#industrial business directory

[scottsinfo]

Explore Ultimate Industrial Business Directory-Scott’s Info

Discover Scott’s Info comprehensive Industrial Business Directory, your gateway to a world of industrial solutions and services. It provides you with updated contact information and important data on your potential customers with just a single click. To get More Information check our website today.

[bbuuovo]

< Directory in update >

[hadone]

COMEMİXGO - MEGA+ (4)

Welcome to Comemixgo, the ultimate solution for businesses looking to enhance their online presence and connect with a broader audience. In today’s competitive digital landscape, having a reliable platform is essential to stand out and grow your brand. Comemixgo offers an innovative way to expand your reach with its extensive resources, including a comprehensive free company directory and an unlimited company directory option, tailored to meet your unique needs. 

Free Company Directory

A free company directory serves as an invaluable resource for individuals and businesses looking for information about various companies without any associated costs. Such directories provide comprehensive listings that include essential details like company names, addresses, phone numbers, and industry classifications. When it comes to navigating vast amounts of company information, a free directory offers users an accessible way to locate the businesses they need swiftly.

Among the numerous platforms available, Comemixgo stands out by offering not only a free company directory but also an unlimited directory option. This flexibility allows users to browse through countless listings for various needs. A free company directory can be particularly beneficial for small businesses and startups, helping them to establish connections and discover potential partners or clients. Additionally, it empowers individuals looking to research companies for employment opportunities, investment prospects, or service providers.

Utilizing a free company directory is straightforward; users can often search by keywords, industries, or geographical locations. This functionality streamlines the process, making it easy to find just the right business. Furthermore, having access to an extensive company directory without the constraints of fees or subscription plans can greatly enhance networking opportunities and resource accessibility for everyone.

Unlimited Company Directory

The Unlimited Company Directory offered by Comemixgo is a comprehensive resource designed to empower businesses by providing unrestricted access to a diverse array of company listings. Unlike standard directories, this feature ensures that users can explore an extensive range of businesses without limitations.

With the Unlimited company directory, users can:

Access a broad spectrum of industries, making it easier to find competitors, suppliers, or potential partners.

Utilize advanced search functionalities that allow for filtering based on specific criteria such as location, company size, and industry.

Gain insights into various companies, including contact information, business descriptions, and service offerings.

Bookmark favorite listings for future reference, enabling quick access to key businesses that align with their goals.

This feature not only enhances user experience but also simplifies the process of networking and finding necessary contacts in the business landscape. By utilizing the Unlimited Company Directory, businesses can make informed decisions and foster valuable connections.

Overall, this tool serves as an invaluable asset for anyone looking to thrive in today's competitive market.

Comemixgo

Comemixgo stands out as an essential platform in today’s dynamic business environment, providing both a free company directory and an unlimited company directory. This dual offering ensures that businesses of all sizes can benefit from enhanced visibility and accessibility. Ideal for startups and established enterprises alike, Comemixgo simplifies the process of discovering and connecting with a diverse range of companies.

One of the key features of Comemixgo is its user-friendly interface, allowing users to swiftly navigate through the extensive listings. By leveraging advanced search functionalities, you can easily filter results based on various parameters, ensuring that you find the most relevant companies for your needs. Whether you are looking for potential partners, suppliers, or competitors, Comemixgo makes it easy to access a wealth of information at your fingertips.

Additionally, the platform promotes networking opportunities, encouraging collaborations and partnerships that can lead to mutual growth and success. With the option for businesses to list themselves, Comemixgo contributes to a thriving ecosystem where visibility translates to more opportunities.

This robust directory is not just about listings; it also emphasizes quality. By vetting and verifying company information, Comemixgo ensures that users can trust the data they access. This commitment to quality makes it a go-to resource for anyone seeking reliable company information in the ever-expanding marketplace.

For those looking to maximize their outreach or explore new avenues for growth, utilizing Comemixgo's resources can prove invaluable. With a focus on providing both a free company directory and an unlimited company directory, businesses can leverage the platform to enhance their visibility and tap into new markets!

[thoughtroomba02]

TS Film Thoughts Masterpost

As promised.

Let's start things off -

Breaking News - Headlines about the film

Dec 9 2022 - her film contract makes headlines

From what I can find, this is the first that anyone knows she is producing a film. There are no details released other than it's a script she wrote and she will be directing the film.

The next we hear is Dec 7, 2023 from the Tennessean --

It's been crickets, essentially. There are no public details I can find about the film anywhere including cast list, release date, content, ETC.

Interestingly, two days ago -- though uncertain of validity of source -

I don't have access to puck so cannot confirm what the article says; but this was recent! So; in theory, she finishes her Eras tour and moves directly in to film.

More on how Disney+ ties in our next section...

Who is Searchlight Pictures?

Created April 29, 1994 - formerly known as Fox Searchlight/under 20th/21st Century Fox

Biggest success: Slumdog Millionaire 187 Academy Ward Nominations with 46 wins; 5 Best Picture since 2009 117 Golden Globe Nominations; 51 wins 66 Screen Actors Guild Award Nominations; 55 wins 137 Independent Spirit Awards, 54 Wins

Other Notable Films: 12 Years A Slave; Black Swan; Napoleon Dynamite;

20th century fox, prior to the creation of Searchlight, was prominent in the specialty and independent films market in the 1990s; it carried this interest into Searchlight, at least initially.

In 2012, it was incorporated into Murdoch's 21st Century Fox. Barf.

On Dec 14, 2017 Disney put their first bid out on 21st Century Fox/Fox Searchlight. On March 19, 2019 the companies merged and Disney acquired Fox Searchlight; Fox News notoriously split independently. Disney dropped the name Fox; so now we have just Searchlight Pictures. There is also a Searchlight Pictures TV and shorts production, which for the sake of time I will not get into.

For Funsies, here is a short film (Jun 18 2019, after Disney acquired) produced by them called....LAVENDER. About a gay man who has a relationship with a married gay couple. Can't make it up.

Anyway, since merging with Disney especially, the company seems to be LGBTQ friendly.

And yes, Joe Alwyn has worked with Searchlight, with tweets I found dating back to 2018 with Searchlight UK. Make of that what you would like, I have no real objective commentary on the matter.

Taylor as a Director

She also directed the Long Pond Studio Sessions and Miss Americana.

Most of her directorial work has been since the Lover debut. Most of which is very queer coded/sapphic.. and again, make of that what you will.

Appearances/Pap Walks, ETC

Since her split from JA, we have seen her with multiple friends in the film industry. Among these: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Selena Gomez, Keleigh Teller, Miles Teller, Sophie Turner, Emma Stone...

And dare I say.... Travis Kelce, who seems to want to break his way into the entertainment industry?

(aside from this headline; his failed dating show, his podcast, his multiple PR deals like with ZenWater... etc. I rest my case).

We also know there has been some B roll footage taken at the Chiefs Games.

Additionally, the media coverage of this relationship has been an absolute f*cking circus; with constant headlines of the two and their "engagement" / relationship dynamics. On Taylor's end, we have had constant references to Bejeweled (where she Ghosts); including Keleigh Teller giving her the opal ring.

The Speculation

Yall, this is my opinion - you can agree, disagree, etc; but I have no insider information. Just thoughts.

She makes her film directorial debut with Searchlight - recently acquired by Disney, who is pro-LGBTQ; and is clearly in deep with business deals with them, as seen on Taylor Nation and her Eras Tour Film.

