#I googled charles finch

[zilabee]

on walking in the park one evening during the pandemic, listening to music:

[the song that started playing] was I’ll Get You, which is really a true 50/50 Paul and John song, and as I listened, the song slipped behind my defences so easily that it took me a moment to realize what was happening, that I was hearing it, first in indistinct glimmers, then completely, with the same ears as I had when I was little. It sounds so slight the day afterward, like most such experiences. But it wasn’t. When the song ended I put on a random Beatles playlist, practically in a trance. I didn’t even want to look at my phone for long enough to get distracted by a text, I didn’t want to lose the feeling, and walked for hours through the night, listening. I had put so much of myself inside those songs for safekeeping.

...

There are millions of bigger Beatles fans than I am, but I feel stubbornly certain in my heart that no one can love the Beatles more than I do. They were incredibly alive to me from the moment I heard them. Looking back, I think it was their joyfulness I found so mesmerizing. Even their saddest songs have an undercurrent of happiness. (You’re never too far from a 7th chord with the Beatles.) I think it’s because they were four working class kids whose crazy plan had actually worked. Especially in their early pictures they look dumbstruck to be so famous and gifted and rich and happy. It’s there in their first perfect song, Please Please Me. A minute and a half in, John and Paul mess up the lyrics, then sort of cover it as they launch, with John laughing — but not to the listener, just caught up in the happiness of the playing with Paul, this other genius he found in Liverpool — and then covering the laugh with the start of the chorus.

...

Last night, I listened to all of it. In my head I tracked the other songs in which various band members laugh (I Should Have Known Better, It’s Only Love, If I Fell, etc.) and observed with intense satisfying scrutiny just how weird and sad and good John’s parts of A Day in the Life are, so much of each that it’s hard to believe it’s a part of mainstream culture... until you remember that one of Paul’s transcendent gifts is to lift the sensation of hopelessness from a song without rejecting its presence. I listened to I’ve Got a Feeling. “Everybody had a hard year.” I nodded, in the misting dark, as I headed home. In my defence it was very late by then. Everybody had a hard year.

[Charles Finch, LA Times, Nov 2021 ]

[margareth-lv]

🤕 No pain, no gain 🤕

There's an old saying that goes something like:

You know, the idea that everything ultimately has a cost and nothing in life is truly free.

In this context, the comment @auburncurlslass under my Saturday note gave me food for thought:

Another thought…..how did the B list actress score a seat next to the lead A list actor?? Does Bradley really know Caitriona? If so, how or what is the connection?🧐🧐🧐🧐

*** *** ***

Perhaps my reasoning is too simple, too simplistic. Perhaps the flow of my associations is also too simplistic, perhaps by simplifying I am making a mistake in my reasoning. I take this into account. Especially since I'm making my argument based on a few photos published on Instagram, not based on hard data. But what do we see from a few photos on Instagram?

(By the way, let's not forget that Sam flew to the USA at the time, so there's no doubt that Sam and Caitriona lead completely separate lives and have nothing in common. After all, nobody remembers that they both dropped off the radar in previous weeks. Sure, they weren't in the SM, but they couldn't have been together in real life at the time, as they lead completely separate lives, as they have repeatedly emphasised).

*** *** ***

Well, the course of events, reconstructed from several photos published on Instagram, is that on Wednesday 29 November 2023, Caitriona was standing (with a strange expression on her face) next to a half-dead and unwashed PA (a man who has always and for years had no career and no social media presence). She allowed her (and her PA's) photograph to be taken and published by GettyImages.

They appeared together at the special screening after party for 'Leave The World Behind'.

By the way, isn't the title significant?

This is proof #1.

*** *** ***

Two days later, on Friday 2 December 2023, a completely transformed Cait, with a beaming smile on her relaxed face, poses for a photo with the actress who plays one of the main roles in the film 'Maestro', Carey Mulligan.

We later learn that Cait was invited to an 'intimate lunch' organised by agency Finch+Partners to celebrate #MaestroFilm, directed and starring Bradley Cooper.

[Side note: ‚Maestro’ centers on the relationship between American composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre. The film stars Carey Mulligan as Montealegre alongside Cooper as Bernstein. The film was scheduled for a limited theatrical release on November 22, 2023, before streaming on Netflix on December 20. It received positive reviews from critics. Source: Wikipedia]

During the lunch, Caitriona sits at the table next to Cooper, in front of Carey Mulligan (can you think of a better place to sit at the table?) and laughs at the jokes Charles Finch tells. How did she get there?

This is evidence #2.

Of course, there's no sign of the PA at lunch, it's a meeting in a small circle of trusted people. Caitríona doesn't flinch nervously, but laughs out loud.

*** *** ***

I search Google for a while. The agency Finch+Partners has Lionsgate as a client.

As well as Chanel and DeBeers, among many others.

The connection between Finch+Partners, Cait and Lionsgate is obvious.

Could it be that Wednesday's PA photo was the price she paid for the opportunity to have lunch with Bradley Cooper?

No pain, no gain. And there's no such thing as a free lunch.

The Finch+Partners connection to Cait, Chanel and DeBeers is more fun.

It leads straight to Eleanor May Tomlinson, 31, an English actress.

After all, both Cait and Eleanor are kissing the same guy. This is bound to lead to some amusing associations.

... like the same jumpsuit from Finch+Partners client, Chanel.

*** *** ***

And two years earlier, a shared presence at DeBeers Jewellers London Flagship Store opening event (24 November 2021):

Without a doubt, this is a small world.

💰💰💰

And you see: obedience pays.

If you know your place in the ranks, listen to your bosses and stick to the script of your life written by psychopaths, you can expect to reap the rewards.

Lunching with Bradley Cooper.

Wearing the beautiful clothes of Chanel.

[December 4, 2023]

[teafangirl]

Greetings, I made my first reader X fan fic! This one’s for Dead Boy Detectives, my friend @sis-goleona inspired me to try making one she also inspired the story, I give her credit! This story takes place, between, episodes 6,7 and 8.

Anyway this is

(Picture is from google)

Reader X Edwin Payne

Chapter one — your savior

Enjoy!☕️😌

"”””””””””””””””””””””””

It was a while after teeth face, the huge mushroom that Ester Finch had planted over a few hours ago, with the intention to kill or fully kill the Ghost boys Edwin and Charles. However, after Cat king had quite literally spoiled Esters plan by telling Edwin all about who Monty really was, that ended with Ester ripping Monty back into a crow. Charles and Crystal meanwhile faced off with David, the demon who had been haunting crystal for a while. At this time Edwin had just told the Cat King to piss off basically. Edwin had spent over 70 years in the worst place ever, that being hell, so he knew a thing or two about getting killed over and over. That however did not mean He couldn't get scared, Edwin did indeed have Post Traumatic Stress disorder (PTSD) and he was indeed scared when him and Charles were about to be sucked into the toothy mouth of the big mushroom. While Esther had a fight with crystal. Who ended up saving the both of them with her powers, the last they saw of the witch was when she got pulled right into that mushroom as it went back into the ground.

While everyone took a breath, Edwin felt quite odd to say the least, he looked at the spot where the mushroom disappeared, took a step closer, he wasn't paying attention earlier. Now he could hear some kind of screaming. He stepped back and looked at Charles, who looked back.

“You ok mate, “He said as he, gestured for Edwin to come away from that spot in fear the mushroom might somehow take his best mate. Edwin looked back at the spot, not moving closer or away, as he looked at Charles and crystal. “I am fine, do you hear that?” Charles walks over and lesions both him and Edwin, kneeling down, the screaming doesn't sound like Easter it sounds way too young. It sounded as if, whoever it was, was being devoured and killed over and over. Charles looks at Edwin and rests a hand on his shoulder as he speaks,

“whatever is down there is probably long dead by now mate, come on, me and crystal are going back to jennies.” he proclaimed as he stood up alongside Edwin who went with them, but he still felt odd, but he knew Charles was right. This realization however did not stop him from leaving a mirror behind laying against a tree. However, Edwin was only able to return to the spot the next night, as he had gotten dragged to hell by a demon the previous day when they returned from the forest. While in hell, he had confessed his love for Charles, who didn't seem to reciprocate his feelings. Added to that, in the back of his mind, he couldn't stop thinking about those screams he heard.

The first chance he got the fallowing night, he took Charles's bag of tricks, and jumped back through a mirror. Soon he came out right where he wanted to be, he was content to solve this little mystery he had uncovered. Edwin was shaking, he knew how dangerous this was as he stepped closer to the spot the mushroom once was. “Why am I doing this, Charles will be flustered at me…” he thought as he knelt down, not trying to somehow wake the mushroom. He put his hands in the moist dirt and started digging, pulling one big handful of dirt after another. Ghosts didn't need to eat nor sleep, they also didn't really get tired, even tho Charles often said otherwise. After a few hours, he reached what looked to be a hole, he looked down it careful not to fall in, it was dark, but there was some light mostly coming from the big mushroom who looked to be asleep. Out of the corner of his eye he saw just out of the reach of the mushroom's light was a body laying on the ground it wasn't Esther, it looked way too young like Edwin's age.

