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shockpop · 5 years

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being a textbook overthinker is a strong suit denki is not particularly known for . a head regularly presumed empty has worked to incessantly churn the argument on playback over the course of three days , violet staining crescents beneath his eyes at some point between the late - night mumbling and a time wherein he doesn’t even remember falling asleep . his oh - so - gracious host is left at a loss when she is forcibly tasked with shoving him awake each morning .

as much an empath as mina prides herself in being , it ain’t exactly a cakewalk to get into a neurotic’s mindset when he’s the one insisting that he’s fine , that everything is fine ; practiced charisma a much - appreciated plus in attempts to persuade his longtime best friend that he just needed a little breathing space from the situation . because that’s what they have to call it , now . ‘ the situation ’ .

this was all before denki proceeded to peel himself from eyesore - chartreuse cushions an hour late each day , and the reason why mina now harbors heavy concern beneath the initial irritation as she beats him awake with a pillow for the third day in a row .

astonishingly enough , through all the budding bruises and little cricks of his bones , denki’s still not used to it ---- confused as to why in place of a fluffy orange butt sat directly on his face is a firm pink hand , squishing freckled cheeks that’d never quite lost their baby fat .

the phone promptly shoved in his face ( raw - eyed , drool - sticky , red where strong fingers have imprinted themselves into his skin ) reads 7:12 am , a good hour and some past his normal wakeup time . he shouldn’t be so pikachu - meme shocked when this scenario is the direct result of a profuse refusal to take the device off silent mode these past few days ---- afraid to wake up to any late - night texts or calls .

and yet here he is , eyes squeezing shut as he mutters his third , grumbly shit this short week .

❛ seriously , dude ? ❜ mina chides as she flips through the unsung alarms , each set five minutes apart from one another beginning at 5:30 in the morning .

getting himself out of bed always had been something of a chore , emphasized by recent reasoning that he’d not been catching more than half a wink prior to that exact time each day . ❛ you teach people for a living and yet remain willfully oblivious to the very accessible , very convenient do not disturb function . ❜

she lets the phone fall unceremoniously onto denki’s lap , cushions creaking beneath their weight . ❛ get off my couch , spud . ❜

he’d love to , actually . every node in his spine pops in agreement .

the minutes between then and hurriedly collecting stray pieces of clothing off the floor pass in a rheumy - eyed blur , other possessions that’re repeatedly tripped over a courtesy of the emergency overnight bag he’d emptied out over the week . kept in the back of his car for situations that call for it , this doesn’t really qualify as one of those times .

❛ hey . what’s the status of you reevaluating your life choices so that you’re not crawling out my door late to work in the same inside - out v - neck you’ve been wearing all week ? ❜ mina prompts in midst of tossing on a jacket as gaudy in design as the rest of her , somehow completely comprehending what vague semblance of shut up , shut up , shut up denki conveys through hand gestures in between hurriedly scrubbing his teeth .

without time to style his hair this morning , he’s left to ruffle through the unkempt locks in his reflection through the elevator doors , displeased in how they refuse to obey any law of gravity but deciding that he might as well just go ahead and look as shitty as he feels . hurts less to acknowledge it himself before mina eagerly relays just how divorced he looks mere moments later .

❛ you’re gonna have to talk to him eventually , ❜ she reminds him just before they part , chaste kiss pressed to either cheek and equally reciprocated . ❛ before it’s too late . i know you’re both pretty keen on letting things fester , but how ‘bout you just nut up before your idiot boy pride makes things completely irreversible ? ❜

at her humble suggestion , denki mulls on the air of an amused hum , shouldering open one of the glass doors for her to walk through first . ❛ my idiot boy pride , huh . s'a little misandristic , don’tcha think ? ❜

she replies with a wag of her middle finger in the air behind her , a stark gesture that bakugou would appreciate and that denki hates thinking that bakugou would appreciate . he silently curses mina once for the reminder , then again for her uncanny talent of always being right .

on that note , he mentally checks ‘ idiot boy pride ’ as a contender for the working title of an eventual autobiography .

lunch passes by a lot more slowly in the days he’d been forcibly weened off of bakugou’s cooking . left to survive off what loose change could nab from the vending machines outside and random snacks found throughout the cabinets of the teachers’ lounge , denki finds that whey milk and loose granola by the fistful are not all that amazing a combo .

mina is wise beyond her years . this is a meal of a divor - fuckin’ - cee .

actually , the sudden absence of a balanced diet may even be reaching the point of a pressing health issue . when he brushes granola grains off his shirt ---- now worn correctly , after having uncomfortably fumbled with it in his car earlier ---- he notices how tight his chest has begun to feel over the course of the morning . an ache like a scream that won’t come out . he’s bound , yes , and dry granola has probably not made the trip down his esophagus very easy ; but had the pain always been so prominent ?

❛ didja check twitter yet ? refresh your timeline ---- look , see , it’s trending ! ❜

denki’s attention piques , turning towards the flood of students rushing by the lounge door . on their way back to their classrooms to ride out the last few periods of the day , he’s not surprised to see so many of their eyes glued to their phones as they walk , given that lunch and homeroom make up the only two slots of time wherein students are allowed access to such devices .

their conversations spill in a slew of muddled topics : is the villain big ? how’d you do on that art history exam ? shouldn’t he have backup? my sister’s taking me to that new poke bowl restaurant tonight . is he breathing ? cats can doggy paddle , can’t they ? blasty’s a top - five ! indestructible ! i hope i have a team one day . but so was jeanist , and look what happened to him .

❛ bla ---- ❜ denki starts , sparing a few minutes heading back himself to fish his phone from his cardigan . he’s usually never without it , idly recalling a time in their youth where bakugou would have to manually pluck it from his grasp so that he’d settle into bed for the night . over the past few days , though , he's been more than content to break character and distance himself from the buzz of social media under some years - too - late guise of self - care and breaking addiction .

waking his phone now , the top notification banner reads a single message from his current roommate .

are you ok?

below it , an informal update from twitter , alerting him of exactly what his curiosity demands to be sated with right now .

trending in heroics : #BLASTYEXPLODO .

he doesn’t need a little shoulder mina angel to tell him that reading about his ex is technically just the time - sensitive equivalent of purposefully sifting through bakugou’s online presence ; mostly because the app is barely flicked open when the tightness across his chest constricts to a sudden , sharp PANG .

it doesn’t take some deep search to unearth the context of his students’ obsessive chattering nearby , considering that his entire timeline is being consistently updated with live footage from the scene . a bird’s - eye view of the site below captures where several heroes can be spotted as moving dots along the destruction of the outskirts ; all save for one , reported to have been caught in the fray after a building collapsed .

fingers press deep into the pain of his chest . his shoulder hits the wall to support his weight , face paling as he forces himself to read the oncoming slew of tweets one by one . a lot are unhelpful ---- mere wishes for blasty to hang in there , some questioning where he is , false memoriam by people denki knows bakugou’s never met , lots of clickbait for merch and inappropriate thirst posts layered in between .

nothing gives him a solid answer . because nobody has a solid answer .

lacking the word association necessary to properly reply to mina’s text without stirring either concern or cause for a possible lecture , he shoots something quick to kirishima instead .

hey man , thanks for everything lately . i’ll feed the cats tonight . can you do me a solid and leave a key ?

the car ride home is as long as ever in traffic surrounding the incident . every instance of a top hero barely escaping the brink of death is all but a grim reminder that life is short , speaking volumes to average citizens rushing home to spoil their families before everything settles back into a regular , non - life - threatening routine for them tomorrow .

shortly after lunch ( and trying to shake off what he was certain were signs of a small heart attack ) , denki decided that there was no use cutting his day short to make an appearance at the scene . rapid updates from twitter and associates alike informed him that blasty had eventually made it out on two legs , triumphant as ever , before being escorted to an unspecified hospital in order to avoid the public eye in his recovery .

denki takes his chances in calling his mom between catching every red light , hope breaking in a small , audible whimper when she doesn’t answer his one - or - nine calls . bakugou wasn’t the only victim in today’s events ; he rationalizes that nariko is probably up to her neck in new admissions regardless , but the thought doesn’t exactly bring him any peace of mind .

breathe . an impossible demand to meet , but one necessary to keep his electricity from snapping at the wheel .

he doesn’t exactly know why he’d even bothered showing up , sluggish steps treading the long lengths of tiled hallway leading to bakugou’s residence . not really any use hanging around an empty apartment all night ; even despite the pressing matter of the question mark tacked behind his current living situation . he’s not really looking to task himself with packing just yet .

❛ it’s just something , ❜ denki tiredly tells himself aloud at the foot of their doorstep , head tipped to the ceiling in a brief moment of reprieve . the sentiment resonates as somewhat redundant . it’s always something . he’s got a million somethings in his life that he’s never cared to name , piling one over the other in the corner of his mind without thought to the mental repercussions dealt to everyone involved .

maybe there’s only one something afterall . maybe the common denominator was just him .

tip of his shoe peels back the corner of the mat he’d insisted on laying there some short while ago , the key tucked beneath it shining in the hallway lighting once its cover is disturbed . bless his heart , but kirishima’s not very creative in his hiding places .

this copy is as shiny and unbroken - in as the one bakugou had given denki when he first moved here , spare a few spots of dirt he brushes off before lodging it into the keyhole .

without a set of miscellaneous dangling objects attached to it , the action of turning a bare key into the lock takes him back a full year ago ---- wherein he’d rigidly haunted this exact spot on a matless tile , uneager to begin a new phase in his life eventually titled reversed strength .

unlike back then , however , the key is met this time around without resistance in its lock , nothing to combat it as it turns . the door before him is open . presently .

his stomach drops .

hesitant to ease himself inside when so actively adorned in hair - raising suspicion , denki is met with the usual stagnancy of an empty apartment ---- no wafts of food cooking on the stove , no sound of the television on for background noise , no cats tripping over each other to greet him with a howling demand for kibble and petty - pets ( which�� smarts a little , considering his absence ) .

there is dim warmth from sunlight pouring through the windows and little else . not even a speck of dust found to sift through it . he wonders if kirishima had simply forgotten to lock the door behind him .

and yet , even with this thought in mind ---- this silent prayer ---- denki still holds a name on his tongue as he steps fully into the apartment , pocketing the key where its triplet sits unperturbed a few feet away . it’s a momentary struggle to find his voice , and he doesn’t recognize the sound that comes out .

❛ k ------- ... katsuki ? ❜

@blstys .

#blstys #ii . reversed strength .#v : pro hero .#mom holy FUCK

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madscientistjournal · 5 years

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Fiction: The Titan Through the Dust

An essay by Claire Gainsborough, as provided by Joachim Heijndermans Art by Leigh Legler

You’ve seen it. Everyone’s seen it. Kids know of it from their school books. It’s been on TV, in movies, and in every history book published in the years after the incident of Singapore City. Hell, even if you’ve never seen the actual shot, you’ll know it from the ripoffs and the parodies and the references by college kids trying to be artsy in their projects. Cultural osmosis, I think they call it. It’s a hell of a thing, to have your work be absorbed by the current zeitgeist and spat back out, like a cheesy meme passed around on Twitter, to the point that everyone around the world will instantly recognize your photo on sight, even if they have never heard your name.

And I gotta say, with the passage of time, I don’t know how I even feel about the shot anymore. For one thing, it’s been nearly twenty years since I aimed that camera, pressed my index finger down, and made a piece of history in a split second of time. So yeah, that part’s cool. But you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone familiar with any of my other work. Last year I had a book collection of my travel photography published in conjunction with Nat Geo. Sales were so-so. Biggest complaint? That shot wasn’t in it. That’s all that people want anymore. Kagemura, on the most devastating day of my life.

Is this what Eisenstaed felt like when he shot that photo of the VJ day in New York? I doubt it, because even if that kiss was forced and all that, it still had some sense of beauty to it. A joy was captured in that scene. My shot? It’s beautiful in its own terrifying way. But I just see the carnage. Carnage in blood, rubble, and dust. Absolute carnage.

This morning I got an offer to do the photography at a wedding. It’s a famous couple. You know them, I guarantee it, but I signed an NDA before I even met with them, so I can’t say much about it other than that the money is blasphemously great. Had I accumulated any, I could have paid back my college loan debts three times over. It’s insane. And do you know what they called me when they rang me up? Claire? Of course not. I was “that Kagemura lady.” They wanted that style for their reception. As in, that exact style. Happiest day of their life, but shot in a sepia tone and with the sun partially blocked. I said yes, obviously, as the KSF needs the cash more than I do. My best guess is they just didn’t realize people actually died when I took it.

I’m tired of talking about the shot in public, to be honest. Because that’s all that people discuss when the topic of my work comes up. The technique. The type of lens I used. The other dumb crap. And it’s so … what’s the word I’m looking for? Dull. Yeah, that’s it. It’s dull. It’s technical jargon and people standing around printouts of it with glasses of champagne in hand, each of them trying to find something new and profound to say about the photo. In the end, it’s just words. Words about a picture I took in the spur of the moment as I was half-suffocated by ash and grime.

Nobody ever asks what it was like, being there when it all came down. I think that’s why they’re all drawn to the photo. It’s a way to get close, but not too close to the actual awfulness of it all. The Disneyland version of it, where they can see the horrible monster without having to think about what it can do and what it did.

I want to talk about that day. What it was like. This is what happened on that day when I shot The Titan Through the Dust. My opus, I suppose.

Do people take gap years anymore? Or is that just a rich people thing these days? I swear, every time I talk to a student who either has never heard of a gap year, or worse, mentions they couldn’t afford it because they have student loans to pay back, it just reminds me again and again how I was born with a silver spoon up my ass. I love my mom and my dads, who really did their best to pool everything two orthodontists and a lawyer could scrape together to get their ditzy daughter through college pain-free, but boy howdy did they shield me from the realities of the world. Might be why it hit me as hard as it did when the earth literally opened up that day.

Anyway, I’m off topic. Back to the event.

I’d just graduated with my BA in programming and game design. Yeah, that’s right. Claire Gainsborough, the one whose book your mom has on the coffee table and who shot that photo you owned the poster of, wanted to make a career for herself in video game production. The art critics either tactfully neglect to mention that whenever they praise my photo work, or somehow bring up the supposed influence that “Banjo-Kazooie” on the N64 had on my choice of angle and lighting. I don’t know if any of that is true, as I only played it for about a week and a half during a retro-game bender in college, but whatever. To wrap it up, I graduated the course and had my fill of screens and code and engines after four years, so I chose to take a year to travel. I wanted to see the world and snap some pictures along the way to fill up a scrapbook or a blog or something. I never expected to go down in the history books as the next Joe Rosenthal, which only happened after my photo began circulating around the net and Nadaria, my agent, hooked me in and began to tour my shot, helping me realize I had a knack for a good photo. Lucky me, falling into a career like that.

I’ve often thought about going back into video games, make a simple platformer or an RPG with cute cartoon animals who save the world. But I just can’t seem to muster the drive to sit down and do it. I mean, making video games? After what I witnessed and lived through? It seems so quaint … no, childish even. How do I imagine the fantastical anymore? How can I create the illusion of power, when I’ve seen what real, actual raw ball-busting power looks like in the flesh? Now that I know what it feels like as it walks past you, too large to notice something as insignificant as me? What the air around it tastes like as it marches onward? How can anything compare? Well, I guess only Team Ico got close, and maybe those “God of War” guys, but still–

Wait, wasn’t I talking about gap years? Sorry. I got way off topic.

So, my gap year. The idea was that I’d backpack through Asia. Had a whole route planned out. I’d start in Jakarta and see all the Indonesian islands one by one (which I did in three weeks’ time). Then it would be on to Singapore, then Malacca, Kuala Lumpur, Krabi in Thailand, and so on up the peninsula and into the continent. My final stop would be in Wakkanai, the most northern spot on Hokkaido, Japan. It was going to be the experience of a lifetime. Just traveling, seeing the sights, taking selfies, and going out at night with whomever I met along the way. Food. Sun. Shots out of someone’s belly button. And maybe there’d be things that would go horribly wrong, and I would have had to wash dishes for a week to get my ticket out of there. Something I would vlog about and then do a book and the whole shebang. Then, twenty years down the line, they’d make a movie about it with someone who doesn’t look a thing like me, but is willing to look less pretty on screen for when the awards season rolls around. That’s where I was with my mind at the time. Just laughs, experiences and the idea of fame coming from my Asian trek.

I didn’t get that far, barely a quarter way of the journey. As you might guess, my third day in Singapore was the March the 23rd. The first Kagemura Ascendance. Day Zero.

What I did those first two days in Singapore is a haze for me now. I doubt anyone really remembers what they did on half their vacations down the line. But I’ll tell you this: everyone who was there can recall that day with near 100% accuracy. I guarantee it. What they had for lunch. Who they talked to. What clothes they put on that morning. All of it. Trust me on this one.

As for me? I was in the midst of an iced coffee and a croissant with an omelet and chives, which I’d told myself would be the only familiar food I’d eat that day (part of the whole “experience the local cuisine” thing I was going for). It was 10:32 AM on the dot, and breakfast was coming to a close in the dining area. I had my nose in my tablet … like, nose in the book, but I guess it doesn’t go in a tablet. Is there a phrase for that? Dang. I’m rambling. Sorry. I always ramble when that day comes up. It’s … it’s difficult to talk about this. But anyway, I was planning out my day, when my glass trembled. And when I say trembled, I mean it was flung right off my table.

That’s when it started.

It’s funny, but the camera I used that day? A hand me down. The most famous modern photographer, and I didn’t even go out and get my own equipment. It was one of my dad’s, my biological one, who had bought it for a summer trip he and my step-mom were going to take down to Tijuana. Then he won an even better one at a sweepstakes thing with the Shoprite around the block, so he gave me the Canon for my trip.

It’s never taken more than thirty photos, and twenty-eight of them are pics from the plane, the hotel, and the pool that was on the roof. The other two are from after the attack. The camera itself now sits on my mantle, still dirty and containing its original memory card. A conversation piece, really. I use better stuff for work.

I don’t know why I keep it. I’ve had to fish it out of the trash over six times, thrown out during my darker mood episodes that are common to people with survivor’s guilt (according to my therapist). Two other times, Carla, the lady who comes in every Tuesday to clean, pulled it out. She just put it back and never said a word about it. She looks out for me. Bless her heart. I should really be nicer to her. Like, to her face, instead of anonymously paying her daughter’s college tuition as I have been.

But yeah, the camera. It sometimes drives me batty. It sits there, reminding me of what I’d done. What I could have done. There are still days I desperately want to get rid of it. But then I would blind the last eye that saw them.

It was so sudden. There wasn’t any build up to it at all. A calm, serene morning the one moment, and then the earth broke open like a fresh baguette ripped in two. A horrible noise blasted past us, a sound wave of broken steel and ten billion nails against ten billion chalkboards, that threw us from our feet. Before anyone could react, the glass in all the windows shattered, broken by the pitch of the sound. That was the first roar, but I didn’t find that out until later.

I wasn’t hurt, but I could hear the people in the streets scream as the shards came down on them. While everyone else in the dining area ran for the nearest exit and the stairs, I leaped under my table, which might have been what saved me from what came after. Not a conscious choice. Just a habit I picked up from my time dealing with the L.A. quakes.

Now, for a while, I didn’t have a clue what was going on outside. There weren’t any tremors after the initial quake, but from the sounds, I knew it had to be bad. I just stayed where I was, in case someone came to get me. No one did. In fact, the first sign that things were weird was the sudden collective silence. There were some loud astonished gasps and some incoherent yelling, but it didn’t sound like anyone was in a panic.