We have rumors of her beginning her film production at the end of the ERAS tour, along with knowledge of her currently with B roll footage from chiefs games. We have multiple highly papp'ed appearances with her + TK; but also with multiple film stars, including Blake Lively (still not over that photo), Sophie Turner (I do think there's altruism here tbh on TS's end), and Keleigh. If you believe Keleigh is her stand in invisible bride.... Holy shit. Between the opal ring shutdown of the media circus as well as her and TS literally taking a page out of TSHOEH and dressing in character...

My ultimate suspicion is that she's using actual experiences of her current life-highly papp'ed - to tell her story. And that Keleigh is her stand in muse in this film.

I also think the @spade-riddles we've been getting about a final act ending, etc, pertain to her film. I don't have evidence aside from speculation.

I rest my case. Enjoy this post and make of it what you will.

[kkanabel]

caffeine addiction - chapter 8 Bakugou Katsuki x Reader / Coffee Shop! AU

directory/m.list

⇦ previous chapter - next chapter ⇨

warnings: depictions of alc*hol abuse, mentions of death, mentions of drugs/drug use (?) idk yall

Your aunt was an interesting character. Kindeki Takumi, at the age of 27, decided to take over her late sister’s boutique shortly after she passed. The boutique was simple. It offered retail: high-quality clothes (from other manufacturers) and some complimentary tailoring services. 

After about a year, when Takumi got bored of repeating the same process of waking up, selling clothes, and occasionally tailoring them, she decided that it was time to expand the business. She rented out the place next door and started selling her own designs. Seeking to learn more about garment creation, she attended classes and fashion shows, inadvertently gaining relationships and knowledge in the luxury fashion industry. 

She’s visited almost every major city in the world to learn about their cultures, taking inspiration for her designs. This woman learned English, French, Italian, and Mandarin simply by visiting these countries to learn more about their individual fashions and therefore has friends around the world. These friends of hers only served to expand her business, as her fashion house grew alongside her popularity with others.

In only 19 years, she created a luxury fashion house worth almost 1 billion yen (~7M USD). Those in the industry call her both a creative and technical genius. The Kindeki brand as a whole is known for its efficient and beautiful designs. And it made sense– Kindeki Takumi centered her brand around who she was as a person. 

However, she wasn’t the only person who turned the brand into what it is today. Along with the inheritance of her sister’s boutique, she also found herself suddenly having to look over a three-year-old girl. 

Her sister’s husband was completely destroyed by his wife’s death. Takumi would go over to their house, only to see him drowning himself in vodka and his own tears, the house a complete mess. His three-year-old would be peacefully napping on the couch, fully unaware of her father breaking down next to her. When she woke up, her dad would cease his sobbing only to take care of the toddler, giving her weak smiles as his daughter kept asking where her mother went. 

After seeing the state that her brother-in-law was in, Takumi decided to help take care of the toddler so that he could take his time to properly mourn the love of his life. She recognized the new need for a mother figure in her niece’s life and tried her hardest to play the role so that her late sister wouldn’t have to worry in the world beyond. She wiped her tears away as she thought about it.

Kindeki Takumi brought the little girl to the boutique, a place the girl was already familiar with. These were the toughest days for Takumi, a woman completely new to parenting. The little girl ran around, playing with the clothes and messing up displays before Takumi was able to teach her to leave it be. She’d start crying and demanding to see her mother after Takumi tearily explained to her that her mom was gone . During these days, the young woman would hold her dear niece close as they both quietly wept in each other’s arms. 

However, things got easier as time passed.

By the time she turned six, the little girl was spending every weekend at the boutique, helping her aunt with the store– counting the till, taking inventory, and even setting up displays and mannequins. Around this point, Takumi started designing her own clothing– the process eased because her niece was able to mostly take care of herself. 

Sales were also easier. Sometimes, customers would be endeared to the smart little girl showing off clothes to them, telling them about the fabric blends and the trending styles for the new season. 

At the cashier, Takumi would be sketching her new designs. It was common for her to hear something along the lines of “I highee recommen this shirt. It is very cute wight now. Jennifuh Annison wore a dress just like dis on the carpet last week!” coming from her niece’s enthusiastic voice while the customer would giggle at her cuteness for a moment before agreeing with the little girl. Sometimes, the girl would want to try doing the sales portion in place of her aunt. She always looked up to her aunt, so she wanted to try it too. Somehow, it was a great sales tactic.

“Also, also! This design wight here will give the iwwusion of your waist looking smaller, if that’s what you like. Personawy, I think it’s da best we hab in our bootique right now! Da quality is unmatched!” The little girl’s voice was so cute, and her huge dedication to getting the sale was so adorable. People in the area talked about that one boutique with the six-year-old girl who’s amazing at sales . 

Takumi would teach the girl how to sew during these weekends, letting her see every single process of designing. After starting elementary school, she would come to the boutique after her classes with a notebook filled with the history of certain countries or different religions in bad handwriting. She’d cut out photos from tourist magazines and paste them all over her notebook, showing them to her aunt enthusiastically. 

She heard her aunt talking about “getting inspiration” from random places occasionally, so the girl wanted to give her aunt as much inspiration as possible. Frankly, though, the girl still didn’t really know what “inspiration” was. She just knew that it made her auntie happy, so she kept trying to give it to her.

Takumi’s first fashion show was dedicated to her niece, who showed her photos of certain regions in Morocco and their traditional clothing. This small presentation from niece to aunt was mostly filled with photos of Moroccan food, but it still encouraged Takumi to do some more research on Moroccan culture. The line ended up being highly influenced by traditional Moroccan culture and their ancient architecture from the Roman Empire. The accents of the pieces were all created in patterns that are typically on Moroccan pottery and plates. The dresses were tiered, showing the influence of the last-standing monarchial government in Northern Africa, and were designed in a way that showcased the highly migrative and colonizer-riddled history of the area. This was the line that caused Takumi’s brand to achieve notoriety, gaining investors and interest in the brand.

While the little girl’s initial interest was only in running the boutique (because she liked showing off her aunt’s designs to the customers), she later started to gain interest in creating designs of her own. While waiting for customers to come in, she’d be sketching in her notebook. Slowly, the girl was becoming more and more involved in the design of Kindeki’s pieces. In about a decade and a half, she’d be creating essentially half of the next fashion show. 

And this little girl is sitting in a café with her aunt, legs crossed as she waits for her drink to come out. 

The Marrochino

The Marrochino (pronounced mah-ro-kee-no) is typically served in a small glass and consists of a shot of espresso, chocolate syrup/sauce, cocoa powder, and milk froth. In Alba, Italy (the home of the Italian chocolate giant Ferrero), Nutella is used in place of the chocolate sauce. The name Marocchino, which is Italian for “Morroccan”, is derived from its color. Moroccan Leather was a type of light brown, high-quality leather commonly used in the 1930s.

While the drink is similar to the commonly-known Caffé Mocha, it does not have whipped cream and contains less milk, allowing you to fully taste the deeper flavors of the espresso along with the decadence of chocolate. Those who are fans of chocolate will love this caffeinated beverage. 

As the chocolate sauce is at the bottom, the Marrochino is served alongside a spoon, as it is essential to mix up the drink before enjoying. If you’d like something chocolaty with a caffeinated boost, the Marrochino is perfect for you!

This woman is the full definition–the essence– of the “rich and crazy aunt”, and you couldn’t wish for anything more. 