The body had blood surrounding it, he could not see its features or anything, but he felt an urge to save the person. Perhaps they reminded him of himself, when he was in hell, when he died over and over. He felt a tear slip pass his in control persona he always had up. Quickly grabbing the bag of tricks, Edwin pulled out a long rope, quickly tied it to a big tree, put on the backpack and nervously jumped into the hole.

Once he landed on the ground, still shaking, he slowly moved to the body, keeping a hold of the long rope as he came closer. He often looked at the mushroom making sure it did not wake, once he made it to the body he saw it was a ghost like him, he thought this ghost was Rather gorgeous and vary injured. He snapped himself out of wandering when the big mushroom opened its mouth, dragging some other body, blood and organs splashed out as its mouth closed.

“Why can't I control myself today, I should get out of here before it goes to eat this ghost or worse… Eats me!” Edwin swiftly gets reader into the bag of tricks and doges one of the mushroom's tentacles as he makes his way out of the hole. Once out the dirt quickly starts felling the hole again, Edwin gets himself and the bag a good ways away from the hole, and he starts breathing and panting, not believing what he's just done. He lets reader slide out of the bag and onto the grass of the forest, and takes a better look at them, they are definitely injured they were wearing dirty clothes stained with blood and something else. He's glad about what he's done. When reader wakes, he hopes they will be to. Edwin sits by a tree close to where reader is laying, he waits, he can't seem to stop looking at them, checking that they are ok. At some point a cat wanders over and lies on Edwin's lap, he doesn't mind seeing as it's not the cat king

“””"”””””””

☕️would u want a part two to this ?

I would love to hear any suggestions you have? Have a great day! Lastly if u guys have any ideas for titles feel free to share!

[sgiandubh]

Hola de nuevo, soy el anon rebelde con el traductor.

Nueva foto de Cait en Getty, de momento sola. Tony ya hizo su aparición mensual para justificar el cheque.

Si entiendes algo de lenguaje corporal observarás como la sonrisa de Cait es mas relajada con las chicas que con su lo que sea, porque aparecer con el creo que le produce alguna alergia cutánea que se refleja en su visible incomodidad. 💯

Dear (returning) Anon Rebelde (me parece mejor que Dumber Anon, así que cambiamos),

De antemano, la traducción:

'Hello again, I am the Anon struggling with Google Translate.

New pic of C available on Getty, for the moment all by herself. Tony already made his monthly apparition, justifying his paycheck.

If you understand anything about body language, you'd notice how her smile is more relaxed with those women than when she's with her whatever he is, because being spotted in public with him probably triggers some rash or skin reaction which comes across as her being visibly uneasy.'

Anon, I think you mean this lovely pic, taken today in London by the same photographer (Dave Bennett), on behalf of Netflix, at a lunch for Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan, hosted by Charles Finch, to celebrate 'Maestro' (hahahahaha - ok, I'll stop). A movie she has nothing to do with:

The venue, Maison Assouline at Piccadilly, is one of those sophisticated bookshop-cum-bar-cum-function rooms affairs. Typical C. - she was there in her element and it shows.

I wish and pray all the Greek Gods she would ditch that madre superiora of the Ursulines accoutrement. It makes her look way older and way more austere than she really is. But as I already told @arakanui1 in the comments thread of another post, I suppose she finds this champagne socialist look (' oh, I am reading Uzbek novels of destitution and loss and I am eating only on unbleached banana leaves') very telling and representative of herself as a Serious Actress. I still idiotically hope that funny and bubbly girl hasn't been killed by this matronly, forbidding public persona.

I agree with all the rest. And since you've mentioned a movie currently on Netflix, may I recommend the best Greek series ever made, also on Netflix? It's called Maestro in Blue, is absolutely flawless and features the still very bankable (and totally my type) Christoforos Papakaliatis being 🧨with the much younger and angelic blonde Klelia Andriolatou, somewhere on a beach on the magical island of Paxos.

Oh, and it's been renewed for a second season, I think they shot already most of it in Corfu.

Drop by anytime, Anon Rebelde! Thank you!

[thechaosmuses]

Below the cut you'll find a list of my TVDU muses along with their face claims (more info about each oc muse will be up soon but if you have any questions in the meantime don't be afraid to pm me, I have info on Google Docs for all of them.)

Total Muses; 111 Newest Member; Matias Garcia Added; 1/29/24

(Quick note: all families are in order of oldest to youngest; and a few of the Mikaelson's (Cyrus, Willow, and Tobias) are all honorary/adopted Mikaelson's, not children of Mikael and Esther.) Freya Celeste Mikaelson... portrayed by Riley Voelkel Elijah Daniel Mikaelson... portrayed by Daniel Gillies Elizabeth Haven Mikaelson... portrayed by Zoey Deutch Roman Ryker Mikaelson... portrayed by Alex Pettyfer Erik Flynn Mikaelson... portrayed by Joseph Morgan Kareena Dawn Mikaleson... portrayed by Melissa Benoist Niklaus Ryder Mikaelson... portrayed by Joseph Morgan Thyra Selene Mikaleson... portrayed by Selena Gomez Kolton Nathaniel Mikaelson... portrayed by Nathaniel Buzolic Karsyn Devyn Mikaelson... portrayed by Vanessa Hudgens Mateo Maxwell Mikaelson... portrayed by Keegan Allen Serenity Faye Mikaelson... portrayed by Dianna Agron Sawyer Finch Mikaelson... portrayed by Kristen Stewart Henrik Alexander Mikaelson... portrayed by Andrew Garfield Aurelia Nova Mikaelson... portrayed by Madelyn Cline Felix Ares Mikaelson... portrayed by Jamie Campbell Bower Willow Luna Mikaelson... portrayed by Maia Mitchell Tobias Floyd Mikaelson... portrayed by Grant Gustin Hope Andrea Mikaelson... portrayed by Danielle Rose Russell

Malachai Silas Parker... portrayed by Chris Wood Zephyr Raven Parker... portrayed by Froy Gutierrez Zariyah Dove Parker... portrayed by Sabrina Carpenter Kennedy Taylor Parker... portrayed by Taylor Swift Myles Zane Parker... portrayed by Ross Lynch Mariana Joy Parker... portrayed by Noah Cyrus Olivia Mae Parker... portrayed by Penelope Mitchell Paisley Juniper Parker... portrayed by Katherine McNamara

Silas Xavier Salvatore... portrayed by Paul Wesley Braeden Talia Salvatore... portrayed by Florence Pugh Holden Atlas Salvatore... portrayed by Colin O'Donoghue Damon Luca Salvatore... portrayed by Ian Somerhalder Ezra Grant Salvatore... portrayed by Hero Fiennes-Tiffin Stefan Lance Salvatore... portrayed by Paul Wesley Liberty Faye Salvatore... portrayed by Brenna D’Amico

Jensen Graham Gilbert... portrayed by Jamie Dornan Easton Reed Gilbert... portrayed by Matthew Gray Gubler Jesse Jonathan Gilbert... portrayed by Julian Morris Elias Rhodes Gilbert... portrayed by Dylan O'Brien Jeremiah Steven Gilbert... portrayed by Steven R. McQueen Jazmyn Sophia Gilbert... portrayed by Jenna Coleman

Atlas Rowan Petrova... portrayed by Dylan O'Brien Titus Izaiah Petrova... portrayed by Dylan O'Brien Katherine Maria Pierce... portrayed by Nina Dobrev Kamen Maverick Pierce... portrayed by Dylan O'Brien Natalie Adrianna Pierce... portrayed by Lily Collins

Qetsiyah Zione Bennett... portrayed by Janina Gavankar Eleanor Marie Bennett... portrayed by Zendaya Coleman Salem Elijah Bennett... portrayed by Jordan Fisher Gabriel Graham Gustin... portrayed by Chuku Modu Bonnie Sheila Bennett... portrayed by Kat Graham Belladonna Sharie Bennett... portrayed by Vanessa Morgan

