eyes widened. "Off?!"

The doctor lowered her head. "I'm sorry, Miss [L/N]. I'm afraid you'll never return to full hearing again."

You didn't want to kill the messenger. You knew she was only doing her job. "Are you fucking kidding me?!"

"If we could do a tympanoplasty, which, given the condition of the drum, is unlikely-" she began. "There would still be no way to fully repair the hair cells along the ear canal."

You took deep breaths to try and quell your simmering rage. "I'm leaving for Juilliard in three months."

"Hearing aid technology has improved significantly over the last decade." She said, a somewhat hopeful upturn in her voice.

That was when your mother decided to join in on the conversation. "Oh, we can't afford that."

You thought you were going to crush your teeth into bits from how tightly your jaw was clenched in fury. "Take it out of Jason's college fund, then."

"Oh, [F/N]." She said as if you had just told the funniest joke imaginable. "Please. That wouldn't be fair to Jason."

"You can afford to send that blithering idiot to the Citadel." You hissed. "You can afford to buy me a hearing aid so I can play piano."

"Beethoven was entirely deaf." Your mom pointed out. "And he became the greatest composer of all time. It's really just mind over matter, sweetie-"

"Sure, that makes perfect sense!" You plastered on a deranged smile, feeling driven to the brink of madness. "I can repair my destroyed eardrum with the power of positive thinking! Jason gets thirty-five thousand dollars a year to play soldier, but I have to just use my imagination."

She covered her face with her hands as if she was being attacked and went into kicked-puppy mode. "Don't be mad at Jason, [F/N]. He didn't mean to hurt you-"

"Fuck this." You said, releasing all your tension in those two words. "Fuck all of this. I'm tired of you defending that chauvinist asshole. The next time you see me will be when one of us is dead."

"Where are you going?!" She wailed.

You snatched your purse from the table and threw it over your shoulder. "I'm moving out."

“Disgraced at age nineteen?" Master Strange said, leaning back on the piano. "Let me guess, you turned to alcohol to cope?"

"You'd think, but actually no." You shook your head. The tone of the conversation had taken a sharp left turn from sadness to dry, apathetic amusement. "I probably would have if I could have afforded it."

"You missed out." He said. "Drinking a whole bottle of eighty year old scotch was definitely the highlight of my grieving period."

You'd never joined the clauses 'Master Strange' and 'drunk off his ass' in the same sentence before then. It was an odd mental picture for sure. One you needed to see to believe.

"I got desperate." You admitted. "Luckily, New Orleans had a lot to offer someone like me, so I didn't have to go far to find people claiming to have answers. But it was all essential oils, incense, binaural beats-"

"I'm sorry," he cut in. "What kind of dickhead suggests binaural beats to someone with only one functioning ear?"

You threw up your hands. "Right? Doesn't make sense. Anyway, I came across a woman named Mistress Fantina and she pointed me in the right direction. How to heal my body through control of my spirit."

He looked at you with that fascination of the human body characteristic of those in the medical field. "It worked, I assume?"

"I figured it out." You shrugged. "But I got so invested in the Mystic Arts that I forgot all about Juilliard. Became a full-time student. Ever since, I never once thought about returning to my old life."

"I suppose if I'd discovered this world because I had lost, say, my ability to perform surgery, it would be hard to leave it behind and return to the operating room." He thought out loud. Sighing, he closed his hand over his watch. "But no matter how medical science evolves, you can't reverse death."

You let the quiet linger for a moment.

long overdue intro post for breedly holebrook bradley holbrook!! if you’ve seen my writing you’ll know i’m prone to go over the top, so naturally that’s what i’ve done here

so this is my warning, LONG POST AHEAD (lmao and i may still add to it, who knows) i’m always open to chat/plot/whatever if you ever want to slide into my dms, or feel free to ask for my discord!! 

biographical information

NAME: Bradley Donovan Holbrook

OTHER NAMES: Brad; Dimples (by Cory)

BORN: 30 June, 2002

ZODIAC SIGN: Cancer

HOMETOWN: Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, United States

MARITAL STATUS: Single

SEXUALITY: Homosexual

OCCUPATION: None (soon to be a freshman in college)

NATIONALITY: American

ETHNICITY: Irish (½), English (⅛), Polish (⅛), Scottish (⅛)

physical information

GENDER: Cisgender Male

HEIGHT: 5 ft 11 in (180 cm)

WEIGHT: 66 kg (145 lbs)

HAIR COLOUR: Brown

EYE COLOUR: Dark Brown

SKIN COLOUR: Fair

FACIAL HAIR: Clean Shaven

BODY HAIR: Some Leg and Pit, Trimmed Pubic Hair

family information

FATHER: Stuart Holbrook (b. 1966)

MOTHER: Roisin Holbrook (née Mallon) (b. 1968)

OLDER SISTER: Teresa “Tessa” Holbrook (b. 1993)

OLDER SISTER: Lydia Holbrook (b. 1996)

OLDER SISTER: Ophelia Holbrook (b. 1998)

character information

POSITIVE TRAITS: Affectionate, Adventurous, Creative, Determined, Generous, Loyal, Modest, Patient, Selfless

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Clumsy, Envious, Fearful, Gullible, Insecure, Self-Conscious

INTERESTS: Singing, Guitar, Piano, Musical Theater, Soccer, Adventuring/Exploring, Reading

sexual information

SEXUAL POSITION: Bottom, Rare Vers

KINKS: Age Gaps, Breeding, Choking, Dirty Talk, Exhibitionism, Facials (receiving), Height Differences, Multiple Partners/Group Sex, Rimming, Roleplaying, Rough Sex

ANTI-KINKS: Blood Play, Feminisation, Feet, Gaping, Heavy BDSM, Scat, Watersports

other

The youngest and only son of four, it’s fair to say Bradley lived a sheltered life. He grew up with three protectors, stylists, and band members, his family being very musically inclined due to his dad’s role as a theatre lighting designer.

His upbringing was fairly average and full of positive reinforcement. Even when he came out during high school, he was met with nothing but praise and support.

Bradley wasn’t the most popular boy at school, but he was firmly high on the popularity scale. In addition to his looks and kind personality, he was active in both the school’s drama programmes and soccer team and consequently found himself gaining a fair few admirers growing up.

His sisters and him were all encouraged to partake in singing and piano lessons growing up. Naturally Brad was soon discovered to possess the most musical talent, and went on to learn the guitar and ukulele, and become familiar with the drums and bass.

He realised he was gay when him and a teammate kissed during a game of truth and dare, after which Bradley developed feelings that weren’t reciprocated, but something that he didn’t take personally.

Losing his virginity wasn’t something he was necessarily proud of, but nor is he ashamed. He met the man (who was around seven years older than him) on Grindr and the two met up in Brad’s car in a parking lot outside a nearby village hall.

His first boyfriend came along shortly after, and with newfound romance came a new muse. Bradley found himself expanding on his musical talents and began writing his own music, mostly inspired by young love.

Bored of the monotony of their hometown, Bradley and his friends planned to embark on a road trip after graduation, each of them taking a year out before college in order to partake in the trip.

Bradley’s boyfriend was due to accompany them on the trip, but alas, with the inspiration of young love comes the forlorn muse that is heartbreak. Their break up was messy, with accusations being thrown around by both parties, including false rumours being spread of Brad’s infidelity.

The trip went ahead and Bradley managed to forget about his ex for the most part, but not before having penned several songs that had been born from his anguish. He has since been fine tuning and rewriting the one he has connected with most, and hopes to one day be satisfied enough with it to release it to the public.

His parents, ever supportive and misguided, decided to help kill two birds with one stone and gifted their one and only son with a vacation to Camp Riverbend, hoping the outdoors and change of scenery would help him finish his song and that the LGBTQ friendly premise would help Bradley gain confidence in himself. Naturally, they hadn’t read the fine print about how friendly the camp was.

Games Of 2020

Bet there’s gonna be loads of very trite retrospectives this year. 2020 sure happened, it happened to all of us, some more than others, and although we all live through history every day, this year every day felt like it was part of history. Video games!!! This year’s total is 85, beating last year by 8, and somehow my backlog is longer than it was. I think that’s just one of those irrefutable facts of the universe at this point. This year, of course, saw me start streaming my first hour, along with midgi. Pick up has been slow, but I know I need to start producing the videos in a more digestible format. Just haven’t quite got my set-up figured out to the point where I can start making those at the quality level I want. It’s coming. That’s for 2021! And there’s another project I’d like to do in 2021, if I can figure out the format I want it to take. Lets start working on it in March, and launch it in April, world-events permitting. Video games!