Then came the second roar. And with that, hell was unleashed on the city.

There are reports of what happened in the initial strike as it emerged. I’ve read them all, but they don’t mean anything to me. Just a list of factoids and hypotheses about its tunneling ability and how long it laid dormant underneath Singapore, a sleeping giant upon which we just built a city. What I could gather from them was that, just by coming up from its resting place, it took out three of the adjacent buildings in an instant. After that, it stumbled about for a bit. While it wasn’t like it was immediately attacked, something must have set it off in a real bad way, because what it did next is what hit the building I was in.

But back to the massive tremor that knocked everything over. At the time, I thought it was an earthquake, which is why I leaped under the table. That theory went out the window the second a purple beam of pure heat ripped across the city skyline and shredded through buildings. The Summer Palms hotel I was in lost its top eight floors in one swoop. If anyone screamed, I didn’t hear it on account of my eardrums shattering (still have the tinnitus as a souvenir).

I think I may have hidden under that table for a good ten to fifteen minutes before I crawled out. Dust was already coming down like snow in December, but I could feel the rays of the sun hitting me. The roof was gone. Not broken. Not damaged. Gone. Rendered to dust.

As I look back now, I’m surprised as all hell that I didn’t panic. Somehow I kept myself level, waited for a couple of minutes after the heat blast took out the top floors, then just grabbed my backpack and ran for the exit, nearly tripping over people that just lay there in the path. Were they dead or unconscious? I haven’t the foggiest, as I was too busy trying not to get trampled by the others who made their way down. But I remember cursing myself for going out to breakfast in flip-flops that day, since they made my escape three times harder. I tripped and fell down a flight of stairs, bruising my knee and scraping my arms. It hurt, but I forgot about the pain when another beam blasted overhead. I saw its purple light ripping through a cloud of dust, but the sound from within was that of steel melting, foundation crumbling, and screams silenced in an instant. I didn’t think about it, or at least I tried not to. I just ran down the stairs with one thought on my mind: escape. Run like hell and try to make it out on the street. Maybe there would be somewhere I could hide. Find an ambulance or a cop I could hitch a ride with. Be anywhere but a demolished building that could topple down any moment.

Then the stairs collapsed right out from under me.

Hours had passed when I finally woke back up, though I didn’t find out about that until later. When I came to, there was nothing but darkness around me. Engulfed in panic, I shrieked and flailed my arms wildly in an attempt to break free, thinking I’d been trapped. Technically, I was, but it wasn’t rubble I was stuck under. Three men, two women, and a potted plant had tumbled on top of me and shielded me from the debris. There were other people, who all laid there as limp ragdolls, with not a single sign of life among them. I remember I started sobbing, even though no tears were coming out of my eyes. For a bit, I stumbled in the semi-darkness to try and find a way out by touch, which I did eventually. Bad news? It was blocked with rubble. No way out but either wait for help or dig. I seriously considered just waiting it out. Help would come soon, and I wasn’t in a bad place. Then the earth shook again. So I dug.

Like a frightened mole, I burrowed my way through the dirt with ferocious speed till my fingers bled. I credit my adrenaline for giving my 125 pound frame the strength I needed to get out of there, even as I hacked up my lungs in the process. It wasn’t until that first beam of light hit my face that my heart finally stopped trying to leap out from my chest.

Wasting no time for comfort, I dug out a hole large enough for me to fit through. I pushed my bag out and followed suit, writhing like a worm after a rainstorm. I stumbled and fell twice, scraping my knees again, but I’d done it. I’d made it outside on the street, although I still couldn’t breathe for shit, with the massive dust cloud seeping right into my nostrils and lungs. My eyes narrowed in an attempt to keep the dust out of them. None of it mattered. I was deaf, dumb, and blind, stumbling through a cloud of dirt. Every exhale was a cough. I could feel the blood in my lungs and tear ducts. I knew with absolute certainty I was going to die. But I still kept going.

It was then that I remembered the bottle of water in my backpack. I scrambled for it blindly, overjoyed to find it unbroken. With some sloppy haste, I pooled some of it into my hand and splashed it in my face. A reprieve. Water had never felt that good on my skin. And with that, I got my sight back.

Then I wished I hadn’t.

There’re these two paintings by Goya. They get brought up and compared a lot in the art books that have my photo in them. Pose and lighting and all that. I do see it. And yet (and I’m going to be completely honest here), I’d never seen them before I took that picture. But I see their point when the comparison is brought up again and again between The Colossus and my photo. Goya couldn’t have known what it would be like, to see a massive behemoth waltz across through mist and smoke. But he nearly got it. Out of all the paintings, he came the closest. Because he got the dust right.

The dust. That’s all I could see that day. The dust. After the first few buildings collapsed, the dust shot out over every inch of the city. It became a cloud. No, not a cloud. More of a ghost. A specter. A second monster, a mollusk of granite and ash and human remains that fell down on the city like a sheet of pain and tears. The bride of the beast, a herald to its approach and a silent mourner, standing vigil in the wake of its terrible walk. I remember the dust more than Kagemura itself. The creature was just a flash that passed by, shone its giant eyes down at the little people screaming for their lives below, then stomped off.

There’s a second Goya painting. Saturn devouring his Son. This giant titan, the most ghastly dude you can ever imagine, is ramming this little kid into his gaping maw, all on account of a prophecy that proclaimed his children would bring his downfall. He eats a child to preserve his own future.

Goddammit, Goya. Get the hell out of my head.

Dust. Nothing but a giant cloud of dust as far as the eye could see. I felt like I’d walked into a grey-brown fog, and the city that had been there a few hours earlier was now a “Silent Hill” level, but a lot hotter. With the towel from my backpack, I made a mask to cover my nose and face, while I blocked my eyes with my hands, peering through my fingers. For some reason, I also took out my camera, the Canon, and just held onto it. I’m not sure why. Maybe as my last testament? Was I that certain of my death?

Now, I had no idea what to do next. Where was I walking to? To safety. Where was that? I didn’t have a clue. There were faint sirens that came from every direction. Muffled screams beyond the dust clouds. And me in the middle of it all.

I picked a direction on pure instinct and just booked toward it. Me, missing one flip-flop and with half a bottle of water, a towel, and a camera, shuffled in the direction to what I’d assumed was away from the danger. My foot got cut up on the rocks and debris, but I managed by some miracle to avoid any glass shards. Here and there I’d see what I thought were bodies, but to keep myself from completely losing it, I tried to block them out.

Then I heard it again, even with my fuzzy hearing and blood-soaked ears. The sound that had announced its attack and shattered all the glass. The sound of hell. The roar. I turned around, trying to see where it was coming from, which seemed like from all directions at once. Destruction in surround sound. Each breath was a hurricane. The beat of its heart was an earthquake. While I couldn’t see it through all the dust and debris, I knew it was close. Hell, I didn’t even know what “it” was at the time. The sounds were just unexplained noises. I still thought it was some kind of a bomb at the time. That’s what I assumed the source of the heat was. I tried to rationalize it all. Terrorists. A war. Or an accident. Gas pipes. All these rational explanations for all that horror. Something to just make a little sense of it all.

And then I saw it. For real this time, as it stepped right over me. I couldn’t comprehend what I was looking at. But in that moment, like a reflex, I aimed the camera and pressed the button.

A few weeks ago, in an interview with Time for the tenth anniversary of the Singapore attack, I told them that I’d only seen Kagemura the one time, back when I snapped the picture. That’s actually not true, and I should apologize for my lie. I’d actually seen it twice. The second time was about seven years after Singapore, during the three-year hiatus when they couldn’t locate the creature anywhere, during my trip to Switzerland. Yeah, you’ve seen the story. You know where this is going.

I was in the midst of climbing to the top of a mountain whose name I can’t remember, because who cares what mountains are called anymore when actual titans now walked the earth? I climbed it because I hated skiing and I wanted to get away from the world and the aura of sorrow and fear it had wrapped itself in since the monster began to walk across the landscape. Stupid me.

I saw it in the early morning, lit up by the early sun’s rays as it breached the dew that descended from the Alps with its massive frame. It was actually more bizarre to see it there. A giant crab/dinosaur/eel that keeps going in and out of the Chinese sea wasn’t that out of place in that area, if you know what I mean. But in Switzerland, among the green hills glistening with dewdrops and the sturdy pine trees that formed a carpet of bark and needles, it was as if Heidi suddenly got a weird last chapter. It was more alien than ever out there. Especially since it didn’t do anything.

There was no fire that day. There were no screams. It wasn’t even loud. A complete one-eighty from that day in Singapore. It just lurched forward and slowly made its way past the hills and mountains, cloaked in the haze that was the mists of Switzerland. Wrapped in a cloak of morning dew and fog, rather than fire and dust, it looked beautiful this time around, as it rested itself against the mountainside. Had I brought my camera, I would have gotten my second Pulitzer. Yeah, I sound like a cocky bitch, but I’ve got the royalty checks and the big gold coin on my shelf next to my Pikachu change jug, so I’d like to think I have the cred to back that statement up.

Now, how do you react to something like that? I was on vacation in Switzerland for God’s sakes, with uncomfortable hiking boots and two walking sticks in hand. I expected it all to just be pine trees and purple cows from those chocolate wrappers. Nothing weird, and certainly not it. But there it was, among the Alps without a care in the world.

For years, I’d imagined how I would react if I ever ran into Kagemura again. I thought I’d scream insults. That’d I’d raise hell as jet fighters bombed the shit out of it. Or that I’d at least flip it off, should it happen to look my way. But no. I did nothing. I just watched it for a while as it stumbled slowly around, pushing clouds aside by merely exhaling. After about ten minutes or so, it moved out of sight into the fog. I could hear its steps, as the tremors became gentler and gentler. Just like that, it went away. Then I went back to the hotel, listened to the other guests freak out about the giant prints across the landscape, had my tea, got a book from the book-swap shelf, and called it a day. Stayed there until they evacuated us all.

I’ve never told anyone else that story. Lucky you.

It stopped for a moment, as a thunderous rumble emitted from its throat (think a lion growl, but a billion of them at once), then tilted its head back to let out a deafening roar. And me? I took aim, clicked, and took the photo that defined that day and the rest of my life.

Seeing it that first time, my mind went blank. The words “what” and “the fuck” and “is that?”. A giant lizard-like thing waltzed right over me. One wrong step, and I’d have been jelly on the pavement. But as soon as it passed me, I could barely make it out anymore through the dust. The only part I got a good look at was its long, almost chameleon-like tail, which ripped through the buildings like a whip as it twisted. All I could make out was its silhouette, partially illuminated by the purple glow from its eyes. I’m not going to lie: it was beautiful. For a moment, I completely forgot how terrible everything was. There was just me and it, a skinny girl in shorts with a camera, and a creature unlike any the world had ever seen. It stopped for a moment, as a thunderous rumble emitted from its throat (think a lion growl, but a billion of them at once), then tilted its head back to let out a deafening roar. And me? I took aim, clicked, and took the photo that defined that day and the rest of my life. Like I said before: a split-second that neither I nor anyone else will ever forget.

You know what question I get asked the most? Whether I took any other shots of Kagemura later. Do they seriously think I went and ran after it? Do I look like Jimmy Olsen? It was thirty stories high, and that was back before it was full grown! No way did I risk my life like that.

But there was a second picture I took on that “fateful” day (as they call it in the history books). It was right after Kagemura made its way through the main street, right through those four buildings. And it was the only one I took with the intent for people to see it. No one did. Or if they did, no one cared. Everyone was in such awe of the best picture taken in the history of humanity, they neglected the picture I took of humanity.

It was a girl. She must have been around fifteen or sixteen, though she looked decades older. Her skin had been turned a smeared dark grey, with soot and ash clinging to her body. Her mouth was agape, gasping for air as strands of spittle clung to her chin. Then, without warning, a deep, bone-chilling wail escaped her. I stood there, frozen and coated in the same grey goop that rained from the sky, unsure if I should approach her gently or just grab her and try to find shelter. It was then I noticed she held something in her arms. At first, I thought it was a doll. But what teenager carries around a doll, especially in a disaster zone.

When it clicked for me, I nearly puked on my feet. I stood there, dry heaving bile and what little I had in my stomach out on the street, while this young girl wept for the charred body in her arms. When I regained my composure, I … I just stood there. I watched the woman cry with wild abandon. I could have approached her. I could have helped her. Shared my water or taken her by the hand and tried to find help with her in tow. But what did I do?

I raised the camera and snapped a photo. The second I took that day. And no, I have no idea why I took it, instead of anything else I could have done. But it was something real. Something human in a sea of unknown horror. And I approached it like the tourist I was.

A part of me likes to think I was going to help her and the child in her arms. Or do anything. Anything! And maybe I would have, if Kagemura hadn’t turned around.

A squadron of jets dived toward it. Missiles flew. More fire. The creature roared, snarling at the little men in the little metal birds. Like flies, they nimbly dodged its claws as they unloaded volley after volley right into it, so for a moment, I thought they might actually hurt it. But another purple light dashed through the dust, ripping those jets to shreds. It was then I saw that those beams came from its mouth. Its mouth! Do you have any idea how insane that looked at the time?

I turned to the woman, holding the body. She must have been about my age. The girl in her arms couldn’t have been more than ten. She screamed as Kagemura turned around and made its return down the street. As in right toward us. I looked at her, my legs frozen in place. She reached out at me. Then the second step hit the earth, which nearly knocked me off my feet. That’s when I snapped to. That’s when I did what I did.

I wish I knew their names.

I don’t have any copies of Dust in my home out for display. I don’t want that to be the centerpiece around which I’ve build my life. All the stuff I have for that one, the books and posters and trophies and accolades, are packed into storage boxes up in the attic. The only thing of that day I have out are these two photos on my nightstand. A photo of a young woman, cradling her little sister’s body, while the shadow of a woman falls on them. The second is a selfie of me, with ash caked into my hair and a stream of tears leaking down my cheeks. I took it after I made it to a rescue center to let my mom know I was okay. I’m alone in it.

I survived on my own. I’d ran for what felt like hours, alone. I dodged boulders of cinderblock and concrete and rebar, alone. I was even showered with empty bullet shell casings from a helicopter strike, all alone.

I could’ve taken her by the hand. I could have stayed with her. But I didn’t. No, I ran. And I became famous and rich for a photo that the smallest drone can take way better nowadays (which they have, as you can see on the Kagemura Tracker Stream). Yeah, good call Claire. Awesome choice.

My shrink tells me not to blame myself. But did she ever see Kagemura in the flesh? No. All of my exes, who just couldn’t deal with the moods and the night terrors, told me I couldn’t have done anything to help her, which is clearly bullshit meant to make me feel better. My agent always sends me clips of Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting (“It’s not your fault”) whenever I send him drunken e-mails at three in the morning about how awful I am for surviving, which in all honesty make me feel so much worse.

No matter what I do. No matter how much money I give away or pump into the Kagemura Survivor Fund or places it’s stomped through I visit to drum up aid, her face never goes away. Who was that in her arms? Did she love that child? Was it hers? A sibling? Or just a kid she tried to save, because that’s the kind of person I imagine her to be.

And if you’ll excuse me, I can’t breathe right now.

There are nights, the ones where I can’t sleep, that I just stare at my phone at the KTS. I see its face in full hi-def. Cracked, green-purple skin. Mad, almost insane eyes that look like those of a crazed crocodile, with rows of teeth like an angler fish. I still can’t believe this is the same thing I saw in that dust cloud. There’s no beauty to it. Just rage and pain, lashing out at the world as it marches wherever the winds take it. I’d say I know what that’s like, minus the lashing out and the laser breath. Sometimes I envy that part.

I hate Kagemura. I absolutely hate it. It has become everything that my life revolves around, whether I let it or not. But it’s also the only one who was there in that street. Would it remember me? No, that’s insane. I dunno; I’m rambling. Sorry.

I want to like myself. I did at one point. But now it’s gone. And I tell myself the Titan on the other side of the dust is to blame. But no. It was the cowardly twenty-two-year old who ran. No one forced her. She did that.

Now, when Kagemura shows up on screen, all I see anymore is a reflection, staring right back at me.

Claire Gainsborough, B.A., is a graduate of the School of Greater Design in Pasadena, CA. During her gap year, she survived the Day Zero event of the first Kagemura Ascendance in Singapore. After her trials, she became the most renowned photographer of our modern age, among the highlights being her works “The Titan Through the Dust,” “The Royal Wedding of the Prince and his Husband,” and the “Tezuka in Blue” series.

She currently lives in Colorado and can be contacted through her agent in New York.

Joachim Heijndermans writes, draws, and paints nearly every waking hour. Originally from the Netherlands, he’s been all over the world, boring people by spouting random trivia. His work has been featured in a number of publications, such as Ahoy Comics, Asymmetry Fiction, Gathering Storm Magazine, Hinnom Magazine, and The Gallery of Curiosities, and he’s currently in the midst of completing his first children’s book. You can check out his other work at www.joachimheijndermans.com, or follow him on Twitter: @jheijndermans.

Leigh’s professional title is “illustrator,” but that’s just a nice word for “monster-maker,” in this case. More information about them can be found at http://leighlegler.carbonmade.com/.

Fiction: The Titan Through the Dust was originally published on Mad Scientist Journal

#Claire Gainsborough #Cryptozoology #Joachim Heijndermans #Kaiju #Leigh Legler

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newstfionline · 4 years

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Saturday, January 30, 2021

US jobless claims drop; still at 847,000 as pandemic rages (AP) The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell but remained at a historically high 847,000 last week, a sign that layoffs keep coming as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage. Last week’s claims dropped by 67,000, from 914,000 the week before, the Labor Department said Thursday. Before the virus hit the United States hard last March, weekly applications for jobless aid had never topped 700,000. Overall, nearly 4.8 million Americans received traditional state unemployment benefits the week of Jan. 16. That is down from nearly 5 million the week before and far below a staggering peak of nearly 25 million in May when the virus brought economic activity to a near halt. There is optimism that COVID-19 vaccines will end the health crisis and help stabilize the economy, but that effort is moving forward haltingly and right now, the job market is stressed. Since February, the United States has lost 9.8 million jobs, including 140,000 in December.

Biden faces scrutiny over reliance on executive orders (AP) President Joe Biden and aides are showing touches of prickliness over growing scrutiny of his heavy reliance on executive orders in his first days in office. The president in just over a week has already signed more than three dozen executive orders and directives aimed at addressing the coronavirus pandemic as well as a gamut of other issues including environmental regulations, immigration policies and racial justice. Biden has also sought to use the orders to erase foundational policy initiatives by former President Donald Trump, such as halting construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and reversing a Trump-era Pentagon policy that largely barred transgender people from serving in the military. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that Biden’s early reliance on executive action is at odds with the Democrat’s pledge as a candidate to be a consensus builder. Biden on Thursday framed his latest executive actions as an effort to “undo the damage Trump has done” by fiat rather than “initiating any new law.” Earlier in the day, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield bristled at the criticism of Biden’s executive orders in a series of tweets, adding, “Of course we are also pursuing our agenda through legislation. It’s why we are working so hard to get the American Rescue Plan passed, for starters.”

