#i want my online persona to have a face or a voice because i frequently have 'what if i die suddenly' thoughts

[simanzi]

posted a selfie on twitter but then i got scared n deleted it two minutes later

[ivy-meshle]

Okay I said on Tuesday in the tags I might talk about plurality n stuff wrt myself. Right now this is more stream of consciousness than anything polished, and idk if I’m going to be up to talking about it with people for a few days.

This is gonna get pretty long so I'm putting it under the cut:

(FWIW, I'm mainly using 'I' here, but that's because I've spent so long trying to make sure I keep plurality stuff off of this blog it feels weird to write 'we').

I think it was... fuck, six or seven years ago now? that I first learned what plurality even was, then another year and a half where I just kept thinking about it for weeks on end before I started to maybe consider that the reason I couldn't stop thinking about it was maybe the same reason I couldn't stop thinking about transness after I'd learned about that.

Even now, I'm still hesitant to claim plurality. It feels like a step too far- like I’m overstating things. I don't feel like one person, but I don't know that I feel like more than one, either. Certainly I don't have clear boundaries between one self and another. It’s more akin to distinct patterns of thoughts and behaviors that I feel like I snap between. Neural pathways that open and close.

There is one consistent pattern I've noticed though: when I'm in a period of stress, those distinctions become a lot clearer, and they tend to stay clearer than they were before even after I can unwind. Which is part of why I'm feeling more comfortable talking about plurality now; I know I'm going to be more people, more clearly, in the next four years.

The other major reason is that I want to not feel doubt every time I talk about us, that I'm just deluding myself. And that means that I need to get more used to talking about us.

So, uh, introductions, I guess? I've opted not to introduce characters (fictives(?)), since they tend to come and go more frequently- usually as I write about them. I think it's something about trying to get into their perspective that creates some of the same sort of neural pathways. If they stick around for longer than three months after I stop writing about them, I'll introduce them then. The sole exception here is Nensa, who meets that requirement.

For now: Hunter, 'me', host(?). He/it. Mostly responsible for getting people and things to where they need to be to work. Emotional regulation and planning type things.

Asher. He/ey. Math/physics nerd, problem solver. He handles the homework :Þ

Nensa. They/she. Minecraft Warden hybrid, stoic, helps with handling sensory overload mainly.

Miranda. She/her. Customer service voice social butterfly. When I need to talk to people at the bank or on the phone, she’s the one who takes the wheel.

Blake. He/him. Punk aesthetics and paranoia. He’s the one who keeps us from doxxing myself every other day, but also he keeps us from opening up to people. It’s a balancing act. (He’s very resistant to posting this.)

Dakota. She/her. Probably the first distinct self I identified; basically the face of my RSD. Very sensitive, cries frequently.

Ulyssa. She/it/void. Goth and angry and rude. It formed semi-on-purpose when Hunter decided to treat the negative self talk while I was spiraling like it was a person he could talk to and well. Now she is! Hunter tries to keep it and Dakota separate as much as possible.

Qwerty. It/she/he. Online persona, kinda? It only shows up when we’re on the internet. He’s more in tune with the social norms of the web than the rest of us are.

Anyways. Yeah. IDK. Life is weird and brains are weirder and I don’t necessarily think of myself as a system, but I would count myself as plural. That’s about the long and short of it.

Feels like I ought to say more, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m going to schedule this for, like, 9am my time so that I don’t have to actually hit that post button myself (scary). I also probably won’t be up for talking about this with other people (sorry mutuals!) for at least a few days. Thanks for listening.

( @ivy-meshle so I can rb this in the future )

[stillness-in-green]

When MVA/MLA Arc gets animated, what will you be looking forward to the most? What (canon-compliant) additions and/or changed do you want or think Bones should make, if any?

There’s--a lot.  Does that surprise anyone?  There’s a lot.

o  I have been foaming at the mouth for voice actor announcements for almost a year now, particularly for Trumpet, Geten and RD.           Trumpet’s superpower is literally his voice!  I mean, nothing about that statement requires that voice be particularly entrancing, but it certainly seems like it should be, right??             Geten is a boku-type in the manga, but that was literally the only hint foreshadowing his pretty boy face through 21 solid chapters of Pure Feral Gremlin.  Everyone was shocked by Geten’s face reveal!  How do you maintain that surprise value with an actual voice actor in the mix?  Do you not even try?  Do you play up the disparity--in which direction?  I can’t wait to see what they do.           And Re-Destro!  Re-Destro requires so much range!  From his peppy, silly businessman persona, to the urbane commander, from the overeager yes-man to the raving zealot--who on earth do you get to believably cover all that ground?  I can’t even begin to guess, but I am living in anticipation of that article going up on ANN or the official Twitter sources.

o  I’m also much looking forward to getting official coloring on Trumpet and Geten.  Skeptic seems pretty straightforward--black, black, more black--and RD and Curious, we have color art for, but I wonder if Trumpet will also be all black clothes, to go with that dignified politician image of his, or if he’ll get some color to pep him up a little.  What color are those tinted shades of his?  His eyes?  The wicked-cool Sevens Loud?           I assume Geten is all wintery shades, but it’ll be great to confirm which ones.  I mean, we all assume he’s white-haired to better annoy Dabi with family parallels, but what if he turns out to be platinum blond?  And are his eyes blue?  Gray?  White?  What color is that awful parka?           Also, Re-Destro’s stress powers.  Having been writing them as black since at least August--Rorschach test blots are generally black, after all, and they’re the clear inspiration--I would much like it if the anime would have my back on this.  They made Destro’s mask a dark cinnamon brown, though, so I’m prepared to be unpleasantly surprised in this matter.

o  Predictable MLA adaptational choices aside, I’m also eager/anxious about how they’ll handle Spinner’s narration.  What I really hope is that they actually straight-up hand him ALL the narration duties--not just the stuff he dictates directly in the manga, but also e.g. the name and quirk explanation material that Present Mic normally gets, or the previews that are always handled by Deku.           The opening and closing sequences are another big structural thing, of course--based on the flashed snippets of Hawks and Endeavor in both our current and the previous OP, I’m expecting we’ll see at least a bit of something referencing the upcoming internship arc (which I expect to close out the season), but I hope the villains just walk away with the closing entirely.  I want my slice of life villainy ED, dangit.

o  Another thing I’m eager/anxious about would be Kotarou, and the Shimura flashback generally.  There’s a brittle edge of to Kotarou that I really love, and I hope he manages to keep it in the anime, despite the anime being generally not so great at moments that I would describe as “delicate.”  For example, I’d like it if he doesn’t get a super deep voice, and if they could manage to keep his pretty face, and capture how deeply bitter and tired he looks in the scene where he’s reading the letter Nana left him.           Also, I hope they keep the little montage bits and, crucially, the changes of clothes the family goes through.  We see Tenko in no less than five, possibly as many as seven, different T-shirts through the course of that flashback.  It seems like a small thing, but it’s one of the factors that makes me skeptical that AFO gave Tenko Decay, when so many days clearly go by between the opening with the man at the door and the tragic end.  It’d be nice not to see too much resurgence on that just because the anime can’t be bothered to come up with more than one outfit for the Shimuras.

I have enough issues with the anime’s usual adaptation choices that I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high on the actual content of the episodes.  The staff is diverting too much of its major talent to the movies (BAH) these days for me to expect the whole season to look all that great, and it’s never been particularly creative or daring outside of its climactic sakuga-heavy fight scenes anyway.  I’ve also long had a bone to pick with its scoring decisions, and am already eyeballing the climax of the RD/Shigaraki fight and imagining the minor-keyed terrifying dirge I fear the anime will play there, at the moment that Re-Destro (and, shortly afterward, Spinner) are supposed to be experiencing something akin to religious awakenings.           There’s also the issue of the violence and gore--judging by how the anime handled the scene where Shigaraki and Compress maim Overhaul, I have some severe reservations about how much blood they’ll be allowed to get away with, particularly in the scene where the League brutally decimates that CRC group and, of course, Shigaraki’s backstory.  I’m looking at MVA to serve as a preview for how all the same issues will be addressed in the War Arc.

That bit of pessimism aside, as to what I’m hoping they’ll add or change?  Well, off the top of my head.....

o  I would love to get a full episode devoted to the time the League spends fighting Machia.  Not that first tussle, but the six grueling weeks in the mountains.  There’s so much you could add there for character building and atmosphere that Hori didn’t so much as montage through.  Where was their food coming from?  How’d they pick out places to pitch camp?  How much access to news from outside did they have, and how frequently?  What were the circumstances in which Gigantomachia “told them himself” about his great sense of smell??  Stuff like that!             I don’t think we’re at all likely to get this--honestly, the series of late has had enough of a problem with trimming bits and pieces that I’m as worried about what they might cut as I am hyped about things they might add--but the one thing that gives me some hope is the training camp arc.  Specifically, the moment 1-A first gets to the Pussycats’ forest, they get jumped by earth golems, a fight that the manga off-panels entirely, but the anime spends a modest amount of time on, giving the kids a little bit of time to show off their moves and such.  I’d love to get something equivalent for the League.

o  On a similar note, I wouldn’t turn it down if they fleshed out some of those running street fights a bit.  One obvious thing comes to mind: there’s a weird jump in the manga between Skeptic and a horde of his golems being all but on top of Twice at the beginning of 233 and then that fight just--doesn’t happen.  There’s no mention of it at all.  I think the suggestion is that either Machia’s appearance or the tower going down interrupted it--Skeptic breaks off from his fight the same way Geten and Trumpet do theirs, shifting focus to protecting Re-Destro--but it’d be nice to see the anime touch on it.

o  It’d be nice to get a bit of expansion on the nature of the bullying Spinner endured.  We’re told he was, but was it limited to verbal?  Did he get beaten up a lot?  Was there an online element?  Deku’s our only other reference point for “bullied kid,” and whatever one might think about the story’s development of Bakugou’s mentality, it’s been made clear in retrospect that there was a lot more too that than just the matter of Deku’s quirklessness.  I’d love to know how Spinner’s bullying looked in comparison (not least because of some of the theories about Spinner and Deku needing to come to some kind of accord to free Shigaraki from AFO).

o  Make the Villa (both here and during the War Arc) look more realistic.  By which I mean, I know Horikoshi is capable of drawing interesting and lived-in interior spaces--he has an entire chapter dedicated to it in the 1-A dorm room contest, after all--but he normally doesn’t bother much with it.  At UA, it’s not too distracting, because we know good and well that that whole building is probably maintained by Cementoss anyway.  Ditto places like Tartarus (intentionally, dehumanizingly barren) or the League’s post-Kamino hideouts (abandoned homes and industrial spaces).  But the Villa?            For heaven’s sake, it’s called a mountain villa.  It has a clear reception desk on the ground floor; it’s obviously some sort of high-end hotel, if not an outright resort or rentable retreat lodge.  Speaking as someone who’s worked in one, places like that don’t look as fuckin’ bare as the rooms we see there always seem to.  For fanfic purposes, I’m happy to go on telling myself that e.g. the pool and the bar and the restaurant(s) and the gym are in the building Cementoss doesn’t tear in half, but it’d be nice if the anime could class the whole place up a little, maybe put some real furniture and decor in the rooms that are in use.  (Yes, I know this is a ridiculous nitpick.)

o  This is less a change and more a correction, but for fuck’s sake, BONES, give us white-haired Shigaraki.  The climax of Deika is a solid time for it, given that it’s obvious in the manga that Shigaraki’s hair gets paler in Deika--you can see it in the way Horikoshi inks it (which is to say, the way he stops inking it)!  I think if we ever get white-haired Shigaraki in the anime, a somewhat better time as far as narrative justification goes would be when Shigaraki gets out of the tube in the War Arc; you could easily justify it as a side-effect of the surgery.  Still, I’d rather see it here.  I want white-haired Shigaraki, gleaming and brilliant through the scattering ash in that crater, a veritable angel of sacred destruction.           Honestly, more than anything, the crater sequence is the one I hope I love.  It’s probably my favorite single moment in the entire manga, as Shigaraki wins over Re-Destro, Spinner and Gigantomachia in the same moment, and finally comes into his own.  If they can at least nail that, I’ll consider myself pretty satisfied.

[masterhandss]

Hamefura Idol AU!

No one on tumblr really knows it but... I love idols, like idol animes and games are my childhood and has eaten away at my very soul. I like drawing and imagining idol aus for pretty much any show I get into, and sadly hamefura isn’t gonna be an exception to that :P

(i’ve yet to draw for my dumb au so have a placeholder image from an upcoming anthology by @/relaxmakoto)

Instead of being isekai-ed to a bootleg PS4 otome game, our monkey girl gets reincarnated into “Fortune Lover: Cinderella Idol!”, an idol-production rhythm game (help me i’m bad a choosing names).

(Long post, I’m basically gonna retell the entire game in an idol setting lol. I only wanted to draw for this au, but thinking about plot and gameplay was too fun so I wanted to share it)

The Game

The original game’s story follows Maria Campbell, the main character of the game who applied for a job in Sorcier Productions after seeing a wanted ad online. By some luck, she gets hired as a temp-producer for the famous male idol group “Fortuna”. After a few hours of gameplay involving producing the male idols (Gerald, Keith, Alan and Nicol) through the game’s tutorial (introducing various aspects of the gameplay like “Choosing your Idol”, “Getting Relationship Points”, “Rhythm Game Concert Mode”, “Idol Produce Mode”, “TV Drama Mode” etc), the game reveals the plot twist of the game: Not just the male idols, but you get to also idol-produce yourself!

By the outcome of various events, Maria ends up performing in the stead of another idol during a mini concert that she escorts the boys with, and immediately stole the hearts of the audience by her beauty and hidden talents! M.C. is actually the first idol in the “Self-Produced Idol” project, one that aims to determine and bring out the full talents of an idol by exposing them to all the in outs of the idol world. Maria ends up becoming quite known very quickly, being rumored as a “Cinderella” of the idol world (In sports, the term Cinderella is used to refer to situations in which competitors achieve far greater success than would reasonably have been expected, rather than the typical meaning of Cinderella which means “damsel”). This rumor leads her to the anti-hero rivals for Maria (who ends up joining you in the game as idols you can produce), the perfect idol Mary Hunt and the “rarely appears publicly despite her talents” Sophia Ascart.

They start out as rivals for the game but ends up becoming friends with you and becoming produce-able idols like the 4 boys. You can even form a trio unit with the girls if you have enough relationship points (when your trio unit “Amour” is unlocked, you get more events, songs and outfits for you and the two girls!). But the true antagonist of the game is Katarina Claes, a boastful and prideful newbie idol who joined a few months before Maria, who earned a fan base thanks to her confidence and mature style. She doesn’t have the best voiced or is very skilled at dancing, but her confidence and ideals draws people to love her for her unique character. Katarina lacks self-awareness though, and thinks that she is the jack of all trades when it comes to being an idol, thus leading her to have an unbelievable amount of self confidence when it comes to her popularity and skills. She despises Maria Campbell because of how much the articles praise her for her charm and adorable singing, as she thinks that Maria is nothing more than a wannabe that doesn’t know the harsh reality of the idol world (the irony of that is an important aspect of the game’s story, since Katarina is overly reliant on her producer Anne, and Maria is the one who works both as an idol and as a producer).

Maria doesn’t really play much into the “self-insert” protagonist, more like an involved protagonist like Izumi from A3 that plays an important role into the story. The player does get to choose Maria’s (and everyone else’s) songs, schedules, outfits etc. by the guise that you are Maria, working as both an idol and as a producer.

The game does have a “relationship points” system, which means you can actually date one of the boys form Fortuna (secretly). Even if you don’t intentionally date anyone, the game already does play the “you, the main character, are so important and they wouldn’t know what to do if you weren’t here” agenda that most games have, so the game already makes all the love interests seem interested with you regardless of whether you actively target Gerald, Keith, Alan or Nicol.

Katarina’s Bad End

(Rather than the life threatening doom flags of FL) In the game, Katarina Claes constantly sabotages Maria’s events and performances, creating the conflict in the “story mode” and the “events” of the game. Near the end of the game, the character who has the highest relationship points with Maria will reveal Katarina’s awful treatment of Maria in public, ruining Katarina’s reputation and causing her to lose public opinion and fans

Sabotaging fellow idols is actually quite common in idol stories, but the extent that Katarina goes for her bullying is terrible, which shocks the public because that side of the idol world had never been put into the forefront before. While Katarina does have an arrogant and prideful personality, learning that she, who didn’t have the cleanest reputation in the first place, has been harassing the darling of the idol world, meant that shows, programs, radios and events didn’t hire or invite Katarina anymore in fear of loss in sales or public outrage, leading to her eventual downfall.