Marcel Leon Gerard... portrayed by Charles Michael Davis Hayley Jane Marshall... portrayed by Phoebe Tonkin Seraphina Rose Ward... portrayed by Madelaine Petsch Theodore Joseph Brickenden... portrayed by Timothee Chalamet  Kaia Asherah Halloran... portrayed by Odette Annable Elizabeth Anne Forbes... portrayed by Marguerite MacIntyre Carter William Forbes... portrayed by Charlie Hunnam Josette Olivia Saltzman... portrayed by Kaylee Bryant Ryan Nicholas Clarke... portrayed by Nick Fink Landon Maxwell Kirby... portrayed by Aria Shahghasemi Aurora Violet De Martel... portrayed by Rebecca Breeds Cameron Myles Lawrence... portrayed by Lucas Bravo Aiden Matthew Lawrence... portrayed by Colin Woodell Jameson Tyler Rosza... portrayed by Tyler Posey Tatum Jaxson Lockwood... portrayed by Morgan Evans Tyler James Lockwood... portrayed by Michael Trevino Tatiana Jade Lockwood... portrayed by Adelaide Kane Taylor Jacob Lockwood... portrayed by Taylor Launter Axel Madden Hughes... portrayed by Cody Saintgnue Ashton Malik Hughes... portrayed by Cody Christian Alexia Rae Branson... portrayed by Arielle Kebbel Sebastian Sawyer Sharpe... portrayed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson Niall Nash Novak... portrayed by Ryan Kelley Montgomery Felix Langston... portrayed by Jedidiah Goodacre Sebastian Killian Jones... portrayed by Thomas Doherty Milton Gabriel Greasley... portrayed by Quincy Fouse Ophelia Esme Lovell... portrayed by Gage Golightly Sapphire Lee McGuire... portrayed by Jennifer Love Hewitt Rami Calder McGuire... portrayed by Kit Harington Benjamin James Kenson... portrayed by Zane Phillips Warren Jaxon Kingsley... portrayed by Ricky Whittle Jeremiah Michael Kenner... portrayed by Michael Vlamis Cecilia Jaklyn Labonair... portrayed by Camila Mendes Rosemary Belle Whitlock... portrayed by Sophie Turner Hadley Kamryn Fuller... portrayed by Sofia Carson Kamryn Avery Marshall... portrayed by Katherine Langford Lorenzo James St. John... portrayed by Michael Malarkey Lorella Diane St. John... portrayed by Gal Gadot Andrew Kolton Rogers... portrayed by Louis Tomlinson Vincent Keith Griffith... portrayed by Yusuf Gatewood Sean Kieran O'Connell... portrayed by Matt Kabus Lucien Maverick Castle... portrayed by Andrew Lees Blair Lilith Walsh... portrayed by Kristine Froseth Zachariah Cole Norwood... portrayed by Oliver Stark Matthias Lucien Delacour... portrayed by Jonah Hauer-King Matias Camilo Garcia... portrayed by Danny Ramirez

Crossover/Genderbent Muses

Cyrus Boyd Mikaelson... portrayed by Cody Kearsley (spn to tvdu) Harmony Iris Johnson... portrayed by Shay Mitchell (tw to tvdu) Chandler Matthew Rawlins... portrayed by Charlie Gillespie (tw to tvdu) Mckenna Stella Parker... portrayed by Katherine Langford (genderbent kai parker)

Test Muses

Dorian Lee Williams... portrayed by Demetrius Bridges Sophie Danielle Deveraux... portrayed by Daniella Pineda Monique Marie Deveraux... portrayed by Yasmine Al-Bustami Evangeline Amaya Sinclair... portrayed by Maisie Richardson-Sellers Inadu Tayen Labonair... portrayed by Blu Farias Hunt Rafael Alexander Waithe... portrayed by Peyton Alex Smith Finch Taylor Tarrayo... portrayed by Courtney Bandeko Cleo Ada Sowande... portrayed by Omono Okojie Penelope Eden Park... portrayed by Lulu Antariksa Jade Ivy Young... portrayed by Giorgia Whigham

[illegally-blind-and-deaf]

Tintin asks 18, 22 and 42

Sorry for taking so long! I promise I didn't forget

18. A character you wish you got to see more of?

Very popular answer, but Chang Chong-Chen deserved so much more time in the books. He's such an amazing character and I would have loved to have seen more interactions between him and Tintin, though I understand that the politics during Hergé's time were a nightmare.

I would have also liked to have seen more of Mrs Finch, but, again, I have a thing for housekeepers/landladies.

22. A song you think suits the Tintin series or a particular character?

Oooo! This is an interesting one.

I have two for Tintin:

1. Y'a d'la joie by Charles Trenet- it's a fun jazzy piece that's in French and almost a bit childlike. According to Google (which has many errors, I know) it's talking about how there is joy everywhere and the singer telling us how they find happiness in all the little things. They wake up and disvover that it's a dream, but they still are happy and find joy even if the sky is grey because there is music and sunshine.

2. The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel. This song tells the story of a young man/boy growing up in poor conditions struggling to make ends meet. Even when he gets a job, he still misses home. The last stanza is about a boxer who gets beaten badly as people try and cut him down but he remains and keeps fighting. From my own headcannons with Tintin, I think this suits him very well. I've always imagined him as having a rather dismal childhood due to the war and Depression and whatnot, but that he's a fighter who doesn't let his life cut him down.

I also have a song for Haddock. It's La Mer (The Sea) by Charles Trenet again. The first time I listened to this, my immediate response was "oh my goodness it's Haddock singing." It's another jazzy French one, but it's more mellow and smooth and Charles was older when he sang it, so his voice dropped from a tenor to a baritone. I love this one and it's so comforting to me.

42. Any Alternate Universe for Tintin?

MWAHAHAHAHA OH BOY DO I EVER-

My favourite thing to do honestly is come up with AU's. A lot of them overlap or are similar to each other, so I'll give you some of the basic ones that I've formulated the best.

1. Man From Snowy River (kind of AU)

After being framed for murder and treason, Tintin ends up fleeing to Australia and hides out in a rural sheep ranch in the Blue Mountains where he works for an ex-soldier named Tom and befriends the cattledog Bessie. The idea was that he stays there for two years or so and grows up a lot (like from 17-20 pretty much) and becomes adjusted to Australian life. He learns how to shear sheep, how to ride horses down steep mountainsides, how to put out spot fires and that Australia does get snow in winter in the mountains. He also meets a Wiradjuri boy (an indigenous Australian boy) who helps Tintin after he gets dragged by his horse during a storm. They become close friends and the indigenous boy who's name is Birrani or Bill for short, teaches him a lot about The Dreaming and Indigenous culture and the natural life of Australia's flora and fauna. Eventually, Allan and Tom (bad Tom, not good Tom) end up kidnapping Tintin to try and earn some sort of reward and Tintin finds himself running barefoot down Brussels' streets in winter (he's in summer pyjamas because it's summer in Australia) and ends up breaking into Marlinspike to get food. Nestor catches him and Haddock and Tintin argue for a good while before they both realise that they're not actually mad at each other, they were just both scared for each other. Tintin somehow gets his name cleared and moves regularly between Marlinspike and Australia.

2. Usher Syndrome/Retinitis Pigmentosa

I had two slightly different ideas that are basically along the same lines. One was that after convincing Haddock to get a hearing test, Tintin discovers that actually he's the one with a mild hearing loss that started a little while ago. He eventually gets an eye test after noticing that he can't see very well in dark situations and gets diagnosed with Usher Syndrome and is told that at some point, he will go blind and his hearing will worsen. It's basically Tintin going through the motions of rethinking both his life, his career and his individual worth.

The other was that Tintin's mother had retinitis pigmentosa (an eye condition that means you go blind, first by loss of night vision and light sensitivity, then by losing spots in your vision. Same eye problem in Usher Syndrome. He learns Braille and how to navigate dark environments from her because his dad died ages ago and living with a blind person is funky, but when the Nazis invade Belgium, his mother gets really secretive about her condition, and then they take her away because of it. Since then, Tintin always had this paranoid fear of "what if I have it and I get taken away too" or something along those lines, so when Haddock points out that Tintin is holding his book awfully close to his face and that the room isn't that dark, Tintin starts panicking and denying everything. He finally gets an eye test and the doctor, after hearing Tintin's medical history, agrees that he probably does have the condition. Tintin hides his diagnosis from Haddock until Haddock finds him crying in his study and they work together to help Tintin realise that it's okay and that no one is going to hurt him because of his condition.

And also Haddock buys Tintin a brailler and gets Tintin to teach him so he can still read what Tintin writes.

3. Half German Tintin

You can probably gather that I have a slight obsession with learning about Nazi Germany and ww2, and I had the BRILLIANT idea of what if Tintin was half German and grew up in Nazi Germany?????

Basically we still have the Belgian blind mother (that's just become a headcannon for me now, deal with it) but Tintin's dad was a German communist who went to Belgium for a little bit to work. If you know anything about Nazi Germany and how Hitler came to power, you'll know where ongoing with this. I haven't fully fleshed it out yet, but my idea was that it's Tintin growing up in a small family that tells him to just obey the fuhrer because "he's a good man" and "he's here to help germany", but behind closed doors they whisper about how to get out of the country. Things start falling apart when the Nazis knock on the door and say that they're going to take Tintin's mother to "a special treatment facility", I.e. to die. Since them, Tintin's dad tells him that the Nazis aren't good, that they're bad, but tintin can't say anything. On the Night of Broken Glass in November 1938, the Nazis arrest Tintin's dad, who his him in the small kitchen pantry. Tintin them has to rethink everything he's learnt about Hitler and the Nazis and grapples with the fact that everything he was right by them was a lie. He manages to escape back to Belgium where he stays with his mean uncle who hates him because he's German and he joins the resistance.

