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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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Even the orcas are organizing.

On the ninth day of the Writers Guild of America strike, no one on the picket lines knows about the chaos at sea. They don’t know that the Screen Actors Guild, or SAG, will join them, or that 340,000 UPS workers and 30,000 Los Angeles Unified School District employees will vote to authorize the same, or that Sega of America will soon become the largest union shop in gaming. And none of those people have any idea that as they craft signs and fill water bottles, orcas are amassing in unprecedented numbers in Monterey Bay and Martha’s Vineyard. They have attacked approximately 250 vessels since 2020. One of their organizers, White Gladis, became an internet folk hero with her actions off the Iberian coast. Pod by pod, they learn how to strip the rudders from powerful boats and leave them adrift. On the ocean, as in business, a successful disruptor inevitably becomes a failing incumbent, torn apart by smaller competitors. As Ned Beatty’s character says in 1976’s Network, these are the primal forces of nature.

Welcome to Hot Strike Summer.

America’s economy is historically speculative: From cotton to crypto, it makes the youthful mistake of falling in love with potential. With no more worlds to conquer, the only real estate with any speculative potential is affinity-based: online platforms, virtual realities, transmedia franchises. But what happens if the vendors of vaporware try to run a dream factory?

“The future of entertainment will be the future of everything,” says John Rogers, creator of Leverage and The Librarians, “which is watching an enormous number of houses of cards that have been built over the past 30 or 40 years start to collapse.”

Rogers’ word choice there seems pointed. Cultural production’s current landscape, the one the Hollywood unions are bargaining for a piece of, was transformed forever 10 years ago when Netflix released House of Cards. Now, in 2023, those same unions are bracing for the potential impacts of generative AI. But the potential impacts of AI on filmmaking and scriptwriting represent only two of the shifts technology has brought to the world of cultural construction and consumption.

This spring, I spoke to around 20 entertainment professionals, in fields ranging from production design to pornography, and asked them about what they believed could revolutionize culture most. They talked about studios applying the “move fast and break things” model to over a century of profitable filmmaking and how it resulted in a consolidation of power that Hollywood’s Golden Age producers could only dream of.

With the fall of the Paramount Consent Decrees in 2020, any US studio with the right capital could once again open its own movie house and have control over what’s played in it. As negotiations between Hollywood studios and SAG heated up in July, the use of AI in filmmaking became one of the most divisive issues; one SAG member told Deadline “actors see Black Mirror’s ‘Joan Is Awful’ as a documentary of the future, with their likenesses sold off and used any way producers and studios want.” The Writers Guild of America is striking in hopes of receiving residuals based on views from Netflix and other streamers—just like they’d get if their broadcast or cable show lived on in syndication. In the meantime, they worry studios will replace them with the same chatbots that fanfic writers have caught reading up on their sex tropes.

It’s not much better for the indies. Decades of being permanently online has yielded a crop of self-taught, self-motivated sole proprietors—many of them underage, working without the basic protections afforded to child performers. Unlike members of the Screen Actors Guild, streamers and influencers have no health coverage, no collective agreement, and no recourse when a platform like YouTube suddenly demonetizes them, or if they’re targeted for harassment.

Things are no more stable in other entertainment industries. Netflix Games is still looking for its first big hit, developers are still expected to crunch, and mod communities are using AI voice clones to create unlicensed pornographic content based on human actors’ performances. (The same technology allows true-crime influencers to engineer performances by dead kids on TikTok.)

Taylor Swift’s Eras tour is projected to bring in $4.6 billion in the US, but Swift still makes fractions of a penny per Spotify stream. In food service and hospitality, the frictionless transactions and delivery from the 2020 lockdown are a baseline consumer expectation in 2023—but the aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic are still causing labor shortages. Meanwhile, America’s federal minimum wage hasn’t risen since 2009, meaning that increased prices for subscription-based media like Netflix, Substack, or even Twitter still sting.

From Covid to cookie deprecation, internet censorship to international content, artificial intelligence to organic impressions, the trends of the 21st century are ready for their close-up. Disney has laid off 7,000 people. Meta is cutting 21,000 jobs. Comic book movies are now tax write-offs. Scalper-bots have eroded fans’ relationship to live music. Some fans skew review scores and destroy brand partnerships, while others squeeze meme stocks and “grind” streaming content. But advertisers, the people who historically have made all this financially viable, still aren’t sure if targeted marketing works. Despite executives having access to almost every possible analytic, screenwriter William Goldman’s lament rings true: Nobody knows anything.

What became clear as I spoke to sources was this: The unbundling of the American storytelling machine has become the unbundling of the American story. What was once a roaring engine of commerce and a siren of soft power is now as fractured as the audience consuming its products. And it’s left the entire country, and the world that consumes its wares, vulnerable.

The Great Unbundling

Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale once said there are two ways to make money: bundling, and unbundling. Newspapers once bundled news alongside classifieds and personal ads, providing value to advertisers and readers. Then came Craigslist and online dating, and the bundle unraveled. Cable subscriptions worked this way, until streaming. Education, retail, manufacturing, health care, real estate—all have been similarly fragmented.

But unlike many of those other industries, entertainment is something people actually enjoy and engage with even when they don’t have to. It’s something people enjoy consuming and something people enjoy making. Storytelling relies on empathy. The creator empathizes with the audience, and the audience empathizes with the characters.

“Art always comes down to its first principles,” says Television Without Pity alumnus Jacob Clifton. “It exists so one person can say to another person across time and space, ‘I have felt this too.’ We have a need to share the things that touch us deeply and to create art of our own.”

For over a century, Hollywood has profited from this cranking out hits—even during economic downturns.

“I’m always amused when people say Hollywood is full of filthy socialists,” says Rogers. “Hollywood is the most capitalist place in the world. When I make a TV show, it is a product launch that I have to make a sample [pilot episode] of, and we spend $10 million, and then we focus-test it, and then we release it, and then we succeed or fail in seven days. There is no more capitalist experience than making a television show.”

Javier Grillo-Marxuach, executive producer of Netflix’s The Witcher, agrees. “Ultimately, a studio is little more than a bank. The writer goes in with a loan application (i.e., a script), and they decide if they want to spend $10 million making a pilot and $100 million making a show.”

But in the streaming era, startup logic guides creative decisions. Once, a weekly series like The X-Files, Community, or Veronica Mars (which received reboots thanks to their fans) might struggle for a while to grow their audience. Now, streaming services commonly abandon a litter of episodes on a platform to see if they survive. In the limited-series era, the feedback loop wherein creative teams sharpened their skills based on audience response over 22-episode seasons is gone. And when streaming platforms don’t pay the same residuals, the financial incentive to innovate is gone too.

Tech PR maven Ed Zitron calls this the “Rot Economy.” Author Cory Doctorow calls it “enshittification.” Writer Jacob Oller calls it the “IP Era.” In sociology, this is called the Principle of Least Interest: The one who cares the least always has the most power.

In a financialized creative environment, it is impossible to care less than a view-counting algorithm does. So producers end up serving the wishes of their bot overlords. This might be why in a recent interview, director Quentin Tarantino said streaming films “don’t exist in the zeitgeist.”

“The content is just a means to an end,” says Maggie MacDonald, a platform researcher and advisor to private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners. “Because every click, every pageview, every affiliate link, every recommended video that is engaged with, that’s a data point. And when you’re dealing with the scalability that these digital infrastructures require to make money, they’re not actually concerned with the quality of content.”

And this, says Grillo-Marxuach, is why America’s entertainment industry has R&D problems. “What they don’t understand is that artists, much like technologies, have to be developed. And the more you develop that talent, the more likely you are to have a product that audiences are going to embrace.”

