#but late night interviews are highly structured and formatted

[dichromaniac]

Man is out here dropping thirst traps on national television and I just can't with him.

[darklordazalin]

Azalin Reviews Darklord Adam

Domain: Lamordia Formation: 575 BC (the actual date various in different sources, but I was there to witness its formation, so take this date to be the most accurate) Power Level: 💀💀💀⚫⚫ Sources: Ravenloft Gazetteer Vol 2 (3e); Domains of Dread (2e); I, Strahd the War Against Azalin (Novel).

Based on rumors, Lamordia went through significant changes in its latest rendition, but this week I shall review it as it once was and tell the tale of Darklord Adam and the constant harsh weather that plagues “his” domain. The settlements of this land are constantly assaulted by deadly blizzards and frigid air coming from the Sea of Sorrows in the winter and infestation of insects and insufferable heat in the summer. I do not recommend visiting, especially given how adverse the entire populace is to magic. I am positive my late father would thoroughly enjoy it, however.

Everything about Lamordia is based upon structure and scientific reasoning set within a utilitarian society. The people have a scientific explanation for everything despite the obvious supernatural phenomena that occurs all around them. They are adverse to any type of magic - whether it be the far more superior arcane arts or the divine. This disbelief is so tightly held that the land itself is known to suppress those that attempt any form of casting. Though, I have it on first hand accounts that this effect does not always occur.

It is highly dangerous for those who deny the existence in the arcane to essentially practice it. I’m surprised Lamorida hasn’t imploded in on itself yet, for Dr. Victor Mordenheim’s science clearly surpasses the realm of the supernatural. Given the nature of the domain, you would think Mordenheim would be its Darklord, but he is not. His creation, a flesh golem of rare independence, is the true Darklord of Lamordia.

Let’s dive in a bit to the tale of these two idiots. When Mordenheim and his wife, Elise, were unable to conceive a child, he devoted himself to the study of life and death; above all, other ways in which life could be created. I can...understand that inclination. It is important one has an heir to carry out one's legacy and rule. Of course, he went about it like a blind fool with no sense of the magics he was tapping into for he denied their very existence.

Adam was the result of 13 years of labor which he spent away from Elise. Moredenheim created Adam to appear as a perfect physical specimen. And upon first blush, I suppose one could say that is true. He is muscular yet lean with long black hair and I am told that sort of thing is appealing to some. However, close up he is a mockery of beauty like a horrible painting gifted to a King by a so-called artist.

Made up of pulsating arteries and tendons seen just beneath the thin bits of grey flesh, Adam is disgusted by his own appearance. Interestingly, when my little scholar interviewed Adam he told her that Mordenheim made him but another source provided him with his “soul”. So, it seems that Mordenheim’s science only brought him so far and it was likely the powers he denied that truly brought life into Adam.

Elise was unsettled by Adam’s appearance and despite her discomfort her husband decided to adopt a girl to act as a playmate for Adam. That seems like a very bad parenting decision and coming from me...well, that says something, doesn’t it?

Adam became obsessed with Elise and wanted nothing more than her acceptance and approval. Accounts of what transpired on the night Lamordia appeared on the border of Barovia differs between Adam and his maker. They both blame the other, but in the end whether Adam was a murderous villain or a victim attempting to gain acceptance, his adopted sister fell to her death after an encounter with him and Elise was mutilated.

Death would have been kinder for Elise, but Mordenheim keeps her alive through “scientific” means. Her heart beats through the working of machinery alone and he constantly switches her limbs and skin out in attempts to receive her, but only accomplishes keeping her in constant pain. If the foolish man believed in Divine or even the Arcane and not dismissed those practitioners of both, he could have healed her condition. I myself have been known to use such magics to prolong my own life when I was a mortal man.

Mordenheim’s monstrous creations roam Lamordia, but despite the obvious arcane nature of these creations, the people and the Doctor himself still dismiss the arcane. They will not accept it, just as they will not accept Adam. And this is the curse the Dark Powers bestowed upon Adam, to never find the acceptance he so hopelessly craves. To live alone on an island, over-dramatically named “The Isle of Agony” as he plots against his creator. When my little scholar interviewed Adam he said that Lamordia was Mordenheim’s even though it shouldn’t be and that they were “all his children”.

Adam is tied to Mordenheim and devotes his existence to making the Doctor’s life as miserable as possible, like the overgrown rebellious teenager that he is. Though, this is quite easy seeing as the Dark Powers bond the two together so that Adam experiences Mordenheim’s physical pain and the doctor experiences his creation’s angsty teenage ways.

As flesh golems go, Adam is one of a kind with many immunities to mundane weapons and certain magical energies. Still, without any arcane mastery of his own, a skilled wizard could make quick work of him. Though his curse is interesting, it makes his tie and rule over his own realm obsolete. As such, I will give Adam 3 skulls for this review and Mordenheim does not even get a skull. I despise those that practice the art without respecting it and those who do so without realizing it? Utter fools.

[leonil101]

WEEK 2 BLOG- Problem Exploration and Team Formation

Establishing a team is a highly challenging endeavor, necessitating careful consideration of individuals who can be trusted to fulfill their designated roles. A team, comprised of individuals unified by a common objective, may be assembled for various purposes, including project completion, problem-solving, or addressing specific issues. Notably, Team CLPQ derives its name from our shared last name, serving as a partial group identifier.

Our strategic planning involves a thoughtful discussion to designate roles such as hacker, hound, hipster, and hustler. In this context, Jay assumes the role of hacker due to his adept programming skills, while I take on the responsibilities of a hound, leveraging my confidence, responsibility, and proficiency in observing and interviewing multiple users to identify patterns and areas of innovation for the team.

Furthermore, Jam, renowned for his creative prowess in our college department, is appointed as our hipster. With expertise in marketing, brand identity, user experience, and product aesthetics, Jam is well-suited for the role. It is worth noting that, in many early-stage start-ups, the hipster often serves as the copywriter.

Lastly, our team's hustler is Kiar, a visionary with a keen sense of the company's direction and the ability to unite and inspire the team. In the formal structure of our team, Kiar plays a crucial role in guiding our collective efforts towards success. Following the identification of team roles, our team presented five solutions corresponding to the initially presented five problems. The data collection process involved conducting interviews, thoroughly analyzing responses, and systematically recording the perspectives shared by the interviewees. Uni-Housing Connect: Bridging University Life

Problem: Many students encounter challenges in locating affordable and suitable housing options in close proximity to their respective universities.

Solution: Our proposed solution involves the development of a specialized housing marketplace platform tailored specifically for students. This platform will facilitate seamless connections between students and landlords, ensuring a convenient and suitable housing arrangement.

QuestSide: Your Gateway to Flexible Gigs and Student Income

Problem: Students face difficulties in finding quick job opportunities.

Solution: Introducing QuestSide, a dedicated platform catering to students and individuals seeking fast gigs. This platform aims to provide flexible job opportunities for students and anyone in search of quick employment.

OptiStock: Streamlining Inventory and Supply Chain Management for SMBs

Problem: Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) grapple with effective inventory and supply chain management.

Solution: OptiStock addresses this issue by offering an inventory management software specifically designed for SMBs. This software includes features to streamline inventory tracking, automate reorder processes, and optimize overall supply chain management.

Urban Flow: Traffic Management Project with Dynamic Congestion Tracking and Adaptive Traffic Signal Optimization

Problem: The prevalent issue of frustrating traffic congestion in our city.

Solution: Urban Flow proposes the development of a traffic congestion app equipped with dynamic congestion tracking and adaptive traffic signal optimization. This innovative solution aims to automatically adjust the traffic system for a smoother and more efficient flow.

Sakay-Na App

Problem: The inadequacy of late-night public transportation, leading to potentially unsafe situations for individuals seeking alternative, potentially risky methods of travel.

Solution: Introducing Sakay-Na App, an application designed to compile a list of available drivers/public vehicle operators within the city. This tool aims to assist students in maximizing their time while ensuring their safety, simultaneously providing drivers/operators with earning opportunities. Our team demonstrated proficiency in articulating ideas and offering solutions to contemporary challenges. Looking ahead to the next blog, we will be selecting the definitive project to pursue and strategizing ways to enhance and execute it effectively. See you in my next blog!!

[citrineghost]

Avoiding Scams on Freelancing Sites

Hi there! I almost just got scammed today, and I’m going to take the LITTANY of red flags from this interaction and use it to teach you all about how to avoid scams.

I am not making very much money right now. I just lost one of the accounts I was writing for, so I am not not even making enough to pay my rent. So I am desperately looking for work. And, like many people desperately looking for work, my panicking subconscious is willing to see a red flag and brush it under the rug because

“I’m probably being paranoid.”

So, to all of my lovely artists, writers, editors, and other types of freelancers who are desperately looking for work, I would like to create a comprehensive list of things that you should NOT FUCKING IGNORE while looking for a job. Actually, the list will be formatted as things you should expect from your employer/interviewer and if these things are missing, get the fuck out of there.

1. Reputable Platforms

The first thing you should be expecting is to use reputable platforms. If you’re being asked for a virtual interview, you should expect your interviewer to invite you via Skype, Discord, (Maybe slack if they’re middle-aged), perhaps Whatsapp, or whatever website you’re using to find your job.

DO NOT go for interviews on Telegram. This app has been reported as very commonly being associated with scams. This is where my recent experience took place.

2. Willingness to Verify Legitimacy

The first thing you should do when being in contact with an interviewer or HR is ask them to verify their identity. 

This may not be necessary if doing a video call with someone pictured on an official company website, receiving emails or texts from addresses/numbers that are listed on an official company website, or if the job you’re being interviewed for was applied to directly on the company website. In these cases, you are not likely to be scammed, as you’re working with verifiably information.

If you meet someone on Indeed, Fiverr, Upwork, or any other freelancing/job site, keep your contact within the website’s chat system, email system, or whatever. This is how you remain protected under the hiring site’s TOS/Legal whatever. If you get scammed because you took your hiring process elsewhere, they will not help you.

That being said, if you DO take your interview off the site, it should be somewhere reputable and you should ask for your interviewer to verify their identity before doing literally anything else. The best way to get them to verify their identity is to ask them to email or text you from an address or phone number listed clearly on the official company website, by asking them to show you their state ID and checking it for photoshop influence, or by asking to do a video call for the interview and seeing for yourself that you’re being interviewed by someone who is pictured on the official company website as an employee.

3. Clear and Professional Procedures

Any professional working as an interviewer or human resources personnel will have a skillset related to communication and organization. When being interviewed you should expect a number of questions about your skills and how you’re valuable to the company, etc. However, this is easy to fake, as a scammer. What you need to look out for is that they show a clear amount of structure.

If you’re asked for an interview, no real company will demand you be quick about responding. If they’re interested in an interview, a legitimate company is not likely to ask you to do the interview immediately. They will ask you to schedule an interview time with them. They may ask if you have availabilities that day, but they will not just start interviewing you immediately.

After the interview, any professional company will tell you that they will get back to you when they’ve made a decision about your interview. No professional company will tell you to wait for an indefinite amount of time while they talk to HR peers. If a company Does want you to wait, because they intend to make a quick decision, they will give you an expected wait time, as that is the courteous and professional thing to do. They will not expect you to be on-call for this period of time. A time projection is simply to give you an idea of what to expect. For example, “I’ll be in touch within the next 1-3 hours about the results of your interview. Thank you for your time.”