Today, you were wearing something a little more dressy than usual for your date with your aunt. Your stocking-covered legs were crossed, and a white linen napkin was placed on your lap. The café you were at was really fancy– it looked to be like some sort of upscale brunch place that doubled as a café. So, you wore a dark grey dress shirt (that was literally a dress) that was from your aunt’s brand. It had long sleeves that were cuffed at your wrists, and there was a cut-out heart detail, showing the bare skin on your sternum. This cut-out detail was framed by its massively exaggerated collar that added lots of drama to the whole look– it was a regular collar at the top, but the bottom of the collar was stretched out to frame your chest. 

You paired it with a black belt with eyelets and a very dramatic pair of black platform heels. The dress shirt alongside the accessories made you look classy, but also a little edgy. It was a great look on you. You felt confident walking through the streets today with your Masaki bag, watching as people gave you the “oh shit, it’s an attractive person but I can’t look too long or else it’s rude” look. 

Across from you was your aunt, who was still looking through the menu. She was always so indecisive, but she’d normally end up on the same dish anyway. When she sighed and put the menu down, you gave her a look. “Eggs benedict again?”

She nodded, defeatedly. 

The waiter came out to give you and your aunt your marocchinos and then asked for your order. “One Croque Madame and one Italian Eggs Benedict, please. Oh, and could you get me another one of these Marocchinos?” You glanced at your aunt to make sure it was the right order, and she nodded. 

When the Marocchino came out, it was much smaller than you expected. It looked like only one shot of espresso. Even though you were trying to take a break from caffeine today, it just feels wrong to have such a small amount of coffee…

Your aunt highly recommended this specific drink to you at this café. She said she had bought a scary amount of them in the past month. You watched as she picked up the small, ornate spoon with her well-manicured hands to stir up the layers of the drink in the small glass. 

Copying her, you took a sip of the drink at the same time she did. Pretty good. Lots of chocolate. 

“The espresso at the café where Bakugou-kun works is way better,” you said, taking another sip of the drink. “Still pretty good, though.”

Your aunt raised an eyebrow at you. She was wearing a white blazer that was draped around her shoulders over a black frilly mesh blouse (which was your design) and a pair of Kindeki sweatpants. She still looked extremely classy. “Hm, does his café serve marocchinos?” 

You thought about it for a moment, downing the rest of the drink. “I don’t think so. Maybe I should ask him to make one for me. To be honest, I haven’t tried many of his other drinks other than the americanos and such.”

The older woman across from you shook her head in disappointment. “Well, we’re going to be around his café a lot more, so you should go ahead and ask him. Maybe get some coffee from his place before opening the boutique.”

You hummed in agreement, sitting back on your chair. Your aunt was opening up a boutique right next to Bakugou’s café, and you were going to work there on some days to make some extra money. The area was one she was eyeing for quite a while. It wasn’t the busiest of places like her store in Shibuya or Ginza, but the sights of Mt. Fuji in Shizuoka were something your aunt wanted to be close by. It seems this time, her main inspiration is going to be Japanese attractions. 

She wasn’t opening this boutique for profit. It was so that she could have an excuse to spend more time in Shizuoka. It was a plus, especially since Masaki mostly operated from Shizuoka, and the collaboration between the two brands would last for quite a while. 

After the food came out, you and your aunt were discussing ideas and plans for the collaboration. You decided that tomorrow morning, you’d head over to his café for a cup. 

Bakugou’s eyes widened just a smidge when he saw you enter his café at the buttcrack of dawn. Bakugou was so angry yesterday, but he felt all of his morning anger melt away as soon as he saw your sleepy face. You were wearing a turtleneck under a massive Kindeki sweatshirt and sweatpants, and you looked like you were massively hungover. Either way, your bookbag was still strung across one of your shoulders. Your hair was looking like a bird’s nest that was just raided by a fox trying to eat bird eggs. How were you supposed to detangle that? But somehow, it made Bakugou’s cheeks burn . 

“Mornin’, Bakugou-kun. Can I get a large iced americano and a large peach lemonade?” You had your card out, ready to pay, but he didn’t even cast you a second glance as he wordlessly started making the drinks. You stood there, confused, with your card still in your hand. Your sleep-deprived mind couldn’t process this action. Three or four hours of sleep can’t give you enough brain functioning for you to calculate your next actions. 

So, you were frozen at the spot until he was finished making the drinks. He went back to the cashier to give you your drinks while you were still standing there, card in-hand. Bakugou stared at you for a moment and then blinked. You blinked back.

“J-Just take it,” he managed, taking a step away from you to make sure you didn’t hand your card to him. It seemed like he forgot about payment, and just started making you your drinks on autopilot. But to you, it seemed like he was giving you the drinks because he knew you.

You tilted your head in confusion. “But wait-” you stepped closer to the counter, raising your card out to him.

“No.” He said, pushing the drinks closer to you and then going to the back. 

You didn’t know what to do. You didn’t have cash on you, and you didn’t know his Venmo or anything. You cursed yourself for being such a 21st-century girl. Why did you have to be so technologically advanced?! And why is he so stubborn?!

You’re going to bring cash next time. 

So you take your drinks and sit down at your favorite table, taking a huge swig of the Americano before getting straight to work, tossing your extremely heavy bookbag onto the seat next to you, and pulling out your laptop, aggressively typing in your password. You had a couple assignments to do today because you put all of them off for a week. They’re due tonight. It’s time to fucking grind.

That was the last thing you remembered before you jolted awake when you heard the “ding!” of the café door opening, notifying a customer coming in for their morning cup of coffee. Your head was on your keyboard. 

You slowly sat up, and you saw that you’d drooled a bit on your keyboard. You took a closer look at your laptop’s monitor and realized that you’d been sleeping on the “,” key the entire time. There were about forty pages of just commas repeated in Times New Roman font. “How long have I been asleep for?!” You thought, panicked. 

You looked around the café and saw Bakugou glancing at you after he handed the new customer their drink. He gave you a nod in acknowledgment, and your entire body froze.

“Fuck, I need to do my work,” you whispered to yourself, tearing your eyes away from his gaze. His gaze somehow tore you out of your daze. You drank the rest of your americano and quickly deleted the forty pages of commas before continuing your assignment. 

After a couple hours, you finally finished all of your assignments that were due for the day, and you sighed in relief. It’s time to get to designing. You pulled up the group chat for the brand collaboration and caught up with every single text left by the members of the chat to make sure you were on the right track for everything. 

Turns out, Masaru and your aunt were getting really obsessed with gothic French architecture and the whole dark academia aesthetic. You thought to yourself for a moment. “Hm, that’s basically me.” You looked down at your clothes and then shook the thought away. “Nah, right now, I’m more of a bum academia aesthetic… or druggie academia.”

You were a fan. You’ve been into that aesthetic recently, having Pinterest boards filled with “dark academia” photos. Actually, right now, the hella attractive guy sitting at the cashier is looking perfectly like the aesthetic. 

Bakugou’s wearing a white button-up underneath a dark brown v-neck sweater that looks suspiciously like your aunt’s brand with the sleeves rolled up, exposing his beautiful forearms. The beige slacks he wears are cuffed at the bottom, and he’s wearing a pair of dress shoes to go with the whole ensemble. Why does he always look so well-dressed? Fuck, you look like a homeless man in comparison. But you didn’t care much. He’s seen you in much worse states.

That reminded you that you should probably start looking presentable for the day. it’s around 10 am, so it’s time for you to start looking normal. Since you knew Bakugou at this point, you quickly asked him a favor to look over your stuff. After hearing him grumble out a “sure,” you rushed to your car to make sure he wouldn’t be watching your stuff for too long. 