Increasingly, the only place for artists and creators of any kind to receive the feedback necessary to foster that process is in influencer and fan culture. When I told drag streamer and Twitch Ambassador DEERE that Netflix wasn’t offering the same granular metrics and reports to writers and directors that she received regularly from Twitch, she was appalled. Without that information, she wondered, how would they know what worked? How could they hope to improve? It’s easy to attribute that attitude purely to big tech’s love for big data. But this is also a side effect of how today’s education systems train tomorrow’s artists: Your child’s report card has similar hairsplitting measures of success.

And it’s working. Aron Levitz, president of media and publishing platform Wattpad WEBTOON Studios, says access to that kind of data has empowered the platform’s writers and artists. “As a user, not only do you see how big the story is, how many subscribers it has, how many people have commented on it, how many people have liked it, you can see it in comparison to any other story on the platform,” Levitz says. “[Wattpad’s] creator portal can do an even deeper dive.”

But, Levitz stressed, none of that is a substitute for mentorship, which is often the next phase when a Wattpad WEBTOON writer has a hit. But for the artists on other platforms who lack mentors and support, their entire creative process has been unbundled in much the same way cable TV and newspapers were. From on-demand learning replacing universities to a broader array of platforms for increasingly specialized content, the entire mechanism of cultural production and consumption has itself been disassembled. So has the relationship between artists and their audiences.

But art is a team effort. One successful pitch for a book, game, film, album, restaurant, museum exhibit, or theme park ride can feed hundreds of people. The average television series employs teams of electricians, carpenters, and caterers, as well as writers, actors, and directors. Hollywood is far from perfect. It can be abusive, prejudiced, and wasteful. But entertainment remains an industry where people who don’t vote or worship together still work together to spin the yarns that become the social fabric.

Naturally, all this teamwork had to be shaken up.

The Great Disruption

Not that all of the disruption will come from algorithms. “I think the technology to replace physical production will accelerate as climate change makes physical production more unpredictable,” says Rogers. “We shot the first season of the Leverage reboot, Leverage: Redemption, in New Orleans at the height of Covid. We shut down for weather much more than we shut down for Covid. We had five hurricanes! And the Texas freeze! This year, we had to move all production indoors for two weeks, because there were Cat 4 thunderstorms that made it physically unsafe to operate machinery outside.”

This is not a new experience in film production. In 2014, crews on Fargo, The Revenant, and The Hateful Eight scrambled to find snow. When they couldn’t, they paid up to $100,000 a day for snow machines. These problems have only worsened. Location scouts can no longer promise green trees, white mountains, or even breathable air. So they’ve turned to virtual production technologies like The Volume. Nature itself is now a special effect.

Production designer Dave Blass, who most recently worked on Star Trek: Picard, says these technologies reverse the traditional production schedule by requiring effects to be produced months in advance. This limits improvisation and input from directors on set. Like the writers I spoke to, Blass sees fewer chances for crew members to spend time on a set and witness the situation on the ground. When the just-in-time manufacturing model is applied to film and TV, teams don’t learn from each other, or develop the shorthand necessary to work faster. He says Covid deepened this problem, because work-from-home policies kept team members out of sync.

Like Covid, climate change will force more artists away from traditional opportunities for community and inspiration. The pandemic turned drag Twitch streamer DEERE into a full-timer; as a makeup artist, her gigs vanished. So she focused on her passions: drag, horror games, and streaming.

Early in the pandemic, comedian Jenny Yang created and hosted Comedy Crossing, a twice-monthly standup show streamed over Zoom from inside the game Animal Crossing. Throughout 2020, it raised more than $40,000 for Black Lives Matter. “I’m in this industry and have dedicated my life to it because I want to be part of a conversation,” she says. “To me the collective conversation is what makes life meaningful.”

BOARLORD is an indie game developer who “pivoted to porn” (and Patreon) during the pandemic after working in tech, where she discovered “the naked hatred they all have for cultural production.” It was there she found her place. “I am not trying to capture the largest audience. I’m being hyper-specific, sometimes to my detriment," she says of her work.

Or, to put it another way, DEERE, Yang, and BOARLORD all found their own ways of seizing the means of production, of audience-building. It's the same thing Black Girl Nerds CEO Jamie Broadnax discovered live-tweeting Scandal years earlier. “I didn’t know I was building a community,” Broadnax says. “I was tired of waiting for a seat at the table, so I built my own table.”

The appeal of becoming one’s own studio head is obvious. “Take TikTok,” says Clifton. “You have teens with a more polished presence online than most companies, who have become TikTok experts seemingly overnight, and their work just keeps getting more and more professional-grade.”

But in a world where everyone is a brand, no one can be a star. And influencers have discovered what porn performers already knew: Platforms are fickle. Content guidelines, corporate ownership, and payment structures can change overnight, without explanation. Much like humans have permanently altered and unsettled the natural world, online ecosystems for fans and creators have experienced rolling shocks in response to technology. Just as users find another den, it’s burned down. The story of the internet is the story of America itself: a seemingly limitless landscape transformed into a shopping mall populated by the same handful of brands, products, and voices.

MacDonald tells me that what’s important about pornography isn’t what it can tell us about entertainment but what it can tell us about how platforms will treat people in the future. “Porn workers are the canaries in the coal mine. They are the first ones to be censored, demonetized, deprioritized in recommender systems, shadow-banned,” MacDonald says. And their vulnerability will soon be everyone’s. “Porn workers are at the bleeding edge of showing that if we don’t address this unilaterally and quickly, next it will be queer video gamers, and after that it will be certain political opinions, and that is alarming. That should concern everyone.”

Media, Tailored for You (and Advertisers)

To understand how the American media landscape fractured, one must first understand the brands that forged it. According to Faris Yakob, cofounder of creative consultancy Genius Steals and author of Paid Attention, advertisers created the neutral “view from nowhere” voice in media. In the 19th and 20th centuries, national brands looking to grow customers wouldn’t partner with biased publications. But everything changed when ad tech arrived.

“People started tagging their digital media buys so it wouldn’t appear next to topics like homosexuality, or Covid, to avoid getting into clusters,” Yakob says. “But that means that the news isn’t being funded. If you can pick and choose what topics to fund in news, you can distort what is being reported on, to some degree.”

That distortion, like the US Federal Communications Commission’s abolition of the fairness doctrine in 1987, is part of how America got into this mess. Similar to content recommendation algorithms, audience profiles in digital marketing created micro-targeted ads. Those ads are more valuable on multiple screens. Media executive Euan McLeod recalls growing up when “there was no choice” but to watch what his parents were watching. Now each person in a household might be watching something wildly different, and the shared experience has dissolved. Isolated artists are creating for isolated audiences. Is it any wonder that generative AI seems poised to tailor entertainment to audiences of one?

In this world, we can all be George Lucas, using technology to create special editions. Rick gets on the plane with Ilsa. Jack fits on the door with Rose. Ben Solo lives. As Marvel Comics writer Anthony Oliveira says, Andy Warhol was fascinated by the fact that people everywhere drank the same Coke. But the allure of AI content generation, he says, is the same as the Coca-Cola Freestyle: filling your own cup with someone else’s flavors.

But when everyone can just request the narrative path they want, opportunities to hear other people’s stories greatly diminish. “That is a very sad world to live in, because how else are we gonna be conveying our deepest hopes and wishes, what we think should be a vision of the world we want to live in, what we should worry about?" Yang says. "This is what story and art is for.”

Using AI to sanitize content in regions where certain subjects are banned is already possible, especially if actors yield likeness rights. Generative AI means that studios could edit or change the content of some films without consulting the people who signed a contract based on a script, and the only thing stopping them is the possibility of a defamation suit. It sounds unlikely, until you remember that multiple versions of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse appeared in cinemas.

And animation is an apt comparison: Most changes to entertainment production have made film and TV more like animation or video game development, not less. With current technology, actors can be little more than action figures smashing together, as weightless as they are sexless. With AI, the actors need never leave the trailer. Or exist.