4. Ukranian Tintin

Again, more historical ww2 shenanagins but this time Tintin is Ukrainian. His name is Konstantin Pavlichenko and he grew up in the USSR in Ukraine during Holodomor (a manmade famine that is now classified in several countries as a genocide) and ends up joining the Red Army with his mother in ww2. Side note: he's not a teenager yet, but he doesn't want to leave his mother's side, so he gets trained by her to be a sniper. Also his mother is Lyudmila Pavlichenko. If you know who that is, you're amazing. She endanup getting injured in the battle of Sevastopol and he gets captured by the Nazis, but he escapes and wanders through Europe until he passes out in Belgium. Members of the Belgian resistance take him to their nurse (Mrs Finch) who nourishes him back to health and teaches him French, Dutch, English and German so he can fit in.

Haddock never learns that Tintin is Ukranian until he notices tintin getting agitated about people denying that the Holodomor existed and saying that they're all "anti-communists". Tintin eventually breaks down and tells him everything, and eventually goes to the USSR for a story and reunites with his mother, who he thought was dead.

That was a lot, sorry lol. I've also got an idea forming of an Avatar the Last Airbender AU age are Tintin is the Avatar and Chang is an earthbender... haven't figured out the logistics of that though

Thank you for the asks!

[alwaysme]

I googled it and it’s in London England so she probably wasn’t filming Friday

[booksandwords]

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Read Time: 3 Day Rating: 4/5

The quote: "You deserve better. I can't promise you I'll stay around, not because I don't want to. It's hard to explain. I'm a fuckup. I'm broken, and no one can fix it, I've tried. I'm still trying. I can't love anyone because it's not fair to anyone who loves me back. I'll never hurt you, not like I want to hurt Roamer. But I can't promise I won't pick you apart piece by piece, until you're in a thousand pieces, just like me. You should know what you're getting into before getting involved." "In case you haven't noticed, we're already involved, Finch. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm broken too." — Theodore Finch Jr & Violet Markey

Disclosure this is part of my read books about suicide kick that started a while ago. I can't read them frequently but suicide in fiction fascinates me. We need to talk about it, it is a way people die and yet we don't. I have not seen the film, though I might now. It is hard to review this book totally spoiler-free, read on at your own peril.

All the Bright Places is what it says on the cover "a story of a girl who learns to live from a boy who wants to die". We meet Finch as he is contemplating jumping off the bell tower of his high school. Not seriously just thinking about it. He saves the grieving Violet who lost her sister in a car accident the previous winter and is struggling with survivors guilt. For their Geography class, they are working together to explore Indiana to find it's hidden treasures. And along with that find who they are and where they fit in the wider world. Or even if they fit in the world at all. Suicide, death, mental health and grief are the darker themes of the book. But there are lighter ones. Love (of yourself as well as others), friendship, individuality and survival as unwanted as it may be. Something of an underlying message in Niven's works might be we are all different, all freaks in our own way (I still need to read her latest offering).

For me this is clever writing. Niven allows multiple characters to be seen through the differing perspectives of Violet and Finch. Some like Brenda don't change much others change drastically. I liked the idea of labels being a sticking point for Finch, picking that he was bipolar was fairly simple from the outset but his reaction to the label felt like a good choice. There is so much damaging stigma around mental health and if someone could explain to me why I would be much obliged. It makes no sense to me at all. After reading the Author's note I know Jennifer Niven feels the same, this was something of catharsis for her. She was a Violet. I think this might be her processing everything that happened. I have total respect for any author who ends a book as it needs to be ended, The Sun is Also a Star and Five Feet Apart also have good endings despite not being Hollywood. They are realistic, loyal to the characters, world and readers. Jennifer Niven writes like that. All the Bright Place (and Holding Up the Universe) end as they should not necessarily happily but rightly.

Random note dump:

There is at least one continuity error. It's big enough and in a close time frame that I can't believe it wasn't picked by an editor.

Charles' rare appearances are mostly confusing. Having a character who fills the best friend role in such a smart way is always good. He feels like an almost typical high school student to the atypical Violet and Finch. His pushing back against stereotypes and attitude towards Finch's quirks are something. I did find him amusing until I realised what was going on.

I'd heard of bottomless blue holes before. I googled them after they turned up in another book. And yes they are as spectacularly awesome as they sound.

The places Violet and Finch go in the book are real except the bookmobile park. After some googling and educated guesswork, I would say that the Before I Die wall was the one in Muncie. Mindscape in Words aka Aishwarya Shenolikar created a blog post with all the places.

The euthanasia coaster also a real idea. The wonder of video games lets you see what it would look like in the first person. There are multiple versions of the coaster as created on Planet Coaster on Youtube Chris Harrison's is my favourite. I think there are also videos of Urbonas discussing it.

I like the subtitles for the chapters. The changes to the counting as the characters change.

The imagery with the sticky notes and cut up books was great. I appreciate that as a way to tell parts of a story without saying it outright, to develop a character.

This is one of those books that has an easy to track timeline and I can't remember the last time I read one of those.

[maybewecandreamalittle]

I was drawn to the mention of finches in this episode and wondered if there was a correlation with Alexis. So I decided to google their significance with Charles Darwin and found this:

I don’t know if the writers did this on purpose, but what a lovely metaphor for Alexis and her journey.

Out of all the Roses, Alexis was the one to adapt to Schitt’s Creek the fastest and shows that no matter where she goes, she will adapt and thrive.

This episode is proof that all of her worldly adventures have taught her something and that she can literally take over the world if she wants to.

Below is the spiritual meaning of a finch

To me, this describes Alexis perfectly ❤️

[sure-as-a-star]

Newsies as things my Good Christian ‘Friends’™️ have said/done at a sleepover 1/2

The way you read some of these things aren’t going to be the same way I heard/understood them to mean in their original context. Some of the things were said to be insulting, and I don’t want to come across that way. Some of these things were originally meant to come across as hateful by stereotyping. But when I put characters to those specific quotes/actions I ONLY mean for them to be genuine, albeit dramatic, because that’s how I see these characters. I know that might not have made much sense, sorry, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

———

Romeo: I accidentally swatched the bi flag on my arm with this James Charles palette

—

Race: I will gay stance on you giiiirl

__

Smalls: if you sing Let It Go I’m going to hang myself with these fairy lights

—

Crutchie: You need sleep

Crutchie: You’re not going to sleep are you

Davey: Nah

—

Jack: You know what the day about big feet

Davey: What do they say about- oh

—

Albert, creepily imitating Elmo’s voice: Do you like me now?

—

Les, looking at a mini gumball machine: That’s lit

Les: I need to put something that will give me diabetes in this

—

Elmer: I’m taken. By Jesus.

—

Finch: *aiming a coil hair tie at Buttons*

Buttons, softly: Please don’t

—

Albert: You have that picture of James

Race: And it’s autographed too!

—

Blink, shoving a snickers bar into Mush’s mouth: EAT IT! NOW!

—

Crutchie, talking about a picture of himself: I look like a frickin turtle

—

Tommy Boy: It looks very good, not to be gay tho

—

Specs: *accidentally steps on a bag*

Romeo: SPECS! Stop breaking James Charles palettes!

—

Spot: *dims the lights*

Race: That sets the mood

Spot: What mood

Albert: The tongue emoji mood

—

Sarah: What’s the cord progression for You’ll Be Back

—

Sarah, fangirling: So THAT’S the open cord! I love that!

—

Albert: Whoever put this [James Charles palette] on the floor

Romeo: Your mom’s a ho

—

Henry: Idk lets google it

—

Spot: oh no, I’m gay

—

Sniper: STOP TOUCHING THE SPOONS

—

Katherine, talking about anxiety: It’s a disease caused by STRESS

—

Elmer, about the music: That was a cuss word

Elmer: That was a non good word

—

Katherine: Not in OUR good christian suburb

—

Henry, to Jack, after losing a game: Stay away from me you tax collector, you sinner, I do not affiliate with you

—

Jack: Hey, want to play 52 card pickup?

Les: Sure!

Jack: *throws the cards everywhere*

Les: *looks betrayed*

Jack: *feels bad and helps Les pick up the cards*

—

Crutchie, about Les: HE’S GOING DEMON

—

Albert: I feel like country roads is appropriate right now

—

All, except Mush: *saluting/hailing the USSR anthem*

Mush: *walks downstairs, sees this, goes right back upstairs*

—

Smalls and Sniper: Aggressively singing Ice Ice Baby

—

Race, pointing to the little tykes chair Spot is sitting in: Well he fits better than I did, it’s his size!