Furthermore, if you are accepted for a job, any professional company will make a clear outline of exactly how they plan to introduce you into company life. They will respect your time and ask you to schedule things with them. For example, “Is there a period of 2-3 hours within the next few days where you would be available for an orientation?” 

No professional company will demand you do anything at any particular time. That is not how legitimate professionals treat new employees. You will be asked to schedule things with them. Even when you’re assigned work hours, if the exact hours you’re applying for are not listed in the job description you applied for, they will ask you to fill out some kind of time sheet to outline your availabilities, then schedule you for times within that outline.

4. Doesn’t Show Signs of Money Scamming

There are two major red flags when it comes to money scams. Your interviewer should never ask you what bank you use and your interviewer should never ever tell you they’re going to send you a check, unless they send your paycheck as a check.

One of the more common scams at the moment is run by people pretending to be members of legitimate companies, hiring freelancers for things like proofreading and editing. These remote positions may require home office hardware, right? The interviewer will tell you you’re missing some hardware and software that are required for the job. Then they’ll tell you that they will send a check that you can cash and use to buy the required materials.

This is even sketchier if they email you front and back images of the check and tell you to print it and then deposit it through mobile banking. The way this works is that, if you cash the check successfully, you will then buy the list of software, which is usually completely unrelated to the job you’re being hired for, then they will cancel the check, which hasn’t cleared completely. That leaves you with ~$2k dollars less in your bank and their money right back where it started in theirs. Presumably, the scammers are the ones selling the software. So, that $2k dollars you just spent is also going into their bank account.

Professional companies will never offer to send you checks to buy products. If they have official hardware or software that they want you to use, they will buy it themselves and then send it to you. There is never a reason why a new hire should buy hardware or software out of their own bank, whether they have been given money for it or not.

Furthermore, a legitimate company will never ever pay you before you have signed and sent your contract to them. One of the obvious giveaways of the scam I was almost caught in was that I was sent the contract last night and I asked if I could send it in today, since it was getting late. The interviewer agreed. I signed it in the morning and then asked him if I should send it in a reply to the email I got the original contract from or if there’s another email I need to send it to. He completely ignored my question, asked me how I was doing, and then went into the check-related information so I could buy software.

The issue was bothering me ALL DAY. I knew there was something extremely weird about that, so I asked again a few hours later. His response? “You have nothing to worry about.” ?????? I was aghast. I wasn’t worried at all! I just wanted an answer! If he had simply told me to respond to the email I’d gotten the contract from, I might have fallen for his scam! What a terrible scammer smdh

A Non-Exhaustive List of Other Red Flags

Your interviewer shows a poor grasp on the language

If your interviewer is making frequent grammatical errors that are glaringly obvious to any native speaker, that is a huge red flag. HR reps and interviewers are hired because of their communication skills. It is highly unlikely that someone who makes non-native-like errors is legitimate unless they are actually openly non-native, in which case, it’s not so alarming.

Your interviewer is showing impatience or demanding you at certain times

If your interviewer is telling you to “report back by 8am tomorrow” without any kind of prior agreement that this is an acceptable time for you to meet, that is extremely unprofessional and shows a lack of patience. Scammers want to get to the meat of their scam quickly and will use an air of professional superiority and authority to scare you into moving faster than necessary.

Your interviewer shows a lack of opening and closing statements

Along the lines of the clear processes that I mentioned above anybody who is initiating you in the job you’re taking should show clear opening and closing statements. What I mean by this is: professionals in human resources or management positions will not keep you as a social hostage. If you’ve been discussing how you’ll begin training or somesuch, they will not just leave you hanging. You should have a dedicated time slot where you will have your discussion and, at the end of it, your supervisor should make a closing statement. For example, “It looks like our time is running out for today. What would be a good time to pick this up tomorrow?”

If you feel like you are “on-call” and unable to leave the room because the interviewer or supervisor keeps messaging, has not outlined a time slot for you to talk in, won’t seem to let you go, or shows no indication of stopping, that is a really bad sign. Either the company is legitimate and TERRIBLE at professionalism (a great sign you should run anyway), or this is a scammer intent on getting you to follow their instructions as soon as they can.

Your interviewer ignores time zones or gets them wrong

When I was contacted about doing an interview yesterday, it was 4:30pm. I did the interview and was told I got the job. Immediately after, without asking if I was free, he began listing off instructions and things I was to expect. It wasn’t until 7:30pm that he sent me the contract and asked me to review it, sign it, and send it back that I finally asked if I could do that tomorrow. The interviewer was supposedly on the west coast and knew that I was on the east coast. He agreed by saying “Alright” and then told me to report to him “by 8am your time.”

There are 3 things about this that are weird. The first is that he demanded I show up at 8am to continue where we left off. Any professional would have asked when I’m available the next day to continue. the second is that he said “your time” instead of saying EST, as most professionals in the US would be apt to do. And, lastly, I showed up at 7:50am, ready to continue, because I’m that desperate that I’m willing to be pushed around, and he showed up at 9am on the dot. He had gotten the time wrong. Nobody who works professionally on the west coast is incapable of adding 3 hours to their time. It was a rookie mistake, or a mistake made by someone in a completely different time zone than they say they are.

When asked to verify their identity, your interviewer attempts to reassure you or refuses

When I finally was fed up and knew this must be a scam, I politely asked my interviewer to verify his identity by either showing me his US ID or by contacting me from his email or phone number listed on the official company website. He sent me a photoshopped nametag with a completely different person’s name and photo on it and said it was the company ID of the HR director. 

I have never seen a facade fall so pathetically. Why would literally any even remotely legitimate person do such a thing? It was sad, really. He deleted the message in less than a minute - no doubt to keep me from looking at it long enough to see how badly it was photoshopped - and then aggressively reassured me that the company meant me no harm and would pay for everything, etc. Any real professional would have simply sent me an email from the legitimate address, stating that they’re legitimate, and then continued on with the initiation process.

Learn from My Mistakes

I hope some of this was helpful for all of you lovely freelancers trying to find work. I thought I would know a scam when I saw one, and I did have a Bad Feeling about this whole thing, because it did feel too good to be true, but I was desperate enough that my judgement was heavily clouded, and that could happen to anyone.

Don’t ignore red flags - especially these ones. Stick up for yourself. Avoid confirmation bias. I looked things up repeatedly to confirm that the company was legitimate and that it’s normal to do things like mobile deposit a printed check and so on. Every time, I found an explanation that suited me. I even tried to cash the check. The only reason it didn’t work was because there was an error with the name on the check because I recently legally changed my name and PayPal was having some kind of issue updating in some areas of its website. It was after that that I realized this was all crashing down and I needed to reassess it all. Don’t let yourself get that deep into it.

[cytarabi]

Hey! I've become a huge fan of your fics on ao3. I wanted to know how do you push out so many beautiful chapters so quickly? What's your writing process like? I'm working on a big JB fic, which I'm trying to finish timely, but high quality. Always like to see how other writers do their thang! Thank you!

Hi! I remember your name!! <3 Thank YOU for the question and praise, that’s so sweet!!

I love seeing how other writers do their thang, too! And I’ve found it can be very, very different for each author.

TLDR I write a lot of my fic ahead of time. I outline the entire fic, chapter by chapter before I start writing. I use several tools to speed the process and/or to make it more artsy fartsy.

I’ve found that I’m a “plotter” and not a “pantser” (two main ways of writing, unless you hate being labeled lol.)

Plotter means that I prefer plotting out most of the story before I write the details. Here’s been my process for my multichapter fics:

1) I come up with an idea and let it brew! I think about key scenes or dialogue I love and I jot them down in my phone on Google notes. Write down your ideas, you’ll probably forget them.

2) During this brewing time, (for As Black As Thunder and my next fic) I take the time to read, read, read. I read works and jot more notes! I have an entire Google doc for Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier where I wrote down her tone usage, figurative language and summary of each chapter. I can’t tell you how much this has helped get me in the write TONE for the work. Tone is SO important. Readers reading a thriller will expect thriller beats! Deep Fried Drinks was a rom com, so the verbs, adjectives etc are very different from creepy Gothic. When I started As Black As Thunder (ABAT), wow, it was hard to nail the tone at first. But by the second half of the fic, I’m fully immersed in it and it’s much easier to create the tone naturally. Without using inspiration, I don’t think it would have turned out as well. For ABAT, I think I took two weeks of no writing, when I’m used to writing every day. It was hard not to write, but wow, was I ready when I started!

3) When I’m ready to outline, I do! I open a google doc for the fic and start throwing everything I can think of in there. My ABAT doc was only like three lines for 6 months... lol! I’ve only just started looking into story structure, so my older fics are all wonky. BUT for ABAT and Deep Fried Drinks, I tried to follow story structure for plots. First act, second act, third act, character arcs, etc. My longest fic, Time Stops, dropped a bunch of readers in the middle and I think it’s because my middle SAGGED majorly. I didn’t try to follow a structure, just sort of plotted it out how I wanted to, and it was probably very repetitive and boring. For ABAT, I plotted a mid point turn to spice things up, chose things to make the character more proactive, etc. I highly recommend Ellen Brock on Youtube for any plotting advice. She’s an editor, and I’ve learned so much!

4) Organize plot into chapters, write key notes for chapters and fill out background info. The first two are self explanatory, but the third is my favorite! One thing that speeds my writing (I have no idea if people do this or not) but I have lists. So many lists! For ABAT, I have lists of common outfits for characters (I usually hate writing about outfits but I’m glad I wrote more for this work). I also write the character arc for each main character. For ABAT, I have the following for Brienne:

Brienne 

Symbols: white crocus flower (purity, youthfulness, sensitive to rain), White begonia, Small birch saplings struggling for light

Goal: serve public, be idealistic, honorable

Lie: (hidden for spoilers)

Truth: (hidden for spoilers)

Flaw: stubborn, idealistic, watched her father get fame and respect for his engineering, wants to do the same thing and do it perfectly, doesn’t understand systemic racism 

Motivation: serve people, be accepted by the public, belonging, abandonment

Stakes: public rejection, Tarth name on the line, mockery, insanity, failure

So when I think about a curve ball for Brienne at any point of the story, this character section helps me stay true to character. I have a section for Brienne, Jaime, Cersei and Missandei. Cersei has a larger section because she’s a villain... ;)

In addition to this section, I also write down their personalities and strengths. You know, like if they went to an interview lol. For example, I have Missandei have the following strengths: 

Missandei

Adaptability: able to adapt

Intellection: introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions

Consistency: all people should be treated the same

Futuristic: fascinated by future

Learner: loves to learn

I ALSO have an emotion worksheet and this is SO USEFUL. They say in writing: show that the character is angry, not tell the reader. WELL, IDK about you but I can’t keep track of all the little quirks characters do and yet, I want them to be consistent. If while writing a scene, I sometimes think, “Hmm what is Jaime doing if he’s in awe right now?” I search for “awe” at the top of my fic, and bam, I have options, more or less. For a lot of emotions, I brainstormed ideas based on character traits, arcs, Gothic tone etc. I fill all of this out before I write the first chapter. 

