2012.05.24 18:04 cblood86 Because Redditors need soccer shirts.
2024.06.09 17:42 MythicalBwast The game is a bit lackluster atm ; Update of Life
2024.06.09 17:39 hazeyez Baby stray kitten found, weeks old. Need some advice on what to do.
2024.06.09 17:34 darkarts__ Node.js Core Concept without any Frameworks
2024.06.09 17:30 jcole34 Best way to control "Flicker" effect for 30 LED candles
2024.06.09 17:20 MGK_2 Crossroads
Folks, Welcome Here. submitted by MGK_2 to Livimmune [link] [comments] We sort of have a complexity in formation right now. It is becoming more and more evident that there may have been a good bit of corruption at the highest levels, even stemming from the Deputy Director of the Division of AntiVirals. Originally, I put Tomfoolery together and then put this addition out. So, some additional evidence has emerged and more will be forthcoming. https://preview.redd.it/08vbpm9m6j5d1.png?width=828&format=png&auto=webp&s=ff52d8f2e17e55499be4f4bb54724fb6afbf4918 That appropriately concise and respectful letter was met with: https://preview.redd.it/4kidau4a7j5d1.png?width=828&format=png&auto=webp&s=5238d230402c5e5ff08b8af3d81c8b87041f967e So, unfortunately, a lawsuit is now in process which involves NP, KK the SEC and the DOJ. Although much of what is being deliberated within the trial has to do with CytoDyn, CytoDyn has no control as to what will be said or exposed during those proceedings. The case is between NP, KK and the SEC/DOJ and although everything took place at CytoDyn, CytoDyn has nothing to do with the trial. NP has his own lawyers, KK has his own lawyers and what these lawyers dig up and choose to expose for the benefit of their clients could impact CytoDyn, but that is of no concern to those attorneys as they must act in the best interest of their clients who are NP and KK. The preceding discussion of the evidence presented in the two links above makes it clear that these lawyers might be attempting to show how CytoDyn was doomed from the get-go regardless of what ever kind of shit or pristine BLA was submitted, it would have received an RTF. A convincing argument could be made based on the information already in their hands while even more information is pending release. Certainly, the release of such a judgement would not cast a stellar impression or shadow upon the entity that decides CytoDyn's judgement. No, rather, it would cast a rather corrupt shadow, making them out to be a bunch of crooks willing to accept responsibility for the blood of thousands if not millions, in order to propagate their own agenda over CytoDyn's. At a time of dire crisis, judgements were made to disapprove a drug which had very strong evidence of its capacity to reverse said crisis, even if that evidence was demonstrated only in 10 patients. After reading the contents of that letter, addressed to a physician and sent by a fellow physician, Dr. Lalezari, and with his response being, "I support a Refuse-To-File, even if they can fix a few things, it would be worth it. Plus, it buys us a little time when we need it most.", all together proves that the interests of the Deputy Director of the Division of AntiVirals had minimal interest in curing or reversing the crisis at hand but was much more interested in finding ways to get their selected drug Remdesivir to the forefront. They were not concerned about humanity or the overall general health of the American Public, but rather their own monetary goals, or Fishy Fauci's goals for residual income. But as for the hundreds of thousands of lives which could have been saved, they claim they were trying to find a solution, when they purposefully threw out the window a perfectly suitable solution in favor of Fishy's worthless expensive Band-Aid that did nothing other than make things worse. It was not about the people of the republic who he was serving, but much more about him/them getting their way about what drug to authorize. Lalezari submits a convincing letter which puts forth 3 strong reasons as to how leronlimab's mechanism of action shuts down the virus. He puts forth compelling lab results and biomarker data which to another fellow physician should have resulted in swift action to escalate leronlimab's path forward thereby facilitating its distribution to as many sick patients as was reasonable and possible. However, this Deputy Director of the Division of AntiVirals (DDDAV) had no intention of backing CytoDyn and instead supported a Refuse-To-File. Somehow, despite all the clear irrefutable evidence of a powerful drug against this virus, they were able to, within the rules, place blindfolds over their eyes so as to eliminate that evidence from the record and to permit within that evidence pool, only that which would deprive leronlimab of further testing. This DDDAV would eventually be leaving the administration. It didn't matter to him what the aftermath of his decision was. He left CytoDyn in a bad situation which would lead to near bankruptcy and a 2 yearlong clinical hold which had to be delt with. That was of no concern of his. His career and the goals of his superiors were all that mattered to him because he had other ulterior motives where he was headed. Recall the favor this Division of AntiVirals showed to Gilead when they changed the primary endpoints of the Remdesivir trial, so that their chosen drug could squeeze on by to become statistically significant? That was of far greater concern to him/them than getting leronlimab in the hands of patients who needed its healing. https://preview.redd.it/g1a9bfo5gj5d1.png?width=664&format=png&auto=webp&s=1aac97189f18957a7059b60460cf29980186d116 "Gilead supersizes remdesivir trials, changes primary endpoint Fierce BiotechWho was the DDDAV really working for? CytoDyn was nothing to him. Even Dr. Lalezari was nothing to him. He refers to Dr. Lalezari as a conman in other emails and wanted to be "gagged with a spoon" when confronted with CytoDyn's requests while Dr. Lalezari had high regards and respect for him as a fellow physician. From 12/2021 Dr. Lalezari Presentation to NIH: "So, they were on clinical hold, and I spoke with Jeff Murray*. And Jeff said to me,* Jay, why don't you do something useful and work on good antiviral therapy for COVID*? And what I said to Jeff was, you know, Jeff, we worked on oseltamivir and zanamivir. In those studies, and I'm showing data here from Rich Whitley, that you can reduce viral loads and viral shedding by several days with these good antivirals, but you actually don't change the course of the illness.*What was the DDDAV's intention here in asking Dr. Lalezari to work on an anti-viral therapy for COVID? Was he hoping that leronlimab would be an answer so that CytoDyn might be picked up for much less by his new company? So now it has been over 3 years and CytoDyn is working diligently seeking out the FDA's acceptance of the new company it has become. Yet, there is hard evidence that NP lawyers are exposing the administration who CytoDyn seeks both the favor and the acceptance of. NP needs to win his case and he may end up trashing the administration. If not NP, then KK also needs to win, (but he won't), but they have their own interests in mind while CytoDyn has their interests in mind. It is clear, the DDDAV betrayed everyone, NP, KK and CytoDyn in favor of their own ulterior motives and then he would leave the administration anyway, to go work elsewhere. But, neither he, nor the administration, nor Gilead really ever believed that CytoDyn would make it this far. They likely thought that with the issuance of the RTF of the BLA and the imposition of the clinical hold, CytoDyn would just dry up and die. But that did not happen thanks in great part to David Welch. So now, CytoDyn finds itself at a crossroads. CytoDyn absolutely requires mandatory FDA acceptance and favor. But what if NP or KK attributes blame of their case upon the DDDAV's clear corruption scandal which was clearly exhibited against their cause? How does that make the administration look? CytoDyn cannot be blamed for NP's or KK's exposition of the DDDAV who represents the administration. So, what must CytoDyn do now so as to not disrespect the administration? Currently CytoDyn's legal concerns right now is Amarex. There are no other cases directed any deeper than that. But it sure does seem somehow that Gilead is closely involved in all of this. It is clear that the DDDAV wanted Remdesivir over leronlimab for COVID. Possibly, if CytoDyn/Sidley Austin makes a promise not to pursue anything further beyond just Amarex, then the administration might become very willing to treat CytoDyn the same way it treats Gilead. After all, the administration backed everything the DDDAV did and that doesn't need to be elaborated on. So if CytoDyn keeps it covered, all the better for the administration. CytoDyn needs to do whatever it takes to maintain the administration's favor and Sidley Austin is aware of this. There cannot be any blackmailing of the administration. There cannot be any bad mouthing of the administration. CytoDyn needs to get leronlimab approved. Approved by who? By the administration. So, NP and KK may have the DDDAV right where they want them, but CytoDyn finds itself at a crossroads and their choice has to be to acquit the administration in every aspect and to forgive all prior wrongs but to work jointly in fairness towards the approval of this drug. For CytoDyn however, this is more like a Catch 22 and it needs to play its cards right. The administration shall always have the upper hand because this is their game and CytoDyn is only a player, while they are the game's controller. We play the game by their rules even if they don't obey their own rules. Even if the DDDAV altered the outcome to the administration's benefit, to Remdesivir's benefit, whether it is for the good of the people or not, it is what the DDDAV wanted, and it is what the DDDAV got. But the DDDAV is gone now as far as CytoDyn is concerned, maybe not for NP or KK, but for CytoDyn he is out of the way, and the favor and acceptance of the administration remains priority. It is CytoDyn's hope that the administration grants CytoDyn favor in the testing of leronlimab in a fair and just manner and that they now understand that the drug is harmless and that its mechanism of action via CCR5 blockade both interferes with HIV replication as well as reduces Inflammation and Immune Activation. It is CytoDyn's hope and request that they hear the words and requests of Dr. Lalezari and respect his fair requests. This upper-level respect must be maintained between CytoDyn and the administration. This is the only way CytoDyn succeeds, that they respect Dr. Lalezari and that Dr. Lalezari maintains his respect for the administration. If this relationship remains in place, leronlimab's approval becomes dependent upon leronlimab's performance. Without this relationship in place, leronlimab won't find an approval regardless of how well it performs if it even gets an opportunity to perform. This top-level relationship is the key to leronlimab's approval and CytoDyn must take every step to ensure this pact be upheld regardless of what NP or KK end up doing. CytoDyn must be willing to forgive prior wrong. The administration needs to want to see this drug approved as does Dr. Lalezari and together their job shall be achieved without much difficulty. But if the administration does not see eye to eye with Dr. Lalezari, leronlimab would make it very hard for them to find a roundabout way to deny its approval. If the administration for some unfounded reason, decides upon a lesser drug instead of the time tested superior leronlimab, again, that would become another debacle CytoDyn would face yet again. Therefore, it is imperative to see eye to eye with the administration. The DDDAV may have made it possible for NP and KK to walk away while also providing the means by which CytoDyn/SA might compromise with the administration for their favor and acceptance. In order to save face, the administration might work for the people by working favorably with CytoDyn towards a leronlimab approval. The war is still on and CytoDyn is in it to win it. The DDDAV almost had CytoDyn derailed, but it is still in the game and now, might have the favor of the master of the games. They can no longer say, we did not know how safe the drug was. The hold has been lifted. |
2024.06.09 17:20 BroMandi [Woot!] 12-Pack Large SONGMICS Shoe Boxes (Fits up to US Size 13) $30 + Free Shipping w/ Prime [Deal: $30.00, Actual: $39.99]
submitted by BroMandi to RedditShoppingDeals [link] [comments] |
2024.06.09 17:06 Oxiclean4me Mid May trip report: 2 weeks in Tokyo, Kyoto, Takamatsu, art islands, Beppu, Fukuoka
2024.06.09 17:05 Express_Dealer9911 70a is too small, 70b is too big, need help choosing cup size for a 65 band bra [Fit Check]
2024.06.09 17:04 imaginary_raccoon Bathing suit shopping a.k.a. the annual torture
2024.06.09 17:03 Aggravating_Pea_688 Cover Up tatooo too dark/shaded, not what asked for, what now??