—

Elmer: It’s funky Jesus music

—

Henry: It’s like the worst thing in Canada is traffic

—

Henry: Detroit is like a war zone, in Canada it’s just like: we had a bunny cross the road last Tuesday

—

Spot: Lets go around telling secrets. I’ll start! I hate you all.

—

Sarah: *singing/speaking along to High Hopes in a monotone voice*

—

Race, doing something very basic: Cause I’m not basic

—

Jack: My back, it hurteth

—

Crutchie: Now I’m going to listen to songs that make me feel bad about myself

—

Tommy Boy, pouring soda: I’m working at a bar, guys

[fairest]

DIDN’T GO TO TWITTER YESTERDAY - September 12, 2018

Find your country. 

In the American food court of O’Hare’s Terminal 3, eating my bean & whole egg burrito from Burrito Beach, I thought, the Viet Cong were the Dirt Bag left of their time.

Except the Viet Cong knew how to kill red state Americans.

(At that time red states were blue, weird.)

The only thing the Dirt Bag left knows how to do is put two pictures side by side on a timeline.

But there is hope.

Maybe once, in the past, all the Viet Cong could do was tweet, too.

Maybe it’s only the beginning for the Dirt Bag Left and at the beginning there is only talking, organizing.

Right now it’s still the Truman years.

Dewey defeats Truman, Clinton defeats Trump.

Right now it’s still the French colonizing the American mind (all these poems hurt my feelings and all the Marx bullshit) and in 50 years we will find the right American words and we will remember how to die.

Project for an extremely online leftist: Google Image Viet Cong & Google Image Dirt Bag Left and place the images side by side on Twitter.

I have this note here: On the airplane, the milf reads her thriller.

I have this note here from long ago: a male pilot who misses his flight reading a romance novel.

Find your country.

Today, my wife’s 34th birthday, I saw a young man sitting on the curb, coming to the end of a novel.

The streets smelled of a rain that had passed over.

The farmer’s market band was singing: find. your. country. find your. country.

My wife was holding our son.

We were warmed by the cool sun, my honesty.

What my honesty has done to my perception, how it has allowed me to see things which I could never look at, because someone else was looking.

I asked my wife, is that The Corrections or The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay? And my wife said, it’s The Corrections.

Writers always look at the books people are reading.

In fact it’s one of the only things a writer can do.

It is hard for me to edit my novel during this outpouring because the characters in my third person omniscient novel live to deceive themselves, but here, for this waterworks, I am admitting myself (admit one) in the first person.

I was watching the farmer’s market band and thinking to myself, musician is the only honorable profession, everyone else is a scab.

How can you face yourself, sitting there looking at Visio and TweetDeck, when you could just as easily pick up that guitar and strum.

I can still see the couch where I finished The Corrections, a cheap college couch, I cried on the last page.

I only remember one sentence, it’s the only sentence I almost remember from a Franzen novel: ‘she was going to make some changes in her life’.

It comes at the very end. It’s about the character Enid Franzen. Chip Franzen’s mommy. 

The novel ends on a note of supreme, mainstream hope, an almost Bellovian hope.

Nothing says hope more than making changes.

Hope: One day Mr. Sammler goes to bed with the right papers.

Who was the Tolstoy of the Jews? 

Franzen the Great. Our last great male Jewish novelist.

It was also the couch where AbercrombieAnnie1983 (the best screw[s]of my life) told me she had herpes, and I said so I can’t see you anymore (I can’t fuck you anymore) I can’t love you anymore (I won’t fuck you with a disease). 

I can still smell Annie’s pussy and now you can too. It wasn’t odorless like Kardashian pussy, it had a focused smell.

I used to write things like that in MFA school and people would look at me with hatred, disgust, like they were my grandmother, so I tried to stop doing it.

Style is what you are trying to stop doing?

All of that was in my head for different periods of time and different amounts of headspace, standing in the cool sun listening to the farmer’s market band run through the changes for Find Your Country, on my wife’s birthday.

My wife is a the one. 

That’s not a typo, my wife is a ‘the one’.

It took Karl Ove 240 or so pages to leave his wife, go back to his MFA school, propose love to his mistress or some girl he used to know in college…. 

It would take me eleven million words to leave my wife.

It’s just hard to imagine.

When I see my wife’s friends I think, you gals have aged. When I see my wife she looks the same as she did the day before I met her.

As a good man (I am a good man, my father is a great man, my grandfather was an OK man, his father was a bad, bad man) I searched long and hard for a the one and when I find a the one my memory was erased.

Even AbercrombieAnnie1983 (in 2001) is gone.

It takes 5-7 generations for the badness of man to reach full flavor.

For best results, drink 3 to 4 generations per day.

I read a clearly engaging essay yesterday by Charles Finch … who I know in real life … hi Charles ... but he is not the Charles I mentioned yesterday ... who said ... critics are bitter people … about Karl Ove and it reminded me how part of Karl Ove’s Q&A … like when an indie bookstore talks to Karl Ove … what they Q&A about … is that he “gave up” on art.

Like he “gave up” on art the way Henry Miller gave up on art when he broke the sound barrier of the autobiographical novel, but like Andy told me that time in Vilnius, nobody reads Henry Miller anymore, Stuart, and I added in my own head, not even me.

Miller once said it got to the point of madness where no matter what I said about the man I could have easily have said the exact opposite.

Although I’m back in New York … that’s why I was at the airport this morning thinking about the Viet Cong … and I always bring Aller Retour New York in my bag when I come back, although I haven’t opened it for 12 years or so, and I didn’t bring it this time, I brought Eros the Bittersweet instead, which got Burrito Beach red salsa sauce on it and now is kind of fucked up.

Karl Ove fits easily into Algren’s criticism of Henry Miller: the problem with Karl Ove is that he thinks he thinks.

Much more than Miller himself does.

That’s my problem. I think I think.

This reminds me a lot of David Frum.

I feel like I made fun of David Frum the last few days but I don’t know David Frum.

Making fun of people you don’t know is for people who go to Twitter. 

I didn’t go to Twitter yesterday.

Sorry David Frum.

Thought about tweeting yesterday: 

At the Tribeca Target, my wife said even the mannequins are fat now, and I told her she should tweet that. I’m not going to tweet it’s insane that Tribeca has a Target.

I came to this sentence in Charles’ essay, which gave me a painful pang of recognition: writers who leave more questions than they answer.

I thought to myself, am I a desperate amateur who thinks he thinks and leaves more questions than I answer?

I wrote a humor piece … the only literary criticism possible for me … since literature is hilarious … about Karl Ove … this was like five years ago … I wrote it in Managua … because Dario is boring in English … it was about why Karl Ove is famous … because people like to say ‘Karl Ove’ … you know … like the Seinfeld joke about salsa … that people only like salsa because they like to say salsa … you know I’d been to parties … and people said Karl Ove … but when they said Karl Ove they didn’t mean Karl Ove … they meant themselves … like when they say David Foster Wallace they don’t mean David Foster Wallace … they mean themselves … I did a search for the unpublished article a few moments ago … I was going to send it to HTMLGiant or The Awl at the time … I must’ve erased it … if you’re interested, I’ll leave a broken link to it in show notes.

Giving up is something only men can do.

I have this note here: something only men can do.

I have this note here: A list of verbs from mammals before humans that humans can also do but it’s just the kind of “good writing” with “strong, interesting verbs”: crawl, pounce, slither, wag, others? Use them during editing process.

Women are not allowed to give up.

Men are allowed to give up when they want to harness creativity.

That Picasso line … it took me a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child … if a woman said that she would be laughed out of the salon.

Don’t paint like a child, grow up, paint like a man.

Sometimes I wonder if female writers are burning up, they have ten thousand words to go, and they look over at their husband, and he’s fast asleep. 

I don’t give up.

I am trying pretty hard right now.

I detest creativity.

I am uninterested in the expanding of my mind I want a long, drawn out compression that lasts longer they I could with AbercrombieAnnie1983.

Creativity takes me always from behind. 

It’s weird my president is mad at Nike, they make a shoe called Air Force One, then again he likes his own plane.

Creativity takes a step back for a moment, long after I am miles ahead.  

I am scared of creativity. 

American writers spend a long time being afraid of advertising.

It takes an American writer 900,000 private words before they can say to themselves: fuck advertising.

The Charles Mingus composition Myself When I Am Real, how does it go again, is it a vamp or a romp? Is it a song, or a book? 

For the longest time as a child I would think to myself, I am not creative enough.

I believe in God, saints, angles—the triune stumbling block to creativity. But I don’t believe in fairies, goblins, witches, Batman, the ruling class, late capitalism, planets with more than one moon … Luke Skywalker’s farming planet … I never believed that shit.

If a woman gave up on art man would say, cool have a kid.