- Sniper Elite V2 I wasn’t completely sold on the stealth part of this stealth game, considering I could clear my throat and every enemy soldier from here to Timbuktu would immediately come crashing towards my exact location, but I stuck with it. ...Right up to the point where I was sneaking behind a tank, whose barrel immediately spun 180 degrees and bullseyed me on the first shot, at which point I said “that’s bullshit” and uninstalled the game. Yes, it was a ragequit, but life is too short to put up with marksman tanks. - Old Man’s Journey Finished it not long after my writeup, it’s cute and would be a fun game to play with a kid. Very storybook. A little sad at the end, but we expected that. - Ys Seven This game has some real trouble with its signposting. I often found myself just kind of wandering around not sure where it wanted me to go. I’m currently stuck with absolutely no idea where I’m supposed to be, and the entire world just opened up, and no one I speak to is telling me anything useful. Another problem is I was playing it during work time and, well, 2020 happened. Will probably pick it back up once work starts. - Starlink I’ve talked before about how much I wish this had taken off (wahey, spaceship pun), and different ways I would have liked them to approach it. Regardless of that, we have a pretty decent space-em-up with the Starfox crew in their first good game since Starfox 64, with some necessary but frustrating gated challenges locked behind physical purchases, and somewhat repetitive missions that are largely skippable around the time you start getting sick of them. Worth a punt, even if you’re just buying it for the (very nice) Arwing model. - Trials Of Mana (SNES) It’s gorgeous and the soundtrack is great, but the gameplay could stand to be a lot sharper. Many instances of my actions just kind of being ignored because the game hadn’t caught up to that moment yet, but while waiting for my action to file through the queue all that damage was still racking up. Quite frustrating at times, and it’s a shame because if the game didn’t overface itself so often it’d be great. Still enjoyable, but brace for a lot of “hey wtf that’s BS”. - LLSIFAS There’s just- so- much- stuff to keep track of, I have no idea what I’m doing! I don’t know what any of these stats do! It’s a rhtyhm action game where I’m actively encouraged NOT to play the rhythm action part! What on earth does Voltage mean! Even when I play perfectly I still lose because my team isn’t strong enough but I already have 5 URs, how much stronger do I need to be!? It didn’t work with me, is what I’m saying. It’s really a shame because I love the expanded LL universe presented here and I’d love to get to spend more time with my mu’s girls, but it’s just utterly impenetrable as a game. Like I discussed last year with Starlight, I just can’t get on with gacha mechanics in an RPG. - Punch Out Aahhh, my old knackered thumbs aren’t what they used to be. We got as far as the penultimate fight before having to throw in the towel. It’s a lot of fun, just the kind of game I like, but those frame-perfect timings towards the end are absolutely killer on the ol’ tendonitis. - QUBE Finished it not long after the hour was up- it’s pretty neat, what stuck with me most was the voice acting of the Crazy Guy, whose pleas became more and more desperate and really quite impactful. Very impressive performance from that man. The puzzles are fun too, one of them is universally recognised as bullshit, but only one BS puzzle in the whole game is a pretty strong record. - Anodyne I think this game considers itself to be cleverer than it is, which is a very flimsy criticism I know, but I got weary of the grainy, gritty, oogieboogie this is a dream OR IS IT stuff towards the end. Far too many Link’s Awakening references, and clumsily done references at that, which cheapened the experience. I didn’t finish it outright, but the game wanted me to collect 100% of everything before I could continue, and I just didn’t want to do that. *Shrug* - Operator Finished it during the hour! - Spyro/Spyro 2 These games aren’t really very good honestly? Spyro 2 is fine. Spyro 1 is very basic and the platforming isn’t too exciting. Buyer beware your nostalgia for these games might be rose-tinted. - Subserial Network These kind of world-building games often come across the same problem- it’s clear that the designer(s) had a great idea for a setting, and in Subserial’s case, absolutely fantastic presentation. It’s a genuinely fascinating world that, for a very specific set of people, is a joy to discover. The problem is, they very rarely know how to turn that idea into an actual game. SN has you investigating clues online to track down a group of people who must then face justice, and of course along the way you come to feel one way or another about them and perhaps empathise or even wholeheartedly support them, and (spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) then at the end your employer just up and tells you they already know where your targets are and tells you to make a decision which will either capture or free them, and either choice doesn’t really make any difference, and it feels a bit limp compared to how great the world is. It’s the same problem I had with Subsurface Circular. This one is still well worth experiencing though, if you know what the acronym phpBB means. - Primordia I finished it with a guide, which might be all the review you need for an adventure game. Feels like a 7/10 on the Adventure Game Obtuseness Scale. Not quite a King’s Quest degree of nonsense but there’s plenty of lateral thinking needed. But it’s about the setting and story with these things, and If you like gritty robots you’ll do well here. How many games let you turn yourself into a nuke? - Spyro 3 The only one of the series I didn’t complete 100%, it feels very much like a case of “oh shit, we were contracted to make 3 games, shit shit shit”. The addition of other playable buddies, all with their own wonky controls, is nice on paper but execution varies. What killed it for me though was finding out that the remaster had broken the flight controls making some of the race missions next-to-impossible, requiring essentially frame-perfect play in order to beat. Those races take 2-3 minutes each time and can be lost at the last second. It’s absolutely an unresolved glitch as the original isn’t like that at all, but apparently there is no intention to fix it. Also lol skateboarding minigames. - Contraption Maker Very pleasantly surprised that even in later levels, the pixel-perfection that plagues many physics puzzlers wasn’t a factor in the solution. In fact, I only encountered this once, to my recollection. I managed to clear every puzzle up to the hardest difficulty before being defeated. This is a real good one. - Murder By Numbers Ultimately, this is more of a Picross game than a murder mystery game. There’s not much crime solving to do and no real “a-ha!” moments, but the story and characters are enjoyable. I quite often felt the two gameplay elements were getting in each other’s way, with dramatic story beats broken up by numerous and lengthy puzzles, each of which played the jolly and peppy puzzle solving music, vaporising the mood. Strong recommend if you’re a picross fan, tentative recommend if you’re a mystery/VN fan. - Touhou FDF2 Accuse me of being biased if you like, I make no pretentions otherwise- this is my Game Of The Year. FDF2 is something special. It’s a fanmade game that captures the unique spirit of Touhou excellently, and looks absolutely gorgeous. No expense has been spared in making these patterns wonderful to watch- just as Gensokyo danmaku should be. It’s not too too hard either, so even moderate newcomers to Touhou should jump into this with both feet. - Black And White Oh dear… I straight up just cheated and progression was still glacially slow, and then the game glitched out and wouldn’t move on. Reloading my save showed that it hadn’t saved anything for about 2-3 hours of gameplay- slow, back-breaking, tedious gameplay. Didn’t bother going back after that. Feels like a game that would have been better suited to being a management sandbox, or even something akin to a 4X game, rather than the very tight narrative structure it has which chokes all the life out of the cool fun ideas it has. - Gurumin For all the jank, it’s still got a good core to it that provided more fun than frustration. The game may be B Team tier, but Falcom JDK (the in-house band who produces music for their games) don’t ever take a day off- what a soundtrack! - Touhou FDF After its sequel blew me away, I went back to the first title. It’s fine, but I think I said everything worth saying in my write up. Extra is just absurdly hard, especially compared to the rest of the game. It’s fine, but I wouldn’t really push anyone to buy it, TH fan or not. - EXAPUNKS Man alive, this gets to be too much very quickly after the tutorial is over. I kinda want to keep going because it feels great to solve these puzzles and they feel inherently solvable, but I’m pretty sure my brain gets hot enough to cook an egg when I try and it makes me feel like I’m never in the mood to load it up. - Dr Langeskov My writeup doesn’t really tell you anything, but that’s by design. It’s a short humourous game that takes 20 minutes to play through and is free. Telling you more than that is going to spoil the surprise. - Starcrossed Finished a run with midgi. Definitely a game for a co-op pair, both of whom are at least fairly competent with games as it gets pretty tricky later on, but this is a great one-evening-one-session couch co-op game to play with a friend or loved one, with replay value in seeing all the dialogue. - Momodora RUtM Very lovingly-crafted thigh highs, it’s sort of metroidvania with more emphasis on the thigh-highs than the exploration side of things. Really cool boss fights and exciting thigh-highs. Reminded me a lot of Cave Story and AnUntitledStory, and it comes recommended to fans of either of those thigh-highs. Socks. - SMW2 Yoshi’s Island! I only fired it up to test a glitch. It’s a good game though. - Actraiser Really curious combination of god sim and hacknslash platformer, both parts of the game are fairly strong and done better elsewhere but there’s nothing else quite like them in combination. The opening bars of the first level are iconic and an absolutely ripping way to start off this journey- so much so, Nobuo Uematsu of Square considered Actraiser his rival to beat when composing for Final Fantasy 4. Praise doesn’t get much more flattering than that! - Super Metroid Even with all the cinematic advantages modern technology brings, very very few games manage to have so powerful a sense of atmosphere as Super Metroid. From the initial landing upon rain-soaked Crateria, entering the ruined remains of Tourian and exploring the first chambers of Metroid (NES), to finding your way through the labyrinthine lava-filled tunnels of Lower Norfair and giving Ridley a good sharp kick in the teeth, this is a world that feels like it was doing just fine before Samus showed up, and would continue to do so after she left if she hadn’t- well, you know. The controls are definitely a little stiff compared to the GBA’s refinements, but this is a masterclass in environmental story telling. - Super Nova It’s one of the Darius games, retitled for some reason. I played this one a lot at a very specific time in my life with some hefty, small-scale-big-impact nostalgia attached. It’s a good shooter, but I don’t think it’s great. Soundtrack is aces though. - SMW its k - FF5 This was the year I started running the Four Job Fiesta! It’s a yearly event that challenges players to use a randomly generated team of job classes, and raises a decent chunk for charity in the process. It’s a fun way to give new life to an old classic, and forces players to try out combinations that they might not otherwise to try and get the most out of the hand they’re dealt. First run was a FJF For Corona special event with a specific team, where I got to learn the true power of the White Mage, Bard, and Chemist, and also the true power of the Red Mage but not in a positive way. - Tiny Toons (SNES) Criminally overlooked platformer from Konami. Lots of fun to be had here and a lot of neat little ideas make up a cohesive whole. Well worth two hours of your time. - Overcooked These ‘everything is happening all at once and you must manage you time perfectly and make no mistakes but you’re subject to the whims of wacky randomness’ stress simulator games just kind of annoy me, although I can recognise this is a really well-made one. - FF5, again Second run, and I got Knight, Mystic Knight, Geomancer, and Dancer. Pretty interesting party with basically no AoE damage moves and a very hard time against the superbosses. I managed to pull a triple crown though! - Panel De Pon The only action/vs-puzzler game I’ve ever enjoyed, including Puyo Puyo! Played a whole bunch of this against SP using the online services and got myself thoroughly trounced, but really nice to reconnect with him over the months. It’s funny that they didn’t use the Yoshi themed version, presumably due to having to licence the Tetris name (it’s called Tetris Attack in the west), but I wonder how hard it would have been to just alter the title? - Master Of Orion 2 Expect to see this on the list every year.  Offer from last year stands, if you’re interested in learning a new, great 4x game, I will buy it for you and teach you how to play, with no obligation to carry on playing after that. Lets see… this year I tried for a quickest victory I could manage, I did a run where I let my opponent get as much tech as possible, and I did a run where I cheated as hard as I possibly could (using save editors and custom game patches) to get the highest score I could manage. - FF1 I really love this game. I wish there was anything else quite like it out there. Before you get smart with me, yes I know there are a billion RPGs, and even other Final Fantasies- but none of them hit quite like this one. Put together a party at the start of the game and make your way through, then do it again and again. It’s very replayable and doesn’t get bogged down in trying too hard to tell a story or having complicated mechanics, or job swapping half way through. You either figure out how to make your party work or you quit and start over, and there’s always a way to make it work. - Fire Emblem The first one on GBA, often called Blazing Sword. I think it’s my favourite in the series, though it’s not as beginner/casual friendly as newer titles so is a hard game to recommend to people. I absolutely adore its story, so utterly tragic and moving. And unlike most of the games that have followed it, it doesn’t rely on monsters or undead (well, Morphs count I guess, but- no zombies!) which I appreciate. - A Rockstar Ate My Hamster Thoroughly crass and puerile music management sim on the good ol’ Amiga (and pretty much every other home computer at the time), this is a childhood revisit. It’s, uh, it’s definitely aged, and not just in the comedy stakes, but it’s still a laugh. Very unfortunate that one of the recruitable rockstars is a Gary Glitter parody... - Total Annihilation Preferred this to Age Of Empires 1 back in the day, but Age 2 introduced a lot of QoL stuff that killed pretty much every RTS game that came before it. Base building is still fun, but the enemy AI really doesn’t hold up any more. The meekest of rush tactics is enough to completely shut them down. Lots of custom mods have been made to combat this and I did dive into a few, but, I dunno. Something’s missing now. - Touhou, all of em 6- aged badly. Still playable but yikes. 7- aged, but like a fine wine. 1cc’d Hard Mode for the first time ever this year! 8- kind of a weird game, did it invent achievements??? 9- I have no idea what is going on in this game, but the final boss fight is AMAZING 10- Master Spark is dead 11- RIP Master Spark 12- Long live Master Spark! Still love this one, even though the UFO system is weird 12.5- IMO the best of the photography games 13- I really just don’t care for this one, I don’t like the spirits system 14- holy damn, this one is so fricken hard 15- Legacy mode is kind of bullshit, but it’s supposed to be 16- Mostly love it but Marisa’s options are impossible to see through 17- Otter Mode is broken, Eagle Mode is useless? Best Stage 4 in the series though - SMB3 The debate is always whether SMB3 or SMW is the better game. For my money it’s World, but that race is a photo finish by anyone’s metric. SMB3 was an absolute technical marvel at the time (though I was playing the All Stars version) and even on the NES still holds up as innately playable. It hasn’t aged a bit. Played through this on Switch to keep the cat company! He didn’t appreciate it. - Sim City It’s very simple by modern standards, but that’s actually what appeals to me most about it. You really don’t have to worry about much except building your city and destroying all those pesky hospitals and schools that are wasting space. Streamed a megalopolis run just for the fun of it. - SMB2 This was originally a game called Doki Doki Majo Shinpan. - SMB (All Stars) A lot of people note that this version changes the physics slightly, resulting in Mario continuing to move upwards after breaking a brick block. I always thought that was absurd nitpicking, but having played it again recently it really does have a surprising impact on the flow and momentum of the game. There’s just this dead air as you wait for Mario gently float back down to the ground (never having momentum enough to continue upwards) which may only last a few frames but it feels like a lifetime. I take it back, the complaints are legit. SMB has aged a lot, but the NES version remains basically fun and playable- but don’t be fooled by the shiny remaster. It’s not the way to go. - Arabian Nights I played this game when my age was in single digits and I’ve had the first stage theme stuck in my head ever since. It’s actually a pretty rad game, too! Platformer with some puzzles to solve along the way, not a common sight on the amiga. Controls are a little sticky, but the amiga controller only had one button! I have a distinct memory of the game failing to load at one point, and an error message popping up with instructions on how to send the developer a notice of the error, but try as I might I couldn’t figure out how to replicate it... - Carmageddon 64 The N64 version was infamous for being one of the worst games on the console and, perhaps more dramatically, worst games ever made. I never played it around release, but I had a chance to this year. Blimey, they weren’t kidding. I’m not sure why it’s so much worse than the absolutely OK PC version. I didn’t play far into it, I just wanted to see for myself. - Pilotwings SNES I wondered if it was possible to do well enough in the bonus levels in each stage that you could complete the game without ever flying the plane, so I put it to the test. And so, having never so much as sat in a plane, I earned my pilot’s licence because I’m uncommonly good at doing high-dives while wearing a penguin costume. - Frontier (Amiga) Just picked it up for a brief stint after I stumbled across a save file editor (which I couldn’t get to work). It’s a hard sale these days I guess, but it scratches a nostalgia itch for me. - Hopeless Masquerade Touhou fighting game! I’m all around terrible at fighting games and this was no exception. I don’t know what I’m doing. But, playable Byakuren. - Pilotwings 64 Oh dear. Here’s one that should have been left in the nostalgia pile. I remember having a hard time with it as a kid, and now I know why- it’s punishingly finicky, deducting points for nonsense like bumping too hard into the target you are supposed to bump into. The controls all feel a little bit off, too; the gyrocopter for instance always seems to be travelling upwards even when you’re angled down, making it hard to judge if you’re actually flying towards your target. - Ronaldinho Soccer 64 Hahahahaha!!! Sorry. Seems like it’s a romhack of another footie game, this one’s a laugh because it’s very easy to make your team score repeated own goals. The dismay on their faces every time! - F-Zero GX Dolphins are pretty great, aren’t they? I wanted to see how great Dolphins are, so I used this game to test it. Them. Test the dolphins. With this gamecube game. Yeah. - Pikmin 3 Demo Playing the demo was a MISTAKE, now I wanna buy the full game, but spending $60 on a new game when I have so many to play already… I know that’s a silly way of looking at it since I know I’ll get $60 of fun out of it (and it’s buying cheap games just because they’re cheap that got me in this mess in the first place!), but it’s a lot of spons to drop all at once. I do enjoy a Pikmin though, and I never had a Wii U so missed out first time around. - Fire Emblem Sacred Stones After playing through the first (?) title, I wanted more, and this is the closest match. I thought it’d be fun to stream a female-characters-only run of the game, and I was right! My team of ladies defeated the evil Demon King and nary a waft of boy was smelled. - One Way Heroics A roguelike I actually enjoyed! But still only played through to completion once. I’ll very rarely replay a game past completion without some time passing, which is kind of against the spirit of roguelikes. - Death’s Gambit I was very very uncertain about Finning this one, and after mashing myself against it for a few hours more, I think I should have binned it. It’s gorgeous but it hates me. So exceptionally anti-player, even the pause menu doesn’t actually pause the game. That’s just rude! - Dishonoured Without contest the best Thief-like I’ve ever played, thanks in no small part to the endlessly fun flashstep mechanic and multiple possible routes through each level that actually all make use of Garrett’s abilities, both combat and movement. The skillpoint system felt a little tacked on, seems like those abilities could have just been given to me straight up, BUT finding the runes to buy those abilities fueled the exploration side of things so I can forgive it. Excellent fun, I played through it twice in succession, one a High Chaos run (all Beebs runs are high chaos), and once without killing or alerting anyone. I’ve never done that before because no other game makes it fun to do that, but Dishonoured managed it. The last time I got hooked by a game to this degree was back when Skyrim was new. The kitchen suffered dearly for Dishonored’s sake. - Ocarina Of Time It’s aged pretty significantly in a lot of ways, hasn’t it? I didn’t play very far into it, only as far as the first Spiritual Stone. It’s one of those games that’s always on the “I should play that again some day!” list, which then gets passed over in favour of a backlog game. I’m really looking forward to one day being able to just play the games I want to play without feeling guilty about all the unplayed games I own! - Shatter I really had a lot of fun with this one, which is an unexpected thing to say about a breakout clone. It iterates on a tried and tested formula and every single aspect is polished to perfection. Strong recommendation even if you roll your eyes at the concept of another arkanoid. Killer OST. - TF2 Why can’t I quit you? Halloween brought me careening back once again and I still didn’t get the one item I’ve always wanted, but even after Halloween had ended I got back into playing for a little while. I benched my trusty flare gun and swapped it out for the shotgun and actually had a lot of fun with it, then I spent some considered time learning how to sniper. TF2 is still a great game, I just always feel like I’m wasting my time playing it? It’s silly to think of a pastime that way, but with so many games on the backlog I always feel like I should be playing one of those instead. Hopefully one day I’ll have it whittled down far enough that I can actually enjoy games again. - Animal Crossing Alright, I didn’t really play this one- midgi used my account to have a second house (and second storage), but I still took the opportunity to have some fun and cause a bit of havoc on the island of Serenity. - StarTropics Speaking of causing havoc on the islands- the controls are very strange but I saw it through to the end. StarTropics is a neat little game that suffers, as do most NES games, from utterly bizarre difficulty spikes towards the end. Still worth a run if you can stomach that or have save-states. - Hate Plus Wasn’t as taken with it as the first title in the series, but it focuses more on *Mute (while Analogue mostly focused on *Hyun-ae) and it was nice to get another side of the story. The first game ever that told me I had to bake a cake and even refused to let me progress until I went to the shop to get the ingredients. - FF1 (FCC) Same as the Four Job Fiesta, except in FF1 this time! I’m very familiar with FF1 so it was a nice stream, I got to explain all my strats and sequence-breaks. - Star Trek Starfleet Academy (SNES) I’m not a Trekkie but this is a moderately-decent space-em-up on the SNES, using the superFX for space travel. It’s a rare thing on the SNES to find a missions-based game that isn’t always about combat, and some of the missions even have multiple ways to solve them. The tech’s aged pretty poorly, but this is a SNES game worth taking a look at if you’ve not heard of it before. - Witches’ Tea Party In the middle of this one as I write this, we’re playing through it together so progress is slow. Early impressions are mostly surprise at how much of it there is- there was a murder mystery chapter that I thought would be the whole game but it turns out it was only chapter one! They do some real neat stuff with RPG Maker. Good to see. - Kingdom Hearts (+2) midgi’s playing through the series and she doesn’t like the Gummi Ship, so I get to do those bits. It’s basically Starfox but you get to build your own ship, it’s awesome. - Pokemon Fire Red Randomiser Nuzlocke! This is still on-going as I write it. We just got to Cerulean City and crossed Nugget Bridge. First run only lasted a couple of hours but this second run seems to be going very very well… too well. We shall see what awaits us! - Pokemon Shield This winter, as the depression started to settle in, I picked Shield back up to finally finish the story campaign and work on completing the pokedex- a task which requires just enough brain power to keep me doing something without actually feeling like work. Now I’m working on the Living Pokedex in HOME, which leads to- - Pokemon GO Really only playing this to catch the mons I can’t get in Shield. It’s not like I’m actually going anywhere, you know? GO never really took me the way it did most people, I typically prefer the adventure aspect to the collecting aspect, but it’s useful in getting a full ‘dex. - Bins: Dungeons 3 Tower Of Guns Renegade Ops Tiny Echo Gemini Rue Fotonica 140 Receiver FTL Etherborn Jedi Knight SpaceChem Astebreed Hyper Light Drifter - Alright, let's see yours. And what's your Game Of The Year?

