#also the pilot is not on Amazon you have to watch it separately to understand the premise of the show lmfao

[communistkenobi]

I watched the hazbin hotel pilot when it first came out years ago out of curiosity and like I am extremely primed to be on board with the concept of a radio demon but i don’t think I’ve ever seen a character more viscerally unpleasant to look at in my entire life

[batmannotes]

Gomer Pyle Blu-Ray Box Set Review

Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.— The Complete Series includes all five seasons of the classic sitcom. This 20 disc set will provide hours of entertainment and laughter.

This hit spin-off from The Andy Griffith Show took one of the hilarious side characters, Gomer, and set a fresh new show around him that would exceed the hilarity which started in way back in Mayberry, North Carolina.

I still rank this comedy in my all-time top 10 list. The naive, but loveable country boy Gomer (Jim Nabors) and loudmouthed Sergeant Carter (Frank Sutton) play incredibly well off each other. This is probably the 20th time I've watched most of these classic episodes and I still gleefully appreciate the comedic genius of this old tv show.

The series is presented in HD for the first time in this 20 disc Blu-Ray set. The first season is in black and white with the rest in beautiful color. The transfer is solid and crisp, especially in season 2-5. Actors and actresses faces and overall presentation have never looked so delightfully clear. You'll even notice set pieces and landscapes in the background like never before. It's amazing when you realize these episodes are over 60 years old. Although this is presented in a 4x3 aspect ratio, it never hinders your appreciation for this series.

VIDEO QUALITY 📽️ :  B+

For only a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track the sound is actually quite pleasant. It might be because I long enjoyed these episodes on an old picture tube television for years without complaining, but I can not find anything wrong with the mono mix here. I am also aware that not all of the music originally found from this series made it to this release sadly due to rights of usage.

AUDIO QUALITY 🔈 : B-

As far as the extras go, there aren't many (see below). There are also no dvds or digital copies available with this set either. While the disc extras here aren't numerous, I can understand that more than the lack of digital copies for the episodes.

Season One, Disc One:

Pilot Episode "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. from The Andy Griffth Show (480i, 28:09): The episode that debuted the character and concept. Includes the option to play the episode alone or with the "Sales Presentation" which is also included separately (see the next supplement below).

Sales Presentation (480i, 2:39): Jim Nabors introduces and closes out the episode, as is optionally seen with the episode above.

Season One, Disc Two:

Audio Commentary: Ronnie Schell, who played "Duke" on the show, discusses the first episode on the disc, "Gomer and the Dragon Lady."

EXTRAS 📀 :  D

FINAL GRADE:  B-

Clocking in at 3786 minutes, this is one box set that viewers both young and old can sit around and savor together for literally hours and hours. Even with the lack of extras here, this release gets my 100% recommendation. They don't make them (comedies) like this anymore.

Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. Blu-Ray Box Set is now available at Amazon.

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Bonus Marathon - Rapunzel’s World : The Ultimate Series’ Guide

Introduction

While I was gathering books and comics for this review series, I kept seeing this series guide advertised to me by google’s and amazon’s algorithms. Now neither would tell what the book was nor give me any sort of insight into it’s pages, and I never heard it talked about within fandom. It’s not even listed on the wiki with the other activity books.

So out of sheer curiosity, I snagged it used off of Abe Books for less than five bucks. Now this was originally released mid-season and is supposed to be a ‘here’s a who is who’ so far in the story, but I figured it works better as an introduction to the show. I also wanted something short to go between the larger novels and give myself some breathing space.

Content

As I said, this is just a ‘Who’s Who’ book, but with some world building stuff thrown into the mix. Not much though, sadly....

Most of the little blurbs and such, are just things you can see in the show yourself. There’s nothing really here to flesh out the characters or the world; no additional tidbits or factoids, no added story, no activities for what is suppose to be an activity book. It’s kind of bland, and I can see now why the fans don’t really talk about it.

The most interesting thing about the book is what it gets wrong.  

Varian, Quirin, and Ruddgier are called the ‘Ruddiger Family’, as if they consciously named themselves after their pet raccoon...

And then they get both Herz der Sonne’s and General Shampanier’s names wrong. Calling them Herr Tazon and General Champagne... I kid you not, It’s Champagne. 

If this book was scheduled for a mid-season release, back when Queen for a Day was still intended to come after One Angry Princess, then Under Raps may not have been fully finalized by the time it was published.

Yet most interesting to me, is that The Great Science Expo is implied to be an annual event in the book. But, like, wouldn’t Varian had won like nearly every year then? Yet the judge seems to barely know him? What would have prevented Varian from participating previous years?

I personally would like to think that the Great Expo is a rotating event within the seven kingdoms. Like it does happen every year, but each year its hosted else where. Which would mean that the last time the Expo came to Corona, it was held when Varian was seven and too young to enter.

Now, I’ve nothing to back that theory up, but it seems as plausible as anything else. 

Presentation 

The art work in the book is very uneven, at best. We get some nice background shots and a few new promotional images of the mains. I especially enjoy the page listing out Rapunzel’s outfits. But then you you also get a lot of repeated artwork that fans see touted in every merch. 

Heck, that one image above of Varian is repeated twice within this same book, while the royal family portrait shows up on three separate occasions. Then there’s the fact that all the villain's models are shown in default mode...

Everyone else at least has their models posing. Even minor characters, like the castle staff and the townspeople, at least were set up for their one promotional image. Yet, this, is lazy. Someone really dropped the ball here and it feels rushed. 

Would I Recommend It

I don’t understand who this is for. There’s nothing here that you couldn’t learn just by watching the show or reading a Wikipedia page to catch yourself up with. If this had perhaps been released between the pilot and the first episode, as a way to generate hype, I could understand it, but it was instead a midseason release, so none of this would have been new information to most audiences at the time.  

I guess if you lived overseas and couldn’t get the episodes till later, and for whatever reason didn’t have internet access, then maybe this might have had value then.... Only, its even harder to get merch like this overseas anyways so... Not to mention, that none of that is relative now that the series is over with.  

I don’t know. I know a few people who like this book a lot, but I personally fail to see the appeal. This is the first thing I’ve come across in the marathon that I would recommend skipping over. 

Next Up

We’ll be looking at our second original novel and first series based original novel to boot. Here’s hoping that’s better than the last book. Next is Rapunzel and the Lost Lagoon. 

Also the streams have retuned this week over on the salt discord. 

https://discord.gg/52hGg6TS

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Support Amazon workers today

Amazon is an innovator: the company has invented some of the most sophisticated techniques ever seen to avoid taxation, the minimum wage, worker safety, and climate justice.

They pioneered worker misclassification, allowing them to treat their drivers as independent contractors or even subcontractors to independent contractors, even as they subjected those workers to supervision to rival the most invasive workplaces.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/19/the-shakedown/#weird-flex

They summoned into existence the "Mechanical Turks," among the lowest-paid pieceworkers in existence, largely overseas, receiving pennies (or fractional pennies) to backstop "AI" applications, proving that AI really stands for "absent Indians".

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/17/reverse-centaur/#reverse-centaur

Amazon gets its workers coming and going: it's not just denying bathroom breaks and other human necessities, nor merely wage-theft - it's also tip-theft, stealing the alms we guilty customers toss to its workers to assuage our shame.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/amazon-ftc-pay-flex-drivers-stolen-tips.html

But the most visible sign of Amazon labor exploitation is in its warehouse workers, a vast army of "reverse centaurs" who serve as the hands of remorseless, relentless robots. The more automated an Amazon warehouse is, the more workers it maims.

https://www.ft.com/content/087fce16-3924-4348-8390-235b435c53b2?shareType=nongift

Amazon's incredible profitability during the lockdown was paid for with workers' lives. Its warehouses were the nexus of multiple covid outbreaks, and the company used racist smears to discredit workers who demanded basic safety precautions.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/03/socially-useless-parasite/#christian-smalls

Amazon understands that warehouse organizing is the beginning of the end for its extraction of inhuman work for inhuman wages.

That's why even its prized tech workers get fired for expressing solidarity with warehouse workers.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/14/abolish-silicon-valley/#hang-together-hang-separately

And it's why the project of organizing Amazon warehouse workers is so urgent. Amazon's plans for its warehouses are even more Dickensian than the current system. Take the "megacycle," a ten-hour shift that runs from 1:20AM to 11:50AM.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/05/la-bookseller-royalty/#megacycle

It's a shift that any worker would suffer under, but it's especially hard on women workers, forcing them to leave behind their families, and to commute to work at an hour when public transit isn't running.

The megacycle isn't just a way to realize "efficiencies" (more work for less money), it's also a way to punish labor activists: it's being piloted at DCH1, the Chicago warehouse whose workers made national news by demanding safe work conditions during the lockdown.

But Amazon's workers refuse to be intimidated. Warehouse workers continue to demand the right to organize and collectively bargain for a living wage and safe, humane working conditions.

In Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon warehouse workers are voting on union formation.

Amazon has pulled out every stop to sabotage the union vote. They even got the city to change the timing of the traffic lights near its warehouse so that organizers couldn't use red lights to talk to workers on their way to the plant.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/17/22287191/amazon-alabama-warehouse-union-traffic-light-change-bessemer

Statistically, you are probably an Amazon customer. So am I. They are nearly impossible to avoid. After all, not only has Amazon predated upon small businesses, eliminating choice - and what they didn't kill, private equity looters destroyed.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-retail-debt/

My problem with Amazon isn't the ease of buying web hosting or compute time; it's not the convenience of having a lot of goods for sale in one place; it's not the utility of music streaming or the entertainment from TV shows.

My problem with Amazon is its brutal labor policies, its tax evasion, its climate wreckage, its monopolistic predation, its union busting, its wage theft.

It's not like the company can't afford to end these crimes.

It made $20B in profits in 2020.