I have a note here about men’s bodies that make my cock move: the young falafeltarian waiters wear tight white polos. Does a man still starch a polo these days? My fantasy: their nails clipped in half-moons.

I wrote my wife a card for her birthday.

Happy birthday my love. The wine was dark. The food clean. The service sucked. The conversation spoke to us. There will never be another you.

I wrote her a card from our son, too.

I am scared to die for my country. 

My son might not be. 

I wrote it out with my right hand to be cute (editor’s note: the desperate amateur who thinks he thinks asking more questions than he can answer is, IRL, a lefty). 

Writing the card backward was a notable experience.

I fucked up cute all words except the word Mommy. 

I write mommy almost if not equally well with my right hand as with my left. 

Maybe it’s because I have so much hope.

I have so much hope for the world, my son, my wife, my mommy even though she is old.

My mama’s got cancer in her breast, don’t ask me why I’m motherfucking stressed, things done changed.

I hug my wife, between us our son.

Find Your Country.

Hold your influences close.

Hold your closest influence closer.

[newiliadrp]

Campers, as Spring edges closer and the weather around camp begins to get a bit warmer, we have some news that I hope will excite you! Our first game of Capture the Flag since the beginning of Autumn will take place on 19th of March. Ensure that your teams are prepared, and await further instructions when the time gets closer.

This is intended to test your tactical skills in battle, as I’m sure you know, and we must ensure that both teams will be equally challenged. It is important for all demigods to know how to work as a team, as well as learn how to follow orders. As an added incentive to really ensure that you all work your hardest, the winning team will ensure that they don’t have to do any of their chores, apart from cabin tidying, for the rest of the week. 

Finally, ensure that you enjoy the experience! 

- Chiron, Activities Director at Camp Half-Blood

To celebrate the opening our RP, we will be holding our first event in a week’s time! This gives people time to “prepare”, and also the opportunity for new people to join before the event. Our first event is going to be something that happens regularly at Camp Half-Blood, and is going to be a regular occurrence in our roleplay. 

Our version of Capture the Flag is going to be a bit different to how it goes in the books and films, please see below the cut for rules, and for your teams!

I. This event will take place the week of the 19th of March, starting at 8 am EST/1 pm GMT/9 pm GMT +8/12 am GMT +10. This will go on until the 23rd of March at 8 am EST/1 pm GMT/9 pm GMT +8/12 am GMT +10. This gives you ample time to start threads and give them conclusions. Please ensure that you interact with people both on your team and on the other team, as it makes it a more authentic experience. 

II. Each day during the event at 8 am EST/1 pm GMT/9 pm GMT +8/12 am GMT +10, the admins will post a riddle or question based on something to do with Greek mythology. The task for you is to discuss the riddle or question with your team mates and try to find out the answer, without using Google as your first resort. We’d really like you to try and use any existing knowledge of the mythology that you have, as that makes it more fun. The team who answers the question first will win the point, and at the end of the week, the team with the most points will win. We will post a maximum of two riddles during the day, if we feel that the first riddle was answered too quickly and didn’t challenge you enough.

III. During the event you can post about preparations for it, you can trash talk other players, and even post about different strategies that you may have as ideas. Just make sure that you have fun, and tag all event posts as #ilievent001.

IV. At the end of the event, we will be hosting a mini event, our very first Campfire! At the Campfire, you can discuss the events of the “day”, how you’re feeling, and anything else you may want to! This event will go on from the 23rd of March 8 am EST/1 pm GMT/9 pm GMT +8/12 am GMT +10  to the 27th of March  8 am EST/1 pm GMT/9 pm GMT +8/12 am GMT +10 . Please tag all of these posts #iliminievent001.

V. To celebrate the whole event, we will be launching our RP gossip blog! Aphrodite will be commentating on the events as it goes on, but she’ll also be taking questions to answer on things not related to the event. Her link will be posted at the start of the event.

VI. Finally, here are the teams! They have been generated at random, but cabins have been kept together to keep it more like the books.

RED TEAM

Aphrodite Cabin: Matthew Morrison, Reyna Torres, Scarlett Havilliard

Zeus Cabin: Skyegirl Sinworth, Caleb Dawson, Trenton Williams, Rosalinda Dorrance

Boreas Cabin: Isla Cortland, Charles Grant

Iris Cabin: Danny Martin

Nyx Cabin: Lucien Holmes

Eris Cabin: Dorian Steels

Hypnos Cabin: Kieran Irwin, Noah Gray

Poseidon Cabin: El Middleton

Hecate Cabin: Nora Willow, Odyssia Simmons, Teren Benoit, Raena Andromedus, Florence Lynch-Kovach

Apollo Cabin: Noah Atawhai Temple, Avi Melrose, Dimaria Estrada, Gwnag Ho Han, Jaehyuk Lee, Iniko Dale

Morpheus Cabin: Aidan Danvers, Sabrina Salen, Silas Salen

Thanatos Cabin: Karen Halloran

Eirene Cabin: Winifried ‘Winnie’ Alwyn

Artemis Cabin: Roxanne ‘Rox’ Robinson

BLUE TEAM

Athena Cabin: Jane Nolan, Harrison Reid

Ares Cabin: Diala Cortez-Sinclair, Ruby Dixon

Erebus Cabin: Damien Ross, Robbie Montgomery

Dionysus Cabin: Skyler Francois

Cybele Cabin: Cassius Rath, Jeon Sung-Min

Nike Cabin: Brianna ‘Bambi’ Macon, Florentine Santini

Phobos Cabin: Diego Cortez, Adrian Banks

Hebe Cabin: Blue De Laurent

Eros Cabin: Ethan Germaine, Estrella Pendragon, Basil Rosen

Dike Cabin: Ian Calloway

Enyo Cabin: Erah Henning

Persephone Cabin: Thomas Tyrell, Charlotte Sloan

Demeter Cabin: Karra Belmont

Hades Cabin: Mei Hino, Hyun-Shik Weong, Amelia Foxworth

Psyche Cabin: Adamus Finch, James Gallagher

Hermes Cabin: Maeve Anderson, Harper Rhiding, Abigail Van der Berg

Hephaestus Cabin: Andy Mercer, Olivia Liu

Triton Cabin: Penelope Jeon

[seepygoat]

tagged by @cathawayinspace

name: Rebekah nickname: Landis, Baz, Bazzy, Sissy gender: female orientation:  Heterosexual  ethnicity: Born and bred in the USA, but I have Irish, Scottish, German, English, and I think Swiss or Swedish ancestor :) star sign: I don’t know? height: 5′6″ time right now: 7:6 pm last thing i googled: a cool antique I found at Goodwill favorite bands: Celtic Thunder, Byrne and Kelly, The Piano Guys favorite solo artists: Paul Byrom, Andy Williams, Ryan Kelly, Neil Byrne, Keith Harkin, Peter Hollens, Evynne Hollens, Michael Buble song stuck in your head: Nothing my God Cannon Do by Charles Bilingsly last movie i watched: The Emperors New Groove what kind of stuff do you post: fandom stuff mostly, some personal stuff, pictures and stuff I like, random mostly when did your blog reach its peak: no clue do you have any other blogs: I tried to keep up  Jason Whittaker blog, but I failed do you get asks regularly: not really why you chose your url: It’s a long story lol, but it’s to do with Basil Rathbone following: 302 posts: 12,754 hogwarts house: gryffindor!!!!! pokémon team: never played favorite colors: black, maroon, green

average hours of sleep: 7or 8 lucky numbers: 3 and 24 favorite manga characters: I don’t have any how many blankets do you sleep with: at lest 2 preferably 3 or 4, or more dream job: filmmaker! dream trip: to visit @anelementofsurprise favorite book: either The Hound of the Baskervilles, or The Big Four what i’m wearing at the moment: sweatpants and a Sherlock tshirt

relationship status: single favorite color: mentioned above. lipstick or chapstick: Chapstick most of the time last song i listened to: I was listening to a Michael Buble playlist, so I’m not totally sure last movie i watched: mentioned above top 3 tv shows: Poirot, Doctor Who, and either Father Brown or Person of Interest top 3 characters: CANNOT DECIDE top 3 ships: ALSO CANNOT DECIDE books im currently reading:  nothing *hides under a blanket*

shuffle your music library and list the first ten songs:

1)Heck No by Evynne Hollens

2)  Born This Way by Peter Hollens

3) Nightcore Take a Hint

4) Nightcore Russian Roulette

5) I Believe in You by Michael Buble

6) They all Laughed by Paul Byrom

7) Me Too by Meghan Trainer

8) It’s Gonna Be Okay by The Piano Guys

9) The Hanging Tree by Peter Hollens

10) The Greatest by Sia 

a - age: 21 b - birthplace: Pennsylvania  c - current time: well it’s 8:12 by now lol d - drink you had last: water e - easiest person to talk to: my sister, by mom, @anelementofsurprise f - favorite song: CANNOT DECIDE g - grossest memory: I really don’t know... when my ankles pop when I sprain them it’s always been pretty nasty h - horror yes or no: No almost (but not totally) exclusively 

i - in love? nope

j - jealous of people ? Try not to be, but sometimes it is

k - killed someone ? Not yet ;) l - love at first sight or should i walk past again ? both can be possible m - middle name ? Noel n - number of siblings: 2 (a bro and sis) I am the youngest:) o - one wish: that I could find true peace p - person i called last:my sis q - question you’re always asked:  you okay? you can draw? you should draw me/this character  r - reason to smile: long hair, short hair, the smell of old books, roses, (can I tag @anelementofsurprise again??) cats, dogs, guinea pigs! s - song you last sang: I have no idea t - time you woke up: 8:20 u - underwear color: blue v - vacation: mentioned above. w - worst habit:  I get really down on myself and yeah, things just spiral out of control and I get very very sad x - x rays:  my wrist and ankle y - your favorite food:  mac and cheese, pickled eggs, sweet peppers, apples, peanut butter z - zodiac sign: no idea

list ten favorite characters from fictional works

1) Jason Whittaker (Adventures in Odyssey)

2) Arthur Hastings(Agatha Christie’s Poirot)

3) Severus Snape (Harry Potter series)

4) The Pied Russian (Heart of Darkness)

5) Harold “Finch” (Person of Interest)

6) Inspector Sullivan (Father Brown)

7) Jack Harkness (Doctor Who)

8) Mycroft Holmes (Sherlock Holmes)

9) Miss Abbott (Miss Abbott and the Doctor webcomic)

10) Shylock (The Merchant of Venice)

[phooll123]

COVER STORYThe Emperor's New Coins: How Initial Coin Offerings Fueled A $100B Crypto Bubble

Most 

Tech Talent: How Startups Are Stealing A March On The Corporate Competition

Alison Coleman ,  

 CONTRIBUTOR

Startups are winning a share of talent from their larger rivals/Photo credit: Shutterstock

Attracting talent can be tough for startups, particularly scarce technology talent, as they have to compete against larger organisations with deeper pockets.

“A lot of startups I’ve worked with have been shocked at the salaries involved in securing skilled tech workers,” says Dave Sadler, head of IT and digital at Acorn Recruitment. "But they realise if they don't pay to get the elite skills, someone else will.”

Yet, startups can gain a competitive edge over their larger rivals by offering the things that tech talent values more than money; a flexible working environment, the irresistible lure of autonomy, and a chance to work with the newest technology; after all, these are the  firms bringing cutting edge products to the market.

Anta Pattabiriman was a Goldman Sachs investment banker for 11 years before he set up Auro, an AI-driven fitness tech startup last September. When it came to hiring talent he knew that the millennial generation wanted more than just money, and were more inclined to buy into a business with a clear mission.

“They are more likely to buy into your story and less likely to be lured away by the appeal of higher wages,” he says.

Pattabiriman has already hired a former Samsung developer, appointing him head of engineering and giving him full ownership of product development alongside the CTO, plus share options.

“In a large organisation candidates are likely to have less responsibility and independence,” he says. “And research has shown that the real key to workplace happiness isn’t money or perks and benefits; it's work autonomy."

Another effective strategy is to focus the search for talent in places where the big companies aren’t likely to be looking. Former Google executive Charles Wiles is founder of edtech startup Zzish, and his approach is to employ ‘failures’; by which he means people who flunked school or didn’t do well at university.

“As a startup founder I’m used to failure,” he says. “In fact, succeeding with a new venture often means trying different things until you find one that works. A company may pivot four or five times until if finds the product and business model that really works. But would you employ me now that you know I’m a frequent failure?”

The ability of Zzish to attract its target candidates lies in its product, a platform designed to help students who struggle at school succeed. “Many of my team didn’t do well at school or university but they are passionate about helping other students do better than they did,” says Wiles. “Google, my previous employer, wouldn’t have hired them; they wouldn’t even have passed the CV screen.”

He recalls a multi-year Google study to identify the factors that most correlated with high performance team. “It wasn’t academic credentials, experience, or previous success in business. The most highly influencing factor turned out to be how much people in the team liked each other.”

Locating a company well away from talent-hungry tech hotspots is proving to be a sound move for Jason Finch, director of intelligent sales and marketing business 443 AI. The early stage startup is based in Dunfermline in Scotland, 18 miles away from Edinburgh and its booming digital tech cluster.

“One of the guys from my previous company joined straightaway,” says Finch. “He took a major cut in salary, but was attracted to the location and culture, and the fact I always allow developers and engineers to choose their own equipment and development tools, and to define precisely how they work.”

A recent graduate hire also chose 443 AI over an Edinburgh start-up because he didn’t want the daily commute into Edinburgh.

“Being away from it all makes us stand out from the crowd,” says Finch. “Not every talented developer wants to share an expensive apartment in the city, or commute to work every day just to be where the ‘action’ is.”

When a startup's talent requirements encompass several specialist areas of  technology, outsourcing can be a solution.

Daniel Antcliff is founder and CEO of YourBlock a private blockchain-based digital filing cabinet where consumers can securely store and manage their data.

The platform incorporates a number of emerging technologies, including AI, blockchain, and deep learning and mobile app and dashboard development, so when it came to recruiting talent, Antcliff knew he couldn't compete with the large competitors for specialists in all the required fields.

Instead he turned to Gigster, a platform that provides access to a global network of elite knowledge workers, without the on costs of HR, salaries, and benefits.

“This allowed us to effectively outsource our IT development,” says Antcliff. “Gigster delivers against budget and timescales and enables great collaboration as the project progresses.”

It also allows YourBlock’s in-house team to focus on the business and growing it to a stage where it can attract the talent it needs. Antcliff adds: “It may not be recruitment in the traditional sense, but technology has given us access to the talent that we would previously not have been able to tempt away from our larger, more established competitors."

Ultimately, top tech candidates are looking for a role they can make their own. Being employee number eight in a startup that becomes a unicorn is a far more exciting proposition than being employee number 4,008 in a large corporate. Employers need to find a way to articulate that to potential hires, says Jacob Wedderburn Day, CEO of Stasher.

He says: “Every new member of our team is offered equity options in the business, and autonomy over their briefs, allowing them to be innovative and creative when it comes to meeting objectives, rather than weighed down by bureaucracy.

The company also hosts quarterly 'challenge days' to engage them in core business objectives and encourage them to flex their entrepreneurial muscles. 

"We provide budgets, an objective and a blank canvas and the best ideas get incorporated into the business strategy, so it can be really empowering," adds Wedderburn Day. “Nowadays, free drinks and snazzy offices are pretty much de rigueur in the world of startups, so the USP for candidates is how you structure their roles and help them flourish in them."

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[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1207

Monday, April 2, 2018

 I haven't seen many robins yet but the gold finches and woodpeckers have returned to our feeder. The snow is finally disappearing from our south facing back lawn so spring seems to be progressing as nature intended. There's no stopping the tilt of the planet is there? I am looking forward to getting my bike out, putting on new tires and hitting the pedals.

 I am currently reading Moonheart by Charles de Lint and having a grand old time. Some of it takes place in Ottawa and I get a kick out of knowing where all the locations are. One of the main characters in the story is a house located in the Glebe where I grew up. It left me scratching my head because the streets didn't line up with the map in my head. I even used Google's street view to clear up the confusion to stop the niggling feeling in my brain while reading. I had to beat down my inner nitpicker so that I could continue to enjoy the rest of the story. I highly recommend this fantasy.

 I read a bunch of comic books Wednesday at the store between serving customers because there were no rack copies to borrow to take home. Thanks to Al, Becky, Charles and Rob for giving me permission to read their copies. I didn't write any thoughts on these right after I read them like I do when I read comic books at home, but here is what I remember.

 AVENGERS #686 - No Surrender part 11. The latest Hulk persona is established. We'll see how long it lasts.

 CHAMPIONS #18 - More major changes for Vivian Vision and the young team. This issue is also the swan song for the creative team. I look forward to seeing what the new writers and artists do.

 INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #598 - Still looking for Tony Stark but getting real close to finding him now. Meanwhile, the Infamous Iron Man, Victor Von Doom, has his gauntlets full with the Hood and the Wrecking Crew.

 JESSICA JONES #18 - This could be the final issue of Jessica Jones ever. It's a very good one issue story where Jessica solves a missing person's case. You should read the farewell that Brian Michael Bendis writes in lieu of a letters page. It gives a nice sense of closure.

 MOON KNIGHT #193 - Marc Spector triumphant. Read it to find out how he does it.

 DEMON HELL IS EARTH #5 (OF 6) - Etrigan, Madame Xanadu, Merlin and Jason Blood keep fighting to keep Belial from opening a portal from Hell to Earth. It's pretty boilerplate as mystical stories go but I really like the art.