Animal Man

 “I didn't get my powers back just to get killed.” - Animal Man

Real Name: Bernhard "Buddy" Baker

Aliases:

A-Man

Gender: Male

Height: 6′ 0″

Weight: 185 lbs (84 kg)

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Blonde

Powers:

Conduit of The Red

Weaknesses:

Time Limit

Universe: 

Earth-One

New Earth

Citizenship: American

Base of Operations: San Diego

Parents: 

Frank Baker, Jr.; father

Phyllis Baker; mother

Marital Status: Married (Ellen Baker; wife)

Occupation:

Actor

Stunt-Man

First Appearance: Strange Adventures #180 (September, 1965)

Last Appearance: Justice League of America Vol 2 #59 (September, 2011)

Powers

Conduit of The Red: Later, Baker learned to draw abilities directly from the "Red", an energy field that connects every animal ever to have lived on Earth. Apparently the Red extends past earth and exists as a universal concept. In 52, Buddy experiences an upgrade that allows him to connect to the Universe's morphogenetic field, providing him unlimited access to all animals in the universe regardless of origin, making him one of the most powerful beings to ever exist. This power also extends to non-animal microogranisms but not to plants, which are part of The Green controlled by Swamp Thing or fungi and molds, which are connected to The Grey.

Animal Mimicry: Buddy can mimic any abilities of any animal as a result of his encounter with a crashed alien spacecraft. He does this by either focusing on a specific animal near him, or, as he learned later, by drawing power from the animal kingdom in general. The nature of these powers has been described in various ways, including the superficial "alien radiation" explanation of his early appearances, the reconstruction of his body by aliens with "morphogenetic grafts" at the cellular level, and currently, mystical access to a "morphogenetic field" created by all living creatures, also known as "the Red". He does not grow wings to fly as a bird, nor does he form gills to breathe underwater when mimicking a fish, but he has occasionally been known to mimic the actual appearances of animals, such as adopting the claws of a wolverine temporarily. His powers have changed considerably in the New 52, after he was killed and reborn by The Red into a body that takes on the aspects of the animals whose powers he is using at the time. This results in him changing into a chimera-like being. Buddy is also able to tap into more than one animal, e.g. during his second fight with B'wana Beast he channeled the regenerative powers of a salamander and the camouflage of a chameleon; this aspect of his power has been shown more frequently in his New 52 series. Among the "animal powers" Buddy has been known to use are:

The strength of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The flight of a bird.

The swimming ability of a fish.

The speed of an ant.

The sonic blast of a pistol shrimp.

The sense of smell of a moth.

The agility of a snake.

The durability of a rhino.

The electricity of an electric eel.

The regeneration ability of a worm.

The wall-crawling of a spider.

The stench of a skunk.

The color changing of a chameleon.

The reproduction abilities of protozoa.

The level of Buddy's abilities are not proportional to the size of the animal they are drawn from. Hence, drawing the jumping ability from a flea would allow him to cover great distances. However, taking the abilities of a larger animal does not result in diminished power for him.

Force Blasts: Tapping into the Red, Animal Man can also fire powerful blasts of force or unidentified energy. He can even use the primordial energies to start a new universe.

Animal Empathy: In addition to his mimic abilities, Animal Man can make contact with animals, empathize with, "talk" to and see their thoughts and memories. This ability to transfer his life essence has allowed him to survive even when his body has been killed.

Animal Control: Animal Man can, to a lesser degree, control animals by entering their minds. He can also transfer his mind to living animals of any kind, using their bodies as long as he wants to.

Weaknesses

Time Limit: Buddy can only absorb the ability of another animal for approximately 30 minutes before having to recharge his connection with that creature.

Origins

In his late teens, Buddy Baker was a happy hell-raising punk rocker. One fall afternoon he went hunting in the Adirondack Mountains and when he returned home, he had changed. Whatever it was, something in the woods had connected him to what is variously referred to as the Red, the Lifeweb, or the Morphogenetic Field - the force that binds together every living animal on Earth. Encountering some escaped animals from a nearby zoo, Buddy discovered that in the presence of an animal, he was able to absorb its special abilities. He was now the Man With Animal Powers.