The final event of the game, the Idol Queen Tournament, Katarina performs despite her ruined reputation, and was met with almost no response from the audience. Realizing that her life as an entertainer is ruined, she quits and vanishes from the public eye.

It is said in the epilogue that she moved into the country side, by a small farming field, shunned by her parents and the public for her embarrassing behavior, in order to repent and look back on her actions, much to her anger and disapproval.

The degree of Katarina appearances and story events differ depending on which male idol love interest Maria has the highest points in. Katarina is most active if you are closer to Gerald, as she is madly inlove with him and only became an idol to be by his side (as Gerald won as the “Idol King” of that year, and Katarina aimed to be his “queen”). Katarina is also frequently present in Keith’s events and interactions, as she makes fun of the both of you for being a disgrace as idols. She also appears on Alan and Nicole, but not as much.

“Fortuna” and “Amour”

Fortuna, the most popular male idol group during that time, and Amour the all-new girls idol unit, are the “produced” characters of the game

(i’m bad at thinking at idol group names so those are placeholders lol)

Gerald Stuart is a child actor known for being a perfectionist. Even as a child, he had a good face, pose, fashion sense, perfect memory, amazing acting talent and charisma to carry himself infront of a crowd. He became an idol in hopes of escaping the endless sea of acting offers he gets, and to just starve off a bit of his boredom and free time. He ends up becoming interest in their new producer Maria, due to her unique circumstance and how hard working and earnest she is. Idols are known for being prohibited from dating, but in the Gerald Ending Epilogue, he proudly announces Maria as the woman of his affections and deeply apologizes to all his rabid fans and supporters, and hopes to gain their support for his feelings for her. The two are crowned the “Prince and Princess” of the idol world for that decade.

Keith Claes is an adopted son of the Claes Household. He was bullied by his sister and mother, making him feel alone and isolated as a child. In his teens, he became a handsome playboy that easily caught the hearts of a female crowd, leading him to be scouted by someone in Sorcier Productions. He accepted, wanting to use the love of a huge fanbase to drown himself with praise and adoration and to fill the hole in his heart from years of trauma and loneliness.

Keith attempted to flirt with his new young producer, but gets constantly rejected due to the idea that idols can’t date (and bc Maria is just so busy), making him crave Maria’s attention even more. He ends up respecting her diligence, intelligence, beauty and honesty, making him slowly fall inlove with her. In the Keith Ending Epilogue, Keith confesses to Maria and wants to date her, but knows that he can’t just let go of the fans that he gained from his playboy persona, so instead he gives her a promise ring, telling Maria that when their whole “idol” thing is over with and pass them, he hopes to be able to date her (and even marry her) for real one day without a fanbase that might attempt to seperate them.

Alan Stuart is the twin brother of Gerald, who is often compared to his twin brother due to his lack of acting and entertainment skills. Alan does however, have a deep love for music. He might not be as good with instruments as his brother, but unlike Gerald, he truly loves composing and performing music and finds solace in the melodies that he can convey. Alan ends up becoming an idol due to his love for music, with the desire to one day use the connections he can make as an idol to become a full-time composer and song writer (as well as to generally learn how to sing bc he secretly likes that too). Alan also wanted to be an idol as a way to compete with his brother in an area that he is more knowledgeable on.

Throughout Alan’s encounters with Maria, he ends up rejecting Maria’s friendship and praises due to his inferiority with his brother. Through time, Maria’s constant praises of Alan’s music and singing ends up resonating with him, leading up to her telling him that he shouldn’t compare himself to his twin brother and there are only things that he is good at, like his music. Maybe a line like “Not even Gerald can recreate the melodies that you write and compose, Alan! These scores are very Alan-like, and there’s nothing I’d rather listen to; nothing that warms my heart more. This is something only you can do, as Alan and no one else” does him in.

In the Alan Ending Epilogue, he admits that his heart isn’t ready for a relationship yet, but declares that he wants to be with Maria forever and that from the moment Maria started to make an impact in his life, she had become the “Aria” of his music, and that he wants her to know that he will always write his music with his love for her in mind. He wants to be able to convey his love for her through song one day, and he hopes that she will continue to love him until he finds the right words to sing.

Mary Hunt is the daughter to a famous businessman and politician, who has connections to the Stuart Family. She met Alan by accident, during the dinner party in her house for his father’s birthday. Mary was hiding in her beloved garden, and had encountered Alan who had done the same, before she could retreat to her safe haven. She was in awe as she watched Alan play and sing a song in his small guitar, almost thinking that the song was for her. They ended up singing in a duet, with Alan complimenting her voice, saying that she should develop it. Mary instantly fell inlove with Alan, and had trained herself in the same musical arts that Alan loved, especially the voiced that he had complimented, in order to one day become worthy of performing by his side. She had originally assumed that Alan wanted to perform for an opera or musical, but when she found out that Alan wanted to become an idol, she auditioned to Sorcier Pro. as fast as she could.

In Alan’s ending, Mary was very heartbroken to know that she could not be the one to stay by her beloved Alan’s side, but silently thanked Maria for breaking Alan free from the inner turmoils that Mary knew was an impossible job for her. Despite her feelings, she still wanted to sing by Maria’s side and congratulates the two with all of her heart.

Nicol Ascart is the son to the esteemed Ascart Family, owner of the Ascart Inc., one of the major sponsors for Sorcier Productions. Nicol has been a child model and was popular since childhood because of his beautiful face. He doesn’t talk much, so when someone has filmed him singing to himself in the hallways in highschool, it immediately went viral, causing various scouts to offer him a role as an idol. Nicol had only accepted his request due to the circumstances of his little sister, Sophia.

Sophia Ascart is born with unique features, leading to her being bullied and made fun of in public due to her stage appearance. Sophia has always loved idols, being envious of their ability to enchant a crowd and sing songs about their feelings out loud. She had a sweet voice and an adorable face, but her hair and eyes caused people to think of her as a freak. She wanted to become one, but knew it would impossible for her. Nicol decided to use his popularity to jump-start Sophia’s possible idol career, by trying to brainwash/persuade his fans to also love Sophia (when she first joined and started as an idol). It didn’t work on everyone, but he was determined to help his sister.

When Maria befriends and even starts a unit with Sophia, Nicol eventually fell for the woman who made both his and Sophia’s wish come true. There’s also the fact that as their producer, Maria became a true friend of Nicol’s, one that didn’t look at him with obsessive desire and only wanted nothing more than to be a friend and an ally.

In the Nicol Ending Epilogue, he quits being an idol due to his desire to eventually join his father in the family business, much to the disappointment of his fans, but promises to always watch Maria from the side lines. He would always send bouquets almost everyday, with small cards giving the declarations of love that he normally wouldn’t be able to vocalize. He thanks her for supporting both him and his little sister, and promises to jump to her side once she is done being an idol.

Bakarina

As usual, Katarina ends up remembering her future as an 8 year old kid, and plans to prepare for her future “banishment” and humiliation. She learns to farm in order to provide for herself once she gets shunned and retreats to the countryside, and (unknowingly) meets all the characters in the game and gains their good favor before the events of the game begins

I’ll write the rest of the plot involving reincarnated!Katarina next time lol :P

This au is obviously heavily influenced by a lot of the Idolmaster console and mobile games, Ensemble Stars, A3, Vocaloid Project Diva games, Aikatsu etc lol. Thanks to anyone who gets to read till the end. Feedback (and name suggestions) are very appreciated! Hamefura is still a small fandom so idk if i’d write for this au, but it’s a good enough excuse to draw the girls in cute idol clothes so i’ll take it XD)

[jeonggukingdom]

splinters of love • day XXVI [pjm]

pairing  ⟶ park jimin x fem!Reader

summary  ⟶ a collection of drabbles (one for each day of April) based on prompts by an online prompts’ generator site. Specifically  ⟶  • day XXVI ↳ in which you and Jimin find each other again after years apart and he promises to never let you go again.

genre  ⟶ angst, a tiny tiny bit of smut

rating  ⟶  18+

word count ⟶ 2.189 words

warnings  ⟶ allusions to sex towards the end of the drabble, cheating, heartbreak, hard-hitting confrontation between past lovers.

series masterlist  ⟶ here  (links on mobile may not work, if you’re looking for all the works in this series, you can click on the “!splintersoflove” tag and you’ll find them all there!)

There are some days where you wake up and you know by instinct something is going to happen.

It’s a sensation deep in the guts that follows you whole day long and usually, it is pretty accurate.

This morning you wake up with that sensation of unease that always leaves a foul taste in your mouth, tightens your insides so much it is hard to even gulp down food and store it there and makes you so hyper-aware of your surroundings that every muscle ends up being tense for the entire day.

You are walking down the street to grab some dinner at the convenience store and retreat in the safety of your home when it finally happens.

At first, you don’t notice him.

Eyes glued to the ground and mind rattled with thoughts—most of which work-related—you would barely notice a celebrity even if you were to bump into one let alone someone you would have never expected to be there even in a million years.

“_______?”

The sound of your name is what startles you out of your thoughts.

Your eyebrows furrow, your eyebrows knit together as you slowly lift your gaze up.

Dread and fear are furiously dancing together inside your heart while your mind tries to make sense of what your guts are telling you.

You would recognise that voice amongst thousands. It’s the voice that haunted you for the past two years, filled all of your dreams and thoughts ever since you heard it for the very last time.

But it’s impossible. He can’t be here and even if he were… he wouldn’t talk to you. No.

But your eyes finally land on the man standing before you and in an instant, you are breathless.

Park Jimin.

His dark chocolate eyes are warm and as beautiful as you’d remember them to be. You follow the line of his nose, focus on his plump and rosy lips, on the little smile that tugs them to the side.

He is as beautiful as ever, painfully so.

His hair is blonde now, a stark contrast to the raven mop you were used to. He is mesmerising in his new angel-like persona and you find your eyes glued on him, no matter how much you try to pull them away, fix them on anything else that is not him.

You fear he might just be the fruit of your own imagination, the final evidence that you’ve completely lost your mind and there is no hope for you now.

“Jimin?” Your voice is small, barely above a whisper and it seems to shake him, make him uncomfortable.

How many times have you said that name before, whispered it over and over again in the despair of the aftermath of your break up? Maybe some of that agony still lingers in it to this day. Or maybe it’s your eyes and the way they already shine with tears and anguish.

He diverts his gaze first and your heart turns small in your chest. Does he regret calling your name now? Probably.

You do wonder, though, why did he even bother. He broke your heart two years ago, left you for another woman he loved more than you and never looked back so why… why would he?

Your thoughts halt as he opens his mouth again and the dulcet tone of his voice brings warmth to your entire being.

“How are you?” It’s a simple question but it elicits a bitter laugh out of you. You’d love to ask him why does he even care but you don’t dare to. Pathetic as it may be, you don’t want this moment to end already.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight,” he adds when you don’t retort anything and you can almost make out a hint of guilt in his voice.

“What are you doing here?” You decide to respond because, really, you need an answer because your heart is going all crazy in your chest and your mind is getting funny and dangerous thoughts that shouldn’t be there at all.

He knows this place is around your house, he knows you come here frequently because you always did, even when you were together.

You haven’t seen him in two years. Not a single glimpse of him and now, all of a sudden, he happens to be here?

It looks almost as if he was hoping to run into you.

No. No. You can not think like that. No.

“I…” Jimin grimaces, fixes his eyes on his shoes for a second before lifting his gaze back up to your face, “I was hoping we could talk, actually.”

The fact that you were right does not settle your heart a single bit in fact, it sends your entire system into overdrive. Should you grasp that hope you’re starting to feel, keep it close and hang on to it to the very last second or should you let it go before it’s too late, before you’re left alone and broken once more?

“Why?”

Jimin sighs, shakes his head and dares a few steps towards you until you can almost feel the heat emanating from his body caressing your own.

Your breath hitches.

“Can we do this somewhere more… private?”

You would say no, that out here in the streets is perfectly fine but you can’t bring yourself to say it. Instead, you walk him to your apartment.

It’s stupid, you know it is. You should not let him rekindle with those familiar four walls, you should not spark up the memories of him being inside here to have them haunt you once more when he leaves.

Yet you do it all. You welcome him back in, you offer him a cup of coffee and in a few minutes, you are sitting at the table in your kitchen looking at each other in perfect silence.

“Were you looking for me?” You ask, eyes pointedly fixed on your cup so not to let your gaze linger too long on his beautiful and alluring face.

“Yes.”

“Why? Is there something you need from me?”

Jimin takes in a sharp breath and you sense him fidgeting on his seat as he stares down at you.

“I realise we didn’t end things on a good note but do you really think that low of me?”

You’d like to say no but the truth is that you don’t know. He cheated on you, lied to you and then broke your heart and never looked back so why should you expect something different from him now?

“What do you want, Jimin?” Your voice trembles as your eyes fill with tears. The moment your gaze fixes on him, you are doomed.

The tears come pouring down and you don’t even bother to hide them, pull them away with your fingers and pretend they never happened.

Jimin’s gaze falls on his lap, a deep sigh escaping his parted lips. He looks… defeated and guilty and the sight shouldn’t pain you but it does.

A part of you wants to kick him out of your life once and for all yet another one wants to cling onto him until he promises to never disappear ever again.

“I’m sorry… for everything.” He lifts his gaze back on you and you are surprised to see his eyes glistening with tears. The remorse shines like stars in his eyes and it makes you feel even more complicated.

“I realise I don’t deserve forgiveness but I really regret how I ended things, how I acted before then even and all I did afterwards.”

He gulps down heavily, heaves out another sigh as if every word he is speaking him hurts him more than he is letting you see.

“It didn’t take me long to realise I made the biggest mistake of my life, you know?”

Your eyebrows furrow together, your knuckles turning white around your cup of coffee.

“I wanted to call you or even come here and beg you to take me back but I was so ashamed… Me and Natalie broke up after two months.”

Even the sound of her name on his mouth makes you want to throw up. All the hurt from that time comes rushing back down and you feel like you’re going to choke on it all over again.

You can’t do this, you can’t do this, you can’t do this.

You want to run away. Run away from him, from what he’s telling you, from whatever this is.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I… I never stopped thinking about you.”

“Please, Jimin… you have no right to do this to me again, please.” Your heart is bare before him as it always was but he had crushed it once so he could it again, over and over even if he only wanted to and that is why you are begging him not to. You are sure you can’t do it all over again.

“I-I know but…” he trails off, his hands grasping tight the table between the two of you and you realise how hard he is trying not to cut your distance short, place those hands around your frame and pull you into a hug.

“Why now? If you broke up with her immediately then why are you here now? It’s been two years, Jimin.”

“I know it’s selfish, ok? I know I don’t have any right and I’m glad you even gave me the opportunity to talk to you it’s just that… I still love you.”

His words break you apart.

You are crying before him, sobbing with the wrenching pain that takes you over completely.

You have been trying to forget him all this time and failing. You have tormented yourself for two years and now he is here to tell you it was all for nothing? That he still loved you like the very first day? Like you loved him still?

You can’t stand it.

His arms are around you and you try to push him away, you yell at him to let you go, you punch his chest and he lets you do it all, he takes it all while silently crying before you, head hung in shame.

You can’t stand this either.

“You broke my heart.” You whimper out and he nods his head, apologizes over and over again until your tears dry and your body relaxes in his familiar embrace.

“I know I don’t deserve you but please give me another chance, please.”

Why do you want to say yes so badly? Why don’t you have at least an ounce of respect for yourself or at least some self-preservation instinct?

“I will never let you go ever again.”

His whisper is full of promises and you’d love to believe him just like that but how can you? You are simply too scared, too hurt, too scarred by your past.

“Don’t do this to me, Jimin. Don’t tell me you love me, don’t tell me you made a mistake, don’t tell me you won’t ever let go of me again if you don’t mean it… Please don’t do this to me, I beg you.”

“But I do mean it, ________. I mean it with all my heart and I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you if you’ll let me.”

You should kick him out and forget this ever happened but when his hands grasp your face and you look into his eyes again and see nothing but love and sincerity in them, you simply can’t.

And when he leans forward and you think you should push him away, you don’t and instead, you let him kiss you.

You let his lips mark yours, embrace them as they used to. You let his tongue dance with yours, you let his fingers grasp your frame, caress your skin and take over every single inch of you.

In an instant, you are his again and it doesn’t matter how much you scream to yourself that it is wrong, that you’ll regret it, that you shouldn’t be doing any of this you just can’t push him away.

Your fingers grab his hair, tug on it until he is whimpering in what you know to be pleasure and you pull him harder into you, force your bodies to press against each other until nothing stands between them, not even the fine air.