You quickly changed into your outfit for the day– reusing the turtleneck from your current outfit but layering atop an oversized flannel and tucking it into a corduroy miniskirt from one of your aunt’s collections. You had on leggings underneath your sweatpants to keep yourself from freezing to death, so you just put the skirt over the leggings. You quickly pulled your hair into some semblance of a braid and aggressively slapped concealer onto your face. Then, the finishing touch– a pair of blue-light glasses for the “I read poetry while sipping on English tea and I’m better than you” look. 

You then ran back to the café. This all happened in less than six minutes. You timed it. You were way too sleepy in the mornings to get ready, and you were content with just being in your pajamas for the first portion of the day. You really wanted to be comfortable for the moments you were torturing yourself.

So, you go back into the café and quickly thank Bakugou for looking over your stuff. He was in the middle of drinking water, but as soon as you came in, he started choking. You opened up your Google Drive filled with mood boards and photos of gothic French buildings, grabbed your sketchbook from your bookbag, and plopped your laptop and sketchbook in front of Bakugou. “What do you think about these?”

He blinked. That all happened in such a short span of time that he was confused.

You looked at him expectantly before quickly apologizing. “Oh, crap. Will your boss be okay with this? Maybe I shouldn’t have thought we could work on it while you were worki-”

Bakugou furrowed his brows. “Boss?”

You looked back at him. “What?”

“I don’t have a fuckin’ boss.”

“Wait, then who owns this café-” and then your jaw dropped. “You own this place!?”

He nodded at you, a crooked smirk starting to form on his lips. You thought he wasn’t the owner?

“That’s so cool! I had no clue– I just thought you were some rich kid who was forced to start working here because of your parents!” You said, incredulously, as your hand raised up to cover your mouth. You were so surprised.

He started cackling. “Pffft, how the hell else would I be able to make you so many free drinks?”

Your face started heating up. “I- I just thought you were paying for it or something…”

He looked to the side, still shaking a little bit from laughter. “Well, I technically still am… but that shit doesn’t matter. Lemme see.” 

You were across from him at the counter perpendicular to the cashier, making sure that you didn’t get in the way of any of his customers. He looked through your sketches and the inspiration for them and nodded in approval. “Wouldn’t it be better if ya made the silhouette like this?” he offered in a gravelly voice, grabbing his sketchbook from under the cashier to quickly draw it out for you.

Your eyes brightened. This man was going to be fun to work with. “That’s perfect!” You made your edits to the sketch and then started showing him the rest of your ideas.

Bakugou was pretty distracted, though. He kept looking at your lips while you were explaining the details to him, so he kept reminding himself to focus on the fucking topic at hand. He didn’t know you looked so attractive while sketching something. Fuck. 

After about an hour of talking to him about designs and you telling him about French architecture and its history and how it came to be, you pulled up a chair to the counter, and you two were lost in conversation before some more people came into the café. He left to get to the cashier for a moment, getting back to his work. In your peripherals, you saw a couple people looking at you strangely. Then, you realized.

It’s probably weird as fuck that you’re some rando sitting by the counter and talking to Bakugou like this. Does it make him look unprofessional? What if less people come to his café because of this? They must think he’s just talking to a friend in the middle of working! After all, you’re just sitting by the counter with a shitton of papers strewn about the place. Also, it feels kinda weird just watching him work while you’re a sitting duck.

Trapped in your thoughts, you didn’t notice Bakugou getting back to you by the counter. The two of you quickly got back to work, but you couldn’t shake the weird looks you got. It’s probably not a good idea to be working with him like this while he’s operating the café… but you decided to finish working with him for the day before you could do something about it.

So, the next day, you entered his café with a determined look. 

“G’ mornin’. An americano and peach lemonade?” He was standing, so he looked down at your dead-set eyes. He was already tapping your order into the register.

You cleared your throat. “Actually…”

He looked back up at you with an eyebrow raised in question.

You looked straight into his red eyes. “Are you hiring?”

directory/m.list

⇦ previous chapter - next chapter ⇨

[brokehorrorfan]

Death Machine will be released on Blu-ray on May 21 via Kino Lorber. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the 1994 cyberpunk horror film features new cover art by Jean-Baptiste Chuat & Ronan-Wolf Chuat with the original poster on the reverse side.

Stephen Norrington (Blade, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) makes his feature directorial debut from his own script. Brad Dourif, Ely Pouget, William Hootkins, John Sharian, Martin McDougall, Andreas Wisniewski, and Richard Brake star. A young Rachel Weisz appears in a small role.

The two-disc set includes three cuts of the film: the 100-minute U.S. version, the 122-minute international version, and a newly created 106-minute director's cut. Special features are listed below.

Disc 1:

US cut (100 minutes) newly mastered in 2K from an interpositive

Audio commentary by Horror-Fix.com's James G. Chandler and Ash Hamilton (new)

US theatrical trailer

Newly created director's cut (106 minutes)

Audio commentary by writer/director Stephen Norrington and film historian Michael Felsher (new)

Technical audio commentary by writer/director Stephen Norrington (new)

Audio conversation with writer/director Stephen Norrington and creature creator Alec Gillis (new)

Isolated score

7.1 Surround and Lossless 2.0 Audio

Disc 2:

International cut (122 minutes)

Interview with composer Crispin Merrell

Interview with editor Paul Endacott

Interview with costume designer Stephanie Collier

Interview with producer Ray Burdis

Interview with co-producer Stuart St Paul

Artwork & design gallery

Behind-the-scenes still gallery

German theatrical trailer

Japanese theatrical trailer

Japanese behind-the-scenes promo

The year is 2003. Chaank Industries, ruthless world leaders in future weapons technology, hires a new Chief Executive, Hayden Cale. Cale soon uncovers a secret and unethical weapons project the company is involved in. Her first order of business is to shut it down. Her troubles just begin as she also tries to fire the company technological mastermind, Jack Dante—a childlike psychotic with a dark genius for exotic weapons design. Dante retaliates by unleashing into the corporate headquarters the Death Machine—the ultimate killing unit. A weapon that tracks its target by sensing fear and has the power to rip through walls with its hard steel strength and razor teeth. Cale must wage a desperate bloody battle with the terrifying force that has no mercy, no pity and no fear.

Pre-order Death Machine.

[thepalmofyourfreezinghand]

lmao is he a good actor or not? your critique of Joe as an alleged fan is not great and quite mean.

Doesn’t have the acting chops. Performances seem forced, brilliant in some scenes (scenes, not movies), He struggles a lot, but is talented.

you like his career and his choices? 😅 his career hasn’t gone anywhere and is now one of the last billed on two upcoming films and he’s not booked anything new since very early 2023 while his peers are running circles around him staying booked and busy. MANY of us said last year his career would tank when the connections were gone, and he’s proving us all right. he can’t get a job. but at least he looked good in a suit and walking through the airport in cannes. He has that going for him.

Apart from the fact that the way you summarized my thoughts is completely wrong (I obviously meant “struggles” in relation to his performance-related anxiety, and I specifically said he doesn’t have the acting chops that Emily Stone does - which 99% of actors in the industry don’t), I’m very tired of this narrative that he only had connections thanks to Taylor. I’d hoped we were past that, but apparently not. Taylor is only starting to make her way in the movie industry, hence why the best she could do until now is starring in Amsterdam and Cats. She’s also making her directorial debut for Searchlight Pictures, the company that distributed The Favourite, a movie that Joe was cast in one year before he even met Taylor, and two full years before he was publicly linked to her. Taylor is great and she gets praised by movie folks all the time - but if you think she had anything to do with Claire Denis or Joanna Hogg or Yorgos Lanthimos of all people casting Joe you’re severely misguided.