Here’s an example of some emotions I have for ABAT:

Emotion List (remember to have introspection, unique perspective) 

Awe:

B: wrinkle deepened between brows, parted lips, fixed gaze, stands still

J: arched brow, open mouth, stare, goes closer

C: lowering chin or raising chin, goes closer

M: adaptable, quick to react

Deceptive:

B: looking away, walking away

J: scratching ear

C: smiling, neatly placed hands

M: long blink

Thoughtfulness:

B: staring off, quiet, daydreaming

J: staring at object important to him, twisting pencil or object in his hand, squeezing his hand

C: squeezing hand, staring at object she wants to get rid of or improve

M: daydreaming, staring off at her own outfit—it’s foreign

5) Now the fun part: writing! I used to write with scene structure outline, but I think I’ve grown off the training wheels. But it really helped me in Deep Fried Drinks to plot out the chapter scenes ahead of time, and I used Ellen Brock’s proactive and reactive videos to help me out with that. I throw on some music to get me in the mood of the story and I write during my kid’s nap, about two hours every day. Sometimes I’ll write at night, but lately I’ve been too tired to do that. My tip for this part is to try and figure out what you want to improve. What are you good at, and what could you improve as a writer? My first fics had like zero figurative language. Awkward. This takes a level of awareness that’s hard to reach but watching or researching creative writing technique really helps me. For example, I used to NEED to write all five senses out for each chapter ahead of time. Now it comes naturally to me! I would say now my main issue is phrasing? Pacing? And I need to tone down the melodrama for my next work....... lol! I write, write, write--and usually, I write 60-90% of the fic before I start editing!

6) Editing. Fun fun fun. I don’t mind editing, I just don’t think I’m that GOOD at it. I try to read through my chapter twice and edit as I go. I look for things I want to take out or add, look for show vs tell, formatting, etc--do things make sense? Did I miss anything? In ABAT, I’ll write something in chap 20 that I need to start in chap 18, so I’ll go back and make a quick note to “add part about document somewhere in this chapter” so I don’t confuse readers. When I edit chap 18, I’ll add that line or paragraph in. It’s all an intricate web! I also have a list of vague words I try to eliminate or replace with stronger words (I have more words if you want them). I found that I have certain words or phrases that echo a lot, like “while”, “turned around”, “turned” or “did not”--now I search for these phrases/words and try to change them:

Get rid of vague words, fix by explaining more:

Some 

While

Thing

Stuff

Very

Really

Big/small

Good/bad

Simple verbs: had, was, went

Got/get

Few

Several

What

Do/Did

It

Like with all writing “rules”, they can be broken, but it helps to know why they are rules. I steered away from adverbs, and I think it improves my writing. Other writers have different prose and adverbs work so well--it all depends on your style! If I find these vague words in dialogue, for example, I almost never change them because dialogue is usually freaking vague lol!

7) Beta reader(s)! I honestly think this work is better than my other stuff because I have a newer beta reader, theunpaidcritic!!! *I bow* She’s literally an expert so it’s SO helpful for me in every way--I can’t fangirl about her enough. If you’re struggling to get a beta reader, I recommend joining a JB discord (transformative werk is my favorite discord, and there is a beta read request thread) or post a request on reddit!

8) Post! Once you’ve edited and gone over beta reader notes, it’s time to post! Congrats!!!!!!!!!!

For time reference, I started this process around mid-May for ABAT, and I will be done by early September. Maybe I’m just a fast writer? Compared to angel-deux, ha, I look slow. Everyone is different! Please let me know if you have any other questions, I am ALL about helping out! :) <3 <3 <3

[farfromsugafanfic]

Sammy Interview

Before we get started, do you mind introducing yourself and telling a bit about yourself? 

My name is Sammy. I’m 34 years old, a college graduate with a background in cultural anthropology as well as women, gender, and sexuality studies. I’m particularly interested in queer and feminist methodologies. I live with my partner of some 15 years, who is also a fanfiction writer.

Q1: So, you told me that you’ve been writing fan fiction for 20+ years which is awesome! How did it all get started and what kind of fan fiction have you written in that time?

A1:  Like a lot of fangirls of my generation, anime was my introduction to fanfiction.  I grew up watching Sailor Moon when it first aired on American network television. It was love at first sight. There was nothing else like it on TV. At my local Blockbuster I discovered anime. It wasn’t as readily available then as it is now. Because the english dubs were so limited I ended up watching the same OVA rentals over and over - Ranma ½, RG Veda, Vampire Princess Miyu. First I wrote stories in my head, then I started writing them down. When I recieved my own computer and constant access to the internet, I went searching for fansites. Secreted behind unassuming links I found small clutches of fanfiction. This was before fanfiction.net first took off, and An Archive of Our Own was well over a decade away. Fansites had webrings, which took me to the next fansite, and so on.  It really was a matter of finding the right webring for a given show and following the thread.

I began with writing Sailor Moon fanfiction, and as Cartoon Network’s late night block of programming (Toonami) expanded, the more I wrote. Gundam Wing fandom introduced me to shipping and it blew my mind.

I moved away from anime when the Harry Potter movies happened. A lot of us made the transition to book and movie based fandoms when someone discovered Harry/Draco. After that I found DC comics, and then became very active in the Star Trek reboot fandom. I’ve written for Stargate: Atlantis, BBC Sherlock and Hannibal and so, so many other shows/books/video games. I’ve been an active participant in Yuletide, which is an anonymous holiday fanfic exchange, and multiple Big Bangs -another fanfic/fanart exchange- as well as a kinkmeme prompt filler for years.

Q2: What pushed you to begin sharing your fan fiction?

A2: The mailing lists. In the early days of fandom private yahoo groups and message boards were the main venue for posting and reading fanfiction. Most mailing lists were fandom based and created for specific content - like Gundam Wing Slash, GundamWingGEN and CRACKSHIP. These became high volume, tight knit communities. It wasn’t unusual to have your mail box refreshing on the left side of the monitor, while you chatted with members on AIM on the right side. There was a lot of encouragement, experimentation, and collaboration. You posted your fanfiction to the list, or board, and people cheered. It was all so exciting.  It’s hard to describe now how close we all were, and just how much fellow-feeling fueled hundreds of emails a day. This was my online family, my community. I didn’t need a push or moment of courage to post my early fanfiction - I was delighted to share, invited to share. It was an electrifying thing to be part of.

Q3: Were you scared to post it online?

A3: Not at all. I didn’t need to be scared - none of us did. No one outside these early lists and boards knew what we were doing. I really can’t emphasize enough how guarded the early fanfiction community was. We were incredibly insulated. Our families didn’t know, our teachers and co-workers were oblivious, popular culture wasn’t shitting on fanfiction writers because it didn’t know we were writing. I wasn’t scared to press ‘send’, but it did feel dangerous, a little rebellious. There was a sense of getting away with something.

Q4: Has writing fan fiction taught you anything? About writing? Reading? Something else?

A4: On a basic level, fanfiction taught me how to write. Structure, pace, dialogue - I was taught those things in a classroom, but I learned them by writing fanfiction. We all taught ourselves to write by writing for each other. We created an entire literary movement without an MA in literature, or a structured pedagogy. Fanfiction writers generated new narrative traditions, like the Five Things + 1 format (a breakaway from the three-act story), Hurt/Comfort, and a language of tagging that defies classical genre rules - all because we were messing around.

Writing fanfiction has taught me the value of questioning western literary rules and conventions, that writing for myself and my own pleasure is valid.  It’s also taught me that I don’t like to write alone. One of the things that makes fanfiction so special for me is that so much of it happens in conversation with other writers and readers. My best writing experiences have been in simpatico with total strangers, on AIM, in livejournal comment threads, gchat.  I’m not writing “original fiction” because I lack imagination; it’s just too lonely.

Q5: Do you ever want to be published in a professional capacity one day?

A5: I do, though I feel like this is a bit of a fraught subject for fanfiction writers.  There’s an compulsion to say yes, of course I plan to publish one day, as if that end goal legitimates the fanfiction I write. I don’t want to contribute to the idea of fanfiction as a lesser form of literature- a stepping stone to Real Writing - but yes. I started writing creative nonfiction in community college.  That writing comes from a very different place than fanfiction. It satisfies another hunger.

Q6: How you feel about the stigma surrounding fan fiction and fan fiction writers? Or, do you not feel any stigma at all?

A6: I think the stigma towards fanfiction is pushback from multiple sociological and institutional sources.

In the beginning we had the sense that fanfiction - slash fanfiction - wasn’t something to bring up outside of those digital spaces we made for ourselves. We knew it would be considered an auteur kink at best, or downright perverted plagiarism at worst (I think this is largely still the case). Before the community found the language to discuss slash and fanfiction as transformative works - as deconstructions of conventional media, gender roles, and sexuality - there was an ethos of compartmentalization to the whole thing.

Q7: Do you think that stigma is warranted? (Whether or not you have personally experience it?)

A7: No.

I touched on this earlier, but I believe the stigma and hostility towards fanfiction is firmly rooted in gender and non-normative sexuality. The writing we do is generally characterized as a feminine endeavour, which immediately marks it as inferior to a literary canon that values the masculine so highly. The perception that fanfiction is a plagiarism of male authored source material makes it all the more egregious.

Equally as foundational, is the reduction of fanfiction to gay porn written by straight cis women for straight cis women - fanfiction is not only shit writing, it’s perverted and weird.

I’ve never been ashamed of the fanfiction I write, or read. Embarrassed maybe, of those first earnest attempts at writing. But fanfiction does not have a monopoly on bad writing. I can just as easily find the same trash in Barnes & Noble. So, quality is not and never has been a valid criticism.

Q8: What’s your favorite piece of fan fiction you’ve ever written? Why?

A8: A gen fic I wrote for Star Trek (AOS). I’m a leisurely writer, and stories don’t just hit me whole and complete in one go. But this one did. It took three hours to write and I didn’t have to think about where I was going after finishing a paragraph, the next was already there, I just had to type it out. It’s never come that easy before or since. It’s not my most popular piece of fanfiction, but I can go back and read it and not feel like I need to change anything.

Q10: Do you write outside of fan fiction?

A10: I do - until recently I was writing up lesson plans for classes I was co-facilitating. Generally, when I’m not writing fanfiction I’m working on creative non-fiction. I use the frame of gender analysis and sexuality studies (among others) to write about my life.

Q11: What site do you prefer to write and post your fan fiction on?

A11: An Archive of Our Own (AO3). The tagging system is superior and the site is far more user friendly than ff.net, which is an absolute dumpster fire.  

Q12: What’s something you want people outside the fan fiction community to know about the fan fiction community?

We’re not a monolith. Teenage girls are the cultural face of fanfiction, but so many of us are in our 30s and 40s, old fandom queens from those first private mailing lists, boards, and LiveJournal accounts. We have soul sucking jobs. We have degrees in STEM. We teach college, have kids and debt, and friendships that have lasted decades.. We are not, and never have been a homogenous group of straight cis women. Asexuality and gender fluidity abounds. Plenty of us experience disability and chronic illness.  And we aren’t a small group of weirdos obsessed with Johnlock. We’re an enormous and diverse group of weirdos who have created a literary movement.

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Rainbow Sun Francks Interview

Rainbow is an actor, musician, and former MuchMusic VJ (2001-2003). CamBrioMusic.com is delighted to present the following interview. It has been condensed for length considerations.

Cam Brio (CB) = Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. Do you have any general memories from your time as a MuchMusic VJ?

Rainbow Sun Francks (RSF) = It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I grew up watching MuchMusic and walking by 299 Queen Street West, and then got the opportunity to be a VJ. It was much different than what I thought, and it was an incredible new skillset that I had to learn. I’m very grateful that I got to do it for years.

CB = Was Strombo (George Stroumboulopoulos) around at that time?