So I spent 5 years trying to find someone to do cover up of line of bold writing done on impulse that a) was originally meant to be 1/3 of the size but got persuaded by artist at time needed to be bigger b) became terrible association with an abusive relationship so needed covering for emotional/mental health reasons more than appearance. submitted by Aggravating_Pea_688 to tattooadvice [link] [comments] Took that long to find someone willing to do in a traditional style/flowers. Spent a year lining artists up then either being ghosted or cancelled on last minute so by time came to this artist I was out of patience and desperate to proceed with anyone that would/could. Provided plenty of example ideas. Was told repeatedly would print them off and place on day of tattoo with my input and would not be possible to design in advance. Night before after sending final shortlist was told design had now been drawn as had had time that day, but could not share it with me a was at studio. Am shown design on arrival and is not exactly what I had wanted as had asked to create as much space between stencils as possible and to offset across the writing so didn't look like one long piece. Managed to get a few additional pieces added on (tbh under duress) which turned out to be my favourite pieces of whole end product. I had specified wanted it to look as feminine as possible and not too blocky. Due to location on back of arm was face down facing other way throughout the work. Was a lot of needle input but had assumed was shading graduation work. Wasnt until finished did I see had block filled more or less the whole stencil agreed to in bold black with minimal graduation and negative space left throughout the whole width of the tattoo which was 4 x as wide as the original cover up, much of which was virgin untattooed skin. It is this I cannot understand. Understand bold needed across the middle where writing was but the rest?? Was in shock first 24 hrs then adverse side effects from the intensity of the ink/heaviness and scale of the design in one 2.5hr sitting affecting pre existing health conditions. After this did inform artist repeatedly of my concerns regarding the darkness. First was told had to be that dark to cover the bold writing and would fade. Next I researched if going over with white ink/highlights would work and would they agree to this, and they did initially agree to saying could even go over the darkest sections but wanted to leave it a month to heal. They would be charging me for the extra work this was not considered a revision of their making. Over that month researched if this would work or was just more money down the drain and was mostly the latter ie will not work or make worse. Closer to booking I asked to discuss what plan is and if I could obtain ink information this time to double check against my allergies (given my previous reactions) and was told now cancelling the extra work should go elsewhere. Initially cited for my health reasons, although artist had been aware of all these prior to first booking and 2nd touch up booking. Later this changed to would do it again in 6 mths but understood if went elsewhere. When I contested and said had only changed mind when queried ink information communication stopped. Since going elsewhere for advice/same work have been told over and over not achievable is far too dark and would need lasering. Went for laser consult and was told was far too risky and difficult with my health conditions and the intensity of it as it is and how much pain/ill health it will cause me in attempting it. Told to come back in 6 months to review and see how much lighter is then with any luck. Am now angry that other artists are shocked at the level of shading and wont touch it with a bargepole. Even on requesting if can add in white on negative spaces or to add on some more spaced out additions to the top boldest section with gentler line work to soften the overall appearance. On looking at the original ideas i sent over only one is close to the boldness of what has been done and even that looks light by comparison with a lot of finer line work detail. Am now hiding this tattoo and although I like the actual design, and happiest with the underneath section which is more graduated in shading that could of been done on the top side, I'm embarrassed by this huge bold darkness on a key part of my body that is my right arm so always placing hand to face and tattoo is always on show. Feels darker and bolder than any full sleeves Ive seen on men now I'm comparing. Can people advise a) whether adding white highlights/layering with white to then add on flesh colours later would work on the dark sections? and if I added on to top similar to the underneath with less shading/more spacing this would lessen the overall intensity of just make an even larger dark tattoo? baring in mind traditional usually has spacing between each piece and was the look I was going for. b) how much REALISTICALLY could it lighten, given I have other black trad tattoos that are faded but have way more negative space, this may lighten but will still be one block of colour throughout. c) any original white outlining to separate the darkest areas ie wings into flowers have all but disappeared since healing, and any line detail has disappeared into the dark shading. It is still healing and probably slower due to my health conditions, but can it really actually come back to clarity still at this stage 7/8 weeks on? d) should the artist be liable for the future costs/pain/affect to my health of a future of lasering due to them not informing me of their intention to block fill to such an extent prior to completing? bare in mind the stencil was empty lines and not shaded at all? PLEASE BE KIND AND COURTEOUS AND GENTLE WITH YOUR COMMENTS I do not normally post such personal issues online but I'm struggling to get honest unbiased feedback from other artists so far. tattoo now and density'clarity wrist end/wings tattoo now prefer shading this underneath side/spacing now now top side/front darkest underneath happy with immed post completion immed post completion under light with more white and detail than now immed after note detail immed post completion immed post completion idea given idea given with leaves block to cover the writing idea given idea given. idea given, less shading more detail than what have idea given as one part idea given reference for overall look |
2024.06.09 17:00 njauf Tips on getting the right expert for your assignment
2024.06.09 16:58 imthatoneguythatuhhh got em
submitted by imthatoneguythatuhhh to TicTacToe [link] [comments] |
2024.06.09 16:50 mateusmr Mod Reccomendation: Realistic Fallout 2.0. - Immersive Edition
2024.06.09 16:24 lgebby Need help deciding what size to order for wedding dress!
I’m trying to decide what size to order my wedding dress. I’m thinking either a 4 or a 6 but I’m wondering what would give me the best bet for successful alterations. Thank you! submitted by lgebby to Tailors [link] [comments] My measurements are Bust 34" Waist 28" Hips 39.5" I’ve attached a picture of the dress and the size guide. |
2024.06.09 16:20 AssFucker699 Is my judo gi too big?