When we talk about a good Amazon, we're not talking about eliminating Amazon (though maybe we should break the company up). We're talking about shifting the disposition of that $20B, so it doesn't accrue solely to its shareholders.

Much of that $20B is the result of exploiting workers, dodging taxes (or even getting tax *subsidies*), stealing from suppliers, externalizing the climate and other costs of its business onto the rest of the world.

We all have a stake in a fair Amazon - whether or not we're Amazon customers. The workers in Bessemer have faced an onslaught of propaganda, spying and intimidation from Amazon and its contractors, the Pinkertons (yes, the *literal* Pinkertons).

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#awu

Many of us have recognized that the Bessemer workers deserve our solidarity. The Tech Workers Coalition, for example, has been running the #DoItWithRealPower campaign to counter Amazon's propaganda.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/19/deastroturfing/#real-power

Today, we have the chance to *directly* support the workers in Bessemer. SupportAmazonWorkers.org has organized 40+ solidarity demonstrations in cities in the USA and Canada, which you can attend.

https://supportamazonworkers.org/march20/

Amazon knows this fight matters and it doesn't just target @BAmazonUnion for propaganda. You're on the receiving end of those messages, too. That "news report" you watched about how cool an Amazon warehouse is? An ad disguised as news.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/28/holographic-nano-layer-catalyser/#quackspeak

Amazon workers in Germany have already unionized. The company can certainly pay living wages and continue to operate. It's not fighting for its life - its fighting to maintain incredibly high levels of profitability, no matter what the cost to workers and the world.

[anthonyaugustine]

SEVEN SERIES ON STREAMING SERVICES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

With winter approaching and the uncertainty of what is instore as Covid-19 ramps up again, you’ll be spending more time at home than you probably want to. Even though the streaming landscape is ultra-competitive, every service seems to be overloaded with content that slips by the company’s obvious promotion of certain series. While algorithms and past watching patterns populate most of the TV series and movies you see within the services interface, every company picks and highlights certain content for specific viewers along with broad cross-promotion of key titles that it has either produced or is exclusive to the service. All that means is way more good content slips by than you think. Just because a streaming service will shell out huge sums for series, that doesn’t guarantee they promote it the same way to everyone. Here are seven series on Amazon and Netflix you may have missed.

Read part one on ZeroZeroZero.

PART 2

The Looming Tower (Watch on Amazon - United States)

“Wherever you are, death will find you, even in the looming tower.”

OBL

Originally the 10 part series, The Looming Tower, based on Lawrence Wright's 2006 book of the same name, debuted on Hulu, a streaming service not available to Canadians. The Looming Tower traces the "rising threat of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the late 1990s and how the rivalry between the FBI and CIA during that time may have inadvertently set the path for the tragedy of 9/11." The series explores issues like the validity of ABC's apparent interview with the al-Qaeda leader in 1997 in a remote cave, which was a bizarre moment as OBL was alluding to the American government and the most powerful surveillance state for years at a time. A news station can set up a meeting but the FBI and CIA can't find him?

The motivation behind his call for jihad and the rich Saudi national's increasing anger at the western world and its interference with Islam become separated, both in history and our memory from the fact bin Laden had been a CIA asset in Afghanistan who was trained and supplied munitions and money by the Americans while the mujahadeen fought the Soviets in the '80s. Making his vengeance for the United States and the creation of al-Qaeda following the Russians leaving the country all the more complicated. 

Wright's exhaustive research gave him a more detailed understanding of OBL thoughts and feelings in writings, bootleg audio recordings or other obscure background sources including footage showing the al-Qaeda leader recording a video, later found on a computer in Hamburg, about the on-coming jihad about to be unleashed on America. The series and Wright's book takes the phrase Bin Laden repeats during the speech which is taken from the fourth sura in the Quran.

The growing concern about radical Islamic fundamentalism seems obvious to most in the government who were zeroed in on chasing OBL but nailing down what that threat was would fall through the bureaucratic holes created by secrecy and infighting between the CIA, FBI and counterintelligence on the ground.  Add that to the futility of fighting an ideology the has an almost unlimited supply of soldiers for the jihad, coming from nearly any background or country, but in this case, it just happened to be mostly Saudi nationals who seemingly slipped in and out of the country in the years leading up to the dreadful attack on the Twin Towers. The fact that the CIA was aware of two known al-Qaeda operatives in the US on legitimate visas was never shared with the FBI, with over 50 agents in the agency knew about the actionable intelligence that had been confirmed in Malaysia, where high-level members met to discuss the upcoming jihad in the USA.

If you want to take a further trip down the 9/11 rabbit hole, skip all the talk about disappearing planes, Boeing autopilot, missiles, thermite dust, giant holes in the ground with little plane wreckage or directed energy weapons, head to Ryan Dawson's diligently researched documentary, 9/11 and the War on Deception or the longer Empire Unmasked.  The over gour-hour documentary focuses on those involved in financing, logistical planning and provides new evidence from public records requests from field offices in Florida showing reports of multiple middle eastern men taking pilot lessons leading up to the attack, knowledge of the movement of various hijackers, including leader Mohamed Atta and two other 9/11 hijackers, documentation that the Israeli government agents may have been tracking various cells across the United States, in fact moving some of them using a company as a front for Israeli intelligence.These are documents directly from whatever declassified info he can dig up, often getting reports back that are all but blacked out as classified. Despite this, Dawson has been able to put various pieces to the puzzle together because of the inconsistency of what has been withheld across multiple departments, years, agents and bureaucracies. It also draws connections between the war on Iraq and the war on terror and the implications of US troops in the middle east. 

 Dawson has crowdfunded an extensive, over four-hour documentary under the heading Empire Unmasked, well worth investing your time in both the documentary and podcast if you want an even more complete picture of what happened on that fateful day and during the time leading up to it.

[cherik-prompt]

Wonder Woman AU (Part 2)

Charles tailed the Amazons escorting Erik. He did not know how he felt about Erik - on one hand, Erik had saved his life from the invaders. On the other, Erik was the one who had led them to Themyscira in the first place and caused the death of Antiope. Either way, Charles wanted to be there while the Amazons questioned him.

Erik eyed the lasso as one guard tied it to him and recoiled as it started to glow. Once everyone had quieted, Hippolyta stepped forward.

“What is your name?”

“Erik…” He strained a little, the lasso growing slightly brighter. “Lehnsherr. I’m a pilot for the Brits.”

“Why do you wear the same clothes as the invaders?”

“I am…” Erik clenched his fists. “I am a spy. I was assigned to impersonate a German military pilot. I was born in Germany, so I was the best man for the job.” Charles smiled a little, but it faded as Erik went on to explain his predicament involving Doctor Poison’s journal. “It could stop the war.”

“War?” Charles blurted out, “What war?”

“The… the War,” Erik looked appalled. “The war to end all wars? Four years, twenty-seven countries, 25 million dead. Innocent people.”

Erik explained more, and then it dawned on Charles: “Ares.”

“Charles,” Hippolyta scolded. He fell silent as she continued.

After the interrogation, Charles confronted his mother. “Excuse me, but after everything he’s said, it must be Ares!”

Another woman asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Forgive me, Senator,” Charles turned to her. “But the man called it a war without end. Millions of people already dead. Like nothing he’s ever seen. Only Ares could do such a thing.” A few Amazons frowned, others nodded. “We can not simply let him go, we must go with him!”

“I will not deploy our army to go fight their war,” Hippolyta said stiffly.

“It’s not their war! Ares is corrupting them!” Charles’s voice rose. “As Amazons it is our duty to stop the god of war.”

“But you’re not an Amazon like the rest of us!” She snapped. Charles was taken aback. Hippolyta readjusted herself. “So you will do nothing. As your queen I forbid it.”

Charles excused himself and left the Amazons. He wandered until he found a balcony with a nice view.

“You are not an Amazon like the rest of us.”

The words rang in Charles’s ears. He had thought they were past this. With tears in his eyes, he remembered the last time Hippolyta had said this…

~~~~~

“Mother, may I speak to you alone?”

“Diana, I am in the middle of a meeting with the Senate. can it wait?”

“N-no, I wish to talk now.”

“Well, whatever you have to say you can say to all of us.”

“Well… okay. I… I wish not to be a woman.”

“…I beg your pardon?”

“I do not feel like a woman. When I look at myself, I see a man.”

“…”

“Mother?”

“You do realize that Amazons are women, not men, correct?”

“I do. But… I could never be happy if I lived as someone who I was not.”

“…Very well. I accept that you are a man. Is there another name you wish to be called?”

“Charles… So, what will become of me as a man?”

“The Senate and I will discuss it. You are dismissed.”

Charles left the room and  stayed at the door to eavesdrop. He was indescribably relieved that his mother had not objected to his request, but he had no idea what they would decide.

“My queen?”

“Obviously we cannot send him away from the island.”

“Of course.”

“And you know him, he’s wanted to battle since he first saw us training.”

“We’ll never be able to stop him from trying. We might as well help prepare him.”

“But we are only women! He cannot be an Amazon.”

“I propose a compromise.” Charles’s heart lifted at the sound of his aunt’s voice. “He can be a man who fights alongside the Amazons.”

“Seconded. We shall continue his training.”

“Charles, you may return.”

“Yes, mother?”

“You are family to all of us and will remain here. You will continue your training, but not as an Amazon. You shall be a man fighting alongside us. Understood?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Charles took a small bow and fled from the room.

He was almost out of earshot when he heard his mother say, “He will never be an Amazon like the rest of us.”

~~~~~

Charles picked a flower from a plant climbing up the building next to him. His gauntlets glinted in the sunlight. What had happened at training earlier? All that energy felt like it had come from… him. But that couldn’t happen, right?

“She didn’t mean it like that,” said a voice behind Charles.