RSF = Yes. It was me, Rick the Temp (Rick Campanelli), Jen Hollett, Amanda Walsh, Bradford How, Namugenyi Kiwanuka. When I first started Master T and Sook-Yin Lee were there, but they were leaving as I was coming in.

CB = I’ve heard Strombo say that he felt MuchMusic VJs, at that time, didn’t get enough credit for the important issues that were covered daily.

RSF = Absolutely. I don’t think we got enough credit for anything we did. After I left and the next generation came in, it was more highly produced, and had way less free flow. The VJs had less airtime and there were more promos. It was just more corporate. When we were there, there were no teleprompters. All of it was us. During the day with the video flow, there was no one there. We were doing our own segments and doing everything ourselves. We weren’t just talking heads. I was working 85-90 hours a week. When I wasn’t on air, I was researching on how to do better interviews. We really were conquering topics that were not poignant in the mainstream media at the time. There were so many great shows like The New Music and The Wedge that were breaking bands who would have never gotten a shot otherwise. Now that it’s gone, I miss it. I really realize how wonderful and worthwhile it was.

CB = Do you think that type of originality in media has mostly gone online?

RSF = Yeah, some definitely has gone online. I think there was something that Moses Znaimer created (at MuchMusic) that was so special because he allowed young people to talk about the music they loved. The environment was open to the public, and we were able to speak to people on the street at any moment if we wanted to. I went to Silver Snail and bought a light saber one time when they first came out and did a whole segment with the light saber. We were able to do something original within the corporate structure. It’s something you don’t see anymore. Anyone can have their voice online, but honestly, there’s a lot of followers. There’s very few leaders, like in the real world and art imitates life. Social media is a wonderful thing, even if it is oversaturated.

CB = What were some of your best interviews on MuchMusic?

RSF = I always loved when Swollen Members came to town. We were friends, and my band was signed to their label Battle Axe EMI later. I got to interview Basement Jaxx, that was great because I was such a huge fan of them. I did one of Hot Hot Heat’s first ever TV interviews. I became friends with their singer Steve Bays years later. I loved interviewing people on the street. When we would go on trips, I loved interviewing anyone around the event we were covering. It’s been twenty years since I started at MuchMusic and it all rolls into one amazing memory. The individual moments fade.

CB = Did you host Electric Circus as well?

RSF = Yes, I was the last host. I hosted it for almost two years. Amanda Walsh and I were the last two hosts, it was incredible. I interviewed Kylie Minogue on Electric Circus and that was great. I had such a crush on her. Electric Circus made no sense, but made all sense of the world. It was such a magical, weird, voyeuristic show that played great music and broke artists. There was no real exposure for EDM (electronic dance music) at the time. And no term “EDM” either. We were the only people bringing in ground-breaking music makers and DJs in the electronic format and giving them a chance to shine.

CB = One of the greatest Electric Circus clips is a Corey Feldman performance from the early ‘90s.

RSF = Oh my God, yes! (laughs) The Corey Feldman “Michael Jackson” performance on Electric Circus is something people need to YouTube. If you’re ever feeling down or unsure about moments in your life, just Google Corey Feldman on Electric Circus.

CB = Do you have any favourite EDM artists right now?

RSF = Well, now that we have such an abundance of music, I create these playlists on Spotify. I don’t remember the artists. We have gone into a world of singles instead of artists. Massive Attack is one of my favourite bands in the world. (Their album) “Mezzanine” changed my life, and the lives of many others that heard it. The “Heligoland” record is massively underrated as far as everyone just talks about “Mezzanine.” Portishead is my favourite band of all time. They changed how I made music. I make hip hop music, but it always has an air to downtempo stuff that Portishead and Massive Attack were doing. All that music that was coming out of the UK in the late 90s was incredible.

CB = Who are your top five Canadian bands?

RSF = I absolutely adore The Arkells. Bedouin Soundclash are my best friend’s band; I have toured with them many times. I was always a Metric fan. Broken Social Scene, for sure. It’s so hard, how far back can I go? Sam Roberts is one of my favourite dudes. In the late ‘80s I was a Pursuit of Happiness fan.

CB = What were some of your first concert experiences?

RSF = In 1989 or ‘90 I was in LA visiting my sister and I got to go to the Soul Train Music Awards. I was outside waiting to go in the back. I looked like I was a part of Arrested Development, or some sort of De La Soul, I don’t know what. I had a big African medallion and beads on, I had a shirt that was way too big, and a jacket that was even bigger. I looked amazing, and was just a little kid. I looked beside me, and Eazy-E was having a cigarette. He said, “what up little man.” I freaked out; my little kid brain couldn’t take it. Later on that night I met Heavy D & the Boyz, I met Big Daddy Kane, who was my favourite rapper at the time. I met LL Cool J, I hung out with Queen Latifah. It was just the craziest night I ever had. I don’t remember myself, but my sister recalls that after that night, I went home and was in the kitchen doing the running man for like four and a half hours (laughs) until I passed out.

CB = Do you have any favourite concert films or documentaries?

RSF = At Hot Docs I went to see “Echo in the Canyon.” The documentary about Laurel Canyon in the ‘60s. I went to see that with my mother, because my sister was born in Laurel Canyon at Lookout Mountain. That’s where my parents lived in the ‘60s. My mother talked about seeing Frank Zappa at the bottom of the hill because his house was there. I saw the Robbie Roberson movie “Once Were Brothers.” I thought that was wonderful because I didn’t know in-depth the history about The Band. Ava DuVernay did a documentary called “This is the Life.” It’s about the “Good Life Cafe” in Los Angeles. Artists featured in that documentary like Freestyle Fellowship, Volume 10, and others are the guys who made me want to rap. That’s one of my favourite ones.  

CB = What was the name of your group?

RSF = We were called The Oddities. We had lots of underground releases. Our one commercial release was on EMI and called “The Scenic Route.” We did the record in 2001, and we had a sound that was different than other things coming out at the time.

CB = It seems now that rap has taken over popular music entirely.

RSF = Yeah, but it’s not good.

CB = Do you think the quality has gone down because so much rap comes out now?

RSF = Honestly, rap has controlled music since the early 2000s. I’m disappointed with rap right now. I don’t know what any song is about, no one is saying anything. These people are making so much money, and rappers didn’t used to make that much. It’s always been about chains, but there was some kind of class to it before. It’s all very tacky now, in my opinion. I would love for a resurgence in rappers saying important things, there’s so much more to it.

CB = It seems like a lot of rap follows the same general sound now.

RSF = Historically you couldn’t be a “biter,” and have the same style as someone or you would be ostracized. Now, if you sound like Drake, people like you. Migos came out and did that little triplet flow, and now everyone sounds the same. It’s just 808s, and weird hi-hats that are going too fast. I think everyone jumps onto it because it’s easily digestible.

CB = Are you a video game guy?

RSF = Yes. I’ve been playing games since I was a little kid. In 2001 when MuchMusic started Much On Demand (MOD), Alex Sopinka, the producer, and I had the idea to play games on the show. It was a way to get free games (laughs). On Thursdays I would play the brand-new game that came out on Wednesday, live on MOD. I went on a 57-week winning streak; I played people and never lost. At the beginning I was playing people who didn’t know what they were doing. But by the end my streak caught wind and we had people coming in with signs. I started to have some valid gamer challengers; it was very fun.

CB = Do you have any favourite video game music?

RSF = The theme song from Final Fantasy VII. I love that a remake was just released. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, that’s epic for music. All of the EA games had great music curation. They had custom music. A new NBA Live would come out and Fabulous would do the song. It would be a song you could only get on that soundtrack. A Jay-Z song would come on that I’d never heard, and it would be for the NBA.

CB = Anything you want to plug or put out there?

RSF = Watch the new TV show that I’m on, High Fidelity. It’s an incredible music-based drama. Zoë Kravitz is the lead. I play her brother. Questlove is our music supervisor. The soundtrack is amazing, it is available on Spotify. It’s a great show. Also, I’m working on some music that I might at put out at some point.

[rickhorrow]

10 to watch SPECIAL 24 in honor of Kobe Bryant 12720

We take a slight departure from our usual format this week to honor and celebrate the life and legend of Kobe Bryant, #24 forever.

--- Remembering Kobe Bryant, the statesman entrepreneur. USA Basketball chair and Sport Business Handbook contributor Jerry Colangelo, during an ESPN interview on Sunday, described himself as “shaken to the core” upon hearing the news that Bryant died in a helicopter crash on Sunday morning, and credited Bryant with leading Team USA to their gold medal Olympic performance in Beijing. “Gold Medal” perhaps best summarizes the span of Bryant’s all too short career. After his two-decade NBA run, Bryant dove into business with the same passion he had exhibited on the court. He started a business incubator and venture fund so that others could get their businesses off the ground. He wrote inspirational books for both children and adults. He made a highly-regarded documentary, “Kobe Bryant’s Muse,” with filmmaker Gotham Chopra. And in 2018, he wrote and produced an animated short, “Dear Basketball,” that won an Academy Award. On Sunday night, Lizzo, the most-nominated artist heading into the 2020 Grammy Awards at Staples Center, kicked off the show by telling the crowd, “Tonight is for Kobe.” And it was, as surely as Bryant will be honored at the Super Bowl, the Oscars, the NBA All-Star Game, and throughout many days, nights, and years to come.

--- Remembering Kobe Bryant, the philanthropist. Kobe Bryant was also known for his contributions to the community off the court. His goals extended way beyond the hardwood, and he was committed to promoting basketball and other sports to young people, girls in particular. Through his Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Foundation, the charity the NBA star founded with his wife in 2006, Bryant was the official ambassador for a children’s charity called After-School All-Stars. The organization provides after-school programs to 72,000 inner-city kids in need. Bryant also founded the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, California, and single-handedly sponsored the Mamba Cup basketball tournament there – the event to which he and daughter Gianna were headed when their helicopter crashed on Sunday. And he and Vanessa, according to WUSA9, were “Founding Donors” to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, giving at least $1 million in financial support. Bryant’s legacy as a great athlete and champion will long be remembered, as will his dedication and commitment to using sport as a means for young people to realize their dreams.

--- Super Bowl ticket demand could be headed for a record. According to Yahoo Sports and other industry sources, SeatGeek data shows the average resale price is $6,002, the "most-in demand Super Bowl ticket since SeatGeek started tracking prices" in 1010. At last look, the lowest “get-in” tickets on many of the large sales platforms were north of $5,200. The best seats at Hard Rock Stadium are "going for the fan-friendly price of $16,000." By comparison, the next highest-priced Super Bowl ticket came two years ago in Super Bowl LII between the Patriots and Eagles at U.S. Bank Stadium for $5,373. The San Francisco Chronicle noted that the demand for tickets comes as both teams offer "explosive offenses and a bit of a championship drought." The Chiefs have not been to the Super Bowl since 1970. The 49ers last appeared in the Super Bowl in 2013, but they have not won since 1995. With the game still six days away, peak inventory has yet to hit, so there's no telling where this market could end up.

--- Super Bowl bound Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes tops the NFLPA's top 50 player merchandise sales list. Patrick Mahomes has "moved into first place" on the Top 50 Player Sales List, based on data "provided by officially licensed NFL partners" collected from March 1-November 30, according to CNBC. Mahomes, whose merchandise sales are up 30% compared with this time last year, also is the "top-selling player" across Fanatics' network of sites from the start of the 2019 regular season through last Sunday's AFC Championship game. NFL Players Inc. interim President Steve Scebelo emphasized that Mahomes’ support outside the Kansas City market "contributed to an increase in sales for products" featuring him. Of course, if Mahomes goes on to beat the 49ers and win the Super Bowl this Sunday, the sky’s the limit as far as his future merchandise sales and endorsement deals go – not to mention his next NFL player contract.