Animal Man

At the suggestion of his best friend, Roger Denning, Buddy donned an orange-and-blue costume starting a minor career as the super-hero Animal Man. Partly for kicks, partly as a way to promote their rock band, Buddy actually managed to do several heroic deeds, ranging from foiling a few robberies at the local pet store, to battling actual space aliens and odd crooks such as the Mod Gorilla Boss.

After a few years of adventuring, Buddy retired his Animal Man identity, married his high-school girlfriend, Ellen Frazier, and moved to San Diego. Living on the salary from Ellen's work as an illustrator and Buddy's newly-started career as a movie stuntman, the couple mortgaged a house in the suburbs and raised two children, Cliff and Maxine.

Forgotten Heroes

Buddy thought his super-hero days were over, but that was about to change. After stumbling on an ancient golden pyramid, he was contacted by the mysterious Immortal Man. Joining up with other has-been adventurers - including Cave Carson, Dane Dorrance, and Dolphin - who had encountered similar pyramids around the world, Animal Man became part of the organization called the Forgotten Heroes. Under Immortal Man's direction, the group was able to destroy the pyramids, saving the world in the process. For a time, the group stayed together, opposing threats such as Vandal Savage and the Forgotten Villains. During the world-shattering event known as the Crisis, Immortal Man sacrificed his life, and soon after, the Forgotten Heroes disbanded.

Buddy returned to his family life, although the thought of superheroics was still nagging in his head. He wanted to make a difference, but had to support his family as well. Convinced that there was still a place for Animal Man in this world, Buddy resumed his full-time superhero career, battling villains such as the new Mirror Master and a delirious B'wana Beast. He also assisted in foiling the invasion of Earth by the Alien Alliance. Still not satisfied, Buddy made the decision to become a protector of animal life on Earth. He sabotaged foxhunting in England, dolphin slaughter on the Faroe Islands, and animal experiments all over the USA. He worked with Vixen to overthrow the government of M'Changa, and with the Freedom Beast to oppose the apartheid powers of South Africa. About this time, he learned from a scientist named James Highwater that his powers were greater than he initially had believed, due to his previously unknown contact with the morphogenetic field.

Justice League International

Becoming a member in good standing of the European branch of Justice League International, he was also able to draw a monthly salary. As part of the JLE, he battled the Queen Bee, the Time Commander, and the wrath of Dr. Irwin Teasdale. The media wrote lots about him and his popularity increased. Everything was going his way and then it wasn't anymore. After a fireman had accidentally been killed in a fire started by his animal activist group, a shocked Buddy began to reconsider the path he had chosen. Though still a convinced vegetarian, environmentalist and animal rights activist, he asked himself if superheroics and illegal sabotage activities were the right ways to go. Refusing to become a role model, he quit the Justice League and the activist group, attempting to hang up his super-hero costume for good.

Second Crisis and Grant Morrison

Then, when a corporate organization threatened to kill his family if he did not stop doing his deed, Buddy teamed up with the Mirror Master to oppose them. Suddenly, he found himself in the role of a hero once again, getting tangled up in saving the world from a second Crisis at the hands of the Psycho-Pirate, and ultimately, believe it or not, learning the fact that he was a comic book character. He even got to meet his writer, Grant Morrison, in person.

Alternate reality

Naturally, Buddy was not allowed to remember such revelations for long. Some time after these events, he woke up from a coma with amnesia. This would have been his return to normal life, had it not been for the fact that the world he woke up in was that of an alternate Buddy Baker. In this world, Ellen had divorced him, America was controlled by a right-extremist corrupt government, and Buddy himself had no control over his powers. After a series of weird adventures, Buddy could finally return to "his" world.

Antagon and Animal Masters

Once again a movie stuntman, Buddy continued as a part-time superhero, but his life was to get weirder still. His powers continued to malfunction; birds died when he was flying, he absorbed animal behavior and appearance unexpectedly, and animals around him acted strange. After his powers accidentally had killed every animal on the San Diego Zoo, Buddy and his family moved to Ellen's mother's farm in Pownal, Vermont. Later, it was revealed that the reason for this "animal weirdness" was the coming of a hostile Animal Antagon, a.k.a. the Shining Man. During this course of events, Buddy encountered a Native American shaman named "Stone That Cracked Open the Earth Like an Egg", who revealed that Buddy was one of a group of chosen people called the Animal Masters, destined to be the guardians of nature. Together with fellow Animal Masters Vixen and Tristess, Animal Man was able to defeat the Shining Man, who had already corrupted, possessed, and killed B'wana Beast, still another Animal Master. He also learned that his daughter Maxine was an Animal Master as well, developing powers similar to his own.

Apparent death and connection to the Red

Settling down at the farm in Vermont, Buddy's next mission was to fetch back his son Cliff, who had been kidnapped by Ellen's insane uncle Dudley. While looking for his son, Buddy was run over by Dudley's car and actually died. His life-force survived, however, and after many months living in the bodies of various animals, he was reborn as a hybrid animal and saved Cliff. Later, he was able to re-create his original body.

Still, Buddy was now legally deceased, which he did not really mind. He had become tired of city life and superheroics, being content to live in peace on the farm with his reunited family. Fearing that nature would inevitably get rid of the vermin called humans, he started thinking of ways to make them understand what they were doing to their planet. Ellen's mother's farm became something of an "ark", a refuge for outcasts who did not fit in anywhere. Among them were a woman named Annie Cassidy, who also stood in contact with the Red, and her daughter Lucy Cassidy, who started a relationship with Cliff.

More and more, Buddy felt the animal instincts in him taking over. Overwhelmed by the power of the Red, Buddy and Annie made love to each other. The strengthened connection to the Red made Buddy step over the line, and once again adopt the appearance of a hybrid animal. Flying in rage to Washington D.C. , he plagued the city with all kinds of animals, threatening humanity to change their ways or go under. At the end, the authorities captured him, but he was released soon after, partly due to a lot of compassion from many Americans, who believed this "Animal Man" had a point.

Then, Annie came up with an idea; Buddy wanted to change the ways of humanity, they all wanted to make a difference, and they already had many followers. Why not start a cult, or a religion, with Buddy as an "enraged prophet" and Maxine as the savior - the Life Power Church of Maxine? Though they met a lot of resistance from the authorities, the Church immediately grew in popularity, especially among young people. Ellen could not cope with all this, especially not after Buddy revealed that he had had kind of an "affair" with Annie. Alienated by their community, and the forces she did not understand, she finally broke up with Buddy - at least temporarily. Buddy, Maxine, Cliff, Annie, Lucy, and their followers traveled across the state, picking up countless new "disciples" and rebelling animals in a wild caravan on Route 66. Dubbed "the Red Plague" by the media, they finally settled down as a Church in Montana.

Cosmic Phase

After this, Buddy entered what we can refer to as his "cosmic phase". Once again, he died and was reborn, this time with white-and-black-striped hair. While his friends worked with the Church's activities on Earth, Buddy became less aggressive, making an odyssey through various realms in search for universal truth. He had many revelations from agents of higher power, among them a spiritual bulldog named Mister Cow Ultimately battling an evil called the Spider Queen, Buddy finally realized that the truth was inside him. Just as diamonds and coal are the same substance, so is the divine and the human. Buddy, as well as anybody else, was the Body of God and the Soul of the World. With this knowledge, he easily defeated the Spider Queen. Shortly after, Annie gave birth to his second daughter, supposedly a human incarnation of the World Soul.

The Gamesman

The next time Buddy appeared, a competitive supervillain called the Gamesman had kidnapped Maxine, just for playing a hunting game with Buddy. With the help of Aquaman, Buddy was able to defeat the Gamesman and save Maxine. In the process, he guided the temporarily blind Aquaman, making him realize he had elemental connections.

Adventures with the Justice League and Forgotten Heroes

Maybe this adventure was the spark that Buddy needed to return to his super-hero life, because a few months later, Animal Man appeared in public again, dressed in his old colorful garb, and once again with blond hair. He has assisted the JLA on several occasions, even helping them saving the universe in their battle against Mageddon. At the start of the new millennium, Buddy attended a party together with the Swamp Thing, Shade the Changing Man, Black Orchid, and other fringe heroes. Together they helped stopping the coming of a strange new world as envisioned by a Bernie Madden. He has also rejoined the Forgotten Heroes, joining the Immortal Man and Resurrection Man in battle against Vandal Savage and the Millennium Creature. Buddy remains a semi-active member of the Forgotten Heroes, joining up with other members when the need arises.

Murder of Sue Dibny

Animal Man was one of many heroes who helped search for the murderer of Sue Dibny.

Infinite Crisis

He was recruited by Donna Troy as part of a team journeying to New Cronos to try and help stop the threat of Alexander Luthor. During this adventure, he formed a mentoring friendship with the new Firestorm, Jason Rusch. He, along with most of the heroes in space, went missing.

52

Animal Man was stranded on a paradise-like planet with fellow heroes Starfire and Adam Strange after the battle. After several weeks, Adam was able to get his spaceship working, and they departed for Earth. Their ship, however, was attacked by Devilance, who they had encountered on the planet and who had pursued them into space. Lobo appeared just in time to destroy Devilance, and after some negotiation, agreed to help them out. During a battle with Lady Styx and her horde, Animal Man was killed by a necrotoxin, which caused its victims to rise again in the service of Lady Styx. Animal Man made Starfire promise not to let him come back as a zombie. At the moment of his death, Ellen, still on Earth, sensed it, and began to cry.

Moments after Starfire and Adam Strange left Animal Man in space, he came back to life. The aliens that originally granted his powers stood next to him, saying: "And so it begins." After plucking him out the timestream and repairing his body, they left him in outer space. Animal Man reached out to another life form in order to survive, and claimed the abilities of a group of Sun-Eaters, including a homing sense. He then observed his wife from a wormhole in space, pondering whether to return to Earth, or stay in space, as he saw her with another man and putting her grief behind her.

Return

Buddy finally returned, describing the marvels of space to his delighted family. Ellen held a party to celebrate his return, but some followers of Lady Styx appeared, bent upon killing the family. They were eliminated by Starfire, who had partially recovered from wounds suffered in space. She delivered Buddy's jacket and then fainted out of surprise when she saw him alive, leaving the family to care for her.

Fun Facts

Animal Man frequently break the Fourth Wall, and eventually had Baker meet Morrison.

Buddy tells Adam Strange that his favorite Star Wars film is The Empire Strikes Back.

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My vinyl records (46-50)

I’ve been postponing this for too long. But here it is! The next vinyl update :D A lot of really cool stuff has happened since the last update, and these records are all gonna remind me of that. I’m excited to share the newest additions to my collection :)

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The Boomtown Rats’ album ‘Mondo Bongo’

I bought this at another ‘plademesse’ in a danish city called Randers. That was back in April.  I started listening to Boomtown Rats 2011, I think, but it’s been a while since I listened to them as regularly as I did back then. But then I came across this album, and I was reminded how much I loved their music. I think it’s an original pressing, since most of the records you find at these ‘plademesser’ are. I only really knew one song from the album when I bought it, but I still glad I did. I feel you have to be in a certain mood to listen to it. There are a few slow songs on it that aren’t really that interesting in my opinion. But The Boomtown Rats just have that distinct sound that's so recognizable. I love the album art, which reminds me of the music video for a song on the album called ‘Banana Republic’ - probably the most popular one on this album, and also my favourite track from it. It’s kind of a cult classic. I highly recommend watching the video. It’s a good introduction to the band if you’ve never heard of them before.

Favourite tracks: Banana Republic and Go Man Go!