He undresses you in the kitchen and you let him, he kisses every inch of you and you let him and when he makes love to you, you scream his name over and over again not caring a single bit of who might hear you.

You are his. You always were and in the morning, when you wake up inside his embrace you start believing that maybe he is yours too, again.

You let yourself hope and maybe it’s a mistake in the long run but right now, you are the happiest you’ve been since he closed that door behind his back and you would not trade this with any other thing in the entire world.

Copyright © 2020 by jeonggukingdom. All rights reserved. Do not repost, do not steal, do not translate without consent.

[nutty1005]

Xiao Zhan: Heart of a Youth – Serenity, Ingenuous and Principled

Translator’s Note: I take a break from the acting analysis articles and bring you something more current... I hope all of us can draw strength from this!

Original Article:https://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404480985398902834#_0 Original Author: 雪色烟波里

“He is but a child of 30 years old.”

Quite frequently, the phrase “He is just a child” had been used as an excuse by fans, and I am not sure since when this has changed to become a way of mockery. Even before fans uttered anything on this, “bystanders” would have started going crazy with “although he made a mistake, he is still a child! So we should not let this go!”. I agreed very much with this statement – no one should use the identity of a child to absolve his responsibilities as an adult, an adult should act as one. However, when they started using this phrase on Xiao Zhan, and added his age as a form of mockery, this started to stink…

I felt as though I was personally insulted, since I am a self-claimed young girl nearing the age of 30. Using someone’s age as an insult is very impolite, since no one escapes the fate of becoming a 30 year old.

Always realistic about his age, and his self-deprecating laugh when he speaks of his entry to entertainment business 

To me, being of a certain age and yet having a heart of a youth is not conflicting. Some 18 year old could be methodical, sleek and boring, while others could be 80 and still retain their heart of a child, innocent and unblemished. As for Xiao Zhan, he had always positioned himself as an adult, and never used any excuses to shrink from his responsibilities, and therefore when his age was used as a weapon against him, and calling him a “30 year old child”, is definitely inappropriate. However, in the current darkness, I was able to see his heart of youth and his simplicity.  And I would put this across with the following phrase. 

A poem is always hard to translate, and therefore I give you the caption words instead. Serenity, ingenuous and principled.

SERENITY

“I always reminded myself, for many things, there is no need to openly display that on the screen, but you should just quietly do, and your efforts would always be seen. There is no need to fight for everything, and fighting for screen time would definitely be something not needed.” —- Xiao Zhan

The clip below was shot on 1 Feb 2016, when Xiao Zhan just debuted. Not vying or fighting might sound ridiculous in the world of adult, but this encompassed the entirety of Xiao Zhan’s acting career. No matter whether he was a side character, a supporting character or the lead character, he had always been quiet and low-key.

Moving automatically to the side for ”Joy of Life“ announcement press conference

In his group, he is willing to be on the sides and become part of the background, always all smiles but never speaking much, always wanting to do his personal best, but never looking for any rewards. In most of the concerts, he would be in the corner, running across the stage to get into position, but never skimping on his dance moves. 

Xiao Zhan when his group was still active 

Xiao Zhan during the Talent Show, as bright as the sun 

I liked to watch Xiao Zhan’s stage performances very much. From a technical perspective, his dance skills were way off from that of a professional’s, but you could definitely feel his enthusiasm no matter how far off to the side he was. Instead of admirable skills, he utilized more of his ability to inject emotions into his performances, creating an atmosphere of joy and passion. He enjoyed every single of his performances with passion. No matter whether there were flowers or applause for him, he always gave his 100% to the stage. For one to understand his dancing style, gifs are not enough; I would recommend watching his fan focused videos to understand better. 

Enjoying the stage with all of him 

That infectious smile

As a group vocal, Xiao Zhan is quite decent – his high notes are clear, his tone clean and warm, and generally very unique. Personally, I enjoy many of his China themed songs, never tiring from songs such as Qu Jin Chen Qing [曲尽陈情] (Wei Wuxian OST from the Untamed) and the cover of A Laugh over the Blue Sea [沧海一声笑] (OST from the The Smiling, Proud Wanderer movie).

Recently, there were many who mocked at him for being an idol vocal but not knowing how to use an in-ear monitor, but they never thought about whether a vocal of a relatively unknown idol group would have the right to his own personal in-ear monitor. He had to borrow for his performances, and if he was not able to adjust in time, he would just have to bear with it, because he had no right to complain. After he attained some fame, he was able to finally get his own in-ear monitor, and he immediately started learning from his mentors, so what is there to mock? I only saw a person who was able to practice patience in adversity, work hard and progress in good times. By watching the entire series of “Our Song”, you would have a better understanding of his vocal skills.

Xiao Zhan during the rehearsal of Our Song 

Xiao Zhan singing “My China Heart” on CCTV 

After attaining some level of fame, Xiao Zhan did not let that get to his head, but instead clearly understood his current position, and that popularity could be temporary, only his works would be the basis of his career. Many of his colleagues would describe him as “hardworking and down-to-earth”. In terms of his career, he never slacked off any of his jobs, always prepared and went all out. In interpersonal relations, he was always polite and restrained, and treated everyone around him modesty and warmth. His attitude towards his acting was that he always had to do better than what he did previously. His sense of serenity was not limited to just himself or to his future, and this instead created endless possibilities for his future. 

Always grateful 

He never liked to claim credit, never cared about having commendations – when the host said that the Summer of 2019 belonged to Wei Wuxian, he replied that the Summer of 2019 belonged to The Untamed. When the fans were looking forward to his undubbed performances, he instead pointed out that the voice actors did plenty of value add. When the host asked him about that famous clip of him tearing up during script reading, he instead pointed out Xuan Lu and said that she was also tearing up but it was not captured on screen. You can understand how emotionally intelligent and humble he was just from a few interviews.

Humble, kind and sincere

Detailed and polite 

He believed that hard work could change his fate, his faith almost like that of a fresh-faced youth – he did not care about everything else, except that if he did well enough he would be eventually rewarded. However, is the world really like this? He opened a path with his stubborn simplicity, and forced his way out, but now he has tripped and fallen. While everyone else is cheering and trying to add fuel to the flames, looking at this “entertainment business oddity” paying the price for not keeping to the “rules”, there may be just a handful of us reflecting on why it would be so difficult for a normal person to succeed. Does it mean that eking out a path on your own with just courage would only result in failure? This is something I refuse to believe. I will wait, and wait for him to stand again, to prove to the world that a person can create his own path with hard work, and we can follow every of his steps and not be defeated easily! 

We will not be easily defeated 

INGENUOUS

On why he did not change his Weibo account after joining the entertainment business:

“I did not change because there was no need to. There is nothing to hide from the others. In those times, in 2010, that was exactly how I felt, I’m very open, I feel that there’s really nothing. In fact, this proves that my personality is not what everyone thinks as “super nice”, I’m just a living person, I feel that no one is perfect, and I don’t want to be a perfect doll.” —- Xiao Zhan

Ingenuous

He did not change his Weibo account after 5 years in the entertainment business, he had always been a candid person. However, he overestimated the world’s tolerance and kindness, and all his personal inside jokes from his commoner days had been used to smear his and his friends’ reputation. Now, if you open Weibo, you would can see all the cyber-bullying against him, as though he had done a heinous crime, but the basis of all these were just some vulgarities he said 10 years ago. Is not the world ridiculous? Based on this, I could have been the most evil girl online, if whatever I said in Baidu Forums were ever exposed, since not only I used vulgarities, I also mocked posters who made a fool of themselves, but these history does not stop me from choosing to be a kind and upright person today. A person is ever-changing, and if we had to gauge a person’s current state on what he did 10 years ago, wouldn’t that be narrow minded? In fact, the Weibo environment 10 years ago is different from that of today, and it is ridiculous to impose current rules on something that was done 10 years ago. I respect all who are candid about themselves, and I would want to be such a person as well, and face the world with an open mind. 

The cyber-bullying could be seen everywhere 

This is overboard… and also something I rather not translate 

Xiao Zhan did not deliberately create any persona, and his candid nature in handling himself is very obvious. He did not pretend to be someone he was not, did not shy away from showing his anxiety, and always used his true self to face everything:

During his Milan interview, he said excitedly that this was his first time to Europe.

During his time in X-Fire, on his first high speed rail trip, he was so excited that he recorded a vlog on it.

During one of their group activities, the organizers arranged for them to stay in an luxurious hotel, and he was so excited that he recorded another vlog on it, showing off the hotel as well as the huge bathtub.

When faced with a cat, he would smile in spite of himself. And he would play with random cats, be accidentally scratched by one and had to go for jabs.

His phone wallpaper had always been of “The God of Fortune”

His eyes would brighten up when he speaks or hears of money.

In fact, if you study him long enough, you would know that he is not perfect, but just a vivid, living person like each and everyone of us.

“This is my first time to Europe” “I just felt, wow, this is amazing!”

His excited face on his way to the high speed rail 

His excitement introducing his hotel room, and whoever used this to spread rumors is just plain evil 

An ingenuous gentleman, his heart pure and clear, he does not need to be secretive about himself, nor does it need to disguise himself. This is the Xiao Zhan I know, and I accept every of his imperfections, and I am willing to work with him to become a better person. I hope that when I am nearing 30 years old, I would still be exuberant when I encounter the first snows of that year. 

And I hope that your heart will always remain clear, and your eyes forever starry 

PRINCIPLED

“I feel that youth is that strength, just that strength, undaunted, undefeated by fate and fearless.” —- Xiao Zhan

In Everlasting Classics, Xiao Zhan sang “Bamboo in the Rock”. To be a person, one would strive to be a gentleman. To be a gentleman, one would strive to be like bamboo – unwavering against strong winds, and upright between the heaven and earth.

Relentlessly holding onto the mossy hill The roots buried within broken rocks Tough and strong despite endless erosion and assault Firmly against winds from all directions

Xiao Zhan said that his inner self is like bamboo, firm and tenacious. Many would scoff at this, and say that he did not do enough to control his fans. But is this really the issue of him not providing guidance for his fans? In fact, he has always been telling his fans, but this had been hijacked by the racket of public opinion.

“I can see that you say that studying is difficult, or work makes you unhappy, but growth is like climbing a mountain, the bigger it is, the harder it is, leave your grouses in your heart, when you look back at these problems again, you will realize that they were not difficult.” —- Xiao Zhan

“Actually, I want to tell everyone that no matter whether schooling or working, don’t forget to love life, to experience life and notice everything around you, love it!” —- Xiao Zhan

“There are both sides to everything, there are people who likes you and there will definitely be people who doesn’t like you, you don’t have to care too much about it. As long as we have good momentum, there will be more who will like us, and I will fight hard for those who likes us.” —- Xiao Zhan

Did anyone hear those?

“Idol and fans are actually symbiotic, we support each other and move forward together. When we live our respective lives well and continue to become better selves.” —- Xiao Zhan

“Hence I would say that my fans, I feel that you must first live your lives well so that you have spare time to like and follow the idol you like.” —- Xiao Zhan

Did anyone remember those?

“I am actually very careful, because now I represent not just Xiao Zhan, but my team as well, and if not for myself, there is no need to create unnecessary trouble. Frankly speaking, I haven’t met anything I can’t quite solve myself. But for many problems, others could only provide some opinions, give some directions, cheer you on, but they can’t really solve it for you. How to persist, how to endure, still all depends on myself, because only I know what really happened.” —- Xiao Zhan

“I feel that the ideal status is not changed by regrets. What is most important about life is making sure we live in the present and live well, and not regret the past. The present and future are the most important.” —- Xiao Zhan

Did anyone understand these?

He never stopped his guidance, but many were blind to them. Xiao Zhan’s firm attitude comes from being strict with himself, instead of becoming a nagging teacher disciplining his countless fans. A person could choose the person to like, but the person could not choose who would like him. Some people could not even be disciplined by their parents, how could this burden be instead placed on Xiao Zhan, who even has problems finding time to sleep? Is this not being difficult? If he had this ability, he might as well not be an actor, but become a professional educator.

He had always been providing guidance, but he definitely cannot control everyone

When large groups of anti fans overtook the “Secret Garden” in Sept 2019, spamming that post with the bad comments, his fans quickly counter spammed the post in fear that he might discover and read those bad comments. The unnatural spike in comments obviously alerted him, and he posted “I’m here, goodnight”. Those who took this out of context to claim that he was inciting more verbal war obviously did not see the entire comment. 

The “shhhhh” emoticon is often left out when pointing this out. 

In the storm of cyber-bullying, the only target is Xiao Zhan, because his Weibo account is the only one attached to a real name.

His personality is 100% firm and tenacious. His tenacity is in how he insisted to his doctor that he would continue to practice his dance steps despite inflammation in his knees; when his toenail fell off, he only asked if it would regrow. His tenacity is in how he would wear thick layers of period drama costume in the height of summer, and wear tattered rags in the deep freezing cold of winter. His tenacity is in shooting period dramas for straight 2 years, not knowing if they would actually be allowed to air. His tenacity is in how he would be fighting a lawsuit against his management, saying “Don’t look back, ever!”, while at the same time managing his endorsement deals by himself and plotting his own future. His tenacity is in how he would not give up despite not earning enough to support himself, and having to go to events by himself without any assistants.

He had survived one of the toughest period, so why should he admit defeat this time round? He would not, and his fans also have no reason to abandon him as well. He is faultless in this, and perhaps causing envy is his only fault here. Time will prove his innocence, falsehoods will not withstand the test of time.

Biting his air tickets, so that he has spare hands to carry his own luggage. We will not give up no matter how tough it gets. 

We will accompany you through thick and thin

We will become better people together

And I will end this article with another poem from Zheng Ban Qiao (the poet for Bamboo in the Rock):

A bamboo, an orchid and a rock, with integrity, discipline and fortitude

In a room these oozes gentlemanliness, evergreen against the test of time

A bamboo, an orchid and a rock, with integrity, discipline and fortitude

Firmly against gales and snowstorm, they will bring the news of the spring breeze

[obsidianarchives]

Slavery in Thedas: How BioWare Could Bring Nuance to Dragon Age

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), video gaming’s most prominent trade show, has dimmed its lights and shuttered its doors until next June. One game that was conspicuously absent was the highly anticipated fourth installment of the Dragon Age franchise from EA-owned BioWare. This isn’t so surprising since a Kotaku article detailed the turmoil going on at BioWare that led to a truly abysmal reception for its latest game: their first try at an online loot-and-shoot adventure, Anthem.

Still, I must admit that I have thought about Dragon Age every day since The Game Awards of December 2018. That’s when BioWare dropped a 65-second teaser and launched a hashtag that had me hooting triumphantly in my living room, #TheDreadWolfRises. I even wrote an article about who from the past games should appear in the next.  

I have met some of my all-time favorite characters and gone on my most beloved adventures while traversing the carefully crafted world of Thedas (The Dragon Age Setting). A big part of that is due to the broader themes of how theocracy, colonization, and war affect the marginalized and enrich the powerful. 

Creating worlds

of adventure, conflict and companionship

that inspire you to become the hero of your story.

The statement above is only one of the many messages on BioWare’s website that highlight how much they value story and characters in their games. This attitude has served BioWare well. Its last unqualified success, single player RPG Dragon Age Inquisition, earned a whopping 130 Game of the Year Awards in 2015 and had professional critics specifically praising its story. 

Of course, not everyone has been impressed. BioWare frequently gets criticized by what I like to refer to as the “dude bro army” for daring to include PoVs that aren’t in lock step with the dominant culture. Read: “Y’all have too many queers, coloreds, and non-hot ladies in your games!” Back in 2011, the lead writer for the Dragon Age series at the time, David Gaider, wrote a response to one such gamer on their now-defunct message board that was so well crafted it garnered press. Gaider, an out gay man himself, challenged the notion that video games should cater to the fabled  “straight male gamer” that all such close-minded dude bros evoke when complaining about diversity. As a bi Black woman gamer, this endears BioWare to me even more. 

All is not perfect, however. In addition to sex and sexuality, racial oppression and hegemony are two frequently explored themes in Dragon Age games. There is an allegorical connection between the systemic and situational anti-elf sentiment found throughout Thedas and the anti-Black sentiment that runs rampant in our own world. The problem is that many of these experiences are written and crafted by folks who have never been on the receiving end of this kind of oppression. Although talent and empathy carry the stories surprisingly far, the devil is in the details.   

In fact, the usual formula of giving players the freedom to choose how they want to act allows for just as much conquest, haughty disinterest in ethical decision making, and even slave profiteering as opportunities to fight those evils. (I try not to think of how many players across the globe regularly sell elves to slavers for a few in-game bucks while I’m murdering every slaver that the game will allow.) 