I'm 185 cm. I decided to buy the 190 cm gi but the sleeves go up until my knuckles, and I feel like I might trip on my pants. I doubt it will shrink that much as to become my size. I've been contemplating replacing it with a 180 cm gi, but feel like I might even want to go to 170 cm. Also, excuse the red belt it's just what I had on hand, I'm actually a white belt submitted by AssFucker699 to judo [link] [comments] |
2024.06.09 16:20 TheWingedBadger A beginners guide to fishing the Isle of Man
2024.06.09 15:33 Microscopes_yo I made a barrel pond! Midlands, UK
2024.06.09 15:22 No_Funny3533 Scam Artist mingmei1344 (Yomi) and her accounts at: Aiu_Agency, asiahug.com, datesteady.com, cudate.com, Jpndate.com, sayhiup.com, Rose, Miyuki Miyamoto, SW Entertainment and more
My name is Mark Faraday. I was just looking for love back around January 20th, 2024 but I don’t want to see anyone else get scammed. I had a human profile picture when I was using these website, and was honest. I ran into a whole lying network run by a Woman, her friends, and a man. I will update this story if I have more to say in the future. Her nickname is Yomi, she told me her name was Miyuki Miyamoto and she was from Japan. Her real name is Jeong Nahyeon and she is from South Korea. She also has fake Chinese accounts like: submitted by No_Funny3533 to Romance_Scamer [link] [comments] Mingmei1344: https://www.instagram.com/mingmei1344/ Mingmeichan: https://www.instagram.com/mingmeichan/ mingmei1344 Mingmei Liu My Story is long but it is worth reading. From January to June as the writing of this post. I labeled each part so it easy to jump around to the parts you want to read.
Account 1: (Kawaii, Silly girl fake account) https://www.instagram.com/yuyu_only5/ yuyu_only5 Account 2: https://www.instagram.com/_yuyu_only5?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw== _yuyu_only5 Yomi Newest Account: Chloee_asuna https://www.instagram.com/chloeee_asuna/p/C7kNkmzSIEi/?img_index=1 chloeee_asuna Jeong Nahyeon Lover or Friend 🙁(Scam Artist Man) 🙁 https://www.instagram.com/_xijii_/ _xijii_ Jpndate.com the site where I met Yomi (Jeong Nahyeon) original, closed on May 1st 2024. Never came back as the writing of this post. However, their sister site DateSteady.com is still very active. https://www.datesteady.com/ datesteady.com Another Scam website they own: https://www.asiahug.com/ asiahug.com
There is this dangerous woman who I am mad in love with (same person) running many fake Chinese/Japanese/Korean Romance scam websites, fake Instagram pages, tik tok, We chats, and many Chinese porn sites. It is the same person, she uses her looks with pictures and videos to steal money from men. She has many names she goes by, probably even more than I found. She also uses bots to get fake likes and weird Anime filters to try to look like an idol. She has scam artist female friends also I found. She the leader. I know a lot of scammers steal from other people's identities but that is not the case here. This is the same person as the scammer. My story will explain it. As well as this person has pictures of the same person you can’t find anywhere else on the Internet. Even if you do a Reverse Face image search. They said information that match to an unbelievable level. The person who Scammed me: Has Many names (Such As) And a talent for speaking many languages
yomi__na
la.nnnn930
hanhanhuwe
gracegracemei Email: [miyukilovee@outlook.com](mailto:miyukilovee@outlook.com) (Something about BlessCeline Lovee) Skype ID: live:.cid.737fb9ac2ad5655c
(Make Sense) u/mingmei1344 https://www.instagram.com/mingmei1344/ https://www.facebook.com/liuliu.meimingmei (Owner of aiu_agency since 2015) u/aiu_agency https://www.instagram.com/aiu_agency/
Google Drive (AI_U Agency) Hotel Connected: SHILLA STAY Gwanghwamun Her Scam Artist friends who work for both Ai_U Agency and JPNDATE CUDATE (That I found) (Some of these might also be her, not sure) Vynnie_nat : https://www.instagram.com/vynnie_nat/# (I think this Yomi friend and the next 2 images may also be that person 1 of 3)vynnie_natjiejierui_ngc: https://www.instagram.com/jiejierui_ngc/ (2 of 3)jiejierui_ngcVeravera_zhangg: https://www.instagram.com/veravera_zhangg/ (3 of 3)veravera_zhanggElle_owo_elle : https://www.instagram.com/elle_owo_elle/ (50% this also Yomi otherwise it Yomi friend)elle_owo_elleQiqi_shenglim : https://www.instagram.com/qiqi_shenglim/ (50% this also Yomi otherwise it Yomi friend)qiqi_shenglimMyemye_owo_ : https://www.instagram.com/myemye_owo_/ (50% this also Yomi otherwise it Yomi friend)myemye_owo_Her Friends are connected somehow but not sure how yet. They appear everywhere with the fake accounts or it just her also. Riyandiwilliam : https://www.instagram.com/riyandiwilliam/ (Either her lover, friend, or work with her) 🙁Summary: January to March 2024Jpndate.com / Datesteady.com / Cudate.com / Sayhiup.com are dangerous Romance scams. All the women are paid actors for the website from Korea/China. They will try to get into a relationship with you very fast, don’t fall for it. They are milking you for money like if you're a cow. They will threaten to kill you or your family if you call out their scam. They might also say they will sue you. If you stop paying them, they will text you very little. They will never video call you face-to-face. Jpndate.com has a sister scam website from the same people called sayhiup.com. When you buy something on Jpndate the payment goes to Cudate Limited, so that site must be part of the scam also.There also Datesteady with the same layout. There is a company in China doing all type of illegal and immoral practices. Their name is Zhengzhou Zhongzhiqi Technology Co., Ltd. / 郑州市中之祺科技有限公司 . They have their main technology business but they also run a list of many scam websites stealing money from American men, Asian, and European men. Such as Cudate, JPNDate, DateSteady.com, SayhiUp. These are romance scam sites where all the women work for the company. If you make a female account it will pend forever. Only men get approved. They claimed before to be an American-owned company then I exposed them now they claim to be Dutch. Their servers are all in China. They never filed paperwork with any foreign country. They are none of these the Chinese pretending to run many dating sites when in fact it’s all fake. They claim to be in nations their not. They have fake terms of service. I used PayPal before I didn't know it was a scam. I paid in dollars, but they refused to refund me till I told PayPal. PayPal made them pay me back. Then they refused to pay me the total amount they wanted to pay me on yuan when I paid dollars. I reported them to FTC. They also try to hack my laptop for me telling the government the truth about them. They probably get funds from the Communist Party government or SW Entertainment in South Korea. They are very very bad people. Please look into it or forward this message somewhere where it can be looked into. Pretends to be a legit dating site but feels more like a pay-to-use website for fake love. All women here are paid actors for the site. The same few women have multiple profiles pretending to be different people. The funny part is anytime you call out JPNDate bs they change their terms of service. Screenshot everything people. They have a fake page saying they're trying to stop scammers, it all bs they are the scammers. Host of JPNDate Servers: As the writing of this post: IP: 47.242.112.134 - Server: nginx IPv4 GeoIP: HK - AS45102 (ALIBABA-CN-NET Alibaba US Technology Co., Ltd., CN) Host of DateSteady Servers: As the writing of this post: IP: 47.242.47.54 - Server: nginx IPv4 GeoIP: HK - AS45102 (ALIBABA-CN-NET Alibaba US Technology Co., Ltd., CN) Host of Cudate Servers: As the writing of this post: IP: 47.52.110.73 - Server: nginx IPv4 GeoIP: HK - AS45102 (ALIBABA-CN-NET Alibaba US Technology Co., Ltd., CN) Host of AsiaHug Servers: IP: 47.242.112.134 - Server: nginx IPv4 GeoIP: HK - AS45102 (ALIBABA-CN-NET Alibaba US Technology Co., Ltd., CN) My Story: January to March 2024 My Story: January to March 2024 (Update): I know it is the same person, They told me in a text message by accident. They also replied with different accounts knowing info about me I only told the other account. Do you like Asian women? Real Asian women? These ones are real! I know who they are. Hi! This is Mark Faraday talking to you. This is my story of how a website named JPNDate Dancing Idol scammed me out of 4080 American dollars. From the time period of January to March 2024. First, I was on Japan Cupid, a dating site. On Japan Cupid, no one can chat unless one of you has a membership. I bought a 1-week membership. Within 5 minutes to 10 minutes, a woman nicknamed Yomi from Japan messaged me; this should have been a red flag for me. We talked for a while. She said she was interested in me. She asked me if I could move over to the dating site JPNDate because she paid for membership there and not Japan Cupid. She also promised to delete her account on Japan Cupid after we changed sites. She does delete her account off Japan Cupid. Japan Cupid is sus also. I don’t think it is the same company but it is still very sus. However, these women used that site to find men like me. That is a story for a different day. Unlike a normal scam artist, who may only have 1 or 2 photos, she has several photos on her profile. My trust in her grows a bit seeing that. She then privately messaged me several more photos of her. She asked me for some photos, which I sent. She then sends back happy and heartfelt emojis. She told me she doesn’t date Asian men anymore because they were violent to her in the past and her last boyfriend