And another thing: please stop running around and commenting the same things about Joe to other blogs (and if it’s not you it’s someone like you). I’m okay with having any conversations about his career you want, as long as they’re in good faith, and you’re clearly not doing that.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The American Prospect:

The Clean Air Act (CAA) has been fiercely opposed by polluters and their allies since its passage in 1970. Industry has never quite stopped fighting to prevent the government from protecting American lives and communities at the expense of even a bit of their profits. But over the past few years, opposition to the law has reached new feverish heights. Multiple cases seeking to gut the CAA have been filed by (or with the support of) oil and gas organizations, their dark-money front groups, and their political allies since 2022.

The ringleaders of this effort are the usual trade groups driving climate apocalypse, including the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) and the American Petroleum Institute (API), as well as oil giants themselves, like ExxonMobil.

Yet the coordinated attacks on this lifesaving, popular, and historically successful regulation go beyond the singularly destructive interests of the oil industry alone. And they go beyond the federal rule too, and are working their way into litigation against state enactments of the CAA.

Of course, many of the companies driving these suits are some of the biggest names in corporate greenwashing, like Amazon, FedEx, SoCalGas, and more.

These companies have continuously insisted that they are committed to leading the clean-energy transition, even while they fight for the right to poison the general public for profit, and have endeavored—at every turn—to destroy any opportunity the public may have to pursue recourse for it.

Last year, the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA) threatened a lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) over the state regulator’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule.

The rule, which would mandate a “phased-in transition toward zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,” threatens the transportation sector’s historically noxious way of doing business; the sector accounts for more than 35 percent of California’s nitrogen oxide emissions and nearly a quarter of California’s on-road greenhouse gas emissions. CARB’s rule could go a long way toward actualizing rapid reductions in the state’s annually generated emissions.

However, later that year EMA and some major truck manufacturers reached an agreement with CARB not to sue over the rules, in exchange for the state’s loosening of some near-term emissions reductions standards.

EMA has by and large kept its promise to not intervene with the regulation in courts, but litigation challenging CARB’s rule would soon be picked up by the California Trucking Association (CTA). Enforcement of the rule has since been on hold, as CARB waits to be issued an ACF-related waiver from the EPA in return for CTA not filing for preliminary injunction against the law.

Even despite these agreements, some of EMA’s own members—and even some of those specifically signed on to the CARB deal—pop up on CTA’s member rolls, as per CTA’s own 2023 membership directory. Daimler Trucks North America and Navistar, Inc., are specifically listed as Allied Members of CTA for 2023.

Amazon is listed among CTA’s Carrier Members, while separately making routine promises to be a partner in the fight against climate change. While Amazon announced its “Climate Pledge” in 2019 of reaching net-zero emissions by 2040 to great fanfare, and has since branded itself a climate leader, the Center for Investigative Reporting has detailed how the e-commerce giant is overselling its green credentials by drastically undercounting its carbon emissions.

In truth, Amazon’s emissions have increased more than 40 percent in the time since it issued the pledge. Amazon also remains the largest emitter of the “Big Five” tech companies, producing no less than 16.2 million metric tons of CO2 every year. Without question, the corporation should be regarded as an industry leader in greenwashing, rather than in actual climate action.

FedEx is also a CTA Carrier-level member. Like Amazon, the company has also made promises “to achieve carbon neutral operations by 2040,” an initiative FedEx has labeled “Priority Earth.” In the years since, FedEx has funneled intensive time and resources into lobbying directly against climate action while pushing its net-zero greenwashing narrative.

UPS is another CTA Carrier-level member. UPS has historically been less effusive in its climate promises than have other corporations on this list, but the delivery giant has continuously reinforced its stance that “everyone shares responsibility to improve energy efficiency and to reduce GHG emissions in the atmosphere.”

[soovermyself]

Human Rights Campaign Announces Eight New Members to its Boards of Directors

The Human Rights Campaign announced the 2024 members of the HRC and HRC Foundation Boards of Directors, which is comprised of diverse and innovative leaders across industries and in the LGBTQ+ community.

…

Sophia Bush, She/Her/Hers, Los Angeles

Sophia Bush is an actress, activist, producer, and entrepreneur. She has starred in television and film projects such as One Tree Hill, John Tucker Must Die, Chicago PD, Incredibles 2 and Good Sam.

Most recently, Bush wrapped production on Bryan Greenberg’s directorial debut, Junction and in London’s West End ‘2:22 – A Ghost Story’ play. She currently hosts her podcast, “Work in Progress with Sophia Bush” and co-hosts the iHeartRadio podcast “Drama Queens” alongside Hilarie Burton Morgan and Bethany Joy Lenz. Beyond entertainment, she's a dedicated activist and philanthropist who passionately supports projects empowering girls and women. Alongside her business partner Nia Linder Batts, Bush is a General Partner and investor in Union Heritage Ventures, a majority African American and women-owned capital firm. She also co-founded and sits on the board of I am a voter® and serves as a Strategic Advisor for First Women’s Bank with Billie Jean King.

…

Ashlyn Harris, She/Her/Hers, New York City

Ashlyn Harris, a former goalkeeper for the USWNT, Orlando Pride, and Gotham City FC in the NWSL, is a celebrated 2x World Cup Champion and Olympian. After retiring from the game, she served as the Global Creative Director of Gotham City FC. Beyond her athletic and creative achievements, Harris has established herself as a pioneer in advocating for social justice, particularly within the LGBTQ+ community, and in challenging stigmas around mental health. Her leadership and instrumental role as one of the plaintiffs in the groundbreaking case suing US Soccer for equal pay for women demonstrates her courage and unwavering dedication to fostering fairness and driving meaningful societal change. She now serves on the board of the Women's Sports Foundation, led by Billie Jean King, and passionately advocates for Title IX and closing the gender gap in women's sports.

In addition to growing Gotham FC to a 5x valuation as their creative director, she now works as a creative consultant and producer, collaborating with brands like Hello Sunshine and ALLY Bank. Her business acumen and passion for advocacy continue to guide her, positioning her as both a leader and a catalyst for progress. In her personal life, Harris finds joy and fulfillment in her family. She welcomed her daughter Sloane, in February 2021 and her son Ocean, in July 2022.

[adafruit]

Adafruit + Industry City

Adafruit moves to new factory at Brooklyn’s Industry City! https://industrycity.com/gizmo-maker-adafruit-leaves-manhattan-for-42k-sf-at-brooklyns-industry-city/

[invisibleicewands]

Michael Sheen Reveals How The Pandemic Shaped His New BBC Drama With Adam Curtis & James Graham, And Why It Shifted From Middle England To His South Wales Hometown

Michael Sheen, Adam Curtis and James Graham‘s BBC drama The Way has been gestating for almost a decade but, for Good Omens star Sheen, the wait has been a necessary one.

As the BBC prepares to launch the drama set in Sheen’s hometown of Port Talbot, he told Deadline the pandemic and other recent events played an important role in shaping the script and believability of the three-part series, which is one of the broadcaster’s most anticipated of the year, bringing together three of the nation’s supreme creative talents.