Christianity on display at Capitol riot sparks new debate (AP) The Christian imagery and rhetoric on view during this month’s Capitol insurrection are sparking renewed debate about the societal effects of melding Christian faith with an exclusionary breed of nationalism. The rioters who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, leading to federal charges against more than 130 people so far, included several people carrying signs with Christian messages, and video showed one man in a fur hat and horns leading others in a prayer inside the Senate chamber. The rise of what’s often called Christian nationalism has long prompted pushback from leaders in multiple denominations, but in the immediate wake of the insurrection, other Christian leaders spoke out to denounce what they saw as the misuse of their faith to justify a violent attack on a seat of government. Russell Moore, president of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said that when he saw a “Jesus Saves” sign displayed near a gallows built by rioters, “I was enraged ... This is presenting a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ that isn’t the gospel and is instead its exact reverse.” The Rev. Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, cited the corrosive effects of “a convergence of a nationalist identity and a Christian identity.” “Certainly I love our country, and as the son of immigrant parents I am deeply grateful for the hope this nation represents,” Kim said. “But as a Christian, my highest allegiance is to Christ.” Yet some supporters of former President Donald Trump say that denunciations of Christian nationalism are a way of attacking them politically. Former Rep. Allen West, now chairman of the Texas GOP, said on a Tuesday panel with several other religious conservatives sponsored by the group My Faith Votes that the term is used against those who “don’t conform to a progressive, socialist ideological agenda.”

Bernie Sanders’ mittens, memes help raise $1.8M for charity (AP) About those wooly mittens that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders wore to the presidential inauguration, sparking endless quirky memes across social media? They’ve helped to raise $1.8 million in the last five days for charitable organizations in Sanders’ home state of Vermont, the independent senator announced Wednesday. The sum comes from the sale of merchandise with the Jan. 20 image of him sitting with his arms and legs crossed, clad in his brown parka and recycled wool mittens. Sanders put the first of the so-called “Chairman Sanders” merchandise, including T-shirts, sweatshirts and stickers, on his campaign website Thursday night and the first run sold out in less than 30 minutes, he said. More merchandise was added over the weekend and sold out by Monday morning, he said. “Jane and I were amazed by all the creativity shown by so many people over the last week, and we’re glad we can use my internet fame to help Vermonters in need,” Sanders said in a written statement.

No Justice, No Peace (Foreign Policy) While headlines may be zeroing in on the latest COVID-19 variants to arise in Latin America, another story—with ramifications for peace and justice in the whole region—took a key step forward this week. After an investigation spanning more than two years, Colombia’s transitional justice court charged eight former guerrilla commanders for crimes they committed during the pre-2016 civil conflict, including kidnapping, homicide, forced disappearance, and sexual violence. Two of the defendants are sitting senators, positions they were granted as part of the peace deal. Under that 2016 agreement, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels agreed to demobilize and undergo investigation in exchange for concessions such as reduced criminal sentences, physical protection, and seats in Congress. That first concession is what is in play now. The ex-commanders can either recognize the crimes and take a five-to-eight-year sentence or face longer sentences of up to 20 years. The defendants’ and other political actors’ responses to these charges—part of the first of seven umbrella cases at the war crimes tribunal—will constitute a temperature check on Colombia’s fragile peace process.

UK PM Johnson ‘immensely proud’ as visa offer for Hong Kong citizens launches (Reuters) Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday hailed a new visa scheme that offers qualifying Hong Kong citizens a route to British citizenship—a programme launched in response to China’s new security laws in the former colony. The scheme, first announced last year, opens on Sunday and allows those with “British National (Overseas)” status to live, study and work in Britain for five years and eventually apply for citizenship. Britain says it is fulfilling a historic and moral commitment to the people of Hong Kong, after accusing China of breaching the terms of a 1997 handover by introducing security laws that London says are being used to silence dissent. The 250 pound ($340) visa could attract over 300,000 people and their dependents to Britain and generate up to 2.9 billion pounds net benefit to the British economy over the next five years, according to government forecasts. It is still highly uncertain how many people will actually take up the offer. Government estimates show that 2.9 million and a further 2.3 million dependents will be eligible to come to Britain.

Macron weighs up a third lockdown despite signs the French ‘can’t take it anymore’ (AFP) Amid risks of a push back from a population wearied by successive restrictions, the French government is mulling tougher anti-Covid curbs—including a third lockdown—after conceding a nightly curfew was failing to suppress the spread of the virus. When it comes to deciding on new measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic, French President Emmanuel Macron and his government are walking a tightrope. Should another nationwide lockdown—the third in less than 12 months—be quickly imposed on the French, as scientists are advocating? Or should the government wait a few more weeks, or even opt for a less strict approach, so as not to alienate part of the population? It is a decision that has left the state’s leaders in a quandary. The French, like so much of the rest of the world, are increasingly succumbing to a generalised state of weariness after nearly a year of living under Covid-19 restrictions. Frustration and fatigue have set in after almost a year in which ordinary lives have been upended. Recent events in the Netherlands, where a protest movement and riots took place after the announcement of a Covid-19 curfew last weekend, would not have escaped Macron’s attention. The police arrested 250 people on Sunday evening and another 70 on Monday. Prime Minister Mark Rutte called the riots “the worst in 40 years”, in a country that has not seen a curfew since the Second World War. At the same time in France, the hashtag “#JeNeMeReconfineraiPas” (#I will not go back into lockdown) appeared on Twitter, where it went viral with more than 40,000 shares. Some of the posts even invited civil disobedience.

Italian grandmother finds treasure at home thanks to confinement (Worldcrunch) The story began grimly, with an all too familiar ring: Another Italian grandmother had tested positive for COVID-19. At the age of 98, Nonna Maria was at particularly high risk in one of countries hit hardest by the pandemic—and though she had only developed light symptoms, doctors told her to remain at home in “maximum isolation.” But it was while in quarantine last November, that this COVID story would take a very different twist: the Nonna (“grandmother”) found a fortune hidden in her apartment in eastern Rome, Italian daily Corriere della Sera reports. Without much else to do in lockdown, Maria had set out to organize her memorabilia and tidy up her apartment. It was in the hidden compartment of an old sewing machine that she found a 1986 government bond that she had completely forgotten about. Her late husband, a former army official, had decided to put his savings into an Italian Post bond originally worth 50 million Italian lira (26,000 euros), before hiding it there to protect it from burglars. An ongoing legal investigation will confirm the bond’s present value. The Italian Post has already offered 200,000 euros, although some have questioned the math and say she could be due as much as half a million, or about 19 times the amount of the initial investment. And the best bit of good fortune: Nonna Maria had fully recovered from COVID-19.

In Afghanistan, Follow the White High-Tops and You’ll Find the Taliban (NYT) The unassuming white leather high-top sneakers with green-and-yellow trim are a best seller for a roughly half-dozen shoe vendors in a sprawling bazaar in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. But they are not in demand because they’re the latest fashion trend. For many Afghans, the sneakers evoke only one emotion: fear. That’s because they’re beloved by Taliban fighters as a status symbol. In Afghanistan they’ve been worn by rifle-wielding insurgents for decades—from the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s to the U.S.-led war that began in 2001. The sneakers have become synonymous with violence, and especially so on the feet of the Taliban. Even in the heart of Afghanistan’s most populated cities, including the capital of Kabul, the shoes evoke a certain sense of dread. “I have seen these shoes worn by the Taliban many times,” Said Mar Jan, a resident of Khost city in Afghanistan’s mountainous east, said. Government militia members, some security forces, criminals and people in rural areas also buy and wear them.

Wake-up call for elite as COVID-19 floods Zimbabwe’s hospitals, killing rich and poor (Reuters) When Zimbabwe’s rich and powerful get sick, they often go abroad in search of the best treatment money can buy; ousted President Robert Mugabe died in a hospital in Singapore in 2019. With travel curtailed by the coronavirus, that luxury is not available, exposing the elite to a truth the majority has long known: Zimbabwe’s health system has been crumbling for years and is now struggling to cope with a spike in COVID-19 cases. Anger among overwhelmed medics is adding to broader public dissatisfaction with President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who pledged an economic revival after he took over from Mugabe following a coup in 2017. “It’s a rude awakening to the government and to the politicians,” said Norman Matara, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights. “If you have decades of continuously destroying your public health system, and then now you have a pandemic, you cannot then overturn that decay ... in one year or in six months.”

Bison rangers (Foreign Policy) As U.K. conservationists plan to introduce European bison to the county of Kent, they are seeking Britain’s first-ever bison rangers. Wild bison—Europe’s largest land mammals—haven’t resided in Kent for millennia. Moved from the Netherlands, Romania, and Poland, the animals will help manage the Kent woodlands. Stan Smith, who works for the Kent Wildlife Trust, told Reuters that while the ideal applicant for the job should be accustomed to animal behavior, they were not expected to have experience with bison, “because you can’t until now.”

#headlines #news

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chrismaverickdotcom · 4 years

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In Order to Save the Village, We Had To Burn It Down... AGAIN!

So America is on fire… or at least parts of it are. Specifically, the city of Minneapolis is having a really bad time right now — in the wake of the murder of George Floyd a few days ago. But it’s not just there. There’s been protests in several American cities tonight, and some of them have turned violent. The CNN building in Atlanta was under siege earlier tonight. People have been gathered outside of the White House in DC in what’s been a pretty precarious situation. People are fed the fuck up. And they deserve to be. We got to watch a black man murdered live on TV and the Internet. AGAIN!

I thought about writing about this a couple days ago when I first realized this was going to get bad. I didn’t have it in me at the time. Frankly I was kind of busy with my dissertation. But also, I felt like it made more of a statement to just say “you know, I wrote about this six years ago with Ferguson and it’s still happening, so just go read that one.” So that’s what I did. I reposted the link to Facebook and Twitter, and then went back to my work, with the TV on in the background and checking in on social media every once in a while just to see what people were saying about it. And as I did it, I knew full well “this is just going to get worse and worse” especially with the idiot who occupies the White House.

(By the way… the idiot did not disappoint… If you’ve been paying attention you probably know about his dumbass threatening of shooting looters and trying to claim that doing so was to keep Floyd from not dying in vain. I don’t even have time to go into Trump’s fucking moronic ramblings right now… other than to say… as I tweeted at him “fuck you dude!” and also to say, about his explanation that he didn’t know of any racist history with the “when the looting starts the shooting starts” statement that the answer to that is “then you are too fucking dumb to be president… and frankly… too fucking dumb to even be a good racist”)

Anyway, if you’ve been watching TV or the internet in the last 24 hours or so, you know that it did get worse. It is getting worse. But one of the nice things is that this time around, I’ve seen more… let’s say “positive” reaction to the riots. A lot of people seem to “get it” this time. Part of that I think is just the cultural moment that we find ourselves in in 2020. Partly as a reaction to dumbass-in-chief, partly because of the efforts of the #BLM movement… and I think in large part because of the visceral reaction of sitting there and watching a cop very calmly crush the life out of a man without batting an eye while onlookers pleaded with him to stop. People just “get it” this time (which is why I think the viralness of the video is a good idea despite what some other people think. That’s another side point I don’t have much time for right now). And good. People get it.

But… not everyone… of course not everyone.

And the problem I have is that the people who are complaining… both on the left and the right are doing so in the exact same way. In a way that I find really troubling and so that’s what I need to rant on a bit here. I’ve had a few arguments… some longer than others… on social media in the last couple days (hell, years… since I wrote that original essay) about how effective riots are. Some conservative MAGA types like to claim “but Martin Luther King was against riots. He’d be disappointed in you. These are just a bunch of scumbags who want TVs.” Fuck those guys! On the other hand I’ve had some arguments with more liberal people who like to claim “but this is bad, because black people are just burning down black owned businesses. it doesn’t help anything. You’re destroying your own community” as though classism were not a thing conflated with racism in complicated ways and black people were a big monolithic profit sharing union which directly benefited from the enrichment of the few that are able to manage to own property and commerce in a tiny microcosm capitalist system that catered to other black people and even if they were that wasn’t still as problematic as fuck! I swear to God, the next white person who tries to explain to me that “you don’t understand, these people are destroying ethnic businesses. They’re destroying their own community. They’re only hurting themselves…” I’m punching you in the fucking throat. And you know what I may do it you’re a black person too…

Because, in either of those cases, it’s not that the decision to riot is a bunch of people got together and had a calm rational meeting and said “ok, well that’s it. I guess we torch the city!” No… it’s based on feelings that have boiled over from a continuous, systemic, dangerous and sometimes PURPOSEFUL ignoring of the struggles that they are going through. It is a decision of last resort.

For me, the straw here was Keisha Lance Bottoms, Democratic mayor of Atlanta, making a comment earlier tonight about the riots in her town. She’s upset. She’s rightly upset. But she said something that I hate. Something to the effect of (not an exact quote): “You are disgracing the memory of George Floyd. You are disgracing the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. When King was killed, we didn’t riot. Go home!”

NO… She is wrong. This is the same bullshit that the dumabass-in-chief was trying to get across. Yes, she’s way more eloquent. She is way more studied. Frankly, she’s at least 10x as smart as President Dumbass. But… she is also wrong. I don’t know that Atlanta rioted when King was killed. in fact, I’m pretty sure they didn’t. The city was mourning. They were having his funeral there. HOWEVER. That’s very misleading. Everyone else rioted! There were nearly 200 retaliatory riots across the United States the week that King was killed. More than 40 people were killed. Thousands of people were injured. There were tens of millions of dollars (in 1968 dollars) in damages as cities got burned. They called in the military. Not just the National Guard… the Army and Marines were deployed to some cities. It was called the Holy Week Uprising. Look it up! IT WAS BAD! REAL BAD!!!

Of course a lot of people don’t know that. It was 52 years ago. And we don’t talk about it much anymore because it doesn’t fit the narrative that we like to tell about MLK…. that he was this cuddly peace loving teddy bear that brought America together and ended racism and everyone loved him and mourned him when he was gone.

If everyone loved King, he wouldn’t have been shot in the head. And that’s not just James Earl Ray. King was on the FBI watchlist. He was widely considered a terrorist by people. Any of your super MAGA friends (the same ones who hated the Colin Kaepernick kneeling protest) that are posting memes that say “this is a protest, and this is a crime” with MLK’s picture on the “good” side…. make no mistake, those are the assholes who would have been calling him “nigger” and screaming he should be lynched. For most Americans in 2020… especially white ones… you maybe learned two things about MLK in history class… he “had a dream” and he was killed. That’s it. If you’re lucky, you maybe learned a third thing. That on March 9, 1965, he marched across a bridge in Selma, non-violently! And that was the turning point for the Civil Rights Movement. It’s the event in the meme that everyone shares about how great he was at non-violent protest. What maybe you don’t know is that that march he was at… That was two days after the first time they tried to march across the same bridge and the cops beat the shit out of everyone. It’s called Bloody Sunday. Look it up! King was there putting himself in harms way in what could have turned into a much more violent protest. What made King great was that in face of being one of the most hated men in America, he kept his composure. He kept his non-violence stance. At considerable risk to himself he preached his message. And for all his troubles… he got shot in the fucking head. People seem to forget that part.

See, it’s not convenient. It makes it hard for America to feel good about itself if they dwell on the fact that the man we’re supposed to view as the 20th century’s greatest hero… GOT MURDERED FOR HIS TROUBLES. It feels icky. Just like it feels icky to remember that after he was martyred to the cause of non-violence… there was a solid week of rioting in his name. And it also feels icky to think about the fact that those riots are an important part of the Civil Rights Movement. Not just the Holy Week Uprising. I mean the riots of the ENTIRE Civil Rights movement.

You see… for all the rhetoric about King… he didn’t “solve racism all by himself.” And I mean, not just because he didn’t end racism. But also because he wasn’t alone. And I’m not just talking about Malcolm X either. I mean that his non-violence movement was not alone. Yes, he was a key figure during the Civil Rights Movement. Yes, his big thing was non-violent protests. But that was just HIS thing. During the hey day of the Civil Rights movement from 1954 until 1968, while King was staging these protests… there was a lot of rioting going on. Do you know what happened in Los Angeles only 5 months after the Selma march that everyone loves? A traffic stop escalated into a six-day riot that left 34 people dead and 1000 people injured and devastated 46 square miles of LA. It’s called the Watts Riot. Look it up!

This happened a lot during the Civil Rights movement. In fact almost constantly. There were literally 159 race riots over the course of like two months in 1967. 85 people died. Thousands of people were injured. Over ten thousand people were arrested. It’s called the Long Hot Summer. Look it up! Which was sort of MLK’s actual point. You know how you have that one black friend who keeps sharing the King quote that “Riots are the language of the unheard” and you mostly ignore him… I mean, if you’re an asshole MAGA type, maybe you tell him he’s wrong… but otherwise you maybe just say “oh yeah… good point” but you don’t really think about what that means? Well, what it means is actually super important. MLK was trying to use non-violent protest to get people to listen to him so that violent protests didn’t erupt. Do you know how I know this? I know because HE SAID SO. But he also knew that the inevitable result of NOT listening to him and not bringing racial change was that there was going to be rioting. And I quote:

“But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.”

-Martin Luther King, The Other America (1967)

Over and over again… You see, because Martin Luther King was not the be-all-end-all of the civil rights movement. What he was, was Colin Kaepernick, 1960s edition. You know “that son-of-bitch that disrespects the troops and doesn’t deserve freedom because he won’t stand up when a bunch of white people tell him to and celebrate how great America is”? Yeah… him! You see… just because you don’t use the word “nigger” that doesn’t mean you don’t mean it. Kaep has done a ton of good for this world. He has caused a lot of change. But it’s not enough. Because he’s one guy… and the change doesn’t come… sometimes, there’s riots!

And sometimes, there’s not. Even if you’re one of the people who AGREES that #BlackLivesMatter, and you post your tweets with hashtags and maybe even donate. Do you remember Ahmaud Arbery? We were all super upset about his murder a few weeks back. We had video. It was right in our faces. People got mad! Good! You know… for like two days! And then everyone forgot and went back to the very important job of arguing with each other over whether or not masks worked to fight COVID-19 and if it was time to open back up the world up in a week or a month and can we meet in groups of 10 or 25 or 200? Black Lives Matter… but not as much as … you know… getting a haircut. We forgot, because he didn’t get a riot.

And THAT was the message of Martin Luther King. Riots are the language of the unheard. And they are unheard because no one is listening. And you’re not listening now. Not really. When you are more concerned with the methods or location of protest, then you aren’t listening. When you are more concerned with the destruction of property or whose property it is, then you aren’t listening. When you’re more concerned with whether it is appropriately a riot or a protest, then you aren’t listening. You aren’t listening to the people telling you black lives matter. You are not listening to the large segments of black society who do not have justice or equality or humanity. You are not listening to Kaepernick and why he was kneeling in the first place. And if this were 1965, you wouldn’t have listened to Martin Luther King. Not really. You would have paid a little attention… for a little while… until you didn’t. Until you needed a fucking haircut. “And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.”

In Order to Save the Village, We Had To Burn It Down… AGAIN! was originally published on ChrisMaverick dotcom

#Black Lives Matter #fire #long hot summer #Martin Luther King #mlk #protests #watts

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yujachachacha · 7 years

Photo

Yujacha’s Birthday Scout for UR You

Now in meme format! Click for captions~

Final result of 24 scouts: UR Time Travel You x2, SSR Time Travel Ruby x1, SR Time Travel Kanan x3, various R cards x18.

Explanation of each image (i.e. the full story of my scouting adventure) under the cut!

I debated whether I should make this post, or try my hand at making a video since I recorded my scouting adventure. However, editing would take me a while, and I also kinda didn’t look forward to hearing my own voice since I talked during the scouts. When I mentioned this in a previous post:

...which is a good point. _(:3 」∠)_ I might still decide to make the video after all, but in the event that I do, it would be a while before I’d finish it. Thus, I came up with this post!