--- The NFL putting final touches on Hard Rock Stadium ahead of Super Bowl LIV. The NFL is "putting the final touches" on Hard Rock Stadium to ensure the venue is "prepared to host" Super Bowl LIV on February 2, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Between NFL employees and hired contractors, 6,000 people are working in and outside of the stadium in the final week leading up to the game. Meanwhile, the fan-centric Super Bowl Experience at Miami Beach Convention Center opened on Saturday and runs through February 1. NFL Senior Director of Event Operations Eric Finkelstein said that with the NFL celebrating its 100th season this year, there will be "surprise additional festivities surrounding the game.” On the food festivities front, one of the packages being offered to suite holders is the $5,000 "Oysters and Pearls Package" by Centerplate. It includes "one dozen oysters on the half shell, freshly shucked and served with traditional accompaniments; sustainably farmed and harvested caviar with crème fraiche and homemade potato blinis; a bottle of Dom Perignon Brut 2008 Vendage, served in commemorative flutes; and a cultivated Akoya pearl bracelet." Proceeds go to the Ocean Conservancy, the host committee's Ocean Partner.

--- Twenty years ago, the dotcoms invaded the Super Bowl. Hashtag Sports digests a Fast Company story that reminds us that the now ubiquitous presence of digital companies in Super Bowl ads is still a fairly recent phenomenon. “Of all the dot-com brand commercials in the 2000 Super Bowl, E-Trade’s was the best. While others were funny, E-Trade’s dancing monkey was a living embodiment of what we were seeing at that very moment, right in front of our eyes,” Hashtag reminisces. Brands were taking millions of dollars, putting it in a pile, dousing it with gasoline, and paying for the opportunity to toss a match on it in front of 100 million people. It was a year when brands at the Super Bowl all of a sudden had a distinctly 21st-century suffix attached to their names: Autotrader.com, Pets.com, Monster.com, OurBeginning.com, andthelike.com. It was a new century, and 17 dot-com brands were featured in Super Bowl XXXIV, compared to two in 1999, which is almost as many web-based brands in one game that have bought Super Bowl ads in this last decade.

--- It takes a village – the 49ers and Chiefs are bringing large contingents to Miami for Super Bowl. The 49ers are "flying over 1,500 staff members and spouses to Miami on multiple charter planes" for Super Bowl LIV. 49ers CEO Jed York said on Twitter, "We're talking a lot of people. We wanted to make sure that our entire staff had the opportunity to go…Everybody from [coach Kyle Shanahan] and [GM John Lynch] all the way down to interns, everyone's been a part of this, and we wanted to make sure they're there to help and also celebrate the moment that hopefully gets us over the hump.” Meanwhile, the Hunt family, including Chiefs Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt and Norma Hunt, widow of late Chiefs Founder Lamar Hunt, will be hosting "close to 2,000 staffers, friends, and family members" in Miami, according to a source cited by the Kansas City Star. Consider that according to USA Today, the average American hotel has 115 rooms, so the room nights taken up by 49ers and Chiefs contingents alone amounts to a large chunk of South Florida hotel real estate this coming week.

--- Lowe’s is building an actual NFL village in Miami for its Super Bowl LIV activation. The league’s official home improvement sponsor is installing 32 team-themed structures at the Super Bowl Experience fan fest in Miami, which opens Saturday, with Lowe’s as presenting sponsor. The 6,000 square foot “Lowe’s Hometown” will include 32 8 x 8 x 8 structures in team colors and themes. Lowe’s vendors Chamberlain, Kobalt, Valspar, Trex, Leggett & Platt, and Scott’s Miracle-Gro assisted and will get branding at the Super Bowl Experience at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The “Lowe’s Hometown” activation is part of the home-improvement retailer’s “Bring It Home” Super Bowl campaign, which will also be on digital and channels, along with out-of-home ads, and in-store activations in the Miami market, including visits by NFL players and the Lombardi trophy. A cause-related element will see Lowe’s assisting hundreds of volunteers performing home repairs for nine families in West Coconut Grove.

--- Volvo is tying its car sweepstakes to a Super Bowl safety. Volvo Car USA has dubbed February 2 "Volvo Safety Sunday" and will give away $1 million in cars if a safety takes place during Super Bowl LIV. The company is promoting the sweepstakes on its social media channels. To participate, consumers must visit VolvoSafetySunday.com by game time. On the site, visitors are encouraged to design their own Volvo from 2020 models, adding the features of their choice. On the summary page, participants will be presented with a "Try to Win This Volvo" button that creates a unique configuration code necessary to enter the contest. Last year, Volvo also opted not to be an official game sponsor, instead giving mobile users a chance to win a S60 sedan Care by Volvo subscription during the Super Bowl. The carmaker’s “S60 Longest Drive” contest challenged smartphone and tablet users to keep their eyes on a video of a car for as long as possible. This year, Volvo is obviously bringing safety into conversations around its guerilla marketing campaigns.

--- The NBA and NBPA announced that LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers secured the top spots on the NBA’s Most Popular Jersey and Team Merchandise lists for the second consecutive year. The results are based on NBAStore.com sales October-December 2019. The Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo ranked No. 2 on the player list, followed by the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry (No. 3), the Boston Celtics’ Jayson Tatum (No. 4), and the Houston Rockets’ James Harden (No. 5). Antetokounmpo, Tatum, and Mavericks guard Luka Doncic (No. 6) all earned their highest rankings to date, while Pelicans forward Zion Williamson (No. 15) made his debut on the list, according to the NBA. USA Today noted the Raptors "made the top five for the first time in franchise history," and the Nets (No. 10) "finished in the top 10 for the first time" since 2014. On a day in which people around the world honored Kobe Bryant, whose No. 8 and No. 24 jerseys were both retired by the Lakers, it seems only fitting that the team and James, who passed Bryant’s all time points total on Saturday, hold the top spots.

--- As NFL conference championship game merchandise broke sales records on Fanatics and elsewhere, international sports and lifestyle brand New Era Cap Co., Inc. celebrates 100 years. New Era has over 500 licenses in its portfolio, including service as the exclusive MLB baseball cap provider since 1993. According to their news release, the company will launch special collections featuring new designs, product collaborations, and re-issues of classic caps and apparel throughout the year. The collections will also celebrate the future of New Era through global partnerships with fashion brands Helmut Lang, Yohji Yamamoto, Levi's and Havaianas; visual artist Daniel Arsham; contemporary furniture brand Modernica; watch brand Casio G-SHOCK; and the brand's first-ever circular economy product with Pentatonic. As part of the centennial year, Buffalo-based New Era will also partner with the Buffalo History Museum to present the first comprehensive exhibit for the brand.

--- University of Oregon guard Sabrina Ionescu has a chance to be the No. 1 pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft. But her "long-term value might be the sway she holds with a group that has often been skeptical of women’s sports as entertainment: men," according to the Wall Street Journal. The Warriors’ Stephen Curry has praised her game, while Grizzlies forward Ja Morant "tweeted a goat emoji" and LeBron James retweeted her video. UO Warsaw Sports Marketing Center Director Whitney Wagoner said that though Ionescu "isn’t the first superstar female player…the attention she’s drawing is different." Wagoner said, "For a long time, one of the things that has held back the popularity of women’s basketball is this sense that male sports fans have that they are better than women’s basketball players…But when you have a female athlete where men get that she’s better than they are, then that’s a different dynamic.” Ionescu was one of dozens of prominent athletes to honor Kobe Bryant on Sunday – Bryant was one of her biggest supporters, and she had long considered him a mentor and close friend.

--- Larry Fitzgerald buys minority stake in Suns. NFL Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald has "purchased a minority stake" in the Suns, becoming the second active NFL player with an NBA ownership share, according to ESPN.com. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers in 2018 bought a share of the Milwaukee Bucks. Fitzgerald has a "strong relationship" with Suns Owner Robert Sarver, and the limited partnership "has been in the works for months." Fitzgerald already has a "significant ambassador's role" with the Suns, and he has done "everything from sit in on potential front office candidate interviews to canvass for a Suns public arena vote." Sources said that he will not take on a "more active role with the Suns until his professional football playing career is over.” It is only to the benefit of the greater Phoenix community that the much beloved Fitzgerald will remain in town when his football days are over to become a leader in sport business in the region.

--- California tribes will petition for sports betting at tribal casinos. A coalition of 18 Native American tribes in California was "given approval to begin circulating petitions for a statewide ballot initiative that would allow sports betting at tribal casinos and horse racing tracks, but not at rival card clubs or on the internet," according to the Los Angeles Times. Card clubs "vowed to campaign against the tribal casino proposal and instead support another ballot measure being considered by the California Legislature that would apply to a larger group of gambling interests." A legal sports betting market could bring in $2.5 billion in "gross revenue annually in California." State Assemblyman Adam Gray said that the market could generate $250-500 million in "tax revenue for the state." Gray and state Senator Bill Dodd have each "introduced legislation that would put a constitutional amendment on the statewide ballot as early as November to allow sports betting." To make the ballot, lawmakers have until late June to "overcome the divisions in the state gambling industry over how to allow sports betting."

--- Turner Sports’ ELEAGUE and Twitch are teaming up for a community-driven live show titled ELEAGUE Super Punch. According to Cynopsis Sports, the series will look to show each week’s biggest esports and gaming moments, along with the creators and communities that drive them. The new show will be hosted by Twitch streamers and gaming personalities Ify Nwadiwe, Kelly Nugent, J.D. Witherspoon, and Alex Corea. Super Punch will be formatted as a fast-paced and dynamic take on the late night talk show format with real time engagement built into the live show. The series will air on both Twitch and TBS starting in February, running Monday-Friday beginning February 3 in addition to streaming live on a dedicated Twitch channel. Beginning February 21, each Friday episode will also see a special live showcase on TBS. Having a dedicated platform for esports on both television and on Twitch will draw in new esports fans due to its community based and collaborative media components.

--- UFC and Facebook team up for exclusive content pact to push Pay-Per-View fights. According to Variety, UFC has upped its investment in original content for Facebook to try to convert more of its 26 million Facebook mixed martial arts fans into premium pay-per-view buyers. Under the one-year deal between UFC and Facebook, the MMA promoter is producing three original shows for Facebook Watch. All the content will be tied to 20 UFC events over the next year and available for free at UFC’s Facebook page. The content started rolling out last week ahead of UFC 246 on Saturday, January 18, featuring the headline Conor McGregor vs. Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone bout. The UFC Fight Week exclusive original shows on Facebook Watch are: “Quick Hits,” “The Check-In Show,” and “Fighter Commentary.” The deal comes as Facebook remains in experimentation mode on its original video strategy, more than two years after bowing Facebook Watch in the U.S. and still hungry to be part of the sports media realm.