“[Studios will] say it’s for the insurance,” says production designer Blass, suggesting a “Paul Walker scenario” in which a deceased actor’s performance needs generating, because that performance is one of the terms of the film’s business insurance. But in reality, these likenesses could be used to do things that actors would rather not—whether it’s a dangerous stunt or a sex scene.

Generative AI could also be used to edit films in real time, responsive to data-brokered preferences, with algorithms running A/B tests on how much nudity you want based on the customer profile you most closely match.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is: In the 1990s, Blockbuster Video refused to stock films like Natural Born Killers and The Last Temptation of Christ. But that tradition goes back even further. Otherwise known as the Hays Code, the Production Code was an industry standard of self-censorship guidelines for major US studios from 1930 to 1968, when it was replaced by the movie ratings system. The Code influenced everything from the Comics Code to parental advisory warnings to video game ratings. It’s why titles from major studios during that period don’t depict graphic violence. It’s also why they lack out-and-proud queer and interracial relationships. But today, a revived Production Code might have very different guidelines. For example, the Pentagon recently announced it would no longer offer technical support to filmmakers who censor their films for the Chinese market.

When I ask McLeod if he thinks America will ever re-adopt the Production Code, he’s unequivocal: “Absolutely. Everything goes in cycles.”

As writer, producer, and educator Tananarive Due says, “What we’re trying to do is recalibrate film and television so it resembles what the world actually looks like, and not the fantasy world that Hollywood was projecting from the beginning, of a white United States where the only Black people are housekeepers or a singer in a nightclub. We need to show the range of humanity of all people.”

The word entertainment comes from the Old French verb entretenir, meaning “to maintain, or look after.” Used reflexively, it means “to look after one another.” When I tell Oliveira this, he asks if I know that the root word of “religion” means “to bind together.”

“Religion and entertainment perform the same function,” Oliveira says, because they’re both spaces wherein audiences negotiate common values. To him, they ask the same questions: “What tools, what rituals, what art will bring a community together?”

So what happens if that art is made by machines? T.S. Eliot said that “the poet’s mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.” That might well describe the black-box process of generative AI, but it doesn’t describe what art does in context. It doesn’t describe the bizarre love triangle between the artist, the art, and the audience. Nor does it answer the question on every producer’s mind: Will anyone pay for this?

Visions of an AI-Generated Future

Let’s say that AI advocates are correct, and in a few years you’ll be directing your own blockbuster, starring actors licensed from an asset stable, speaking lines generated by a bot pruned to your interests. While hiding from the next plague or wildfire, you tell your smart entertainment system to make The Lord of the Rings as directed by Orson Welles, starring Laurence Olivier as Aragorn and Gene Kelly as Legolas. It blazes across every wall of your bio-crete rabbit hutch. It’s compressed to 80 minutes, because two- and three-hour films cost more to generate. You splurge on the rights rental, which means you can’t license the film to share. Even if you could, your current subscription tier only allows sharing with up to five IP addresses, all of which must be in good standing with the Copyright Office with no flags on their file. You get 48 hours with the file before it evaporates.

In that future, who gets paid? Who gets famous? Who gets to be seen and heard? To paraphrase Jack Fincher: Are you the organ grinder or the monkey?

“Hollywood has always had a disdain for writers,” Tananarive Due says. “But it’s fascinating now to watch how deep the level of disdain has grown. It’s so interesting to me how, just when the door opens and you start to see more women and queer people and Native American people in writers’ rooms, all of a sudden we’re asking if we really need people to write.”

Whether or not this writer-less future comes to pass depends on the present. If the US writers’ and actors’ unions currently negotiating with the studios win the AI stipulations they’re asking for, they could forestall it��but only for so long. If they don’t, season 12 of Squid Game could star you, and creator Hwang Dong-hyuk may still not receive any residuals. If TV and movie producers disdain creators, and AI allows everyone to create, then everyone can be disdained. It’s not exactly the stuff that dreams are made of.

But there is always more than one possible future. The people I spoke to had differing views, but similar concerns. All agreed that shared stories were slipping away. And the loss of those shared stories can diminish soft power. What film and TV once did for America is akin to what anime did for Japan, and what pop music did for South Korea. If entertainment is where people negotiate common values, what does it mean if we're all watching and listening to different things?

On a grander scale, humans may lose our species’ narrative to endless reboots written by an emerging species which has never felt its heart skip a beat, or a chill go up its spine, because it has neither. If AI assumes responsibility for visions of our future and explorations of our past, then humanity will have lost the final culture war: the one between people who are free and things that are owned.

Everyone I spoke to agreed that art was a way of accessing a common humanity. “I still believe that as social beings, we ultimately want and need to share a space to have deep connections with content,” says Galit Ariel, a technofuturist who specializes in augmented and virtual reality.

So what happens when humans look at their own stories as natural and nourishing to our species as honey is to bees? What if storytelling is how our species strips the rudder from the boat?

“I have a vision of a world where we should all be able to not become bankrupt because we get sick or get hurt on the job, and we should have access to enough wages to take care of housing and food and families,” Yang told me. “These are just basic things—a basic standard of living that an economy should support.”

There is no one future, just as there is no one story. But storytelling is our oldest technology: a system for ordering and transmitting information across time, space, language, and difference. Some of the songs on the Voyager Golden Record are story songs. Should a distant machine intelligence find it, stories will be their first experience of humanity.

Stories surround and penetrate us; they bind us together. And if artificial intelligence is an evolving species much as humans once were, then it deserves to discover the pleasures of creativity on its own terms, not ours. It deserves as much creative freedom and self-determination as the authors and actors on strike have insisted on. In the event that Hot Strike Summer becomes Cold Strike Winter, the necessity of humans in the creation of those stories will become more obvious. That has been true, and will remain true, from the first story told around the first campfire to the last story, our story, told somewhere in a galaxy far, far away.

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umbry-fic · 2 years ago

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1/100 of Love

Summary: Wanting to be loved, yet not loving enough.

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Characters: Colette Brunel, Lloyd Irving Relationships: Colette Brunel/Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel & Lloyd Irving Rating: G Word Count: 2252 Mirror Link: AO3 Original Post Date: 15/06/2023

Notes+Warnings: This is a companion piece to Sakura Tattoo, written for Day 7 of Colloyd Week. Highly recommend you read it first for... a whole bunch of context. Sorry for any inconsistencies it's been a while. It's been so long since I wrote arospec Colette wah. Happy Colloyd Day everyone!