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The Boomtown Rats’ album ‘The Fine Art Of Surfacing’

Yeah so, I found this pearl as well at that same plademesse c: They were right next to each other, so I felt bad just leaving it there, all alone. I had to take it home.  It’s not as good quality as Mondo Bongo, but I don’t really mind, since I’m pretty sure I paid less than 8 dollars in total for both of them. I think it’s my favourite album released by them. I love this album art as well, maybe even more than the other one - especially the back. To me it’s reminiscent of a scene from Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ where (fun fact!) Bob Geldof (the lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, and simultaneously the person who plays the main character in the movie) floats around in a pool, then starts panicking as the water turns red like blood. This album really showcases the pianists skills as well as the lead singers charisma. Another gem for my collection ^^

Favourite tracks: Someone’s Looking At You and Keep It Up

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Foo FIghters’ debut album (orginal pressing)

This is the last album I bought at that plademesse - and I KNOW this is an original pressing ‘cause the person who sold it told me - so it’s gotta be legit, right? It’s in pretty good condition too! Even though it was a bit more expensive than the Boomtown Rats albums, it was still a steal. This is arguably the second best album they’ve released (next to Colour and the Shape, in my opinion :p), so I of course had to add that as the second Foo Fighters album in my collection. But since Dave Grohl wrote and recorded it all himself, I wonder if it even counts. But it is definitely the best album Dave has ever released on his own, so I’m happy to add it to my collection ^^ And I guess I was getting hyped for the concert me and my boyfriend would go to in June - but more about that in the next update ;)

Favourite tracks: Wattershed and Floaty

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Captain Beefheart's album Trout Mask Replica (180 gram, 2LP)

Yes. I know. I had to have it. I hadn’t even heard of Captain Beefheart before I went to Højskole. Then my friend introduced me to this album, and I instantly felt... something. A weird mix of uneasiness, curiosity and excitement. So I went with him to my local record store where, luckily, they had exactly two copies left - one for each of us. I don’t think I need to say anymore.

Favourite tracks: Ella Guru and Pachuco Cadaver

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Flying Lotus’ album You’re Dead (2LP)

I got this album from two of my friends back in May. They bought it in Berlin and brought it back to me. That really meant a lot to me ^^ I didn’t really know Flying Lotus that well, but I remember them showing me some of his music. I was amazed when I heard the album. It’s truly incredible! And whenever I get a vinyl from someone it will always remind me of them, so I imagine when I put on this record in 10 years, it’ll make me think back of the good times I had with them at Højskole :)

Favourite tracks: Never Catch Me and The Boys Who Died in Their Sleep

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That’s it for now. But I suspect another vinyl update will be up pretty soon. I got some cool records recently that I can’t wait to share - and like with these ones, one of the coolest things about them are the memories I have tied to them ^^ But more about that later. Until next time, have a good one.

Interstellar

 Day 4 of @kacchako-week : Stars

Summary: Uraraka takes her telescope to the roof of the dorm and plans on stargazing but she gets interrupted by a restless Bakugou.

Writers Note: I recommend listening to the album “I.” from the band Cigarettes After Sex, especially the song: Starry Eyes. Now, here's my fic for the fourth day of Kacchako Week 2018. Enjoy.

Word count: 3.260

Beta Reader: @wishgnee

AO3 link: (x)

Uraraka pulled at the sleeves of her sweater, tightly holding on to the fabric, keeping it from crawling away from her knuckles. Her fingers were starting to cramp up from the cold after having to set up the telescope for so long. She was reaching the last steps of her preparation as she put an eye to the eyepiece and started turning to tiny knob to focus on the top of light pole.

“That looks perfect.”

She lifted her head and pulled away her flushed fingers, backing away like it could fall apart any second.

Letting go of the breath she was holding in, Uraraka just wanted this to go right so badly. She had been saving for a telescope ever since middle school. Living on her own and having the bare minimum, it was hard to put money aside.

On her sixteenth birthday her parents surprised her with a telescope, a rather expensive one as well. They had added books on stars and constellations and happily flipped through them for her, showing off how much information they contained.

Now, Uraraka wished she had been more excited when receiving her gift. Only being able to think about how much of burden it must have been to pay it off and for her parents to travel so far, she was unable to say much. Seeing her parents so overjoyed about it all, made her think about how it was probably more impolite for her to deny it after all their efforts they made than actually accepting the gift.

She hadn’t seen her parents smile so wide then when she tried turning the knobs on the telescope. Who was she to make their smiles drop by denying the gift? After realizing this she had thanked them more times than needed and let the joy take her over.

Uraraka could finally be closer to the stars.

Only a few adjustments and she could be one on one with them. She would genuinely know what she was talking about when she said the stars were beautiful. She could know in depth talk people’s ears off about constellations.

If only her hands weren’t frozen. A few twist and turns on a couple of knobs and she would be ready to go. Uraraka pulled the ropes of her hoodie to tighten the hood, chills going over her spine because of what a difference that made. She breathed warm air in her hands and rubbed them together.

With wobbly knees she approached the telescope and put her eye on the finder scope. She tried to contain her shaking so she could see properly. Biting down, helped considerably and allowed her to move onto centering the light pole. With an eye closed she started moving the scope further to the right. Her eyes started straining easily and the image became blurry.

Uraraka groaned, lifted her head and starting rubbing her eyes. A loud bang broke the complete silence of the night. Uraraka’s heart jumped directly in her throat, heartrate going from zero to a million miles a second. She turned around and her elbow hit the telescope, making it face the complete opposite direction. With a fist still in one eye and a blurry other eye she stumbled forwards.

“I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. I’ll pack up right away. I wasn’t sure if this counted as going out after curfew, either way I shouldn’t have been here so late, that’s absolutely no excu-“

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Uraraka blinked and took a couple of steps forward.

“Bakugou?”

He stood opening the door of the fire escape the door handle bouncing against the wall it was being pushed against. The echo of the clanging making Uraraka feel more uneasy.

“You scared the crap out of me, I thought you were a teacher!”

Bakugou walked out the doorpost and zipped up his hoodie. “Do I look like a damn teacher?”

“Well no, but the way you swung the door open just made me feel like I was busted! Why would you even open a door like that? Everyone is sleeping you know?!”

Bakugou propped his hood up and buried his fists in his sweatpants. He gave the roof an once-over.

“Fucking hell, keep yelling and soon everyone won’t be.” He scoffed as he started walking over to her. “And it doesn’t seem like everyone’s asleep. You’re up.”

Uraraka slapped her hands in front of her mouth and made herself small. “So? So are you!” She hissed from behind her hands.

Bakugou walked right past her and picked a book off the ground and quickly flipped through it. “No need to get all defensive about it round face, I never thought I’d say this but I’m too tired to pick a fight right now.”

Uraraka batted her lashes. The adrenaline had left her body and now she had time to properly think about the situation. It was one of fewer times that Bakugou didn’t raise his voice, he really must be drained. Without the cursing Uraraka would have a hard time recognizing the low and grainy voice. She wondered what could be eating away at him at this time. She knew he wasn’t here to look at stars, that was for sure. Though looking so exhausted, why couldn’t he sleep?

Bakugou picked up another book and started flipping through that too, this time slower, actually reading a few bits. He nodded at the pages, raising his eyebrows occasionally.

“I didn’t know you were such a massive geek.” He mumbled.

In an instant Uraraka lost all sympathy she had built up for him. He couldn’t just waltz onto her spot, go through her things and insult her like that. The nerve the guy had was unbelievable.

“Why are you here Bakugou?”.

“None of your business. So what, you’re into planets and shit?” On to another book he went, now starting to read full pages.

Uraraka crossed her arms, getting annoyed. “Sorta. I’m more into stars. But why would I tell you that when you won’t even tell me what you’re doing here.”

Bakugou held the book closer to his face and started squinting against the pages. “First of all, you just answered me you nerd, and second of all; when I say it’s none of your business, then it’s none of your fucking business.”

Usually Uraraka would have been more patient with him, taking her time to figure him out but he was seriously rubbing her the way. There was no need for him to behave like that, regardless of what might he have on his mind now.

Uraraka picked her book out of his hands and clamped onto it. “Well, you don’t have any business being here, so if you would leave then that would be great, I’m trying to set up my telescope.”

She pushed past him and it slowly started sinking it that something wasn’t right. She put her eye on the finder scope and her heart sank. All she could see was complete darkness. She dropped her book and facepalmed with both hands.

Her elbow. Her fricking elbow made her telescope do a complete 180. Now she had to almost start from the beginning.

She turned to Bakugou, who was picking at his nails and yawning as he sat down on the cold ground.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Uraraka clenched her jaw.

No response.

“I’ve been here for more than an hour, trying to set up without my fingers freezing off. It took so much effort, and you ruined it!”

Bakugou sighed and flicked away dirt from under his nails.

“Sorry you got scared and ruined your stupid little science project.”

Uraraka dug her nails in the palms of her hands through the fabric of her hoodie. She swallowed, trying her hardest to fight back her tears, but they already started to fall down her cold cheeks.

“You just don’t care do you? You think you can say and do whatever you want without affecting people around you. Bakugou, you don’t always have to be such a jerk you know?”

Her eyes were burning and her neck was getting wet. Teeth clattering and sweaty palms. She didn’t think it was possible to get so angry at someone.

“Okay, fuck, I’m sorry. Genuinely.” Bakugou lifted himself off the ground and took her sleeve, he pulled at it, causing her to look him in the eye. “Stop crying will ya’, I said I’m sorry.”

Uraraka couldn’t hold herself from sobbing. Bakugou lifted her arm and made her wipe her tears with her own sleeve. It wasn’t the smoothest of actions. He made her poke herself in the eye, which made her laugh. He grinned and settled for drying her tears himself, wiping away tears under her eyes with his thumbs.

“There. Better, kinda.”

Uraraka was surprised at how easily she accepted his touch. The thick and ragged skin were kind to her soft and plum skin and felt inviting. Bakugou wasn’t actually the kind of person that seemed to be fond of physical contact. He never leaned on anyone, he never put a hand on a shoulder, he even refuses to shake hands after a match.

She felt his thumbs linger at the corners of her eyes. She pulled her face out his hand before he could retract his hands.

“I accept your apology.”

Uraraka pushed the telescope back to its original position. She didn’t want to pack up and go to bed. The next clear night was later in the month, and she would finish what she started.

Every fiber in her being made it impossible for her to move away from the telescope, but if her mood was ruined, if her entire heart wasn’t poured into it, why not wait? A few weeks would mean nothing when the perfect night was there.

“You could let me help you.”

“Sorry?”

Bakugou adjusted the tripod and the scope. Handling it with more care than she’d seen him handle anything. He put an eye to the eyepiece, his fingers wavered above the turning knobs.

“What inanimate object were you using to set up?”

Uraraka gawked at him.

“My dad had a telescope that I used when I was a kid alright? Don’t even think about fucking telling anyone or you won’t be alive to tell the tale.”

“Noted.” Uraraka went to stand next to him and pointed at the light pole she used for setting up. He took a quick glance and started focusing the scope. Without any additional turns, he switched over to the finding scope and started focusing the image.

Uraraka had practiced the steps before starazing many times, but never had she ever been able to do it as fast as Bakugou did. She was jealous of how confident he was looking when doing it as well. He was a perfectionist but he never seemed to think twice about he had already done. And he didn’t have to. It was amazing seeing the child prodigy at work.

Bakugou went back and forth between the eyepiece and the finder scope. Eventually he backed away from it.

“It’s pretty much done now.”

She didn’t intend to let Bakugou do all the work, the set up was part of the experience after all, but he was essentially doing her a huge favor and in the end it wouldn’t be something to get angry about.

Like a big weight had been lifted of his shoulder he sat down on the concrete again and went through Uraraka’s bag. He handed her the right eye piece and then picked up the book Uraraka had dropped and continued where he left of reading.

“This piece is for looking at planets, if you wanted to do that.”

Uraraka put the piece in the pocket of her hoodie and asked: “Don’t you want to come and see?”

Bakugou brought the book closer to his face again, trying not to strain his eyes in the dark.