--- NBC to produce four daily Tokyo 2020 Olympics shows for Snapchat. NBC is again turning to Snapchat as part of monetizing its Olympics media rights — coveting the app’s millions of millennials and Gen Z users. NBC Olympics and Snap inked a renewed pact to present coverage of the XXXII Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo, as well as the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, to Snapchat users in the U.S. It’s the third Olympics the two companies have teamed on, following the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio and the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. The 2020 Olympics partnership encompasses four daily original Snapchat Shows produced by NBC, exclusively for the platform in vertical-video orientation. Those include — for the first time — two highlights shows that will be updated in “near real-time.” Overall, NBC plans to produce more than 70 episodes for Snapchat, more than three times the 2018 Winter Games. NBC Olympics will be the exclusive seller of all ad inventory for the custom programming on Snapchat. In 2018, over 40 million unique viewers in the U.S. watched NBC Olympics content for the Winter Games, up more than 25% from the 2016 Rio Olympics. Significantly for NBC, of those 40-plus million, 90% were under the age of 35.

--- Extreme sports fall under one media roof via Thrill One. According to SportsPro, The Raine Group and Causeway Media Partners, the growth stage venture capital firm led by Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck, have combined action sports touring group Nitro Circus, the Street League Skateboarding series, and production house Superjacket Productions to create Thrill One Sports & Entertainment. The new venture will be headed up by Joe Carr, formerly of the UFC and World Surf League, who will serve as Thrill One’s chief executive. Thrill One, already claims to have 40 million followers across its brand pages and channels thanks to its previous three companies, has more than 30 events scheduled for 2020, and will produce over 100 hours of live sports, along with more than 175 episodes of original programming. The venture is expected to generate more than $100 million in its first year according to Bloomberg. The move comes with action sports set to gain more global exposure through the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, which will feature skateboarding and surfing for the first time, as well as BMX freestyle and inevitably boost the new sports media house’s presence.

--- Music streaming giant Spotify is in talks to acquire Bill Simmons’ The Ringer. According to Variety, the digital content and podcast network launched by ESPN alum Bill Simmons in 2016 is in the early stages of talking to Spotify about falling under the music media company's umbrella. Spotify’s pursuit of Ringer is not that surprising given the streaming music giant’s drive into the podcasting realm during the past year. Ringer is a sports and pop culture-centric content hub and production banner that features more than 30 podcasts from Simmons and his staffers as well as notables such as David Chang and Larry Wilmore. Simmons built up a massive online following during his tenure at ESPN that has now surpassed five million individual Twitter followers thanks to his time as an on-air commentator and also spending time with the Grantland news and commentary website that he steered for the Disney-owned sports behemoth. Although Simmons was ousted in May 2015 after numerous clashes with ESPN leaders, it seems he may be poised to cash in big time and potentially move, with his devoted clan, under the Spotify roof.

--- HSBC Bank USA will collaborate with Rick Horrow to create unique experiences for customers and prospects geared towards financial literacy. The partnership will center around the launch of Horrow’s latest book, The Sport Business Handbook: Insights from 100+ Leaders Who Shaped 50 Years of the Industry. Curated events will be held in markets across the U.S. where book contributors will share the lessons that helped shape their athletic careers and future successful business endeavours. Entitled “SportBusiness 50:  Lessons and Leadership from Legends of the Game,” the partnership will launch its initial event in Miami, coinciding with Super Bowl LIV. The announcement is another example of HSBC’s commitment to supporting the growth of its local communities and the customers within each. It follows the bank’s launch of the HSBC Financial Wellness Center in early 2019 powered by EVERFI, a leading education technology company. The online platform features a series of engaging modules focused on financial literacy topics such as buying a home, planning for higher education, and building credit. The platform is available to anyone looking to advance their own financial literacy, inclusive of corporate partners as well as clients and non-clients of the bank.

--- Twitch is hosting a Super Bowl Fortnite tournament to raise $500,000 for charity. According to Polygon, Twitch is hosting a Twitch Rivals Fortnite tournament to celebrate the NFL’s biggest game, which will include some of the world’s most famous Fortnite streamers teaming up with NFL athletes live in Miami, site of Super Bowl LIV. The tournament, which Twitch has dubbed the Twitch Rivals Streamer Bowl, will feature 16 different duos. The teams were chosen in a draft, where the streamers picked which NFL player they wanted to partner up with. The teams will compete for a charity prize of $500,000, which Twitch will donate to a charity of the winners’ choosing. The competition will be live from the NFL Players Association party in Miami and streamed on Twitch with high profile football players including, but not limited to JuJu Smith-Schuster, Keenan Allen, and Baker Mayfield. The event will be held in the lead up to the actual Super Bowl game starting on January 30. By bringing together football, esports, and charity, the NFL is positioning itself as a forward-thinking sports league.

--- Women’s NCAA basketball gets a broadcasting boost from ESPN as the sports network is beefing up the presence of the 2020 Women’s Final Four. According to Cynopsis Sports, the semifinals and championship games will be carried in primetime on the flagship network rather than ESPN 2. Additionally, the entire first and second rounds of the women’s championship will be available nationally on ESPN’s television networks, eliminating regionalization as had been the case in past years. The ever-growing popularity of women’s college basketball drove most of the change, but so too did women’s rights changes in sports over the past few years. The move marks a step by ESPN to finally put forth similar efforts to market the women’s sport the same as it does to promote the men’s game, something that fans have been advocating for years. Last year, the Women’s Final Four produced an 8% ratings increase, and this year can expect to have even bigger numbers due to its more favorable network and airing time.

--- Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers fans raise nearly $20,000 for charity after a fight between the two NHL teams. According to CBC, the two teams got into an altercation on January 11 as Oilers forward Zack Kassian and Flames forward Matthew Tkachuk traded jabs during Calgary's 4-3 win over Edmonton. The fallout from the game, which featured some questionable Tkachuk hits before Kassian's retaliatory attack, included a two-game suspension for the latter and nothing for the former. Flames fans started a fundraising campaign to place billboards with Tkachuk's face plastered on them across Edmonton. When the campaign reached $3,053 in less than 24 hours, surpassing its $2,500 goal, a local radio station stepped in to say it would handle the billboards, and the fundraiser money would now be directed toward ALS research. That GoFundMe page now says it has raised $3,738. Then Oilers fans struck back. Twitter user @SamInYEG posted a donation receipt to the charity Brown Bagging For Calgary's Kids "so that kids can get a proper meal and grow up to be tougher than Tkachuk." Now, more than $10,000 had gone to the charity and Dragon's Den actor W. Brett Wilson also pledged to match donations up to that number, as well as another $5,000 to the Edmonton shelter of @SamInYeg's choosing. Combined with the Calgary efforts, it is nearly $20,000 in donations due to two hockey players starting a fight – making good come from pain.

--- After a beer can celebration, Budweiser will donate Eric Fisher's NFL fine amount to charity. According to 247 Sports, the NFL fined Kansas City Chiefs offensive tackle Eric Fisher for a beer can celebration in last week's AFC Divisional playoff win over the Houston Texans and the beer company stepped in to donate the fine amount, $14,037, to a charity of Fisher's choosing. After Chiefs tight end Blake Bell scored a touchdown pass from Patrick Mahomes with 13:52 remaining in the fourth quarter, Fisher ran over to celebrate with his teammates near the stands in the end zone. The offensive tackle then grabbed two beer cans that were on the ledge of the end zone, banged the two cans together and poured them over his helmet, similar to a maneuver of WWE legend "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Now Kansas City and Eric Fisher will be playing in the Super Bowl against the defensive juggernaut San Francisco 49ers and Fisher can focus his mind on the game after his round-about charity donation.

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

Meghan Markle's Royal Wedding Dress: Everything We Know So Far!

Are you ready for Meghan Markle's sure-to-be iconic royal wedding dress?

The 36-year-old actress is set to marry Prince Harry on May 19 at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, which means we're less than a month away from seeing the most highly anticipated fashion choice of the year. Given Meghan's amazing styles so far, royal fans definitely won't be disappointed.

Not surprisingly, details on the dress have been top secret.

"I expect that Meghan will go to great lengths to keep her wedding dress designer a secret until the moment that she emerges from the bridal car,” ET’s royal expert Katie Nicholl told ET in March. “Let's be honest, this is a girl who knows how to keep a secret. She and Harry kept their romance clandestine for months, so she knows how to stay tight-lipped… There's going to be so much attention on the dress. She's like every other bride in that respect, she wants to keep it a secret up until the last minute.”

But of course, there have been plenty of indicators when it comes to Meghan's fashion tastes. Let's review everything we know so far about the wedding dress that will be seen around the world. 

The Designer:

Frontrunners for Meghan's dress include fashion house Erdem, after the label took its U.K. and international PR in-house earlier this month, prompting some to wonder if they were getting ahead of a huge news story.

Interesting to read that @erdem has just taken its PR in house and appointed Kathryn Lo as PR Manager... is it a sign that a big story is coming up? 👰💍#royalwedding#meghanmarkle

— Emily Nash (@emynash) April 3, 2018

Meghan is also no stranger to Erdem. The actress wore a tropical print maxi dress from the label when she and Harry attended a wedding in Jamaica last year. Lead designer Erdem Moralıoğlu is also Canadian-born -- though the label is based in London -- which could be a sweet nod to Meghan's home country prior to her move to the United Kingdom.

Another name floating aroud is Ralph & Russo, after Meghan wore a show-shopping sheer black gown by the designer for her much talked-about engagement photos with Harry.

A huge thank you to His Royal Highness Prince Harry and Ms Markle, for allowing me to take their official engagement portraits. Not only was it an incredible honour, but also an immense privilege to be invited to share and be a witness to this young couple’s love for each other.  I cannot help but smile when I look at the photos that we took. @Kensingtonroyal

A post shared by Alexi Lubomirski photo (@alexilubomirski) on Dec 21, 2017 at 6:03am PST

Alexander McQueen's name has also been in the mix. Kate Middleton's 2011 wedding dress was designed by Sarah Burton, the British designer at the helm of Alexander McQueen. 

Getty Images

In February, Harper's Bazaar reported that so many people were betting that the McQueen label will be the designer of Meghan's dress that there was possibly a confidential information leak.

Nicholl offered ET yet another option, which could help endear Meghan to Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.

“There's a lot of speculation that she might be going for Stewart Parvin, who is one one of the queen's favorite couturiers,” she noted. “It would be fabulous for her to fly the flag for British fashion, but we will have to wait and see. And I think we'll probably have to wait until the day.”

Silhouette:

Judging from Meghan's bombshell Ralph & Russo engagement dress, we know the actress has no problem going for a bold style. In March, ET spoke with celebrity designer Mark Zunino -- who's friends with Meghan's close pal, Jessica Mulroney, (who helped pick out her wedding designer in January) -- and he offered insight into Meghan's bridal style. 

"[Mulroney] loves fashion and she loves cutting-edge fashion, and I think I can see [with] Meghan, that excites her as well," Zunino said. "You know how fashion girls are, you can't let it go, it's a part of who you are! I think Meghan's like that. I think Jessica feeds that."

If her character, Rachel Zane, on Suits is any indication, her wedding dress will certainly be romantic and stunning. Meghan's character wore a princess-line Versailles wedding gown accentuated by a full floor-length tulle skirt by Anne Barge during the season finale of Suits, when she got married to Mike Ross (played by Patrick J. Adams).

For the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Ross. #MikeAndRachel#Suitspic.twitter.com/Xv3M7gLfKB

— Suits (@Suits_USA) April 26, 2018

Anne Barge

But in Meghan's real-life style, she prefers more tailored silhouettes, often opting for chic sheath dresses and flattering pencil skirts. In a 2016 interview with Glamour, Meghan said her favorite celebrity wedding dress of all time was the late Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's iconic Narciso Rodriguez design when she married John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1996, which Meghan described as "everything goals."