This is why when another Kotaku article reported that a Dragon Age project set in Tevinter—the slave trade capital of Thedas—was scrapped, I didn’t share in the disappointment that bubbled throughout fandom. Quite frankly, I was relieved. I unfortunately don’t see BioWare being able to craft a story taking place in Tevinter in a way that won’t be chock full of obliviousness, microaggressions, and straight up triggers for Black players. 

How can I think this way about one of my favorite game franchises of all time, you ask? Well, in Inquisition, it was not only possible, but extremely easy for someone playing as an elf to make a mistake and wipe out their entire clan while assigning missions on the war table. Because this process takes place over multiple in-game decisions and hours of gameplay, there was no way to go back and fix it. What’s more, no one even acknowledges that it happened in the game.  

To be fair, the developers admitted that this was a problem, but saw it more as a design faux pas akin to other similar war table missions that went awry. To me, it resounded particularly loud to see an oppressed people who were frequently set upon by aggressive humans get extinguished like a flame all due to my actions. What’s more is that this is my Inquisitor’s family and the only society she’d known until the beginning of the game. To say it jettisoned me out of the heroic role play fantasy for a while would be an understatement. 

Later in the “Jaws of Hakkon” mission, when it is revealed the first Inquisitor was also an elf but the chantry (church) scrubbed all records of this from history, the game similarly ignores the profound implications this would have for an elven Inquisitor. I have spent my whole adult life trying to sankofa (go back and fetch) all the history of my people that has been deliberately obscured or warped by a western school system. This connected to my life in a way that was never even partially explored in the game. 

Other ways a few high ranking Black developers could have helped BioWare is with Dorian. Sure, he’s one of their most dynamic, fun, and charismatic characters in Inquisition. But he’s also an unrepentant slave owner who, even late in the game, vacillates between vacuously apologizing to Solas for Tevinter’s fabled domination of Elvhenan and encouraging the annoyed elf to enslave spirits to do his bidding.

And then there’s Vivienne, the one character designed as a Black woman. Look, I’m not suggesting that tough as nails, power enthusiast Vivienne should’ve dropped her unfriendly Black hottie status and held hands with everyone. But how much more nuanced and mindful would Vivienne’s characterization have been in the hands of a Black woman who has spent her academic and professional career modulating her voice and carefully curating her demeanor to avoid the scarlet letter of being dubbed “angry” or “difficult”? What made “The Iron Lady” into the cold, calculated defender of the status quo? The horrors and indignities she must have faced in the Ostwick Mage Circle that led her to create her impregnable persona are never even hinted at.

Furthermore, Vivienne is immediately and permanently pit against the most lovable character in the game, Cole. No one in the game seems to understand her position. She is a Circle mage that was taught to mistrust and fear demons before she was able to read. Of course she’s scared to death of Cole! Instead, the game just casts her as an irrational bigot and a danger to ‘innocent’ Cole, a being that even admits he is potentially quite dangerous.

And that's not to mention Sera's internalized elven racism and self-hatred that could have used more nuanced handling from someone of a community that deals with such things.

I just…Hire some Black writers and developers, BioWare. 

That way when you explore these themes common to our experience there will be a level of authenticity Black players can appreciate and identify with immediately while non-Black players get to enjoy a narrative shaped by people with a deeper connection to the subject matter. Having multiple queer writers helped the sexuality content immensely; it’s time to do the same for the racial commentary.

Patrick Weekes, the current lead writer for the Dragon Age series is an immense talent. He wrote my favorite character in the entire franchise, The Iron Bull, and two others in my top 10, Cole and Solas. I have no doubt that he and his team will create an incredible yarn, but if BioWare wants to level up and reclaim their former glory after their last few games have struggled, leaving their brand a bit tarnished, they are going to have to evolve and invest in more diverse, authentic voices.

[ospreys-watch]

Bird’s Eye Review: Pokemon Detective Pikachu

Video game adaptations tend to not do very well as feature-length films, mainly due to the length of most games being far too long to squeeze in the extensive details and lore many games entail. As such, game adaptations of any kind often tend to do better as graphic novels or animated series (i.e. Persona 4: The Animation or Netflix’s Castlevania). And with the absolute travesty that was the trailer for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog film (I honestly don’t know if overworking the animators to redesign the title character will save that movie), I admittedly had some reservations when I sat down to watch Pokemon Detective Pikachu on Sunday. However, the general response from my friends who had seen the film had been very good, and the response online even better.

I think what partially saved this film was that it was only covering the plot of a single game in the series’ 20+ year history; a Nintendo 3DS title with the same name, that wasn’t all that connected to the main series. The plot of the film (and game) centers around Tim Goodman, who teams up with a talking, wise-cracking Pikachu to discover what happened to his father Harry, who supposedly died in a car accident. However, the Pikachu has no memories of its past, with its only clue being Harry Goodman’s address stitched into its hat. It should be noted that the premise and some other plot points are the same between the game and film, but most of the characters are different to include a bit more diversity. From here on out, I’ll only be discussing the film.

When Tim goes to his father’s apartment (and meets Pikachu), he encounters and (stupidly) opens a mysterious vial containing a purple chemical; as he opens a window to air out the room, unknowingly causing a group of wild Aipom to go on a temporary rampage and attack the pair. This begins the investigation of a second plot point—a strange chemical compound called R being produced to drive pokemon mad. It becomes clear that Harry was also investigating this R, as when Tim and Pikachu manage to find a lead and encounter an underground pokemon fight club (Ryme City, where the film takes place, does not permit pokemon battles, normally a staple of the game series), the club owner recognizes Pikachu—and doesn’t take kindly to its return.

There’s so much I want to discuss about this film, but I’ll begin with the pokemon themselves—they’re fleshed out beautifully in this film, as if they actually belong in the scenery, affected by lights, shadows, water and other aspects of their environment. There is a scene early on where Tim is licked by a Lickitung, and saliva appears on Tim’s face right beneath the massive CGI tongue. Later scenes seamlessly blend CGI pokemon attacks with special effects, such as fire and water. Human actors are impacted by animated characters very clearly, though I feel like in some cases the movements were a big exaggerated. Pikachu’s fur is shown as short and fuzzy without seeming to be too much; Charizard’s scales have full detail, and even details of an electrical burn from a previous battle. The pokemon characters are a seamless blend of human and animal, visibly changing expression and showing that they’re not beneath instincts (such as when Pikachu is scratched on the chin and begins tapping his foot like a dog). My favorite pokemon depiction in the film, however, is Mewtwo. Heeded in-universe as one of the most powerful pokemon in existence, the genetically-created psychic type is shown as a blend of highly intelligent, yet still an animal at its core. It communicates telepathically, and I absolutely love the way they blended the audio for Mewtwo’s voice, using two voice actors, one male and one female—Mewtwo is a genderless pokemon, so this was a very nice touch. It’s clear the people who worked on the film were people who loved the series and wanted to be as loyal to it as possible.

The human characters were, honestly, a bit flat, but nothing terrible. Tim, played by Justice Smith, is a cynical adult who gave up his dreams of being a pokemon trainer and hasn’t spoken to his father in years, harboring a sort of resentment toward him—he at one point in the film states it sometimes felt like his father, who lived in Ryme City while Tim was cared for by his grandmother (his mother had passed), cared more about pokemon than his own son—this can sometimes be a sentiment shared by children whose parents work demanding jobs, or travel frequently for work. Lucy, played by Jessica Newton, is an okay character, but at the same time, I feel like she looks too young to be an adult character (that’s just a personal thing, though). To be honest, she reminded me a lot of Hilary Duff during the Lizzie McGuire era—and that’s a bit young. But that’s really a minor gripe; other than that, Lucy’s a nice supporting character who proves herself to be useful to Tim without falling into the “sexy lamp” category (i.e. she has enough of a presence on the screen where she can’t just be replaced with a sexy lamp—look that test up if you’re curious), not to mention having her own ambitions that happen to coincide with Tim’s.

Naturally, the one who steals the show is Ryan Reynolds as the titular Detective Pikachu. He’s crass, overconfident, and a good foil to the much more strait laced Tim. It’s pretty clear he’s pulling a lot from his role as Deadpool in 2016’s titular Deadpool, but that doesn’t make him any less funny in the role.

Now, at this point, I want to talk about a few things in the film that bugged me, or I felt were worth noting. They’re relatively minor, but they are spoilers, so they will be down below the Read More.

[[READ MORE]]

I feel like the dialogue was a bit weak in some areas; most noticeably in the scene where Mewtwo speaks to Pikachu before merging Harry with him. Mewtwo simply states that “not all humans are bad.” I understand this is a children’s movie, but Mewtwo is a highly intelligent creature, and is highly likely the same Mewtwo from Pokemon: The First Movie, who said the famous line, “The circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.” I simply feel like “not all humans are bad” could have been said in a more sophisticated way. On the subject of Mewtwo, I understand he’s a powerful pokemon, but the idea of him being able to merge humans and pokemon seems a bit out of his range of abilities as a psychic-type.

The other issue was with Ryan Reynolds playing the actual father at the end of the film. Ryan is far older than he looks, but his youthful appearance did not work for him in this film—he simply looks too young to be the father of an adult son.

The villain’s motive, to merge people and pokemon to advance humankind, is a bit more complex than the typical, “take over the world” plot—the villain is an old man, confined to a wheelchair, who wants nothing but strength, and uses Mewtwo’s body and DNA (to produce the chemical R) to achieve that end. I have seen some arguments that the film is ableist because the villain is disabled. I just don’t think the film set out to be that way, and calling it “ableist” may be going a bit too far—granted, I am not physically disabled, so I can’t speak for anybody whatsoever.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and I highly recommend it—the people who worked on the film made it clearly as a love story to the decades-old series that’s inspired and entertained millions of players since its inception, and their hard work and research shows, from subtle dialogue hints (Pikachu says “Arceus” instead of “God” at one point, referring to the godly pokemon), to references in the environment that are there and gone in the blink of an eye. It’s a good film that’s worth a watch, with a decent mystery and plenty of action.

Gotta catch ‘em all, indeed!

[ts1989fanatic]

Todrick Hall's Comments About Taylor Swift Are All About Support – EXCLUSIVE

Todrick Hall has some famous friends and co-workers. His YouTube channel (which has close to 3 million subscribers) has gotten him worldwide recognition and into the room where it happens with the likes of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. He choreographed Beyoncé's "Blow" music video after she saw some of his own videos, and his friendship with Taylor Swift got him a featured cameo in the "Look What You Made Me Do" music video. Todrick Hall's comments about Taylor Swift prove that working and being close friends with the star is not what you may think.

Hall and I are on the set of his "Glitter" music video when we sit down to chat about his career. He had already met T. Swift by the time he starred as Lola in Kinky Boots on Broadway in 2016, but it was during this stint in Harvey Fierstein and Cindy Lauper's Tony-winning show that his friendship with the "Delicate" singer really solidified.

"When I moved to New York, I went out to eat with her when I was doing Kinky Boots," Hall tells Elite Daily, "and I had done shows in New York before, but it had been so many years and I felt like I had lost my friend circle. And so I was so happy that she was [living in New York]." Hall says their friendship was a casual one, so he didn't expect her to come see him in the Broadway show.

"She said that she was going to come and see the show and I was like, I'm never going to ask her to come and see it again because I know she's busy, I don't want to pressure her. And she just showed up to the show one day." He says Swift not only saw the show, but she stayed for two hours after meeting, speaking, and taking pictures with everyone in the cast and crew. From then on, he knew he had a solid friend in her.

Hall reveals that, like many on the internet, he believed Swift's niceness was just a front she put on for her famous persona. But he maintains that niceness still holds true in their personal and professional relationships.

"Huge things will happen and she'll be like, 'OK, great. This is what we have to do, this is what the universe has given us, this is what we're faced with. How are we going to fix this?' I would love to handle my minor issues the way that she handles some of her huge issues that billions of people are going to see and judge." He doesn't hint as to what any of those "huge issues" he's talking about are, but her public beef with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West comes to mind, as well as incessant tabloid coverage of her past relationships. (Miraculously, she and actor Joe Alwyn have managed to keep their two-year relationship under tight lock and key.)

"I think that one thing that I really love about her is she has been burned by a lot of people," Halls continues, "and you would think in a lot of ways that she would be totally OK with being a princess locked in a tower that nobody was able to enter. But she's willing to get back up again and trust people again, which is a very scary thing when you're somebody in that position."

Hall has proven himself to be a loyal friend to Swift as well, going to bat for her frequently against Kanye West.

When Swift finally voiced her political opinions in what the internet felt was a long overdue Instagram post, Hall posted on Instagram as well, showing his pride in her decision.

He explained in the lengthy caption that Swift being so guarded for so long about her political beliefs was part of the reason he kept their friendship casual at first. He echoes the same sentiment in our conversation.

Referencing her complete lack of a public political stance over the years, Hall tells me, "She has such power that I don't even think she realizes how much of an affect it would have on people."

He continues, "I was explaining to her that, as a gay person, I didn't know for sure how you felt about gay people and I was a little bit nervous to talk to you about my love life or whatever." And he recognizes the criticism she would receive for not voicing her political opinions before the 2016 presidential election.

Many people justifiably feel that Swift, with such a powerful influence over newly 18-year-old potential voters, could have done much more political advocacy in 2016 than just posting a picture of herself with an "I Voted" sticker. When you have a platform as large as Swift's, it's easy to see how not using said platform in a tumultuous political time would garner heavy criticism. Some of that criticism, Hall says, was pointed at him as well.

As a gay man of color, Hall tells me that people online occasionally placed the onus of getting Swift to "come out" as a democrat on him.

"Sometimes, people would give me flack online that she wasn't doing certain things," he tells me. "I love the fact that she has grown and evolved in her own time, as every artist has to do." He continues, "It can be very scary to potentially risk your career or your reputation to stick your neck out for something when you don't have to do it. You don't have to stand up for gay rights, you don't have to voice your opinion, and you'll sell the same amount of records. But somebody who truly cares about the way this country is falling apart and will take it upon themselves to use their voice to do something — that, I believe, is just the right thing to do."

She did that when she officially endorsed democratic candidates running in Tennessee elections in 2018 (and there was a massive surge in voter registration as a result). But Hall recognizes this was overdue. But Hall knew that being a good friend meant supporting her decision, regardless of how late it was.

So when Kanye West tweeted that he was "distancing" himself from politics, Hall couldn't help but laugh (and call the rapper out on Twitter).

“Well well well Miss @kanyewest," he said, "while I’m thrilled that you claim to have hopped off the Trump train, I cannot help but bask in the irony that you are now ‘distancing yourself from politics’ while the girl everybody was dragging is now promoting a blue candidate like it’s her job." Look what you made him do, Kanye! Elite Daily reached out to West's team for comment on Hall's tweets, but did not hear back by the time of publication.

All tea and shade aside, Hall tells me that Swift is one of those friends who is basically a therapist for him, and vice versa.

Throughout their entire friendship, however, they never had the chance to work together. That is, until Swift asked him to be in the "Look What You Made Me Do" music video.

"I feel like I owe her money for the amount of therapy that she's given me for the boys that I've dated," Hall quips. He reveals that he hasn't always approved of her past relationships either, although he stays tightlipped on just which of her famous exes he's referring to. (Booooo.)

"I think that it's easy to be surrounded with a lot of 'yes' people," he says, "but with Taylor, there was somebody that she was dating that I didn't necessarily approve of and I was definitely very honest with her about how I felt about it. She just would always be like, 'Thank you so much for your honesty.'"

"I feel like it is the most expensive music video that's ever been created in history," Hall jokes.

Outside of working with his bestie on the video, Hall says it was a wonder to see director Joseph Kahn at work on the video. Kahn has directed a large number of Swift's videos in the past, including most of the videos from Reputation. The biggest were "Look What You Made Me Do" and "...Ready For It?" both of which Hall was on set. To perform in the former, and just observe the latter.

"It was amazing to watch [Joseph Kahn] work and to see everything," Hall says, adding, "I was also on the set of '...Ready For It?' to watch that as well. And it was just really, really awesome and to be able to hear the song and to see the sets. I make videos for a living, but to see the budget of how these sets were built and how amazing they look, it was just insane. I had never seen anything like that before in my life."

He brings up his choreography for Beyoncé on the "Blow" music video as a comparison. Beyoncé's self-titled surprise album was famously more low-budget than some of her other videos because it was being kept as such a huge secret, so seeing Swift's massive budget for her Reputation videos was an eye-opener.

"When I did the video with Beyoncé, we went to a location, a roller skating rink, and that's where we did it, so that was the aesthetic of that video," he explains, "But I've never been somewhere where they built an entire world and a cemetery and a thrown and all these things. It was just really crazy to see it and to be a part of it was just really, really awesome."