Starring Sheen, who is making his directorial debut, Luke Evans (The Hobbit), Callum Scott Howells (It’s a Sin) and a wealth of talented Welsh actors, The Way tells the story of an ordinary family caught up in an extraordinary chain of events that ripple out from their home town. Driven by celebrated documentary maker Curtis, the drama takes an experimental approach by imagining a civil uprising in a small industrial Welsh town. Fleeing unrest, the Driscolls are forced to escape the country they’ve always called home and the certainties of their old lives, but will they be overwhelmed by their memories of the past or lay their ghosts to rest and take the risk of an unknown future?

Sheen said the idea had always been to make a story about an “explosion of unrest” as “believable” as possible. Before the pandemic, the team initially dismissed ideas around making an entire population remain indoors, or placing a hard border around Wales.

“Lockdown gave the story a whole new lease of life,” he told Deadline. “When it ended we revisited the story and it allowed us to be bolder, particularly around ideas of conspiracies and Covid. We knew it was ‘of the moment’ and didn’t want something to feel dated, but we didn’t ever imagine it would be quite as timely as it has turned out to be.”

Producer Bethan Jones, who runs The Way co-producer Red Seam with Sheen, said commissioners in the early days were worried it would be “a bit too dystopian” and were querying: “Haven’t we seen [shows like] this before?” “But now the audience have experienced some of these things themselves and are watching with all the knowledge of what that means,” added Jones.

As the episodes develop, Sheen said that “paradoxically the absurd nature of it all starts to come to the fore.” He said he wanted his first directing experience and Red Seam’s debut commission (it is co-produced with Little Door) to act as a mini guide to living in the UK over the past decade.

“That is a reflection of trying to capture what it has felt like to be living in our culture over the last 10 years, where you are never sure if you’re living in a sitcom or horror film,” added the four-time BAFTA-nominated Frost/Nixon star, who attended The Way’s screening last night.

The industrial Welsh location plays a crucial part in setting the tone and symbolism behind The Way. It was initially forged with a middle-class English family in mind, Sheen revealed, before being shifted to his hometown of Port Talbot, an industrial town that has been in the news recently due to the much-criticized closure of part of the legacy Tata steelworks.

“We knew we needed it to take place somewhere with a history of unrest,” he said. “It needed to feel like there was unfinished business there. That led me to thinking about my hometown and the steelworks, and the past then became more important to us in the story.”

Sheen moved back to Port Talbot around the time The Way was first developing. He subsequently sold his houses, gave the proceeds to charity and declared himself a “not for profit actor.”

He said his town is “full of interesting contradictions.” “It has a beautiful area by the sea and then there is the heavy industry in the middle of it. It has an extraordinary mixture of things and using that in the telling of this story was exciting.”

Working with the community was integral to the show’s authenticity and Jones explained that numerous local extras were used in protest scenes around the town hall and steelworks. “It’s that thing of people being stuck in the past and finding a new way forward,” she added.

Four-time BAFTA-winning documentary-maker Curtis is cutting his scripted teeth with The Way and Sheen celebrated his influence both stylistically – including use of archive and CCTV footage – and on the development of the story.

“He has always been a fantastic provocateur and is good at thinking about where the power lies and what is under the surface” said Sheen. “And I wanted us to have a dream-like quality. By the end of our first chat I knew that even though [having Curtis involved] would make things more complicated, it was such an interesting possibility and I wanted him involved.”

Sherwood scribe Graham, meanwhile, who worked with Sheen on hit ITV drama Quiz, was the perfect choice to pen something “not typically dystopian and not overly serious.” “He brings a brilliant combination of big ‘state of the nation’ ideas with character, humor, warmth and the everyday,” added Sheen.

Together, the trio have forged something Sheen hopes will tap into the “strong British tradition” of filmmaking led by trailblazers such as Ken Loach, Alan Clarke and Jimmy McGovern, coming at a time when ITV’s post office drama has led to much excited chatter about the power of traditional broadcasting to deliver change.

“[The post office drama] took an issue that had been in the public eye for a long time but never really connected and made something fantastic out of it,” he said. “Long may that continue because it would be a terrible, terrible thing if we stopped making that stuff.”

[toujokaname]

Matrix / Monologue

Author: Akira

Characters: AkanP, Rinne, Niki

"And maybe, you would cry for that someone."

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[ Read on my site for a better viewing experience using Ois~su ♪ ]

Season: Past / Winter

Location: Back Alley Downtown

Flashback. At the end of a certain year, in a quiet corner of a town on a desolate New Year's Eve.

AkanP: I just can't take it anymoreeeee!

I'm gonna quiiit! This job's unbearableeeee!

—Uuu, uurrpp!

Bweeeghhh!

Rinne: Hey, you alright...? Haven't you drank too much, Akan-san?

AkanP: How can I not drink?! I mean, how can I survive in this painful world without drinking, Rinne-kun?! Do you even understand?!

Rinne: Such a drag... You're showing the worst side of Japanese people. Don't get so wasted you lose your identity.

The whole world makes fun of that kinda thing~ That drunkard's attitude's just plain awful, you know?

AkanP: I don't know anything about the world! I've been a Japanese person from birth till death, me!

I've really had enough! It's the worst! This shitty, worthless village society! Bound hand and foot by stupid customs and rules, this is a village of backwardness! [1]

Ahahahaha! You sure have it nice, don't you, Rinne-kun? You were raised in paradise without such a shitty culture, huh?

Rinne: The culture and the region may be different, but it's about the same everywhere.

They're all villages of backwardness. You and me and everyone else, we're all living in backwardness.

Rinne: There's no utopia anywhere.

I've come to learn that. Even I have.

AkanP: I'm sorry—

I'm sooorry, Rinne-kun! I couldn't produce you well enough!

You have talent! You had skill, you worked hard!

And yet, luck was against you! The times were against you! I'm sorry, for being your producer...!

If only I had more influence! If I had the ability, I wouldn't have let you be buried away like this!

You were a diamond in the rough! You could've shined even brighter!

Rinne: It's not your fault, Akan-san.

I just made a gamble and lost.

Right now, the idol industry isn't prosperous enough for everyone involved to reach a happy ending.

When someone wins, someone else loses, and they end up getting pushed into these filthy back alleys.

Even if you excelled and let me shine to the fullest, someone else would always get the short end of the stick.

And maybe, you would cry for that someone.

Because you're a kind person, Akan-san.

AkanP: I'm sorry! I'm so sorryyy, Rinne-kun!

I'm just no good! It's exactly like my old nickname! I'm useless, that's why I'm Akan-san!

I can't have idols worrying about me! It's the opposite, the opposite! Get a grip already!

I'm sorry, Rinne-kun! I'll do my best starting tomorrow! I'll work my ass off in this shitty industry at this shitty job with everything I have!

So just for today... Just for today—

.........

Rinne: ...Akan-san?

Geez, passing out drunk on the streets. Are you okay as a functioning member of society?

Seriously, don't make idols worry about you—"no good, hopeless Producer-san"?

Niki: Onii-sa~an?

I came to pick you up like you told me on the phone~? It was the first time I took a taxi, so exciting~♪

Wait, you smell like alcohol?! Were you of legal age to drink, Onii-san?

Rinne: I haven't had a drop... Just got stuck getting hassled by my drunken business partner.

Niki: ? Who is that person? Someone you know, Onii-san?

Rinne: Yeah. My producer, who's always taking care of me.

Niki: What's a "producer"? I don't really know much about Rinne-onii-san's job, so I don't get it!

What do producers do? Cooking?

Rinne: If it was cooking, they'd be called "cooks." This person is—well, what is a producer anyway? Truth is, I can't really put it into words either?