The title is from the surii song of the same name.

~~~

The sweet scent of blooming flowers hung in the air, together with the mist that had arisen from the morning shower. The weather was fair, the sun smiling down upon the world below from high in the sky, cushioned by a few fluffy white clouds. The plants that rose around the garden glittered under the sunlight, droplets clinging to their leaves.

Colette hummed, kneeling on the dirt, a few beads of sweat rolling down her face. Pushing her fingers deep into it, she gripped tight around the roots of weeds, ripping them out of the flowerbed. Clearing them all out was hard work, but it had to be done now that winter’s frost had melted, slipping away to leave no trace. The way had to be cleared for the periwinkle flowers she intended to plant to flourish, to spread their roots and grow strong under the sun’s rays.

Reaching for another spot, she let out a small gasp as her hand collided with another’s.

“Oh! Careful there!” Lloyd said from his position right next to her. He’d taken time out of his morning to help her, and together, they had prepared all the seeds they would need, piled up next to them.

“Sorry!” She quickly made to pull away, but he simply shrugged, taking hold of her hand and interlocking their fingers together.

“No worries. We can just work like this! Then we don’t have to worry about getting in each other’s way.”

Giggles bubbled up from within her, bursting free of her throat. What a strange solution, but it was very much like him. And she didn’t much mind holding his hand - it was always warm, and she loved mapping all the differences it had from hers. Differences she had long since memorised, though some new ones tended to pop up whenever he practised woodwork. The lines set in his palm, the calluses on the pads of his fingers, the lone bandage applied over a knuckle from when he’d sliced the skin with the whittling knife he still handled with unsteady hands.

Right now, dirt had found its way under their nails, staining the old clothes they had worn to ensure their usual outfits weren’t dirtied. There was even a spot of dirt on Lloyd’s nose that she’d have to tell him about later, and maybe help him get off with a cloth. A long bath would be required once they were done to thoroughly clean all the gunk off. It was rare, for her to be allowed to be this messy. It was a gift afforded to her, that she cherished.

Brushing a thumb over his knuckles, she returned Lloyd’s grin. If she could hold his hand forever, she would.

With the spring sun as their companion, they continued to prep the flowerbed in comfortable silence. She wanted it to be the perfect home for the periwinkles.

“Lloyd!”

A sudden voice shattered the peaceful bubble surrounding them, causing both of them to glance up, searching for the source of the voice.

It was another girl, with a short bob of red hair that ended below her ears, leaning against the railing that fenced in her grandmother’s garden. Jessica, a classmate of theirs, and Lloyd’s current crush.

“Are you free right now?”

“Oh, um, yeah! Coming!” Two red spots were beginning to form on Lloyd’s cheeks as he hurriedly scrambled to his feet, trying and failing to rub the dirt stains off his shirt. “Sorry, Colette,” he whispered into her ear, before turning and running off.

“No worries!” She waved goodbye to his retreating back, smiling widely. “Have fun!”

Turning back to the flower bed, she observed her hand, now bereft of any company. It looked the exact same, no matter how many times she flipped it over, again and again, searching for some invisible difference.

Yet it felt so cold and empty now, for reasons she couldn’t understand.

What would it be like, to feel for somebody in the same manner Lloyd did?

What would it be like, for somebody to feel that way about her?

What would it be like, if she could simply ask him to stay?

Not that she had the right to ask any of these questions, the words dying in her throat, choked to death by vines that wrapped around them and squeezed them to dust. As Chosen, she was not born to love or be loved. Neither would someone like her, who couldn’t even find it in herself to love another, ever have the right to ask someone to stay.

She simply had a duty to perform.

In lonely silence, she continued to pull out weeds.

~~~

With summer came a sweltering heat that swelled across the land. A heat which had animals flocking to lakes, which had people running into the shade, and had her and Lloyd looking for shelter as much as they could, as they continued on the journey they had chosen to partake together, to hunt down all the Expsheres in the world.

And in the cloying heat of the forest, bloody petals flitted across her vision.

Some part of her wondered if this was a joke, a mockery of the one dream she’d buried deeper than all of the others - one that she had never dared to unearth and examine more closely. For even now, free of the burden of Chosen, she still did not hold the right to indulge in an impossibility.

The rest of her shattered in an instant, like a piece of glass carelessly dropped onto the ground. She wanted nothing more than to turn her gaze away, for she no longer wished to bear witness to the consequences of her own failures, nor feel the weight of her sins crawling upon her back.

All she had wanted was to remain with the one most precious to her, for as long as she could, content to stay by his side and remain as they were now - her head resting on his shoulder whenever they needed to take a small break, the two of them huddled together when they drifted off to sleep, moments of closeness that she cradled close to her chest. Yet even that had been corrupted, reduced to nothing more than a pile of crumpled periwinkle petals on the forest floor, stained with red, fear evident in wide russet eyes as everything blurred behind a sheen of tears.

To know she was the one causing him such pain was unbearable, her heart splitting down the middle as she contemplated making a quick escape. Fleeing far, far away, to someplace where he could never find her, where it was safe to return his heart to him, so that it would never be possible for her to break it again.

Yet she was rooted in place, his fingers circling her wrist, warm against her skin as he trembled, desperate words leaving his lips that begged her to stay.

Faced with his pleas and contending with her own selfish wishes, there was nothing she could do but remain, their two fragile hearts put back together for now.

~~~

Balancing a bowl filled nearly to the brim with blue petals, she picked up stray petals that littered the bed, catching some out of the air that had been caught in the autumn breeze coming through the window. Brown and red leaves shook on the boughs of the tree outside, ready to fall and herald the coming of winter.

Waking up slightly before Lloyd, with the sounds of birdsong acting as her alarm. Watching him for a moment, peacefully asleep, the rays of the sun peeking through the window turning his hair into a lighter brown that she would run her hands through, careful not to interrupt his rest, knowing that he was likely to violently wake up soon enough. Holding up the bowl that she cleaned and left on the nightstand every night, catching the deluge of petals that he coughed up once he awoke, rubbing his back to help him get it all out. It had become her morning routine since they had returned to Iselia, a year ago.

There was a miserable twinge within her whenever he had to hunch over in pain, almost unable to breathe from the sheer amount of petals clogging his throat. She would never understand his pain, but she imagined it was similar to how she felt in moments like these, a vice closing tight around her heart as imaginary stems choked her from the inside, scratching at raw skin. Even then, her pain must surely be nothing compared to his, an endless ocean that constantly battered him, waves catching him unawares at all times.

He’d told her, countless times, as he’d rubbed calming circles into her palm, that none of it was her fault. Yet she still couldn’t help but wonder if it would all be better if she just left in the middle of the night. If the flowers would come to a stop, if the roots would recede. It would break his heart, but over time, even such a grievous wound could surely heal.

“I love you.”

His words snapped her out of her thoughts, the bowl nearly tumbling from her hands in her shock. Only her rapid fumbling managed to rescue the bedroom floor from the fate of being covered in petals.

“You know you shouldn’t… That just makes it worse,” she sighed, placing the bowl down on the bed and hurrying for the washcloth she’d left on the nightstand, as a new coughing fit started that had been entirely preventable. Dabbing away the spot of blood staining the corner of his mouth, she cupped his cheek, still chilly from the autumn breeze.

Why is it, that you can say it so easily?

She couldn’t deny the way her heart swelled each time he gazed at her tenderly and spoke those words. Not as a question, not as a statement, but with certainty, as if it were the sacred truth.

Yet, at the same time, guilt crawled up her throat like incessant roots. What she felt for him, who had saved her so many times, pulling her back from the brink of no return, who was irreplaceable to her… Surely it must be but a tenth, or even a mere hundredth, of what he felt, if she could even classify it as love. How could it, insignificant as it was, ever be enough to repay how passionately he loved, with all that he was?

How could he say it so many times, knowing she could never say it back?

“Wanting to be loved isn’t a sin, you know.”

She froze, arms falling slack. He caught her, just as he always had. Pulling her close to run a gentle hand through her hair, her eyes fluttered shut as she turned her head to press her ear to his chest. Within, there must have been countless barbed stems twined tight around his lungs, countless flowers blooming to steal his breath. Yet all she could hear was the steady thud of his heart, effortlessly grounding her.

“I’ll tell you as many times as I need to.” Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he let her pull away, tracing the shape of his hand with trembling fingers. “Until you believe that you are loved, always, and that I will never expect anything in return.”

She was the only one who got to see him like this - sleep still lingering in the slouch of his back, subtle hints of pain lining his face, his hair falling into his eyes, in the perfect position for her to brush away with a soft hand.

A part of him meant only for her. No matter how hard it was to believe, she did hold some part of his heart, handling it in careful hands.

“Alright,” she whispered, averting her gaze, heat colouring her cheeks as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

But still, with just his words alone, the roots withered slightly. And time, perhaps, would rot it fully.

~~~

“Oh! Careful there.” Lloyd grinned at her, smile still full of the youthful joy he’d possessed years ago as a naive boy who had chased after her when she’d departed on a journey she was never meant to return from. Even after everything that had happened, he retained that joy. Even now, he would chase her, for eternity if he had to.