As for her dancing in the video (people have always trolled Swift for dancing even though she's not near someone like Beyoncé's level), Hall says she's doing it for the joy it brings her.

"Taylor Swift doesn't have to ever dance," he, a professional dancer, says. "She'll still sell the same amount of tickets. She just loves to dance." She danced alongside Hall in the "Look What You Made Me Do" video, and Hall sees it as a huge moment of pride. He tells me, "She was scared at first, she was for sure nervous. But once we saw the playback and I was like, 'You look amazing,' she just kept going in more and more and more and more. Every single time, she'd give it more energy, more performance, and now I see her dancing in [the Reputation stadium tour] more than she's ever danced before. And I'm just so proud of her."

This is why he gets his own membership card

[makistar2018]

Todrick Hall's Comments About Taylor Swift Are All About Support – EXCLUSIVE

BY KELLI BOYLE January 6, 2019

Do your friends tell you you're "celeb obsessed"? Do you follow your favorite celebs' every move? Know their Instagram histories so well that you can rattle off their inner circle by name and IG handle? If yes, Elite Daily's new series, SideClique, is just for you. We're bringing you everything you've ever wanted to know about the people living their lives right alongside our favorite celebs.

Todrick Hall has some famous friends and co-workers. His YouTube channel (which has close to 3 million subscribers) has gotten him worldwide recognition and into the room where it happens with the likes of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. He choreographed Beyoncé's "Blow" music video after she saw some of his own videos, and his friendship with Taylor Swift got him a featured cameo in the "Look What You Made Me Do" music video. Todrick Hall's comments about Taylor Swift prove that working and being close friends with the star is not what you may think.

Hall and I are on the set of his "Glitter" music video when we sit down to chat about his career. He had already met T. Swift by the time he starred as Lola in Kinky Boots on Broadway in 2016, but it was during this stint in Harvey Fierstein and Cindy Lauper's Tony-winning show that his friendship with the "Delicate" singer really solidified.

“I FEEL LIKE I OWE HER MONEY FOR THE AMOUNT OF THERAPY THAT SHE'S GIVEN ME FOR THE BOYS THAT I'VE DATED.“

"When I moved to New York, I went out to eat with her when I was doing Kinky Boots," Hall tells Elite Daily, "and I had done shows in New York before, but it had been so many years and I felt like I had lost my friend circle. And so I was so happy that she was [living in New York]." Hall says their friendship was a casual one, so he didn't expect her to come see him in the Broadway show.

"She said that she was going to come and see the show and I was like, I'm never going to ask her to come and see it again because I know she's busy, I don't want to pressure her. And she just showed up to the show one day." He says Swift not only saw the show, but she stayed for two hours after meeting, speaking, and taking pictures with everyone in the cast and crew. From then on, he knew he had a solid friend in her.

Hall reveals that, like many on the internet, he believed Swift's niceness was just a front she put on for her famous persona. But he maintains that niceness still holds true in their personal and professional relationships.

"Huge things will happen and she'll be like, 'OK, great. This is what we have to do, this is what the universe has given us, this is what we're faced with. How are we going to fix this?' I would love to handle my minor issues the way that she handles some of her huge issues that billions of people are going to see and judge." He doesn't hint as to what any of those "huge issues" he's talking about are, but her public beef with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West comes to mind, as well as incessant tabloid coverage of her past relationships. (Miraculously, she and actor Joe Alwyn have managed to keep their two-year relationship under tight lock and key.)

"I think that one thing that I really love about her is she has been burned by a lot of people," Halls continues, "and you would think in a lot of ways that she would be totally OK with being a princess locked in a tower that nobody was able to enter. But she's willing to get back up again and trust people again, which is a very scary thing when you're somebody in that position."

Hall has proven himself to be a loyal friend to Swift as well, going to bat for her frequently against Kanye West.

When Swift finally voiced her political opinions in what the internet felt was a long overdue Instagram post, Hall posted on Instagram as well, showing his pride in her decision.

He explained in the lengthy caption that Swift being so guarded for so long about her political beliefs was part of the reason he kept their friendship casual at first. He echoes the same sentiment in our conversation.

Referencing her complete lack of a public political stance over the years, Hall tells me, "She has such power that I don't even think she realizes how much of an affect it would have on people."

He continues, "I was explaining to her that, as a gay person, I didn't know for sure how you felt about gay people and I was a little bit nervous to talk to you about my love life or whatever." And he recognizes the criticism she would receive for not voicing her political opinions before the 2016 presidential election.

Many people justifiably feel that Swift, with such a powerful influence over newly 18-year-old potential voters, could have done much more political advocacy in 2016 than just posting a picture of herself with an "I Voted" sticker. When you have a platform as large as Swift's, it's easy to see how not using said platform in a tumultuous political time would garner heavy criticism. Some of that criticism, Hall says, was pointed at him as well.

As a gay man of color, Hall tells me that people online occasionally placed the onus of getting Swift to "come out" as a democrat on him.

"Sometimes, people would give me flack online that she wasn't doing certain things," he tells me. "I love the fact that she has grown and evolved in her own time, as every artist has to do." He continues, "It can be very scary to potentially risk your career or your reputation to stick your neck out for something when you don't have to do it. You don't have to stand up for gay rights, you don't have to voice your opinion, and you'll sell the same amount of records. But somebody who truly cares about the way this country is falling apart and will take it upon themselves to use their voice to do something — that, I believe, is just the right thing to do."

She did that when she officially endorsed democratic candidates running in Tennessee elections in 2018 (and there was a massive surge in voter registration as a result). But Hall recognizes this was overdue. But Hall knew that being a good friend meant supporting her decision, regardless of how late it was.

So when Kanye West tweeted that he was "distancing" himself from politics, Hall couldn't help but laugh (and call the rapper out on Twitter).

“Well well well Miss @kanyewest," he said, "while I’m thrilled that you claim to have hopped off the Trump train, I cannot help but bask in the irony that you are now ‘distancing yourself from politics’ while the girl everybody was dragging is now promoting a blue candidate like it’s her job." Look what you made him do, Kanye! Elite Daily reached out to West's team for comment on Hall's tweets, but did not hear back by the time of publication.

All tea and shade aside, Hall tells me that Swift is one of those friends who is basically a therapist for him, and vice versa.

"I feel like I owe her money for the amount of therapy that she's given me for the boys that I've dated," Hall quips. He reveals that he hasn't always approved of her past relationships either, although he stays tightlipped on just which of her famous exes he's referring to. (Booooo.)

“TAYLOR SWIFT DOESN'T HAVE TO EVER DANCE, SHE'LL STILL SELL THE SAME AMOUNT OF TICKETS. SHE JUST LOVES TO DANCE.“

"I think that it's easy to be surrounded with a lot of 'yes' people," he says, "but with Taylor, there was somebody that she was dating that I didn't necessarily approve of and I was definitely very honest with her about how I felt about it. She just would always be like, 'Thank you so much for your honesty.'"

Throughout their entire friendship, however, they never had the chance to work together. That is, until Swift asked him to be in the "Look What You Made Me Do" music video.

"I feel like it is the most expensive music video that's ever been created in history," Hall jokes.

Outside of working with his bestie on the video, Hall says it was a wonder to see director Joseph Kahn at work on the video. Kahn has directed a large number of Swift's videos in the past, including most of the videos from Reputation. The biggest were "Look What You Made Me Do" and "...Ready For It?" both of which Hall was on set. To perform in the former, and just observe the latter.

"It was amazing to watch [Joseph Kahn] work and to see everything," Hall says, adding, "I was also on the set of '...Ready For It?' to watch that as well. And it was just really, really awesome and to be able to hear the song and to see the sets. I make videos for a living, but to see the budget of how these sets were built and how amazing they look, it was just insane. I had never seen anything like that before in my life."

He brings up his choreography for Beyoncé on the "Blow" music video as a comparison. Beyoncé's self-titled surprise album was famously more low-budget than some of her other videos because it was being kept as such a huge secret, so seeing Swift's massive budget for her Reputation videos was an eye-opener.

"When I did the video with Beyoncé, we went to a location, a roller skating rink, and that's where we did it, so that was the aesthetic of that video," he explains, "But I've never been somewhere where they built an entire world and a cemetery and a thrown and all these things. It was just really crazy to see it and to be a part of it was just really, really awesome."

As for her dancing in the video (people have always trolled Swift for dancing even though she's not near someone like Beyoncé's level), Hall says she's doing it for the joy it brings her.

"Taylor Swift doesn't have to ever dance," he, a professional dancer, says. "She'll still sell the same amount of tickets. She just loves to dance." She danced alongside Hall in the "Look What You Made Me Do" video, and Hall sees it as a huge moment of pride. He tells me, "She was scared at first, she was for sure nervous. But once we saw the playback and I was like, 'You look amazing,' she just kept going in more and more and more and more. Every single time, she'd give it more energy, more performance, and now I see her dancing in [the Reputation stadium tour] more than she's ever danced before. And I'm just so proud of her."

Elite Daily

[norgad-vcd]

COPY: First Revision

Introduction.

What goes on, online?

Anything and everything. It’s a beautiful and vibrant mess of human interaction. Everything from trivial and thoughtless acts to the most sincere and genuine deeds. It’s grounds for the vicious and the virtuous alike. The internet is what you make of it; A tool as good or bad as it’s wielders.

What this book is

It’d take a thousand lifetimes to see it all.

How about a quick glimpse instead?

Hiya, I’m Tom! I’ve spent enough of my life online that I can confer some of my findings to you. This book is a smörgåsbord of experiences, phenomena, and memories I’ve been witness to and participant in during my time here. While not a full picture, it should help you navigate the ballpark of possibilities out there. My experiences are just one sample from billions; perhaps after this you’ll seek to venture out further into that world-wide web, or - at the very least - understand a little better those who do.

Heads-up

Listen a moment, before you go.

I am only one person. My field of view is limited, as is my foresight. Take my advice with a grain of salt, I can’t prepare you for everything. There’s so much more out there waiting for you, some good, some bad; be sensible.

Who am I, online?

Personas and the separation of meatspace and cyberspace.

Online, your real-life identity isn’t attached to you by default. Of course there’s places where the expectation is indeed a connection to real identities - like Facebook for example - but this is not a requirement. I’m not known as ‘Tom’ online, people know me by my username, and t.

It’s not a fake me, or a way to lie to people, it’s just an alternate expression of myself. We act differently to different people in so many social situations, - from time with family, to at work, and to hanging out with friends - the internet allows even more possible ways to express parts of ourselves. For me, it’s liberating to exist in a state that’s disconnected from the tangle of my real life self, and to keep the tangle of my internet presence away from real life as well.

Equal ground, just another user.

On the internet, nobody knows who you are.

Unless you divulge them, your identity, physical appearance, background, nationality, gender, race and so on are completely unknown; this is the great equalizer. Free from biases based on your physical self, you can be perceived as purely another person.

Still a person, despite appearances.

A clean slate can tempt some however to act recklessly. If an identity and stigma can be shed so easily, some people feel emboldened to act without the threat of consequences; verbally beat someone up, and then wash your hands of the whole incident.

It’s important to remember that people online are still people; while their faces might be obscured, they still have thoughts and feelings.

In general, talking to people online has the same potential as real-life to be great, awful, or somewhere inbetween. It’s just luck of the draw who you’ll encounter.

Who else?

I’m hanging out with my friends.

“Go outside and spend time with your friends!”

What a classic line. Truth is I’m already spending time with my friends, just on the computer. It can be hard to organise in person meetups sometimes, and meeting up online can be much more spontaneous. All it takes is noticing someone else is online and flicking them a message, Boom, instant hangout, and before you know it you’ve got all the boys bantering away.

Over the first lockdown in 2020 me and most of my real-life friends started a minecraft server together and played through it for the duration of our stint stuck at home. It was like a little clubhouse, each time we logged in and saw things change slightly since last time. We left each other notes and set up gifts and pranks for when people left and returned. It was a great way to keep in touch when we were otherwise very isolated from social contact.

Guest speaker, Josh

[Josh text]

In general, hanging out online is pretty great. It might not be perfect, and sure we could get a little more sunlight, but for what it’s worth it’s good for the soul and sometimes the best thing on hand. Friendships don’t care about how you nourish them, just that you do.

[WHY ARE YOU STILL AWAKE?]

I don’t know the names of some of my closest friends.

What about friendships that never were from real life, rather that grew from the internet.

I don’t know the names of some of my closest friends.

That doesn’t mean I don’t care about them; it’s just we all know each other by our usernames and whatever funny profile picture we’re rocking at the time. I still know their personalities, their sense of humor, what they like and don’t, and everything else you’d know about a friend. We still have inside jokes, favourite group pastimes, and all the rest.

This has caused some strange moments though. When I was younger and my parents would ask who I’m talking to on the computer, I wouldn’t know how to respond. Do I tell them “I don’t know�� and spark images in their heads of catfishers and criminals? Do I tell them my friend’s username and get told “that’s not a real name”? There really wasn’t any good solution in my head at the time, so I’d just say “someone from school” and pray the topic of the conversation would change as fast as possible.

A couple of times an internet friend has accidentally let their real name slip in a conversation, and that instantly got met with waves of banter about how “you’re not an Alex” or whatever the name was. We’d quickly forget about it though, we still see each other as the identities we met each other with; someone’s real-life name doesn’t change how we see them. In that sense, I suppose usernames are like a self-determination thing; you get to pick a name for yourself, based on who you see yourself as.

Timeless zones.

Because everyone lives in different time-zones, it can often be difficult to pre-plan hangouts. Oftentimes me and my friends have planned to have a movie night at a specific time, and then once that time rolls around, one or two people are still offline, probably asleep. Oftentimes whoever was missing will come online several hours later and be sorry and upset that they held everyone up and wasted everyone’s time. Of course, we had all just postponed the movie night and just hung out and chatted instead.

Perfect is the enemy of good. Oftentimes we have to accept that it’s near impossible to have everyone hang out at the same time; it’d require half of us to be up at god awful times or to wake up at 4am for something. Instead of trying to plan big ‘everyone’ events every once in a blue moon, we try to have frequent but smaller hangouts. It might mean that we don’t get to see everyone at the same time, but it’s still workable. If we were to hold out till everyone was free at the same time, we’d never end up hanging out at all.

My version of the morning paper is skimming what my mates have been talking about in the group chat. Most of the time it’s pretty coherent and I can tell what was going on, but sometimes it dissolves into a mess of completely unrelated images and text that doesn’t read like a conversation at all. Using my expert detective skills I have deduced that our two culprits were actually talking in a voice chat, and were just using the text chat to show each other stupid pictures of dogs.

That time my friend went missing.

A while ago, someone in one of my friend groups noted that someone hadn’t been online for two weeks. Dread set in. We all knew that our friend was very prone to getting ill, and we didn’t want to say it but we were worried she might have died. Since we don’t know each other in ‘real life’ it was entirely possible that someone could drop dead one day and we’d never get any confirmation; just left wondering what happened. We asked around in common friend circles, and nobody had heard from her, coming up on about three weeks at that point. We had to do something.

Multiple friend circles of people from all around the world, scrambling to find any scrap of information about our lost friend. One person had ‘maybe’ an address that they sent something to once, but it might have been an old house. We found about three different possible legal names, and had no way to be sure which was right. We ended up sending a letter addressed to three different names ‘or the family of’. It was a desperate shot in the dark, but we were worried sick.

It turned out she was alright, but she had been stuck in hospital for a while and didn’t have access to a phone. We all had a laugh over how everyone overreacted, but it really did scare me. I’ve learned to really value the time I get to spend with my online friends; next time might not be so lucky, and if something were to happen it’s hard to ever get closure on it.

Wider World.

Community

One thing the internet’s really helped with is connecting like-minded individuals. Before the internet, if you had a niche hobby, you were probably the only person you know in your town with that hobby. Kinda lame, yeah? Nowadays, you can reach across the globe and connect with everyone who’s into the same stuff as you! Mainstream topics can have gargantuan communities, but what I find even more interesting is the weird obscure hobbies and groups, the kind that would never survive without the internet.

My personal favourite is the community around the video game ‘Space Station 13’; it’s a simulation roleplay game that’s been kicking around for about 18 years at this point, kept alive by a cult following of obsessed players. The programming sucks, and the controls are horrifically obtuse, but it’s got a charm that I can’t deny. It’s not for everyone, and I think that’s great. It’s not for everyone, but thanks to the internet enough people can still get together that they can enjoy it.