 HIT-GIRL #2 - Okay, this is just too freaking violent and nonsensical for me. Mindy/Hit-Girl acting the way she does in this new story made me disconnect from the character. She used to have some redeeming qualities but she's just a homicidal maniac here.

 Now back to our regularly scheduled musings.

 Daredevil #600 - Charles Soule (writer) Ron Garney (art) Matt Milla (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). There are heroes and villains galore in this giant sized issue. I did not like the way the clash between Daredevil's super friends and the Kingpin's crime bosses bunch ended. It was too simple to have it all tied up in a neat bow by the NYPD. I was surprised by a couple of things though. Not having followed Daredevil religiously I am unfamiliar with who the Beast is. Then there was what happens to Mayor Wilson Fisk at the end. The shocking event serves to catapult the story to the next arc and is enough to keep me reading.

 Doomsday Clock #4 - Geoff Johns (writer) Gary Frank (art) Brad Anderson (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Get close up and personal with the new Rorschach in this issue. I'm not getting the point of this story but the art is lovely.

 Saga #50 - Fiona Staples (art) Brian K. Vaughn (writer) Fonografiks (letters). Sexually sensitive fans may be shocked by the first page. If they are, then the third page will give them conniptions. More adventurous fans will be Googling that poop. Life goes on for our intrepid gang of misfits following the afterglow, and we find out what's in store for the future. Read this landmark issue to see why I am addicted to this comic book.

 Detective Comics #977 - James Tynion IV (writer) Javier Fernandez, Eddy Barrows & Eber Ferreira (art) John Kalisz & Adriano Lucas (colours) Sal Cipriano (letters). Batman Eternal part 2. They've given Tim Drake a more central role in this book and I like it. His connections to Batman, Batwoman and the Colony's tech guy Ulysses makes for some very interesting plots going forward. Red Robin's return is the main reason I kept this book on my "to read" list.

 Silencer #3 - Dan Abnett (writer) John Romita Jr. (pencils) Sandra Hope (inks) Dean White & Arif Prianto (colours) Tom Napolitano (letters). Code of Honor conclusion. I like this new character but it's the familiar supporting cast that keeps me reading. Talia al Ghul always makes a story more interesting for me and the surprise guy on the last page makes next issue a must read.

 The Terrifics #2 - Ivan Reis & Jeff Lemire (storytellers) Ivan Reis (pencils) Jose Luis (pencils pages 15-20) Vicente Cifuentes & Jordi Tarragona (inks) Marcelo Maiolo (colours) Tom Napolitano (letters). The appearance of Tom Strong at the end of the first issue made me want to read this second issue. The last three pages of this made me decide to stop. There are many things that can motivate a group of super heroes to form a team but the one they come up with for these four characters made my eyes roll.

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1166

Monday, June 12, 2017

 Took a new fishing buddy out to the lake yesterday morning and it was so windy we were blown off the lake for real. Not a great way to impress a new friend.

 Penny and I saw the Wonder Woman movie and both of us enjoyed it very much. I particularly liked the fight choreography and the use of slow motion. Go see it.

 Star Wars: Darth Vader #1 - Charles Soule (writer) Giuseppe Camuncoli (pencils) Cam Smith (inks) David Curiel (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). The ever popular dark lord of the Sith is back on the racks in a new story that takes place soon after the almost dead Anakin Skywalker gets his copyrighted black armour. I was very impressed with the art and did not quite recognise Giuseppe Camuncoli's style right away. I think David Curiel's colours made a big difference. Giuseppe's art looked different when he was drawing Amazing Spider-Man. This art looks nicer. I'm going to read the rest of this story to see how Vader gets his light sabre. The back-up story by Chris Eliopoulos (writer & art) and Jordie Bellaire (colours) shows what a bad boss Vader is. I wouldn't want to work for the guy.

 Superman #24 - Patrick Gleason & Peter J. Tomasi (writers) Doug Mahnke & Patrick Gleason (pencils) Jaime Mendoza, Mick Gray, Joe Prado & Doug Mahnke (inks) Wil Quintana, John Kalisz & Hi-Fi (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). Part 5 of "Black Dawn" reveals Manchester Black's evil plan. Can young Jonathan Kent fight against the villain's control? You better believe it baby, but not yet.

 The Divided States of Hysteria #1 - Howard Chaykin (writer & art) Jesus Aburtov (colours) Ken Bruzenak (letters). One look at the burka on the cover and I thought to myself "hoo boy, here comes Howie with another controversial comic book that's going to rile up folks". A quick flip through the pages inside confirmed my suspicions. This is like the new TV show Designated Survivor but with a lot more sex and violence ala Howard Chaykin. Howie always knows how to stir up poop but his stories are never stinkers. There are things in here that some fans will find offensive so please be warned. One of the coolest things about this debut was the essay in the back by letterer Ken Bruzenak. Read it for some insight to his craft.

 Spider-Man/Deadpool #18 - Joe Kelly (writer) Ed McGuinness (pencils) Mark Morales & Jay Leisten (inks) Jason Keith (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). Well, that's it. The battle for Peter Parker's soul ends with Mephisto getting a big surprise. I liked Joe and Ed's run on this book. They gave Wade a lot more depth than other creative teams and that made me stick around. I will see what the next team has to offer now.

 Batman #24 - Tom King (writer) Bruce & Selina: David Finch (pencils) Danny Miki (inks), Batman & Gotham Girl: Clay Mann (pencils) Seth Mann (inks), Jordie Bellaire (colours) Deron Bennett (letters). SPOILER ALERT! Who did it better: The Big Bang Theory or this issue of Batman? The chemistry between Batman and Catwoman has always been an interesting aspect of the two characters and now we will see how combustible it is.

 Paper Girls #15 - Brian K. Vaughn (writer) Cliff Chiang (art) Matthew Wilson (colours) Jared K. Fletcher (letters). It's another great cliffhanger in this season finale as time shifts again for the girls. The next issue won't hit the racks until October.

 Doctor Strange #20 - Jason Aaron (writer) Chris Bachalo & Kevin Nowlan (art & colours) Al Vey, John Livesay, Tim Townsend, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba & Kevin Nowlan (inks) VC's Cory Petit (letters). This is the special giant sized grand finale of Jason's run on this title. It sets things up for the new creative team of Dennis Hopeless (writer) and Niko Henrichon (art) with a major cast change that will be sure to surprise you. I look forward to seeing what Chris Bachalo will draw next. If you want to check out other like Jason Aaron books, I highly recommend The Mighty Thor.

 Doctor Strange #21 - Dennis Hopeless (writer) Niko Henrichon (art & colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). I hope that this isn't indicative of the calibre of work that Dennis and Niko are going to putting into this series. I was not impressed but maybe it's because this is a Secret Empire tie-in and Stephen is teamed up with other heroes. I'm going to bench this until after Secret Empire is over and see if the Doctor's solo adventures are an improvement.

 Riverdale #3 - James DeWille (writer) Joe Eisma (art) Andre Szymanowicz (colours) Janice Chiang (letters). Okay, that's it. I can't reconcile the TV versions of the Archie Gang with what I know them to be from decades of reading Archie comic books. Plus the fact that I had to Google TBH to find out what it means. One of my pet peeves is using the cliché TBH when talking to someone. I am tuning this book out.

 Champions #9 - Mark Waid (writer) Humberto Ramos (pencils) Victor Olazaba (inks) Edgar Delgado (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). Speculator Alert: the first appearance of the Red Locust is in this issue. I think she is going to be a star. Buy multiple copies, bag and board them and keep them for about thirty years. By 2050 paper will be so rare that every old comic book will be worth thousands of dollars. No, seriously, Red Locust is a fun new hero and she teams up with my favourite Champion, Viv Vision, in her debut.

 Jessica Jones #9 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Michael Gaydos (art) Matt Hollingsworth (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Something happens in this issue that made me very happy and then something else happens that made me go argh. I want to know what happens next so bad right now.

 Amazing Spider-Man #28 - Dan Slott (writer) Stuart Immonen (pencils) Wade von Grawbadger (inks) Marte Gracia & Andres Mossa (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). The finale to "The Osborn Identity" has Peter and Norman beating the poop out of each other. I'm sure you can guess who wins.

 The Unstoppable Wasp #6 - Jeremy Whitley (writer) Elsa Charretier (art) Megan Wilson (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). If you can believe teenagers doing delicate brain surgery then you'll love this issue. Yes, some plot devices in comic books can be vary far fetched but that's what makes them fun.

 Spider-Man #17 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Oscar Bazaldua (art) Justin Ponsor (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). It's Miles versus Hammerhead and the kid gets schooled in the art of street fighting. Hey Marvel, it ruins the suspense when the next issue page shows Miles fighting the Black Cat. Just sayin'.