cheated on her. She talked about how she didn’t want to fight with me. She also said we could talk about any topic. She would compliment me often, as I did for her. Of course, on my profile page, I try to post my best pictures. Throughout my life, I have had many different hairstyles. She even mentioned this and got very happy and asked if I was a hairstylist. The spam of talking on JPNDate.com between us was from January 20th, 2024, to March 24th, 2024. On JPNDate, there is an upgrade system. You need Blue Diamond to chat with others. Crown to send videos. Blue Diamond is 20 dollars per month, and Crown is 80 dollars per month. I got the Blue Diamond membership at first. It showed her with it too. After a day or two, she asked me to upgrade like she did to the Crown membership so she could send me a video. I upgraded it, and she did actually send me a video. All pictures and the video match the same person and the same face. Some pictures were in different locations, and some were like three different pictures in the same place. We then later buy a 6-month Crown membership for each other because it is cheaper than 1 month at a time. I bought it for her, and she bought it for me. At this point, I start to believe. This person was giving me all their time. They reply very often, and their texting time was the same as Japan timezones every single day. They spoke not only English but also Japanese almost fluently. However, they did let me know that they're still learning English and sometimes use a translator. She let me know that this website has something called a mall. This should have been red flag number 2. You pay 1 American dollar for each gold point. Paypal is the only thing that works. When we started dating, she said it was normal for couples in Japan to send each other gifts. It was a symbol of forever love in Japan, she claimed. As an American, I didn’t know if this was true. I googled it and couldn’t get a clear answer. She said whatever I bought her, she would buy me as well. She asked if I liked necklaces or charms. I said anything was fine. She wanted me to pick up a necklace. At first, she picked up a $1,000 necklace from the site mall and asked me. I said no; that's way too much money for that. She said how about a 300-dollar Jade Romance charm. She told me to get her white one; she would get me the green one. I questioned if she was legit. She started crying. She somehow convinced me at the time that she was legit again. I did buy it. A few weeks later, I did receive the overpriced Green Jade Romance love charm to my address from her. I never told her which day exactly my tracking information said it would come to my house, but I asked her, and her tracking date was the same week as mine. By the way something almost the same as this necklace is 12 dollars on Amazon. It also broke when I got it in the mail. Probably cost them 2 cent to make. For the next few days, we had a wonderful, happy conversation. It is late January, and I know Valentine's Day is coming. I offered to get her flowers. I got her flowers and chocolate at a very high price of multiple hundred dollars. She then gets so happy. She told me many times how she wanted to go to America and find me. We talked about many topics for several more days. She told me she worked in an office in Tokyo. Yomi told me her real name was Miyuki Miyamoto. Which is very funny because I told her before I was a Nintendo fan, and this is the same last name as Mario and Zelda Creator. She also said she had her apartment to herself, which is true; she does own an apartment. She talked about how life is stressful right now in Japan. She claimed to have grown up in the Japanese town of Nagano, Japan. She also said she had gone to a university in Tokyo with a major in computer science. She wanted to visit America in July for 15 days when she had her time off. July is a normal time for people to get off in Japan for vacation, so I thought nothing of it. I told her that I was from a smaller town in California, but I lived not far from San Francisco. I told her how my town is quiet and how I could see mountains outside my house. She said she wanted a peaceful life and that life in Tokyo is too fast. And she always had great things to say about every picture I sent. We also talk about going on dates. I asked most of the questions, but she did ask me questions as well. I started to ask her a lot of questions about Japan. Like if she visited Himeji Castle, she said no. However, she did say yes to visiting Mount Fuji. I should have asked for a photo of this, but I didn’t. She was very happy; she told me very many topics about Japan. We even briefly talked about anime. She told me she liked Digimon, Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, and Detective Conan. This information is important later. We also talked about how both of us were big Disney fans growing up. She told me she wanted to go to Disney Land when she came to California to visit me. One day she told me, how work was busy today. I told her it was okay and we didn’t need to talk today. She did, however, still text me a little bit that day. This was the only day during our whole time talking when she was super busy. There is nothing wrong with this; all humans get busy. I decided to spend my evening drawing a picture of me and Yomi on a date to surprise her. When I sent it to her, she did not react. This was a red flag for me. I tried to convince myself that she just didn’t like drawings that much. I know I sound really dumb right here, but whoever I was talking to is very smart and knows a lot of things. I was in deep love. We started talking a few days later about the idea of meeting and going on dates together. I know that the yen is weak against the American dollar right now. I told them I would pay for anything they wanted when they were in America because I was in love. This was a big, big, big mistake. They then asked if I could give them 1500 dollars to buy a plane ticket. Never give money to people you never meet in real life, folks. Don’t be dumb like me. Turns out the ticket was actually 2100, so they asked for another 500 dollars the next day, claiming their friend let them borrow the money, and they paid the difference. They did show me a picture of a plane ticket. With the name Yomi and the correct airports in Tokyo and San Francisco. This gave me more trust in them; I got a lot of photos, videos, and even a picture of a plane ticket. At some point, I talked to them about social media. They claim to only have Skype and Line. I found it very hard to believe a woman in her 20s wasn’t on Instagram or Tik Tok. I went on Instagram and typed Yomi, and I found a Yomi who looked just like her. This made me think: why did she lie? What confused me is that all the pictures on her Instagram were different from the ones she sent me, other than one image that was the same. Meaning that the images were not clearly stolen from there. I looked up JPNDate online; there isn’t much info on this website (Right Now), other than one reddit forum from 1 year ago. Someone said something about being scammed by an IDOL on this site. They also said the website wasn’t in Japan but in China. I was wondering why I never saw new females joining the website; it was the same 23 pages worth of them. I wanted to test the website to see if it was legit. I made another account, a fake male account with AI artwork. It was approved in one second. I then made a fake female account; it said pending approval. It has now been 2 weeks since I made that account, and it still says pending approval. This means all the women on this website have to be fake actors. There is also a setting on JPNDate to see who has been online last or which accounts are the oldest. When I asked weeks before, Yomi claimed she had been on this website only for a short time. Her oldest picture was dated October 20, 2023. Yet she has the sixth-oldest account on JPNDate, according to the website. The Reddit forum I talked about before was over a year old. When I was on this website for a month, at least 10 other women tried to text me. There was this one profile of a woman from Taiwan, age 20. She texted me three times in one month. When I joined, her age was listed as 20, and at some point, she changed her age to 25 on her profile. I ignored all these women. This proves again that all these women are fake. I do know these are women based on how they type, but they are not truthful like they act like they are. As I write this, I just realized this is Yomi's friend or sister; it matches the other Yomi account's sister tag. They are part of the same dance agency Aiu_Agency on Instagram from SW Entertainment in South Korea. I knew this website wasn’t telling the truth. I found the JPNDate IP address and tracked it to a server in Hong Kong, China, hosted by Alibaba cloud servers. Reddit was right; the website is Chinese. However, Yomi is Korean which I learned later. I took pictures of the website code just in case. I asked Yomi if she knew Alibaba. Then she asked if I’m going to China—a very strange follow-up question. At this point, I was confused. Who is Yomi? I couldn’t find anything about Miyuki Miyamoto, only Yomi. On Yomi’s Instagram, she speaks Korean, not Japanese. I started to think there are no Japanese women on this website like they claim to be. She does speak Japanese, though. I started using more than 10 different software programs to track who Yomi was since she kept asking me for money. I found like 1000 pictures of an idol, WeChat model, singer, dancer, person on endless Chinese dating sites, and a valiant professional gamer part of the AI’U agency for