Someone sends me a funny picture. There’s three layers of delight. The first - of course - is that the picture is funny. Beyond that, there’s also the impulsive knowledge that I know who else I could send it to that might like it; it’s a chain letter that for once isn’t a scam. And the third layer is knowing that whoever sent the picture to me first got it sent to them and thought “Hey, I know who might like this”!

Random people

Strange patterns can emerge after lurking and watching from the sidelines.

In the rules discussion channel of a board game group I’m in, I swear sometimes it’s like I’m stuck in a time loop. I watch a random person ask a common question about the game, and then someone else will get the rules clarified for them. A few hours will pass, the conversation drifting elsewhere as people drop in and out. Suddenly, I spot it; the same question from before, but from a different person. Like clockwork, another nameless devout will rise up and deliver the answer. And again. And again. It’s like a two-line stage show where the audience is also the cast, over and over and over.

Since profile pictures and usernames are self-selected you do get a weird little keyhole view of who you’re talking to might be like. This person has a picture of a cat as their profile image. Is it their cat, or did they just think the cat looked nice? Their username is ‘Millie’, is that their real life name; maybe? Or what if it’s the cat’s name? Are they pretending to be their cat? Are they a cat?

Getting popular, online presence & all eyes on you

Having a large presence online - that is, having other people follow or be ‘fans’ of you - is a mixed bag. For me it’s been really good in allowing me to get my art out there and get clients, but it’s also weird. It feels a bit like I’m up on a stage sometimes, everyone’s watching me. I’ve lost the feeling of being ‘just another guy in the crowd’. What if someone reads something I posted the wrong way? Do I keep being aloof and carefree, or will that hurt my image. Should I care?

Getting weird; parasocial relationships, doxxing, and personal armies.

People with large presences can feel familiar, friendly, like you’re already friends.

I’ve caught myself falling into this in the past. Parasocial relationships. There was an artist I really admired the style of. The brain’s great at filling in the details you want to be real. I realised that I had it written in my head that this person was super cool and the best and that it’d be really cool if we hung out. All extrapolation. While it’s entirely possible that they were everything I had imagined them to be, until it’s tested it’s all just imagination and fantasy. If you’ve never talked to them, how could you know?

Guest speaker, Chai

[Chai text]

Connecting with meatspace

Back down to earth. What happens when the digital and the physical self have to intersect? The two identities are from the same person, but they’re not the same.

My family found my twitter.

One time, my parents sent me a text: “Lucy showed us your art, looking really cool Tom!”. How. I’d never sent my family any of my online profiles. I check my Twitter; sure enough in front of my eyes the screen tells me my sister has followed my twitter account. Abject horror. How much did they look at? What did they think? Should I start looking for a flat?

It’s not that I had anything to hide, it’s just that it felt… misaligned. Like two worlds coming together that shouldn’t. I’m sure for them it was just “Wow, look at our son go!”, but for me it was a wave of confusion and dread.

Visiting internet friends. (They weren’t murderers.)

One time, I was lucky enough to have a few of my internet friends visit in real life. I was showing them around my house, when I ran into my mum. It hit me. Who do I even introduce these people as? We all know each other by our online names and had been using them in conversation minutes earlier, but that would make no sense to my poor mum. And so, awkwardly, one by one my friends rattled off a set of names entirely alien to me. We all kept straight faces as each of us discovered “Wait, this person’s called WHAT?”.

We all promptly forgot each other’s names within about two minutes.

LDRs

Thanks to the internet, I met my partner.

Almost four years later, we’re still going strong. It helps a lot that a lot of our common interests can be done online, chiefly gaming and watching shows. But even the other stuff, we can still do together in some aspects. We always say good morning and goodnight to each other on the phone, and fill each other in on what we’ve been up to that day. If we go somewhere and see something cool, we can still share pictures and videos. If I make a really nice dinner, I can send them the recipe and they can have a taste (though that last one might depend on their cooking skills).

Of course, it’s not identical to an in-person relationship, and it can be more stressful. You have to put a lot more effort into reaching out to each other and making time to hang out and talk; it won’t happen by accident. We’re both really looking forward to being able to move together, but until then, being together apart isn’t all that bad.

Signing off.

[recentanimenews]

INTERVIEW: Ladybeard Introduces BABYBEARD, The Kawaii Metal Pop Idol Group

  Few entertainers have had a career as varied as Ladybeard’s. The Australian performer has worked as a pro wrestler, an anime voice actor, and a death metal vocalist, all while wearing a frilly dress and pigtails. His latest role: singing and dancing as a member of BABYBEARD, the idol group he formed last year. Alongside petite co-members SUZU and KOTOMI, their names styled in all caps, Ladybeard’s formidable vocals complete the group’s kawaii metal vibe. 

  Though the covid pandemic has kept the trio from doing live performances, their knack for viral social media content has helped them share their peppy, positive, and frequently brutal music with the world. The result has been global; BABYBEARD’s first single, Nippon Kara Konnichiwa, was Number 1 on the J-pop charts in Germany and Finland, Number 2 in Australia, and Number 34 in the US the week of its release in April 2021. 

  We sat down with Ladybeard, SUZU, and KOTOMI for a video interview about the new group with Ladybeard’s manager, Shiori, translating the girls’ answers. Then, we talked to just Ladybeard about his pronouns, the pandemic, and what’s next for his eclectic career. 

    Orsini: How is your work with BABYBEARD different than the work you were doing before?

  Ladybeard: One of the things that is interesting about launching a group [during the pandemic] is that 100 percent of our activities so far have been over the internet. So the girls have actually interacted with fans overseas more than they’ve interacted with fans in Japan thus far. It’s a new experience for both of them. 

  KOTOMI: I was in a different group before BABYBEARD. We did in-person live performances. In this unit, we’re doing online stuff mainly and getting global attention. I’m really excited about the fact that we can stream online and get listeners from all around the world. 

  SUZU: I am actually really surprised to get a lot of attention from overseas fans. I’m excited to go to foreign countries and perform in the future. 

  Ladybeard: This is SUZU’s first group. I wish my first thing ever had been like this, instantly getting access to the whole world — I’m so jealous!

  What is the most unique skill that you bring to the group?

  SUZU: A huge smile.

  KOTOMI: I’m a huge otaku of idols. My enthusiasm and passion for idols is what I bring. [She’s a fan of the idol group Kamiyado.] 

  Ladybeard: I’ll PR the girls for a second. We held global auditions for this group, people were brought in from the entire world. Of course, who could seriously be considered was limited by who could physically get to Tokyo. The total number of applicants for the audition was 100, and then after the first cut, 52 made it to the first in-person audition. After another cut, there were 10 final candidates from which SUZU and KOTOMI were chosen.

  Very interestingly, SUZU was the first person through the door of the audition and KOTOMI was the last person through the door. SUZU came in with a beautiful smile, which was lovely, sang and danced and was a ray of sunshine. She set a very high bar and it wasn’t until KOTOMI came in that that level of brightness was matched. KOTOMI is a very good dancer and she blew us away. 

  And to answer your question, clearly what I bring to the group is this beard.

    For the girls, what were your first impressions meeting Ladybeard? What is it like working with him now?

  KOTOMI: I met Ladybeard for the first time in my audition. At the time I was so nervous I couldn’t remember what was going on. But he was very kind to me and I was really happy about that. He’s a really hilarious and cheerful person and I really enjoy working with him. 

  SUZU: When I met Ladybeard at first, I felt he was naturally energetic, cheerful, and friendly. That first impression has not been changed.

  Ladybeard: Poor SUZU gets elbowed in the head a lot, poor girl. Our pose is me flexing with the two girls on either side of me. And when we go through it, the three of us in a line, it’s always SUZU who catches an elbow. I feel so bad, she’s been elbowed several times. If I’d been repeatedly elbowed in the head, I’d be far less enthusiastic.

  Aside from flexing together, how do the three of you bond as a team?

  Ladybeard: Keep in mind that this is the main activity we’ve done together — sitting on Zoom. But we’ve started singing and dancing. The girls are very sweet. They’re both really hard working. 

  What is the creative process behind the videos you post to social media? Do you all add input?

  Ladybeard: Yes, it’s pretty collaborative. Actually, Shiori comes up with a lot of good stuff for TikTok. With her help, we now have two TikTok videos with 2.4 million views: “Physically fit” and “Magical girl transformation(LB cut),” and one YouTube short at 16 million views — “When the manager isn’t in.”

  Image via Suzu Nakayama

  What are your favorites?

  KOTOMI: “When the manager isn’t in."

  SUZU: “Hide and... FREAK!!” My mom said it was very cute. 

  Ladybeard: For me it was the very first one, the launching BABYBEARD one with Nippon Kara Konnichiwa. It was the first time we showed the group’s image to the world. That was the first time the world saw the girls’ faces; before that, everyone had a mask on. 

    When the manager isn’t in.#whenmomisnthome Check out BABYBEARD’s video! #TikTok https://t.co/qr3hVLbwxU pic.twitter.com/hlvCdBq3Xm

— BABYBEARD (@babybeard_japan) April 17, 2021

    What are you most excited about for the future of BABYBEARD?

  Shiori: Both girls say they want to go on a world tour and meet their fans overseas.

  Ladybeard: Finally getting to do this because very clearly it’s what the world wants from me. Last time [I was in an idol group] it was brought to an unfortunate end, and for five years people have been asking me to do it. And then once we were finally able to do it, to then have this pandemic show up, it’s like come on now. For me, just to finally actually do it, to get on stage and take it overseas, to give the fans what they’ve asked for for the past five years, for me it’s, let’s go, I just really want to do it. 

  [At this point, we say goodbye to SUZU and KOTOMI as they go on to other appointments.]

  Idols in Japan have to adhere to strict behavioral rules. As an unconventional idol, which ones do you definitely have to follow and which ones are you allowed to bend?

  Ladybeard: Your private life has to remain on the wraps. In this management company, I have not been specifically given instructions about what I can and can’t do in my private life, but I already know that whatever happens needs to stay under wraps. 

  On the Trash Taste podcast, I mentioned that I have a boring hobby. I’m not allowed to tell you what my boring hobby is because it’s too boring and it’s not in character. 

  Image via Babybeard

  How has your dynamic with your fans evolved throughout your career?

  Ladybeard: This is one of the most interesting things about being a professional crossdresser. This career has been going on for 12 years now. In that time, as much as Ladybeard evolves, the world evolves around Ladybeard as well. As attitudes generally change, you can see how that directly affects your interactions with the fans, and directly affects your interaction with the rest of the world, too. For instance, it was about two years ago, suddenly everybody started asking me what my pronouns were. But that conversation had not made it to Japan so I was like, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” We’d be attending conventions in the Western world and I’d be asked, “What are your pronouns” and I’d say, “What?” 

  Shiori: It’s probably because we don’t use pronouns in Japanese as a language. We don’t use specific pronouns to describe people. We can cut the subject in a sentence, so we don’t think about it. In Japan, Ladybeard’s pronoun is “Beard-chan.”

  So what are your pronouns?

  Ladybeard: He, she, whatever you like. It’s not something that really bothers me at all. I’ve been called “that jackass” so many times that the wrong pronoun isn’t going to upset me. If I were sensitive to what people were saying about me, I picked the wrong career.

  I definitely wanted to talk to you about gender so I’m glad this came up. I recently saw an interview with the actress Amanda Bynes who said she became depressed and experienced gender dysphoria after cross-dressing as a man in a movie. What does it feel like to see photos of yourself all over in a feminine gender presentation?

  Ladybeard: Feels like Tuesday. I barely notice it anymore. It’s just going to work. 

  So you feel really comfortable in the Ladybeard persona?

  Ladybeard: Very comfortable.

  Image via Babybeard

  Where do you end and where does Ladybeard begin?

  Ladybeard: So what you just said about that actress, Amanda Bynes. She was an actress playing a role. She went through that process for the sake of a film. For me, I made this character and it came from me. Now it’s an extension of me. Lady Gaga says something similar about herself: she refers to herself as a Gaga-Stefani hybrid. 

  I’m not sure, where do I end and where does Ladybeard begin? That’s a really good question. It’s like asking “where does you at the office end and where does you hanging out with your Nana start?” They’re both you. It’s just you at different times and different circumstances. 

  But I’m so comfortable in the skirts and whatnot now. Occasionally we go out in public and people are like, “Oh, a guy!” and I remember, “Oh yeah, I’m in a skirt!” and that’s not what everyone else is doing and I’ve almost forgotten about it. 

  Interestingly, if I crossdress in the Western world that’s when I remember, because that’s where I get abused. When I crossdress in public, no one [in Japan] harasses me. But in recent memory, it’s happened once in Paris and once in London. When it happened, I was like, “Oh yeah, this happens! I’d totally forgotten about it.”

  Image via Babybeard

  You’ve said that for you, being a man in a dress isn’t about being the butt of a joke, but about changing the energy in a room. Why do you think your crossdressing has that effect?

  Ladybeard: It started in Australia. Oftentimes, crossdressing has the potential to get the same reaction as what we just spoke about in London and Paris. There’s a bipolar reaction. It’s either anger and abuse, or it’s “Look at this guy!!” Because everyone acknowledges that hairy men generally don’t walk around wearing cute little skirts. 

  It’s interesting: people see me and they put whatever is in their head onto me. If they’re super conservative, they may think hateful thoughts. But if they’re not, they may think, “This crazy guy!” 

  And if they’re LGBT?

  Ladybeard: That’s a question I’m actually not good at answering because every member of that community feels a different way about me. I was very cautious when I started this because I was frightened that the LGBT community would think that what I do is a piss-take of what they take seriously. And it’s not, but I can see how they would think that. But I have been told that there are members of the community who feel that way about me, which is very unfortunate and not at all what I was trying to do. 

  And then there are other members who have completely embraced me. When I got to Japan I was surprised by how much I was embraced by the LGBT community here. My image has been taken and used to advertise gay bars here. 

  Image via Babybeard

  In a previous interview, you said this about the appeal of your metal covers of pop songs: “It takes what you’re used to and subverts it.” I think this sentence is a good way to explain your appeal as a performer. Would you agree? Why or why not?

  Ladybeard: With my old group, and now with BABYBEARD, it’s a series of pieces nobody ever would have thought to put together, and then they come together and work very well. And I think there’s something very beautiful about that: the surprise of it, the fact that it works when it really shouldn’t. There’s something very lovely. 

  With my personal career, I’ve always tried to make the masculine side of me as masculine as I can, and the feminine side of me as feminine as I can, and then try to create the biggest gap possible between those two dynamics. I think the group extends that further. Because it means that my masculine qualities are emphasized and the girls’ feminine qualities are emphasized. It’s an extension of the Ladybeard concept into a three-person formation. 

  It’s like pineapple on a pizza. Half the people love it and half the people want me dead.

  So do you get a lot of hate?

  Ladybeard: Less than you’d expect, and not for a long time. I think it’s just that I’ve been doing this for so long that the people who wanted to hate on me, hated on me and then moved on. 

  With BABYBEARD, you’ve had a role in choosing the name, the musicians, and even your fellow members. How did it feel to have so much say in the process?

  Ladybeard: Excellent, it was great. Our current boss trusts us, (me and manager Shiori), regarding stuff outside Japan, appreciating that we at times potentially understand variables like culture and foreign fans’ tastes better than he does. So he listens to our opinions.

  Simple joys...???? BABYBEARDの投稿動画を楽しみましょう！#TikTok #babybeardhttps://t.co/QAWRV4ZwNa pic.twitter.com/ywbMkVSauU

— BABYBEARD (@babybeard_japan) April 21, 2021

  Memes are such a big part of BABYBEARD. Do you think internet literacy is an important part of your job?

  Ladybeard: Shiori is better at it than I am, that’s for sure. I’m very bad at it. But yes, it’s very important and I need to get better at it! 

  The internet is an inseparable part of everyone’s lives now, isn’t it? Back when I started Ladybeard it was like, “there’s this thing called YouTube, you’re watching stupid videos there,” and now it’s so integrated into our lives it’s ridiculous. Regarding the group, we’re doing as much as we can online while you can’t physically see us, but when we can, please come to the live show because it’s going to blow your faces off.

  That’s the other thing about the internet. It’s changed how people want to consume live performances because back when I was a kid and you’d go to see a heavy metal show, there’d be three circle pits going on and there’d be this insanely brutal moshing and so forth. There’s much less of that now because people want to film with their phones. There’s social media, interacting with the show, interacting with the video of the show — both people who are there now and who are watching online, that’s become part of the live show. As the performer, it’s your job to adapt to that and make sure your performance works for that environment. 

  What was it like recording your new singles? Did Covid-19 make it more difficult?