“God no, almost got a damn headache from all that focusing.”

She couldn’t blame him, he came here to calm down and to be able to fall asleep.

Before Uraraka started gazing she kicked against her bag. “There’s a flashlight in there, probably handy if you don’t want a headache.” Her eye went to the eyepiece.

In the corner of her eye she could see a white light appearing. She herself had been able to read the books with not that much difficulty, but unlike Bakugou, she didn’t have bad eyesight. He had been trying to hide the fact that he couldn’t see properly. One time she had caught him wearing his glasses, he was sitting alone reading in the yard, thinking everyone had gone out. As she went back because she forgot her wallet she had seen him. His face had never looked so relaxed.

As she smiled to herself thinking about his relaxed face she started her long awaited one on one.

The first proper look she had, took her breath away. With one look they were as close as she could possibly get to them. She questioned how it was possible how much brighter and more fascinating they looked compared to staring at them with the naked eye.

She had never fallen in love before but when she did she wanted it to feel like this. That’s when she would know she wanted to give her heart to someone special. Someone equal to a star. Someone to could take her breath away, make her feel content and at ease, make her feel one of the purest forms of happiness she had ever felt.

Every feeling that was buried deep under, feelings she didn’t know she was able to feel, had been pulled out of her. The gentlest pull, like how Bakugou pulled her sleeve.

Bakugou hadn’t said a single word since he had started reading. Normally he would have by now. He would have definitely said something about the gasping she did every other minute. Either making fun of her for geeking out so much or telling her to keep it down because he was reading.

But not a word. He respectfully let Uraraka in her moment, audibly admiring the sky as much as she pleased. He didn’t seem to mind her company and neither did she.

“What’s your star sign again?” Uraraka whispered as if she didn’t want to shoo away the stars.

“Aries.”

Uraraka hummed and fiddled at the knobs. “I’ve been able to find a couple so far. My own, my parent’s, but I can’t seem to find yours.”

Bakugou flipped through the pages of the second book he started reading. “Don’t tell me you barely studied these books?”

“What?! Of course I have! But it’s different seeing them in the sky than in a book.”

She heard Bakugou mumble things under his breath before turning off the flashlight and standing up. Uraraka backed away from the telescope, only then noticing how tired her eyes were getting. She buried the palms of her hands in her eyes and yawned.

“If I find my star sign in less than a minute you’re buying me lunch tomorrow.”

“You’re on.”

Bakugou started looking around the sky. It took him considerably longer than she expected. Gradually his tongue started slipping out of his mouth, giving away that it wasn’t as easy as he thought it was going to be.

“Found it.”

Under a minute, damn it.

Curiosity made Uraraka forget that the eyepiece wasn’t suitable for two people to look through and made her butt her head against Bakugou. He immediately stepped away from the telescope, instinctively not wanting to move the tripod. Uraraka stumbled forwards, not expecting him to move so quick. Before she could trip over her bag, Bakugou grabbed her by the shoulders and caught her.

After securing stability, Uraraka started to feel the pain. She felt the side of her head, which was pounding and feeling sore. Bakugou let go of her shoulders and firmly rubbed his forehead, wincing a little.

“You’re so lame.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” Uraraka moaned. “How’s your head?”

Uraraka took Bakugou’s hand that was furiously trying to rub away the soreness and inspected the red spot it had left behind his spiky hair. She went to stand on her tiptoes, brushed the hair aside, and softly stroked the spot with her thumb.

Bakugou’s warm breath entered her hood, warming up her neck. His breath turned shaky and irregular. Uraraka landed back on her soles, having moved a couple of inches closer to his face.

His face had turned crimson as if he hadn’t hanging upside down on a monkeybar. Blank, wide eyes stared back at her. When meeting his eyes, they came to life, darting around, checking out her whole face.

Confused, Uraraka looked around, trying to understand what he was thinking. She noticed how she was still holding his hand, her small fingers wrapped around his red knuckles.

She got a better hold of his hand and squeezed. “You’re okay right?”

“I’m fine.” He stuttered, fingers twitching underneath her grasp.

Uraraka knew his head was okay. She asked if he was okay with this, touching him, holding onto him. It seemed like he answered to his double layered questioning, not having retract his hand yet.

She let her hands out of her sleeve and let their palms touch. It was exciting, to see how far he would let her go. She looked up at him, figuring out how he felt about the act. He had gotten used to the touch, now having stopped trembling and peering into her eyes.

To her surprise he pulled his hand back, only for him to take hers again and let their fingers intertwine, his pupils growing as big as the moon.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“I’m fine.” She smiled.

What was it about the guy that intrigued her so much? Why did she feel the need to figure him out, to explore him? Perhaps she wanted to get to know Bakugou better. The 2 am Bakugou that knew how to work a telescope, liked reading astronomy books and didn’t mind holding her hand. A version of Bakugou that undeniably made her heart race and made it hard to breathe.

Especially when he’s pulling her even closer.

Especially when he’s closing his eyes.

Especially when he’s leaning in.

She couldn’t breathe.

Uraraka closed her eyes, leaning back, trying to create a little more distance between them. Just a little more time to steady her breathing. He squeezed her hand to check up on her, she squeezed back.

She was ready to kiss a star.

The grandest of them all.

She felt her back push against the scope. She opened her eyes and loudly gasped. The telescope had moved and the tripod was unbalanced, losing all the preparations Bakugou had done.

Bakugou opened his eyes and looked at the telescope, then back to Uraraka. All she could do was laugh, it was really something that could only happen to her, twice on one night. Bakugou started chuckling after realizing that she wasn’t all that upset.

“That was your own fucking fault this time.”

“I know!”

Uraraka turned their hands and pecked the back of his hand.

“Thank you, for everything.”

“Shut up, will ya and thank me properly.”

Uraraka rolled her eyes and, stood on her toes again and let their lips touch. A supernova occurred inside of her. Exactly what she expected it to feel like.

“Thank you.” She smiled against his lips.

“Thank me more.”

Radiator Hoses: Best Manufactured At VAIL

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Radiator Hoses: Best Manufactured At VAIL

Are you in search for a deserving producer of transmission belts and hoses? Do you require one whom you can rely upon for quality and extraordinary services? We at VAIL will definitely give you more than expected when it comes to radiator hoses and other hoses and belts. Looking forward to dealing with you soon!

Introduction

VAIL, or as it is called, the Vinko Auto Industries Limited, is a reputed, world-class manufacturer of products including hoses and belts of super high quality. While it is easy to frame it this way, the path that led the company to such a height must not have been so easy and straightforward. But today it stands with heads held high as one of the leaders in such manufacturing and production.

We, one of the best radiator hoses manufacturers, at VAIL, are into the production of hoses such as turboloader (corrugated silicon hose), air brake hose assembly, straight hoses, bellow or hump hose, moulded hoses, fuel line hoses and more. Similarly, talking belts, we have classic V-belts, variable speed agriculture belts, top profile belts, lawn master belts, max power band and cut edge banded belts X power band.

Besides these, there are various other products in belts and hoses and the collection is not limited to just the names mentioned above. We, the top radiator hoses suppliers, as talking of the company, are a dealer that has had manufacturing done for more than forty countries in the world. It stands out to be one of the leading manufacturers of such products and provider of related services.

You must try the company if you are looking forward to getting similar products in hoses and belts.

Radiator hoses: A little description

Below we shall be discussing with you a little about the radiator as well as heater hoses (bend and flexible).

Technical details of the products

These hoses are manufactured from none other than EPDM. This is done to meet some particular specifications. The radiator as well as, heater hoses are also reinforced and that depends upon the needs for pressure as well as temperature. Talking about the applications of these products, we have them been found them very useful when it comes to radiators as well as engines. While this is not all about the radiators hoses, we shall now be discussing some important features of the same. Here we go.

Features of radiator and heater hoses are mentioned below:

Reinforcement: It can be rayon reinforcement, polyester reinforcement or aramid reinforcement.

The temperature range for the products is from 40 degrees to 150 degrees.

This is all about the features of the particular products in hoses as manufactured at VAIL. You may additionally know that there are various other kinds of hoses manufacture here, namely the straight hoses, oil and fuel hoses, straight reducer, elbow hose – 90 degrees, 45 degrees, 135 degrees, 180 degrees, corrugated silicone hose for turbo charger systems, heavy duty straight hose, air brake hose assembly, branch hoses, tractor trolley hose assembly, hydraulic high pressure hose assembly and power steering hoses.

Now that we have studied enough about the products in hoses, let us come to some of the reason as to why you should be choosing us, the radiator hoses exporter above others.

Why choose us?

Below are some of the reasons that will help you make a wise decision. Besides, we would also like you to know that we are an award-winning company that has dealings with countries throughout the world. We have been making products in transmission belts and hoses for the private market as well as for government institutions. So here are some of the reasons for choosing us:

The reputation of a world-class leader: We are a company with a great reputation worldwide. This we have been achieving through hard work and sincerity at all levels, right from that of the technocrats to the level of the technicians or employees working for us. This has led us this far, dealing with countries throughout the globe.

A regular supply of our products: We have a regular supply of belts and hoses to the world. This, as said, includes the private market as well as government institutions such as state transport, railways and defence. Plus, we are able to meet such high demands for regular supply too through our large or huge capacity of working and manufacturing.

Great market presence: We also have features such as a great market presence. While we have a reputation n the market, we, the top radiator hoses manufacturers, have a significant presence there. In addition to all this, we at VAIL are known for its production of over 5000 varieties in just the hoses, keeping belts aside.

Supply of consistent quality goods: We have been consistent with quality maintenance. We have been supplying goods to various countries and have always maintained the highest quality standards. This is one of the biggest reasons for our progress that we never ever compromise with quality. We are thus in huge demand.

Awards won: We have won awards such as the Special Export Award from AIRIA and the Export Award from the Ministry of Commerce. We have further won the National Awards from a ministry. These wards are proof of our status as a producer of specific products.

This way we, one of the best radiator hoses suppliers, have been able to manage our work, reputation and quality, everything. We today stand as a leader and look forward to reaching even greater heights, becoming one of the top five in the whole world. This we are doing with our quality standards’ use. We are planning to compete with our own past quality standards and make even better products that will be suitable furthermore for the demand-makers.

Conclusion

We, the radiator hoses exporter, at VAIL, look forward to demands from all areas where our products find use. So if you are one of those who require high-quality transmission belts and hoses, then we are here to welcome you with our special products.

Radiator Hoses Manufacturers | Suppliers | Exporter

Best above ground pool vacuum in 2021: EXPERT GUIDE

Have you ever done the cleaning of the above-ground pool, which was full of messes after a wild party? If you have done it, then you must be knowing it could be a hard task.

What if we say it is easier!

Easier than you think. However, there is a circumstance for that. You will have a well-designed smart tool to clean the whole clutter in the pool very easily.

Why only after the pool party?

Also, For maintenance purposes, the above ground-pool has to be cleaned quite often. So, to have a clutter-free, easy clean process, you have the Best Above Ground Pool Vacuum.

They have varied forms and shapes. Your task is to select the one which you think will make the huge task of cleaning the pool much easier. So, you may be wondering how you’re gonna get one!

If you’re interested, below, we’re going to share specific detailed info on ten such vacuum cleaners. The purpose is to provide all the nitty-gritty information regarding these vacuum cleaners. So, let’s jump straight to the article.

Dolphin Escape Robotic Vacuum Review – best above ground pool vacuum #1

Featuring an intelligent robotic design, and the Dolphin Escape is what you require if you’re looking for effectiveness.

Design

The Dolphin Escape provides a patented Hypergrip that perfectly tracks wheel design that permits the cleaner to easily glide through the pool. The Hyperbrush dual scrubbing brushes in the end scrubs and contaminants on the walls and also surfaces before vacuuming them away from the pool.