1. To scout or not to scout

Context: I put up a poll on Twitter + asked Tumblr if I should try scouting on SIF for my birthday, since it happened to fall within the “increased chance of pulling new members” period for the latter half of the Time Travel set. Since Time Travel You happens to be my favorite out of her URs so far, I decided to slightly bend my self-imposed rule of “no scouting until Rin’s birthday box is up on the Global SIF server” by using the large amount of scouting tickets I’d saved up.

The options were as follows:

Yes, but only use some.

USE THEM ALL Y O L O

No, you’ll regret it T_T

save for rin, u traitor!!

As you can see from the first image in the above photoset, the poll winner was option 2 - using all 79 of my tickets.

2. >Has 2.4k love gems >Scared of using just 24 tickets

Those of you who’ve been up-to-date on my blog know that I ended up picking option 1 instead. Now, I do have an explanation for this. What happened was that I was in a video chat with some ONIBE members towards the end of my birthday. At that point, I realized that the number of votes meant that I would be scouting that day. What I hadn’t decided, however, was whether I would actually use up all of my scouting tickets.

I then asked ONIBE what their votes would be, and most of them wanted to see me scout. Some of them thought it would be bad luck to scout while streaming it, but in the end we came to the consensus that I should just use some of the tickets - and that’s how I ended up picking option 1.

One of the replies to my poll was to use 40 tickets for You, and save 40 for Rin (I would technically only have 39 left if I did go with this plan, but I’d definitely be able to earn at least 1 more scouting ticket before November). I really liked this idea, and was thinking of trying this out when an ONIBE member suggested using just 29 tickets to scout, leaving me with a nice round number of 50 for the future. I wasn’t a huge fan of such an odd number, but then it inspired me to pick a similar number: 24, to represent my birthday.

I very reluctantly made my way to the scouting screen and tried delaying the inevitable for several minutes - “nooo, I’m gonna regret this...aaaah...ugh...” and so on. This was the first time I’ve seriously scouted, not counting the few scouting tickets I used when I started SIF (which all turned out to be Rs). My strongest cards, as a result, are Promo URs and idolized event SRs. My teams are pretty pitiful, but it’s all for the sake of seeing my teams get filled up with Rins later this year...!

3. Finding happiness in the small things

My first three scouts were all Rs. I wasn’t really discouraged, since scouting tickets are the equivalent of solo yolos. I was pleasantly surprised when the new SR Kanan showed up so early in my scouting run. I was glad to welcome her as the first non-event SR I’ve ever pulled!

The next two pulls after the SR joined my growing pile of R cards, and at this point someone in ONIBE pointed out that I hadn't pulled a repeat card yet. All of the cards so far were unique girls. In order: Dia, Riko, Maru, Kanan (SR), Ruby, and Chika. Pretty interesting. What I chose to nitpick about, however, was the fact that You hadn’t shown up yet, not even as a R. Then, three pulls later...

4. “Should I stop scouting now?”

My exact words when I was doing this scout: “Lucky nine! You-chan! You-chan! You-ch-”

*UR envelope flies out*

“Oh my-”

*UR Time Travel You pops out*

“OHMYGOD HAHAHA-” *breaks down into hysterical laughter*

I was talking relatively quietly up until then because it was towards the end of the day, but I screeched really, really loudly when UR You popped up. My dad actually came into my room to ask me what was wrong, haha.

At that point, I asked myself if I should stop now that I had achieved my goal of obtaining UR You, and someone said I should try to idolize her. My exact words: “I highly doubt I'm going to pull her again. Like, what are the chances that I'm gonna pull her again?”

Oh, the irony...

After several minutes of indecision, I decided to push forward since I did want the You UR idolized. I pulled a bunch of R cards again after that, and during that time I casually remarked that since I got SR Kanan and UR You, it would be really nice if I got SSR Ruby.

5. Ruby answered my wish

Seriously, the scout right before this was KimiKoko Ruby, and I was just like, “Oh, okay. Wrong Ruby, but good to see her.” Then when I pressed the scouting button again:

*SSR envelope flies out*

“Oh?”

*SSR Time Travel Ruby pops out*

“OH MY GOD! Oh my god, what the fuck...?”

With that, I had everyone in the Pure trio, AKA Kayouby (coined by Furirin during the December 2016 trio niconama), for the Time Travel set. The only card I hadn’t pulled yet for this half of the set was SR Yoshiko!

At this point, I was cackling, “Birthday luck is real!” But then I had another “I'm scared, I wanna stop now” moment because I was lowkey terrified of these nice scouts. I eventually convinced myself to keep trucking on.

6. YohaMaru confirmed(?)

Two scouts later, I tried saying “Yohane, shoukan!” on a whim to see if I could pull the remaining card in the Time Travel set. When Maru popped up instead, I just said, “Oh. Well, I summoned her girlfriend~” haha.

7. “Oh! Okay, that’s nice, I can idolize her!”

Kanan now had the honor of being my first idolized non-event SR as well when I ended up pulling her again. After my bout of joy, I exclaimed, “This is pretty good for solo yoloing! WTF is up with my luck today?!”

On the scout right after this, I actually pulled the same exact Smile R Maru card that I had pulled right before Kanan. :3c

8. “Oh! What the- haHAHAHAHA”

This was scout #20. Within 20 scouts, I got the same 2 URs. I know there was a rate-up for this set, but this was crazy!

My second hysterical laughing fit of the day ended up waking my mom, who was sleeping at the time. Oops. But I was extremely happy to be able to idolize my favorite UR so far of my best Aqours girl!

Though, this scout also triggered “I actually want to stop now” self-doubt session #3. Someone commented on my reluctance to scout, and I retorted, “How else do you think I've saved 2.4k love gems? It only took me...two years...” I can only hope that my self-restraint for Rin’s sake will result in something as good as my birthday scouts.

Next scout was a R Chika, and I remarked, "No, it's all gonna be rares now. I've used up my luck for the year."

9. lol bich u thought

Scout #22 brought me my third SR Kanan. I guess my second best Aqours girl loves me a lot~

Once I found out that this card was a Perfect-Locker, someone suggested selling her for seals. I briefly considered it, but thought it was better to just use the 3rd Kanan to unlock her final skill slot.

10. Datenshi misfortune averted?

My last two scouts were R Maru (Mijuku Dreamer set) and R Ruby (Aozora Jumping Heart set), even though I chanted “Yohane, shoukan!” for both of them.

Hilariously, this meant that I ended up with a grand total of zero Yoshiko cards. I've opted to interpret this as her way of granting me birthday luck by keeping away her notorious unlucky streak away from me. Thank you for your sacrifice, oh mighty fallen angel Yohane-sama. :’)

Results

24 scouts → 2 URs, 1 SSR, 3 SRs, 18 Rs:

You: 2 URs, 1 R

Ruby: 1 SSR, 3 Rs

Kanan: 3 SRs

Chika: 4 Rs

Maru: 4 Rs

Riko: 3 Rs

Dia: 2 Rs

Mari: 1 R

Yoshiko: 0

Goals achieved:

(Initial objective) Pull UR Time Travel You → ✓

Pull SSR Time Travel Ruby → ✓

Idolize UR Time Travel You → ✓

Pull SR Time Travel Yoshiko → X

In the end, I of course withdrew the URs for idolization. I also decided to withdraw Kanan, even though she's a PL card, since I don't own that many idolized SRs. The SSR Ruby, however, is still in the present box. The last card I withdrew was actually that Smile R Maru in Image #6, because I actually hadn't idolized that particular card yet.

Lessons learned:

Birthday luck is real.

Chanting “You-chan” will summon You-chan.

Chanting “Yohane, shoukan” will not summon Yoshiko (but it might summon her girlfriend Maru).

Every time I doubt my scouting luck, SR Kanan will show up to prove me wrong.

Don’t ask the internet if I should use up all my scouts on solo yolos, because the answer will always be “yes”.

#love live! school idol festival #love live school idol festival #llsif #aqours #time travel set #yujacha plays sif #queuetie panther #ignore the watermark i was too lazy to make proper images :blobwhistle:#this is the most insane luck i've ever had #if good shit like this happens when i scout using actual love gems for rin #imma probably collapse from cardiac arrest

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annavolovodov · 7 years

Text

So I read Keep the Home Fires Burning Part Two and I have a few thoughts...

...and when I say a few I mean 2825 words worth. You can probably guess whose storyline most of them are on.

The thing is, the vast majority of this instalment was incredible with two character’s storylines in particular standing out as real highlights for me. Yet the fact that the quality of the rest of the book is so high makes those chapters so glaringly disappointing.

Spoilers under the cut!

Starting with the positives and one of my two favourite characters in the books so far - Pat. Her scenes have been utterly engrossing and I am so, so proud of the way she’s developed since 1x01. She may still be stuck with Bob but she sure as hell won’t let herself be trapped by him. She knows her worth and she’s biding her time.

As I predicted, Pat’s using the Mass Observation columns as an outlet to keep her sane. Since we know she has a literary background and has worked in publishing before, I am PRAYING that the observations she’s been detailing of her life will take off and the series will end with her as a hugely successful writer. Think about it: would it not be the ultimate vengeance against Bob, for her to achieve what he lacked the skill to? Of course I would love Bob to die but that seems a tad contrived for Home Fires and forcing him to watch the woman he’s abused for years moving onto bigger and better things would be both a satisfying victory for Pat and would fit with the tone of the show.

Side note: I find Pat’s insistence to stick solely to the truth when writing to be an interesting contrast to her husband’s technique. Bob has a tendency to overdramatise aspects of his life and portray himself to be heroic and exciting when in reality, he’s the exact opposite. There’s probably a good meta in there for someone smarter than I am.

I can’t forego a mention of Pat’s quite frankly iconic dragging of Bob for almost a whole chapter. The revelation that she almost straight up murdered him a couple of years ago was unexpected but totally relatable. And some of the quotes from her writing?

“In my experience, men often like to sit around talking about doing great things, but it’s the women who get on and do them.”

“It makes me ashamed that we can be at war with fascist Germany yet exhibit the same base impulse to discriminate against people who simply don’t look like us.”

Pat is a great character.

AND THAT CLIFFHANGER. MAREK’S BEEN WRITING TO HER. HE’S ALIVE. THEY WILL BE TOGETHER AGAIN. FUCK YOU BOB.

As for my other favourite? Erica has been an unexpected highlight in the novels. Of those involved in the crash, I was pretty certain she’d make it. She never quite acquired her own storyline in the show, instead largely popping in and out of others plots as needed. I already had Will marked for death since he'd be killed off sooner or later with his illness so it was a nice surprise when he made it out (after saving Vivian!!! I still cry).

Or at least I thought it was a nice surprise right up till we found out his cancer had worsened and he had mere weeks left to live. When Dr Mitchell explained to Erica and Laura that he was nearing the end? When they went home and Erica decided she had to shoulder the burden and remain strong for the girls? Erica finally breaking down whilst the women of the WI held her? I full on sobbed at every single one of those scenes.

I think a lesser series would’ve killed Will instantly when the spitfire hit the house for the sake of drama and words can’t express how grateful I am that Home Fires didn’t, instead choosing to leave us with a poignant and painfully relatable exploration of terminal illness and grief.

I did appreciate the touches of humour in the Campbell’s storyline. Will literally pulled a “Surprise, bitch. I bet you thought you saw the last of me” on Erica like 70 years before the meme was invented. Incredible.

Dr Rosen is... intriguing, I guess. I don't dislike her. I think she has potential, even though I’m sceptical at the addition of yet another character when we have mains from S1 who have yet to make a significant impact in the book.

OH AND THE BATTLE OF WILLS BETWEEN HER AND MIRIAM??? The sort of content I paid 99p for. Poor Erica, getting caught in the middle of that. There were many great lines in this book, but I think this might just be my favourite:

“Erica felt a sudden rush of adrenaline, knowing Dr Rosen might get away with a comment like this with some patients, but not with Miriam Brindsley - a woman the rest of the village knew could single-handedly hold off a horde of invading Nazis with a gutting knife for a solid half-hour.”

If that doesn’t sum up Miriam as a character, I don’t know what does.

Speaking of the Brindsleys, do you know how satisfying it is to see them alive and flourishing after spending 15 months mentally preparing yourself to lose at least one of them?

I do.

I mean, they still have a huge target on their backs (Mim’s words in part one about how they’re blessed and are defo making it through the war? Yikes. An omen if ever I saw one) but considering their lack of page time I’m gonna gamble that we can quit worrying about that until Book 2 at the very least.

Moving on, I really did not go into this book expecting to care so deeply about Frances and Noah’s growing relationship yet here we are. Frances excessively calling to check on him every day was adorable. And this entire exchange with the head teacher was legendary:

"Frances didn't want to have an argument. She never wanted to have arguments with all sorts of people she eventually had arguments with; it was simply in her nature to be more challenging of other people's positions than they were used to. It put them on the defensive, and an argument would inevitably ensue. ‘I don’t wish to be confrontational –‘ There was a sudden snort at the other end of the line. Like the sound of someone choking on their tea, perhaps.”

I laughed.

However, despite the many, many positive aspects of this most recent instalment, there is one storyline in particular that singles itself out as Home Fires’ most glaring weak spot.

Of course, I’m referring to Teresa’s story and the awful place she’s currently occupying in the narrative.

Back when the whole Nick debacle began mid-S2, I figured I might as well give it a chance and see where it went. Simon Block was adamant on Twitter that Teresa’s endgame was not a man and what would be unfurling over the coming episodes was a historically accurate depiction of the trials lesbians faced during such time periods. It wasn’t ideal, nor was it what I expected for Teresa based around the promotional material released for S2, but the show hadn’t let me down yet.

And so I have waited, I have given it a chance, and based on the back half of S2 and the two instalments of KTHFB available so far, I am SO disappointed in what Simon Block has done with Teresa. Sure, things may improve in future novels, but right now I’m not sure I can adequately explain how much I hate this goddamn marriage.

Simply put, it is totally unnecessary. Every single aspect of it. Teresa’s chapters in Part Two were awful. I’m pretty sure we’ve established at this point that she is not into men. We do not need to read about her trying and failing to repress her attraction to women whilst having sex with Nick. Even if we absolutely unavoidably had to hear about Nick and Teresa’s sex life, we do not need aforementioned sex scene spread across the whole chapter.

I know this might be hard for Straight Guy Simon Block to understand, but I’m pretty sure exactly zero lesbians are going to want to read about a lesbian character who is struggling with compulsory heterosexuality having sex with a man. I’m bisexual and I found it sickening so God knows how that chapter is going to make lesbians feel. I strongly suspect that some are going to find it triggering, and if the storyline is triggering to the group it is supposed to represent you really have to ask yourself why you are even bothering to write the representation in the first place.

Teresa’s arc in the books so far has consisted of getting married, blaming herself for the crash because she feels like she isn’t taking the marriage seriously (seriously what the fuck was this???), Teresa having conflicting feelings about Annie, Teresa stuck at home worrying about her marriage, Teresa feeling awful whilst having sex with Nick, Teresa worrying about having children, Teresa having more conflicting feelings about Annie and Nick... Do we see a pattern here? Do we get any meaningful scenes of Teresa at school? Do we get any meaningful scenes of Teresa with her canonical close friends Alison and Steph, who she spent S1 and S2 building strong relationships with? Yeah, she occasionally gets a throwaway line in a group scene at a WI meeting, but what does Teresa really get to do outside of being emotionally tortured about her marriage? The change in format to the books has led to characters being isolated in their individual stories whereas the series could allow them to interact more freely, but it genuinely feels like Teresa is stuck in some sort of heterosexual hell and is allowed no reprieve.

And all of this feels completely divorced from S1 and the first half of S2??? S1!Teresa didn’t appear to have any sort of desire to marry a man in order to cover up her sexuality. From the limited screen time we had with them, the main reason the relationship between Teresa and Connie failed seemed to be due to interference from outsiders (aka the headteacher that blackmailed Teresa) and the simple fact that Connie and Teresa wanted different things. Nothing in the series suggested that Teresa was unsure or struggling with her sexuality. Nothing. When the synopsis for 2x04 came out and mentioned Teresa would be asked on a date, everyone immediately assumed it was Annie involved. The prospect of it being a man never crossed our minds because it just seemed so ridiculous.

Another aspect I’m struggling to comprehend is why Alison pushed Teresa towards Nick. There’s no logical explanation for this. Alison knew about Teresa’s sexuality. Alison was fine with it and explicitly wanted her to stay because - and I quote - she “enjoyed having her around”. So how on Earth did we get to this point, with Alison encouraging Teresa to marry a man she barely knows and can never love? The fuck did that come from? The reasoning was murky enough in the show but it’s even worse in the books. Chapter 17 is essentially Alison sitting alone in her house feeling depressed, missing Teresa, lowkey regretting telling her to go but consoling herself because “at least Teresa is in a happy marriage now” or whatever...

In what universe does any of this make sense?

Yet another person being screwed over by this whole shitshow is Annie. Marek was also introduced in S2 as a love interest for Pat yet he’s somehow obtained significantly more screen time and development than Annie. Despite appearing in four episodes and two instalments of the book I feel like we (and Teresa) barely know her, which is absolute bullshit if they’re seriously intending for her to be Teresa’s endgame. They’ve had three conversations! Any romantic relationship between two women should get equal, if not more focus than the hetero ones especially if they’re the only f/f romance on the show. One of the central themes of Home Fires is relationships between women so I cannot understand why the ball has been so spectacularly dropped here. It’s not fair on Teresa to get all this suffering and a half-baked romantic subplot, it’s not fair on Annie to be essentially non-existent as a character beyond her possible relationship with Teresa and it’s certainly not fair on any wlw reading/watching, desperate to see themselves represented and being given scraps.

Even if Teresa's marriage is over soon (which I'm not holding my breath about), I can't see how she'll get a happy ending with Annie in the village. I highly doubt Nick would be okay with her continuing to live with him whilst she was in a relationship with Annie. Getting a divorce and moving in together would arouse a ton of suspicion and defeat the purpose of Teresa’s marriage in the first place. The only way for them to be able to live as a couple would involve moving away and starting afresh... Exactly what Connie proposed in S1, only for Teresa to turn down because she’d feel much more comfortable living a quiet life in the village than going off to a strange place. Having her suddenly change her mind now after clearly explaining her decision to Connie would result in everything post-1x04 feeling utterly redundant.

I just... this whole plot was totally avoidable. It didn’t need to happen. In a more logical universe:

After the First Aid course, Steph notes Teresa’s discomfort at the casual homophobia, and when coupled with her Meaningful Look at Annie as she cycled away, Steph promptly puts two and two together (remember Steph noticing how quickly Teresa wanted to get away after that comment? Remember the close friendship Steph and Teresa have? Simon Block sure doesn’t).

Once she hears about the impending wedding, Steph gently asks Teresa if she’s sure she wants to do it. Teresa half-heartedly assures her that she loves Nick, so Steph - because she’s a good friend and this show is supposed to be about women helping each other - decides to go and speak to Annie.

Annie and Steph end up staging an intervention and in an important and touching scene, tell her she deserves better than having to hide herself in a marriage to a man.

Teresa, feeling supported and loved by her friends, calls off the wedding.

Nick fucks off and becomes irrelevant.

Steph and Annie’s intervention forces Alison to consider why she pushed Teresa away (spoiler alert: it only really makes sense if it was because she was trying to push away feelings of her own).

Teresa, Annie, Alison, Steph and later Joyce start a wlw group during which they talk about how gay they are and how straight people suck. Nothing bad happens to any of them ever.

See how easy that was? The evils of heteronormativity are depicted in a way that doesn’t cause a lesbian to suffer for months trapped in a horrible loveless marriage.