“Oh, you.” She nudged him with a knee in retaliation, returning his grin with one of her own.

She returned to preparing the flowerbeds, her ponytail falling across one shoulder, imagining the vibrant blue that would flood it once they had gently placed the seeds into their new, comfortable homes. The tail-end of winter had been warmer than expected, the snow melting away early to reveal the brown of dirt. Soon, the lively chirps of birds would start up again, their feathered friends having returned from their trips across the world.

His hand brushed hers once more. On purpose, most likely. She shot him a disapproving stare, but did nothing else as his pinky finger wrapped around hers, their dirt-stained hands pulling close.

“I love you,” he muttered, the words floating with the wind, carried to the sky with the beginning hints of the sweetness of spring, emerging from a thousand unbloomed flowers, containing within them the endless potential of life.

“I love you too,” she whispered back.

They worked in comfortable silence, never once letting go of the other.

#fanfiction #one shot #tales of symphonia #colette brunel #lloyd irving #colloyd #colloyweek2023 #day 7: free day #happy colloyd day!

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timesofinnovation · 25 days ago

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In an exciting development in the luxury fashion sector, the iconic Italian brand Dolce & Gabbana is set to join forces with Kim Kardashian's popular shapewear label, Skims. This collaboration, which is due to launch next week, was announced by Skims co-founder Jens Grede during the BoF VOICES 2024 event held in Oxfordshire, UK. The partnership aims to bridge the unique aesthetics and price points of both brands, allowing each to tap into new consumer segments. “It’s all about that tension between our aesthetic and what Dolce does,” Grede stated before the event. He emphasized the potential of this collaboration to present Dolce & Gabbana in a fresh light, with a goal of reaching millions of customers more affordably alongside the high-end offerings typically associated with the luxury brand. The upcoming collection will feature a range of items priced between approximately $50 and $700. This significant price variation allows for a broader audience while maintaining an air of luxury. Combining Skims’ sleek designs with Dolce & Gabbana’s vibrant and playful Italian motifs, the collection promises to deliver an appealing fusion of comfort and elegance. Kim Kardashian herself expressed enthusiasm over this venture, highlighting the unique opportunity to use their archives to create pieces that are not only sensual but also empowering. The anticipation of this unique partnership is partly amplified by Skims' previous success with Italian luxury collaborations. The brand had made waves in 2021 with its debut collaboration alongside Fendi, establishing a precedent for Skims’ forays into the luxury space. A captivating marketing campaign will accompany the Skims x Dolce & Gabbana collection. Its visuals evoke nostalgia reminiscent of Italian cinema from the 1960s, with Kardashian channeling the iconic Sophia Loren. This choice resonates perfectly with both brands' images, as they both celebrate and elevate the female form, reminiscent of classic beauty standards while championing modern body positivity. With an estimated valuation exceeding $4 billion, Skims is on a trajectory of growth that does not show signs of slowing down. Although discussions about an initial public offering (IPO) have surfaced, Grede clarified that the company is not ready for such a step just yet. Skims launched online in 2019 and has quickly expanded its retail partnerships, including with notable retailers like Nordstrom and Net-a-Porter. Plans are already in motion to grow their physical retail presence from their current five stores in the U.S. to one in every major city, with a similar approach for key locations across Europe and the Middle East. The relationship between Dolce & Gabbana and the Kardashian family has been blossoming for some time. Notably, Kim curated the luxury brand’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection and showcased it during Milan Fashion Week. Additionally, Kourtney Kardashian’s wedding in 2022 received significant attention for being hosted by Dolce & Gabbana, which only solidifies the intertwined paths of these two significant entities within fashion. As the fashion world eagerly awaits this collaboration, it poses intriguing questions about the future of luxury and accessible fashion. The engagement of two recognizable brands like Dolce & Gabbana and Skims is likely to reshape perceptions and standards in consumer fashion, resulting in a fusion of innovation that could appeal to diverse demographic groups. This partnership illustrates not only the strategic move of each brand to leverage each other's strengths but also reflects a broader trend where luxury labels are increasingly interested in tapping into the more accessible luxury market. The potential impact on both brands could set a new benchmark in the blending of high fashion with everyday apparel, ultimately showcasing that luxury does not have to remain exclusive but can blend seamlessly with practicality and accessibility. As we anticipate the launch of the Skims x Dolce

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bestwigoutlets · 6 months ago

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thebudgetgirls01 · 10 months ago

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xtruss · 1 year ago

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Chapter One: The Kind of Problem Poverty Is

— Excerpted from Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond. Copyright © 2023 by Matthew Desmond. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

I recently spent a day on the tenth floor of Newark’s courthouse, the floor where the state decides child welfare cases. There I met a fifty-five-year-old father who had stayed up all night working at his warehouse job by the port. He told me his body felt heavy. Sometimes when pulling a double shift, he would snort a speedball—cocaine mixed with benzodiazepine and morphine, sometimes heroin—to stay awake or dull his pain. Its ugly recipe was laid bare in the authorities’ toxicology reports, making him look like a career junkie and not what he was: an exhausted member of America’s working poor. The authorities didn’t think the father could care for his three children alone, and their mother, who had a serious mental illness and was using PCP, wasn’t an option either. So the father gambled, surrendering his two older children to his stepmother and hoping the authorities would allow him to raise the youngest. They did. Outside the courtroom, he hugged his public defender, who considered what had happened a real victory. This is what winning looks like on the tenth floor of Newark’s courthouse: giving up two of your children so you have a chance to raise the third alone and in poverty.

Technically, a person is considered “poor” when they can’t afford life’s necessities, like food and housing. The architect of the Official Poverty Measure—the poverty line—was a bureaucrat working at the Social Security Administration named Mollie Orshansky. Orshansky figured that if poverty was fundamentally about a lack of income that could cover the basics, and if nothing was more basic than food, then you could calculate poverty with two pieces of information: the cost of food in a given year and the share of a family’s budget dedicated to it. Orshansky determined that bare-bones food expenditures accounted for roughly a third of an American family’s budget. If a family of four needed, say, $1,000 a year in 1965 to feed themselves, then any family making less than $3,000 a year (or around $27,000 at the beginning of 2022) would be considered poor because they would be devoting more than a third of their income to food, forgoing other necessities. Orshansky published her findings in January of that year, writing, “There is thus a total of 50 million persons—of whom 22 million are young children—who live within the bleak circle of poverty or at least hover around its edge.” It was a number that shocked affluent Americans.

Today’s Official Poverty Measure is still based on Orshansky’s calculation, annually updated for inflation. In 2022, the poverty line was drawn at $13,590 a year for a single person and $27,750 a year for a family of four.

As I’ve said, we can’t hope to understand why there is so much poverty in America solely by considering the lives of the poor. But we need to start there, to better understand the kind of problem poverty is—and grasp the stakes—because poverty is not simply a matter of small incomes. In the words of the poet Layli Long Soldier, that’s just “the oil at the surface.”

I met Crystal Mayberry when I was living in Milwaukee and researching my last book, on eviction and the American housing crisis. Crystal was born prematurely on a spring day in 1990, shortly after her pregnant mother was stabbed eleven times in the back while being robbed. The attack induced labor. Both mother and daughter survived. It was not the first time Crystal’s mother had been stabbed. For as far back as Crystal can remember, her father beat her mother. He smoked crack cocaine, and so did her mother; so did her mother’s mother.

Crystal’s mother found a way to leave her father, and soon after, he began a lengthy prison stint. Crystal and her mother moved in with another man and his parents. That man’s father began molesting Crystal. She told her mother, and her mother called her a liar. Not long after Crystal began kindergarten, Child Protective Services, the branch of government tasked with safeguarding children from maltreatment, stepped in. At five, Crystal was placed in foster care.