over 8 years. I found two other Instagram accounts with Yomi's face. Another account in Chinese with an idol name other than Yomi also had a Facebook page. The Chinese account has a post about her going to Australia in early 2024, where she is typing in English words. It was a fake trip. I also found an account where she speaks only Korean on Instagram. I also found a tik-tok where someone dances and looks 100% the same as Yomi, to whom I’m talking. The part that is crazy is that none of the images are 100% the same, but the person is the same in all of them. This shocked me; I follow all the accounts. I saw the stories daily to see who this person was. Her Yomi account is just her normal pictures and atm company or something. Her Korean account is about traveling to Singapore, Spain, and South Korea. She also posts a lot about Disney toys here. When I talked to the scammer about Disney, I had no idea about this. At this point, I knew that many men had been scammed out of money for fake love, not just me. These women are real women. However, there are actors pretending to be in love. They will crush your heart and call you names after a few weeks if you don’t buy their stuff. It has to be from JPNdate Mall only, nowhere else. JPNdate Mall prices are crazy high. I am not sure if the point of the website is just for money or if it is actually for women to study English or what. Chinese women, pretending to be Japanese (most of them), that have connections to Korean music, dancing, and gaming on professional teams. Man, what a hell of a story this is. This sounds like a Hollywood movie, but it's real, or at least partly. At this point, everything I say seems to be true based on what I know. They are connected deeply with SW Entertainment. Yomi told me early on that she had one older sister and one younger brother. It seems like she is actually a twin, and she is the younger sister. Or it’s her friend she calls a sister from the dance Aiu Agency. Yomi claims to be 25, but I think she is closer to 27 or 28 based on finding a listing of her work in 2015 at Twitch Gaming. You have to be 18 or older to work at Twitch gaming, unless your parents sign things. Unless this job is fake, I don’t know. When I showed the pictures I found to Yomi on JPNdate, she played the victim card on me. Saying she thinks I’m a liar and she wants to break up. Then she gave me her Skype account to try to prove it was legit, and all the other images and accounts were stolen and fake. Her Skype name is Rose, with a One Piece picture. She sent me many voice clips, crying, trying to convince me that she was real. I put them in software, and the voice was 30% human, 70% AI. Clearly, a woman is changing her Chinese or Korean voice to sound Japanese. A PC gamer would know how to do this; they do it all the time to troll. Yomi told me she didn’t play video games anymore, but I found a picture that wasn’t that old of a woman who looked the same as her; she had a Nintendo Switch with a white OLED in it. Btw it’s a known fact that Yomi uses software to cheat in the Pc FPS games. We talk for a few more weeks on Skype. I can’t let Yomi, her sister, whoever the man is (I think her lover), and her idol dance friends scam men for their time and money. Yomi Chiense's name is Vera Yuanxin (维拉). Her twin sister goes by veravera_zhangg. Yomi “deleted her profile” when I exposed her. But One Yomi is still there with no pictures. Two they clearly have other accounts with people who look like she just changed hairstyle, talking and trying to scam other men. Remember when I said the anime part was important? On Yomi's Korean account, she has a friend with whom she talks about Digimon. She gave him a Disney toy. She told me she wanted to cosplay a fox; his profile is a fox. There is just so much proof that these are the same people. Later someone hit me up on Reddit from the Phillippines and told me how the same person Yomi scammed them. How for months Yomi promise them so many things. Then when they said it came to going on the plane to visit him they said they were sick or dying or something. Yomi also made a fake Instagram pretending to be Joe Biden and sent me a friend invite. I messaged and it was so funny how bad it was on their part. I said “Yomi are you trolling me?” then they deleted their account. This was on April 6th, 2024. Yomi tries so hard but use a lot of cheap things that are clearly fake like ai artwork, bots for like at ai_u agency, and fake profiles where she comments herself and attacks anyone who calls her out fairly. After exposing Jpndate they Ip ban my address lol. Then on social media joke about attacking me. If you call out their BS they threaten your family and yourself. Just stay away from all these sites if you're going to date online use well-known legit sites. I contacted Paypal and me and JPNDate.com had many emails back and forth. They pretended to do an investigation on Yomi real identity and said she was really Miyuki Miyamoto. It was so bullshit. I told them I would sue them if they were lying, The site no longer exists. The scam does, however. What happened After JPNDATE? April-June 2024 In April many fake Instagram accounts started following me each day. They are romance scams I never got them like this before. I didn’t fall for any of them. All or most were likely Yomi and her friends. Paypal did get me 4000 of 4080 dollars back but it took 6 weeks and multiple emails. JPNDate tells me they will be closing soon after PayPal went after them hard. Like I said I just wanted to find love. I made some stupid decisions along the way. However, I want to find out the truth and make sure other men don’t get scammed by them. I keep messaging Yomi's skype during this period, they never block me. They unfriended me but I could still send messages I wasn’t blocked. They even responded 2 times out of the 50 times I did this in the multiple-week span. I contacted the Aiu_Agency on Instagram (It is the same people as JPNDate) they pretended to be different people. I told them about Jpndate. They called me a hero, they said they loved me, and they thanked me for sending them all the pictures that Yomi sent me on Jpndate and Skype. They follow me on Instagram for 2 days. Then they unfollowed me randomly for no reason. They said their agency would do a police report and kill the scammer. I knew this was so bullshit. I told them how the scammers were making new profiles of them on Japan Cupid. Which is true. The leader Mingmei1344 (Which is Yomi Chinese account) claimed I was the scammer setting them up. She plays the victim card on me. I showed her all the messages and how I got the pictures, I didn’t steal anything. She told me her and her friends are okay if I hacked them, because I’m from the CIA. I am not from the CIA. It was a joke I made a few days before when she pretended to be a mob boss in Korea. I told her I am not a hacker. Right after that she and her friends all ban me other then Mingmei1344 account. Mingmei1344 Message me 1 more day, then block me. However, Mingmei1344 and the Aiu_Agency keep posting things on topics I told them days or weeks before. I checked their old post they never talked about any of this before that. I told these to Yomi on JPNDate and skype not Mingmei1344 again proving it is the same person. They look the same as well. Like the blue feather concept in love mythology, Gundams, Nintendo, Persona, and many many other topics. Yomi claimed to not know anything about videogames before I talked about it with her. I think this is partly a lie. This confuses me so I make fake Instagram accounts to message Mingmei1344 and Aiu_agency. She replies to my messages and Mingmei1344 even does a ask me a question thing on Instagram and replies to all of them. She clearly knows these accounts are from me Mark however she replies anyway. The replies were nice and positive things. Then later she bans them all again. Often Aiu-Agency Women (Yomi and her friends, Mostly Yomi) pretend to go to countries they are not actually in the picture, it’s all greenscreen effects. They also use Ai for Music covers Artwork. For music covers they pretend to sell millions of copies of but there is nowhere to buy such a music cover CD they claim to sell. Their music covers are claimed to be from popular songs kpop songs. I looked, at least not right now such CDs aren’t real. Of course, the songs are real but not their covers. Yomi is most of the women in the pictures but not all. They will post Ai cover artwork, multiple pictures of them using the greenscreen effect, then put a high-quality image of a famous Korean male singer. They never took these pictures of these Korean male singers. They download them and edit them. They pretend to perform with them but it is all fake. Mingmei1344 started always putting her with all the famous Mark’s in Korea. Only her not her staff with Mark’s. I think it’s a reference to me. She didn’t do this before meeting me I looked at her old post. Again Mingmei1344 is Yomi who is Jeong Nahyeon, who pretends to be Miyuki Miyamoto. She still references me sometimes in other ways and I send them messages to see what will happen next. One time I wrote about loving her to see what she would say. I do love Yomi, however I don’t want anyone to get scammed. I told her we could travel across the world together. She wrote in her next post on Aiu_agency on Instagram she liked this future with her future husband. It was a direct reply to what I asked the day before. I joined DateSteady after being contacted by a woman on Japan cupid. She is very interested in me and Yomi so I tell her everything. |
2024.06.09 15:20 Inaia_ I started sewing baby items!