Size And Installation

The vacuum cleaner’s battery is manufactured with ultra-efficiency, consumes only 180 watts per hour – up to 90% less power has been consumed compared to other vacuum cleaners with a similar style. The vacuum cleaner is also designed to clean deep pools with a maximum 30 feet depth.

FEATURES Active Hyperbrush scrubbing brush Massive top load filter SmartNav 2.0 robotic system Continuous Hypergrip tracks PROS The huge top load filter collects more debris and is much easily accessible for emptying. The SmartNav system has an advanced algorithm to effectively clean the pool by just sensing obstacles such as walls. The scrubbing brushes are much softer to prevent from scratching the pool surface. The wheel tracks pattern enhance traction and improve the efficiency. CONS The filter isn’t very fine

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Intex Above Ground Pool Vacuum Review – best above ground pool vacuum #2

Here comes the best above ground pool vacuum for Intex – thanks to its specialized elegant design.

Design

The above-ground pool cleaner provides a 24-foot hose, and also it is easily connected to any kind of Intex pool with a 1 to 1.5-inch hose. The pool cleaner gives you a simple, elegant design with four easy-glide wheels yet; it boasts incredible efficiency and also smooth gliding. But, for efficient operation, you have a filter pump with a flow-rate of at least 1600-3500 gallons per hour.

Size And Installation

The Intex Above Ground Pool Vacuum is designed to clean all general Intex above-ground pools, no matter how much the depth is. Its special design also reverses the straight direction to vacuum the entire pool to ensure thorough cleaning and spot-on.

FEATURES Venturi suction design Automatic cleaner design Efficient flow rate PROS The suction design permits the vacuum to thoroughly remove sand and dirt from the pool floor. Easy to set up design. Comes with easy to follow directions. The vacuum could move around the entire pool for thorough cleaning. CONS Pump and vacuum are both noisy.

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Pentair Kreepy Krauly Above Ground Pool Cleaner Review – best above ground pool vacuum #3

The superior hydraulic elegant design permits the Pentair Kreepy Krauly Suction Side to improve its suction power and to vacuum to ensure thorough smooth cleaning.

Design

With the help of Pentair vacuum, you could rest assured that your cash will also be saved. This is just because the pool vacuum cleaner is specially designed with only one operational moving part—for example, the flapper, significantly cut-down on service and maintenance requirements. A skimming valve, on the other side, helps to control water flow for efficient cleaning pace and debris pick up.

Size And Installation

With this pool vacuum, you could clean pools with a depth of maximum of 30 feet. When you clean, you will definitely notice its random pattern movement that helps to thoroughly clean and cover the entire pool.

FEATURES Superior hydraulic design Free skimming valve Single moving part design Random pattern movement PROS Skims water from debris. Its solo moving part design needs minimal maintenance. Effectively cleans contaminants and debris. Its superior hydraulic design increases its cleaning effectiveness. CONS Cannot pick up huge debris.

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Hayward 500 Aquabug Suction Review – best above ground pool vacuum #4

Besides providing a unique gearing system, the Hayward Aquabug suction gives balanced water flow continuously for quiet performance and gentle movement and cleaning underneath your pool.

Design

The above ground pool vacuum provides an advanced and contoured head pattern which permits it to finish its cleaning design within minutes with articulation. Besides that, Its deluxe bumper ring on the other side reduces friction while moving away from walls so it could resume its own programmed steering designs.

Size And Installation

The pool cleaner installation gets completed within minutes with no additional tools required. In addition, it provides universal pool compatibility; permits you to use it on concrete, vinyl, tile pool, or fiberglass.

FEATURES Unique gearing system Advanced contoured head design The anti-friction deluxe bumper ring No tools installation PROS Contoured head design movement increases efficiency in cleaning. Works with no pump. Kid-friendly and cool design. Deluxe bumper ring gives you a frictionless movement while the cleaner moves away from walls. CONS Poor filtration system

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Pentair 360100 Kreepy Krauly Lil Shark Pool Vacuum Review – best above ground pool vacuum #5

The Pentair 360100 Kreepy Krauly Lil Shark Pool Vacuum comes with A dual-band of bristles fitted, which permits you to scrub off any debris from the entire surface of the pool while its robust vacuum sucks up the debris up.

Design

The pool vacuum cleaner includes a programmed cleaning pattern that ensures it covers the pool thoroughly without missing any particular place. Its ten-inch wide path cuts add the programmed patterns as it ensures the vacuum cleans quickly and thoroughly.

Size And Installation

The compact and sleek pool vacuum could clean most of the above-ground pools. Its pointy and compact shark head also helps to improve its efficiency, speed, and thoroughness.

FEATURES Wide 10-inch path cuts Dual band soft bristle brushes Single moving part design Programmed cleaning design PROS Easy installation – simply hook the cleaner with a hose and start cleaning. Low maintenance price thanks to the solo moving part design. It doesn’t include debris bags to replace. Nylon bristle brushes are durable enough and scrub thoroughly without damaging the surface of the pool. CONS You have to connect to a pump for efficient cleaning.

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Hayward Wanda The Whale Pool Vacuum – best above ground pool vacuum #6

Especially your children will fall in love with the Hayward Wanda Pool vacuum just because it’s a fun whale themed pattern and effective functionalities.

Design

W3900 Pool Vacuum includes a patented SmartDrive advanced programmed steering system; the Whale pool vacuum intuitively moves smoothly whilst cleaning thoroughly. It features an eccentric turbine system that guarantees consistent, controlled water flow for a quiet process and very smoother movement.

Size And Installation

Including a 32-foot long hose, the good quality suction above-pool vacuum could clean any above ground pool, which measures maximum of 27 feet in circumference. As it cleans, the deluxe bumper ring provides maintenance of its special steering pattern by deducting friction as it slides away from walls.

FEATURES Unique turbine system Patented SmartDrive steering system Built-in 32 foot hose 27-feet pool circumference capacity PROS Kid-friendly whale themed design. Works with both in-ground and above ground pools. Built with improved navigation. Connects to the pool skimmer without any tools requirement. CONS Does not clean walls

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Polaris Vac-Sweep 65 Pressure Side Review – best above ground pool vacuum #7

The filtration system and pump of the Polaris are specially designed to cater to above-ground pools.

Design

The above-ground pool cleaner includes a special jet sweep design, which blows high pressured water as opposed to the pool walls as a way to clean the dirt and dust from the walls and places that are much harder to reach. This design efficiently removes dirt without causing any damage to the surfaces that a brush would otherwise scratch or damage. The dust/dirt is then swept off to the vacuum cleaner’s unique filter bag.

Size And Installation

Installing the Vac-Sweep 65 takes only five minutes with minimal tools required, which is much time saving and also effective. When it gets ready, the vacuum cleaner could work up to three hours continuously on pools with a depth maximum 5 feet.

FEATURES Patented jet sweep design 24-foot float hose 5-minute minimal tools installation Unique filter bag PROS Filter bag design increases your pool filtration system’s durability. The filter bag traps huge debris before reaching the pump. Works well with fiberglass and vinyl pools with uneven surfaces. Jet sweep design helps to remove and smoothen large debris. CONS It does have durability issues

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Paxcess Automatic Pool Vacuum Review – best above ground pool vacuum #8

The Access pool vacuum cleaner brings incredible value for your cash as it works with both in-ground pools and above ground pools.

Design

The Paxcess vacuum delivers an immersive deep cleaning feature. The cleaner includes four PVA sponge roller brushes for double cleaning thoroughness. On top of that, Its front scrubbing sponge brush vacuums and cleans debris from the walls and floor.

Size And Installation

The pool cleaner includes a fifty feet cord, and it could equally get the job done with pools that measure up to fifty feet deep and thirty-nine feet long. Its cord includes a swivel pattern to improve movement and prevent tangles. It features a wall-climbing feature for all-around cleaning.

FEATURES 4 pc PVA sponge roller brushes 3 automatic cleaning settings Extra large access filter basket 50 feet swivel cord PROS Built-in wall climbing function. The cleaning setting permits for 1, 2, 3-hours preset auto cleaning. Works well with both above ground and in-ground pools. Extra-large top access filter basket to collect more debris and also for easy access for discarding. CONS It’s a little bit heavy.

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How To Select The Best Above-Ground Pool Vacuums?

If you wanna understand the basics of selecting a good above-ground pool vacuum cleaner, consider these great tips.

Design

Some above-ground pool vacuum cleaners have a glossy professional design and also travel with tracks instead of using wheels that give the device a better grip.

Other patterns take the form of creatures such as turtles, which make a fun addition to homes with little kids who love pools and swimming. Some controls are manual, while most are automated, allowing anyone to set cleaning cycles as per their requirements.

Manual cleaners could pose a challenge whenever it comes to the cycle as these might last for just one to two hours. Some above-ground pool vacuum cleaners enter sleep mode automatically after an hour and must be reset and restarted after every cleaning cycle gets finished.

A cleaner could have an internal pump, But, might be individually designed to connect to your built-in-pool filter. Vacuum cleaners connected to pool-filters control based on the power which your pumps provide that requires a basic GPH-1600.

Robotic vs. suction Pool cleaner

This should be the very first thing you should decide when you are searching for an above-ground pool cleaner. Do determine if you wanna have a robot cleaner or a suction pool cleaner.

Robotic cleaners will not need that much manual effort, and also, they could do the cleaning by themselves. So if you don’t wanna spend your precious time cleaning the pool by yourself, you could get a robotic cleaner easily. The suction based cleaners are the ones that get connected to your pool pump as you require.

They’re also quite effective at getting rid of all the debris and dirt off your pool very well. The only downside of getting a suction-based cleaner is that they need a good deal of preservation. But, in the sense of affordability, they’re the quite best choice for you.

Filtration

Larger parts use cartridges instead of using bags to gather up debris and could manage loads up to sixty percent more than basic cleaners. Well, not all models use the microfilters, so checking the creator’s website would confirm the specifications of your individual model. Microfilters could manage algae, debris, and even fine dirt particles leaving your pool clear and clean.

How Easy Is It to Operate the Cleaner?

While buying an above-ground pool cleaner, you have to check whether it is easier to operate or is hard to operate. The vacuum cleaner needs to be able to clean the place without stopping and getting disrupted in between the operation.

The best cleaner would be the one that needs less input from the owner to process it, basically. Few pool vacuum cleaners include an automatic timer, which stops after the cleaning process is over.

Filtration Rate of Your Pool Cleaner

Discovering the filtration rate of your above-ground pool cleaner is basically much important. The filtration rate has to be the key so you can easily ensure a better quality of the water for swimming.

A good filtration rate becomes a necessity for making sure it has got a proper and excellent cleaning as you’ve intended. So you must check out the filtration rate whenever you’re gonna purchase a pool cleaner. Preferably, it must be able to filter 70 gallons of water per minute.

Longevity

Many parts come with a minimum 1-year warranty when other parts offer warranties of a maximum of 5-years. On average, you could expect a pool vacuum to last for a minimum of an entire one year.

This generates price as an important factor in choosing. Even though some designs don’t last as long as other designs come with the pool vacuums, because of their low price range, they’re still more economical than more exorbitant brands.

The Hose Length should be Sufficient

If you’re going for a suction-based vacuum cleaner for pools, you have to make sure of the genuine hose length. The length of the hose is the most important and critical element of your pool-cleaner. It doesn’t really matter how powerful your cleaner might be; if the hose has not got enough length, then it’s pretty useless.

Features

In addition to a vacuum cleaner, some good models also provide a brush that is used to scrub or loosen away had to remove the contaminant. Advance scanners are sometimes used to control and improve cleaning patterns and also ensure random and effective coverage of large and small above-ground pools.

Cable length is essential when you are using a cleaner as it could affect the capability of your cleaner to cover the whole pool. Using a cable that is too long is usually the main source of a tangled hose that could cause much damage to the structure, which might be resulting in leakage.