I really can’t express how disappointed I am in this storyline. Home Fires has handled numerous other sensitive topics well but this marriage plot is an absolute mess right now. I do apologise for going on such a rant about it and I hope my comments make sense. As a bisexual, I’m not as qualified to speak on this particular matter as others in the fandom may be and I hope I’ve not stepped out of turn, but I felt that something needed to be said about what’s happening with Teresa right now and I wasn’t sure if anyone else was going to say it.

Miscellaneous things I’m not going to elaborate on because this is far too long already:

I badly miss Sarah, the Farrows, the Brindsleys, Claire and Spencer, and everyone else who is currently out of rotation. Hope you’re all doing well, folks.

Also missing some of the best dynamics of S1/2. As mentioned earlier, everyone is kinda stuck in their own bubble interacting with the same people over and over again. I particularly want more Frances/Joyce, Teresa/Alison and Teresa/Steph interactions.

Of all the random secondary characters in the show, of course it’s Mrs Talbot who returns for the books. I groaned when I saw her name.

Maybe in some ways I’m glad the show got cancelled because at least I don’t have to witness the Teresa/Nick sex scenes with my own eyes. It was bad enough having to read it thank you very much.

If you’ve made it this far you deserve a medal for your stamina and, as ever, my inbox is always over if anyone else wants to discuss/theorise/rant with me.

See you all again on September 21st for what I’m sure will be another 2000+ word rant!

#home fires #home fires itv #itv home fires #home fires spoilers #spoilers #keep the home fires burning #keep the home fires burning spoilers #seriously this contains all the spoilers #also I hope it makes sense #its 2:25am ive spent five days on it and I can't look at it any longer #@ simon block: why. why are you doing this.#why are you ruining an otherwise good book with this shitty plot #anyway goodnight/morning everyone I hope at least one person reads this + I hope no one on mobile accidentally gets spoiled

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evaaguilaus · 6 years

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Google RankBrain: Clearing up the myths and misconceptions

It’s been nearly 3½ years since Google first announced their usage of RankBrain (October 26th 2015, but it had started being rolled out early 2015, in multiple languages).

In that time, there’s been little in the way of details coming from G about what it is or how it works.

The result is that numerous SEOs have stepped up to fill that void with their own speculations and opinions, and in doing that, have caused all sorts of confusion.

This is my attempt to correct and clean up some of that mess.

(There is a TL:DR at the bottom if you want to skip the verbiage :D)

What does RankBrain do?

Though there isn’t much publicly available, what we do have is fairly specific:

“If RankBrain sees a word or phrase it isn’t familiar with, the machine can make a guess as to what words or phrases might have a similar meaning and filter the result accordingly, making it more effective at handling never-before-seen search queries.”

– Greg Corrado, from Bloomberg’s Google Turning Its Lucrative Web Search Over to AI Machines}

Or, if you want it more succinct than that;

“… Lemme try one last time: Rankbrain lets us understand queries better. …”

– Gary Illyes (@methode), on Twitter

Google receives a fair percentage of queries per day that it hasn’t seen before: 15% at last check.

These may include misspellings and typos, elisions/omissions, unusual phrasing/syntactic structures, the wrong word(s) being used, negations (“not x”), things that have only just happened etc. etc. etc.

RB receives these weird, wonderful, and new searches, and attempts to identify existing searches and results that are probably suitable for the searcher’s query.

How does RankBrain work?

Again, we aren’t exactly given a guided tour by G on this, but there are a few bits and pieces.

“… RankBrain uses artificial intelligence to embed vast amounts of written language into mathematical entities — called vectors — that the computer can understand. If RankBrain sees a word or phrase it isn’t familiar with, the machine can make a guess as to what words or phrases might have a similar meaning and filter the result accordingly, making it more effective at handling never-before-seen search queries. …”

– Greg Corrado, from Bloomberg’s : Google Turning Its Lucrative Web Search Over to AI Machines

So, rather than looking at words and attempting to parse them and understand the semantics (traditional Natural Language Processing [NLP]), it converts them into numbers and plots them on a chart (with multiple dimensions, not just X and Y).

Items near each other possess some form of relationship. The type of relationship will be reflected by each term’s position and distance from its neighbors.

If that sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it sounds very similar to Word2Vector.

So when G receives a query it doesn’t quite recognize, it can find semantically related pieces, and look at the results.

But, what if it’s wrong?

Well, that’s where Gary Illyes’s answer to a question on his recent Reddit AMA may come in:

“…

RankBrain is a PR-sexy machine learning ranking component that uses historical search data to predict what would a user most likely click on for a previously unseen query. It is a really cool piece of engineering that saved our butts countless times whenever traditional algos were like, e.g. “oh look a “not” in the query string! let’s ignore the hell out of it!”, but it’s generally just relying on (sometimes) months old data about what happened on the results page itself, not on the landing page. Dwell time, CTR, … those are generally made up crap. Search is much more simple than people think.

…”

– Gary Illyes (@methode), on Reddit

I’ve added the bold to draw your eye to the key part.

G may go back and look at what gets clicked for different searches, and check their performance. This can help the system learn what suggestions are suitable, and which ones are fails.

If you want something with a bit more meat, you may be wanting some patents?

If so, I was lucky enough to get some help from Bill Slawski, who pointed me to two potentially interesting patents:

Computing numeric representations of words in a high-dimensional space, and

Using concepts as contexts for query term substitutions

The first patent (computing numeric…) was worked on by Greg Corrado, from the Bloomberg quote previously referenced.

If you don’t fancy suffering the trauma of reading the patents, Bill has two far nicer bits that get you the insights without the need for painkillers:

Citations behind the Google Brain Word Vector Approach, and

Investigating Google RankBrain and Query Term Substitutions

Example of what RankBrain may be doing

How about we walk through a simple demo of the type of thing that RB does?

Query: How Nemee 2020

Google receives that query, and has nothing that appears to be a match and little that seems above a weak relevance.

So, it needs to do some work.

It can identify the type of query by the use of “how”.

It can identify a time factor by “2020”.

Or it can identify several potentials for “nemee”, including “meme”.

The query is vectorized, and the nearest neighbors for those vectors are found.

Included in the results are vectors that represent:

“How to”

“how do I”

“how do people”

“create a meme”

“pronounce meme”

“say meme”

So we have two probable query types:

A question of how to say …

A question of how to make …

But we have a 3rd factor, the “2020”. When we look at the result groups, there are barely any pre-existing queries or results that include time with pronunciation, where are there are a moderate number of “how to” queries and results that do.

RB decides that the most likely results that match this query are those from the “how to make” queries, and so the results you would receive would match;

“how to make a meme 2020”.

Does RankBrain use user experience signals?

No.

And that’s what this post is about — clearing up all the baloney some people have been pushing about “Dwell Time” and “Click Through Rate” and “Bounces” etc.

RankBrain doesn’t use UX signals from your pages.

For quick confirmation;

“… Dwell time, CTR, … those are generally made up crap …”

That’s from Gary’s AMA response I quoted above.

But, you can use a little common sense yourself at this point.

Ask yourself the following question:

Why would a system that is built to try to encapsulate relationships between text-strings be looking at how long someone spent on a page, or how fast they left?

When you stop and look at it that way, and consider the example above, you can see how site based UX signals have no relevance for RankBrain.

The only such metric we know they may use are SERP-based clicks to identify what type of results appeared relevant to that type of query.

Can you optimize for RankBrain?

Yes.

Google has even told us that we can

“… Optimizing for RankBrain is actually super easy, and it is something we’ve probably been saying for fifteen years now, is – and the recommendation is – to write in natural language. Try to write content that sounds human. If you try to write like a machine then RankBrain will just get confused and probably just pushes you back. But if you have a content site, try to read out some of your articles or whatever you wrote, and ask people whether it sounds natural. If it sounds conversational, if it sounds like natural language that we would use in your day to day life, then sure, you are optimized for RankBrain. If it doesn’t, then you are “un-optimize …”

– Gary Illyes (@methode), talking to TheSEMPost

I know — it’s a bit lame.

But, if you roll back a bit, G have actually spelled out how to optimize for RankBrain!

“… If RankBrain sees a word or phrase it isn’t familiar with …”

“… making it more effective at handling never-before-seen search queries …”

“… predict what would a user most likely click on for a previously unseen query …”

All you have to do is fly in the face of standard SEO practices, and aim for the exact opposite of what you would normally go for — high search volume.

Instead, look at all the queries, and then generate variants that aren’t in the lists.

I know, that’s even lamer!

(But, be honest, you did want to know :D)

But there is more — particularly for those that deal with time-relevant content; events and occurrences.

As these are “new”, the queries likely will be too (at least partially). To gain an advantage here, you might be able to look at similar searches yourself, and look at the patterns they possess. Once you have some samples and associated search volume data, you can pick and choose the ones you feel are most advantageous and relevant, and then weave them into your content.

If you want a little more insight into RB, and things like Association Rule Learning (delving deeper into the computing side of things), Dan Taylor has a previous article that may be of interest: Here’s how RankBrain does (and doesn’t) impact SEO

Does RankBrain influence rankings?

No — it’s a matter of inclusion.

Though Google has stated that RB is one of the most influential Ranking Factors, it’s not a typical SEO factor.

Unlike Titles or Link Text, it’s not a gradient or variable — it’s Boolean.

Either you are perceived as relevant, and included in the SERPs for a query — or you aren’t.

So you can optimize for RankBrain — but it isn’t a matter of ranking influence, it’s a matter of index inclusion.

TL;DR

What does RB do?

It attempts to answer unknown queries by looking at previous search data and the relationship of the terms used in those searches.

How does RB do that?

By converting words into numbers and plotting them into vector-space.

It can then break a query into parts and look for similar terms in the vector space to try to understand the relationship and potential intent of the search.

Example:

Query : “how nemee 2020”

Convert query to vectors, find closest vectors, try to calculate probable matches.

Two distinct query types are surfaced; “create” and “say”.

“2020” associates more strongly with “create” than “say”.

RB will return SERPs for “how to make a meme 2020”.

Does RB use UX?

No.

It handles words and vectors.

Things like Bounce Rate, Long Clicks etc. aren’t used.

Can you optimize for RB?

Yes.

By writing naturally and ensuring your content contains variations.

For some types of content (occurrences/events/news) you may be able to check similar searches and get ahead of the pack.

Does RankBrain influence rankings?

Not in the traditional SEO sense. It’s not about “position”, it’s about whether you show for that query or not.

The post Google RankBrain: Clearing up the myths and misconceptions appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

from Digtal Marketing News https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/03/05/google-rankbrain-clearing-up-the-myths-and-misconceptions/120782/

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knightofbalance-13 · 7 years

Text

Boss Battle: VS. Dudeblade

http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/160307778687/in-response-to-everything-you-said-here-i-decided

Okay Dudeblade, you want a battle? I’ll give you a battle.

A Boss Battle of sorts.

In response to everything you said here, I decided to take a page out of your book, and deconstruct everything that you wrote. Because, you know, it’s not like you did the same to me on multiple occasions.

So you’ve learned how to debate: Glad it took you several months to do so. Now you’re facing a veteran debater with a shit ton more experience at this than you do. Come back in about ten years.

Oh, and just so that you know that I’m calling you out personally, I’m using your full username. Knight-of-Balance-13.

This is dudeblade, from the rwde tag. And I, I am just a man, trying to enjoy the show that we all love

Then why have you not posted a single good thing about the show in over a year and even then you have gone back on some of your stances about teh show since then and haven’t gone back on any of your negative posts. And you have attacked the writers and numerous characters on the show multiple times. Your actions speak louder than words.

Now isn’t this just a lovely piece of work? It looks like that there was a whole lot of thought put into this one. I wonder what would happen, if I were to look at every single detail, and deconstruct it. To just, distort it and force my opinions here. Like how you do with most of mine.

And right away we have a problem: the way he structures his critique. He puts up a slab of text on screen and puts up a slab below it, a mistake I made for so long. You can go sentence by sentence and dismantle it that way, thus giving you more breathing room and a quicker pace to it.

On to the content itself, I haven’t outright shown malice towards a post and when I do I usually label it as a “potshot”. as I have done so before in the past. While it is true that I have been hostile towards posts, it has never gotten to the point of sadism as you are implying with both your tone and language. SO right off the bat you are presenting yourself as more hostile than I am 90% of the time and this is on the very first post of your very first rebuttal. Not a good sign.

Also: You say deconstruction which implies a professional tone (which is what I usually do) but then you’re lanuage shows you are going to be anything but. Seriously man, if you are trying to attack me, be outright with it. It just makes you look more honest in the end.

For starters, you also can’t be objective if you love the show as well. It’s a two-way street. This is something that is called a catch-22, a situation where there is no reasonable solution to the problem at hand, or where the primary solution, also contradicts the parameters. You want to know why people are so harsh? - It’s because the writers have no intent on listening. How would you feel if every time you tried to offer advice, it was ignored, and the person(s) you were giving it to kept making the same mistakes over and over again? - I’m pretty sure you’d be upset.

However in one of your posts and in numerous reblogs you have stated that just because you are critical of RWBY doesn’t mean you can’t be critical of it so your own words contradict what you say here for no other apparent reason that that argument now applies to me then.

And I have said in the past that you can be critical of something and still like it, it’s your INTENT that judges what is criticism. If your intent is to harm the creators then that isn’t criticism, it’s just hate. As I said in the quote you posted. Your tone and wording have shown that they are closer to hate than criticism (some going as fair to label themselves as hate) and thus what criticism you might have had fails on death ears because you are using the tone, wording and intent of a hater.

Not to mention the fact that you are the one who put the parameters there in the first place: the only evidence people have of Miles rejecting criticism is a meme from Rooster’s Twitter so it can’t be confirmed that was Miles and a link to a guy trying to shut up criticism and Miles calling him out so that’s actually a contradiction. You believe this is grounds for personal attacks despite the fact that the grounds for harsh criticism alone isn’t even met here. This shows you just want to hate.

How about this: Instead of going after the symptoms, you go after the cause. Reducing a fever isn’t going to magically cure the flu. But getting medicine will help cure the flu. I use this analogy, because it’s the best one that there is. But if you want to talk about blowing up information, you should take a look in the mirror. Because you seem to blow up every time someone wants Yang to express what happened.

... Those two definitions of blowing up don’t collorlate. One implies exaggeration but the other implies excessive amount of emotion. While one does cause the other, you didn’t link them. Might want to edit that.

And the only thing of proof you have to prove that is a piece of sarcasm and if that’s being treated as proof then I can point out that you told the writer’s that they were fired from breathing and thus telling them they should die. No matter what way you go with this Dudeblade, you lose.

And in a way, I am trying to cure the cause: the cause being that people are trying to pass off hate as criticism and I am here to criticize and have the actually criticize or shut up and let other people do it. So I still fit your bill.

You always claim that Yang expressing herself undermines the trauma Tai went through. When exactly did Tai get his arm cut off in a terrorist attack when he tried to save his partner? When was Tai’s goals of becoming a huntsman demolished because a terrorist group attacked the school? When did Tai lose his mother at a young age? - The answer is “Nobody knows.” (At least for that last one. The other two have the straightforward answer of “never.”) So far, I have only seen you undermine what Yang has gone through to make Tai’s life look worse in comparison. - Hypocrite, much?

So we’re doing this huh? Okay then: When did Yang ever lose a lover? When did Yang ever lose nearly lose a child? When did her child jump off into the great unknown with only a note? When did Yang have to protect Taiyang from Grimm while she’s depressed? When did Yang ever reach out to Taiyang but he pushed her away? That’s 5 questions that answer never to your two and each one can be answer as “Twice” at the very leats so that actually 10 -2. And that’s not even going into how Taiyang basically has a worse version of the other traumatic events and we don’t even know his backstory. So how about you sit doiwn and take a note from teh White Trailer, something I have been trying to get across showing how ridiculous it is to deem a person’s sorrow by using another (Everyone is entitled to their own sorrow.)

Also, note how he calls Adam a terrorist. This is going to boomerang on him later.

This is possibly the only part where I can at least, partially agree with you. There is a degree of arrogance from both sides. While it’s spread out in the rwde category; the anti-rwde, has it much bigger, but in fewer people. Both sides are to blame for this, and it’s not fair of you to put the blame solely on the rwde tag.

considering the fact that we haven’t suicide baited people, told people to go die, called people pedophiles, called people abusers, slander people, warp facts, sexism, racism and so much more, if we seem arrogant to you that’s probably an intense disdain for RWDE.

Also,”Abject failure”? That guy, (rerwby) is doing their best to fix some plot holes that were left from the writers neglecting to think ahead. Like how when (in canon) Jaune claimed to be from a family of hunters, it made very little sense that he hadn’t unlocked his aura. But in the re-write, he says that “those huntsman genes must have skipped me.” - Something that makes infinitely more sense from a story-telling perspective. Not to mention that I don’t think that word means what you think it means. I read it to day, and found it enjoyable. I’ve read worse stories, and the Re:RWBY story is not the absolute worst story ever. It’s doing its best to address plot holes, and made references to LGBT+ Representation in under three chapters, when the actual show hasn’t made a reference in over FOUR VOLUMES. Though, I’m willing to bet that you think he shoehorned that it for “moar views.” No, B1umenkranz actually made a positive reference to the LGBT+ community. Contrast actual canon, which has promised representation over and over again, but has yet to reveal who is part of the community at best, and is completely baiting at worst.

Yes because that kind of product’s first and fore most priority is that they need to be entertaining. And between the numerous failed attempts at visual humor, interjected dialouge, switched around lines and lack of description, it is a chore to sit through a single reading of Re:RWBY whereas I would gladly sit through Volume 1 of RWBY again.

Also, a lot of what you say here doesn’t work. The huntsman genes don’t work because genetics wasn’t Jaune’s problem, it was training. It created a plot hole as to why Weiss would think a nest is a temple, why Jaune tried getting into Beacon if something he could not control ect. And just because you have LGBT in it doesn’t eman it’s good: Mod Regalia a bisexual talked about this before (https://team-crtq.tumblr.com/post/160160464449/rwby-and-ships) and these exact problems show up: Yang and Blake have tacked on Chemistry when they have a netural at best relationship and Ruby’s sexual observation of Blake makes no sense considering she is stated to be uninterested at sex right now. Combine this with awkward dialogue, OOC moments out of the ass, unnecessary dialouge changes that ruin the jokes, a lack of detail, more plotholes, tacked on LGBT mentions and inconsistent narrative style and you have an inferior product.

Please refer to these three posts on why people are upset about the lack of LGBT+ representation. Now get off your high-horse. Damn, and here I thought that someone in the crtq tag would call you out on that one.

I match and raise your tag with several LGBT members who are just as sick of this as I am: @phoenix-theurge @tumblezwei @ula-star @mageknight14 @rainbowloliofjustice @takashi0. You, as a straight person, cannot claim to speak for these people who are closer to the subject and disagree with you.

Both sides are using Monty’s name in vain. Not just rwde. You have people who are claiming that “The writers are shitting on Monty’s dream” and then you have guys who basically say “You are hating on Monty’s legacy.” - Both are petty, and even I have a major beef with it. But don’t act as if Monty’s death makes his show safe from criticism. If that were true, then people would go apeshit whenever someone criticized a Disney movie. - Point is, is that both sides are guilty of doing this, and considering you got mad and upset that someone made a rwde meme post on the anniversary of Monty’s death, you aren’t free from blame on this part either.