Meghan Markle’s wedding gown rumors are swirling.. one thing’s for sure, her favorite of all time was Carolyn Bessett-Kennedy’s Narciso Rodriquez simple, silk slip wedding gown. More details in link in profile 💗💍

A post shared by Today Shines (@todayshines) on Apr 10, 2018 at 11:51am PDT

"I have the luxury of wearing beautiful pieces of clothing every day for work, so my personal style -- wedding or not -- is very pared down and relaxed," Meghan told Glamour. "Classic and simple is the name of the game, perhaps with a modern twist. I personally prefer wedding dresses that are whimsical or subtly romantic. Delphine Manivet and Christos Costarellos are faves of mine for their uniqueness and beauty. And I will always be a fan of Elie Saab. J. Mendel is spectacular as well, especially for more structural designs."

Nicholl told ET in March that Meghan will make sure to "tick all the right boxes: traditional, elegant, sophisticated, memorable, and fitting" when it comes to her dress.

“I'm told that she wants something with lace, that she wants something with sleeves,” Nicholl said. “Of course she's dressing for the rather inclement British weather, but more than that she's dressing for a very, very important occasion. So I think you will be probably pleasantly surprised for Meghan the ‘rule breaker’ when it comes to this dress.”

"I think she will definitely kind of push the envelope, but I think she'll be definitely respectful to the royal family and, you know, to the U.K. in general," Zunino also weighed in to ET. "Nothing will be too exposed. I think she might go a little more form-fitted. She'll still make the grandness of something, you know, embellished sleeves or a big flounce or something for the magnitude of the cathedral, but I think she's going to go a little, you know, sexier in not an obvious way. I think she's gonna redefine princess."

The Cost:

Nicholl told ET that Meghan doesn't want to upstage her future sister-in-law Kate's memorable, long-sleeve Alexander McQueen wedding dress, which cost a whopping $434,000. 

“There have been reports that [Meghan’s] considering spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on a wedding dress. I think that’s incredibly unlikely,” Nicholl mused. “Kate Middleton's dress cost 150,000 pounds. It was her parents, Carol and Michael Middleton, who paid for that bill. I think it was very unlikely that Meghan would spend more than that and in doing so try and upstage a future queen.”

“I think Meghan is very sensible,” she added. “She understands what the perception will be of this gown. I don’t think she's going to want to get royal life off to a start where she's criticized for spending something like 400,000 pounds on a wedding dress. I just dont think it will happen.”

Still, Zunino estimates that the dress will cost "at least $100,000 or more."

"You know, [it will cost] $100,000 to $300,000, because she's going to showcase everyone: herself, her family, his family, the country, our country, Canada. She's representing everything," he explained.

Her First Wedding Dress:

Meghan clearly likes to keep things simple.

The actress married producer Trevor Engelson back in 2011 on a beach in Jamaica wearing a bohemian-style strapless dress. The no-frills choice featured an embellished belt, but no intricate lace or train. 

Star Magazine/MEGA

How Many Dresses:

According to Vanity Fair, the bride-to-be will have not one, but two royal wedding dresses.

Sources close to the former Suits star reportedly told the outlet that both dresses will be custom-made. The first is "an elaborate yet traditional bridal gown" for the ceremony and reception, and the second is "a glamorous, more sophisticated" gown she'll change into for the evening to "party the night away" with less restriction.

"This wedding will be one of the biggest events of the year, so why not celebrate it with as many fabulous gowns as possible," wedding dress designer Caroline Castigliano told the magazine. "I am fully expecting this wedding to follow the same format as Kate [Middleton]’s, with a wedding gown for the day and an evening gown, too."

Who's Helping Her:

In January, a sourcetold ET that Meghan had her first fitting for her wedding dress at Kensington Palace with Mulroney, who flew in from Toronto to help her friend with wedding planning. Mulroney is a top stylist, her high-profile clients including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau. 

She also regularly helps brides-to-be say "yes" to the dress (and "#YesToTheJess") as a consultant for the Canadian outpost of Kleinfeld’s, a popular New York-based bridal boutique. 

The close friends already worked together when they picked out her Suits character, Rachel's, wedding dress.  

Hair & Makeup:

ET has learned that Meghan is expected to use hairstylist Miguel Perez, who is Amal Clooney's go-to London hairdresser, for her wedding day.

"Yes, I do Meghan's hair," Miguel reportedly told The Mail last week. "I do Amal's, and Meghan is friends with her. I also do George [Clooney]'s, I do the whole family. Amal put Meghan and me together when she moved here [to London]. I do her color, her cut and her styling."

Perez said he and Meghan have already discussed her all-important wedding 'do.

"We have talked about it [the wedding] and we have a plan," he said. "I can't say any more, but we know what we're doing."

Though Meghan is a big fan of keeping her hair down or rocking a messy bun, the brunette beauty also looked gorgeous rocking a classic wedding updo as her Suits character, Rachel.

Tonight Season 6 of @suits_usa begins. #ThrowbackThursday to the Season 5 finale of #RachelZane (aka. @meghanmarkle) in the Versailles wedding gown!

A post shared by Anne Barge (@annebarge) on Jul 14, 2016 at 3:15pm PDT

As for her makeup, don't expect anything to be caked on. ET recently spoke with one of her former makeup artists, Spencer Barnes, who opened up about Meghan's beauty philosophy.

"I don't think she's a person who naturally wants or needs or feels like she has to put on a lot," Barnes said. "She's softly defined, and that's when she shines her brightest and looks her best. When you're seeing freckles, and you're seeing some of the natural qualities of skin, it's a good indicator that there's very little on there!"

"She loves beautiful skin, to start with, and she has the most gorgeous complexion," he added. "It's that soft caramel. Her mixed heritage makes her an exotic beauty of beauties. Her chocolate eyes, the way her eyes light up when she smiles, I love her smile, her teeth and her lips. And then her perfect brows."

In fact, Barnes said it will be Meghan's glowing skin that will most likely be front and center.

Getty Images

"Whenever I'd work with her, she'd like to highlight her fresh, radiant skin," he shared. "We'd do a very glowing, fresh-faced skin. We'd use earthy tones, colors that enhanced her natural beauty, rather than a lot of obvious color choices, like purple, green or blue. We'd stick with earthy tones -- peaches, golds, browns -- a lot of rich, warm tones and that really flattered her. It helped her just look radiant and fresh."

Watch the video below for more on Meghan's wedding dress, and keep up with all of ET's coverage of the royal wedding right here as we count down to May 19.

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Meghan Markle's Social Network: 10 Celebs You Didn't Know Were Connected to the Future Royal

Priyanka Chopra Confirms She's Going to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Royal Wedding

[iyarpage]

Announcing the Advanced Swift Spring Fling!

It’s Spring once again, which means it’s time to take a fresh look at your bookshelf and grow your tutorial library!

To help you do this, we’re releasing three new books:

Realm: Building Modern Swift Apps with Realm Database: The perfect introduction to Realm Database and Realm Platform. Learn how to set up your first Realm database, see how to persist and read data, find out how to perform migrations and more.

Data Structures and Algorithms in Swift: Learn how to implement the most popular and useful data structures, and when and why you should use one particular data structure or algorithm over another.

Design Patterns by Tutorials: Explore the usefulness of design patterns, moving from the basic building blocks of patterns into more advanced patterns and completes the lesson with less common but incredibly useful patterns.

To celebrate these three books, we’re running a special event over the next two weeks: the Advanced Swift Spring Fling, where you can get all three books at a massive discount.

Over the next two weeks, we’ll be releasing some free chapters from our three new books so you can get a taste of what’s in store. We’re also running a giveaway where a few lucky readers can win themselves a copy of one of our new books!

And in keeping with the spirit of Spring, we’re running a time-limited sale to help you save some green:

Save a massive 40% over the regular price when you buy the three new books in our Advanced Swift Spring Bundle — that’s all three books for just $99.99!

Want to buy select books from the bundle? No problem. Save 10% on each of the new books when you buy them separately — that’s $49.49 each.

Here’s a quick overview of what’s in each book:

Data Structures and Algorithms in Swift

Learn how to implement the most common and useful data structures and algorithms in Swift!

Understanding how data structures and algorithms work in code is crucial for creating efficient and scalable apps. Swift’s Standard Library has a small set of general purpose collection types, yet they definitely don’t cover every case!

In Data Structures and Algorithms in Swift, you’ll learn how to implement the most popular and useful data structures and when and why you should use one particular datastructure or algorithm over another. This set of basic data structures and algorithms will serve as an excellent foundation for building more complex and special-purpose constructs. As well, the high-level expressiveness of Swift makes it an ideal choice for learning these core concepts without sacrificing performance.

You’ll start with the fundamental structures of linked lists, queues and stacks, and see how to implement them in a highly Swift-like way.

Move on to working with various types of trees, including general purpose trees, binary trees, AVL trees, binary search trees and tries.

Go beyond bubble and insertion sort with better-performing algorithms, including mergesort, radix sort, heap sort and quicksort.

Learn how to construct directed, non-directed and weighted graphs to represent many real-world models, and traverse graphs and trees efficiently with breadth-first, depth-first, Dijkstra’s and Prim’s algorithms to solve problems such as finding the shortest path or lowest cost in a network.

And much, much more!

By the end of this book, you’ll have hands-on experience solving common issues with data structures and algorithms — and you’ll be well on your way to developing your own efficient and useful implementations.

This book is in early access; the complete digital edition will be released in Late Spring 2018.

We’ll be releasing two free chapters from this book this week on Wednesday and Friday to help give you a taste of what’s inside.

“Whether you want to ace your next coding interview, or use Swift successfully in competitions on HackerRank, or want to make sure your Swift code is well designed and scalable, this is the right book for you. The authors explain data structures and algorithms with diagrams and examples and explain the Swift code implementation step by step.” – Christina Bharara

About the Authors

Kelvin Lau is a physicist turned Swift-iOS Developer. While he’s currently entrenched with iOS development, he often reminisces of his aspirations to be part of the efforts in space exploration. Outside of programming work, he’s an aspiring entrepreneur and musician. You can find him on Twitter: @kelvinlauKL.

Vincent Ngo is a software developer by day, and an iOS-Swift enthusiast by night. He believes that sharing knowledge is the best way to learn and grow as a developer. Vincent starts every morning with a homemade green smoothie in hand to fuel his day. When he is not in front of a computer, Vincent is training to play in small golf tournaments, doing headstands at various locations while on a hiking adventure, or looking up how to make tamago egg. You can find him on Twitter: @vincentngo2.

Realm: Building Modern Swift Apps with Realm Database

Create powerful, reactive iOS apps with Realm Database and Realm Cloud!

Realm finds the sweet spot between the simplicity of storing data as JSON on disk and using heavy, slow ORMs like Core Data or similar that are built on top of SQLite. The Realm Database aims to be fast, performant and provide the commodities that mobile developers need such as working with objects, type-safety, and native notifications.

Realm Database has been under active development for several years. It powers apps by some of the biggest names in the App Store, including Adidas, Amazon, Nike, Starbucks, BBC, GoPro, Virgin, Cisco, Groupon and many more who have chosen to develop their mobile apps with Realm.

Realm Platform is a relatively new commercial product which allows developers to automatically synchronize data not only across Apple devices but also between any combination of Android, iPhone, Windows, or macOS apps. Realm Platform allows you to run the server software on your own infrastructure and keep your data in-house which more often suits large enterprises. Alternatively you can use Realm Cloud which runs a Platform for you and you start syncing data very quickly and only pay for what you use.