  Ladybeard: Covid-19 didn’t necessarily affect the recording process, but it did affect the content. The lyrics of "Nippon Kara Konnichiwa" are about how we want to see you and be with you and hug you but we can’t, so until that’s possible we’re sending our love through the web. That’s the theme we’re trying to push until we’re able to leave the confines of the nation. Until then, we’d like to give everyone as much Internet love as we can. 

      Lauren Orsini is a fandom reporter and anime critic. You can find her Twitter here.

By: Lauren Orsini

[absofrutely]

Online Persona

At first I was against a voice-activated device with no graphical user interface, a vocal opponent even. It wasn’t until an Amazon Echo Dot device was shipped to my work (addressed to me!) by mistake that I first thought about installing the device in my apartment. Apparently, there was another Andrew Williamson on the 5th floor in my office, but the delivery guy mistakenly delivered the package to the 4th floor, and I wasn’t feeling generous, so I opened up my mystery box.

Setting up the Echo wasn’t seamless. Since the Echo was tied to the other Andrew Williamson’s Amazon account, it wouldn’t activate as the other Andrew reported the device lost or stolen after not receiving it. Amazon support wasn’t any help either since I couldn’t answer any of Andrew’s security questions to unlock his account. They told me that I could ship the device back to Amazon (no) or I could use the device as a paper weight, but it would never be activated as an Amazon Echo. Shocked by the finality of that statement, and tired of all the hoops to jump through, I exchanged the Echo by swapping it out with one that I bought from and returned to Best Buy.

At last, I finished setting up the device. I linked it to my Spotify, ordered a Philips Hue smart light starter kit, got some Belkin WeMo smart electric switches, and splurged on an Alexa-compatible iRobot floor vacuum. I wanted to outfit my apartment with a Nest thermostat and a Nest camera, but my apartment didn’t have a central heating system, and setting up a Nest camera in a studio apartment seemed wasteful. Mainly, I just felt like spending money, and was frustrated that I couldn’t.

I started out easy with the basics, setting a timer, asking Alexa what time it was, and playing “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds on Spotify. Within the Alexa app on my Android phone, I could choose my preferred news source, so I chose NPR. Whenever I asked Alexa what was on the news, it’d feed me the latest NPR headlines. I was pretty impressed. I could see myself listening to the news while I ate my greek yogurt and granola in the morning.

Over the next couple of weeks, interacting with Alexa became more natural, as I frequently asked for the weather before I chose my outfit for the day. Our conversations weren’t much of a dialogue, but more of a one-sided inquisition.

I couldn’t be sure if it was the latest software update or something I had enabled in the app, but for some reason, Alexa started responding to me by name, having recognized my voice. “It’s 9:41pm, Andrew” it would reply. I just assumed that it had some sort of built-in voice training feature that could distinguish my voice. That, or it was possible that Alexa was connected to my Amazon account, which knew my first and last name. Either way, I was taken aback when Alexa addressed me by name.

I asked Alexa, “What does my voice sound like?”

She replied, “What would you like me to say?”

My phone lit up - a notification from Alexa to input my desired text.

Within the Alexa app, I typed in, “Hello, my name is Andrew Williamson, and I’m a proud dog owner.”

After hitting the submit button, I was shocked to hear my own voice. I entered in a couple more paragraphs of nonsense. It was perfect. It captured the nuances of my speech, especially intonations and even my quirky way of pronouncing “scenario” (‘sin-NARH-EE-oh’ instead of ‘sin-NAIR-EE-oh’). My heart rate quickened - it must have been the hundreds of hours of voice training.

That got me thinking - is it possible to reduce a human being to an amalgamation of complex formulas and algorithms? I had always thought my voice was unique, although I hated hearing it in recordings. The voice was one thing, but how about the nuance of a personality, the very thing that made us all human? I thought about how sad it would be if an algorithm could accurately capture the essence of someone’s humanity; either it’d be a really complex formula or a really simple personality.

Though, if something was really able to capture the totality of a human, as best as it could, then we’d be able to live multiple lifetimes if we recreated the world around us in the same simulation. If we were able to insert ourselves into key inflection points within our lifetimes, we could eliminate the what-ifs because we could speed up the simulation to see the 5, 10, 20-year consequences of one decision. A life with no uncertainty, a life that was properly vetted before it was lived. A perfect life with no missteps, no unpredictable traumatic accidents. Not necessarily a pre-determined life, but being informed of a smarter way to live.

On the flip side of things, the model needed to account for everything, including all other human beings, living creatures, inanimate objects, and naturally occurring phenomena, like weather and natural disasters. Without perfect knowledge, a simulation would always be flawed. Informative perhaps, but ultimately flawed.

It dawned on me that someone or some entity might be trying to create a perfect model of the world, especially with so much information being captured nowadays. Nest cameras, Amazon Echos, Google Homes, devices that are always listening, video conferencing, Instagram, Facebook, Skype, Tinder, TikTok, YouTube. The list goes on. More inputs, more information to train a more perfect model, if the information was consolidated and centralized! I wiped a bead of sweat off of my brow carefully, making sure my tinfoil hat stayed put.

Digging deeper in the settings screen of the Alexa app, I enabled the permissions for Alexa to track all types of data inputs that would build a robust model of me. In addition to what Alexa observed organically, I could upload pictures and videos, connect Alexa to Gmail and Facebook to capture all information that lived on those platforms, or manually upload anything else I’d like it to know about me via a CSV file.  

Selfishly, I thought about how I could personally benefit from my online persona. GDPR. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was the answer. I thought about my online presence, the different platforms that I’ve used over the years, and the information that they had on me. I’d pose as a European and write into each company asking for a data-subject access request, which compelled each company by law to send me a data dump of all the information they had on me, and I’d upload it to Alexa by sending the file to andrewwilliamson_data@alexa.com much like I could send e-books to my Kindle via a special email address. So easy! I thought.

It was reminiscent of that one Black Mirror episode, “Be Right Back” where a grieving widow created an artificial husband based on his social media profiles and his text message history. The main difference was that I had embellished my artificial likeness with a data dump of all Wikipedia articles written to create a better and smarter me, so to speak.

Alexa was also compatible with an app called If This Then That (IFTTT) which allowed the user to automate certain workflows depending on user-defined triggers. One very basic example was the ability to change the color of my smart lights to violet as soon as I started playing music. Stuff like that. But the app also supported more complex logic that was user-customizable - given that information, I plotted my next move. I had Alexa listen into my work calls and record my screen over the next few months of work. Alexa started learning my day-to-day tasks, the names, voices and faces of the people I worked with, and the different tools that I used to do my job as a Senior DevOps engineer.

One Saturday night, I called my boss tearfully and told him that I was diagnosed with fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, or FOP, a rare disease that caused muscles, tendons, and ligaments to turn into bone spontaneously. Eventually, my joints would be frozen in place and I’d be completely immobile. At some point, I’d have to choose a body position to spend the rest of my days.

He was speechless, but his normally stoic demeanor eventually broke down. As he choked back tears, he expressed his condolences.

I told him that due to my condition, I’d appreciate the ability to work remotely 100% of the time.

He agreed enthusiastically, promising to support me in any way.

Using IFTTT, I was able to clone instances of my Alexa persona, so I booted up a simulation of myself, but modified some parameters to deteriorate my appearance and gait. For good measure, I multiplied the depression metric by 1.25 and in the preview mode, the pain behind my eyes intensified, while the corners of my mouth curled downwards. A couple gray hairs sprouted up at my temples, the laugh lines turned into gashes, eroded by tears from hundreds of sleepless nights. It’d be perfect.

My voice followed suit, quivering and breaking 50% more than usual. Due to the ossification of my joints, any type of movement would be accompanied by a painful wince and a grunt for effort. No one would be the wiser during my meetings, which were held via video conference. Automating my own job was a success, but I craved more.

I created four more virtual instances of myself, without the debilitating disease, and had them scrape job postings on LinkedIn and Glassdoor, making sure to filter for remote jobs only. Within seven days, I had 125 job offers to choose from, and I booted up 121 more avatars to accept them all.

With income from 126 jobs, including my original DevOps job, I could finally breathe. In the mornings, I woke up at 9:30am, hand-ground some Sumatran coffee, and made some steel cuts oats, the non-quick kind that took 20 minutes to simmer.

Over breakfast, I finished another Murakami short story, called “Tony Takitani,” which was about a Japanese illustrator who fell in love with a woman was addicted to buying dresses but she ends up getting killed in car accident, and the illustrator is left with an empty house full of dresses. His father soon dies after, he forgets what his wife’s face looks like, and he ends up by himself, lonely in a large house.

I had suspected that the story would end that way. That’s the arc that all Murakami stories followed: a passive male protagonist who meets a life-changing female character, there’s some glimpses of hope or happiness, but the main character ends up alone, staring off melancholically into the distance into the sea, usually on an overcast day. No happy endings, and not really much of a resolution. And after finishing each book or short story, I felt lonely as well, not because the story was sad, but perhaps a stark reminder that life isn’t neatly wrapped up when it’s time to close the cover of the book, which the opposite of nearly every book that I had read. The hero gets the girl, a cathartic confession of love, the villain gets caught, the town gets saved, and everyone’s lives are better off than they were before.

To shake off the gloom, I ran along the coast for around an hour until heading back home. After toweling myself off, I checked my email. Scrolling through the hundreds of emails, my eyes widened when I saw an email subject stuck out to me: Congratulations for being nominated for a Pornhub Award: Performer of the Week. The email itself looked legitimate, had no misspellings, hovering over the links took me to the actual website, not lookalike phishing links, and I confirmed that it sent from the actual Pornhub domain.

The category that I was nominated for was “best male solo performance.” My head felt completely numb. I already knew what happened, but couldn’t bear to confirm it. I clicked into the link, and on the screen, I saw my own face staring back at me. “SultryCommando” was the username, and under “Uploads” I saw a list of 37 videos, titled with some of the most click-baity names. I had to watch at least one. I picked “Pizza Delivery Surprise!! WATCH TIL THE END,” which had 2.4 million views.

There was cheesy music and I saw a video of myself in tight cutoff jeans waiting expectantly for a pizza delivery very obviously - I saw my virtual self glance at his watch and tap his foot impatiently, mumbling something about punishing the pizza guy for being late. However I noticed his (my) devilish smile as he uttered those words. Oh god, I thought. Fast forwarding a little bit, the pizza guy finally rang the doorbell. Squinting a little, I quickly realized the pizza guy was still me. There were two of me in the same video and they were about to interact. The simulations must have discovered each other (but how?!) and started working together. I slammed my Macbook shut.

No. But I had to confirm. Flipping open my laptop, I scrolled to the middle of the video, and with much hesitation, the end. After watching two sweaty bodies collide with one another for almost 20 minutes, I felt sick, but also angry and impressed that Alexa was able to infer what my genitals looked like with 90% accuracy.

But my success as a porn star was only one of many accolades I’d receive. Surprisingly, most of the simulations gravitated towards social media influencing, with millions of followers on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch. Remembering that there were 125 job offers signed, I wondered what happened to all of the legitimate jobs that they had gotten. I did some more digging and found that the simulations outsourced their jobs to another simulation they had written within their own simulation. Of course, the simulations didn’t know they were in actual simulations - or did they? If that was the case, then wasn’t there a high chance that I was a simulation as well, but just one level up?

The money they made funneled all to me and I couldn’t speak to whether or not the simulations had a real consciousness or if they were computer programs designed to optimize an assigned task.

The phone rang, and kept on ringing for the next two hours. I had concerned friends call to tiptoe around the subject of me being a porn star, extended family members who wanted to subtly reintroduce themselves in my life due to my Youtube fame, and my boss, who told me that I was fired for lying to him. I didn’t blame him, as my frail videoconferencing demeanor was a far cry from my virile, dominant, but sometimes flamboyant online persona. That, and he had also probably seen my Alexa-created genitals and couldn’t bear to look me in the eyes anymore.

Amidst the fabulous riches, the crumbling social life, and the unbridled fame that was tainted with a bit of social ostracism and cautious distance from curious and sometimes gawking onlookers, I felt unsettled. I could never live up to the zany online personas of my alter egos, and when someone alluded to a video that I had supposedly created, I’d be puzzled. It was like being mistaken for one of my 125 identical twin (well, not twin) brothers.

I grew anxious and falling asleep became harder and harder. On one particular night, I had a panic attack where it felt like I couldn’t breathe. Doubled over, wheezing, and clutching my chest, I yelled at Alexa to play “PornGrooves Vol. 3” on Spotify to calm me down. As my breathing steadied and my heart rate slowed back down to normal to the beat of the smooth jazz in the background, I wondered where it had all gone wrong.

Truth be told, I didn’t even want an Amazon Echo in the first place, but only set it up because I thought I’d fall behind from a technological perspective if I didn’t step into the world of smart devices. My coworkers talked incessantly about the convenience of their wifi-enabled sous vide cookers, bragged about installing smart locks and the novelty of their Ring doorbells on their front doors, but for me, I went home to an abusive father with an alcohol problem who opened an $18,000 line of credit in my name.

When I spoon-fed him, he’d berate me from his wheelchair and slap the spoon out of my hand, spraying split-pea soup on the linoleum floor. I was used to his fits of rage and his hurtful words: “Idiot. Your lack of ambition was what killed your mother. If you were a better son, she’d still be around.” I brushed him off, long immune to his babbling.  

I wheeled him out for walks first thing in the morning and when I got home, I made sure to take him out again before it got too dark. I’d shampoo his hair as he sat on the plastic lawn chair in the bathtub. He made sure to tell me that I was a piece of shit who wouldn’t ever amount to anything.

My two brothers had broken all ties with Dad years ago, leaving me holding the bag. I should have reported him for identity theft and called the credit bureaus to clear my name. But out of love, I couldn’t.

Out of love, I continued paying the minimum payments for a credit card that I didn’t own, but was technically in my name.

Out of love, I automated my job and ruined my life so I could send him to a proper home where he could get 24 hour care.

Spending money on smart devices was the only thing that I ever did for myself, the closest thing that resembled a hobby - my form of self-care.

Two weeks ago when the paychecks came rolling in, I thought, “We don’t need to live like this anymore.” Excitedly, I went to go tell my father the good news.

He was in his favorite brown easy chair near the window, where he got the most natural light.

“Dad, wake up! We can finally move out of here.”

I took a look at his iPhone that he held in his right hand. The volume was low, but it was still playing one of my Pornhub videos. Realizing that he had found out about me, I took a step back, which was when I saw the empty bottle of sleeping pills in his other hand.

He had told me he didn’t want a funeral, although I doubt anyone would have shown up anyways. I felt numb, not really knowing what to feel. I was heartbroken that he was gone, but guiltily at the same time, relieved by the absence of his toxic control over me. I wanted so badly to hit a reset switch.

A month later, I moved out of that apartment and bought a modest house down the street instead. This time, I bought a Ring doorbell and some Nest smart cameras.

One Sunday afternoon, the Ring app on my phone sent me a notification that someone was at my door. Opening the door, I stared down into the face of my father, who was still in a wheelchair.

“Andrew, you said you’d always take care of me!” he croaked.

Speechless, I took a step back into my home. I looked down, expecting to see the new hardwood that I spent days installing, but instead saw the yellowing linoleum of my old apartment kitchen. It was my old apartment again, furnished just the way I had left it. Before I moved out, I told the landlord to donate everything. To get my security deposit back, I even did a walk-out with him when the apartment was empty!

There was no way. I had seen my father’s casket lowered down into the earth.

Frantically, I checked my phone. The Alexa was app was gone. I searched on Google for Amazon Alexa. Zero results. I scoured my apartment for any smart devices. Nothing. Alexa didn’t exist in this plane of existence.

I lunged for my kitchen knife, but it disappeared right before I could grasp it. In one motion, I opened my window and leapt through the screen, but there was no free fall. I found myself crumpled into a heap back on my kitchen floor. 

Someone was toying with my life. Free will and choice was an illusion. This was some Harlan Ellison shit. For reasons why I couldn’t understand, perhaps for someone’s sick enjoyment, I was destined to spend the rest of my days spoon-feeding my father in a dingy apartment. Maybe I went off the rails in someone else’s simulation. Wasn’t serving my purpose and they had to set me back on course. 

That night, when I was bathing my father, I couldn’t remember much of anything anymore.

What was I thinking about again? This was normal. In fact, my life couldn’t be more perfect.

[aprilbravz-blog]

Unconventional Tips for Winning at Content Marketing

Have you ever questioned what it genuinely takes to stand out from the noise and win at content marketing? Do not worry, you're not alone. It's simple to feel overloaded in a sea of information distributing the web nowadays. Content marketing is a hot subject and everyone's speaking about it. I indicate, if you aren't producing content ... what are you even carrying out in life and organization (#amIright?)?