I'm still somewhat begginer and this is the first time I am sharing my sewing online, so please be gentle! For few months I've been making mainly baby items and getting better after every project! These are the latest ones, that I am somewhat proud of. It makes me so happy to be able to turn these beatiful fabrics into things that can be actually used! submitted by Inaia_ to sewing [link] [comments]
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2024.06.09 15:03 Fine_Sugarpop Amazing markdown haul
Decided to take a little trip to a Lululemon about 30 mins away from me. I went in just going to browse and left with 9 items totaling $411. They had the best markdowns I’ve seen any store have. This wasn’t an outlet it was a regular store with really great markdowns. submitted by Fine_Sugarpop to lululemon [link] [comments] All tops and shorts were $29 each and bottoms were $59 each. Most the stuff are still full price on the site: - All it takes ribbed nulu long sleeve - black size 8 $29; on the site $68 - Wundermost long sleeve bodysuit - black size L $29; on the site $88 - Stretch woven short - black size L $29; on the site $69 - Stretch woven short - sundance size L $29; on the site $59 - Align mini skirt - vitapink size 10 $59; original price $78 - Lightweight mid-rise barrel pants - black $59; on the site $148 - Ribbed softstreme zip-leg cropped - light vapor size 10 $59; on the site $138 - Fast and free high rise tight 25” - hazy afterglow size 8 $59; on the site $128 - Softstreme high rise straight cropped pant - lilac either - size 10 $59 on the site $118 My order came to around $411 with the markdown prices. If I would have gotten all of the items at the online pricing it would have came to $894. I saved about 54%. It’s safe to say I’ll be visiting this store more often😃 |
2024.06.09 15:01 ibid-11962 Worldbuilding and Touring [Post Murtagh Christopher Paolini Q&A Wrap Up #10]
Did you have a research process when you were writing the Inheritance Cycle? I put a fair bit of thought into the story itself of the Inheritance Cycle, and then some general stuff as to the society and just kind of where things were in the world before writing it. I put a medium amount of thought into the magic system before I started writing, and then as I wrote the implications of it became much more apparent to me, and I really sort of dove deep into it. In retrospect, were I to create a fantasy world from scratch now, I would really put a lot of attention into that magic system and the society beforehand, just to have a good feel for that before I even start chapter one. I would put more restrictions on the magic too. I think the more restrictions, the more interesting, even the more realistic in some ways. [3]Creating Religions
If I were designing a magic system from scratch nowadays I would put way more restrictions on it because I find that the limitations are useful, I don't want the characters getting overpowered, but also just from a storytelling standpoint, incantations, rituals, spells, prayers, potions, all of those mechanical things are just kind of interesting and of course they give lots of opportunities for things to go wrong if you don't follow the correct steps. So I think if I were designing magic from scratch right now I'd put a lot of restrictions and rituals associated with it. So costs, more costs. [25]
What kind of hacks do you have to developing a magic system? Once I have a general idea of the setting, whether science fiction or fantasy, the first question I ask myself is how does it diverge from physics as we know it? Because that is a fundamental question that's going to determine what is possible in this world. It might determine what's possible with warfare, with politics, with industry, manufacturing, travel times, it could affect everything depending on what type of divergence you have. In the World of Eragon, the divergence is that living creatures have the ability to directly manipulate energy using their minds. The reason for that is kind of handwavy, although I have an explanation for it, but that is the divergence and then I tried to be as consistent and physically possible with it at every step of the way past that. When people play games you always get people who are looking how to exploit it. "What's the most I can get out of this game? What's the most I can do?" That's basic human nature. Science is a speedrunning nature I think. So the same sort of thing. You assume that if magic existed there's going to be someone sitting in their basement who's absolutely obsessive about it and is going to figure out every single advantage that that divergence gives them. And you have to be realistic and work that into your world and say "Well people aren't stupid. They are going to figure this out and use it in this way, and what are the implications, socially, physically, and everything else?" Once I have that then you can think about society and culture and everything else, but that basic physical difference from our reality is just to me fundamentally important to understand before I even begin to write. [25]
With standalones you're not dealing with continuity or what rule did you break or things like that. That's interesting, because I would say that writing a sequel for me is faster than writing a standalone. At least for me, the more I know the characters and the world, the faster, like I don't have to do the groundwork of creating a magic system, creating a society, creating the gods and the history. All that's done for me, so I can just slip into it like slipping on an old glove. [33]
A socio-political religion in your world helps drive characters or stories or die-hard fanatic characters forward. How do you go about developing those? Have the courage to let your characters actually believe the things that they are supposed to believe. If you look back historically people really did truly believe these different religions and different systems. Too often I think with modern stories we have people only giving lip service to the supposed belief and instead having very modern attitudes toward it which perhaps doesn't always work. That's understandable if you want a character to be relatable to a modern reader, but there are so many examples of interesting belief systems throughout the world. To me that's something fascinating to write about. But the main thing is just accept that when people truly believe something they're genuine about it and then you can follow that from a logical and storytelling standpoint. What I'd also say is, if you're writing about something that is very different from your own belief system, assuming it's not like completely evil, to try to approach it with a sense of charity. With the understanding that everyone is searching for meaning and understanding. I've always had a soft spot for the old television show Babylon 5, because although I don't believe that the creator J. Michael Straczynski is religious, he writes all of his characters with great sympathy and understanding, he's never cynical about it, and he's not putting up straw man arguments or criticizing any of the characters. He's like "They're searching for meaning. They're struggling with the great questions as we all do, and each one is trying to solve those questions in their own way." And I always really appreciated that he wasn't being cynical about it or really shallow. [25]Creating Languages
Did you think of the ancient language, not just as a mechanic, but also as a parable of our own language? I was thinking about how language itself feels like magic to me. You can write a story, you can convey information. Language in many ways is our greatest tool and makes us human along with, I would argue, our hands, our ability to manipulate objects and use actual tools. But one without the other wouldn't really work and wouldn't allow us to be a technological species. We could have language with no ability to handle tools, and then we wouldn't be what we are now. But I find language fascinating and I find the function of language incredibly interesting. And there is this idea in the real world going back to the beginning of time, that to name something is to understand it, and gives you a certain amount of power over it, whether that's a person or a physical object. And the ancient language is just taking that idea seriously. And I'm not the first author or tradition to do that, but is it a parallel? Is it a metaphor? I don't know if I'd go that far, but it definitely ties into the use of language and my ideas about it. What's crazy to me is there is a theoretical arrangement of words right now that would give us a massive breakthrough in science and physics. There's a theoretical arrangement of words that were I to write it or anyone else would influence how people think about the next presidential election to such a degree that it might actually changed the election. These are all theoretically possible and you can think of many many other things that you could do with language. We just lack the knowledge of what those arrangement of words are, and so we're constantly clawing our way toward new knowledge and new uses of language. [19]Creating Maps
The languages that you were playing around with in The Inheritance cycle, they were Germanic, Anglo Saxon based? The ancient language, the magical language, is based very strongly on Old Norse, which of course is Germanic or related to Old High German. The Dwarven language was invented pretty much from scratch although it is an agglutinative language like German is. And then the other languages have not appeared very much in the series. They're just little scraps here and there. To be clear, I am not a linguist, and I have not devoted the time and energy to developing these in a formal or rigorous way, the way that Tolkien did. Tolken was a linguist and that was his forte. I got far enough down that path while working on the Inheritance Cycle that I really began to appreciate how every word has a history and that history is inexorably tied to the history of the land. It's often said that Tolkien created Middle-earth just to explain his languages, as a setting for the languages. Which isn't entirely true, but there is truth to that. That's what I was encountering and I was realizing that I could spend 20 years, 10 years, just working on the languages and building this out. It might have been a worthwhile venture, but the tradeoff would have been no more books published during that time. I want to tell a story. [28]
What I would do these days, or what I did with other languages, is come up with a couple of words that sort of had a general feel that I liked and then extrapolating from those invented words, figuring out what consonants and vowels and clusters thereof that I wanted. Come up with some more sample words based off that and then start working out some grammar. Grammar is probably my weakest spot since at the time I wasn't really aware of non-English grammar systems and I've put some more attention in that since then. [34]
The language and culture that you describe in the books seem very real. How do you start inventing a language? You shamelessly steal from Germanic mythology and Scandinavian mythology, just like Tolkien did. But I'm no linguist, I did my best, I have a copy of the Nibelungen up on my shelf along with the Eddas, and I based one of my languages on Old Norse, which gave it a nice sound and feel. So the main thing is picking things that make sense for your world and then trying to be internally consistent. [2]
At what point in your writing process do you start creating the map? I've created the maps at different times in different books. At first I thought I didn't need a map because I thought that a good book should be perfectly understandable without a map. You shouldn't need to rely on anything outside of the text in order to enjoy it. And I still think that's generally true, but a map can add a lot. So for Eragon, I did it partway through the book. If I were to do a stand-alone fantasy novel, I would definitely want to work out the maps and stuff before writing it. [12]Creating Dragons
The map for Eragon, the original black and white map, I did about halfway or a third of the way into Eragon. My idea was, and I still kind of believe this, that a well-written book shouldn't need a map in order to understand the story. You should be able to keep your bearings just based off the text. What I ran into though was that I was getting lost in the world myself with the amount of places and things after a certain point. And so I drew a map. [34]