In this book, you’ll do the following:

Learn how easy it is to set up your first Realm database.

See how to persist and read data under the CRUD model.

Discover how to work with Realm configurations.

Design smart and responsive migrations for your Realms.

Create a Realm Cloud instance and sync your data in real time, across all devices, anywhere.

We’ll be releasing a free chapter from this book on Monday, April 23, to help you get started with Realm Database and see what the book’s all about!

“I enjoyed the book [Realm: Building Modern Swift Apps with Realm Database] and learned much from it. The book shed light on a long time mystery. Despite the fact we previously worked with Realm never before it was so accessible and easy to understand. Book is full with down-to-earth, to-the-core, beautiful explanation, diagrams and code samples. Great to dive in to and great to keep at your desk for easy reference.” – Michal Shatz

About the Author

Marin Todorov is the author of this book. Marin is one of the founding members of the raywenderlich.com team and has worked on seven of the team’s books. Besides crafting code, Marin also enjoys blogging, teaching, and speaking at conferences. He happily open-sources code. You can find out more about Marin at www.underplot.com.

Design Patterns by Tutorials

Learn design patterns with Swift!

Design patterns are incredibly useful, no matter what language or platform you develop for. Using the right pattern for the right job can save you time, create less maintenance work for your team and ultimately let you create more great things with less effort.

Every developer should absolutely know about design patterns and how and when to apply them. That’s what you’re going to learn in this book!

Start with the basic building blocks of patterns such as MVC, Delegate and Strategy.

Move into more advanced patterns such as the Factory, Prototype and Multicast Delegate pattern.

Finish off with some less-common but still incredibly useful patterns including Flyweight, Command and Chain of Responsibility.

And not only does Design Patterns by Tutorials cover each pattern in theory, but you’ll also work to incorporate each pattern in a real-world app that’s included with each chapter. Learn by doing, in the step-by-step fashion you’ve come to expect in the other books in our by Tutorials series.

This book is in early access; the complete digital edition will be released in Late Spring 2018.

We’ll be releasing a free chapter from this book on Wednesday, April 25, to help you discover what the book has in store for you!

“The book all iOS and macOS developers have all been waiting for: Design Patterns by Tutorials is the best of the wisdom of that gang of four written in Swift. Need a singleton that’s ready to try in a playground, along with clear guidance about how to use it and not misuse it? This is your essential guide.” – Mark W. Powell

About the Authors

Joshua Greene is an experienced iOS developer who loves creating elegant apps. When he’s not slinging code, he enjoys martial arts, Netflix and spending time with his wonderful wife and two daughters. You can reach him on Twitter at @jrg_developer.

Jay Strawn is a former librarian and is passionate about languages both human and code based. When she’s not working as a developer, Jay enjoys being an ESL conversation partner and reading zines.

Advanced Swift Spring Bundle

To celebrate the launch of our new advanced Swift books, we’re offering a special bundle where you can get all three books at a massive discount!

Our new Advanced Swift Spring Bundle includes all three books in PDF/ePub format, with all source code included:

Realm: Building Modern Swift Apps with Realm Database

Data Structures and Algorithms in Swift

Design Patterns by Tutorials

That’s a $164.97 value — but you can get all three books for just $99.99 in the Advanced Swift Spring Bundle! But don’t wait: this bundle deal is only good until Friday, April 27.

Advanced Swift Spring Fling Giveaway

To celebrate the Spring Fling, we’re giving away three Advanced Swift Spring Bundles to some lucky readers!

To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment below and answer the following question:

What are you most excited about in our new book lineup?

We’ll select three winners at random who leave a comment below before Friday, April 27. Get your entries in early!

Where to Go From Here?

To recap, here’s the schedule of events for the Advanced Swift Spring Fling:

April 16: Design Patterns, Data Structures, and Realm books launched

April 18: Free chapter from Data Structures and Algorithms in Swift

April 20: Swift Algorithm Club post

April 23: Free chapter from Realm: Building Modern Swift Apps with Realm Database

April 25: Free chapter from Design Patterns by Tutorials

April 27: Giveaway and Last Day for Discount!

If you are comfortable with Swift and iOS development and want to take your development skills to the next level, there’s no better way to do that than through the Advanced Swift Spring Bundle.

Don’t miss out on your chance to grab this bundle of three books for just $99.99 — that’s a massive savings of 40% off of the regular price! This bundle pricing is only available until Friday, April 27, 2018, so grab this great discount while you can.

We truly appreciate the support of all our readers; you help make everything we do here at raywenderlich.com possible. Thanks for your support — and don’t forget to leave a comment below to enter the giveaway!

The post Announcing the Advanced Swift Spring Fling! appeared first on Ray Wenderlich.

Announcing the Advanced Swift Spring Fling! published first on https://medium.com/@koresol

[theseventhhex]

Shadow Band Interview

Shadow Band

‘Wilderness of Love’, the smoke-coloured debut album by mystical virtuosos Shadow Band, sounds more conjured than recorded. When the sprawling collective decided it was time to document their dark craft, rather than choosing to work in a traditional recording studio, they dove headlong into their time honoured method of capturing late night jams on mouldering home-recording devices. Oblivious to life outside, the band laid down sounds that could only happen in these contained moments of silent enlightenment. The album that resulted is indeed a product of the wild. The eleven songs here travel on a misty journey through both lantern-lit psyche-folk dirges and depraved deathknell blues, wobbling in the balance of paranoia and universal understanding… We talk to Mike Bruno and Matt Marchesano about the band dynamic, conspiracy theories and wildlife streams…

TSH: How would you sum up the band dynamic in the lead up to ‘Wilderness of Love’?

MB: The band, whichever name it has existed under, has always consisted of whoever is around in the creative moment. When the wilderness was coming to life Morgan, Matt and I were living together and others in the shadows nearby, so we were regularly meeting up to play music together.

MM:: Our band dynamic can be described as vaporous, and probably less rigid than other bands. With ‘Wilderness of Love’, being aware of the space and allowing the songs to compose themselves was key.

TSH: What can you tell us about your ideas in doing a lot of thematic idea writing…

MB: I think the thematic writing on my part is circumstantial of my interests and meanderings, how they shape my world view and colour my oblivion.

TSH: In what ways did time spent considering your own insignificance seep into this record?

MB: A lot of songwriters in my opinion tend to be writing about themselves, a love interest or some other mirror of themselves; some about their crew, or where they came from; some get down with lyrical jabs at an opponent or rival.. Some write boastful or self-deprecating songs, some focus on politics, others just want to keep the party going all night long etc. I've poured out a fair amount of self-interested songs to some capacity, but to what end? Most of the songs on this record have little or nothing to do with inconsequential aspects of my personal life and rather take the narrative of a profane watcher observing phenomena like the living earth, the impending apocalypse, transmissions of the hive mind, planetary pulls and the man-made mythologies of self-unfoldment, redemption and salvation.

TSH: Which track on the record was the most collaborative?

MB: ‘Shadowland’ perhaps more so than the others in that Jake took the original guitar line and transposed/played it on the piano and we altogether ditched the guitar and re-structured the song during the recording session.

TSH: When you started production on ‘Green Riverside’, what intentions did you initially have in mind?

MM:: A sort of kaleidoscopic nature setting, crystal water bodies shining and the rippling patterns across a water surface.

MB: The song formed itself as most of the songs naturally do with those among the shadows who were present at the time of the recording. There is an earlier rendition of this song on an album titled 'The Willing of the Wisps,' in which the master tape was lost and we had to settle for a corrupted digitized version of the original recording. My mom listened to that one once and the poor quality of the recording proved detrimental to her being able to enjoy listening to the song, so I was excited to reanimate this one into a higher fidelity realm of existence.

TSH: Moreover, how pleased were you with the final result of such a top track in ‘Daylight’?

MB: Anna's singing in this recording I find so fantastically haunting and stirring, among all the impressionistic touches that rise and fall throughout. It seems only fitting that she guides ghost tours in Philadelphia.

TSH: With your recent work, was there a certain type of balance that intrigued you during the crafting process?

MB: Certainly there was a balancing effort in order to produce a high fidelity, accessible record that we could all be proud of. I had always been used to and preferred recordings to be organic, raw, impressionistically brought to life. With this record we made a point to challenge that method and create something utilising modern recording technology that maintained a level of chance in the actual playing of the music, but with a little more planning and structure than usual. Further, balance was essential in pairing my own acoustic folk preferences with the often electrified stylings of my bandmates, and balance is essential in allowing intricacies to breathe amongst multiple players. One must be mindful of the volume knobs on amplifiers to not blast away those intricacies.

TSH: What sort of atmosphere and feel do you look to generate with your live format?

MB: Ideally and most of the time the atmosphere is generated with the space and the audience. At our most recent show we did a stripped down set - myself playing a classical guitar and singing, Matt on a Casio keyboard and Jeff Johnson doing electronic noise and tape manipulation. We played some traditional tunes alongside some of our own more sparse, fingerpicky numbers. The result was supremely intimate and psychedelic.

TSH: What gives you most clarity in life?

MB: Distance and surrender to a sense of wonder I suppose do it best for me.

MM:: Sex, for about 5 − 7 minutes, for sure.

TSH: How much do you miss JJ the cat whilst on tour?

MM:: Endlessly. Beyond literal comprehension.

MB: Our noble John was sorely missed, however during our leave he had his romance with miss frappuchino aka chino ~ so he was occupied in learning the ways of love and romance.. Nonetheless upon our arrival home, and subsequently his arrival home, he dutifully reclaimed his post as guardian of the realm and has since slayed many a mouse and thwarted several vaporous enemies who had sought to do harm during the nightly witching hours.

TSH: Did you receive any answers after tweeting out ‘Any bat/bird/any animal stream sites you'd recommend?’…

MM:: Yes, my friend Juliet hipped me to Explore.org. Wildlife streams from all over the world!

TSH: What’s been getting most play on your recent YouTube binges?

MB: UFO documentaries, forbidden archaeology lectures, animal attacks and cryptid sightings caught on film.. I mostly use YouTube to catch up on coast to coast am broadcasts before they get taken down.

MM:: A fascinating wood-worker from Canada named Matthias Wandel, and “Through Time & Space”, lets you stream classic Jazz records. Both channels, highly recommended. Also everything Mike mentioned.

TSH: Which recent conspiracy theory would you say had you intrigued most?

MM:: (UFO emoji) & (Santa emoji) and JFK.

MB: The world is a conspiracy theory.

TSH: What are your top TV shows currently?

MB: I don't have the means to keep up with television shows but a close friend showed me the first episode of Stranger Things a few months ago and I liked it and would probably watch more if someone invited me over to watch it with them. At home we have a VHS player and a few X-Files tapes i like to watch sometimes.

MM:: Not sure, but Twilight Zone and X-Files have been most consistent in my life.

TSH: What are you mostly observant to with your future musical endeavours?

MB: I plan to continue nourishing my interest in traditional folk songs, in and outside of the creative pouring-outs of Shadow Band. I am also interested in the potential of soundtracking for film, or just visual/audio pairings in general. Someday I'd like to perform a concert for frogs in midsummer and collaborate more with non-humans in general. JJ has been working on an album so I've been working with him on the development end of things and may get credit as producer if all goes well (keep fingers crossed).

MM:: Stay above ground, create and harness the most good energy to further discover myself, and to hopefully inspire others to do the same.

Shadow Band - “Endless Night”

Wilderness of Love