In the main RWBY tag where every RWBY fan can see it, which is what I did. You also only have one example for me and two examples against you: It seems more like I’m an isolated incident than anything so that point does not stand.

Re:RWBY is structured like a book. They aren’t structuring it like a show. Books are different than shows, movies, games, etc. Do you really think that the Harry Potter films follow the books to the exact letter? - I don’t think so. So, maybe you should stop bitching, and start looking onto details. re:Rwby made their points clear, and you claim that they’re arrogant? - They only said that he thought his ideas were better. Gee, for a person who claims that the rwde tag takes things out of context, you sure seem to do that a lot. Plus, if you read his tags, you’ll see that he was very polite compared to your “Everything is wrong, and you should feel bad for writing this wrong” attitude that you seemed to project through your comment.

And RWBy itself is structured as a book and that is why I judge it so: It’s lack of detail and terrible story structure makes it a chore to sit through because the gags in RWBY use both visual and vocal aspects and both are botched by the writer who claims to be a better writer than Miles. He outright said that he could do a better job than Miles and failed to do so and so by your standards of attacking Miles over Soul Eater and LOK, I am still right. In fact, considering Miles never said he was better and Re;RWBY did, I would be more right by your standards than you all are. And then he blocked me and continues to mock me, so what?

Again, refer to the posts that I linked to earlier about baiting. I’m not going through the effort of re-linking them again. But I have a new one right here.

Said by a guy who has a noted hatred of Miles. By your own logic, all that does is discredit you.

Just because Yang was in a rut, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t ablest. Tai made it clear that Yang wasn’t worth his time unless she had two arms, and that is pretty much ablest. Also, if what you said was true about lines and screentime, then that meant that Penny was there for Ruby’s development. Pyrrha was there for Jaune, and Adam was there just to make Blake the definitive “good guy.“ Another reason why people are critical of Jaune is because he was the first character to get a two-parter arc to himself. It wasn’t Ruby and Weiss (who had their problems resolved by the end of the episode) it was Jaune. And considering that no other character that one of the writers voice has gotten the same treatment, it leads to the conspiracy theories that Miles gives more development to Jaune because of his ego. Also, to quote Mr. Enter, “Just because you bring one character down, doesn’t mean the other character is brought back up.” It doesn’t work like that. Making Jaune look weak in comparison to Ruby doesn’t automatically make Ruby a better character, it just makes Jaune look weak.

- In fact, Ruby’s character remains static. But here’s another thing: If Jaune really is there to make Ruby look good, then why is he the strategist? - If this were the case, as you so claim, then Jaune’s strategies would have been thrown out for Ruby’s much better worded, and thought-out tactics. In addition, he’s the ONLY one mourning Pyrrha. Pyrrha is apparently non-existent for the other characters. Pyrrha was put in a Schrodinger’s Cat situation when it came to the reason for her abrupt death. She was either killed to further everyone’s character, or she was killed to further Jaune’s character and his alone. Since no character brings her up aside from Jaune (and Qrow that one time), it comes off as if Pyrrha was killed solely for Jaune

The rut thing was about depression, not the disabled thing. Right off the bat, you’re moving the goalposts. And even so, I have shown that disabled people DO think it was a good portrayal as seen in the Meta folder on the awesome tag of RWBY’s Tv Tropes page. And even then, you have shown an intense and irrational hatred for Taiyang so you’re not allowed to talk. Just as well, you aren’t allowed to talk about Jaune because you have shown personal bias against him so that doesn’t work either. In fact, you’re biased against most male characters as you have admitted before so in reality, most of this is pointless.

And yeah, some characters are like that. Adam isn’t because he’s more used to show what happens when you fight an opponent long enough: you start acting like them. But Penny and Pyrrha? Yeah, that’s true. That’s also not a bad thing: Most mentor characters are this way and Pyrrha actually got an arc outside of Jaune. Hell, the most well known character from Gurren Lagann is Kamina, a mentor character with no purpose or menaingful character traits that aren’t “Make Simon Better.” And Gurren Lagann is one of the highest regarded anime of all time as well as a stated influence on RWBY so my comparison has some weight.

And that only works if Ruby herself is weak, she’s not. Ruy has very strong characterization in that she is an innocent, naive but determined and altrustic girl with a love of weapons and zero social skllls. And contrary to what you say, her character has developed. She has gone from denying that bad things happen in the world to accepting that they happen but still struggling to amke things better because its the bright thing to do. And this coincides with Jaune’s character as a foil to Ruby: he’s the tactician to her stradgest, she inspires people through actions while he does so through words, she’s talent but naive whereas Jaune doesn’t have talent but is aware, Jaune gets more cynical while Ruby becomes more optimistic.

PS: I guess actions don’t speak at all huh? Ruby being sad at the mention of Pyrrha holds no weight to you huh? Good to know you have such a narrow view of things. No, you just put things in a damned if they do, damned if they don’t situation.

The only time I have ever heard of the opposite of Queerbaiting (Which Blizzard Entertainment invented, and was called Straightbaiting), was Tracer from Overwatch. Proof: https://ravenclaw-rebel3390.tumblr.com/post/155915548399/i-guess-overwatch-invented-straight-baiting

Okay and i be you rolled your ewyes at that. Now imagine how the five people I mentioned feel.

RWBY was marketed as a show about strong female protagonists. People didn’t sign on to watch Jaune (and only Jaune) cry about Pyrrha. I, myself am a fan of Ren. Jaune has had many lines over the course of the series, whereas characters like Ren, Sun, and Neptune have had very little. Also, Penny hardly had any screentime, and she was supposed to be one of Ruby’s close friends.

Once again, glad to know you have such a narrow view of things that Ruby being emotionally sad doesn’t work unless she says it.

And Jaune is the Deturagonist, so what? that’s like complaining that Gohan got too many lines in Dragon Ball Z.

Also: man Pain AKA a man can’t feel emotion over a woman. Nice to see such hypocrisy.

Right. Pyrrha totally deserves that label. After all, it’s not like she asked Jaune out multiple times, regularly ignored is rejections, and only backed off when she found out that he liked someone else and that affection was reciprocated… Oh wait, that happened… But it was Jaune doing it. Also, you were the one who undermined Yang’s trauma by claiming that she doesn’t know what it feels like to have people close to you abandon/die on her, when that’s been most of her life. Tai had absolutely ZERO joking tone when he said his insensitive comment, and you never seem to bring up the fact that Port and Oobleck were shocked by his comment. Why would they be shocked if this is supposed to be normal? It doesn’t seem logical to me.

Because you have a bias against male characters, we’ve been over this. You have outright stated it before and shown it numerous times. BGuit I’ll humor you:

Pyrrha also made advances at Jaune, just not directly. Nurmous Times as well. She ignored his attention to Weiss or ignored his lack of attention and only abcked off when Jaune was stated to like Weiss outright. So yeah, she does get that label if Jaune does. It’s called equality, something you seem foreign to.

Zero joking tone huh? Then I guess Church never joked once in the entirety of Red Vs. Blue because the tones were EXACTKY the same. Glad to see you’re blinder to sarcasm than an aspie.

And I guess if someone were to see the Reds And Blue or Rooster Teeth themselves,m they despise each other right? Or oif yous aw @ula-star‘s family you’d say that they are abusive too huih? Glad to see the world only works one way. (sarcasm)

Adam is an asshole. But Y’know what? - Weiss was the one who called “Controversial Faunus Labor” a “morally grey area.” Also, Adam is a minority, broken by the discrimination that he has faced. I don’t approve of his actions, not by a long shot. But the White Fang seem to be emulating the rwde tag (or maybe vice-versa), in which that side was sick and tired of being ignored when they were being peaceful, so they resort to brutal tactics. Weiss is also a racist heiress who somehow got over her racism overnight. From a storytelling standpoint, Adam deserves more sympathy than Cinder at this point. Unless both of them get an expanded backstory, they have both done some pretty terrible things, but Adam was forced to work for Cinder because she had power, and he didn’t. People tend to root for the underdog, especially if that underdog has been discriminated against. Adam’s story is more relatable to people because he’s a person who was sick and tired of peaceful protest being ineffective.

Let’s go through this, shall we?

1. Adam is also racist and to a degree that overshadows Weiss and Cardin (Name one time they6 demanded genocide. I can with Adam.)

2. Mind linking to that?

3. You comparing the rwde tag to the White Fang and called their leader a terorist shows that you pretty much know you’re trying to use fear to control people and thus cannot be listen to. Thanks for the confirmation.

4. And that’;s why Weiss was still weary around Sun because she wasn’t being racist to him. Also, she got over her racism, Adam hasn’t.

5. And no one forced Adam to try and blow up the train in the Black Trailer, abuse Blake, chop Yang’s arm off or call for genoicde either. Man, this is like a textbook example of Draco In Leather Pants. And weiss’ is a form of Ron The Death Eater as well: Big surprise.

Jaune has taken the protagonist role. He’s the only one mourning Pyrrha, and as that line chart stated, had Ruby not had that speech at the end, she would have had less lines than Jaune. Not to mention that we (the audience) already knew why Ruby was doing this. By having her do that speech, she’s simply stating the obvious. No audience member asked “Why is Ruby doing this?” - Because we already know. Ruby hardly did anything. It was primarily Jaune.

If Jaune is the protagonist, why did he immediately default to giving up his angst and sorrow to Ruby the minute she shows sorrow? Why would the entire Volume be using him to prop Ruby up? Why would the emotional scenes with him either use Ruby as the start and finish?

And the part about the lines thing doesn’t work because, again, 75% of Jaune’s lines go to Ruby because they were used to develop here.

And if she is staing the obvious there then you missed the obvious point about her development, the theme of the Volume and the emotional wrap up,.Also shows that no matter what, Ruby will always be secondary in your eyes to Jaune even when she isn’t/. Nice to see you again Sexism.

- Jaune gets hit. Jaune gets an upgrade. Jaune is telling the team what to do. Jaune is sick of losing people (which would have carried more weight if Ren were the one to have said it). Jaune is sad that Pyrrha died (Again, he’s the only one to be actively mourning her). Jaune catches Tyrian’s eye. Jaune calls out Qrow. Jaune saves Qrow. Jaune shows off his weapon’s new mode.

So is Ruby, so is Ruby and Jaune’s upgrade only made him get bitchslapped. Jaune can’t do anything else. Audienbce surrogate. Ruby is also saidf and he immediately stops being sad about Pyrrha to allow her to be. Tyrian immediately dismisses that and focuses on Ruby. In character for him, out of character for Ruby. So did Ruby.

And Ruby also had the focus of Salem and Cinder, 75% of Jaune’s lines where made to build her up, She is the fcous of the plotline and not Jaune, 2 out of the three scenes Jaune is notable in is centered around Runby, Ruby gets the final words, Rubty is the fcous of Yang’s plotline as well, Ruby does far better in combat that Jaune, Ruby is the reason WHY Qrow is there, Ruby is the reason WHY Qrow gets injured, Qrow is Ruby’s uncle and Jaune has no family in the story, Ruby is the butt of one joke whereas Jaune is the butt of three in the first episode alone. Yeah, doesn’t work/

Ruby showed off a neat aspect of her semblance in the first episode of the volume, and then it was never seen again. Ren comes across his ruined village, and we get only one flashback to it. Nora hardly does anything other than provide some relief, and acts as a means to keep Ren calm, and Qrow only gives us exposition. Then there’s the fact that Ruby only used her semblance in the finale fight a total of one time, whereas if that Grimm was as threatening as it was hyped up to be, then she should have been using it to tie the thing’s arms around a tree or something. - But nope, gotta have that ancient Grimm get killed by four newbies when other, more experienced fighters all fell to it. This just makes any hunter that’s not part of the main cast look pathetic in comparison.

Except for the numerous times she files into the air.

Ren and Nora got foreshadowing in Episode 2, 5, 6, and 9.

And semblances use up Aura therefore if she did one hit would break her aura as it did with Ren, The Nucklevee has more control over the arms than Ruby and all Jaune’s weapon did was get him bitchslapped.

Also: Name one Hunstamn in Ren’s village or any that fought the Nucklevee before the heroes. ot Ren’s dad, weapon isn’t correct. Not Xion, The bandoits took care of them and other Grimm weakened them down/ No? Can’t? Then I guess you have no argumnet.

Misuse in animation is a sin of itself. It’s a sad day when Monty (God rest his soul) forgets that Rapiers aren’t used in that fashion. It’s a poor decision that needs to end, and if RW/BY can’t be the trend setter and be the first time it gets used correctly, then why should it be exempt? - The lead animator was someone who studied fencing, this shouldn’t have been a thing in the first place. RWB/Y shouldn’t be a trend follower, it should be a trend setter.

Most of the Raiper usage cited in RWBy was from The White Trailer, Volume 1 and Volume 2. AKA when Monty was the animator. And even then, many trend setters WERE trend followers, they just diverged. NGE was a normal Mecha show for 16 episodes and yet it set the ENTIRETY of the deconstructions in anime after 1995. You fail using yet ANOTHER inspiration to RWBY.

The mention of trains is only mentioned in the exposition-filled bore-fest that is World of Remanent. If people need exposition about that from a filler spot that disrupts the action and flow of the show, then why shouldn’t they repeat what happened? - After all, they did it with the Schnee Heir twist. They revealed that Jacques wasn’t a real Schnee in the WoR, and then, in the following episode, they repeat it. Despite the fact that the twist was ruined by the WoR, they still thought it to be a good enough of a twist to repeat in the story proper. If they can do that, why can’t they repeat the train thing?

“Borefest”

“Likes on WOR are the sma eif jnot higher than normal RWBY”

Yeah, those don’t work.

Because it’s a part of the show? Okay then, whenever exposition happens in a show, you MUST skip over it because all it is is an inclusive version of WOR. What’s that? You won’t? Then no bitching about WOR.

- Also, Yang got used to the prosthetic in only a few weeks. Even FMA makes it a point to mention that their character getting used to their prosthetic in under a year is unusual. And if you mean to tell me that Remanent has the technology to make a prosthetic that can be gotten used to in under a few weeks, then why are they so stupid to make it so that you need four active towers to allow for cross-continental communication? - It simply doesn’t make sense. - Also, most PTSD victims take YEARS to recover (if they do at all). Yang getting better overnight (Putting on the prosthetic, and being able to use it like it was her original arm overnight) is insensitive to actual PTSD victims who lost a limb in a war, terrorist attack, or a freak accident.

And she had six months beforehand. That also means you wnat Yang to be out of the show for a year: Good to know.

Okay then: Do you want me o watch Legend of Korra and go through ever single plot hole in that show? Because considering last Airbender had quite a few, I’m sure I’ll be able to match you blow for blow. If not Korra then..basically any show ever? Or will you keep your standards.the same watching RWBY as you do everyone else and Not be a nitpicky asshole?

I believe that this is what you would call “a critique.” After all, I provided solid evidence as to why your reasoning is flawed, much like how you constantly did to me. And if this upsets you, then perhaps you could do us all a favor and keep it to yourself. And how about you don’t go whining to the rest of crtq that someone was being mean to you?

No, because you shown numerous times t5hroughout this study taht you have quite a few biases that you refuse to put aside as well as t5he fact that you amde it clear that you were attacking me rather critique, summerized by how you expect me to hold up to a standard that you yourself have rejected numerous times and didn’t follow once in this section. Meanwhile, I have.

And I wouldn’t do that to the crtq tag, I have higher standards than that. Nope, i’ll just my comrades talk you down while as Mod Quartz I will say nothing, thus giving you no ammo against me as a critic there.

I’d sure as hell appreciate it.

I’ll even be nice and not post this under the usual anti-knight tags (Though if someone else reblogs this, and adds those tags, I refuse to take responsibility for the actions of another).

Then why is Rwde a tag then? That is an anti-knight tag since so many people in the rwde tag dislike me, you7 are still singling me out for ridicule. And no, rwde doesn’t apply here as you are, in your won words, criticizing me. Meaning no RWBY and thus no rwde. Too bad about that huh?

And since you held me responsible for MSD even after we said we didn’t approve of him: Nope.

Now how about you quit with the weak punches and actually do some damage.

Is that all you got?

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findteenpenpals · 8 years

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Hiiiiiiii! I don't know who you are but I already love you. Hug me, brotha.

I’m looking for a pen pal! I’m 15, Muslim, a sarcastic prick, and bilingual! I’m fluent in English and Persian. I’ve also got a French project so for the francophones, hit me up… please. I’ve been taking French for years, and although the language sounds beautiful to the ears and is fun to learn but I’d still like to learn it through speaking it with someone as often as I can :D Please, I’m dying with this project someone take this introvert under their wing :D Seriously, everyone who actually ends up contacting me will get a quick response.

I’m a pretty open/accepting person, and I’m not very sensitive. (But I’ll understand if you are! I’m just letting you know so you don’t feel awkward making a joke about me being a nerd or whatever. I’m a queen anyways, I’ll understand if it takes you a while to see that light and look past my dorky exterior.) But if you’re looking for a listener, and someone you just need to get your thoughts out on then you can count on me. I’m not too shabby at distracting people from a bad day, though, I’ve got tons of funny stories about the events of my life to tell. I like to think my life isn’t that mundane through telling a weird story about the time I fainted in a grocery store (Or that time I convinced my aunt to stop being homophobic, that time I fainted in SCHOOL and I learned years later which way I fell through emails with my elementary school teachers, the great Tiger plushie heist and the eventual familial gossip that ensued, ) even though my life’s pretty… mundane.

My interests include film, I love reading studying about their cinematography, the colour palette of a specific movie, observing a really good actor (Predictable, but I had a really fun time seeing Heath Ledger play the Joker in the Dark Night.), listening to their soundtracks. I also especially love animated films (Disney, Pixar, Hayao Miyazaki,Laika and Dreamworks have made some good flicks.) and it’s something I’ve been nerdy about for as long as I can remember. As for movies in general, there’s something magical about taking whatever’s written on a piece of paper and transforming it to the silver screen. I’m sure, for a director, their minds are always ahead of the current work they produce and they can never get it done exactly like what they imagine. When something they thought up makes it as a movie and ends up being a masterpiece regardless of how different it turned out, that must be really awarding. I just love movies, dammit! I swear to God I don’t sound that pretentious when I’ll talk with you one on one.You can send me stuff about dank memes, (I love memes, so actually do that and I’ll love you forever.) rant about how much undeserved hate your fandom gets, Dan Howell’s fringe, how Bucky Barnes would dance with women today, interior design, what your crack ship’s first kiss would be like and I would still be absolutely enthralled. Despite not being a fan of any of those things besides Bucky and uh… dank memes. Not a normie in the slightest.

I think elderly people are adorable. I don’t fetishize or romanticize them, it’s just that most of the old people in my life haven’t been dicks and they’re fun to talk to about history or just our contrast in interests. Random but it’s a fact.

I’m also the bomb when it comes to Disney or Pixar trivia. Or just trivia in general. You could ask me to tell you a random fun fact (And I really mean the lit ones, not boring stuff like “The Little Mermaid came out in 1995!” I would say something like, “Mark Zuckerberg puts tape over his webcam. Canada has the Apology Act which means that if someone apologizes after committing something illegal (I’m not sure of the exact details) that it can’t be used against them in court to make them seem guilty. At Disney parks, all the images of Walt Disney smoking a cigarette have been photoshopped so you can’t tell he’s smoking in them. Also, most animators chose to work on Pocahontas instead of The Lion King because TLK was more expected to flop. Again, prolly messed up some details.”)