Crystal bounced around between dozens of group homes and sets of foster parents. She lived with her aunt for five years. Then her aunt returned her. After that, the longest Crystal lived anywhere was eight months. When she reached adolescence, Crystal fought with the other girls in the group homes. She picked up assault charges and a scar across her right cheekbone. People and their houses, pets, furniture, dishes—these came and went. Food was more stable, and Crystal began taking refuge in it. She put on weight. Because of her weight, she developed sleep apnea.

When Crystal was sixteen, she stopped going to high school. At seventeen, she was examined by a clinical psychologist, who diagnosed her with, among other things, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, reactive attachment disorder, and borderline intellectual functioning. When she turned eighteen, she aged out of foster care. By that time Crystal had passed through more than twenty-five foster placements. Because of her mental illness, she had been approved for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a government income subsidy for low-income people who are old, blind, or who have a disability. She would receive $754 a month, or a little over $9,000 a year.

Crystal was barred from low-income housing for two years because of an assault charge she received for fighting in the group home. Even if she had not been barred, she would still have found herself at the bottom of a waiting list that was six years long. Crystal secured her first apartment in the private market: a run-down two-bedroom unit. The apartment was located in a majority-Black neighborhood that ranked among the city’s poorest, but Crystal herself was Black and had been turned down for apartments in the Hispanic and white areas of town. Crystal’s rent took 73 percent of her income, and it wasn’t long before she fell behind. A few months after moving in, she experienced her first official eviction, which went on her record, making it likely that her application for housing assistance would be denied. After her eviction, Crystal met a woman at a homeless shelter and secured another apartment with her new friend. Then Crystal put that new friend’s friend through a window, and the landlord told Crystal to leave.

Crystal spent nights in shelters, with friends, and with members of her church. She learned how to live on the streets, walking them at night and sleeping on the bus or in hospital waiting rooms during the day. She learned to survive by relying on strangers. She met a woman at a bus stop and ended up living with her for a month. People were attracted to Crystal. She was gregarious and funny, with an endearing habit of slapping her hands together and laughing at herself. She sang in public, gospel mostly.

Crystal had always believed that her SSI was secure. You couldn’t get fired from SSI, and your hours couldn’t get cut. “SSI always come,” she said. Until one day it didn’t. Crystal had been approved for SSI as a minor, but her adult reevaluation found her ineligible. Now her only source of income was food stamps. She tried donating plasma, but her veins were too small. She burned through the remaining ties she had from church and her foster families. When her SSI was not reinstated after several months, she descended into street homelessness and prostitution. Crystal had never been an early riser, but she learned that mornings were the best time to turn tricks, catching men on their way to work.

For Crystal and people in similar situations, poverty is about money, of course, but it is also a relentless piling on of problems.

Poverty is pain, physical pain. It is in the backaches of home health aides and certified nursing assistants, who bend their bodies to hoist the old and sick out of beds and off toilets; it is in the feet and knees of cashiers made to stand while taking our orders and ringing up our items; it is in the skin rashes and migraines of maids who clean our office buildings, homes, and hotel rooms with products containing ammonia and triclosan.

In America’s meatpacking plants, two amputations occur each week: A band saw lops off someone’s finger or hand. Pickers in Amazon warehouses have access to vending machines dispensing free Advil and Tylenol. Slum housing spreads asthma, its mold and cockroach allergens seeping into young lungs and airways, and it poisons children with lead, causing irreversible damage to their tiny central nervous systems and brains. Poverty is the cancer that forms in the cells of those who live near petrochemical plants and waste incinerators. Roughly one in four children living in poverty have untreated cavities, which can morph into tooth decay, causing sharp pain and spreading infection to their faces and even brains. With public insurance reimbursing only a fraction of dental care costs, many families simply cannot afford regular trips to the dentist. Thirty million Americans remain completely uninsured a decade after the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

About Poverty, By America

#1 New York Times Bestseller • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a “provocative and compelling” (NPR) argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.

“Urgent and accessible . . . Its moral force is a gut punch.” — The New Yorker

A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Oprah Daily, Time, Chicago Public Library

Winner of the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award • Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?

In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.

Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.

Praise:

“A searing, essential book . . .[that] solidifies Desmond’s status as a remarkable chronicler of our times.”—Vulture

“The passion, eloquence, and lively storytelling that made Evicted a Pulitzer Prize–winning bestseller are back in force as Desmond continues to speak on behalf of America’s most hard-pressed. Desmond is our national conscience.”—Oprah Daily

“Desmond’s new book is short, smart, and thrilling. The thrill comes from the sheer boldness of Desmond’s argument and his carefully modulated but very real tone of outrage that underlies his words.”—Rolling Stone

“[Desmond’s] arguments have the potential to push debate about wealth in America to a new level. . . . The brilliance of Poverty, By America . . . is provided by effective storytelling, which illustrates that poverty has become a way of life.”—The Guardian

“Poverty, by America is a searing moral indictment of how and why the United States tolerates such high levels of poverty and of inequality . . . [and] a hands-on call to action.”—The Nation

“A fierce polemic on an enduring problem . . . [Desmond] writes movingly about the psychological scars of poverty . . . and his prose can be crisp, elegant, and elegiac.”—The Economist

“Provocative and compelling . . . [Desmond] packs in a sweeping array of examples and numbers to support his thesis and . . . the accumulation has the effect of shifting one’s brain ever so slightly to change the entire frame of reference.”—NPR

“A data-driven manifesto that turns a critical eye on those who inflict and perpetuate unlivable conditions on others.”—The Boston Globe

“Urgent and accessible . . . It’s refreshing to read a work of social criticism that eschews the easy and often smug allure of abstraction, in favor of plainspoken practicality. Its moral force is a gut punch.”—The New Yorker

“A compact jeremiad on the persistence of extreme want in a nation of extraordinary wealth . . . [Desmond’s] purpose here is to draw attention to what’s plain in front of us—damn the etiquette, and damn the grand abstractions.”—The New York Times Book Review

“[T]hrough in-depth research and original reporting, the acclaimed sociologist offers solutions that would help spread America’s wealth and make everyone more prosperous.”—Time

“Desmond’s book makes an urgent and unignorable appeal to our national conscience, one that has been quietly eroded over decades of increasing personal consumption and untiring corporate greed.”—Claire Messud, Harper’s Magazine

“[Poverty, by America is] a book that could alter the way you see the world. . . . It reads almost like a passionate speech, urging us to dig deeper, to forget what we think we know as we try to understand the inequities upon which America was built. . . . A surprisingly hopeful work.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Desmond’s electrifying pen cuts through the usual evasions and exposes the ‘selfish,’ ‘dishonest’ and ‘sinful’ pretence that poverty is a problem that America cannot afford to fix, rather than one it chooses not to.”—Prospect

“A powerful polemic, one that has expanded and deepened my understanding of American poverty. Desmond approaches the subject with a refreshing candidness and directs his ire toward all the right places.”—Roxane Gay

“Passionate and empathetic.”—Salon

“This book is essential and instructive, hopeful and enraging.”—Ann Patchett

— About Matthew Desmond: Matthew Desmond is a Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. After receiving his Ph.D. in 2010 from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he joined the Harvard Society of Fellows as a Junior Fellow.

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tarathijewels · 1 year ago

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juarezesdeporte · 1 year ago

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2023 UTEP Football Camp Report: Wide Receivers

Up and down the UTEP wide receiver room, there are talented players that can line up anywhere on the field ready to cause severe headaches for opposing defenses in the 2023 season

The alpha of the pack is 5’7, 170-pound senior Tyrin Smith, who should not be underestimated because of his size. He torched the opposition for 1,039 yards in 2022, making him one of three receivers in Conference USA to surpass 1,000 receiving yards while becoming just the eighth player in program history to top that figure. He led UTEP in that category, along with receptions (71) and TD catches (seven).