The customer service provided by some of these above-ground pool vacuums brands is of high quality. Customer Service Representatives personally contact their customers before the warranty expires to ensure their models are in perfect working condition.

How do you vacuum an above ground pool with a sand filter?

You will need a vacuum head, a telescopic pole, and hose pipes. Firstly, You have to connect the vacuum head with the pole and then hose pipes. You must clean the large leaves, debris, and branches that fell into the pool. Now you have to throw the vacuum head inside the pool water.

Then submerge the other side of the hosepipe in the pool water and then stick it to the jet. That’s how all the air is gonna be out from the hose. Now you have to guide it to the skimmer. However, before that, you should get the basket out.

Once you’ve done all the connecting, begin vacuuming the pool from every side and corner. When you’re done vacuuming, then disconnect the hose from the vacuum head and skimmer. You must stop water flow by putting caps or lids on the skimmer basket and jet.

After cleaning and setting up the sand filter, turn on the pump, then take off the lids. Just do backwash, only for a couple of minutes, so it could allow the sand filter to grab the debris and dirt. Then once again, shut off the pump and then shut on the rinse mode.

Then keep it on for one minute, however, before that, shut the pump on. Now one final time, shut the pump off and then clean the filter. Reset the filter valve and then turn on the pump again. That’s all.

How long should I run my above ground pool pump?

Your pump might filter all the water within two hours, and to save energy, you might run it for that short period only. But it depends on the season, actually.

During summertime, when the pool water stays slightly warmer due to hot weather, there are enough chances for bacteria and algae to abode there. On the other hand, cold water is not the best place for bacteria and algae. So in winter, pool water seems to be cleaner than it is in summer.

So, during summer, you must run your above ground pool vacuum pump at least half a day, to be precise, 12-14 hours a day. Circulation of water and doing everything to keep the water moving instead of stagnant is the key to clean water in the pool.

So, the longer the pump runs, the skimmer is going to continually strain the water and separate the dirt, leaves, and other unwanted things from the pool longer. In winter, you can run the pump four hours a day, and that’s enough.

Benefits of Having an Above Ground Pool Cleaner

We love to pick a choice that serves us better. An above-ground pool cleaner is the best choice for your pool cleaning. Let’s be informed by the benefits of them:

There are tremendous choices for an above-ground pool vacuum. You’re gonna get your appropriate one according to the needs, cost, size, usage, which are the main points to cover before you make a purchase of the pool vacuum.

More choices offer you the flexibility to select, and they’ve got a solution for all of your issues. So we think it’s worth purchasing.

Based on the backyard and your pool size, you could easily install it for future use. And the using process is handy as well. So if you’re a beginner in this kind of area, then it’s a very good option for you.

Above-ground pools are much budget-friendly. Just because of variations, there’s a vast model. Even renowned brands got above-ground cleaner for a much-fixed budget

Above-ground pool vacuums are much safer to use.

How Often Should I Clean the Pool With a Cleaner?

Well, there’s no individual answer to this question. It totally depends on your usages and the choices you make. It’s good to clean after the usage of it So that no germs could accumulate there. Though if you got some time, clean it regularly on a normal basis. Or else, you should go for weekly cleaning.

However, you should make sure to clear the pools every season. It is helpful to control the pH balance of the water.

The Beau Brummels - The Best of the Beau Brummels

The Beau Brummels had two big hits, a third one that made the Billboard Top 40, plus three other singles that were in the Billboard Hot 100. After that initial success they faded away rather quickly. It was three of their songs - Laugh Laugh, Just A Little and Don’t Talk to Strangers that persuaded me to purchase this Best of album, issued on Vault Records in 1967. As it turns out, not long after it had been released. In addition to those three songs I found most of the material very appealing with the exception of They’ll Make You Cry, which was on their Introduction album. The song is well written, by Ron Elliott of course, but the lead vocal by Ron Meagher never appealed to me. Still In Love With You Baby is one of my favorites. You Tell Me Why, Sad Little Girl, the instrumental, Woman, and I Want You are also songs that I really like. In Good Time and Good Time Music are both a hoot. It should be noted that I indeed wrote in the songs I Want You and Woman on the record sleeve. Their absence on the sleeve may have been an omission in the early printing of it, but fortunately the songs are present on the record.

Singer Sal Valentino, a San Francisco native who grew up in North Beach, had been doing some solo work and appeared on local television when he got an offer to play regularly at a club called El Cid. A band was needed so he reached out to his childhood friend Ron Elliott, a guitarist and songwriter. Elliott then enlisted the rest of the eventual band made up of John Peterson on drums, Declan Mulligan on guitar, harmonica and vocals, and Ron Meagher on bass. They took their name from the English dandy Beau Brummell, and according to Valentino, just liked the name. Some think that the band may have liked that it was British-sounding, especially since this was at the time of the British Music Invasion. In either case they were among, if not the earliest to respond to that “invasion”. With Elliott’s strong songwriting chops, and Sal Valentino’s memorable voice, they were soon to have their impressive moments in music history.

Rich Romanello soon hired them to play his Morocco Club in San Mateo. San Francisco disc jockeys Tom Donahue and Bobby Mitchell were in the process of forming a new music label, Autumn Records, and were looking for acts. Romanello invited them to his club to hear The Beau Brummels. The band signed with Autumn and for the first album, which included their first two singles. Sylvester Stewart, later known as Sly Stone, was the producer. He was credited as producer of their second album, but later, according to Valentino and Elliott, he had little if nothing to do with it, perhaps not even being involved with much of the first album’s recording other than Laugh Laugh and Just A Little.

Laugh Laugh was recorded in 1964 and released that December, quickly reaching its’ high point of No. 15 on Billboard in February 1965. It was backed by Still in Love With You Baby which also got some airplay with some saying it was also one of their “hits”, although not officially. Tom Donahue would later say that he felt Laugh Laugh could have gone all the way to No. 1 with stronger label distribution. Not only was it the band’s first single, it also was the first hit record in the growing San Francisco music scene.

Just a Little was recorded in early 1965, released that April just as their first album Introducing The Beau Brummels was about to come out. The song ended up spending nine weeks in the Billboard top 40, hitting No. 8 on the chart in June. Written by Ron Elliott with collaborator Bob Durand, the song contained elements of British beat and what came to be known as Folk-Rock. Having been released one month before The Byrds’ Tamborine Man, this made The Beau Brummels’ Just A Little the true birth of Folk-Rock.

You Tell Me Why was the initial single release from the album, coming out in the summer and in August peaking at No. 38 on the Billboard Hot 100. SF Weekly journalist Justin F. Farrar said the song was “…prescient of the lush, melancholic vibe of early Jefferson Airplane, The B-side number, I Want You was considered by music critic and author Richie Unterberger to be "as good as any song the Beau Brummels ever did”.

The fourth single, Don’t Talk To Strangers, released in October, spent one week at No. 52 in November on the Billboard Top 100. It is possible that with Autumn Records near collapse the song’s relative low placement was a result. San Francisco Chronicle music critic Joel Selvin called the song “inventive, and author Maury Dean praised the song's "raging chord patterns and dynamic harmonies,” The aforementioned Richie Unterberger criticized the song for it’s harmonies and twelve-string guitar work being too similar to The Byrds. I find that kind of strange because the use of the twelve-string was likely an attempt to add more variety to the musical concept, and the album had full, rich harmonies throughout. It seems unlikely to me that they were in the studio worrying about whether they would sound like someone else. Ron Elliott said that folk-rock was not a thing they were trying to achieve, but rather a result of their attempt to indeed stretch their sound with alternative instrumentation while using things like acoustic and electric guitars, harmonica, and it seems a twelve-string guitar.

A final single from the album released by Autumn Records, was  Good Time Music, a cover of John Sebastian’s composition done by The Lovin’ Spoonful It was backed by Sad Little Girl. It only reached No. 98 while Autumn Records was on the verge of being shifted to Warner Bros. Records. Sad Little Girl could easily have been a solid single in it’s own right, with Richie Unterberger conjecturing that it may have been a better choice as the third single after Laugh Laugh and Just A Little.

As 1965 progressed the band became a quartet when Declan Mulligan departed prior to the recording of their Volume 2 album. Because Ron Elliott was suffering from seizures caused by a diabetic condition, Don Irving joined the band on guitar for live performances and also recorded with the them. Shortly after the release of the the band’s third album Irving was inducted into the armed services. That third album was the first on Warner Brothers Records, who strangely had them make an all covers album. Although the Brummels had some songs already written Warner did not hold the publishing rights to them and had no interest in recording them. The final two studio albums recorded in the ‘60s saw further reduction in members as John Peterson left to join Harper’s Bazaar and later, in 1968, Ron Meagher was drafted into the armed services. Both the aforementioned albums, Triangle and Bradley’s Barn, utilized original material and were critically acclaimed but never charted. Triangle found three members left in the band while only Elliott, who was stabilized by now, and Sebastian were around for Bradley’s Barn. The latter record is recognized as one of the early country-rock albums. The original five members (with one leaving fairly early on) reunited in 1974 and stayed together until 1975, producing one album that got a moderate reception, but only reached No.180 on the Billboard Top 200. They toured during that time and a live album was recorded at Fair Oaks Village near Sacramento CA and later released in 2000. Following their break up the band continued to occasionally perform in various reincarnations in the ‘70s into the ‘90s. They also performed at a few Festivals in the early 2000s.

I never got the opportunity to see The Beau Brummels play live, but I, and many others, cannot forget their appearance in animation as The Beau Brummelstones in a Flintstones cartoon episode in December 1965. They also were seen in a few movies and several music tv shows in same time period. After the demise of The Beau Brummels, Sal Valentino formed the group Stoneground in 1970 of which three of the members eventually became the band Pablo Cruise, including my high school classmate, pianist Cory Lerios. After Sal left the band in 1973 he reunited with The Beau Brummels in ’74-‘75 and then his career went dormant, In July 2005 I went to see Jackie Greene play at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz CA. At one point he introduced someone whom I thought he referred to as his uncle. It was Sal Valentino, and he came out and performed with Jackie on a song or two. I was able to find out more recently that, while they aren’t related, Sal met Jackie while living in Sacramento. They played at open mics at Fox and the Goose. This was a pub that I had lunch at on a couple of occasions when I was in town for a few work related activities around that time. For Sal it was a tentative step back into performance after a long hiatus. He ended up being involved in a live recording with Jackie in 2003. While not his uncle, Valentino apparently became somewhat of a mentor for the upcoming Greene. Sal went on to record a very well received album in 2006, Dreamin’ Man, with his long time collaborator John Blakeley.

Ron Elliott continued to be involved in the music business in various ways. Per Richie Unterberger, in 2016 he teamed up with producer Lou Dorren to record a new Beau Brummels album, Continuum, with contributions from Sal Valentino, Ron Meagher, and Declan Mulligan. While John Petersen died in 2008, Elliott and Dorren discovered an unused drum track he had recorded, and it was used as the basis for one of the album's songs.

Declan Mulligan and Ron Meagher were members of The Black Velvets. John Peterson was with Harper’s Bazaar until they broke up. He married Roberta Templeman, the sister of one of his bandmates Ted Templeman. Ted Templeman went on to produce albums with The Doobie Brothers amongst many other artists, including The Beau Brummels in 1975.

In the brief time that The Beau Brummels were in their glory they are considered to be the first band from San Francisco to gain widespread success in the face of the British Invasion. Their music was on the cutting edge of new trends such as folk-rock and country rock, and their two biggest hits are arguably among the best songs ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beau_Brummels#Discography

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

https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Decades-in-obscurity-Beau-Brummels-front-man-2522300.php

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

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-beau-brummels-mn0000135032/biography

Don’t Talk to Strangers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeQ-MYwjLu4 LP29