I like to read! Percy Jackson series are great :) I also really like this book called Flipped, heard of it? Huh, weird. Well, on continuing the conversation of things you’ve never heard about, my favourite author is Stephen King! In 7th grade, my teacher told me to read The Stand because it was his most acclaimed and epic book. I borrowed a copy, read it, and I was floored. It had me locked in, and once I finished it I loved it so much that I bought her a new copy on the last day of school and she had a copy to give to me! It was the cheesiest, 90s show ending to that year of middle school ever (Minus the pointdexters. I’m definitely not one at all, I like to imagine I’d be a soft-on-the-inside punk or goth chick. Yeah, I’m not one right now despite that being hard to believe. Sorry if you’re in a bandom and you’re cringing while.reading this.)

Shows: I like Avatar: the Last Airbender (I didn’t get really involved in LoK, though.) Supernatural, (although I’ve just started watching it, so if you’re a die-hard fan go easy on me!) Hannibal, Teen Wolf, Sherlock, the MCU/Marvel, X-Men, k-pop specifically f(x) and IU, I’ve seen a ton of shoujo/rom-com anime when I was younger if you’re interested in that, (planning on seeing Hunter x Hunter soon and waiting for the next AoT season to air.) Jane the Virgin, I’ve seen like two episodes of Suits and if anyone ships anyone on that show then come spill your heart out.

Music/other: I love photography, I’ve saved around 700 total gifs and images, mostly of celebrities but a lot of them include pictures and art that I just really enjoy gazing at. The music I listen to is kind of all over the place. I like pop in general (specifically synth-pop and electro-pop), EDM, pop-rock, indie, k-pop, RnB, vocal jazz, jazz, music from the 20s-50s, 80s pop and rock, bossa nova, classic rock, rap. (I keep it to mostly Kendrick. I doubt Ego Death by The Internet counts.) Recommend me any music, anything. Weird sex noises? Um, okay. I’m hesitant but I’m asexual and I might just laugh, so go ahead. Country? I have a feeew country songs that I like. Try me. Metal? Haven’t found anything yet, but I’m always willing to listen. Are your kpop faves nugu? My weave’s already snatched by your gods, send me a link fam.

You can contact me on my tumblr: @krystal—meth

Twitter: krystal_meth

Kik: hajirah_unicorn

#pen pal #pen pals #pen pals wanted #multilingual #submission

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prayforbrains-blog · 8 years

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I will not be at PAX East to 'network' with people and here's why:

Asuh Tumblr. Hope you've all been well. Sorry I've been neglecting to write, but things have been hectic around these parts. Today I got inspired to write a bit about a subject that's always going to be relevant: "networking".

I can’t deny that I once lived off of Twitch. I was blessed with a community whose generosity was beyond my comprehension. They kept me on my feet while I muddled through the absolute worst year of my life. Without them I would've been completely lost and I will never be able to thank them enough for all they did for me during those months. The flip side of that: during those days I had to start looking at my channel as a "brand" and a "business".

These days I DO NOT consider my cast to be a business in any way. Someone convinced me to put my tip page (which had been down for over a year) back up after 2+ months of debate (BTW: the tip page WILL be taken down after PAX East). Streaming, in my case, isn’t about money or fame or connections in the industry; it is 100% about video games and making people laugh. I am still an entertainer at heart, always will be, and with that comes a void in my life that can only be filled by evoking some type of emotion from another human being. I am very much fueled by communication with a live audience. This is something that I find incredibly difficult on Twitch, but I am growing more accepting of that fact with every stream. When chat is lively and responsive I consider my stream a success, but that’s a whole different can of worms that I’ll save for another day.

Coming soon to a tumblr near you: Pray for Applause: The story of a tormented artist in search of literally any kind validation from virtually any audience.

But back to the topic at hand: Why won’t I be “networking” at PAX? Because I fucking hate networking. The term ‘networking’ to me means relatively mild mannered chatting about industry related topics with a sprinkling of 100% shameless self-promotion. Kudos to you people who can do it all day without blinking a fucking eye, but I despise talking ‘business’ and promoting myself. I understand that, for some people, the entire point of going to a convention is to make connections with other streamers, devs, and brands in an attempt to further one’s own career or brand and that’s TOTALLY COOL and I respect the fuck out of those people. I, however, am not one of them.

If/when you see/meet me at a convention: I don’t want to talk about my stream. I don’t want to talk about your stream. I don’t want to talk about Twitch at all. I wanna talk about YOU as a person, not as a caster or a viewer. I want to talk about your favorite video games, your dog, your cat, your mom (who you may or may not want me to date), your grandma (who you also may or may not want me to date), your strange love of stinky French cheese, your fancy schmancy new 8K TV that talks to you and tells you to eat more vegetables because your poop is lookin’ a little grey, or LITERALLY ANYTHING OTHER THAN TWITCH AND TWITCH RELATED SHIT.

Now, with that being said, will I bring ‘business’ cards with me? Abso-fucking-lutely. Why? Because I’m bound to meet new dope peeps who don’t know who the fuck I am and it’s easy to just hand someone a little card with my info instead of hoping that we remember each others Twitter handles.

Now this is in regards too anyone I come in contact with, but especially anyone who’s a “big shot” (not that any of them will read this LUL): I do not want anything from you. I don’t EXPECT you to follow me on social media. I don’t EXPECT us to be friends. I honestly don’t even expect you to remember me in the morning. However, if we do in fact hit it off and like each other as individuals: I’d rather you not come to or promote my stream AT ALL because the last fucking thing I want to do is use my friends for anything other than emotional support. Y’all know I have friends who are partnered. Go ask any of them if I’ve ever asked them for hosts or retweets or whatever to help me get 'somewhere’. DO IT. They’ll all say the exact same thing: N O P E. I don’t ask anyone to do anything for me when it comes to stream bullshit because I HONESTLY DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING OTHER THAN MAKING PEOPLE LAUGH. I know it’s hard to imagine in 2017, but a few of us are still decent human beings and don’t want to use people like objects and then throw them away when we’ve gotten what we needed out of them. I am a decent human being and was raised to treat people with dignity and respect (Bless you A, L, and M for teaching me what those things mean and how to incorporate them into my life. I will love the three of you forever and never forget how you’ve shaped me as a person. I hope you’d be proud. <3). Anyone I meet anywhere is subject to the same dignity and respect. I don’t care if you’re the president of the free fucking world or if you happen to be waiting on my table wherever, you deserve to be respected equally as functioning human beings. So before I go off on a tangent about loving and respecting thy neighbor (because, honestly, you don’t know their life) I’ll bring this shit storm to a close.

TL;DR: I don’t wanna ‘network’ with you, so if you don’t wanna talk about anything other than streaming we probably won’t get along. Also, if you’re about that life and want that climb and you have ambitions beyond what I can fathom: cool. I just can’t bring myself to self-promote when I’d rather be making friends, drinking, dancing, eating massive amounts of carbs, and/or discussing the dankest of memes. Also, if you see me, let’s go get pizza.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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The Batman: Can a Superhero Movie Be Too Dark?

https://ift.tt/2Yz8gMr

“What are you?” It’s a question posed to any self-respecting Batman in his first movie, and it’s one that always gets the same answer. “I’m Batman.” That’s the iconic bit Michael Keaton whispered in Batman (1989), and Christian Bale growled in Batman Begins (2005), each arriving in a movie that stunned audiences in its day. Yet those moments seem like child’s play when compared to Matt Reeves’ The Batman, a film that, despite only being 25 percent filmed, shocked fans during this weekend’s DC FanDome.

When Robert Pattinson’s Batman is asked “what the hell are you supposed to be?” he responds with a brutal, almost sadistic beating of the other party. Using the kind of violence that would be deemed excessive force if he were in blue instead of black, the Batman pummels the man into a puddle before gasping, almost to his own surprise, “I’m vengeance.”

This isn’t your father’s Batman. It isn’t even your Batman from five years ago.

Like new iterations before it, Reeves and Pattinson’s interpretation of Bruce Wayne crawls deeper into the abyss and the crime dramas it emulates, finding something more grotesque and unsettling than we’ve previously known… which makes it irresistible to adult comic book fans. Whereas Christopher Nolan had grand success with his epic interpretation of Batman, pulling as much from the sweeping moviemaking of David Lean as he did the chilly criminality of Michael Mann’s Heat, Reeves appears to be diving into something decidedly grittier and more unsettling. The Riddler-based crime scene at the beginning of the trailer, where a riddle accompanies a presumably mutilated corpse, recalls the neo noir fatalism of David Fincher’s Seven.

In fact during the DC FanDome panel, Reeves outright named Roman Polanski’s Chinatown as his “key” cinematic inspiration. That 1974 classic is a detective thriller in the mold of other 1940s and ‘50s film noirs, but in Chinatown the tropes were liberated by ‘70s cynicism. Thus the movie depicts a Los Angeles rotten to its core, and far beyond redemption. The downbeat and defeatist ending even confirms there is no salvation for anyone.

While it’s still early goings for The Batman, it would appear the new movie is leaning into that sentiment, making the hopeful optimism of saving Gotham City at the heart of Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy appear doomed, or at least naïve. Consider Reeves also said at the panel, “Where did Bruce’s family sit in that [citywide corruption]?” He’s teasing a third act revelation as crippling to Bruce’s belief in the system as the revelations that damned Jack Nicholson’s gumshoe and everyone he ever met in Chinatown.

But then that may be par for the course, with nearly every cinematic adaptation of Batman trying to justify its existence by being more ruthless, more sinister, and ultimately more cynical.

Treated as a beloved relic of ‘80s and ‘90s kids’ nostalgia today, when Tim Burton’s Batman opened in 1989, it stunned audiences with a black-clad superhero who brooded as much as he saved the day, and a performance by Jack Nicholson so nasty that his Joker was publicly dismissed by his predecessor, Caesar Romero. Keep in mind that in the late 1980s, Batman was still the subject of pop culture ridicule and camp thanks to Adam West’s 1960s television series, on which Romero played a harmless prankster in a purple suit.

Upon seeing Nicholson’s Joker, who killed people with a smile and electrocuted mobsters to death with a joy buzzer, Romero said Nicholson “was just so violent” and the movie was “dreary.”

Of course compared to Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar winning portrayals of the Clown Prince of Crime, Nicholson looks camp himself. But this showcases the creeping need for adults to darken their Gotham heroes and villains. The generation of parents who grew up with Adam West would revolt against Tim Burton’s stylized noir aesthetic in Batman and even grimmer Gothic fairy tale in Batman Returns (1992), with some parents protesting the second movie specifically and McDonald’s association with it via Happy Meals.

“Violence-loving adults may enjoy this film,” lamented one angry letter from a parent to The Los Angeles Times. “But why on Earth is McDonald’s pushing this exploitative movie through the sales of its so-called ‘Happy Meals?’ Has McDonald’s no conscience?”

Following the parent backlash to Batman Returns, Warner Bros. momentarily conceded the point and hired Joel Schumacher to make a pair of toyetic and Happy Meal-friendly superhero movies. But when that vision fizzled out, Christopher Nolan stepped in to make his groundbreaking superhero trilogy.

The film that coined the term “reboot,” Batman Begins eschewed the fantastical excesses of the Burton and Schumacher years, and revealed a strong allergy to anything camp. Nolan’s films were intended to be big old school Hollywood epics, with each having its own specific inspirations. On the whole though, they offered standalone action dramas that defied modern convention with an emphasis on in-camera stunts and somber-to-a-fault characterizations. Bale’s Batman even went about his crime fighting with the exacting vision of a campaign strategist, seeking to turn his Dark Knight persona into a political platform that would inspire Gotham to save itself.

And his villains, in their various forms, were allegorical stand-ins for all the anxieties facing Americans in the early 21st century: foreign terrorists scheming in the mountains; the lone gunman who just wants to watch the world burn; and a populist demagogue who would drag our institutions to collapse. That last one is eerily prophetic these days. At the time, however, it was all in service of an entertainment spectacle as big as James Bond or Michael Bay, but now filmed in dazzling IMAX photography.

Heath Ledger’s Joker was terrifying to many, but he was also a beloved figure for his seemingly supernatural ability to know and undermine everyone’s motivations and to speak with a forked tongue as seductive as the Devil. Feeling like a real-life monster, he could be scary to adults, unlike Nicholson’s Joker, but he was still a rock star as far as internet memes were concerned.

Movies

The Batman: Riddler Riddle in Trailer Cracked by Amateur Sleuth

By Mike Cecchini

The Batman: HBO Max Gotham PD TV Series is a Prequel

By Rosie Knight

In other words, a far cry from what came later in Phoenix’s lonely and visibly unpleasant murderer, Arthur Fleck. But before Joker or Pattinson as The Batman, we got a nominally darker Batman than Nolan’s. As portrayed by Ben Affleck in Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the Caped Crusader was now a deadened, self-righteous fascist who liked to prove his badassery by branding criminals with bat symbols and driving his Batmobile through someone’s skull. Nolan’s Gotham created the illusion of a grounded, grim reality, but Snyder’s was just grim: a humorless exercise in violence that appeals to a certain type of angsty teenage nerd. Nevertheless, Snyder recently insisted on Twitter that his vision of DC superheroes is “made for grownups.”

While I personally find the end result unconvincing in that regard, the desire for a more serious, “grownup” Batman is evident from Burton through Snyder, and now Reeves. Future generations who grew up with The Dark Knight Returns comics or Burton’s movies don’t feel the need to protest if a Batman movie isn’t made with Happy Meals in mind. In fact, they demand it—and revel when a Joker movie is so macabre and nihilistic that it creates misplaced anxiety about “These Times,” and wins Oscars for Best Actor and Best Original Score.

The results can be as exhilarating as The Dark Knight or as numbing as Batman v Superman, but both appear to benefit in appeal from fans who, after growing up with ostensibly serious versions of these characters, wanted to see that taken further into mature storytelling—which better justifies liking a child’s power fantasy.

This is not necessarily a bad thing: The Dark Knight and Logan remain my personal favorite superhero movies, likely in part because they renew inherently silly concepts with modern context and a deeper complexity. Matt Reeves appears to simply be going farther in this direction with The Batman, a film that may also be as far removed from the dry sense of humor of Bale’s Bruce Wayne as Affleck’s was. But judging by only a teaser trailer, it’s a movie so committed to its vision of Batman as a noir hero in a broken city, and not a blockbuster spectacle, that its director won’t need to tweet anyone that this is for grownups.

The post The Batman: Can a Superhero Movie Be Too Dark? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3hwdCiY

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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ridleykemp · 4 years

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Pandemic Notes #4 (Therapy?)

This one’s a little different. I’m stealing this from Craig Calcaterra, one of my favorite writers and a guy you really ought to consider following on Twitter. One of his friends came up with a series of questions regarding the pandemic and how it has affected you/me/all of us and they’re a good exercise for getting a sense of how you’re doing.

So, I stole it. With permission, of course, but still..

When was the last day you went in to work?

Physically? Wow…that’s a tougher question than I would have thought. 14 March, if I remember correctly. Somewhere around then. I’m pretty sure I just went in to pick up my laptop. “Weird” gets normalized quickly, doesn’t it?

When did your state or city order everyone to stay at home?

The city order came on 24 March. It’s a bit of a miracle that the state of Texas hasn’t overridden it. They’re prone to do that sort of thing.

Has there been a particular change to your lifestyle that has been difficult to make or accept?

Like many people who don’t normally work at home, the loss of compartmentalization of “work” vs. “off-work” has been a struggle.

In addition, the fact that so much of the company has been furloughed has cut lines of communications and rendered establish process obsolete. We’re reinventing the wheel with everything we do and, despite my lack of organization in most everything, I’m a creature of process at work.

Finally, my side gig is also shot. It’s a sportswriting job, and, as you may have noticed, we have a distinct lack of sports these days. I don’t watch a lot of sports, but losing that little thing to look forward to is weird. Having things to look forward to is like being able to see the next rung on the ladder. There’s nothing to put any demarcation between the days right now.

What do you miss the most?

Normalcy? That’s too broad. I miss the sense that I know what the next day, the next month, and the next year will bring. Weekdays and weekends are just isolation days now. Gray, indistinct, and very, very uncertain.

What is the most unusual thing you have noticed since this crisis began?

How social media has regressed by 15 years and I mean that in a good way. People are doing more and more of lists/quizzes/meme/tag-you’re-it posts on Facebook and Twitter than I’ve seen in ages. I did not expect this particular reaction. I’m not sure what it means, but it feels like it’s a good thing.

Do you know anyone who has COVID-19?

I don’t yet, but it won’t be long. It’s circling near my direct social circles and I would wager that, within a week, someone I know will have it.

Do you know anyone who had died from complications related to COVID-19?

No.

How long do you think it will be before the stay-at-home order is lifted in your community?

There’s really no way of knowing, is there? If I had to guess, it’ll be around the 1st of June, but it could be earlier (probably too early in that case). The complete lack of a national strategy makes me hesitant to even consider the end date.

Will you immediately return to your normal routine after the stay-at-home order is lifted? Or will you wait before returning to normal? If you’ll wait, how much longer will you do so?

I think it will depend on when the order is lifted and the circumstances in which it is lifted. If we’ve decided to lift it to “save the stock market” when it’s clearly not safe to lift it? I don’t think I’ll be returning to normal. If we really are past it, and the medical professionals are giving us the thumbs up, I expect I’ll return to whatever the new normal looks like pretty quickly. I do expect the new normal to be somewhat different than the old.

What’s the first thing you want to do when the stay-at-home order is lifted?

Take a weekend trip with my wife and/or visit my family. Not sure the order of the two, but those will be first.

Have you been ordering food out from local restaurants (carry-out or delivery)?

We have not. Nicole has been cooking every night. We might mix in a carry-out at some point, but the combination of uncertain income and risks are pushing us to dine at home as much as possible.

How often have you been going to the grocery store?

About once a week. We’ve found that Amazon delivery is utterly useless right now, and scheduling delivery from the grocery store is spotty. With restrictions on how much one can buy, a week is about the extent of how long we can go. Huge shout out to H-E-B. We’re very fortunate to have them. They had a plan for this sort of pandemic and started updating and implementing it in mid-January. So, going to the grocery is a little less traumatic for us than it might otherwise be.

Will you wear a mask when you go out?

To the incredibly infrequent degree I do go out, the answer is “yes”. There’s no reason not to and if it normalizes it a little, then I reckon that’s a good thing. Again fortune was with us on this one. My wife has a decent stash of masks from crafting, so we’re in good shape there.

Do you think other people have been taking this crisis seriously?

Too broad a question. I think more people are taking it seriously every day, but there are still those who are getting their news from bad sources who have been downplaying how serious this is. Unfortunately a lot of those people are older and more at risk of serious complications if they become infected. But, I think the trend is moving in the right direction; it’s just happening a month or two too late.

Do you think people have been over-reacting to this situation?

No. The doctors are pretty unanimous in saying we’ve been under-reacting. Some of the reactions have been appropriate strong but misguided (toilet paper, I’d be looking at you if I could find you), but by and large? No, if anything it’s the opposite.

How many people do you think will eventually die from COVID-19?

Speaking in Fermi estimates, 6 to 7 figures. It’ll be tough to get an exact count for multiple reasons, some more legitimate than others. I hope it’s fewer.

Do you think schools will re-open yet this year?

If you mean “for the 2019/20 school year”, then no. I do not. I would not be shocked to see them re-open at some point in the fall.

Do you think that summer sports like baseball will occur?

In some form, maybe? I’ll have a better sense of this come the end of the month, but right now, I’d bet on “no”. We certainly will not see a 162-game baseball season.

What is one thing you have done since this crisis started that you don’t usually do?

Well, I’m writing in my blog more regularly. That’s probably the biggest thing.