Someone who prays for our happiness, maybe?

Niki: Hmmm? If producers have a job out of praying, are they like priests?

Rinne: Well, not just praying, but also doing more practical things.

To be blunt, that's just how they are. Despite having no relation, despite being strangers, and despite not being loved by anyone...

A producer is someone who tries to make me and everyone who sees me smile.

Rinne: That's why, someday, I want to make this person smile, too.

I will repay you for all you've done for me, Akan-san.

That's the code I live by, having grown up in a village of backwardness ♪

[ ☆ ]

The term used from here on out (因習村) refers to a "traditional" village, in a stereotypical, negative sense. As will be shown later, it is also associated with horror media featuring "ominous, overly traditional (typically rural) villages" as settings, such as Higurashi's Hinamizawa. Depending on the context, I've translated it as a "village of backwardness" or a "backward village", given that the focus lies in their customs being "too outdated".

Also of note is that, as is typical in these flashback episodes, Rinne uses "ore" instead of his present-day "orecchi." He also uses "san" in hiragana rather than the katakana "san" he uses now to refer to AkanP.

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Bezzle excerpt (Part III)

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and then SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

This week, I'm serializing part of chapter 14 from my new novel The Bezzle, which is out in stores TODAY (!!!):

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

The Bezzle is a Martin Hench novel, the followup to last year's Red Team Blues – though each book in the series is designed to be read in any order, and to stand alone (RTB just came out in paperback):

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865854/redteamblues

Hench is a two-fisted, high-tech forensic accountant whose career spans 40 years of busting high-tech scams, from the earliest days of the PC to the white-hot center of the cryptocurrency bubble. Each book revolves around a single, central scam (in The Bezzle, it's the unbelievably slimy prison-tech industry):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

But each book also features lots of subplots that unpick different kinds of fraud. In this serialized excerpt, we get to watch Marty unwind a music royalty theft scheme, the kind of thing that Rebecca Giblin and I pulled apart in our 2022 book, Chokepoint Capitalism (also now in paperback!):

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Today's installment gets into one of the major tactics of any semi-respectable scam – simply ignoring the victim in the hope that they'll get tired and go away. Any of us who've been ripped off by a big company can surely relate.

I'm leaving on my tour for this one tomorrow, starting with a gig in Salt Lake City at Weller Bookworks (Feb 21) at 630PM:

https://www.wellerbookworks.com/event/store-cory-doctorow-feb-21-630-pm

From there, it's on to LA (with Adam Conover), Seattle (with Neal Stephenson) and many, many more cities – maybe one near you!

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour

Here's part one of the serial:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/17/the-steve-soul-caper/#lead-singer-disease

And part two:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/19/crad-kilodney-was-an-outlier/#copyright-termination

And now, onto part three!

Stefon cooked Jamal another dinner and Jamal wrote another letter, this one more forceful, and addressed to Gounder by name. Two weeks later, Jamal wrote another letter without needing dinner because “that motherfucker went to Harvard fucking law”—­Jamal had looked him up in the ALA directory—­“and he knows you can’t make legal problems go away just by ignoring them. Time for that piece of shit to put on his big-­boy pants and be a goddamned lawyer.”

The one thing Jamal wouldn’t do was file a lawsuit. “You need a lawyer for that,” he said. “I mean, I can help you with the paperwork, but a paralegal can’t file the suit. And you shouldn’t file your own suit, either. Those guys’ll just hire some blow-dried asshole from a big law firm and they’ll crush you like a cockroach.”

“Well, shit,” Stefon said. But it all made sense. Anyone doing business with Chuy Flores would do business like Chuy Flores—­that is, crooked as hell.

“What you need is a contingency lawyer,” Jamal said. “Someone who’ll take the job for a piece of the action.” Which is how Stefon ended up being represented by Benny Caetani II, son of Benedetto Caetani, who graduated at the top of his Yale class, won a string of spectacular class-­action suits, then got disbarred after someone leaked calls where he admitted moving money from one client trust account into another to cover a shortfall. No one seriously thought that Benedetto was stealing anyone’s money���­he’d had receivables due within a week that let him make the trust account whole—­but he was also clearly guilty.

Equally, no one seriously believed that the high-­powered surveillance that led to Benedetto’s downfall was random. Benedetto had transferred more than a hundred million dollars from the balance sheets of America’s largest, dirtiest corporations—­ poison-­peddling pharma giants, toxic-­waste-­dumping chemical companies, a global chain of botox parlors with some very loose syringes indeed—­and they were gunning for him.

Officially, Benedetto was out of the lawyer game. Unofficially, he was the brains behind Benny, and the two of them ran a squeaky-­clean shop, making sure that everything that an actual lawyer had to do, Benny did—­while Benedetto did ­everything else. Father and son got along well and they were a hell of a team. When Benedetto called me in to audit Inglewood Jams’ books, I jumped at the opportunity. They were a delight to work for.

“They played tough,” Benedetto said, as his minions arranged the bankers’ boxes on the steel kitchen shelves he’d had installed on the long walls of the storefront he’d rented for me to work out of for the month. “At first. Told me they didn’t owe Stefon a dime, and that they’d rather bankrupt themselves in court than pay some broken-­down, washed-­up disco king anything. Told me his problem was with Chuy, not Inglewood Jams.”

“Well, to be fair, that Chuy guy sounds like a class-­A piece of shit.”

“A broke piece of shit. Guy’s got a million-­dollar nose and an empty bank account.”

“So you had to go after Inglewood Jams.”

Benedetto twirled around in his Aeron chair. He’d sent over a pair of them, asking if I needed more, because he had a storage locker full of them that he’d gotten as part of a settlement with a broke Santa Monica crowdsourcing company that stiffed its workers when it folded.

“I did. I went after them. That Gounder lawyer tried to bluff, then when that didn’t work, he tried to dodge service. Which was such a kindergarten move. Plus he was no good at it. Caught him outside the rub-­and-­tug parlor he went to every Friday after work. Handed him the papers. Wore a bodycam. Didn’t mention his wife. Didn’t have to.”

“You think he settled because he didn’t want his wife to find out he was getting hand jobs at a massage parlor?”

“No, he held out awhile after that. But I could see it preying on him, every time I was face-­to-­face with him. Eventually, he musta told his bosses that they were gonna lose, and so they offered a settlement. It was trash. I laughed in his face. He tossed out some better offers, but none of them even in the ballpark of what we would get in court. Finally, I told him to get serious or send his court suit out to the dry cleaner’s. That’s when he offered to make Stefon whole and pay me a little for my trouble on top of things.”

I suppressed a snort. I was sure that a little on top amounted to some real folding money.

“Even then he tried to pull a fast one, told me he’d calculate Stefon’s royalties and send a check the next week. I was like, ‘Hold up, there is no way you’re going to be able to make an honest accounting for Stefon’s royalties in a week. The dude’s samples are in hundreds of songs. The mere fact that you claimed that you could come up with a fair amount in a week tells me you were planning to pull a lowball number out of your ass and pass it off as the audited total, so tell you what, I’m gonna get the best forensic accountant in the state of California to come down here to LA and crawl all over your papers, and you are going to send him everything he needs to do it, or we’re going to court, motherfucker.”

“And he agreed?”

“Hell no. He refused. We went to a preliminary hearing. Judge turned out to be a classic soul fan. It didn’t go well for Gounder or Inglewood. The next day, he was back in my office, and now, well, here we are.”