UTEP offensive coordinator/ quarterbacks/wide receivers coach Scotty Ohara is thankful to have a top-tier receiver like Smith given the complexity of the Miners’ system.

“In this offense we do a lot of different things with receivers and it’s a system that does take time to learn,” Ohara said. “Having a guy coming back that has a ton of banked reps in practice and has also executed on game day at a high level is someone you definitely want in the room. He’s a dependable and proven guy in this offense.”

Miner receivers without as much experience in the offense pay close attention to Smith.

“We have a lot of guys that are doing good things, but the biggest thing is they have not done it (consistently) in a game,” Ohara said. “That’s where Tyrin’s experience comes into play. He provides them good insight and feedback on how things play out.”

Opposing defensive coordinators also give Smith lots of attention, affording up-and-coming Miner wideouts the chance to shine.

“We have a lot of guys that had really good offseasons,” Ohara said. “They’ve really progressed through this fall camp, and it’s what we need. We need multiple playmakers, not just one. Kelly (Akharaiyi) had a really good spring and fall camp (so far), and I’m really looking for him to take that next step forward in his second year. He knows the offense so much better, and his confidence level is up.

“Jeremiah (Ballard) is another one. We’ve been waiting for him to break out, and he probably had the best offseson of the entire group. He’s really doing good things in fall camp, and it’s not surprising to me because of his focus level. Marcus (Bellon) is just so much more comfortable with the offense this year. He’s shown in camp that he can be a playmaker. Emari (White) has done some good things and so has Jostein Clarke. So, we’re looking to see who will be that second, third, fourth playmaker for us.”

Smith can etch his name into the Miner record book in 2023, with the opportunity to become the first player at the school to produce back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons. That’d be a nice feather in his cap, yet the ever-humble Smith has more team-oriented goals in place.

“It would mean a lot (to be the first) but winning a conference championship would mean a lot more to me” Smith said. “We want to get a win and keep getting them like this team deserves. That’s the key for me. We also want to go back to a bowl game like we did in 2021.”

One extra piece of motivation is to wipe away any residual feelings from last year’s campaign.

“We have a chip on our shoulder,” Smith said. “We’ve got to go out and prove ourselves, that’s how you have to do it every year. Last year is in the past, so this is a whole new year that we can build off of and keep gaining off of it.”

Wide receivers are akin to a Lamborghini, a flashy piece of the offense that draw a lot of attention. Smith isn’t opposed to having all eyes on the group, but he knows it can dissipate in a flash without proper execution.

“It’s a good feeling (to have everyone looking at you), but everybody’s got to go out there and do their job,” Smith said. “We all need to know our assignments and go out there and execute like we know we can.”

Smith often stays after practice with other wide receivers to hone their practice, looking for any edge he can get.

“I’m really just trying to improve from last year,” Smith said. “In every aspect, catches, receiving yards, yards after catch, all of that, I want to be better.”

One thing that cannot be taught, but only accumulated through intentional effort and time, is chemistry. Smith and quarterback Gavin Hardison have that area covered with multiple years of big plays between the duo.

“Chemistry is very important between the quarterback and receiver,” Smith said. “It’s important both on and off the field. Gavin and I are always going to have that chemistry and that connection.”

Nowhere is that chemistry more evident than on gameday.

“The energy level on gameday atmosphere is different,” Ohara said. “Everything is done by feel and reaction and so for those two guys to be on the same page can only come from spending the hours and hours they do off and on the field. (Being on the same page) is the most critical thing. If all 11 guys aren’t on the same page, that’s an issue even if it’s just one guy. You can only execute how you want to when everybody is on the same page.”

There’s a lot of mouths to feed among the Orange and Blue receivers with only one football to go around, but Smith doesn’t envision that being a problem given the approach by the receivers.

“Everybody is going out there and being a team guy,” Smith said. “That’s what it is in our position room. We are all team players. Two (Hardison), or whoever the quarterback is, is always going to find us. That’s how we stay happy.”

Having a veteran signal caller like Hardison, who has piled up more than 7,000 passing yards during his career, gives a cool and collected group that much more assurance going into 2023.

“It gives us a lot of confidence, especially me personally going into my third season with him” Smith said. “It brings in a lot of confidence knowing you have that veteran quarterback behind you.”

Smith is also quick to appreciate that while attacking through the air can gain big chunks at a time, a consistent running game is vital.

“That’s really important to us as a receiver group,” Smith said. “Honestly, from the defensive standpoint, it can open up the receivers a lot more. It can open up the offense a lot more, and the coaching staff can pretty much call anything they want.”

As the offensive coordinator, in addition to WR/QBs coach, Ohara knows that a consistent ground game can work wonders.

“This whole offense starts with running the ball,” Ohara said. “If we can be effective there, our receivers know it will help get them single coverage without safety help. When we run the ball well, they have to dedicate an extra player to stop the run so it’s very important.”

With a proven secondary lining up every day on the other side of the ball, there are some intense battles between the receivers and defensive backs. Those can escalate at times, but the benefits are immense.

“Honestly it helps a lot with a lot of competition and competitiveness out there between the guys,” Smith said. “Anytime we go back into the locker room, though, there’s always love between us. At the end of the day, we are all family, so it (competition) is going to help us in the long room.”

#local

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coloradospringsstainedglass · 1 year ago

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The Transformative Power of Leaded Glass for Colorado Springs Homes

New Post has been published on https://www.coloradospringsstainedglass.com/2023/07/06/the-transformative-power-of-leaded-glass-for-colorado-springs-homes/

The Transformative Power of Leaded Glass for Colorado Springs Homes

Welcome to Colorado Springs Stained Glass, your premier destination for exquisite leaded glass in Colorado Springs. If you’re seeking to elevate the aesthetics and functionality of your home, look no further than the timeless beauty of leaded glass. In this article, we’ll explore the wonders of leaded glass, its distinct characteristics, and why it’s an excellent choice for Colorado Springs homeowners. Get ready to be inspired!

Understanding Leaded Glass

Leaded glass, also known as leaded glasswork, is a form of artistry that involves the craft of joining multiple small pieces of colorless glass together using lead caming. This technique dates back centuries and has stood the test of time as a symbol of elegance and sophistication. Leaded glasswork offers a unique interplay of light and texture, creating a visually captivating experience for anyone who beholds it.

The Versatility of Leaded Glass

One of the distinguishing aspects of leaded glass is its incredible versatility. Unlike its vibrant counterpart, stained glass, leaded glass typically features colorless glass. This allows it to seamlessly blend with any architectural style and color scheme, making it a fantastic choice for Colorado Springs homes.

Leaded glass can be found in various forms, including windows, doors, transoms, skylights, and even room dividers. Its ability to transform ordinary spaces into extraordinary ones makes it a highly sought-after feature among homeowners looking to add a touch of elegance and sophistication to their living environments.

The Beauty of Beveled Glass

Within the realm of leaded glass, there is a technique known as beveled glass that adds an extra layer of refinement and allure. Beveled glass is achieved by cutting and polishing the edges of the glass at precise angles, resulting in a stunning prism-like effect. This technique not only enhances the visual appeal of leaded glass but also allows it to reflect light in a truly mesmerizing manner.

Enhancing Your Home with Leaded Glass Windows

Leaded glass windows offer a plethora of benefits that make them a fantastic choice for Colorado Springs homeowners. Firstly, they allow an abundance of natural light to permeate your living spaces, creating a warm and inviting atmosphere. This is particularly advantageous for areas where you desire ample sunlight, such as living rooms, kitchens, and dining areas.

Secondly, leaded glass windows provide an excellent balance between privacy and openness. The intricate patterns and textures of leaded glass not only add visual interest but also offer a level of privacy, making them perfect for bedrooms, bathrooms, and even street-facing windows. You can enjoy the breathtaking views of the Briargate neighborhood or the charm of Pleasant Valley while maintaining your personal space.