Is there anything that has changed in your life since this crisis began that you hope to keep after the crisis ends?

See above. I’m baking bread, really good, slow, bread that I’m weirdly proud of. We’re eating at home more, and goodness knows we could use to save the money when/if normalcy returns. To be honest, Nicole makes better food than most restaurants.

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truesportsfan · 5 years

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NHL Heroes and Heels: We are not worthy of Dave Ayres

Heroes and Heels is a weekly NHL column highlighting the heroes and villains of the last week of hockey. This week, a certain EBUG has stolen our hearts.

The last week or so of hockey news has been dominated by the NHL trade deadline, which is the last major barrier of the season before the upcoming playoff push. Now that teams can no longer bulk up their rosters for an impending postseason run, the real crunch of the season begins.

Usually around this time of year, the doldrums of the hockey season that sets in after the holidays begin to fade into waves of activity. Most hockey teams at this stage have just 20 or so games left to play in the 2019-20 season, meaning every point counts and every game matters.

These next few weeks often showcase what teams are made of, and with the stakes so high, games start to really finally matter again. Time to brush those cobwebs out — fun hockey games are right around the corner.

Hero: Dave Ayres

How I feel about emergency backup goaltender Dave Ayres is basically akin to that Brooklyn 99 meme: “I’ve only had Dave Ayres for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.”

The 42-year-old EBUG burst onto the scene on Saturday night for the Carolina Hurricanes in a desperate situation. The Hurricanes lost both starter James Reimer and backup Petr Mrazek to injury halfway through their game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, causing the in-arena EBUG (and zamboni driver!) to be pulled into the game.

Ayres then proceeded to make eight saves — allowing just two goals during his 29 minutes of ice time — to carry the Hurricanes to 6-3 victory. During his time on the ice, and afterwards, Ayres became an instant sensation online — as an EBUG often becomes — as the Hurricanes rallied around the netminder and won the game with a tight defensive effort.

The story became national news and Ayres was even featured on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The Hurricanes are also looking to give some of the funds from the shirts they’re selling with his name and number on the back to a kidney foundation — as Ayres is a kidney transplant survivor.

On Tuesday, the governor of North Carolina made Ayres an honorary North Carolinian for giving “North Carolina hockey fans a memory that we will never forget.”

David Ayres had so many astonished North Carolinians, including me, yelling with glee at their televisions Saturday night that we had to officially make him one of us. – RC pic.twitter.com/Sa7VDPLypj

— Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) February 25, 2020

Ayres did, however, have his detractors, as former NHLer Kris Versteeg believes the EBUG system should not be allowed to happen again, as it — seemingly — ruins the integrity of the sport of hockey.

On the contrary, Ayres’ story transcended the sport and became an incredibly heartwarming story of triumph and camaraderie. Ayres will go down in history as the oldest goaltender to make their NHL debut, and win! The story was the most talked about narrative that day, even beating out the major talking point of Alex Ovechkin hitting the 700 career goal mark that happened earlier that same Saturday.

Hockey is made better by the stories like Ayres, which surpass the sport all-together and become just a human interest story at its heart. Ayres will be forever remembered by the hockey community at large, not just for his on-ice performance but also for the wide-eyed gusto with which he approached the entire experience.

So to the critics and naysayers of the Ayres story, we’ll let the Hurricanes themselves do the talking:

Heel: The failed Zach Parise trade

On Monday during the trade deadline, social media went aflutter with the possible news that the Minnesota Wild were set to deal 35-year-old forward Zach Parise to the New York Islanders in exchange for Andrew Ladd. The pair had reportedly waived their no-trade clauses, and a deal was set to be complete once the teams found a way to make the complicated deal work.

Fans waited. The 3 p.m. ET deadline drew closer. Then hit, and promptly expired. At the end of the day, no Parise deal was made, leaving fans wondering, what went wrong? Why were we denied such a surprise, out-of-left-field transaction that would have shaken up the cores of two hockey clubs?

Signs point to the salary cap tango both the Wild and the Islanders would have had to dance should they have traded their respective forwards as the reason this fell apart. Parise has five years left on his contract with a $7.54 million AAV while Ladd has three years left at a $5.5 million AAV.

Both Wild general manager Bill Guerin and Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello would not elaborate on what turned the deal sour, but given the quality reporting behind bringing this possible deal to light, there was definitely smoke with this fire.

And it’s a shame this deal never actualized into this reality! The 2020 NHL trade deadline was quite frantic, with over 30 deals being made by the time the 3 p.m. deadline hit. However, there were no real surprises this deadline. The players that moved were ones we all expected to move, though Chris Kreider‘s extension threw a wrench into the mix partway through the day.

When the news of Parise’s possible movement floated down the Twitter timeline on Monday, hockey fans went bananas at the tease. Parise’s 13-year, $98 million deal has essentially been unmovable for the Wild, who signed the forward and defenseman Ryan Suter to the exact same contract in 2012 as a package deal.

“I don’t know how close it got, I really don’t. Hey, I love it here. I always have.”

The possibility of having a surprise blockbuster trade of that magnitude come down the pipeline on trade deadline day was exactly the right amount of spice the day needed for hockey fans to go wild. Instead, however, the deadline came and went and we had no blockbuster Parise trade to speak of.

Honestly, I feel cheated. Bamboozled. Swindled. Hoodwinked. We had a real curveball thrown our way on Monday and instead of squaring up to hit a home run, we watched it pass us by as we struck out looking.

Parise, to his credit to calm Wild fans, told reporters on Tuesday that the deal was not of his making and that he’s not demanding a trade out of Minnesota.

Parise on trade not transpiring: “I don’t know how close it got, I really don’t. Hey, I love it here. I always have. My goal’s here haven’t change — to help this team win. I’m not disappointed by any means that I’m here at all. I really enjoy playing here.” #mnwild

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) February 25, 2020

Still, we lost something we didn’t really know we even had on Monday with this disappearing Parise deal. This time next trade deadline, we may not even remember this failed exchange, as it will likely be lost to the annals of history. Thanks, whichever front office member in Minnesota or New York that nixed this trade.

Next: Grading every NHL team’s 2020 trade deadline

Follow FanSided NHL for more news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage about hockey in all forms throughout the entire 2019-20 NHL season and beyond.

source https://truesportsfan.com/sport-today/nhl-heroes-and-heels-we-are-not-worthy-of-dave-ayres/

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topicprinter · 5 years

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Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Zach Katz of Framed Tweets, a website that sells framed tweets.Some stats:Product: Framed TweetsRevenue/mo: $25,000Started: May 2017Location: NYCFounders: 1Employees: 0Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hi! I’m Zach Katz, and I started Framed Tweets to give people a simple way to beautifully frame their favorite tweets as art, to remember and enjoy forever.You can frame any tweet you want, or pick one from our gallery of tweets from Twitter icons like Kanye West), Donald Trump, or Elon Musk. They come in three styles: Ornate Gold, Sleek Black, and Giant Canvases (which fill an entire wall)!We launched in May of 2017, grossing about $20k in our first year, followed by $110k in 2018. We’re on track to double that in 2019 as we continue to scale our advertising.Our productWhat's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?I dreamed up the idea for Framed Tweets a year prior to starting it.It was December 2015, and I was holed up in my room, avoiding the New Year’s party my parents were hosting downstairs. I was scrolling through Twitter, when suddenly, I thought, “what if you could frame a tweet?” (Honestly, that’s how most ideas come about, at least for me. They just randomly happen.)I looked all over the internet. I couldn’t believe that there was no website that frames tweet. Excited about a potentially great idea, but with zero intention of ever starting a business, I wrote it down in my notes app as one of those funny “what ifs,” and completely forgot about it.Later that year, after graduating from film school in Boston, I worked on a food truck for a few months, until I eventually got tired of making sandwiches and wanted a change of pace. That winter, I moved to Portland, Oregon.I didn’t have a job. I just walked around and worked on music all day. I had a few thousand saved up from my previous internet ventures (I had a large YouTube following and monetized some Twitter accounts, which I sold), but money eventually started running out, so one rainy day in February, I set out to find a job. I printed out my resume and took it to a bunch of restaurants, hoping to be a busboy or something. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any experience in the industry, and although there was a brewery that seemed sort of promising, I felt awful. Getting a “normal job” felt like giving up. I walked home dejected and unsure about my future.On my way home, I encountered a man on the sidewalk who was selling homemade Sudoku puzzles for $5 each. After my near-resignation to a life of transporting dirty dishes, seeing this man on the street selling something he made—without permission from anyone—was striking. With more curiosity than I’ve ever had in my life, I asked him if he was making a living selling these puzzles. He told me he makes enough to get by, and that was all I needed to know.I walked away with a new outlook on life. Before talking to that guy, I had never, EVER dreamed of starting my own business, and now, I was 10,000% confident that I could make a living selling something myself. If some guy selling Sudoku puzzles on the street could eek out a living, anything was possible.I opened the notes app on my phone, tapped on my ‘Ideas’ folder, and the first thing I saw was a note that I had written a year prior, which simply read: ‘framed tweets.’ I hurried back to my apartment and started working on Framed Tweets that afternoon.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.I knew I wanted to keep things simple. I didn’t want to overwhelm people with twenty different styles of frames. I wanted to start with one beautiful, ornate gold frame that suits tweets perfectly.At first, I considered buying from an American picture frame company, but I couldn’t find any ornate frames that were sold in bulk. I did some research and found that Alibaba was a good place to buy a wide variety of picture frames in bulk. I requested samples from a few companies, picked out the one I liked best, and ordered 500 of them with the last of my savings.Good thing my building had a freight elevator.Note: the frame wasn’t completely off-the-shelf. We paid extra for a few custom nuances, like using real glass, a thicker backboard, and adding an easel to allow for propping. We also designed it with rotatable tabs to make it extra easy to insert tweets (a style that’s surprisingly uncommon in American picture frames).Describe the process of launching the business.At first, I had no idea you could easily sell stuff online. Inspired by the guy selling the puzzles, and eager to make sales right away, I started selling them on the sidewalks of Portland.I found some used frames at a thrift store, picked out some funny tweets, printed them at FedEx Office, and lined them up on NW 23rd Ave.The business was nice enough to let me use their staircase.I didn’t sell many—maybe six or seven, total—but the response was overwhelmingly positive. Groups of teenage girls Snapchatted them. Dignified old men carefully studied the tweets, as if it were the MoMA. Some people scowled. But almost everyone laughed. That’s how I knew I had a good idea on my hands.Tired of unsuccessfully hawking tweets on the street, I decided to try selling them online. My first mistake? Spending two months and $2,000 trying to get some guy on Upwork to build an e-commerce site from scratch, because I had no idea something like Shopify existed. Lesson learned!My first mockup.Once I discovered Shopify, I spent about two months getting the site ready: Taking product photos, curating tweets, organizing them into categories, writing a FAQ page, etc. Finally, it was ready to go.Working on the website.I launched the website on May 5th. That night, I tweeted the link to some random people who I found by searching Twitter for “frame this tweet.” The next morning, I woke up to find Framed Tweets featured on Product Hunt, Mashable, Uncrate, and a few other websites. (My favorite article came out a few months later, in which I had some fun embellishing to Portland’s Willamette Week.)While that press led to about 100 initial sales (~$5,000 worth), the traffic eventually fizzled out, and I was back to square one.Fulfilling orders from my apartment.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?The #1 most important thing you can do is find a way to consistently get people onto your site. Press is no substitute—even if your store gets featured in the New York Times, the traffic is still going to wither away a few days later, and then you’re back to square one. Which is why a “scalable marketing machine” (Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google ads, etc.) is so important.Instagram AdsThese have been our bread and butter, and 90% of our sales are attributed to them (in fact, we’re not even advertising on Facebook at the moment, because the return on Instagram has been so much better).One of our best-performing Instagram ads.Just regular ol’ InstagramJust posting to Instagram has worked pretty well. Sometimes I’ll post a photo of a product and we’ll get three or four sales. Other times, nothing will happen. Instagram is unpredictable like that. But I also haven’t been putting as much effort into crafting beautiful photos, which the algorithm loves—that’s been on my perennial to-do list.TwitterI’ll let this screenshot do the talkingPressWe’ve been featured on a few big sites, like Mashable, Hypebeast, and GQ France. We didn’t do any PR outreach—it all just happened randomly. I’d love to get some more press, so if you write for the New York Times and want to write a story about how tweets are changing the art game, hit me up :)InfluencersWe occasionally send free framed tweets to people with lots of followers on Twitter or Instagram. Sometimes, they tweet about it, although we don’t ask them to.It’s hard to know exactly how many sales this kind of thing yields, but I feel like it’s a pretty good long-term strategy, building awareness and whatnot.Email marketingThis is something that we haven’t invested much in yet, but are looking to build up soon. If you’re interested in working with us on this, please get in touch!Other sales channelsOur Etsy store makes up about 5% of our sales. What’s nice is that they’re all organic sales from search (in other words, people searching for “Kanye West gifts” as opposed to ), so since we’re not spending any money on marketing there, profit is higher.We occasionally get sales from Amazon and eBay too, although our presence on those sites isn’t built up much yet.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?Things are going pretty well!Sales are steadily increasing as we scale our Instagram ads. We’re grossing about $20k per month from Instagram ads, spending about $300/day. Our ROAS hovers around 2.Operations-wise, we now work with a fulfillment center that prints, frames, and ships all of our products, so I don’t have to handle any of that myself anymore, which allows me the freedom to work from anywhere in the world.I’m also working on growing my other business, Memes On Canvas, spearheading the internet-content-turned-IRL-art industry :)Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?Working with a marketing agency has been huge. At first, I spent weeks trying to figure out how to run Facebook ads myself, but I honestly didn’t have the patience or experience to do them myself. Once I hired an agency, it made a huge difference, and sales started to really take off in a reliable way.Broadly-speaking, there are always going to be new and unexpected challenges. For example, the exact day I started Framed Tweets, Kanye West deleted his Twitter. Which meant manually re-creating all of his now-deleted tweets people were buying. Or a few months later, when Twitter changed the entire design of tweets, and we had to re-upload hundreds of product images (this will probably happen again soon). Or the many times we’ve failed to order inventory on time, and had a hundred upset customers pissed off about not getting their order in time for Christmas. There are always going to “speedbumps” on the road to success in any endeavor, which I view as a way the universe “teases” you, simply to prove your dedication to achieving what you want.I’ve also learned that business isn’t some boring thing that involves just filling out a bunch of forms, which is a misconception lots of beginners seem to have. It’s actually more like a form of art. Essentially, every problem can be solved with creativity, which is why I think that being open-minded and thinking expansively are two of the most valuable assets that you can have. I believe that everyone is fundamentally creative in their own way, which means that anyone can succeed at business if theyDo things “the hard way” first, then look for easier ways as you goIn the early days, I printed all of the orders at FedEx Office, took them back to my apartment to frame them, then carried the boxes to the post office. When that started taking too much time, I bought a professional-grade printer and discovered that USPS will pick up from your home, for free (!).When that started taking too much time, I found a fulfillment center to print/frame/ship orders, which now allows me to run the business from anywhere in the world, and scale it up to the moon.Don’t bother keeping your amazing idea a secret.Before I started Framed Tweets, I was scared to tell people about my idea, because I was afraid they would steal it. Now, I can’t believe how silly that was. Over the past year, there have been a few copycat businesses, but they’ve all given up. Execution is everything.Honestly? This is the first time we’ve published our revenue publically, and now that we’ve done so, I hope people compete with us. I think people are starting to get tired of looking at screens 24/7, and will appreciate more opportunities to bring the internet content they love most into their physical, tangible world. The more the merrier.What platform/tools do you use for your business?I’m always experimenting with new apps, but here are my tried-and-true favorites:Shopify. I wouldn’t even consider using anything else to run an e-commerce store. Worth it for the 3 A.M. support calls alone.The Shopify theme Turbo. Blazing fast, looks amazing, tons of features, constantly being updated.Hypervisual for landing pages, and to spruce up the collection and product pages. I tested DOZENS of landing page builders for Shopify, and Hypervisual is by FAR the best. I love it so much.Klaviyo for emailFera.ai for checkout page adjustments, social proof pop-ups on the site, and “get it by” shipping countdowns.Okendo for customer reviews.Onlinejobs.ph for hiring Filipino virtual assistants. $2 USD/hr is actually a competitive wage there because the cost of living is so low.Lucky Orange for heatmaps, to help with improving our conversion rate.LiveRecover for texting customers who abandon their cart with a coupon code. We just started experimenting with this, but it seems promising.Snappic - Automated retargeting ads for Facebook and Instagram. Has driven a consistent ROI for us.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?The War of Art - The Bible of creative productivity.Derek Sivers’ blog - Wisdom that applies to both art and business.My Uncle Oswald - Did you know Roald Dahl wrote books for adults, too? This is one of the most entertaining stories I’ve ever read, and it contains wildly potent lessons in entrepreneurialism.The Millionaire Fastlane - This book is aimed at people who want to break out of the 9 to 5 world, but I’d recommend it solely because it made me completely rethink wealth, and what it takes to become rich.The ONE Thing - When I was trying to do a bunch of things at once and was having trouble deciding what to focus on, this book helped a lot.The Philosophy of Andy Warhol - “Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?Find amazing people to work with.One good way to run a successful business is to outsource everything to people who are better at it than you. How to find them? Talk to people, and they’ll surprise you. Some examples from my life:A few months after starting the business, I made a post on reddit asking for help marketing Framed Tweets, and I met a guy named Max, who runs a marketing agency called Paradise Growth. He’s not only been running all of our ads campaigns ever since, but has also taught me almost everything I know about business along the way (for example, without his guidance, I wouldn’t have even known to look for a fulfillment center, and I’d probably still be packing orders from my apartment!).Last summer, after emailing a customer apologizing for his order being late, he referred me to his friend’s fulfillment center that could handle our volume. We’re still working with them to this day.I even met a girl on Tinder, and instead of going on a date, she ended up helping me with an influencer campaign!With the entire world at your fingertips, and with basically zero effort or risk in chatting someone up in the DMs, you might as well talk to as many people as possible. You never know who you might hit it off with and end up changing your life.If you don’t have traffic, you won’t get sales.I used to freak out when I wouldn’t get any sales all day—despite only getting like, 30 visitors—and think “what the hell am I doing wrong? Maybe no one likes my product. Maybe changing the font will help. Or maybe making the logo cooler…”Turns out, I just wasn’t getting enough people onto the site. That’s where the scalable marketing machine comes in (Instagram ads in our case).I forget where I heard this quote—and I’m definitely butchering the phrasing—but it goes something like:No marketing leads to no sales. Some marketing leads to some sales. And lots of marketing leads to lots of sales.Success isn’t always overnight, and it usually takes a hell of a lot of problem-solving and persistence than you expect. I truly expected Framed Tweets to be an overnight sensation, and to make millions of dollars immediately. That didn’t happen, and two years later, it’s basically just starting to be profitable. Patience is key. But it’s easy to be patient when you enjoy the challenge. Which leads me to...Do something you actually like doing! This might be obvious to some people, and it might not apply to people who can easily tolerate anything in the pursuit of money. But personally, I can’t fully invest my time and energy in something unless I love it. I’ve always been a huge fan of Twitter. It’s my cup of tea, and selling tweets is the most exciting business I can imagine.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We’re hiring for a few positions (all paid):Facebook ads managerFacebook funnel strategistPart-time marketing data analystEmail marketing strategist and (short-form) copywriterWhere can we go to learn more?Website: framedtweets.comEmail me, [email protected] you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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