He didn’t jump. “Hello, Melanippe.” He tore up the flower and let it fall down the cliff.

“Hippolyta is just worried about you,” she said, leaning on the ledge next to him. “She didn’t mean ill. You are her son, and she wants you to be safe.”

“She’s only said that once before, and it wasn’t about keeping me safe.”

“Well it is this time,” Melanippe pointed to Charles’s arm, which was wrapped in a bloody makeshift bandage.. “You should get that wound cleaned.”

“Alright,” He turned around, trudging towards the medic.

“Oh, and also,” Charles looked back to see Melanippe wink. “I hear they’ve allowed the prisoner to bathe.”

Charles smiled and ran on his way. The baths were right near the medic’s station.

~~~~~

Erik examined the surface of the water. Did everything in this paradise glow? Perhaps it made up for the lack of any electric lights. Seriously, why did an entire island have no technology past that of ancient Greece?

With a start Erik realized he was not alone. Charles was standing in the doorway. Was it a doorway if it was just a cave formation? Erik stood halfway up in surprise before he stopped himself, remembering he was naked.

“Erm… Can I help you?”

Charles surveyed him. “I wanted to know… Are you an accurate representation of your sex?”

Erik considered this. Formalities aside, he answered, “I am… above average… I suppose.”

Charles walked a bit further into the cave. “What is that?” He asked, pointing vaguely in front of him.

“Er…” Then Erik realized what it was he was looking at. “Oh, that’s my watch.”

“Watch?”

“Yeah… You know, watch? Tells time? So I know when to be places.”

“You let this little thing govern your life?” Charles smirked.

“No, but…” Erik chuckled a little. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

Erik took a deep breath. “Who are you? Why don’t you know what a watch is? How do you speak English? Why are you the only man on the island?”

Charles looked flattered. “This is Themyscira, home of the Amazons. Zeus created this place before he died to protect the Amazons. We are the bridge to a greater understanding and know hundreds of languages. As to why I am the only man… I was born and raised here, so I could not leave.”

“How were you born if you’re the only man?”

“My mother sculpted me from clay and Zeus brought me to life.”

“Right. But… If Amazons are only women, why would your mother sculpt a boy?”

“I, erm… She didn’t sculpt a boy. She sculpted a girl.”

“Oh,” Erik looked down and used the awkward silence to put on some pants and a shirt.

“So,” He began once he was done. “Why’d you come down here?”

Charles sighed. “I believe that this war you are fighting was brought about by Ares, who the Amazons are meant to defeat.”

“Ares,” Erik furrowed his brow. “The god of war?”

“Yes. My mother forbids me to do anything, but I believe it is necessary to interfere.”

“And… How do you plan on doing that?”

“I will help you escape,” Charles voiced the plan he had been formulating up to that point. “And you will take me to the war.”

Erik considered this. Charles was quite capable in a fight, he knew that for sure. Then again, he also believed in Zeus, Ares, and all the other Greek gods. Although, that lasso they’d tied around him had mentally pushed him to tell the truth, and that glowing water was definitely not natural. Maybe these Amazons were onto something.

“Alright. Where do we start?”

“You will stay here. I’ll break into the vault and steal the Godkiller, the lasso of truth, a shield, and some better armor.” Then Charles left.

Erik wasn’t too pleased about sitting around and waiting, but he supposed someone with years of training with the Amazons would be more capable than him. In the absence of anything else to do, his mind wandered to the tight armor Charles was wearing, and his small but toned muscles… Erik shook himself out of his thoughts and gathered his things.

~~~~~

Charles looked over the ravine separating him and his goal. It was a reasonable distance, but he could probably make it. Just in case, he turned around and jumped the other way, about the same length. Smiling, he returned to the cliff and leaped onto the building. He caught hold of a brick sticking out with one hand.

As he was reveling in his feat, Charles lost his grip. He scraped the wall wildly until he caught hold… by punching a hole in it. He was surprised but pleased, and bashed another hole. Slowly he made his way up the building, leaving a trail of smashed bricks below him.

Finally, Charles reached the top. He grabbed the shield, sword, and lasso from their stands. He saw the red, blue, and gold peeking out at him from behind a wall and couldn’t resist. He grabbed it,  took it to the forge to fit it to his dimensions, and put it on.

When he arrived back at the cave in his cloak, Erik was ready to go. Charles mounted his horse and handed Erik the bridle for the other, then set off for the docks. Unfortunately, their departure had not gone unnoticed. Hippolyta and a couple of her henchman arrived shortly after Erik had started getting the boat ready to sail.

“I am going, mother.” Charles drew himself up to his full height, trying to look confident. “I cannot stand by while innocent lives are lost. If no one else will defend the world from Ares, then I must.”

Hippolyta looked sad, but she smiled. “I know. Or at least I know I cannot stop you. There is so much… So much you do not understand.”

“I understand enough. I am willing to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.”

“You know that if you choose to leave… You may never return.”

“This is not a decision, mother. It is who I am. I cannot stay.”

Hippolyta took Antiope’s headband from a pocket. “Make sure you’re worthy of this.”

“I will,” Charles took it and turned to board the boat. He waved as the Themyscira faded into the distance.

[sellersupportagency-blog]

Why you should choose BigCommerce for your business?

Overview of BigCommerce

Before we dig deep into the benefits of using BigCommerce for business let’s take a moment and understand what is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is a privately held technology company that provides a SaaS eCommerce platform. The company was founded in 2009 and has 600+ employees with headquarters in Austin, Texas.

BigCommerce is a top eCommerce platform that allows you to create an online store. It lets you set up your store, add products, and make money through your website. This is the feature that makes it worth using for any mid-size business.

BigCommerce is best for large or fast-growing businesses providing you with tons of features that its competitors do not offer.

Some of the clients of BigCommerce includes the big boys like Toyota, Kodak and Ben & Jerry’s for starters.

For small businesses looking to scale up, BigCommerce offers an average growth of 28% for its clients year on year.

Now that we know about BigCommerce Lets dig into why you should be using it to grow yourself and your business.

Advantages of using BigCommerce for your business

Let’s discuss some of the pros of using BigCommerce.

Most scalable eCommerce platform

More built-in features than any competitors

Lets you sell across multiple channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

User-Friendly SEO tools.

Disadvantages of using BigCommerce

Now let’s see some of the cons as well.

Complex terminology difficult to understand by beginners

No mobile app.

Every eCommerce store builder has its pros and cons but the best part is they are all customizable according to your needs. Let’s see how easy and fun it can be using BigCommerce.

As a business owner, you want to spend as much time as possible looking after your customers, shipping products, and watching your profits go up; you don’t want to spend precious hours trying to reformat a text.

Quite honestly the ease of use of BigCommerce is less compared to Shopify. It is because its user interface is divided into two parts; one is where you upload the products i.e. the back-end process and the other being where you edit the storefront i.e. customize its look.

This can get a little confusing for the beginners as they are not well versed with all the technical terms, this is why BigCommerce released a tool called “Store Design” which makes it a lot easier to customize and play with it.

Think of BigCommerce as a huge plane that takes you from point A to point B without changing the flight midway. With a big plane comes big complexity which cannot be flown just after passing the pilot’s exam!

But that’s not all BigCommerce has been listening to its users and is making the usage a lot simpler without compromising on the features. Best of the best thing about BigCommerce is it may be little tech savvy but in the long run, you don’t need to change your plane and will only make your journey more comfortable as you start to understand it.

Now, that we know how easy and fun it could be using BigCommerce let’s have a look at the tools and features it has to offer.

1.Website building features

BigCommerce has the best in-house features of any eCommerce builder. They provide a high level of quality and reduce the reliance you may have on third-party apps. You effectively have everything you need right at your fingertips for no extra cost.

2.Product Types.

BigCommerce is the only eCommerce builder on the market that lets you sell physical, digital and service-based products without having to use an app. All of these sales types are already built into the editor.

3.Payment Options

Once you’ve got all your products set up and ready to sell all you need is a way to get paid. Unlike some other eCommerce builders, BigCommerce doesn’t lock you into its own payment gateway. It doesn’t impose transaction fees on any of its plans as well which is a huge benefit for retailers contemplating to move onto BigCommerce.

Instead, it lets you choose your provider without imposing any extra charges or transaction fees.

4.Shipping Options

BigCommerce gives you range shipping options. You can get real-time shipping quotes, offer free shipping to your customers, and print shipping labels, all with BigCommerce’s third-party integration.

BigCommerce offers its all-in-one service for next-level shipping tools. Just install the new BigCommerce Shipping App and ship using DHL, FedEx, USPS and other widely used shipping service providers.

5.Other Functionalities

BigCommerce has the largest number of built-in features of any eCommerce builder. This includes SSL Security certificate, which encrypts user data to make online payments safe. In this age of cyber frauds this feature is a real game clincher.

6.Abandoned Cart Recovery

Almost as important as an SSL Certificate is an option for abandoned cart recovery. When a customer abandons their product the cart at the time of check out, you can send an automated email to draw them back to their purchase. You can even personalize the emails and include discount codes.

This is a real money getter! On average, these emails win back 12-15% of customers, while personalized emails are 6 times more effective than regular ones.

7.Multichannel Selling

With BigCommerce, you can sell everywhere using multichannel integrations. Simply put, you can sell through Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Amazon, and more. Manage everything from one place, sit back, and watch the sales roll in from all across the web.

Keep track of all those sales using BigCommerce’s data reporting tools. Identify customers’ trends, track your store’s performance, follow your conversion rates, and more – all from your dashboard.

8.Apps

There are over 600 apps to choose from in the BigCommerce app store. BigCommerce has a limited app store than its competitors, but that’s only because it has so many impressive in-house features already. You just don’t need as many apps as you would for Shopify. This keeps costs lower because you don’t have to pay out for third party add-ons every month.