ETA: Here's part four!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/20/fore/#lawyer-up

[canmom]

Animation Night 168: when Anno was young...

Animation Night has been getting kind of short lately, huh? Gone are the days when we'd marathon three films in a night... for now. Next week is Animation Night 169, and @mogsk has been helping me cook up quite a program to act as a sequel to Animation Night 69. It's time to find out just how much Twitch will let me get away with.

But what about tonight? Well, tonight I figure since we've been talking about Anno this week, it might be fun to put a short program together to show some of his earlier works - as an animator. Truly long-time viewers might remember watching Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise and Gunbuster all the way back on Animation Night 29. But this isn't exactly a reprise of that. We'll revisit Gunbuster on another day. Tonight the subject will be Metal Skin Panic: Madox-01 and Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise.

So here's a brief timeline (largely leaning on SteveM's video here lol). Anno's work on the Daicon III film got him a foot in the door in the industry by impressing Studio Nue enough to invite the Daicon III team to work on Macross. Nue were also in large part fans turned animators, many of them Gundam doujinshi artists. Anno joined what became known as the 'mecha unit' at Artland, working alongside the legendary Ichirō Itano - where he was known for walking around barefoot and talking loudly to himself. A couple of years after Daicon III, the Daicon team reassembled to create a followup film, a lavish effort packed with a ludicrous density of pop-culture references.

Not long after this... Anno dropped out of university, and started bouncing between animation studios in Tokyo. The next big break came when he applied to work on Miyazaki's Nausicaa, a production which was rapidly transforming the outsourcing-oriented studio Topcraft into a gathering of some of the best animators in the business. At Topcraft, Anno's reputation was 'the primal man', sleeping under his desk with the cockroaches and not wearing shoes. But despite his inexperience, he made a good impression on Miyazaki, who assigned him the crucial finale cuts of the God Warrior.

Here we see what is sometimes called the 'Anno explosion', where the laser sweeps across and a massive explosion follows after a beat. Anno was able to handle the complex shading and multiple layers with aplomb...

...if not entirely on schedule. (One anecdote has that he tried to use his work on this sequence to pick up women. Which, to be fair...)

So in the mid 80s, Anno has established himself as a skilled mecha animator who can handle some ludicrously technical scenes. Besides Nausicaa and Macross, you will see him in Megazone 23 Part I, Giant Robo: The Animation, Baoh, Birth - and even Grave of the Fireflies. Any time you wanted mechanical animation or explosions, Anno was definitely a guy to get on the phone. And of course one of his most significant projects was on SDF Macross: Do You Remember Love? where he animated... you guessed it, lots of missiles and explosions.

With all this experience under his belt, Anno was almost ready to return to the newly founded Gainax - what had been Daicon Film. But first - lets check out Metal Skin Panic! MADOX-01. This OVA, made at AIC and Artmic - who made so many of the classic OVAs from this period, it's nuts - was the directorial debut of Shinji Aramaki, whose later CG films we covered back on Animation Night 152. Even back in 1987, Aramaki's love of intricate mechanical detail was on full display - and luckily Anno was on hand to make that vision work, along with the even younger 14-year-old prodigy Kōji Akimoto. (I'm not entirely sure what became of Akimoto. He only has one other anime credit, much later.)

Anno's scenes here prefigure the later similar hyper-detailed mechanical animation in works like Patlabor 2. But what's this OVA actually about? Well, it's a pretty simple story: a mechanic gets trapped inside a mecha suit, and accidentally ends up on a rampage as he's chased by the military (remind you of Roujin Z? or Stink Bomb in Memories?), hoping to unite with his girlfriend Shiori. Ultimately he ends up in a confrontation with an American soldier Lieutenant Kilgore. They fight! Really, we're here for the animation.

So, that brings us to Royal Space Force. The origin is kinda messy. To make a long story short, Daicon Film approached Bandai, hoping to make an OVA based on new Gundam kits. Bandai (and more specifically Shigeru Watanabe) said no to Gundam, but they were interested in this idea for a scifi OVA - and they'd drop them a cool three and a half million dollars to make a film to rival Nausicaa. (Apparently Mamoru Oshii's approval played a big part in that).

So Royal Space Force, what a film. There truly isn't anything quite like it, either in Gainax's oeuvre or anime at large. The closest thing I could compare it to might be the near-future anime series Planetes, which similarly focuses on realistic spaceflight in the context of war and geopolitics - but the tone of these two stories is markedly different. Of all things, it actually most makes me think of the works of Le Guin.

Honneamise is set on a fictional world vaguely resembling eartly 20th Century Earth, in which a country embroiled in war is putting together its world's first, threadbare space programme. It follows aspiring astronaut Shirotsugh Ladatt, who missed his chance to be a pilot and ended up in the sideshow space programme. But he meets a religious girl named Riquinni Nonderaiko who convinces him of the potential of spaceflight in bringing peace to the world.

But this idealism clashes with the reality of a world where the space programme is viewed cynically, a means to an end, with protestors questioning the cost of it and the higherups seeing the rocket launch merely as a means to set up an ambush against their enemies. Shirotsugh increasingly doubts whether the space programme is worthwhile at all. And he himself is definitely not a fully sympathetic protagonist; in one particularly uncomfortable scene he attempts to rape Riquinni (which in its framing reminds me of a similar moment with Shevek in The Dispossessed).

The film is as much as anything an insane work of worldbuilding, full of constructed cultures and small details that sit just a little askew of Earth while still feeling incredibly grounded. The animation in this film is fucking insane - not just Anno's incredible rocket launch and flight sequences, based on a research trip to the States where he watched the Shuttle go up for real - but throughout, in its character animation, it anticipates the 90s 'realist' approach to stylisation. It's just full of loving detail, wordlessly conveying so much about its setting.

Of course, such an ambitious film faced a troubled production. Between the inexperience of Daicon Film Gainax and the difference between what this film was going for and what everything else was going for, and production meddling... it was a mess. Big name composer Ryuichi Sakamoto was pulled in to score the film, won over by its storyboards, but ended up clashing over the timing of scenes, and in the end his score was chopped up and rearranged.

And for their part, Bandai started getting antsy and attempted to impose changes, like insisting on tacking on the subtitle 'The Wings of Honneamise'. They wanted to cut the runtime, cut elements that didn't have toy potential, and so on. They wanted something that would sell toys... and got a deliberately slow, moody art film that leans heavily on nonverbal storytelling.

So it's a weird one... and it didn't sell in its theatrical run. But you know, all those elements that made it a hard sell at first are a perfect recipe for 'cult classic', and for that reason, Honneamise is still remembered today.

In any case, back to Anno. He delivered the most impressive animation of his career. The rocket launch in meticulous detail of course, but equally scenes of planes to rival any in Miyazaki's films (or The Cockpit [AN146]). Of course, he didn't carry it alone! The great realist Toshiyuki Inoue, who'd later be famous for his work at Production I.G. such as Ghost in the Shell, was on it, working for example on astonishingly busy crowd scenes which apparently took a full month to animate. And animators like Fumio Iida, Nobuteru Yuki and Noriasu Yamauchi, brought some of the best work they'd ever done.

All in all, there's nothing quite like Royal Space Force, before or since. So I'm really looking forward to seeing it again.

Animation Night 168 will go live shortly; films will begin at 11pm UK time and continue to about 2am UK time. (Apologies it's so late once more, my sleep is proving troublesome to shift.) We will as usual be at twitch.tv/canmom. I hope to see you there, it's gonna be a real sakuga feast tonight!!