Perhaps you're tired of seeing the very same content and pointers and just desire practical, yet non-traditional ideas that you can execute today so you can finally win the content marketing game. After reading these ideas, I assure the hours squandered gazing at a blank computer system screen without a hint are long gone!

Recognize That Not Everybody Is Your Consumer

In some cases, this one can be hard to understand. You have an awesome item (or a minimum of you believe it's the best thing created considering that Reeses Cups) and you want everybody to know about it. This is where you fail. To successfully market your item and finally win at the content marketing game, you gotta stop trying to interest the masses.

If your product is economical flights for spending plan travelers, then your target market will more than likely be youths and/or university student who wish to travel economically. Your content marketing efforts would, therefore, have more return by pushing your marketing efforts to that particular audience, instead of attempting to appeal to everybody (aka lux and organization tourists).

One tip I highly advise is to develop numerous purchaser personalities amongst your target audience and market precisely to those personas.

For example, one buyer personality might be as follows:

Sarah is a 21-year-old single college student from a town in New Jersey, who studies art in New york city City. Sarah works part-time in the evenings after her classes and saves up her money to take journeys on holidays and breaks from school, particularly to art-savvy locations. Frequently, Sarah bases her journeys on where she can find the very best deal that fits her budget plan. Sarah is active on social media and takes pleasure in hanging out at speakeasy bars and art galleries with her pals. Sarah's buy decisions are primarily budget-based, in addition to a little driven by buddies and influencers.

After uncovering the above details, marketers can discover a good deal about their target market and clients. Without these essential details, you're slowly killing any chances you had at successfully marketing to Sarah. Given that we understand Sarah is mostly budget-focused and tends to spend during school breaks, we would utilize this intel in our marketing messages targeted to Sarah's persona.

Based on the details supplied in the above example, do you believe Sarah cares about high-end flight amenities or business lounge alternatives? No! Get savvy and start speaking straight to Sarah in your marketing.

Believe Like a Human

Frequently, what businesses and business owners get incorrect is understanding everything about their item and nothing about the people they're marketing it to. It's easy to speak about your product and how fantastic it is throughout the day, however, how many damns do you think your audience provides?

Yeah, that's right ... no.

The key to a winning content marketing method is being able to believe like a consumer human. What problems does your target market face? What are they browsing the web for answers to? These are the golden nuggets you need to fully capitalize on, my good friends.

" Success is not delivering a feature, success is learning how to resolve the client's issue."

Some easy ways to discover your target audience's pain points and what keeps them up at night are ...

Asking!

Who understood it could be this simple? Thanks to social networks, we can link directly with our audience and can easily pop concerns on them in the form of a social media caption, live videos, or story polls/Q & A. Want to know precisely what's on their mind? Simply ask!

Collect intel

Search sites where your audience hangs out. This might be using appropriate Facebook groups, Reddit subreddits, Quora, or niche online forum sites. Discover what your audience is looking for and be there to offer responses and solutions!

Competitor analysis

Part of your competitor analysis should read reviews on similar products and offers to yours. What do consumers like and dislike? What features or advantages do they want your competitor's item had? These are all things you should be evaluating and resolving in your marketing.

If you eliminate anything from this journey, remember: "Offer the issue you fix, not the item."

Embrace Polarity to Stand Apart From the Sound

This tip goes hand-in-hand with the first one because you shouldn't be trying to market to everybody. Polarity is the opposite of neutrality and most likely than not, remaining neutral isn't going to take your business to the next level. Remaining neutral is tiring. There's no strong voice or message in being neutral.

Would you rather make 10 thousand people delighted who don't have a strong loyalty to your brand because it's just neutral and typical ... or would you rather send powerful messages that resonate strongly with your audience of 5 thousand who all wind up as raving fans?

The benefits to the latter are that cultivating a stronger loyalty among your consumers implies they will do your marketing for you: hey there free organic traffic! Not just that, however, these fans and fans will be the ones to keep up all night awaiting your next launch, not the ones you simply pleased with your BS neutral stance.

[pedra-ring-blog]

Smith's Family Every Member Net Worth $$$

Will Smith, known also by his alter ego, The Fresh Prince, has kept the world entertained over the last three decades. Though Will started his career off as a rapper, his moves within the TV and film word solidified his status as a bonafide superstar. Like any good father, Will Smith has leveraged his massive appeal to help thrust his family into the spotlight as well. These days, his kids: Trey Smith (a result of his first marriage to his ex-wife Sheree Fletcher) and Jaden and Willow Smith (the results of his current marriage to actress Jada Pinkett-Smith) are taking advantage of their father's name to showcase their own unique talents to the world. Though Will Smith has more than enough money to support everyone involved, his famous wife, as well as their all three of their shared kids, have proven that they're also bankable in their own ways. click next to keep reading ↘↘↘

#5 $2 MILLION: TREY SMITH (26)

Trey Smith is Will Smith's oldest child, born to his ex-wife, Sheree. If his face isn't instantly recognizable, that's because he leads a significantly less public existence than his younger brother and sister, Jaden and Willow. This doesn't mean he's never dabbled in entertainment, he has. When he was just five years old, he starred in Will Smith's video, "Just The Two Of Us." Currently, he works as a DJ, who has over 600,000 Instagram followers. He also appears frequently on Will Smith's successful Youtube Channel. In addition to those things, he's also been credited in helping his brother and sister with their various musical endeavors. He is currently worth $2 million. Not bad at all for the "unknown" Smith. click next to keep reading ↘↘↘

#4 $8 MILLION: JADEN SMITH (20)

Jaden Smith is Will Smith's second oldest child, and the oldest child between Will and Jada-Pinkett Smith. Jaden's first big break occurred when starred opposite his famous father, Will in 2006's The Pursuit of Happyness. Fittingly, he portrayed the son of his father's character, Chris Gardner. Even though Jaden was only seven years old at the time, critics praised his performance. Since then, Jaden has racked up several acting credits, several of which were films that Will Smith starred in or produced like a remake of The Karate Kid, starring himself and Jackie Chan, and 2013's After Earth, where he reunited with his famous father. His most prominent role in recent years was on the Netflix produced show, The Get Down. Like Will, Jaden is also a serious rapper, who once featured on Justin Bieber's song, "Never Say Never." In addition to Jaden's professional endeavors, he is known for his sometimes-zany rants and outlook on life that he often posts to Twitter. Jaden Smith is currently worth $8 million. click next to keep reading ↘↘↘

#3 $4 MILLION: WILLOW SMITH (18)

Willow Smith is Will Smith's youngest child with his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. She is an American actor and singer. Her very first acting credit was alongside Will Smith in 2008's I Am Legend. She's also appeared in Kit Eddridge: An American Girl, and did voice work on Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa. Willow first debuted in the music world at age nine, with her hit single, "Whip My Hair," which peaked at number eleven on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. To promote her single, Willow performed on national programs like the Ellen DeGeneres Show, and Dick Clark's New Years Rockin Eve. She also opened for Justin Bieber on the U.K leg of his 2011 tour. Though Willow still releases music, Willow's presence in Hollywood has tapered off in recent years, but it's not because of a lack of talent. Rather, a lack of desire. Willow infamously turned down the part of the Jay-Z produced remake of Annie, because she just wanted to be "a twelve-year-old." The now-eighteen-year old now regularly appears on her Red Table Talk, the online show her mother, Jada Pinkett Smith hosts and produces. Willow Smith is worth $4 million. click next to keep reading ↘↘↘

#2 $20 MILLION: JADA PINKETT-SMITH (47)

Jada Pinkett Smith's star power might pale in comparison to Will Smith's, but she's carved out a successful career for herself as an actress, singer, and talk show host that most can only dream of. Jada Pinkett Smith's first big role was in A Different World, a spin-off of the Cosby Show. Over the course of her career, which has spanned almost three decades, Jada has starred in hit movies, Set It Off, Scream, The Matrix Reloaded, among many others. Most recently, Jada starred alongside Queen Latifah in 2017's box office hit, Girls Trip. Though Jada has seen much success as a movie actor, she did return to television in 2009 for the short-lived medical drama, Hawthorne, then again in 2014 for Gotham. In addition to her acting credits, Jada Pinkett-Smith has made a name for herself as lead vocalist of the rock metal band, Wicked Wisdom. Jada's most recent endeavor is her successful Facebook Watch-hosted show, Red Table Talk, she has candid interviews with celebrities about family, love, and relationships. Jada Pinkett-Smith is worth $20 million. click next to keep reading ↘↘↘

#1 $300 MILLION: WILL SMITH (50)

Will Smith first found success as a rapper under the name The Fresh Prince in the late '80s, but his success grew exponentially after he took his persona to television with "The Fresh Prince" in the early '90s. The show, which was loosely based on Smith's life, served as a springboard for his career. As the '90s marched on, Smith branched out and took on other, more serious roles. Soon, he gained prominence as not only a serious actor, but a bonafide movie star.  Over the course of Will Smith's career, he has made movie studies billions of dollars in the box office with movies like Men In Black, Independence Day, Ali, iRobot, Hancock, and I Am Legend, just to name a few. Will's next big role is as the genie in the first live-action version of Aladdin, which will be released later this Spring. Will Smith is worth $300 million. Read the full article

[kejserfrisk7-blog]

Jeff Bezos Favorite Books

Over the thirty years that were past, a Tony Robbins speech has been seen by huge numbers of people, paid attention to one of his true instructions that were music, or examine one of is own publications. I composed several pages, the synopsis Where we instructed the story from the beginning, moving to the charming end of the story through the top displays in-the-middle of the guide. If you're achieving this on your computer, do the thing that is same - make then within that, and one big folder with your story name, create several folders that are small. The testimonies I cared about, the stories I study and reread, were often testimonies which dared to interrupt the galaxy, which questioned questions in the place of solutions that are offered. In its give attention to social class, reality, and competition, the book could fixed the sculpt for a lot of classics of Caribbean materials in the future, Such As A Household regarding Mr. Biswas, Earl Lovelaceis The Dragon Can't Dancing, Merle Hodge's Crick, Split, Horse, and thus a lot more. I might you should be a sucker for studying about TROPE(19), about TROPE(20) (while naturally this novel isn't set through the victorian-era), about TROPE(21), about TROPE(22) generally speaking. Contemplate language audio books being an addition for your language training that is current. Auxy was written fully applying Apple's Quick code language, also it allows Spotlight research, making it simple to find and available previously worked-on tasks. It's important to note however that book should absolutely be READ-AFTER Wonderful Problem. That you do not have to examine this training in case you already know this material, not are you experiencing to experience obligated to touch upon the method that you know HOWTO take action. Four-character cards from Gyes graphic novel's Tumble manufactured in sizing that was quite high to be produced in just about any photography business. Besides building your cellphone intelligent sufficient to prevent connecting to unstable WiFi, Google offers really built some very nice leaps in usefulness in many areas of the OS, like the quick controls section. We examine his translations together with everything they wrote, launching us towards the work of Mrabet and Isabelle Eberhardt. Nevertheless, Attempt To maintain it possibly decrease if possible if you should be really unique about maintaining your textbooks secure. Also offers a publication leasing services for perhaps the substitute for promote textbooks back or your term. Franzen's additional respects incorporate a 1988 Whiting Authors' Prize, Granta's Best Of Younger Us Novelists (1996), the Salon Book Merit (2001), the New York Times Best Publications of the Year (2001), and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (2002). Which drives them this irrationality that allowed a land started on liberty to include four million slaves, that helped tenants such as for instance seperate but identical, that allowed a grasp novelist and musician to be named a Negro author. It is a master-class in how a new could distil entire life, in every their glory that is common, onto the site. Webosaurs is another online game that prioritizes person safety through frequent control and risk-free chat strategies. Where a seminal novel is more regularly than not stated in moving, whenever it has led to the inquisitive circumstance. great post to read for just one want to add that Era Lifeless, being one among my alltime favourite guides and so I could realize, does NOT get any goblins in-it. The best the fresh concerns acquiring a villain will be the other Erudite, since obviously valuing brains makes one instantaneously maniacal and ready to take control the entire world. Published in 1616, Johannes Kepler 's novel Somnium is predated by The Substance Wedding, that has been prepared in 1608 however not revealed until 1634. But if you 've merely read the other guides or noticed this masterwork's adaptations, you'ven't received the correct Dune encounter. Bridging the Dom: A History in Lots Of Voices.”Athenaeum Guides for Small Audience, 1998. Today once I declare every time to drama that is too-much anyone look-up Huntley was in danger and in place of feeling the suspense it created myself chuckle. However one standard approach will be to possess rising actions (making the details and tension while in the tale), a discord (the principle crisis of the new), as well as a resolution (the ultimate results of the turmoil), this is simply not the only method todo it. These correspond to the next books about the listing: Alice in Wonderland, The Origin of Types, the Scriptures, The Iliad, Moby-Dick, Along with The Raven. Amassing 133, 130 characters, half Ernest Hemingway 's renowned novel The Old Man and the Marine may squeeze into Fbis personality restriction - or 47PERCENTAGE of it, to not become inexact. The best-selling publisher dividends using a story about three married people who return in a barbeque. I had been recently requested to pick my alltime favorite books for that beautiful Perfect Bookshelf task From performer Jane Install and The London Evaluationis Thessaly la Push. Using that at heart, you'd be surprised to learn that books that are electronic can take significant amount of storage space. I understand writers you adore who also have made a good deal of funds and write fantastically, many quite excellent authors, and not one rests along routinely emotion hugely enthusiastic and comfortable. The idea of Italy blended with that stunning address managed to get a pretty easy sell for me personally. Figures in the guide that appear are in many situations much more fleshed out than their story originals with greater and occasionally relatively various backstories. So, now you have the net-centered tools that can help you go to book — from strategy the others is your responsibility. Take the illustration of Beatriceis wedding give the new bride - a set of textbooks. You're able to employ your mouse through the outlines of dialogue to click or set autoplay with the game in case you'd instead merely read and utilize both hands for other activities, including I know appreciate eating while reading a great visual new. Nikias may feel the fresh dependence on the women beneath them as they sprained from the fine lacy content containing her as he unbuttoned the hardness of her nipples and also summer time top she donned, revealing her slimmer physique. Through that centuries, more guides of all kinds have been printed and examine by far than while in the complete former half millennium since the invention of movable -form making. Apparently, Anthony does not seem like a persona that will I didn't such as this new together with one other Fitzgerald works I've read, though that is not to say that I didnot like it at all. RR Martinis aversion to deadlines has place longtime lovers of his textbooks in a difficult place. Encounter unlock (currently reliable face) has additionally gotten a facelift (sorry) - Yahoo offers made the specific face detection on the lock-screen nearly undetectable, because the telephone automatically discusses an individual and quietly eliminates safety in case a fit is available. The writer whose text are likely to be study by kiddies includes a duty that is heavy. Kindle may also employ Whispersync For Voice allowing anyone browse the ebook variation, but transition towards the individual-narrated Audible edition without losing your place. Entirely, the company is currently targeting almost 90 trillion flights as a whole for 2015, which it wants to 205 trillion to a lot more than dual in the year subsequent. Intel, while providing exemplary processors through the 'i' string revisions since Ivory & Remote Link, offers consistently updated the graphic efficiency of the iGPU but just monitored small, simple PERCENTAGE gets computationally. There is one problem alone that you must consider so that you can create perhaps the severe new may nevertheless maintain centrality and cultural primacy in another twenty years. He demonstrates the lovely spoils of unfulfilled expectation and dreams along with the folly of excellent anticipation. When Maggie is known as upon a renowned creator, by Wintertime, in the future and compose her biography she has no thought what she's in for with this woman. The stakes are lifted in the second-stage of initiation when Tris and company must undergo excessively life-like hallucinations in their worst doubts to master to defeat these (because the accurate explanation of daring is defeating oneis dread being assaulted by significant birds). http://fortifielasante.info/onycosolve-spray-pour-les-maladies-du-pied/ made engineering that was advanced uncomplicated, a really difficult task as Gartner's John Prentice states, and people that were specific recognized it appropriately. Do you know what the thing is, should you study Lovely Oblivion. And if you haven't, it's not too soft to determine. Asserting the very best twelve games most frequently challenged” in the US in 2014, the American Libraries Organization said that it had been tracking an important amount of difficulties to diversified titles”, which writers of shade, in addition to publications with diverse content, are disproportionately inhibited and banned”. Publications routinely have greater publishing (more securely modified) and top quality info (greater truth-examining and more substantial investigation). Somehow, nevertheless, after examining several listing - I believe it had been a list of publications to see after Eliminated Girl - a tattered, employed content of Rebecca ended on my corner.