9.Themes

BigCommerce has over 100 themes to choose from. There are seven free themes and over 100 paid themes, that range from $145-$235.

BigCommerce makes it easy to find your perfect theme. You can search by industry, or by the layout you want for your template. For example, you can choose from grid layouts or designs featuring large images. You can also view just free or paid themes, or use the search bar to find tailored results.

Themes vary depending on the industry they are categorized under. For instance, themes in the ‘clothing’ category have a product zoom feature, while other categories don’t include this. So, it’s worth having a proper search to find a theme that best fits your store’s needs.

10.Design Customization

BigCommerce recently released a new visual merchandising tool, called Store Design. Before you had to customize your storefront in two separate areas and wait to see the results, this tool changes everything.

The Store Design tool allows you to pick out sections of your page and customize them then and there, right in front of you. This gives you instant control over everything from background colours to logo positions, the number of featured products, navigation arrow colours, and more.

Conclusion

BigCommerce is the best choice for large and fast-growing businesses. It has an impressive range of built-in tools and features to support your online store’s growth. Powerful reporting tools mean it’s easy to keep track of your store’s successes and improvements.

Seller Support is an agency which specializes is providing custom solutions for any ecommerce platform. Store development, plugin development, theme customization and designing, catalog management, customer support is just some of the fields we have expertise in.

If you are a retailer contemplating to move onto BigCommerce contact us at info@sellersupport.com.

[themeatlife]

15 Years Later: A Look Back at Lost

I was introduced to Lost by accident. My sister was into the show and asked for the first season on DVD for Christmas in 2005. I was in college at the time and left the gift at my house in Norman. So when I met my family in Lawton for Christmas, I bought a separate copy for my sister’s gift. When I returned to Norman, I debated whether to return the gift or keep the DVD set and check it out. I checked it out and ended up binging the entire first season with my then girlfriend (now wife) in less than a week. It is now among my favorite shows of all-time.

On September 22, 2004, ABC premiered an epic television serial. The premise was the story and backstory of survivors of a plane that crashes on a mysterious island. At the time it was a risk for ABC. An expensive, movie-quality production on a weekly television show where the plot was not contained in a single episode but rather a series-long arch. The result was not only a popular show with a cult-like following, but a show that helped change the viewing habits of mainstream television. Lost, along with Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy, signaled a return of television dominance for ABC. But unlike the other two shows, Lost impacted the way viewers watch shows and helped usher in that change. More on that later.

Lost Themes: Explored

While there are too many important characters and their storylines to go over, Lost has a few main themes that are central to the show. There always seemed to be a duality on display. Science vs Faith. Internal vs External. Good vs Evil.

The biggest personification of Science vs Faith in the series, especially early on was Dr. Jack Shepherd vs John Locke. For most of the series, Jack and Locke were two of the main leaders of the crash survivors on the island. They disagreed on how to handle things. Most of the time Jack sided with logic and tried to back his actions with facts he knew. Locke had faith in the island, especially after being able to walk after the crash when he could not before getting to the island. This did not change until the last season when Jack put his faith in things to go back to the island and the actual Locke character was dead and The Man in Black took the form of Locke.

Internal vs External was displayed by the survivors being the external and the indigenous people of the island (referred to as “The Others”). Later in the middle to the back end of the series these were displayed by the Dharma Initiative being the external and the indigenous people of the island (referred to as “Hostiles” by Dharma) being the internal.

And then Good vs Evil. We saw in a lot of the flashbacks in the first half of the series focus on each character’s struggle with their inner demons. You then see the progression of characters working out their demons. And then on the back half of the series you get the mysterious Jacob and the mysterious Black Smoke Monster and it turn into the brothers Jacob vs The Man in Black. While they don’t blatantly say The Man in Black is evil, the storyline of the final season is to prevent him from leaving the island because of what he might do.

The Lost Style: Often Imitated, Never Duplicated

Lost had a once-unique method of storytelling: it told a real-time story and sprinkled in character-focused flashbacks, building the backgrounds of each of the main characters in each episode. In seasons four and five they had featured “flash forwards” for certain characters that got off the island and in the final season a sort of “flash after” where it featured a storyline of the main characters finding each other in the afterlife. Lost featured a large ensemble cast, something that was never attempted in television before. And Lost featured a very racial diverse cast, while not that uncommon now, was definitely groundbreaking at the time. Lost also featured a deep mythology about the history of the island, a storyline that ran throughout and beyond the show’s characters storylines, something so high-concept that people still discuss on message boards, Twitter, and Reddit even today.

You see elements of the Lost Style in television today. The real-time/flashback storytelling is used in shows like This Is Us and Arrow. Large and diverse ensembles in shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Game of Thrones. And complex, high-concept plots like Westworld were inspired to take the giant leap in part because Lost became successful at it.

The biggest impact Lost may have had was the serial plot line. For Lost to make the most sense, viewers had to watch the episodes sequentially. Viewing these episodes were best if viewed not week to week but consecutively in a binge. The Fox series 24 opened the door, proving that viewers will invest in a serial. Lost took it to the next level. Binging these episodes was almost more optimal for enjoying and understanding the series. When it was first aired, people preferred to view the seasons when they came out on DVD or digital. To combat this, ABC changed its episode scheduling from the fourth season onward to run Lost weekly from January to May, rather than the traditional method of airing episodes spaced out a few chunks of weekly shows at a time from September to May. Now it is commonplace for people to binge-watch shows on a streaming service like Netflix. Lost was one of the first shows that made binge watching seasons a thing.

the Meat Life’s Five Best Lost Episodes

The entire series is strong for sure, but here are my top five best episodes of Lost.

5 - Pilot (Season 1 Episodes 1 & 2)

Intense, fast-paced, and attention-grabbing. Lost’s pilot is one of the best show pilots in television history. It was a two hour movie-like epic. Costing $14 million, ABC took a financial risk making it was the most expensive pilot at the time. But the pilot pays off by not only grabbing 18.65 million viewers attention, but also laying the groundwork for the mystery of the island and the ridiculous 14 main characters on it.

4 - The Constant (Season 4 Episode 5)

This Desmond-centric episode features more of the sci-fi elements of the show (which a season later they go full on sci-fi with similar time travel elements). We also dive deep behind Desmond and Penny’s relationship and why it failed before the island.

3 - Live Together, Die Alone (Season 2 Episode 23)

A lot of moving parts in this episode. Michael, who recently killed a couple of survivors, strikes a deal with the Others to get a boat to get him and his son Walt off the island. Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley are on a mission with Michael to get Walt back before they got double-crossed. And Locke, struggling with his faith in the island, locks himself and Desmond in the hatch’s button room to make sure no one pushes the button while Charlie and Ecko try to get in. The episode ends with the mission team getting captured by The Others as Michael and Walt float away and a bright light consuming the island as the hatch implodes. Phew...and that’s just the abbreviated version of what happened.

2 - Through the Looking Glass (Season 3 Episode 22)

Creators and show runners Damon Lindelof and Jeffrey Lieber were given the okay to start writing the show toward a conclusion toward the end of the third season. And as much as this was the season three finale, it was the start of the storyline that would lead to the end of the show. In this epic season finale, Charlie and Desmond go down to the Dharma station the Looking Glass to turn off a signal jammer so the survivors can call newcomer Naomi’s sat phone. And once they turn it off Charlie receives a message from Penny and the dramatic ending ensues above.

1 - Walkabout (Season 1 Episode 4)

While the pilot was epic and the episodes thereafter were character building, Walkabout showed the full potential of what Lost storytelling could be and would be for the years to come. We focus on Locke in this episode and find out why he was in Australia. They also drop the big reveal that he could not walk before they crashed on the island. And we get the famous line “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”

Oh and about that finale...

I rewatched the series over the summer. It was the first time I had rewatched the entire series since it first aired (I did rewatch the first couple of season a few years ago when they were still on Netflix). The show has aged remarkably well in the last decade and a half.

The series finale was divisive when it came out. For those who were more into the mythology and conspiracy of the island, the finale was disappointing. While those that were into the show for the rich characters saw a satisfying ending. While I do love some of the mythical aspects of the show, the strongest elements in my opinion were the characters. So I was happy with the finale when it first aired nine years ago. And I’m happy to say that the finale aged wonderfully. I thought a lot about the Lost finale when watching Avengers: Endgame in April because of how rich the characters are developed and how there is an emotionally satisfying conclusion to their story.

If you have the space for it, watch/rewatch Lost, available on demand on Hulu or on digital on iTunes, Amazon, or wherever digital media is sold.

[mrjoelgarcia9]

Let’s Talk #TheLoudHouse: The Season 1, Volume 1 DVD

More than a year ago, I wrote about the then-upcoming Nicktoon The Loud House. The post became my biggest success on Tumblr with a combined 48 likes and reblogs.

The show itself has been very successful, with a second season currently on the air, an additional third season on the way, and even an upcoming feature film in 2020. It has an online fan base rivaling that of shows such as My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Steven Universe, and Star Vs The Forces of Evil.

A year or so after it premiered, Nickelodeon has released the show’s first DVD Welcome To The Loud House Season 1, Volume 1.

For a review of the DVD, feel free to keep reading.

Nickelodeon’s The Loud House is about Lincoln Loud, the only son of the Loud family, living with his ten sisters Lori, Leni, Luna, Luan, Lynn, Lucy, Lola, Lana, Lisa, and Lily. The show features Lincoln dealing with situations involving his sisters, either by himself or with the help of his best friend Clyde.

The show is distinct from other Nicktoons by how it avoids using fantastical elements, such as fairies or ninja turtles, and is reminiscent of shows such as Hey Arnold and Doug. It can also be considered a “slice of life” series by how the characters deal with normal conflicts such as hand-me-downs or who clogged the toilet.