For me I think if you're creating something in the real world obviously that gives you certain constraints and certain advantages but if you're starting with something from scratch, I find creating a map right up front is really helpful because your story is not going to visit every square inch on your map so by filling in those other details on the map you're going to get more story ideas and also ideas for potential conflicts, travel distances. It all feeds into the realism of the story as well as potentially future stories. It's fun stuff. The downside is you could spend your whole life worldbuilding. There's a there's a book from World War Two called Islandia, and the guy just spent his whole life creating this island and its culture to the point of working out the actual layers of geography of stone in the island. I've never actually read the book, I don't know if it's any good, but I know it was fairly popular when it came out. [25]
What hacks do you have for for creating geography and points of interest within your world? When I was creating the map for Alagaësia I actually used a old National Geographic Atlas and traced over various coastlines and then distorted them and pasted on top of each other in order to get sort of a natural feeling coastline. Please don't compare the island of Vroengard to the outline of Greece. Please don't do that. And then you have Robin Hobb who just turned Alaska upside down for her map which I always love because I've lived in Alaska twice. I think she told me that she never actually expected the book to get published, but then she got stuck with that because everything was tied to the geography that she started with. [25]
I think that a good map ought to have lots of points of interest, and the tricky bit is, without getting so detailed that it becomes cluttered. You see that sometimes with real world maps, like atlases and stuff, where there's a ton of place names, city names, river names, road names. All of which are useful and necessary, but it can actually visually get in the way of the art, perhaps the artistic effect that you would want a fantasy map to have in a book or a movie or even a game. [12]
There are world generators that you can just click through. It's really easy nowadays with technology to build worlds just by snapping your fingers. Even with those tools, if you have the time and inclination, I think there is some benefit to redrawing or painting the maps in your own style. I don't know about you, I love seeing when the maps are from the author themselves. I remember Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams. Tad did all the maps himself, and I love that. Even if it's imperfect or a little amateurish it just gives it a really nice feel. I love Tolkien's original art for the same reason. [25]
You are the creator of your own world. Do you feel that you have follow certain canons of fantasy worlds, for example, dragons have four legs and wyverns have two? Or do you feel that you can practically do whatever you want because it's fantasy and you create everything? Yes and no. No because I have already established rules and traditions and precedence in The World of Eragon, so I have to be consistent with that. But if I were writing a new fantasy, I would not feel beholden to any tradition. If I wanted to write a world where the dragons have three legs or feathers or something like that then I would feel free to do that. That's the great thing about speculative fiction is it gives you the freedom to write and create whatever you want to. The thing is when you have a genre where anything is possible it actually reveals the limitations of your imagination. And there are very few authors, myself included, who really make full use of that. But at the same time, limitations can make your fiction more interesting. I think it's important to pick some limitations and that will help actually improve the quality of your work. [7]
Why did you decide to have your dragons have a saddle? I was around horses growing up. And the thought of actually physically being on a creature with very hard scales was rather terrifying if thought about in a practical sense. And so it just seemed to me that there had to be some protection. [33]
When you're writing fantasy and you include dragons, especially a dragon rider fantasy, depending on how many there are there, it's actually quite a difficult thing to not solve all your problems with dragons. I think the solution to that is you focus on the problems that dragons present, which balances out the advantages. And of course people are smart, whether we're talking about humans or elves or dwarves or any other invented species. If dragons were real, you'd come up with counters to them, whether it's a bunch of giant ballistae on your walls, or building domed fortresses, or building underground. You would come up with solutions and it would negate those advantages. And that's always my issue with writing fiction with dragons in the real world. If it's a slightly more modern, then you have to ask, well, why isn't everything different in history? Like if dragons were a constant part of our world, architecture would be different, warfare would be different, politics would be different. Well, no, politics would be the same. What am I saying? [30]
I'm sure all of us have seen the fantasy paintings of like a knight in armor with a lance on a horse facing off against a dragon. Now, to be fair, a lance moving at a decent speed at a horse galloping will have enough kinetic energy behind it to punch through just about anything. It could do a lot of damage. But any decent sized dragon would move so fast and be so strong, you wouldn't have a chance with a lance. You'd need a giant crossbow. That'd be your only choice. The size of a dragon, intelligence of a dragon. Until you get to projectile weapons, you have no chance. [30]
We all know what any creature gets when they bond with a dragon. They get a dragon. But why would a dragon create that bond? Why would they do it? Is it the bond, is it their nature? I think for me, having other species bond with the dragons was essentially a way to keep the dragons from getting wiped out. Because dragons are such a huge threat. If you imagine in the real world, we don't suffer giant predators to be constantly predating and disrupting our world. We remove that threat. Especially if there's magic involved, the ability to remove that threat gets even bigger. So in a way I viewed the bond between rider and dragon as essentially self preservation for the dragons, if not the other species as well. Without some sort of symbiotic relationship, coexistence becomes very, very difficult. That, or the dragons have to be smart enough to just essentially remove themselves from the world and live off in the far off places. But that gets really difficult when you start considering how much they need to eat. I remember reading the Live Ship Trader series and I remember the end of that spoiler alert where it's become clear that true dragons have returned now. And it really was kind of an oh crap moment because you start thinking about what that actually means for there to be dragons in the world again. It's kind of like Reign of Fire. [30]
How did you do on your book tour? It was a lot. It was a lot. I did 50 days of touring last year between Fractal Noise and Murtagh. Obviously the majority of that was for Murtagh. And of course I had a couple other trips in there as well. I went to New York Comic Con. I had one or two personal trips. So there was a lot of travel last year. My goal is to not have as much travel this year. In general, the book tours were awesome, great crowds for the Fractalverse, enormous crowds for World of Eragon/Murtagh. I don't normally talk about this stuff, but since we're past it, it doesn't matter. I started touring for Murtagh November 6th and then got home for good on December 16th. But there's always a risk of getting sick while you're traveling. And I did pretty well in the US leg of things. And then over in Europe between the jet lag and not sleeping- I had a really amazing dinner, one of my publishers took me out to a three star Michelin restaurant. The problem was the dinner started at 8pm and didn't finish till midnight. And there were two or three desserts, and the last dessert was full of coffee, and I didn't realize it. Absolutely full of coffee. And I did not get to sleep until like four in the morning. And I only had three hours of sleep that night. So I think I got sick the day after as a result. I got so sick on the European tour that at one of my stops I had to call paramedics to my hotel room at 2 a.m. because I couldn't breathe. Ended up with bronchitis for the first time in my life. But I'll have you know, I did every event. I didn't miss a single event. I managed to do all my presentations and made it through in one piece. I've never, never backed down from doing an event, even while bleeding. Can you tell us a little bit about the time that you were bleeding in an event? Well, I was in Europe. I was touring for Inheritance, I'd already toured North America, and then I started in Europe, went to UK, and then I went to Australia and New Zealand. But first country was Germany, and I think I did Munich and Cologne, and then I ended in Berlin. And in Berlin, they had me in this wonderful theater that's like over 100 years old, which is very rare in the city, considering all the bombing during the war. And I'm backstage, which meant down in the basement of this theater. And there's like 500 people out waiting for me to make an appearance and there's someone introducing me and they say my name and everyone starts clapping. And of course you want to get on stage before the applause dies down. And the way you got onto stage in this theater was through a set of stairs. And it really wasn't even steps. It was almost like a ladder and it was wood. And the steps were so old that they were basically hollowed out from all the people that have gone up and down it over the years. So I'm scrambling up this and about halfway up, my right foot slipped off the edge of one of the steps because it was hollowed out and full speed, full strength, full weight, I slammed my shin into the edge of one of the steps, stumbled forward two more steps and did it a second time. But momentum, adrenaline, I keep going, I get up on stage, I waved to everyone. And fortunately for me, because I was speaking to a foreign audience, they had me sitting at a table with a translator and a presenter. So I got to sit down and the table kind of hit everything from view. And I start the presentation, start the event. And after about, I don't know, five minutes, I'm thinking to myself, okay, I've banged my shin before. We've all banged our shins before, but this really bleepin' hurt. So I looked under the table and the whole front of my jean leg on my shin is soaked with blood. There is blood dripping onto the floor and my sock is soaked with blood. So I poked my translator, the presenter next to me that I was doing a couple of events with, and I said, "Hey, look at this". And he glances under and his face just goes white. And I'm colorblind and I saw his face go white. And he said, "Do we need to call an ambulance?" And I'm like, "No, no, we're going to do this." So I did an hour-long presentation. And then I got up and managed to quickly limp over to a signing table. And no one really noticed that I wasn't feeling so hot. And I got behind the signing table, and I signed books for 400 or 500 people. And the funny thing is, I was traveling with this foreign rights agent publicist for Random House named Jocelyn, who was just an absolute beast of a woman. I love her to death. You have to understand, she did a European book tour with me while eight months pregnant. The woman was and is just very impressive. But she grew up on a farm. German family in the US, grew up on a farm. So I showed her my leg when I was sitting down to sign and she just looked at me and she said, "You need to go to the hospital?" I said, "Nope". She said, "I knew you were country. Good man." Slapped me on the back. So I finished signing and then I went back to the hotel and I had to get into a tub of water to soak my jeans off because the blood had dried and glued them to my shin. And the problem was I had a dent all the way down to the bone. And I really should have gone to a hospital because, sorry for the gory details, but what happens is when you get a dent like that, you lose the fat under the skin between the skin and the bone and it doesn't come back unless you get an injection to help it puff out and heal. And I didn't do that because I was on tour, there was no time. So the next day I had to fly to pretty sure it was Barcelona for the St. George Book Festival, which is a walking festival. So you have to walk from bookstore to bookstore in the city and do signings. But that was a bit rough. That actually took over a year to heal properly. I still have that dent. Stuff happens. I've heard some crazy stories with other authors. I'd rather it's my blood, not the fan's blood. [32]Touring Difficulties