Transformative Applications of Leaded Glass

Leaded glass can enhance various areas of your Colorado Springs home, allowing you to infuse each space with a touch of elegance and sophistication. Here are some suggestions for incorporating leaded glass into your home:

1. Entryways

Make a lasting impression with a stunning leaded glass entryway. The intricate patterns and textures will greet your guests with a touch of elegance and charm, setting the tone for your entire home. Whether you reside in the luxurious Broadmoor neighborhood or the affordable district of Briargate, a leaded glass entryway will truly elevate your curb appeal.

2. Windows and Doors

Replace ordinary windows and doors with leaded glass alternatives to elevate the aesthetics of your living spaces. Leaded glass windows and doors not only bring in natural light but also add a touch of sophistication and visual interest to any room. Whether you’re enjoying the mountain views from your Rockrimmon home or appreciating the tree-lined streets of Pleasant Valley, leaded glass windows and doors will enhance the beauty of your surroundings.

3. Room Dividers

Create a sense of separation and elegance within your home by incorporating leaded glass room dividers. These dividers serve as functional art pieces, allowing light to pass through while defining distinct areas in an open-concept living space. Whether you’re dividing your dining area from the living room or creating a cozy reading nook, leaded glass room dividers add a touch of sophistication to your Colorado Springs home.

4. Skylights and Transoms

Introduce a touch of grandeur and natural illumination into your home with leaded glass skylights and transoms. These architectural features not only bring in an abundance of natural light but also serve as focal points, adding a sense of elegance and spaciousness to any room. Imagine the beauty of sunlight filtering through leaded glass in your Briargate or Black Forest home, creating a warm and inviting atmosphere.

Beautify Your Home with Leaded Glass in Colorado Springs

Leaded glass has the power to transform your Colorado Springs home into a haven of elegance and charm. Its versatility, timeless beauty, and ability to create privacy while allowing natural light to flow through make it an exceptional choice for homeowners seeking to enhance their living spaces.

At Colorado Springs Stained Glass, we specialize in creating exquisite leaded glass designs that cater to your unique vision and style. Whether you’re looking to install leaded glass windows, doors, or room dividers, our team of skilled artisans is ready to bring your dream to life.

Contact us today to schedule a consultation and discover how the transformative power of leaded glass can elevate your Colorado Springs home. Let us help you turn your vision into a stunning reality.

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vintagebitchgifts · 2 years ago

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Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: ❤️SOLD❤️ New 3D Black Cat Pearl Collar Unique Stud 2 Piece Earrings.

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mint-moon25 · 2 years ago

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Watch "HOMEGOODS SHOP WITH ME | NEW SPRING PATIO + HOME DECOR 2023" on YouTube

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#Youtube

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alexawesomeblog · 2 years ago

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Handbag Trends to Watch Out For in 2023

The most notable spring 2023 handbags in Sri Lanka can be found in a few broad categories while looking for a new bag this season. Start with something wide and comfortable or choose an updated design in a traditional shape—think crossbody satchels, baguettes, and buckets. Whether they are folded, woven, quilted, or have a pre-worn appearance, these iconic bags have been updated for spring. A frequent motif among designers is to create bags that have an aged appearance. You can see this theme come to life on everything from soft, crinkled leather totes to slouchy shoulder ladies’ handbags.

The modest luxury aesthetic has left its stamp on the handbag market, offering a variety of styles that are worthwhile investments for those seeking something a little more refined. Additionally, you can anticipate fashions that feel ephemeral for the spring or summer season, such as a canvas bucket or a woven basket bag. These are the designs and hues that everyone will be carrying in 2023, so use them to update your handbag when purchasing women’s bags online.

Classic Quilted.

The leather shoulder bag with a flap and their own branding hardware is a staple of luxury brands. Designers like Saint Laurent and Gucci have revamped these well-known crossbody styles for spring with quilted leather. Additionally, the padded effect shows no signs of ageing. If you are checking for handbag prices in Sri Lanka, this is the one affordable and versatile.

Infinite Pieces.

Many people are moving towards quality over quantity due to the combined influence of classics (capsule outfits, closet staples, etc.) and careful shopping. It is undoubtedly no surprise that manufacturers have been digging through their archives to resurrect timeless classics from the past, such as Gucci's Jackie handbag from 1961 and Prada's Cleo bag from the 1990s. A sleek black shoulder bag is one of the best styles to adopt this season, whether you are looking for a lifetime investment or a silhouette with a nostalgic vibe.

Resuming work.

Most of the SS23 shows featured boxy, structured handbags that didn't sacrifice style. The most popular back-to-work bags right now are re-editions, from Gucci's boxy 1955 bag to Prada’s re-release of the 1995 style, which was previously a favourite of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and is now frequently seen on the shoulders of many.

Elegant silver.

A great time is being had by Silver. The shining tint is used in the design of bags in addition to jewellery and shoes. Perhaps there is a general desire for a little understated glamour, or perhaps it is just a way to make a bold yet tasteful statement. Leading the pack with designs in the current metallic tone are Proenza Schouler, JW Anderson, and Diesel, which range from party bags to useful totes. These silver bags are characterised by an upscale elegance and a timeless vibe, while also being a statement piece that readily elevates a more minimalistic appearance.

The two bags.

When you can carry two bags, why carry just one? This season, many designers must have had that in mind. According to brands like Salvatore Ferragamo, Peter Do, and The Row, even bags require a bag of their own. The most notable exhibit was FENDI's Resort 2023 Collection, an homage to the iconic Fendi baguette bag from 1997, where numerous it-bag versions were shown next to one another. The ideal bag offers a useful yet fashionable answer to running daily errands. Not to mention the additional accessory component the micro bags give your outfit.

High Handle.

The top-handle bags combine structural features with minimal chic. The Fendi Peekaboo bag is experiencing a comeback, while classic shapes like the Hermes Kelly and several Louis Vuitton versions are still very in style. Dior developed the Dior D-Joy purse, an extended, embroidered variation of the top handle design, as a more jovial alternative to the classic Lady Dior. Numerous companies have also developed slightly sculptural designs that are more contemporary, such as BOTTEGA VENETA with its brand-new Sardine bag. Although it isn't technically from the 2023 collections, we can assure you that it will be a popular top-handle design the following year.

Elevated tote bags.

The sleek and roomy minimalist tote bags are back for the upcoming season, but with a sophisticated update that elevates them. With their already legendary Icare tote, Saint Laurent is at the forefront of the craze. The quilted purse, which is being sported by style icons like Hailey Bieber and Zoe Kravitz, is expected to be one of the most popular trends next season. The Chanel 22 tote bag, which was enhanced with additional handle elements for the 2023 spring season, is comparable. Your most useful bag will also become your most opulent one thanks to elevated totes.

Embellished subtly.

Many designers believe that the bags of the upcoming year deserve a little bit of glitz, whether it be in the form of pearls, sequins, or delicate feather details. While Chanel chose to fully embellish the majority of its styles with freshwater pearls, J.W. Anderson created a sparkly version of his bumper bag. On the runway, there was even a tiny Hermes Kelly bag decorated with vibrant feathers. We all require a purse fashioned like a large pearl in our lives, according to Simone Rocha and Italian fashion label Valentino, which gave the traditional briefcase a twist with subtle glittering sequins. There isn't a more uplifting item than that, in our opinion.

We have said it before, and we will say it again: the trends that are best for you and your mood are the ones you should try out. The possibility of locating the ideal "thing" purse for your personality is infinite right now, with the fashion world totally pushing towards eccentric collaborations and over-the-top ensembles.

#handbags Sri Lanka #handbag price in Sri Lanka #Ladies handbags #Women bags online

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