The writing is really good and funny, with Lincoln’s situations connecting to his sisters’ traits, such as Lynn’s athleticism or Lisa’s intellect. The animation is reminiscent of newspaper comic strips such as Baby Blues or FoxTrot. The theme song, “In The Loud House”, is OK and quickly sets up the show.

This DVD set consists of the first 26 episodes. However, according to the episode list on Wikipedia, it actually includes the first 13 half-hour episodes which consist of 26 quarter-hour episodes. In short, this set only includes the first half of the first season.

Of those episodes, some are great, some are OK, and some are just weird (such as The Green House). As there are multiple episodes in this set, I will only highlight five of my favorites:

The Sweet Spot: One of the first episodes I saw when it was Free on iTunes, it features Lincoln negotiating with his sisters to get the best seat in the family van.

Project Loud House: Lincoln tries to get his sisters to school along with his project in good condition.

Sound of Silence: After buying noise-cancelling earbuds which work too well, Lincoln tries to find out what Lola wanted him to do while being reminded what happens when someone breaks a promise with her.

Undie Pressure: The siblings bet each other that they can avoid doing their respective habits.

Butterfly Effect: Lincoln accidentally breaks Lisa’s stuff leading to a series of bizarre events involving his sisters.

The show looks great on DVD. There were some moments where the backgrounds were blurry, but it looks exactly as if you were watching it on Nickelodeon. The original English audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, but the rear speakers are rarely used outside of the background music and the occasional sound effect.

The DVD also includes both the Spanish and French dubs in Stereo. From what I heard, the French dub sounds OK. The Spanish dub, which is the Mexican Spanish version, does a good job of replicating the characters’ original English voice actors without losing their distinct traits. If I were to stumble upon this dub on TV, I would gladly watch it.

This DVD does not contain any bonus features. While it is possible that there may not be any behind the scenes content, it would have been great for Nickelodeon to include either the original pilot or “Slice of Life” short.

As for the packaging (seen below), it has an embossed slipcover, the reverse side of the case artwork list the episodes on each disc, and plain grey DVDs.

Welcome To The Loud House Season 1, Volume 1, is a great DVD set of a really funny slice of life Nicktoon. It has really good writing, a distinct animation style, and is enjoyable for the whole family. I Highly Recommend both the show and this DVD.

The DVD is available to buy at stores such as Walmart, where I bought my copy, and online. The individual episodes are also available to buy on both iTunes and Amazon Video in HD.

Until next time, thank you for reading!

[princevolker2788]

8, 9, and 10 please! I'm curious :3

8. Why do you choose to write?

Hmm... tough one! I guess I love the idea of bringing ideas to life, even if they’re silly, or sad, or angsty. There’s just something about writing that draws me in. I love creating complex characters with flaws, hopes, dreams and then dropping them in a scenario they aren't prepared for. It’s like watching a movie play out in my head that I just happened to write down. A moment in time, from another world captured in prose. I dunno, I guess I just write for the fun of it XD.

9. Do you ever have plans to write anything other then fic?

Oh you have no idea!

Prepare yourselves, this is a long one:

I recently wrote an entire novel (50,000 words for nanowrimo) that focuses on the fall of an intergalactic empire, from the point of view of the empire. Specifically, the Prince, Volker.

Basically I thought to myself “we always see a rebellion in sci-fi from the point of view of the plucky rebellion, but what if we saw it from the Empire itself?”

The thing is, Volker isn't a bad guy, none of the people in the empire are really, save for a few. This is the same in the Rebellion, the leader isn't an evil person outright, she has legitimate grievances with the empire, one’s that have been unanswered for too long.

So basically I wanted to write a story where you can sympathize with both the empire and the rebellion, one that focuses on love, family, anger, betrayal, learning to forgive, but in a sincere believable way.

Thats just the first idea I had ;P

Number 2:

This story focuses on a half elf boy named Bayard.

In the beginning, he's roused from sleep by his human father and told they have to leave. At first, Bayard doesn't understand whats happening, but its revealed that the King has ordered a bounty on all elves in his country. So the boy and his father retreat into the woods, only to be pursued by the kings men.

they’re destination is Elali, Bayard’s elven mother who has been absent for the past five years of his life.

Bayard is separated from his father and is forced to flee on foot, eventually making his way to his mother’s forest. 

When he meets her for the first time, she is cold, distant. When next he wakes he’s inside the Elven city and is brought before the high council, of which his mother sits. She argues that since his father is missing and he’s her son, he should stay. The council overrules this, citing that “no half-breed can remain in the city” and that he is to live with the other half elves in another part of the forest. 

Bayard in anger berates his mother for her distance, furious that she’d let this happen, eventually deciding to leave on his own. At the edge of the forest his mother approaches and tells him that she has given up her title and place in their society to come with him. From there they have to learn to be a family once again.

The thing I want to explore with this story is worldbilding and the creation of an original elven race, language and all.

The elven language will be based off of czechoslovakian, acting as the root dialect. From there I want to draw the symbols and actually have a working language that can be spoken and understood.

Those are my ideas, if you want more detail i’ll be glad to elaborate!

10. What inspires you the most?

Oi... hmm

This one’s tricky.

I guess I’m inspired by a lot of things, movies i’ve seen, books i’ve read, games I play, fic i’ve read, artwork, people, music. Its hard to pin down.

On the movie side of things I have to say that Star Wars and Indiana Jones are huge influences, along with Lord Of The Rings, Blade Runner and Alien.

Books: 

LOTR of course, Karen Traviss’s glorious Clone Wars Republic Commando series, The Airborn series by Kenneth Oppel (great deiselpunk swashbuckling goodness), A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Honor Harrington series by David Weber (Awesome hard sci-fi with a badass female protagonist, theres 14 books seriously check it out), The Witcher series (some of the best female characters i’ve seen), Game Of Thrones (I think this one is self explanatory)

Games:

Mass Effect (obviously), Dragon Age, Overwatch, Halo, Alien: Isolation, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Bioshock Series (Made me cry, no joke), Portal Series (same reaction), For Honor (great game, terrible online service), Fallout Series.

Fic:

@xavirne obviously ;D 

Great angst, characterization, funny dialogue (read her stuff if you haven't already). Seriously when you have the time, please write more I think everyone’s dying from the drought!

http://xavirne.tumblr.com/post/146270305562/secrets-chapter-1

@mizuaoi

Seriously great, WidowTracer Everywhere, Pharmercy, all your awkward lovely British pilot fic angst fluff you’ll ever need.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/8430589/chapters/19314955

@asynca

Do not enter unless you want to cry a few times, and then laugh your ass off. She’s also written books, one of which made it to the top of Amazon’s Gay and Lesbian fiction list! 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828849

https://www.amazon.com/Solve-i-E-Dooland-ebook/dp/B06VTJMC8F/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

@destiny-smasher

Some of the best Avatar and ATLA fic i’ve ever read:

http://destiny-smasher.deviantart.com/art/What-I-Learned-at-SRU-1-184207314

And The Walking Dead game:

http://destiny-smasher.deviantart.com/art/Versatility-1-The-Walking-Dead-479948016

And Life is Strange, seriously, these are motherfucking novels, settle in on a rainy day and enjoy:

http://destiny-smasher.deviantart.com/art/All-Wounds-1-Life-is-Strange-568284046

Art:

@nikanono Beautiful art, funny comics, just read pls

@mollifiable once soft fluffy work, always worth a smile

@reypadawanjedi fluffy, funny, widowtracer artwork

@critter-of-habit Awesome Dragon age, Clexa, Suoergirl work

@lifeisfineandnothinghurts (occasional nsfw) great Life Is Stange work, fluffy, angst, all your needs

@artbytesslyn Distinct style, beautiful use of color and darkness

@ohnoafterlaughs Just great, 

@disteal you want overwatch comedy (and others), come here

@ynartistic Mercy76 art for all your M76 needs (and Phoenix Wright)

@cafe-cardamari The best Splatoon art ever, no question

@lackadaisycatsStill my favorite webcomic to date, read Lackadaisy

@marceline2174 Love your mass effect work

@vashito One of the best OC back stories and designs. (also worked on Star Trek: Discovery)

[nickyschneiderus]

How to watch the midterm election results in real time

The only thing more exhilarating (or stressful) than the 2018 midterms race is Election Night. Control of both the Senate and House of Representatives is up for grabs, and most races are too close to predict. Whether you’re looking to live stream election results on a traditional cable news channel like CNN or MSNBC, or you’re looking for special coverage from respected news outlets like the Washington Post or some lighter fare from late-night hosts, here’s everything you need to watch online. 

Election results 2018: 8 ways to watch online for free

All of the major live TV streaming services offer at least a free seven-day trial. If you haven’t yet cut the cord or you’re just stuck on mobile for Election Night, this is a great opportunity to see what you’ve been missing.

1) FuboTV

Cost: $39.99 for your first month and $44.99 per month thereafter (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Android TV, iOS and Android devices

News channels for 2018 election results: CNN, CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC, BBC America

Billed primarily as a sports-focused streaming service, FuboTV isn’t surprisingly solid for news as well, providing the four main pillars of cable news (CNN, CNBC, Fox News, and MSNBC), as well as BBC America. In addition to a ton of specialty sports channels, you’ll also get great channels like AMC, Syfy, FX, and more. (Here’s a complete guide to FuboTV channels.)

Game-changing feature: Three-day replay for games and 30 hours of cloud DVR.

Fubo TV

FuboTV

2) Sling TV

Cost: $25-$40 per month

Sling TV Devices: Amazon Fire TVs, Android Fire Stick, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Xbox One, Google Chromecast, and iOS and Android devices

News channels for election results: CNN, MSNBC, CNBC

Sling TV is split up between two separate basic packages (which you can combine for a premium), and a few add-on options, so getting your news and election results can be tricky. If you’re a Fox News acolyte, you’re out of luck. Sling TV doesn’t offer it at all. But if you want CNN, both Sling Blue and Sling Orange offer it, but Blue will get you more overall channels. If you want MSNBC or CNBC, you’ll have to pick Blue (or the combination Sling Orange + Blue package), then add on Sling’s “News Extra” package for $5 per month. It’s a bit of a jumble, but Sling TV is worth the hassle.  (Here’s a complete guide to Sling TV channels.)