We've got blood and sweat, any tears from tour? On occasion. The biggest one is just being away from home. And if anything is a bit off for whatever reason, you can't just pop home and hold someone or do this or do that. It's just difficult to be that far away from home for so long. [32]Meeting Fans around the World
If you're not familiar with book tours, the way it often works is that you fly to a city, you get to your hotel room, you have a little bit of time to freshen up, maybe get some food and then you go to the bookstore and you do your event. And it has to be after people get off from work, so it tends to be a later evening event. If you have a large number of people show up, that means that that time spent talking and signing pushes fairly late in the evening. You go back, you get dinner, and if you're a semi-introvert like so many authors tend to be, you need some time to decompress, which means you probably stay up a little too late reading or writing. And then in the morning, you got to go get another airplane flight and go to the new city. All of which is fine, but going to the airport, doing those flights, with the time it takes to go through an airport these days, it means that the schedule has very little time in it. When I toured for Fractal Noise, the publisher one of the days had me fly from Tampa to Portland and I still had to do an event that day. Which I agreed to. It was my own fault because they had everything on the East Coast and I said, "Well, what about the West Coast? You know, I have readers on the West Coast. They need to get a chance to get a signed book." It was my own fault. But that can get rough when you're doing it for weeks on end at a certain point. You just can't recover. A day off? What's that? But it's a good problem to have. That people want to see you and want to read your books. It's an awesome career to have. [1]
I'm also a big fan of coffee naps. So I will drink a cup of coffee, usually my second cup of coffee, and then I'll go take a nap, and I will nap for about 30 minutes, because after 30 minutes the coffee wakes me up. And I find that 15 to 30 minutes is the perfect length of a nap for me, and if I go past that, I need to sleep for about three hours, because otherwise I get into the middle of a REM cycle, and if I wake up in the middle of a REM cycle, I'm just like groggy and drugged, and I feel worse than if I hadn't napped at all. And then of course, if you're on book tour, the way I have been for a while, you gain the ability to just close your eyes at any point and take a 10 minute nap 15 minute nap anywhere, and it at least helps you stay upright. [19]
You just got back from the U.S. leg of your book tour — who’s making up the crowd? The readership is broad and probably older than it was back in the day. There are still a lot of 8-year-olds, but now there are grandparents, too. I’ve even met some kids who’ve been named after the characters, which is pretty amazing. Because people have been reading the series for so long, I tend to get a mix of incredibly detailed, hyper-focused, deep-dive questions about some of the lore, but also some more general ones about Eragon’s name. [16]Appearance
I'm sure you hear personal stories all the time especially at your readings and your your appearances. It must be lovely, and I guess overwhelming to connect with your fans. That's a good way of putting it: lovely and overwhelming. Everyone has their own personal history with these books. I have people showing up who named their children after the characters, or who've gotten tattoos. Oh my goodness, what's the one you get? Multiple Saphiras, Aryas, Rorans, a couple of Eragons. As a writer, you want people to read your stories, enjoy them, be affected by them. If they're affected so strongly they name their children after your characters, you feel pretty good about it. [28]
Are your European fans different from your American fans? I actually haven't met any children here who are named after characters from my books. That seems to be an American phenomenon. The language barrier sometimes makes it a little more difficult to talk to European fans. But the love for Eragon is just as strong in Europe as it is in the US. This is not your first time on tour in Europe. Is there something you're missing here? I actually noticed that hotels in Europe usually don't have ironing boards or irons. This is standard equipment in America. [24]
My great-grandmother was from Sicily and then my grandfather was from Bologna. I just found out recently that my grandfather as a child was tutored by Fellini's wife. [7]
My grandfather was the stereotype of an elderly Italian gentleman. He had a mustache, he cooked spaghetti and he made the most amazing red sauce for the spaghetti. He used too much profanity. He was quite the character. [35]
Amsterdam is a beautiful city, but if I had grown up here I would probably still have written fantasy, but it would probably have influenced the type of fantasy I write. [23]
I was just in Stockholm on book tour for my latest book. And I've sold a really large number of books, proportionally in Sweden, and I'd never been there before. And I was kind of curious what their thoughts and feelings were on it, given the fact that I have shamelessly pillaged, Anglo-Saxon Scandinavian mythology for my own work. And they said native Swedish authors don't write using their own mythology, they go into the more literary veins and they import and translate other authors who are writing about Scandinavian mythology and they enjoy it immensely, but it doesn't seem to be a homegrown thing for them, which is rather odd, I think. [30]
Old Norse is not so far from German, do you speak a little bit of German? I understand a fair bit. When I've done presentations in Germany, I've had children ask me questions in German, and I can sometimes understand the entire question without translation, but I only speak a few words. [Host 2]: Let's try it. Can you ask the next question in German? Of course. Oh dear. [speaking quickly] Herr Paolini, wie viel von ihrer Vision für die ganze Serie hat sich mit der Zeit verändert? Hat es sich überhaupt verändert? Denn wenn man sich die frühen Werke anguckt, erkennt man, dass sehr viele Sachen aus den frühen Werken in den späteren wieder auftauchen. So dass es eigentlich unmöglich sein kann, dass sie das nicht von Anfang an komplett geplant haben? Translation please. That was not fair. But funny. Yeah, I was just asking, when you started writing the book, and it became not just one book, it became a whole world, it became a series, and I don't want to spoil anything, but if you read the first books and you read the later books, stuff comes up again, and it seems like you actually knew where it was going when you started writing, which is again insane because you were 15. Is that something you just got lucky, or did you really plan for a whole series when you started writing the first one? I planned because I tried writing some stories before Eragon, and I never got past the first five or ten pages because I didn't have a story. I would only have an inciting incident, like a young man finds a dragon egg in the forest. Well, fun, awesome, but that's not a story. So Eragon and the series as it was, was a writing exercise for myself to see if I could outline, plot, and then write at least the first book of a series. So yes, if you read the first book, Eragon, there's actually a scene, a dream sequence in the first book. And it is the very last scene of the last book. And I did that specifically so that I could point to it and say to my readers, "See, I knew what I was doing." But of course, it isn't the last book now. [2]
Before he finished signing them all he asked if I read Fractal Noise, I said yes. He then asked how I liked it. I said I liked To Sleep far more. And to be fair I did. But I could've been a little more less brunt about it. All in all I'm sorry Paolini. I hope you see this. Dude -- No need to apologize! I was the one who put you on the spot. I was just curious about Fractal Noise as it's pretty different from what I normally write. That said, I'm a big boy, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest if someone prefers one book over another. [R]
Have you been on TikTok? How do you find it? I have an account that my assistants post content on for me because I don't have the time and I don't want it on my phone, but it has been a really useful way to connect with readers, and I had a lot of people who came up during my book tour end of last year, who said that they found out about the events I was doing from the posts on TikTok. [33]
Outside of the tour, did you do anything to personally celebrate the release of Murtagh? No. Not to sound blase, but this isn't my first book I've released. Going on the tour is the celebration. Getting to meet the fans. It's an enormous expenditure of energy, time, effort, and it's very joyous and touching and meaningful for me. And I think for a lot of the readers. So that's the celebration. My team and I, we all kind of take a moment to pat ourselves on the back every time a book comes out and then it's back to the grind a bit. Also, I got to celebrate my 40th birthday while on book tour, and I got to celebrate it with my editor, my publicist, my former publicist who's been with me since the beginning. So that was really nice. [32]
Being an author is like the best kind of semi-celebrity, because nine times out of ten, no one knows who you are, you can live a nice quiet life, and then you get to go out and meet people who like your work. And that's a real treat. I grew the beard partly to keep people from recognizing me. But then I've had it for so long that it doesn't work anymore. And I got tired of shaving. But the problem is the beard takes so much time and effort to take care of it, it doesn't save me any time. [1]Signing Books
Did your hat end up getting fixed post-tour? Yup. Fixed it myself with a rivet. [T]
Any advice on how to wear a pirate's hat without it being weird? It's very simple. There's one ingredient. You wear it with confidence. That's all. [36]
People people don't maybe don't realize what an endurance race it is, especially when when books are this big and successful. Like the amount. I once did 9,280 books in an afternoon and a half at a warehouse. I had nine people helping. I stood. I find that if I stand, I don't use my wrist. I can isolate the arm. And I just had someone shove it under me, someone pull it out for me, and everyone else was boxing, unboxing and flapping. But it hurt. It really hurt. I dropped my first name this past year. For the first time in a 20 year career, I finally dropped my first name. Did you feel defeated? Yes. But I have kids now and I just could not afford the time and the strain on my body. I actually got two typewriters. I got really bad inflammation in my right thumb from all the signing and I find that typewriters alleviated that. Also heavier like mechanical keyboards seem to help. So I know like Robin Hobb has suffered some severe problems with her hands with the amount of typing she's done over the years. So yeah, it is an occupational hazard. [33]
I have to say, signing 30,000 sheets is SIGNIFICANTLY harder than mining or placing 30k blocks in #Minecraft. Lol. [T]
Do you have a PO Box or something? I’d pay shipping both ways to have you sign my books. P.O. box is listed on paolini.net. Just include return shipping, please. :D Alternatively, you can arrange signed copies through Conley's Books & Music in Livingston, MT. [R]
If I send a book to a P.O. Box and pay for shipping there and back, would you sign it? Yup. Address is on paolini.net [T]
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