Game-changing feature: Price. Sling TV offers the most flexibility for the least amount of money.

SlingTV

Sling Orange + Blue

3) Hulu with Live TV

Cost: $40 per month (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: Roku, Apple TV, Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire Stick and Fire TV, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, and iOS and Android devices

News channels for election results: CNN, Fox News, CNBC, MSNBC

There’s no BBC available on Hulu (or any Viacom properties, like Comedy Central), but you get the majority of necessary news channels to keep up with election results from a variety of political perspectives.  (Here’s a complete guide to Hulu Live TV channels.)

Game-changing feature: Every subscription comes with free access to Hulu’s on-demand library, meaning you can catch up on all of your favorite shows. (Here are our picks for the best movies on Hulu, Hulu documentaries, anime, and the must-see Hulu originals.)

Hulu with Live TV

Hulu with Live TV

4) YouTube TV

Cost: $40 per month (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: Google Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, Xbox One, iOS and Android devices

News channels for election results: BBC World News, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC

YouTube has a fair bit of fluff (do you really need a channel devoted to Seattle Sounders FC?), but you’ve got basically every option you need for election results 2018 coverage. If you’re looking to keep the streaming service after the election, there are better entertainment packages out there, but YouTube TV is great about letting up to six people make accounts through one subscription. And it’s the same price as Hulu with Live TV. (Here’s a complete guide to YouTube TV channels.)

Game-changing feature: You can add up to six accounts per household, and each one of those accounts gets unlimited cloud DVR. Even better: You can fast-forward through ads in recorded programs.

YouTube TV

YouTube TV

5) DirecTV Now

Cost: $40-$75 per month (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: Roku, Apple TV, Google Chromecast, and Amazon Fire Stick.

News channels for election results: CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News, CNBC, MSNBC, OAN, BBC World News

Even though it sits in the standard-to-high price range, DirecTV Now gets you the most bang for your buck. With more than 65 channels, the entry-level Live a Little package will get you the major news networks, but not BBC World News, unfortunately. You’ll have to go two packages up to the $65-per-month Go Big option for that. If you plan on keeping the streaming service after election results 2018 are in, DirecTV Now is the cheapest way to get HBO as an add-on, for a measly $5 per month. (Here’s a complete guide to DirecTV Now channels.)

Game-changing feature: AT&T Unlimited customers can save $25 a month off every DirecTV Now package.

DirecTV Now

6) PlayStation Vue

Cost: $44.99-$79.99 per month (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: PlayStation 3 and 4, Roku, Amazon Fire, Google Chromecast, Kodi, iOS and Android devices

News channels for election results: CNN, CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC

PlayStation Vue is available on way more than just your living room console, and altogether it’s not a bad option for watching election results 2018 on the four main news networks. That said, its more expensive packages quickly delve into redundant channels you’ll never watch. The silver lining is that PlayStation Vue has one of the wider selections of add-on packages, including Spanish-speaking channels and HBO. (Here’s a complete guide to PlayStation Vue channels.).

Game-changing feature: You can stream on up to five devices at once, and there’s unlimited cloud DVR.

PlayStation Vue

7) PlutoTV

Cost: Free

Devices: Desktop, iOS, Android,  Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and Google Chromecast, PS4.

News channels for election results: NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, CBSN2

Yep, that’s right free, and it’ll get you live streams of NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, CBSN2, and a few other smaller options. PlutoTV’s channel lineup is very untraditional. Instead of major channels like AMC or FX, you’ll get more genre-based options. Dig martial arts action? Try out Flicks of Fury. Stand-Up 24/7 is exactly what it sounds like, and Anime All Day will fill your heart with giant robots piloted by cute girls. On the downside, it’s a little weird to see RT America included in the news lineup, considering its parent network has long been accused of being a propaganda machine for Russia’s government. (Here’s a guide to Pluto TV)

Game-changing feature: Besides being free, Pluto TV is a familiar format for anyone coming from cable channel grids.

Pluto TV

8) Philo TV

Cost: $16 per month (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick, iOS, Android

News channels for election results: BBC World News

The good news is Philo TV is almost $10 cheaper than Sling TV’s barebones Sling Orange package. The bad news is it’s almost a desert of news content, save for BBC World America. So I guess if you prefer the sweet tones of British accents delivering the news of your country’s fate to your eager ears, you can’t go wrong with Philo. To be fair, Philo does a surprisingly good job of getting entertainment options like AMC, BBC America, Comedy Central, BET, HGTV, and more. (Here’s a guide to Philo TV channels.)

Philo TV

Election results 2018: Other ways to watch results online

It’s 2018, and you’re just as likely to be on the internet while you watch the future of American politics play out. Plenty of news outlets have already created hub pages where you can follow live streams and watch the polling data come in. Plenty of entertainment shows like The Daily Show and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will be jumping into the fray, hoping to ease the tension with some laughs. If you’re fixated on your social media apps, you can bet they’ll be there, too. Here’s a comprehensive guide to where you can find all these election results 2018 hubs.

1) The Washington Post Live

Washington Post Live is WaPo’s hub for live journalism, meaning it’s the place the publication frequently hosts speakers, policy wonks, and politicians who discuss the issues of the day. The Post is already featuring midterms previews, so you can bet it’ll have live commentary on the election results as they come in. No subscription is needed.

2) The Washington Post election results tracker

If you want the hard data as it comes in, WaPo is also providing a state-by-state breakdown of each individual race with easy to understand text and graphs. Not only that, interactive maps of each state let you see how voting results break down from county to county. If you’re someone who hasn’t managed to keep up with every single race in your home state, WaPo’s tracker is an easy-to-use option, and it provides enough surface level context to quickly bring you up to speed.

Washington Post

3) New York Times Midterm Results Hub

Be careful with this one, as it’s evidently subject to the same story limit as any other New York Times article. If you’ve been scouring through their site reading other stories, you could lock yourself out of the results hub. That said, it’s a broader version of the Washington Post’s tracker.

New York Times

4) AP midterms hub

Like a lot of other outlets, the Associated Press will be regularly updating its own midterms hub with various reports and visual data to help you parse out how the night is going. If you’re looking for a more narrative account of the night that isn’t the dread-inducing Twitter, this is a solid option.

5) BuzzFeed News election results hub

BuzzFeed News had strong Election Night coverage in 2016, and we expect more live commentary on the site’s YouTube channel.

6) Apple News midterms hub

If you have the Apple News app on your iPhone or desktop, you’ll get a pleasant little surprise on Nov. 6, when the app switches out its midterms previews coverage for a new Election Night section. The new section will also replace the Apple News Digest at the bottom of the app. You’ll be able to track live results and key race updates. It’ll also have a cool graphic of the split between Democrats and Republicans that’s updated every minute or so. If you like your news more bipartisan and curated, Apple News will be cultivating reports from all the major outlets. And don’t worry: Apple says you don’t have to authenticate a TV provider if you want to watch video coverage.

Apple News

7) Politico live election results

Politico’s hub can be a little much to look at at first, but it’s surprisingly well-organized, with tabs for individual state election results, live analysis, a live call feed for when final tallies come in, and more. My favorite bits are the two simple graphs for the Senate and House races, with a clear “Politico favors ____ to gain/maintain control of the _____.” Beneath that, you’ll find small blog posts detailing each state election in the order in which they close their polls.

8) FiveThirtyEight

Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight was one of the few outlets to poll Donald Trump as having a legitimate chance of winning the election, and while it’s more of a data aggregator than a pollster, it’s proven itself a fairly reliable resource for election data. You can find a House forecast here, and a Senate forecast here.

FiveThirtyEight

9) Snapchat

Snapchat has been doing a bang-up job of encouraging users to get to the polls as of late. Aside from the filters and lenses that proudly show off the fact that you’ve voted, Snapchat has provided registration information and successfully registered more than 400,000 users in a two-week span. Snapchat is also showing people where their polling location is via a partnership with Get to the Polls. If you’re just looking for election results, though, Snapchat is also planning on hosting a live stream on its Discover page. It will include streams from the Washington Post and local stations in Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Snapchat’s original show, Good Luck America, is planning on airing new episodes throughout Election Night.

10) Yahoo/Huffington Post

Yahoo and HuffPo are teaming up just in time for the midterms to launch a news channel on Roku. It features content from Yahoo News, Yahoo Finances, HuffPost, MAKERS, Yahoo Sports, and RYOT. All you have to do is add the Roku channel to your existing Roku device. (Here are our guides for the best Roku channels, Roku private channels, and Roku free channels.)

Bonus: Late-night shows

The usual roundup of late night entertainment shows will be presenting either live or special editions of their programs for election night. Expect to see Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and Trevor Noah’s Daily Show.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Of course, you can always follow along here on the Daily Dot. We’ll be keeping tabs on the evening’s tightest races and following the major narratives around the House and Senate.

from Ricky Schneiderus Curation https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/midterm-election-results-2018/

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

EXCLUSIVE: Jill Soloway on Patriarchy, Privilege and Flipping the Male Gaze

In 2014, Jill Soloway burst onto the digital TV landscape with Transparent on Amazon and quickly became an Emmy darling for its portrayal of a complicated Pfferman clan in transition. Now Soloway, who identifies as gender nonbinary and uses the pronoun “they,” is serving up a second helping of their particular brand of art house matriarchy in the messy, cerebral, hilarious series I Love Dick.

Based on the 1997 book of the same name by Chris Kraus, the story follows a married couple, Sylvere and Chris (played by Griffin Dune and Kathryn Hahn), as they move to Marfa, Texas, where the husband attends an art institute run by a cowboy named Dick. On its face, the show is about Chris falling in love with the idea of Dick (Kevin Bacon) and using that stolen sexual excitement to reinvigorate her marriage and artistic direction, swapping filmmaking for the performance art of writing lusty love letters to Dick, which she pastes all over town. In reality, I Love Dick depicts Dick himself as a muse and explores how that designation unravels him and sends him and the rest of the characters down a rabbit hole of feminism, the male gaze, sexuality and gender norms.

Unsurprisingly, the show was able to plumb those depths courtesy of an all-female writers’ room. “It’s about wanting to keep pure that rage [of growing up other] and not feel like it had to be softened to keep the peace of the room,” Soloway says of the show’s writing staff.

MORE: Kathryn Hahn on Her Most Important Working Relationship

Soloway was born and raised in Chicago and got their start on shows like The Steve Harvey Show, United States of Tara and Six Feet Under. At home, they say they were “lucky enough” to have one parent come out as transgender. That experience became the basis for their understanding of that community, the foundation for Transparent and the inspiration for their own nonbinary identification. Soloway says they spent years as a femme lesbian but eventually identified as butch; however, the weight of that box’s trappings was crushing. Now, they’ve carved out a new path as nonbinary.

“For me, I still have all the rage [of growing up other], but identifying as nonbinary really calms me because I don’t have to go, ‘This is my lot as a woman. F**k, this is what’s expected of me,’” Soloway explains while stressing that they’re not abandoning women.

If I Love Dick, another Emmy frontrunner, is any indication of Soloway’s feminist dedication and furthering their goal of toppling the patriarchy (also referenced in the name of their production company, Topple Productions), the plan is working. On the heels of the release of their newest Amazon hit, Soloway spoke to ET about flipping the male gaze, female empowerment and that pesky patriarchy.

EMMYS 2017: The Standout Performances of the Season

ET: At first, I Love Dick seems to be about unrequited love. Then I realized it’s about turning the male gaze on its ear, and how most men can’t handle that constant attention. It’s also about the male act of looking at women together, whether it’s in porn or just in the everyday.

Jill Soloway: In the pilot, when they’re at dinner and Dick and Sylvere are looking at Chris together and ask each other whether or not she’s a good filmmaker, this is the moment where Sylvere leaves her and joins Dick in this corroboration of male gaze. It is the inciting incident of the whole series, where she’s like, “I will not be the object of the male gaze. I am going to try to find my own way of seeing the world.” The truth is women are used as the conduit for men to be able to enjoy sexuality together.

How has your own identity played out in your work?

One of the things that’s been so enlightening has been moving from femme to butch. When I was more femme, it was my job to hold the beauty. Now that I’m butch and am dating more femme women, I’ve noticed that both men and other butch women want to see a picture of [the woman I’m dating]. They want us to talk about her together because images of hot girls are conduits for men to get together and talk about their desires and their worship of beauty. That’s one of the hardest things about the male gaze as you try to understand it, the ways you’re asked to participate without your consent.

I love when Sylvere asks Dick, “You don’t like being the muse?” and Dick replies, “It’s humiliating.” It reminded me of my high school dream to have a video where I’m fully clothed, wearing a turtleneck and fur coat, surrounded by nearly nude men -- as a reaction to music videos featuring nearly nude women dancing around fully clothed men.

You could see that male gaze back then; you could watch and feel that.

Do you think women can objectify themselves for monetary purposes instead of the male gaze?

If you monetize it, you own it -- and that could be anyone from a stripper to a Kardashian. These are people who are incredibly empowered, who recognize their body is a tool for empowerment. My problem is that empowerment comes one degree away from the male gaze, because you’re trying to get a man to do something by engaging their gaze. For me, the dream of being in the center of the video in the turtleneck is that you aren’t actually being looked at, you’re doing the looking. The fantasy for women, for me, is to be invisible and have my work investigated.

I can’t outrun the problem of people talking about my looks, but I do suffer from having spent years working on how I look as a way to feel powerful. Now I feel this tragic sense of “Oh, my God, I missed so many years of having a full mind.” I could’ve been becoming smarter and creating.

In I Love Dick, the women are speaking from positions of power, regardless of how they identify, their jobs or how much clothing they’re wearing. Did that come from the years you wasted on beauty, like, “Let me allow these women to be their full selves?”

Power is the word of the moment for me. It’s shorter than intersectionality or solidarity, and both words create questions about who stands for whom. We all want power; women want it, people of color want it, queer people want it, gender nonconforming people want it. We all want the power that comes with being the default subject, that’s why we’re full of rage. No man will ever understand what it feels like to grow up other, no white person will ever understand growing up as a person of color. There’s so much rage over not only wanting to be recognized as we are, but also who we would be had we been the original subject, and not been born into this other.

You hired an all-female writers’ room. What was the purpose of that, aside from creating an authentic female experience?

You’re always silently clocking your allies in whatever room you’re in, and the idea of what is “good story” or whether a story is “working” is the kind of thing that people who’ve had more time in the business might say. Like, “Alright, it’s all well and good that we’re just having fun here, but as a person with experience/the guy -- and I’m not criticizing what’s going on -- I just want to make sure you guys are getting this right.” In doing so, cisgender men might be unconsciously advocating for what makes them feel comfortable, and that would be versions of the male gaze. That could damage a blossoming possibility when you have a group of people in a room together who’ve never had the opportunity to do that before. It’s exactly the same thing with people of color. I’m sure if Donald Glover had an all-black writers’ room…

He did for Atlanta; I was just going to say the same thing.

What if someone would’ve said to him, “You need to have just one white person in there. It’s their job to rein you in because you’re going be too black!” Or, for a women’s writers’ room, there was a guy in there like, “Too much period blood!” You don’t even want that physics, so that choice was to create a room without the male gaze.

I think that space made deeper women-centered scenes possible. Like when the lesbian character, Devon, calls out the woman she’s dating, Toby, while the latter is completely naked for a performance piece that Devon thinks is exploitive. It was a rabbit hole of white feminism versus brown feminism, art for art’s sake versus creating something purposeful and a conversation between lovers.

Thank you for seeing that! I think women viewers do go down a rabbit hole with our show. One woman’s empowerment is another people’s disempowerment, and how does that get talked about in a story between two people who are falling in or out of love? So much fun for a feminist intellectual to think about!

Circling back to the man as muse, what kind of direction did you give Kevin Bacon in playing Dick?

I don’t really get too micro when it comes to a scene, I’m more creating a space for everybody to let loose. I’ll talk to Kevin about a larger emotion he’s playing and he takes care of the pain and sorrow. I do think that who Kevin Bacon is, the six degrees of separation, means something. In looking for real connections, he probably felt a little about Hollywood the way Dick feels about Marfa.

How does being nonbinary affect your work and topple the patriarchy, your goal and the name of your production company?

Luckily, I have the privilege to try being femme, butch or nonbinary. I don’t want to be frivolous about that.

You don’t want to be privileged about your privilege?

No, I don’t want to be privileged about my privilege, because there are so many people who would like to walk into another experience and for whatever reason, they can’t. I’ve been able to create space in my life to experiment, and my parent coming out was a big deal because it allowed me to notice, besides my age and where I am in life, “Where and how do I want to be today?” It’s a very strange thought experiment that feels like a little bit like your turtleneck: I’m not what you see. I’m not even the other thing, like, “Oh, Jill’s a guy now and she’s failing at that!” I don’t want to be failing at my butchness either! I just want to be. The nonbinary thing is great because I just step out of all of the questions of what I am.

I don’t hassle people about pronouns because I know how hard it is. But when people get my pronoun right, it’s such a lovely feeling to not say, “Women are this” or “She is this” or even “Butch is this, masculine is this.” I’m neither, I’m both, I’m constantly changing. It really removes me from my own self-talk of failure, a lot of which was gender.

So, the nonbinary identity itself is fighting the patriarchy by not subscribing to a label.

Yeah, it is all off my table.

What does toppling the patriarchy look like for you?

If Donald Trump could dream of being president, we can dream of anything. Things are happening so quickly; I couldn’t have even imagined I Love Dick five years ago, let alone that it would be on television. I have to believe that there could be a world where the shared values that are currently thought of as religious values, like God, actually become shared values like love and justice. I think most people prefer peace, but because of capitalism, colonialism, imperialism or any of the -isms, we’re where we are right now.

A toppled world means that the kind of masculine, war-mongering, dominance-obsessed men that have their hold on our planet would evolve in a positive way. To me, believing that I can change the world through culture, television, books or movies, that’s how I get out of bed. I don’t see it happening in my lifetime, but I have an 8-year-old, and this could be his future.

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

[pintaogelado-blog]

Saitek Pro Rudder Pedals

If you are a longing pilot who can see their wings on the proliferation screen, yet not feel them in your world, this Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals review is for you. All things being equal, how awesome the thing genuinely is? We ought to find.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8HnKZq0kI4&feature=youtu.be

Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals are a flight-reenactment gear that help you assess and understand the quickening and footwork associated with flight get ready. These pedals go with versatile damping and a 4.5 crawls long USB wire. Their essential limit is to help you control the yaw and abating system in flight multiplication.

About Saitek

Saitek expert flight rudder pedals review focal points and impediments

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Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals?

Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals are extensively available on Amazon and Ebay, however would they say they are genuinely defended paying little mind to the cost?

You get the chance to pick how much weight to apply. The rudder pedals include a 'Strain Dial'. This licenses you to adjust the measure of compel that will make it respond in multiplication

Also, you can in like manner acclimate your foot measure on the pedals. I assume that this part allows opportunity and makes flight entertainment a more pleasing issue

The Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals are extensively impeccable with the most generally perceived working structures. I am a gamer myself so I understand that we can have a specific working structure slant. 

You get life-like straightforwardness in development control. The rudder pedals go with a differential ceasing system which licenses separate control of the left and right breaks making the experience all the more certifiable

The rudder pedals are in like manner low on the power usage through your USB

Last Verdict

In context of this broad Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals overview, we would exceptionally propose Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals since it offers the best points of interest and the most open to gaming foundation. A conventional motivating force for money and exceptionally recommended.

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

EXCLUSIVE: Jill Soloway on Patriarchy, Privilege and Flipping the Male Gaze

In 2014, Jill Soloway burst onto the digital TV landscape with Transparent on Amazon and quickly became an Emmy darling for its portrayal of a complicated Pfferman clan in transition. Now Soloway, who identifies as gender nonbinary and uses the pronoun “they,” is serving up a second helping of their particular brand of art house matriarchy in the messy, cerebral, hilarious series I Love Dick.

Based on the 1997 book of the same name by Chris Kraus, the story follows a married couple, Sylvere and Chris (played by Griffin Dune and Kathryn Hahn), as they move to Marfa, Texas, where the husband attends an art institute run by a cowboy named Dick. On its face, the show is about Chris falling in love with the idea of Dick (Kevin Bacon) and using that stolen sexual excitement to reinvigorate her marriage and artistic direction, swapping filmmaking for the performance art of writing lusty love letters to Dick, which she pastes all over town. In reality, I Love Dick depicts Dick himself as a muse and explores how that designation unravels him and sends him and the rest of the characters down a rabbit hole of feminism, the male gaze, sexuality and gender norms.

Unsurprisingly, the show was able to plumb those depths courtesy of an all-female writers’ room. “It’s about wanting to keep pure that rage [of growing up other] and not feel like it had to be softened to keep the peace of the room,” Soloway says of the show’s writing staff.

MORE: Kathryn Hahn on Her Most Important Working Relationship

Soloway was born and raised in Chicago and got their start on shows like The Steve Harvey Show, United States of Tara and Six Feet Under. At home, they say they were “lucky enough” to have one parent come out as transgender. That experience became the basis for their understanding of that community, the foundation for Transparent and the inspiration for their own nonbinary identification. Soloway says they spent years as a femme lesbian but eventually identified as butch; however, the weight of that box’s trappings was crushing. Now, they’ve carved out a new path as nonbinary.

“For me, I still have all the rage [of growing up other], but identifying as nonbinary really calms me because I don’t have to go, ‘This is my lot as a woman. F**k, this is what’s expected of me,’” Soloway explains while stressing that they’re not abandoning women.

If I Love Dick, another Emmy frontrunner, is any indication of Soloway’s feminist dedication and furthering their goal of toppling the patriarchy (also referenced in the name of their production company, Topple Productions), the plan is working. On the heels of the release of their newest Amazon hit, Soloway spoke to ET about flipping the male gaze, female empowerment and that pesky patriarchy.

EMMYS 2017: The Standout Performances of the Season

ET: At first, I Love Dick seems to be about unrequited love. Then I realized it’s about turning the male gaze on its ear, and how most men can’t handle that constant attention. It’s also about the male act of looking at women together, whether it’s in porn or just in the everyday.

Jill Soloway: In the pilot, when they’re at dinner and Dick and Sylvere are looking at Chris together and ask each other whether or not she’s a good filmmaker, this is the moment where Sylvere leaves her and joins Dick in this corroboration of male gaze. It is the inciting incident of the whole series, where she’s like, “I will not be the object of the male gaze. I am going to try to find my own way of seeing the world.” The truth is women are used as the conduit for men to be able to enjoy sexuality together.

How has your own identity played out in your work?

One of the things that’s been so enlightening has been moving from femme to butch. When I was more femme, it was my job to hold the beauty. Now that I’m butch and am dating more femme women, I’ve noticed that both men and other butch women want to see a picture of [the woman I’m dating]. They want us to talk about her together because images of hot girls are conduits for men to get together and talk about their desires and their worship of beauty. That’s one of the hardest things about the male gaze as you try to understand it, the ways you’re asked to participate without your consent.

I love when Sylvere asks Dick, “You don’t like being the muse?” and Dick replies, “It’s humiliating.” It reminded me of my high school dream to have a video where I’m fully clothed, wearing a turtleneck and fur coat, surrounded by nearly nude men -- as a reaction to music videos featuring nearly nude women dancing around fully clothed men.

You could see that male gaze back then; you could watch and feel that.

Do you think women can objectify themselves for monetary purposes instead of the male gaze?

If you monetize it, you own it -- and that could be anyone from a stripper to a Kardashian. These are people who are incredibly empowered, who recognize their body is a tool for empowerment. My problem is that empowerment comes one degree away from the male gaze, because you’re trying to get a man to do something by engaging their gaze. For me, the dream of being in the center of the video in the turtleneck is that you aren’t actually being looked at, you’re doing the looking. The fantasy for women, for me, is to be invisible and have my work investigated.

I can’t outrun the problem of people talking about my looks, but I do suffer from having spent years working on how I look as a way to feel powerful. Now I feel this tragic sense of “Oh, my God, I missed so many years of having a full mind.” I could’ve been becoming smarter and creating.

In I Love Dick, the women are speaking from positions of power, regardless of how they identify, their jobs or how much clothing they’re wearing. Did that come from the years you wasted on beauty, like, “Let me allow these women to be their full selves?”

Power is the word of the moment for me. It’s shorter than intersectionality or solidarity, and both words create questions about who stands for whom. We all want power; women want it, people of color want it, queer people want it, gender nonconforming people want it. We all want the power that comes with being the default subject, that’s why we’re full of rage. No man will ever understand what it feels like to grow up other, no white person will ever understand growing up as a person of color. There’s so much rage over not only wanting to be recognized as we are, but also who we would be had we been the original subject, and not been born into this other.

You hired an all-female writers’ room. What was the purpose of that, aside from creating an authentic female experience?

You’re always silently clocking your allies in whatever room you’re in, and the idea of what is “good story” or whether a story is “working” is the kind of thing that people who’ve had more time in the business might say. Like, “Alright, it’s all well and good that we’re just having fun here, but as a person with experience/the guy -- and I’m not criticizing what’s going on -- I just want to make sure you guys are getting this right.” In doing so, cisgender men might be unconsciously advocating for what makes them feel comfortable, and that would be versions of the male gaze. That could damage a blossoming possibility when you have a group of people in a room together who’ve never had the opportunity to do that before. It’s exactly the same thing with people of color. I’m sure if Donald Glover had an all-black writers’ room…

He did for Atlanta; I was just going to say the same thing.

What if someone would’ve said to him, “You need to have just one white person in there. It’s their job to rein you in because you’re going be too black!” Or, for a women’s writers’ room, there was a guy in there like, “Too much period blood!” You don’t even want that physics, so that choice was to create a room without the male gaze.

I think that space made deeper women-centered scenes possible. Like when the lesbian character, Devon, calls out the woman she’s dating, Toby, while the latter is completely naked for a performance piece that Devon thinks is exploitive. It was a rabbit hole of white feminism versus brown feminism, art for art’s sake versus creating something purposeful and a conversation between lovers.

Thank you for seeing that! I think women viewers do go down a rabbit hole with our show. One woman’s empowerment is another people’s disempowerment, and how does that get talked about in a story between two people who are falling in or out of love? So much fun for a feminist intellectual to think about!

Circling back to the man as muse, what kind of direction did you give Kevin Bacon in playing Dick?

I don’t really get too micro when it comes to a scene, I’m more creating a space for everybody to let loose. I’ll talk to Kevin about a larger emotion he’s playing and he takes care of the pain and sorrow. I do think that who Kevin Bacon is, the six degrees of separation, means something. In looking for real connections, he probably felt a little about Hollywood the way Dick feels about Marfa.

How does being nonbinary affect your work and topple the patriarchy, your goal and the name of your production company?

Luckily, I have the privilege to try being femme, butch or nonbinary. I don’t want to be frivolous about that.

You don’t want to be privileged about your privilege?

No, I don’t want to be privileged about my privilege, because there are so many people who would like to walk into another experience and for whatever reason, they can’t. I’ve been able to create space in my life to experiment, and my parent coming out was a big deal because it allowed me to notice, besides my age and where I am in life, “Where and how do I want to be today?” It’s a very strange thought experiment that feels like a little bit like your turtleneck: I’m not what you see. I’m not even the other thing, like, “Oh, Jill’s a guy now and she’s failing at that!” I don’t want to be failing at my butchness either! I just want to be. The nonbinary thing is great because I just step out of all of the questions of what I am.

I don’t hassle people about pronouns because I know how hard it is. But when people get my pronoun right, it’s such a lovely feeling to not say, “Women are this” or “She is this” or even “Butch is this, masculine is this.” I’m neither, I’m both, I’m constantly changing. It really removes me from my own self-talk of failure, a lot of which was gender.

So, the nonbinary identity itself is fighting the patriarchy by not subscribing to a label.

Yeah, it is all off my table.

What does toppling the patriarchy look like for you?

If Donald Trump could dream of being president, we can dream of anything. Things are happening so quickly; I couldn’t have even imagined I Love Dick five years ago, let alone that it would be on television. I have to believe that there could be a world where the shared values that are currently thought of as religious values, like God, actually become shared values like love and justice. I think most people prefer peace, but because of capitalism, colonialism, imperialism or any of the -isms, we’re where we are right now.

A toppled world means that the kind of masculine, war-mongering, dominance-obsessed men that have their hold on our planet would evolve in a positive way. To me, believing that I can change the world through culture, television, books or movies, that’s how I get out of bed. I don’t see it happening in my lifetime, but I have an 8-year-old, and this could be his future.

This interview has been edited and condensed.